Logginf of aircrew hours

[ReachForTheStars]

Can anyone explain the difference between logging of aircrew hours between the services? (RW)

RN - Only log time in the air, i.e. no refuels, no sat on the deck waiting.
RAF - Log everything from rotors running to shut down.
AAC - Not sure, can anyone shed any light?

I can't understand why JHC aircraft and aircrew have different ways of recording time in their logbook, when they are all doing the same job?

For example, over a 10 hour tasking window, a matelot may log 7 hours (time in the air), whereas his playmate a crab, may log 10 - how does that work?

[Wholigan]

Don't know about the rotary world, but certainly 'crab' fixed wing log take off to landing with no taxi time.

[minigundiplomat]

RN - Only log time in the air, i.e. no refuels, no sat on the deck waiting.


If they are doing this in theatre, the poor buggers must be strapped in for ten hours and logging about 1 1/2.

Is that what the observer does? stops the clock when they land at a FOB and starts it again when they lift?

Well done the RN. Keep on trucking.

JHC - Standardisation..... You really believe that?

[AHQHI656SQN]

Army Air Corps will log chock to chock. The time spent on the ground during refuels (rotors running or APU/Acc drive) is not logged.
The aircraft life is calculated by the designer based on how flying is recorded. For the Apache, it was bought post Cold War, with low altitude flying to a static ambush position to engage enemy armour before returning to FARP. GH induces more fatigue than IF, low altitude flying induces more fatigue than medium level etc. Where am I going with this? The designer will factor in certain assumptions like flying time is time spent rotors running, therefore every x hours logged 0.3 will be time on the ground rotors running whislt refueling. If these hours are logged in the F700, then they need to be logged in the pilots flying logbook. Apache doesn't record rotors turning as flying, but I think Chinnies do.
I hope this helps.

[camelspyyder]

Unless one is a pilot, what is the point?

When the next round of redundancies start, will Tesco or McDonald's care if I have 2000, 7000, 10000 hours???

CS:)

[anita gofradump]

Why bother?
Unless one is a pilot, what is the point?

When the next round of redundancies start, will Tesco or McDonald's care if I have 2000, 7000, 10000 hours???

CS

What's YOUR point, CS? Anything to do with the opening question? Or just after a bite?

Actually, I don't care. The question is pretty fecking odd, to say the least. I'm hoping that Tesco's will see the hours in my logbook and put me in charge of trolley collection. Those long lines of trolleys look pretty hard to handle in a stiff cross-wind.

[Occasional Aviator]

AHQHI - you are correct about the hours recorded in the F700s depending on the design assumptions for the aircraft type. However, pilots' flying hours relate to their time in control of the aircraft - which of course does not depend on aircraft type (accepting that there are different arguments about when a rotary-winged or fixed-winged aircraft is considered to be 'in flight'). I have had a bit of a beef for several years with tidy-minded individuals who have tried to make the F700 read the same as the auth sheets and log books - these documents perform different functions. For example, you would want to log engine running hours in the F700 for ground runs in FW aircraft or RW without rotors engaged which are carried out by groundcrew, but there is no particular imperative either to authorise these ground runs or give the groundcrew who carry them out a log book.

Last time I looked (which admittedly was a few years ago), the JSP550 stated that pilots should log first take-off to final landing. in my opinion those who are doing it differently to the the JSP550 are doing it wrong!

[Shackman]

I'm not sure what RFTS is after. Unless something has changed markedly all three have always logged from lift to landing, and time spent on the ground (ie RRRF - rotors running refuel) have not been counted. However, as I'm no longer in JHC it may have changed. The only difference I was aware of was the recording of flying time - in the RN any time in the ac (as captain/first pilot/copilot) is recorded as P1, whereas in the RAF a copilot can only log P1 when actually on the controls. Every little helps when it comes to those CAA licences!

[Occasional Aviator]

Actually Shack, the different Services, and in fact some of the different forces within the RAF to my knowledge have used different rules for recording - certainly there was a time when one force moved to recording rotor start to rotor stop because that's what was required in the F700, and some forces have included taxi time (ie chock-to-chock). I think with the introduction of the JSP there was a measure of standardisation, but it looks like it hasn't entirely stuck!

[Wensleydale]

As a fixed wing chappy.... The important times for me are: log book - take off to landing; rations - claim chock to chock. The extra few minutes can make the difference between getting that extra pie or only having one cream cake!!!:O

[ReachForTheStars]

Shackman - Unfortunately not. One might find themselves in a mixed formation and for example.

The Chinook guys will log 10 hours, from burning and turning to shut down.
The RN and AAC will only log 6 hours, as this was the time spent airborne.

Yet they both work for JHC under the same command?!

Airframe/equipment fatigue and F700 hours logging is one thing, but logbook hours should surely tally across all three services?

[BBadanov]

I thought in RAF FJ we used to log takeoff-to-landing plus 5 mins (presumably to cover some of the taxy time). :bored:
I know other airforces logged chocks-to-chocks (in logbook, not just for rations!) and that was for FJ as well as truckies.

[Mike Read]

In my youth on one of the two day fighter squadrons at Tangmere our boss decreed that to standardise times in F700 and authorisation book pilots on landing would not normally enter these themselves. At the end of the day the duty ops guy would phone ATC and copy the actual TO and LDG times. The engineers then transposed them to the F700. We of course then logged our times from the authorisation book. However the other squadron put their own times (chock to chock) in the F700 and auth. book resulting in some 10% more aviation recorded compared to us. Our engineers gained, we pilots lost out.

On one occasion one guy avoided an almost certain court martial as the SIB couldn't resolve the "incident" time and the auth book time - which, coming from atc was in zulu. The boss had a way of dealing with the miscreant!

[col ective]

I've done 25 years in the RAF on rotary wing and in my experience the auth sheet/log book hours have always been 1st take-off to last landing (all bar a few sharp pencillers!). On some ac types the F700 hours are (or have been) different because of component useage but even that has been rationalised to a degree by setting the annual flying task based on an airborne time factored from the available component and airframe useage times. That said, often individual running times of various components have to be recorded manually or electronically for maintenance and fleet management purposes.