Quality flying

[Thomas coupling]

Just browsing through the 'who's who' thread and noticed that there were enormous variations in number of helo hours accrued. Now I understand and agree that it's not necessarily an advert for experience, so don't fire up over that one, Ok,
but,

I do wonder about the 'quality' of flying that is going on out there.

For instance, you read about an offshore driver who has more or less spent their career offshore and built up a staggering number of hours (10,000 - 20,000), admittedly over 15+yrs.
There is the instructor who amasses thousands of hours flying the cct!!!

Then I read about the likes of Helimark who is an onshore emergency services driver, who has amassed 3000+ hrs since 1997!!! where every single day is different and the demands are different too. Cropduster does between 700 - 1000hrs between feb and nov!!!! Then goes off and flies other a/c and does other flying jobs elsewhere!!! He goes on to say, the engine never stops between sunrise and sunset some days: :eek:

Then there is your average (Uk) mil pilot who does, around about 300hrs /yr if he/she is lucky. By comparison very low hourly rate but extremely high demands.

Huge spectrum - and an interesting range of 'energy' within each job.

Anyway, where was I..................................

[CyclicRick]

Thomas Coupling:
I think you have spoken for all those decent pilots out there who haven't got multi thousand hours and really are good pilots when allowed to fly.
Sadly the first question asked by most employers is "how many hours?" Maybe they should be asking "what kind of flying have you been doing?"
I recently took an ex-collegue of mine up in a Cessna, both of us ATPLH holders, he with about 2000hrs more than I. I spent most of the flight explaining to him what a DME was, how the mixture worked and how to use the winds at altitude for navigtion purposes, all basic stuff if you ask me but on paper he still has more hours than I have!
I had to do all the flight planning and navigation for our two ship formation flight back from Spain once 'cos he didn't have much of a clue to be frank, but on paper he still has more hours than I have!
I think insurers have a large say in what goes on, maybe justified in some cases but still unfair in many.
Personally I love to learn new skills, expand my knowledge, be professional because that is what I am, a professional pilot. That demands knowledge and skill, how can I justify that title if I don't even know how the instuments in my cockpit work and what they do?
Have you ever been asked by interested passengers how the thing flies? Why helicopters are not as fast as aeroplanes?
The list is endless, but isn't it satisfying to be able to explain to them what a wonderful and fascinating piece of machinery they have just been in and how it works? I enjoy it and it's good fun too. Just imagine how secure those people then feel when their pilot knows what he's doing and what he's talking about, they will talk about it for ages afterwards and...they'll come back for more!
My tuppence worth. :ok:

[Thomas coupling]

C'mon, how many can honestly say they are accruing quality hours.........

Can a crop sprayer say this,

Can an offshore oil rig driver say this,

Can a power line inspection crew say this

:zzz: :ooh: :mad:

[RW-1]

One has to define quality to obtain the data to be derived from the total number of hours.

As CR indicates, just having more hours is no indication of quality. But I defer to the above first.

Goes along the same line i love to use "Current does not mean proficient."

[Whirlybird]

Quality hours for doing what?

Could a crop spraying f/w pilot plan and do a long distance flight in a jet from London to Australia, or vice versa?

Could an R22 instructor fly super Pumas in bad weather out to a North Sea Oil rig, or vice versa?

I learned to fly f/w at a small airfield; I was good at making my own decisions and landing on short runways, but not so good at coping with ATC, for a while. A friend of mine was the complete opposite.

You learn different things depending on what sort of flying you do. But are any of them are "better" than any other? And how many pilots can turn their hands to anything whatsoever?

[rotorusa]

Quality schmallity. All flying is to some extent dull, boring and repetitive. Faced with this reality, some pilots tend to think of their own job as challenging, difficult and demanding, and to dismiss other types of work (of which they have no firsthand knowledge) as rather easy by comparison. This train of thought just serves to maintain a positive self-image and sometimes, when verbalized in a social setting, to attract members of the opposite sex.

[Letsby Avenue]

What are the high demands for a mil pilot TC? Who defines quality? As a police pilot am I completely brain dead? (answer Yes!):uhoh:

[Hilico]

Can a crop-sprayer say they're accruing quality hours? What, hours spent flying below tree-top height in unsurveyed sites in perfectly straight lines with maximum economy of spray?

Can an off-shore pilot say they're accruing quality hours? What, hours spent flying over an unlit sea and then landing and taking off with up to 60kt of wind?

Can a power line inspection pilot say they're accruing quality hours? What, hours spent following the line wherever it goes, listening to the observer, negotiating with ATC and watching out for traffic?

Can a police pilot say they're accruing quality hours? What, hours spent absolutely anywhere in their area, following their position and talking to ATC, watching the fuel and manouvering as requested?

Of course they're all accruing quality hours. It's the nature of employment that you (perforce) practice your job and become better at it.

[PPRUNE FAN#1]

Thanks, Hilico! I was starting to get my knickers in a twist, owing to an attitude that I assumed TC had in his original post: I got the impression that he did not consider all of the hours I spent offshore as "quality" flying. I would beg to differ. But you said it well, and said all that needs to be.

On the other hand...

I have 10,000+ hours. With that in mind, am I twice as good as a pilot with 5,000 hours? Um, probably not. Am I ten times better than a kid with 1,000 hours? Of course not. But I looked at that pic of the low-skid 206 about to land on the tiny little deck mounted on high-wires!, and I thought to myself, "Yeah, I could do that, no sweat." (Okay, maybe a little sweat, first time.)

I can successfully plan a flight. I can hold heading and altitude with the best of them. I can gauge wind on the water like you wouldn't believe. I can hold a stable hover over a platform of which I can only see a small piece through the chin-bubble or out my door. I can slingload. In fact, I can do a whole bunch of stuff well...because I continually honed my skills during my 5,000 hours of driving around offshore instead of just sitting there watching the water go by. "Quality" flying? I'd say so.

I would imagine that the high-time cropduster or powerline patroller could do the same. To assume that any type of flying involves more "quality" than another seems a trifle elitist to me.

[The Nr Fairy]

I would recommend to all that they buy the current issue of this month's "Flying" - yes, the American one - and read the article by Lane Wallace.

[BlenderPilot]

Quality Time!

I'm glad someone's talking about this!

To my surprise I have recently noticed that due to the fact that experienced pilots are getting harder to come by, employers are beginning to really take into account what prospective new pilots have done in the past.

A friend of mine recently got a job, and he told me that what got him in the door in the first place was that he had, Hot, Heavy and High experience, then his employer considered that "due to his previous experience" it was going to be easy to get him long line qualified and "ready for the job" (firefighting) he was competing for the job against people who had twice the hours doing VFR offshore or the tourist thing, and he got the job with less than the minimum 1500 hrs.

Some of the factors that I think are important to a pilots experience are:

Type of work, a pilot who comes from flying VFR in the GOM, tourist, of traffic thing at sea level in VFR, is not the same as a pilot who has flown in fires, has done sling work, has worked EMS, or had to deal with bad WX in difficult terrain.

Aircraft flown in the past, we all know that flying a governorless R22 is probably more difficult than a 206, but if have a pilot who has flown a powerful, fast aircraft he's going to have trouble if you hand him a 206 to operate hot, high and heavy. Some operators in the U.S. are afraid of UH60 drivers because they are used to just pulling the collective to get out of anywhere.

Terrain or area flown, some of the guys in the forum who fly in Africa know that if they mess up their fuel or get a light, there is not many places they can go "just in case", there is not many ATC, WX facilities, and more importantly no rules to tell when/or how to fly or not, which means they have developed their own rules, or better said, learned to exercise their common sense. No SOP's, or checklists to follow.

Initial training being either Civilian or Military, military pilots usually have much better initial training and have been thru a selection process. (I have never been military)

Some jobs for relatively low time pilots that I think are good learning experiences are, EMS in places where terrain and WX are usually problems, Firegfighting, Longline, Hot, High and Heavy in not so hot machines, Ag spraying, SAR, etc.

[RW-1]

I'd like to say that the higher time pilots out there should know how to get in "Quality" time while doing whatever operations they are performing, that is the trick, to stay sharp wghilst doing the "boring" stuff, (You all know the gist of what I'm saying)

[Up & Away]

No one type of flying is quality.

With less than 500 hrs on any job you're considered inexperienced!

With over 1000hrs on that job (usually 2-3 years) you may have seen it all in that particular role.

With 1500hrs on the job its time to move on to a new challenge.

Quality flying is collecting all sorts of different flight times/jobs thoughout your career.


:ok: agreed