Petition To Tc Regarding Flight/duty Time Regs

[Lunchbox]

Isn't it difficult enough to find experienced pilots currently? With new regs, more pilots would be needed. Where would they come from? Since many contracts and customers have minimum PIC time requirements for jobs, those mimimum hours would have to be reduced in order to find the required number of pilots. Firstly, I doubt that would actually happen, and secondly it would mean that there are more but less experienced pilots flying around. Wouldn't that increase the safety risk? It's kinda six of one half a dozen of the other. Hire more pilots to reduce the strain, but at the same time dilute the quality and experience of the pool of available pilots, increasing the overall risk. There's got to be a better way...

[HeliCanada]

Harmonic_Vibe you sound like you are on HAC's payroll!

[helicopterjim]

Any word on the petition?

[45PSI]

I agree wholeheatedly that the proposed changes will be very detrimental to safety over the long run. Add me to the petition.

Thanks, Rob Munro.

[Whitestone]

First off i wanted to say that i agree that lumping the helicopter and short haul fixed wing sectors in with the long haul airlines is not a workable solution for us. For most of us, most of the time it's put out the crews in the morning, do a bit of maintenance such as greasing or a more in depth DI and then snooze away the afternoon till it's time to do the pick ups. There has to be some middle ground between what we have now and what the Working Group is putting forth.

 

One question i do have for HV is how will you present the petition? You will need names, will people have to sign their names and license number when signed into the Vertical site? If so you can count me out, i am not interested in reveling my identity.

 

I had to laugh at the comment from the Working Group about there being no united voice from the pilots. Well hasn't that been the tactic all along from the industry to discourage that, heaven forbid if we actually moved forward from 1967 employment standards... LOL I fly guys who work a week on and a week off and make a decent living, why can't we as an industry have something similar? (not complaining about my present situation, i am very happy with it.) I remember reading a book years ago and reflected on the comment the author/pilot made about making less money than the guy with the spade, how little things have changed on the whole.

 

United voice from pilots? It's a little late for that i think... Remember it's the squeaky wheel that gets the grease so at this stage it's up to the owners to salvage what they can of this mess. And don't even start about pilots joining HAC, as a pilot looking out for the interests of himself or a group he would only black ball himself or be a toothless tiger, either option pointless.

 

Hope the whole thing works out.

 

Whitestone.

[GoldMember]

I will gladly reveal my identity if required for the petition to have validity. It would be pointless not to.

 

Kevin McCormick

[Harmonic_Vibe]

It will be out next week for sure, at the very latest. We have 'til the 31st of January to compile the data from the survey portion, plus present it and the petition to the powers that be. Sorry about the delay but workload and administrative issues have caused more problems than anticipated. Everyone involved has other responsibilities and the holidays haven't helped... Not to mention the rum and eggnog!

 

Whitestone asks above about presenting the petition and how identification will work. This has been one of the biggest questions we have been wrestling with. As it stands right now, anything we present will be a matter of public record so there is no real way to sign a petition anonymously. We originally thought we could have names with licence numbers and present those to the Minister but it's more complicated then that. Mind you, if you think about a "normal" petition, they're generally just a piece of paper and you write your name on it, sign it and provide contact info (sometimes there is no contact info at all and people just sign their name). The paper petitions are then presented to whoever the target is, with varying degrees of impact.

 

With this in mind we will be asking pilots for their names, licence numbers and contact information but this will only be seen by the survey conductor (a 3rd party - University Professor). Then the survey data and petition will be presented to the Minister and the CARAC committee, etc, but the survey data will be de-identified and will only show aggregate results. The petition will only show who has signed their name to it, but this won't be posted anywhere. Being in the public record doesn't mean it's on Wikipedia and based on my experiences of using the freedom of information act, you can grow a lot of hair waiting to get the information you have requested. As far as I'm concerned, I'm willing to sign the petition and I don't care who knows it...

 

HV

[jullian]

I'm sorry ,maybe I missed something.

Is the survey going to just be dissenting, or offer revised recomendations?

I think that there is room for improvement but if it goes through as is, it would be a set back.

[jullian]

The changes I mean

[Harmonic_Vibe]

I'm sorry ,maybe I missed something.

Is the survey going to just be dissenting, or offer revised recomendations?

I think that there is room for improvement but if it goes through as is, it would be a set back.

The survey will gather demographic information on who the respondents are (age, experience, position, etc.) and then what their thoughts are on various questions. The petition itself must, by the nature of such petitions, be a "Yes or No" proposition. If you say "Yes" then you are agreeing to the statements made in the petition (sort of a "declaration") and stating you desire the outcome demanded of the petition, which in this case will be the cessation of further progress in implementing the new proposed regulations, at least towards the helicopter industry, and the creation of an industry specific process to be undertaken later.

 

HV