Originally Posted by
Okihara
Now that this has been clarified, I reiterate my suggestion that many who would otherwise be instructing or performing all sorts of less urgent flying activities when bushfires ravage Australia could get an AG rating with firebombing endorsement and act as reserve pilots.
Totally unrealistic. Sitting in the Right seat while a student does circuits is absolutely no preparation at all for flying near max weight, Low Level in hilly terrain, with strong winds and gusts and poor visibility while trying to accuracy dump tons of water out of an aeroplane. Every year experienced Ag pilots are killed doing low level work - a ‘reserve’ pilot would be dead before noon. Most instructors don’t even have tailwheel time, let alone turbine time, or float time for the Fireboss, or even low-level experience - what aircraft do you think a C-172 instructor is going to fly on firebombing? And which operator do you think will hand over a multi-million dollar machine to such a pilot, even if it were possible (and thankfully it’s not, and never will be).
Your suggestion is like saying, why doesn’t Qantas slot-in some reserve pilots with 1000 hours of Instructing into their 747s when the schedule gets a bit busy.