French Licences

[Kimon]

Can you anyone give me a quick rundown on the French pilot licence scheme?


Specifically, what's a "1st Class Professional Pilot's Licence"?
How does that differ from a commercial or ATP?


The AF447 accident report stated that Dubois had "type ratings" in a number of airplanes , many of which do not require type ratings in the USA (a number of small cessna, piper and beech aircraft).

[PT6A]

Even your northern neighbours require type ratings for aircraft that the FAA do not... Actually I think the FAA are the odd ones out.

[hetfield]

"1st Class Professional Pilot's Licence"1st - You have to speak french
2nd - You have to be french, or your wife or your dog
3rd - It helps tremendously if you have a brother, cousine or friend in BEA


Note:

For all the lawyers,

this is my kind of sarcasm;)

[Kimon]

Which brings us to this: Pierre-Cédric Bonin, le pilote du Rio-Paris, possédait-il ou non la licence de pilote de ligne ? (http://blogs.mediapart.fr/blog/herve-labarthe/081212/pierre-cedric-bonin-le-pilote-du-rio-paris-possedait-il-ou-non-la-li)

[Kimon]

Also, the BEA report listed two of them as having a "private license" and Bonin as having been issued a "basic license."
Seems odd that if they are referring to the same thing, that they didn't use specific language. Is there an actual "basic" license?
So we had 3 guys with 3 different licences.

[finessemax]

If memory serves me correctly, the 1st class professional pilot licence (known as PP1) ceased to exist nearly 25 years ago. It is best described as an intermediate licence between the CPL and the ATPL. The check ride was usually taken on a turboprop (Nord 262) or a light jet (Corvette) at the SFACT (Service de la Formation Aéronautique et du Contrôle Technique) training center in St. Yan.
When France switched to a two-level licencing scheme (CPL and ATPL), PP1 holders were issued an ATPL under certain requirements.

[Kimon]

http://www.ladocumentationfrancaise.fr/var/storage/rapports-publics/054000189/0000.pdf#page96

[roulishollandais]

SHORTENED (to help in the AF 447 case ):

You acquire definitivly a "brevet " and need the corresponding validated license to use it.

At the time where PP1 (pilote professionnel de 1ere classe) existed you were allowed to get captain of public transport aircrafts of :

-MTOW 5.7 tons with a professional pilot license ("PP " but be careful that today "PP" license is a PRIVATE Pilot license! And the former PP is CPL...)
-MTOW 21 tons with a first class professional pilot license (PP1)
-No weight limitation with Line Pilot license (PL today ATPL)

And you needed the PP1 or more to be F/O on multicrew public transport .

To be a private pilot you needed a private pilot license called "TT" (mini 40h ) or more.
France created also a " brevet de base " (BB) (20h) to fly in France with many additional autorisations to fly effectively.

When France decided to have a two worlds system they suppressed the PP1, but ...replaced it for multicrew F/O with a professional pilot license with a new (not ICAO) additional thaught and exam "Formation pratique complementaire" : FPC ! as pilot unions did not want to give the ATPL to former PP1 and PP... .
PP+FPC replaced the F/O PP1.

It is the reason why french F/O may fly as airliner pilot without ATPL but with a CPL (the new name of PP ). The other licenses Bonin had :PP (the new name of TT ) , BB , and glider were not enough to fly Air France Airbus but were validated with less severe conditions for lower or specific use.

Many special conditions exist, and derogations ("le fait du prince ") exist in the french civil aviation system. Sad.

What is really strange and abnormal in the CVR is that Marc Dubois seems to ignore at T.O. Bonin license... Sudden loss of memory ? Other ?

[Bpalmer]

But Capt Dubois asks Bonin if his is qualified "you a PL?" to which Bonin responds "yeah".

What is Dubois actually asking him, does he have a pilot's license?
He certainly seems to be checking to see if he has the requisite license to act as the PIC during the captain's absence.
Comments?

[roulishollandais]

The flight AF447 needed a 3 pilots crew.... at T/O ! With adequate and valid licenses, qualifications, autorisations, recorded in the Air France files. The captain has to verify that before the flight, not in flight before the rest of the captain. Or did M.Dubois say that as a joke ???:(

[Bpalmer]

The flight AF447 needed a 3 pilots crew.... at T/O ! With adequate and valid licenses, qualifications, autorisations, recorded in the Air France files. The captain has to verify that before the flight, not in flight before the rest of the captain. Or did M.Dubois say that as a joke ??
I don't think it was a joke.
The license requirements to act as second in command are not the same to act as PIC (i.e., during the captain's absence). Seems to me he was asking if he was qualified to act as PIC, for it was right after that that he said that FO Robert would be taking his place in the left seat. (and due to AF policy/practice the cruise pilot in the right seat was PF and PIC).

[roulishollandais]

@Bpalmer
I can't understand that part of the CVR, and generally the whole AF447 CVR.
Impossible to guess the thoughts behind the sentences or words.
I trust only the FDR and the recorded facts of this flight.

[Bpalmer]

@roulishollandais
I find the CVR quite enlightening. Being a current A330 captain helps.
But I do have to be careful about interpreting the English translation of the original transcript, especially considering that the BEA only gave us the parts that they thought were relevant.

[Kimon]

Therein lies (no pun intended) the most politicised rub.
In the interests of air safety, the BEA should have released the DCVR and DFDR in their entirety and not bowed to any pressures.
DCVR is hashed and bits are missing on grounds of "irrelevancy" and "privacy" i.e. churlish euphemisms for censorship.
No one can claim that the BEA is on par with NSTB, TSB and AAIB.
Remember that in report #1, it wrongly stated the who was sitting where and who was doing what because they and AF thought the recorders would never be found.
It then stumbeld over this whole licence issue where in report #1 does not concur with the retraction in report #3.
Regarding Bonin, the easiest way to find out if he was fully fully qualified to fulfil his task as PIC is his payslip.
All AF pilots get a 6% bonus when they are fully fully qualified.
In anycase, even if they had all the licences in the World, it made no difference because it is what is in one's head that counts not in one's pocket.
I challenge the BEA to release the DCVR as the TSB did for SR111.

La sécurité des vols d'Air France constitue-t-elle un danger ? | Le blog de Christian Roger (http://www.jumboroger.fr/la-securite-des-vols-dair-france-constitue-t-elle-un-danger/)

[JammedStab]

I challenge the BEA to release the DCVR as the TSB did for SR111.


The TSB never released the CVR for SR 111.

[DaveReidUK]

The TSB never released the CVR for SR 111.The confusion may have arisen because the investigation report includes a timeline (Appendix D) which contains references to a number of events captured from the CVR.

But it isn't, and doesn't claim to be, a transcript of the CVR contents. In fact the TSB stated that:

"Because cockpit voice recordings are protected, only a few people were given access to the recording for the purposes of developing an accurate transcript and developing a factual summary of events." Only the latter is in the report.