Sim Training at night?

[avieh7]

Hi All,

was schedule for Sim Sessions at night (all of them..)
is it a routine? or shell i ask to change the schedule for more convenient
hours (maybe, at least, some of the sessions)?

please, would like to read your opinion!

[ford cortina]

I take it by your previous postings this is regarding a initial Type Rating.
So you have sims in the middle of the night......that's life, get over it.
I have had sims at stupid times of the day and night, the sim operates 24 hours a day, you take what you can get.
How are you going to deal with a flight that leaves at 10pm and returns at 6 am next day, flying all through the night!
I have done my fair share of night flights and I fly the Boeing 737.
If you think you will only work 9 to 5 you are in for a big shock.:=

[ReverseFlight]

You'll often find with the larger trainers that the day slots are reserved for their big clients (i.e. the airlines) and the wee hours are left for less important VIPs like you. And if the airlines spill into the night, then you wait for your turn in the queue. Consider yourself lucky.

[Nick 1]

Those crappy hours at night are supplementary training to show you the real life in the industry.

[ZFT]

JAA restrict Initial course sim hours so you shouldn't do any late night hours if on a JAA approved Initial course.

No such restriction for recurrent or any other regulatory authority that I'm aware of.

[MIKECR]

ZFT is spot on. Here in JAA land, or certainly the UK, the CAA do not allow initial type ratings to be conducted at night. For recurrent crew its not an issue.

[BillieBob]

It is true that the UK's Standards Document 34 states:

The times of day at which crews are rostered for synthetic flight training and testing must be acceptable to the Authority. As a guide, training sessions, particularly those involving inexperienced trainees, should not be planned to start earlier than 0500 nor finish later than 2300. Where TRTOs need to utilise training slots outside of these times, the training regime should be based on a regular routine with sufficient time between details to permit adequate rest. PLD should be notified when use is made of training sessions during 'unsocial hours'.However, this is routinely ignored and, since in most cases only the duration and not the time of training is entered in the training record and logbook, the Authority has no means of checking when training took place, even should they wish to.

[Greensman]

Just get on with it. I've had 1 session of sim during the day in the last 6 years. Every other one has been at some unconscionable time in the early hours of the morning, no reason to complain, think about those going out to fly at those time of the morning.

[Denti]

I think that regulation as posted above has nothing to do with JAR at all but is solely a UK one. Just wonder that your simulators do not have their own logbooks which log the time at start and end of the session, same as for an airplane.

However, i haven't had a SIM session during the night in the last 10 years if you consider ending at 11PM or starting 6PM as day. Being with one of the major clients of the simulator center certainly helps. My initial type rating however was mainly during the night as the airline i trained with was a very small out of country client on that specific simulator.

Currently we buy around 80% of the time on 6 simulators (3 each boeing and airbus) in that SIM center so anyone wanting to buy only a small amount of time will get it during the night, like those guys that are desperate enough to buy their own type rating.

[BillieBob]

I think that regulation as posted above has nothing to do with JAR at all but is solely a UK one. Nobody suggested otherwise.

[ZFT]

I am. This is/was a JAA regulation and I assume will be an EASA one too. We operate under French DGAC and they certainly implement this and has already been mentioned, the sim log books clearly state the times utilised. Every TRTO audit, this is one of the areas checked for compliancy.

[BillieBob]

This is/was a JAA regulation and I assume will be an EASA one too.There is no JAA requirement related to the time of day at which training may take place, not even in an AMC. Unsurprisingly, there is nothing in Part-FCL on the subject either.

There is no requirement in UK law to record simulator time, except in the case of a test or examination. In such cases, there is no requirement to record details of the time(s) that the test took place. AMC-FCL 1.080 requires only that the total time of the simulator session is recorded, not the start and finish times. Part-FCL simply states that the recording of flight time shall be in a form and manner established by the competent authority.