Hi everyone,

I am 15, and I am mad on planes and flying, so for my statistics coursework I am studying that.

Just a quick question for everyone - how many flying hours do you have, and how many hours do you do per year (about)? Also what type of license do you have?


I'll then compare this with other types of pilots like private pilots, airline pilots and test pilots.



I'll tell you how I do.

Thanks.

It's perhaps not so much the number of hours someone has but more the number of hours a year that they do, what type of licence do they hold etc.

I have a PPL(H) with 220 hours equating to just over 40 hours a year.

Cheers

Whirls

Good luck with the study, but you'll need to compare like with like i.e how many hours does a pilot whose been in the RAF for 5 years have compared with a pilot whose with an airline for 5 years.

Not to mention the difference between FJ, Rotary and ME with long haul, short haul and corporate which will account for big variances....

All the best with it !

What FFP is trying to say is that if you're a skiving exchange pilot you might not do as much work as everyone else......

Yep. Good question by the young man.

Dont be shy guys.

I have always wondered how many hours could be logged up in a career.

At EGPK in the 60s/70s those wizened freight dogs (disrespectful term IMO) with Seaboard, etc. Started in the military, perhaps in WW2, and still doing the job decades later.

Always envied those of you who took up the job at a young age and were able to make it your life's work.

Typical more modest totals one has to have before moving on from training to larger/faster/hitec aircraft, too, would be interesting to many, I am sure.

What about all you guys flying the daily grind month after month or year after year on contracts in the outback or beyond the Arctic/Antarctic circles connected with oil/forestry, etc?

Cheers, all.

Total: 4600
Annual: 130
Licence: None (military).

Good luck!

I'll start you off.........

ATPL, 21300 hrs since 1972, currently hitting 900 hrs per year but a sensible career average would be 600 hrs per year.

The V-force norm in the 60s and 70s was 300 hours per year. Compared with a modern civilian pilot that was not much. The difference is that the military pilot flew only sufficient to maintain a capability, in this case a combat proficiency should he need to go to war.

The civilian pilot must fly as much as he can to earn revenue for his company. Too many pilots flying too few hours is an unnecessary overhead.

I averaged over my flying life some 180 hours per year. During a Cod War my annualised average was neared 700 and during the end of the Cold War it was over 500 per year.

ATPL, 8300hrs about 700hrs/year.

Total 4500
24 year career
All rotary (apart from 40 hours Chipmunk....the worst 40 hours of my life)
Annual 20 (returning from Staff post)
Military
Hold but not used ATPL(H)

26,000+
Approximately 350 per year, now (semi-retirement flying).
Six ATPL's, from various countries.
Present type, L1011...for the last 28 years.

ATPL
2600 Hours
850 Hours Per Year

Cheers

DB :ok:

Well to start you off,

I have 2183 hrs, of which 1887 are on the 737. I've an ATPL (full commercial licence) and do approx 600 hrs a year for a UK charter airline,

good luck,

SW

ATPL / 9700 total / 650 per year.

Good luck with your course

Well, I have slightly less than SkyWriter1, but then I'm only 17!

Got 44 hours, all in a C152 - about to get my PPL in the coming weeks I hope!

FlapsFive

(These are your GCSE's I take it? Best of luck ;))

Just past 10,000 over a 32-year career. But 18 of it was full-time AF pilot and like Pontius Nav said, we don't get that much, even as a truckie. As a civilian now, flying corporate, about 350-420 per year. FAA ATPL, six Types on the back, current on two.

Total time just over 21,000 hours. My first flying lesson was when I was living in England at the age of 13. When I soloed on my 16th birthday, June 29, 1963, I had over 125 logged hours of dual instruction/right seat time in the J-3, L-20 Beaver, Piper Tri-pacer and an Stinston L-5. My father was an US Air Force pilot and we used Air Force Aero Club aircraft.

Because I suffered from Polio as a child I was unable to become a military pilot, so I did it the hard way. While in University I flew on charter on weekends and during the summer break. My first full time job as being a pilot was that of flying the US Mail at night starting in a Piper Twin Comanche and then an Aztec. My first corporate pilot position was flying a Piper Navajo and my last was flying a Falcon 50/900.

For ten years I left the corporate aviation industry and flew Boeing 727s for the United States Marshal Service. (Along with Sabre 80s, Westwinds, Lear 28 and a Lockheed 731 Jetstar.)

As a professional pilot my lowest flying time in one year was less than 100 hours. My highest flying time in a year was 1,256 hours while with the Marshal Service. At that time there were no restrictions or limits placed on Government pilots on how much we were allowed to fly, our normal schedule was flying at least four days a week all year long. Very seldom, however, did I just fly four days a week, usually it was five days or more a week, this included a lot of weekend operations.

I am typed rated on the Boeing 727, Sabreliner, Citation, Lear Jet, Westwind (IA-Jet), Jetstar, DC-3 and the Falcon 50/900. I have also flown full time the Kingair 90 and 200 and fours series of the MU-2. Needless to say I have flown a lot of light general aviation aircraft both single and multi-engine. Regarding the Sabreliner I flew the 40, 60, 80 and the 65, the IA-Jet I flew the 1121 Jet Commander, 1123 Commodore, Westwind, I and II.

The most unique aircraft that I have flown was a PQ-14. The most enjoyable would be a toss up between the 727-100 (with -8 engines) and the Falcon 900EX.

The most hated was the MU-2, all of them. The 1123 Commodore coming in a very close second.

Currently not flying.

Sorry, left off that I have an ATPL and Turbo-jet Flight engineer rating. Areas of operations was world wide.

30 years flying 14000 hrs 350 per year at the moment. ATPL

ATPL (A), 4300 total time, both airline and corporate. Flew an average of 700 hrs/year during the last years. Now I've moved to corporate again, so it's likely to drop to something 400ish :-)

ATPL B767-300

18,124 total, 5400 military the rest airline with around 140hrs total piston.

In the last twelve months,

726 stick hours and 268 sectors.

35th anniversary of my first solo was 30Nov2008.

Regards,
BH.

157TT with a frozen ATPL. Starting my first job tomorrow so I will be adding to it!! :)
As you can see I'm 23 and I decided I wanted to be a pilot in December 2007, started training in April 2007 and finished with the fATPL in September 2008. So I'm sure JWLBoyce who knows he wants to be a pilot at 15 will have a substantial amount of hours before he's my age.
Good luck I hope you get what you want!

D8.

1300hrs TT, doing 500 per year, 80% at night - the other 20% only because sunset is later and sunrise earlier in summer!

Cheers :cool:

ATPL
6500 hours
200 hours last year. Bizjet.
Do 1 flying tour with 2 office tours a month. (1 tour = 6 days)

157TT with a frozen ATPL

That's astonishing! I didn't know it was possible to get a frozen ATPL with less than about 200 hrs! Good luck with the new job.

For the record:
2260TT
ATPL

1998 to 2005 - 330 hrs - PPL and training
2006 - 711 hrs in 746 lessons given!
2007 - 535 hrs in 405 sectors
2008 - 678 hrs in 480 sectors

Mungo Man:

Of course you are absolutely right :O

For some reason I posted my single engine hours instead of my TT :O

My TT is 246hours.

About 14.000 hours flying running about 800 hrs/yr. plus 7 years as a Fright Engineer on the 727 and DC-10.

30 years of sitting on my bum and pushing buttons ...where did the time go ??

To get a perspective on corporate flying an old boss used to say, "they pay us to wait, the flying is for free". Nothing better summarized it.

i have done 40 hours in 6 days and 7.4 in 16 days. Go figure.

GF

18,575; average 725/yr, exclusive of D/H ["Dead Heading" or "positioning] hours.

To get a perspective on corporate flying an old boss used to say, "they pay us to wait, the flying is for free". Nothing better summarized it.


A very true and accurate statement. The year I flew less than 100 hours was the year just prior to me going to work with the Marshal Service. The second month I was there I flew in one month more than I had all of the previous year.

And I loved it. Ten years later I was hating flying over a 100 hours a month.

I actually got burned out. :(

Now, if I could go back flying, 40 to 50 hours a month would be perfect. :ok:

To JWL Boyce:

I've been flying over 30 years and have about 12,000 hours. Half was military, half civilian both in the airlilnes and my own flying. I usually fly about 250 hours/year depending on the schedule.

Now if you could help me, I'm brand new to PPrune and want to start a new thread but can't figure out how to do that. If you could tell me how you posted this thread, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks.

PPL fixed wing single/multi engine, land and sea, night endorsements, PPL rotary wing

First lesson 1976, soloed 16th birthday, licensed 1978 on 17th birthday

About 5000 hours total PIC time in 70+ types of general aviation aircraft, no military, 150 hours per year these days.

Pilot DAR

This thread turns out, as usual, into a contest of...
"I got more (...¿?) than you...!"
"And me, I have...!"
xxx
Ok... me, I tell the ladies I have a bigger one...!
Logbook that is...
:8
Happy contrails

To the original poster: in my experience, hours don't mean much of anything.

I began flying as a teenager, and to date have flown in a reasonably wide variety of operations. I've flown a lot in some years, and very little in others, ranging from tens of hours to hundreds of hours...and some of those hours have been nearly without meaning as I monitored an autopilot fly over countless miles of ocean, and other hours have been intense learning experiences which left me tired and unable to climb out of the cockpit at the end of the day. Some of the more intense flying is easily worth 500 hours of the pointless flying, in terms of effort, experience, and quality...but each hour is only one hour in the logbook...and scarcely more than a few scratches of ink.

I couldn't care less about the hours, but I'm keenly interested in what each pilot can do...and that's all that really counts in the cockpit.

ATPL(A+H)

8500 hours

1800 fixed wing :) with the balance rotary :ok:

Good luck, I wish I could get my son to look at his home work this way :ugh:

BelArg said:
This thread turns out, as usual, into a contest of...
"I got more (...¿?) than you...!"
"And me, I have...!"
xxx
Ok... me, I tell the ladies I have a bigger one...!
Logbook that is...


That's OK, man...thanks for sharing that with the group! :rolleyes:

I have learnt something that I had not really a clue about, as will have the original poster for his project, no doubt.

People ending up in skilled jobs are usually competitive by nature, but to be frank, I think the guys have answered the question with a good degree of modesty and I have not really been aware of any macho posturing!

Happy contrails, smooth landings and no maggot willies!

1 wife
2 kids
3 logbooks
4 decades of safe flying
5 jet type ratings
6 Continents
7 th heaven - retirement:ok:
lots of hours spent looking at the cracks in hotel ceilings, waiting for "call-time"
thousands of happy hours in a cockpit somewhere or other,
and lots of happy memories (mostly) of many colleagues.

Is a logbook something that has to be guarded with your life?
I mean, if you lose one that will be a real nuisance, I would guess?
No duplication of the records anywhere?

Cheers

Acropilot

Since no one seems to have answered your question at #30, go to the Forum on which you wish to post, click "Forum Tools" at the top right, click "Post a New Thread", post and submit your message, put on your tin helmet and stand by for incoming flak!:ok:

Back to the thread, why am I not surprised that 411A is "winning" the Battle of the Hours (so far) or that BelArgUSA modestly, and amusingly, is not saying?

Jack

PS Pontius - During a Cod War my annualised average was near 700 Sounds a bit fishy to me ....:)

Union Jack said:

Cod War
Sounds a bit fishy to me ....http://static.pprune.org/images/smilies/smile.gif

I like that one, Jack.

In a thread merge, someone ditched my post which talked about how I had visions of P Pilot dropping a well aimed torpedo from his Swordfish towards some Icelandic craft.

I always like a bit of humour here and there...
Now, speaking seriously...
xxx
I guess when I started flying, yes, I counted the hours and minutes...
First, was a "race" to solo ASAP, with "minimum hours"...
And my logbook faithfully indicated HH:mm, I forgot indicating seconds.
xxx
Then was military, hours, minutes changed into hours and tenth of hours.
Then came the airlines. You had to have the minimum hours they required.
And keep on logging to get (then) 1,200 hours for the ATPL.
xxx
Then you keep on logging for your first command.
That happens, I dont know, at some 5,000 hours total as average.
Then with it comes the first type rating, then more type ratings.
xxx
If you need a job with another airline, be sure to have 1,000 command hours.
And 500 hours command on that type. That generally covers you OK.
Then after that... hours do not mean much.
Yes... extra money if you fly overtime.
xxx
Company hours came with monthly records with the salary check...
So logging became inexistant...
If someone asks, I say "see company records".
Any airline must keep records. You might have lost your logbook.
xxx
Statistics for you. Average airline pilots fly 600-700 hrs per year.
If you are condemned to a "loco" airline in Europe, make it 899.9 hrs per year.
Corporate guys are more lucky. Most seem to do 400-500 hrs.
Military guys depends. Hardly much over 300 hrs, depends on type aircraft.
So, if a guy tells you "I fly for Delta since 1990", you can guess his hours.
xxx
Let us compare to our friend 411A humpteen hours...
One of my acquaintances, Clay Lacy, had (latest count) near 50,000 hrs.
Does not include the hours he did not log to remain under his yearly limits.
Cannot recall how many type ratings he has... 30, 40, 50 of them...?
Flew USAF, flew United Air Lines, owns a FBO (private jets) since mid-1960s.
Now in his early 70s... he might still log a few thousands more.
xxx
So... as our friend PKPF68-77 mentions to me, as follows...
"people in skilled jobs are generally competitive by nature"...
Really makes me laugh... we pilots are skilled...?
Now that I am retired, I look for a real job for the first time.
Doing OK playing piano at the restaurant, for free drinks.
I will play just about any requests. No sheet music needed.
But my violonist partner, is a pretty lady. She gets the tips....
I shaved my legs, though... Maybe is my after shave...?
xxx
:8
Do re mi - and happy contrails rhapsody...

Great response!, BelArgUSA. Thank you.

FFS, even in your retirement you are doing something I have dreamt about for decades!

Playing piano in a club? - sh££t!
Jazz?, tango? Piazzola?

Re your farewell, phrase "Happy Contrails", strangely, one of the last men I saw playing in a club in Edinburgh a few months ago made a prog rock album called "Happy Trails" he is 70 now! Any ideas?

Dear Sherlock...
xxx
You got the "Happy Trails" melody quite correct as origin for my "contrails".
But the original "Happy Trails" was the sign-off melody of cowboy Roy Rogers.
Goes back to the early 1950s... black and white Western movies.
I have used "Happy Contrails" probably for... 30+ years.
xxx
Piano academy/conservatory, I was not too succesful as a teen.
Mother wanted me to be the next Van Cliburn or Philippe Entremont.
But massacred Freddie Chopin, and Fliszt (as Victor Borge used to say).
Mother was a piano teacher and somewhat notorious violonist in orchestras.
And I was more interested in going to see airplanes at the airport.
xxx
So we play anything that people like. Here tango of course. Piazzola, Gardel...
A dash of Brahms or Dvoräk, a bit of of jazz or pop music to please the crowd.
Many people like Fritz Kreisler light classical piano/violin duos here too.
When I go back to Brussels, sometimes join a band of Hungarian gypsies for fun.
Same deal - free drinks and goulash in their restaurant.
Got a Bösendorfer concert grand at home in Buenos Aires... 1910 vintage.
And a Yamaha baby grand in Florianopolis - 1980/90 junk...
But I can speak music almost as much as aeroplanes.
xxx
:ok:
Greetings from Watson - and... "happy contrails" always.

Mungo Man

That's astonishing! I didn't know it was possible to get a frozen ATPL with less than about 200 hrs!

I started my first job, commercial 146 F/O, with 167.5 hrs TT and a fATPL.

Still researching and pricing out my PPL at the local flying clubs at 15. Every website i've looked on for airline recruiting require 1500 TT with many asking for 500 hours on type. Where are the jobs for 167.5 hours :eek:.

Got my PPL in 1988, CPL/IR in 1991.

First commercial job in 1994 with 500hrs total time on a BAE Jetsream 41.

Been flying A340's and A330's since 1996 and just passed 10,000hrs total time doing around 750 hrs a year.

JF

I wonder what the highest number of believable logged hours is?
I remember back in the mid 1970s Carl Overly was flying DC-6 and DC-7 freighters out of Miami for Art LLoyd and he was supposed to be around 40,000hrs at sixtyish. I know he kept flying for some time after that so I wonder what his eventual total was.

In 42 years I managed a wimpish 19,000..... sorry 411A.
But we both agree the L-10 was the best (followed by another Lockheed product, the L-188 Electra, as far as I am concerned):cool:

Hola ZQA297/30 -
xxx
I still believe Clay Lacy is the stop score for flight time. (See nº 40 above).
I would say he has 50,000 or very close to that number in official records.
Suspect he has more than 50,000, but "forgot" to log so not to exceed yearly limits.
He still is active, age about 74... so has some energy left for more.
xxx
The pilot who has the most type ratings is John Lear (Bill Lear's son).
Numerous type ratings on transport jets or propeller planes and warbirds, or rotary.
Blimp and hot air balloon if you ask.
He also has all and every FAA licences that exist, besides ATPL.
Such as mechanic, flight engineer, dispatcher, navigator, flight/ground instructor...
And I forget the rest.
John is 66 of age... and still active as well. Plenty of hours.
xxx
:D
Happy contrails

Coming from the other direction, how about 25 minutes logged on a Tiger Moth at Duxford? It was a qualified instructor in the back seat and he said it would count if I took it further.

I always intended to learn to fly when I had enough money but then I made a mistake and got married, so I've never managed to hold on to enough cash to do it. So I content myself with the technical side of flying, being an engineer (albeit not aviation related) interested in worst-case design and failure analysis.