Thanks Ialapanzi. That's a good offer for Wanderlust to think about.
Of course you're right about not requiring the CAA's approval to use a computer system. Sorry if I implied otherwise. I meant to allude to "the Campaign" being able to insist that you have in place a scheme for the regulation of flight times, and on the keeping of crew records as part of that scheme. It is the scheme that has to be approved by the Campaign, subject to such conditions as it thinks fit. As you said to Wanderlust, this depends on "what number of flyers are we talking about?" In the past, depending on the size of operator, the Campaign have been fairly abrupt about computer records systems they perceived to be unreliable.
Wanderlust, its horses for courses, really.
Pencil and paper is fine: a brilliant Ops manager I knew kept 2 x 757s worth of crew records on cleverly-designed sheets of ruled paper, without a calculator, for a year. Then they wanted to double in size, so he needed help, and he wasn't then a spreadsheet user.
Simple spreadsheets are fine too: for smaller companies possibly best of all, because if you can spreadsheet you can keep on top of the whole game with this fantastic productivity tool. These days nearly all of us are computerate at home and know how to use and write a useful spreadsheet, so it is fairly practical to do a simple one at work for crew hours, although time and date arithmetic has some odd quirks.
Much the same can be said of the simple database, perhaps more so, because it is after all data - flight and duty data - we are storing. It seems less people have bothered going down this road, perhaps because a database is not always bundled as standard. The CHORES! programs were a simple database, but seem to have developed with the help of down-to-earth crewing people over ten years into something very much more capable.
Ialapanzi mentioned "Wanderlust only wants a programme to keep track of 7/14/28 day running totals", and of course doing the totals IS a simple programme once all the data has been entered. However, Wanderlust may find some reasons for not using a simple spreadsheet or database:
Reason A. The data ENTRY may be the problem, not the simple calculations.
A simple small prop aircraft with 2 flight crew still means you enter the same duty and flight information twice, once for each crew member, unless you had designed a non-simple special interface. With bigger aircraft, at the point where you also have perhaps to enter a flight engineer, and then 4 or 5 cabin crew, there may be 7 or more lots of the same information to enter every time the aircraft flies.
If it takes a minute to enter the flight and duty data for each flight of (say) each of 7 crew members into your spreadsheet, that could be 14 minutes total for each out-and-back ops return. If you have 4 aircraft doing 3 rotations a day, you could be in for nearly 3 hours of intensive data entry every day. And the whole of Monday could be spent doing the weekend's hours backlog unless the duty ops people were also spreadsheet literate enough to do them for you. And that's just putting IN the data. Getting the up-to-date figures out is a separate task.
The CHORES! program target was 2 minutes data entry time for the ops return of a b757 of 9 crew members doing 2 sectors - or a 1011 with 14 doing one. And half-an-hour a day if your airline had 4 of either of those, including getting OUT the totals you needed. One well-practised but non-spreadsheet crewing manager regularly put in 7 crew on 2 sectors in less than a minute. If your spreadsheet system would let your non-spreadsheet ops colleagues do that, Ialapanzi, congratulations - you have to be a programmer !
If you have few flyers and kites, Wanderlust, Ialapanzi's simple spreadsheet could work well. You should be able to keep your finger on the pulse of everything. If you are in danger of getting 4 x a321s or even ba46s, you may want to email here for help!
Reason B. It may be to your advantage to have more than just the simple totals.
Ialapanzi was absolutely right to mention that "The rest of day to day crewing/ops should be managed by any competent person". One is acutely aware that by the time we enter data into crew records, the important bit has happened already: we are well downstream of events. If the planning was wrong, the best crew records system ever won't save the operation.
Producing the information on which the planning is based IS the job of crew records: if you frequently operate on the edge of the allowed flight time limits, having analysis of more than just the boring Campaign running totals can make the difference and give you an edge.
For example, compilations or stats of totals: having 10 crew right on limits while the other 10 have loads of flex might mean you can't fly everything tomorrow: last week you should have looked at comparative statistics of the high hours and adjusted the plan. The problem could be hidden in the one-, 2- or 4- Company-week duties or the 28-day or annual flying hours or even in the 4- or 12-week days-off totals. That might be quite hard to search on a spreadsheet. This is a second reason an operator might want to use more than just a simple spreadsheeet.
Once again, If Wanderlust does not frequently operate on the edge of the allowed limits with a lot of crew members, a simple spreadsheet should be fine.
Reason C. A simple spreadsheet may cost you more than you think at first.
Of course not all systems cost a fortune. A FD of (I think) Novair wrote his own for the whole company, 70,000 lines of dBASE III, commercial, accounts, eng, ops, the lot. So up-front cost is only one factor. Most of us when programming don't cost or charge out our time, which is fine until we realise who is therefore paying for it. Beware of this, Wanderlust, if you borrow someone's simple spreadsheet and have to spend personal time getting it to work in your office. You can find yourself becoming an underpaid programmer.
By the way, nor does CHORES! cost a fortune. No small UK airline would ever have afforded that, we all know the way they are and have had to be. CHORES! actually costs nothing up-front to buy, because it isn't sold: instead it costs pence per crew member to rent a licence to use it, and is maintained on-line for free. Those statistics on totals? Available. Who did most night flights? Available. Achieved Block Times? Available. Split-duty? Available. Sickness and Leave? Available. Request days-off ? Available. Input validation? Enforced. Expiries? Available. Updates for JAROPs ? Free. FDP limits? Available. Allowances and flight pay? Available. Fuel Usage analysis? Available. Bulk fuel uplifted returns? Available. Cargo handled? Available. Self-loading cargo ? Yes.
So, what's on YOUR wish-list ? How did the rhyme go - "You pays your money and you takes your choice". Best of luck choosing, Wanderlust. email for a chat if I can help you choose. Horses for courses.
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RDi