PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Island Connections and Off Shore time
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Old 29th Aug 2016, 22:47
  #26 (permalink)  
Ant T
 
Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: Falkland Islands
Posts: 171
Received 26 Likes on 3 Posts
OGP has boxed the industry into a Catch-22 situation - you can't fly offshore without offshore time and you can't get any offshore time until you fly offshore. So the rest of us were born with 1000 hrs of offshore time I guess. Either that or OGP expects you to build offshore time flying for a non-OGP compliant company until you have the experience to meet their requirements - unconscionable.
I think that is overstating the "Catch-22" aspect of OGP slightly.
As far as I understand, it is about the balance of offshore experience in a multi-crew operation. A co-pilot with less than 500 hours of (OGP definition) offshore time can fly offshore, but cannot be crewed with a Captain who has less than 500 hours of P1 offshore time. So a co-pilot brand new to offshore will only be paired with initially a line trainer, and then an "experienced" line Captain, and then when they reach upgrade to Captain, will only be paired with an "experienced" co-pilot until they reach 500 P1 offshore.

I would prefer someone that fly 3 time a day sardinia -rome(means 1.30 hrs open water) at others in GOM or Nigeria or whatever that doing 7 NM for to go on rig.
By that comment, you are misunderstanding the whole point of "offshore" experience in this context. It is not about "open water", or distance from shore. 1.30 x 3 of instrument flying at altitude over water with 6 airport landings has no relevance at all to the particular operational issues involved with offshore oil support. The pilots flying the 7 Nm sector to a Nigerian rig may be doing 20 landings a day on short inter-rig shuttle flights.
No one is trying to make out that the offshore flying is exceptionally difficult, it is just that it has its own set of issues. As we all know (and are frequently reminded by some on this forum), a pilot with extensive offshore experience only, would find many onshore operations to be completely outside their comfort zone until they gained relevant experience in the new role.

Last edited by Ant T; 29th Aug 2016 at 23:01.
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