FTL in Business Aviation?

[ashlea]

EBAA: crew flight-time rules should match nature and pattern of operations : AINonline (http://www.ainonline.com/news/single-news-page/article/ebaa-crew-flight-time-rules-should-match-nature-and-pattern-of-operations-29112/)

How should flight time limitations in business aviation differ from commercial airline crew? EBAA is saying rules for scheduled operations cannot be applied to crew on business jets etc..

Summarizing EBAA’s position, Humphries emphasized that a split-duty system is the “absolute cornerstone” of business aviation, with pilots flying “out in the morning and back in the evening.” Seats or bunks for augmented crewmembers–“very important if operators are to achieve up to 18 hours ultra-long-range aircraft performance,”–can be in the passenger cabin. FTL should not “be driven by dogma”; pilot fatigue is a consideration for high-utilization operators such as low-cost carriers, but “tiredness is not the same as fatigue. If business aviation has to follow [airline crew-standby rules] it would not have a business; we need a different model,” said Humphries.

[supermoix]

Hello Ashlea,

i agree that crew fatigue do not distinguish in which type of airplane you're flying, be it a King Air or a Boeing 747. But the difference between corporate and airline operations resides in the frecuency and magnitude of duty times based on the operations. i am just going to give you an example of experience.

When I was flying in Airline operations, (turboprops, narrow cabin) the norm was five duty days, three overnights and continuous back to back 10-12 hour duty times (or a little more). By the end of the duty week, I was suffering slightly of chronic fatigue, and reaching 100 hours a month average. more than 220 duty days a year.

I have been in corporate aviation since 2002 now, flying light and mid-size jets mostly on international routes. in a month I do five, maybe six flights, 15 sectors, averaging 12 duty days and averaging 20-25 hours. some of our days are short, back to back 4 hours duty and others are early morning-late returns 18 hour days, but on those, we can go to a hotel, effectively rest 5-6 hours and come back to the FBO well rested, fed and ready to finish the boss business schedule. I never had that flexibility in airline operations. I can tell you I have never felt fatigued in years. tired? yes, sometimes, but never to a point of risking safety of flight.

I will admit that this may be not the norm, some people work harder hours, but we worked with the CEO to model a FTL flexible time and duty limits for us, We have our own operations manuals which he supports, and he understands perfectly the situation. Luckily he's right behind their crew members about the safety of his flights, when something cannot be done, he tries to reshuffle his schedule for the benefit of all.

The point i am trying to make is that the pattern of operations is drastically different between business and airlines, and to tie the hands of a corporation who uses the business tool called aircraft to a narrow band of time everyday makes little or no sense for the Top management.

There's no perfect world in my view, but I really hope my regulator (which is not EASA) never messes with FTL in private and corporate operations.

[FrankR]

I'm not sure what proposal was made by the original post or what suggestions are being made by the second, but since no concrete proposal was made, they both seem to have an undercurrent of "we want to do whatever we want".

My opinion is that we need firm rules by which our duty day is limited. Otherwise, corporate flight departments tend to run by the logic of "you
had the last two weeks off, now fly three twenty hour days back to back".

A good set of rules would be modeled after the Flight Safety Foundations fatigue and accident checklist, not some CEO's unknowledgeable feelings or some chief pilots desire to kiss the bosses behind.

It's not my job to schedule regular flights, and just because I didn't fly last week doesn't mean I'm exempt from fatigue.

I've never in my life heard of "Split Duty" so I dismiss it as a "Cornerstone" of anything but an attempt to over work flight crews. Perhaps Supermoix can articulate his great duty limitations to us so that we see what he's thinking.

Bottom line is that part 91 operators have far too much power to overwork flight crews in the name of "gettin her done", and aviation accident reports back this up.

FR

[supermoix]

Thanks for considering my "great duty limitations", I fully agree with that too.

I wrote an "example of experience", in which i was articulate enough, also, as it was clearly set as one example, it's not a norm.

Depends on where you fly, Grab ICAO Annex 2, FAR 91, or current JAR's Build an operations manual (IS-BAO is a good starting point) in which your FTL's do not violate any lower standard for your current operation, grab your favorite airline's operations manual FTL and blind copy or modify it to your company needs. That's the easy part.

The hardest part is to have a good CEO that listens to you, so you can explain to him what are the department needs to keep a safe efficient operation and make him do a compromise. I have done it, it works.

It's not rocket science, even a humble pilot as me can do it.