Instructing hours limit

[FL]

Any limitation on the number hours I can instruct (that from a legal view and not before I lose my voice!)

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

On your commercial license means you can only do 100hrs in 28 days and 900 a year total.

WWW

[JJflyer]

In US of A CFI:s are limited to 8h a day for dual given.
other FAR Part 91 flying is not restricted... Longest continuously in the air day for me is 18h strait.

JJFlyer

[This message has been edited by JJflyer (edited 30 August 1999).]

[FL]

JJ, can you put that in English - Am I right in thinking that an AFI has no limit on the number of hours that can be flown?

[JJflyer]

In US of A , Flight Instructor is limited to 8 hours of instruction given for 24 hours...
I don't know about UK or rest of the world... I suggest you check WWW's post.
Might give you an idea.
Your local aviation authority might be helpful.
FAR= Federal Aviation Regulations.

JJFlyer

[Noisy Hooligan]

Come on fellas, don't lose sight of
L I F E ! ! !
Yes you need the hours, but really, nobody should be getting near to those figures which is positively unhealthy. Apart from the health thing, what standard of instruction are your students receiving when you are working 80+ hours per month?
After a two year stint as an instructor the hours will have looked after themselves and you will not be bitter and twisted....like me.....
Any more than 1000 hours of single engine piston flying is a waste in terms of airline selection. Other bells and whistles such as
100 hrs multi minimum is more appreciated by most airlines.

[JJflyer]

Don't burn your sleeves Hooligan... hahah
It might be, that flight instructing is the only possible way for somebody to get flight-time and money... The more you fly more you make.
Remember your blood pressure.

JJFlyer

[Meeb]

Hooligan, 1000hrs is not the limit for guys looking to get into the airlines, do not know where you got that from...

WWW is wrong on this I am afraid, there is no hours limit to anyone instructing in the UK, unless they also have a job where they fly under an AOC, then the hours WWW mentioned come into play. The problem of quality is more the issue here, around 5/5 hours per day should be the max to ensure proper pre-flight brief and de-brief/next lesson prep.

[FL]

Cheers Meeb, I though so. Five hours is generally my limit though will do more trail lessons!

While your here, I read a post regarding navigation and putting yourself back on track if you are off, liked your principle of working how many nm you are off and then flying that in minutes on a 30degree cut. What does this do to your eta at waypoint apart from being increased. Any precise formula for working the new eta out?

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

Yeah well I used to think exactly the same thing. If it wasn't under AOC it was fine. Then I thought that if it was under 5,700kgs it was fine to fly whenever you like.

Then somebody showed me the line in the ANO that runs along the lines that a pilot flying for commerical gain shallt not exceed 100hrs in every 28 day period... etc etc.

Now - my boss is all for driving us hard. A fellow instructor has just done, wait for it, 110hrs in the last 21 days. He is now off work waiting for hours to drop off before he comes back. We ALL keep our hours under 100. I had 99.1 last month.

The owner/boss goes along with this and the rule is that if we want/need to go over we have to get a medical chit saying we can do so for the month by a CAA doc.

Its a grey area I admit. I am confused myself however after taking many counsels on this I am convinced that should you have a prang or something on hour 112 that month they will hang you out to dry. It ain't wortht he risk.

Besides - qaulity of teaching suffers as does safety.

And if that doesn't worry you just imagine how much of a plonker you are going to look in that final interview with Big Airlines when they spot your monthly averages "Oh yes, I'm very professional in flying and believe safety should never be compromised" - "Oh really, then how do you explain how you practically had to pay Council Tax on your residential C150 during 1999 when you evidently flew more in a week than is averaged by one of our pilots in two months?!?! Hmmm???"

Not going to look good is it?

Stay safe,

WWW

[BEagle]

FL - the navigation technique you refer to is known as the 'Standard Closing Angle' technique. It is actually a refinement of the 1 in 60 rule, as I will try to explain:

If you realise that you are A miles off track and wish to fly B miles back on to track, then you need to turn towards track through angle C whose sine is equal to A/B. For simplicity, however, C=(A/B)x60. Now consider that we normally prefer to fly with reference to time rather than distance when considering regaining track and let's say that the time T taken to regain track (in minutes) is flown at V miles per minute, so that B=VxT. Then we can simplify the track correction equation to C=(60/v)x(A/T).
Now for the clever bit. Let's choose A to be numerically the same as T, that is we fly for the same NUMBER of minutes back towards track as we were miles off track. Then A/T=1, and hence all we need to do is turn through a Standard Closing Angle C equal to 60/V, where V is our TAS in miles per minute. Thus for something like a Bulldog doing 120 knots the SCA is 30 deg, but for a PA28 at 90 knots, it's 40 deg. The larger the SCA, the more significant the time error because we're only flying at an equivalent along track speed of VCosC. Fortunately for those using this technique at 90 knots, cos40 is 0.766 which is near enough to 3/4, so what would have taken 3 minutes will now take 4, i.e. 1/3 longer. To summarise the Standard Closing Angle technique:

1. Turn towards track by your SCA
2. Hold the new heading for the same number of minutes as you were miles off track.
3. Turn back onto your original heading and then check that the DI is correctly synchronised with the magnetic compass and that the aircraft is accurately balanced.
4. Adjust your ETA.

This technique works a treat - it doesn't need hard sums as I've just done those for you!! All you have to be able to do is to estimate distance off track and be able to add or subtract the SCA - if you like you could always work it out for each leg before you get airborne!!

[capt beeky]

WWW has it fair and square. If you work for a company that suposedly adheres to CAP371 you can still get sacked for refusing to break it. Ask the poor souls at the big UK school. Catch 22.

Balpa say that if you excede the company ops manual/CAP371 the insurance company will deny liability, our caring employers would no doubt do the same.

[This message has been edited by capt beeky (edited 01 September 1999).]

[rolling circle]

I see good old beeky is still peddling his misinformation about OATS. My information is that two instructors were suspended for refusing to fly, one had a valid reason and has been re-instated, the other, who had not flown at all that day, did not have a valid reason and has not been re-instated. Sounds OK to me.

CAP 371 is a red herring. Aerial work at a flying school is regulated by the ANO and the school's Operations or Training Manual. I'm told that no instructor at OATS has come anywhere near either limit.

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

Look. At the very least doesn't it tell you something that on this forum - of all places - nobody is sure of the rules?

If there is any doubt when it comes to your licence privilidges then DON'T. You cannot risk your career on this.

Cheers, WWW

[Meeb]

Sheez BEagle, that was quite a masterpiece :)

FL, see my earlier piece regarding the Standard Closing Angle technique if you are still a bit unsure.

To get back to the original question, this thing about hours is quite simple. The CAA deem instructing as non commercial, only aerial work, but instructing at an 'Approved School' (what we knew and loved as CAP509) IS deemed commercial so CAP371 applies.

[watford]

Sorry Meeb, you're wrong. There are three categories concerned - a flight may be Private, Aerial Work or Public Transport. The ANO makes no mention of 'Commercial'. Flying instruction is aerial work as is airborne photography, pipelining, para-dropping etc. if the pilot in command receives 'valuable consideration'. It is Public Transport which is subject to CAP 371, not flying instruction, wherever given. That, as Rolling Circle says, is subject to the ANO although the school may impose tighter restrictions.

The appropriate bit of the ANO is Article 65 and reads:

Flight times - responsibilities of flight crew

65 (1) Subject to paragraph (2), a person shall not act as a member of the flight crew of an aircraft
registered in the United Kingdom if at the beginning of the flight the aggregate of all his
previous flight times:

(a) during the period of 28 consecutive days expiring at the end of the day on which the
flight begins exceeds 100 hours; or

(b) during the period of twelve months expiring at the end of the previous month
exceeds 900 hours.

(2) This article shall not apply to a flight made:

(a) in an aircraft of which the maximum total weight authorised does not exceed 1600 kg
and which is not flying for the purpose of public transport or aerial work; or

(b) in an aircraft not flying for the purpose of public transport nor operated by an air
transport undertaking, if at the time when the flight begins the aggregate of all the
flight times of the aforesaid person since he was last medically examined and found fit
by a person approved by the Authority for the purpose of article 22(8) does not
exceed 25 hours.

*******************************

Since flying instruction is aerial work, para 2(a) doesn't apply and one is subject to para (1) i.e. no more than 100hrs/28 days and 900hrs/year. There are no limits on length of duty day, amount of flying instruction/day etc.

QED

[hugh flung_dung]

Beagle,

In your SCA write-up I think that V should be ground speed and not TAS. The SCA at light aircraft speeds is between about 25 and 40 degrees so differences of 20kts or so would be significant for correction distances of greater than 5 miles or so. To be truly accurate the groundspeed should be that along the correcting section of track.

- or am I being pedantic :)

[Meeb]

Why make things so complicated? I only mentioned CAP371 because that is the difinitive document regarding flight time limitation, I do know that it only applies to Public Transport Cat. However, what I said regarding hours flown as an instructor are correct Watford, PPL type instructors as far as I know have no limits on them, ANO or not, but CAP509 instructors,which is my particular area of interest (or was, left it now), have greater limits applied, because although they are not Public Transport operators, the CAA want those schools and pilots therein (interesting to note that the CAA do not call instructors at these schools 'instructors', but call them 'pilots') to operate to the same standards as airlines. All this was stated to me by the good ol' CAA themselves, so its from the horses mouth so to speak.

Sorry to go on about this, but I do not like to be called wrong when it was my style of delivery that was wrong. :)

[This message has been edited by Meeb (edited 02 September 1999).]

[watford]

Meeb - I have just read CAP509, cover to cover, and can find no mention of flight time limitations. Similarly the ANO does not distinguish between instructors at approved ab-initio schools and 'PPL' flying clubs, likewise JAR-FCL1. Could you please tell us where these rules of yours are laid down since they are in none of the regulatory material applying to flying instruction - or is this just another rumour?

[BEagle]

HFD - yes, technically you are right. But, bear in mind that the idea is to have a simple system which reduces your off-track error to a value which allows you to recognise your original planned track visually. Showed a student the technique today (pretty calm winds admittedly) - when we turned back on to the original heading we were within a gnat's of track and were then able to refine our track exactly be reference to ground features. We even got to the turning point within 5 sec of the revised ETA!! If you were to carry out a full analysis of errors in the SCA technique at light aircraft speeds, you'd probably find greater sources of error in distance estimates, pitot-static and DI instruments, rudder trim etc than would result from not recalculating (60/GSmiles per minute) on each and every leg. SCA is a KISS technique rather than a precise navigation technique. But it's simple for students and it's certainly good enough for practical applications!!

[BEagle]

HFD - yes, technically you are right. But, bear in mind that the idea is to have a simple system which reduces your off-track error to a value which allows you to recognise your original planned track visually. Showed a student the technique today (pretty calm winds admittedly) - when we turned back on to the original heading we were within a gnat's of track and were then able to refine our track exactly be reference to ground features. We even got to the turning point within 5 sec of the revised ETA!! If you were to carry out a full analysis of errors in the SCA technique at light aircraft speeds, you'd probably find greater sources of error in distance estimates, pitot-static and DI instruments, rudder trim etc than would result from not recalculating (60/GSmiles per minute) on each and every leg. SCA is a KISS technique rather than a precise navigation technique. But it's simple for students and it's certainly good enough for practical applications!!