RFDS Instrument hours requirement

[Centaurus]

Today's "Australian" carries an "Expression of Interest?" for potential RFDS pilots. Among the usual minimum qualifications of flying hours is 250 hours of instrument time which must include a minimum of 125 hours of instrument flight time.

No doubt there are hundreds of pilots who have most of the minimum qualifications wanted by the RFDS, but it is the 250 hours of instrument time that will effectively cull the majority of hopefuls, eager to win a slot with the RFDS. Most pilots are aware that there is no paper audit trail when it comes to logging instrument time once you receive your first instrument rating.

It can be open slather to the unscrupulous to fake instrument flight time because there is no way CASA can detect it. From talking to CASA personnel there is no knowledge of anyone ever been caught logging false instrument flight time. Not because it does not happen - but because it is impossible to police.

RFDS recruiters have their head in the sand if they think that all applicants for the job have genuine instrument hours of such magnitude - especially as it is legal to log automatic pilot hours which as we know requires no skill at all. Non pilots "flying " Microsoft Simulators are a case in point.

Because honest instrument flying hour logging is highly dependant on the integrity of the pilot concerned, it is clear that the RFDS advertisement inadvertently invites forging of instrument hours (especially in flight hours) in order to meet minimum hiring standards. And the beauty of this is that no one can prove the instrument hours are massaged to suit.

Another angle is that the 250 instrument hours are a good way of culling other hopefuls with several thousands of hours but who don't have the I/F hours. Out-of-work airline pilots will have no problem meeting the RFDS requirements because most will have a couple of hundred simulator hours and lots of automatic pilot FMS hours.

The old system where you could only log I/F time when you flew the aircraft manually in IMC was more of a true indication of I/F experience. The RFDS should realise that their requirements of 250 hours instrument time means little in terms of real instrument flying skills.

It will be a pity if so many otherwise well qualified pilots miss out on an interview because of their perceived lack of instrument experience. The final eye brow raiser in the advertisement is the requirement to have a minimum of two instrument rating renewals. It simply does not make sense to lay down such a high instrument time requirement allied with "only" two renewals.

[Bell Man]

Centaurus,
Do you honestly think that the RFDS are inviting pilots to "pen in I/F hours that they don't have",to get a job,wake up shaggs !
No offence but the idea is crazy. I don't work for the RFDS, although I'd like to,and I have all there requirements except for the 200 hours night,and the last thing I'm going to do is pen in hours that I haven't got to get a job there,or anywhere else for that matter.
I believe a check flight is the best way to verify that a pilot has got the hours that is written in the log book. At the end of the day you are only kidding yourself,no one else. Considering the type of flying the RFDS do,experience is everything when operating single pilot IFR at night and in sh!tty WX,hence this is why they ask for these requirements.
In a nut shell,if you don't have the requirements,don't apply !, and if you are still not happy,ring them up,or write to them expressing you feelings,I'm sure they will come around ! :)

[Hugh Jarse]

I believe a check flight is the best way to verify that a pilot has got the hours that is written in the log book.

Indeed. I agree. I've sim-checked quite a few job applicants of late, and while it's not a "check flight" per se, there are certain triggers to sow the seeds of doubt as to a candidate's integrity.

I can think of a few that really stood out and just did not gel with what was claimed in their log books. A little R&D usually confirms our suspicions.

That's around 4% just in applicants to my Company. So it is happening. In reality, the figure is probably higher as some people can "ace it" on the day. The remainder usually get nailed in the conversion or line training.

It just goes to show that we are all different and some will cross the line that the majority won't.......

[Ice Vanes]

Centy

To me, your post, reflects your somewhat limited knowledge of recruitment into the General Aviation World.

I would suggest that the RFDS (and their record seems to prove it) have a pretty good recruitment policy and in applying their policy have probably injured less and saved more than any of the several branches of aviation that you have been involved..

Your post exhibits a level of arrogance that I ,who lives, and HAS lived my career in the GA World, find annoying and somewhat patronizing.

I guesss I am saying that it does get up my nose when those whose career is strictly non G.A. world; ie X RAAF, X Airline Pilot, X Airline Simulator Trainer, (lots of X's eh!!) try to tell us on PPRuNE how we should do it. (And as far as I'm conceerned later life instructing out of Major Centres is not really GA).

Paranoid I may be, but your post also seems to push a barrow for your recently out of work Airline Mates. Just what we need................HOPEFULLY NOT AGAIN!!!

As a footnote and to really get it of my chest I make the observation that many Airline pilots who find a newborn interest in G.A. are generally from two camps, those that are too old and forced into retirment or those from failed airlines who consider G.A. marginally better than the dole queue.


Where do you fit??? :D

[flipside]

a companies requirements will always match the amount of applicants, so at the moment the requirements should be high.
as for the amount of night and IF I can not see a problem in them asking for even more, as that seems that is the type of flying they do. In line with that they could ask for a sprinkle of turbine time(which generally would mean the applicant has a suitable amount of twin time).

rfds, one of the hardest jobs around I reackon (my hat goes off to you guys)

Ice Vanes, I find your comment offensive there are a lot of good drivers about looking for work or now flying in GA who made it into airlines(what most people try to do) and due to company collapses find themselves out of work and simply WANT to keep flying and by the way I am not pushing a barrow

[Captn Seagull]

Centaurus,

I think you will find that the most limiting RFDS requirement will be the 200 hrs night. Dont assume everyone elses experience will be the same as yours, some of us actually have REAL WEATHER to contend with and gaining 250 hrs IF in three years is certainly possible depending on geography and the type of operation.

Ice vanes,

Good one!
Just what the RFDS needs, ex airline types used to flying two crew, with all the bells & whistles and a flight ops dept to do everything for them and with an expectation that G.A has not changed in the years that they have been out of it. How will they handle the workload?
:eek: :D

[SniperPilot]

Alot of GA pilots write total BS in the IF column.

1.5 hr flight with 1.5 IF -WOW! he taxied in IF.

Hours of IF on sunny cloudless days.

All night is also all IF in the dry!!

IF in VFR only AC hmmmmm!

Some of these guys don't actually know when to log IF but most know it's just pure BS (Unauditable).

Personally I would be suspicious of any logbook with more than about 25 % IF to IFR for GA in Northern Australia - there just isn't that much cloud and/or low viz. I have about 700 hrs IFR (over two NT wet seasons) and 79 hrs IF genuine (11%).

If anyone up North has really flown a higher proprtion of IF I would be interested to hear how. (At southern lattitudes it may be a completely different story I know)

[shakespeare]

I have nearly 10,000 hours and only 650 I/F time, with most of that aquired in Europe. That is with the A/P disengaged and hand flying the a/c. Any monkey can fly in cloud with the A/P engaged. It is sorting yourself out when you get a bit of head spin that seperates the men from the boys!

Just as G/A pilots (of which I was one for many years) can slot into airlines, so too can airline pilots make the transition back to G/A. Some of the separtist attitudes displayed here are not only uniquely Australian, they are indeed quite sad also.

The RFDS is a great organisation and the work is diversified and at times demanding. A quick check ride in the a/c or is a sim will very quickly put any pretenders on notice.

[Chimbu chuckles]

BSing logbooks by young up and commers is unfortunately very real and unfortunately too common.

It's all part of the mentality that says any time spent in GA is wasted and therefore if I log whatever I need to meet QF or whomever's minimum requirements then I'll be out of here sooner rather than later. A mentality that is rife in OZ GA at the moment and has been getting worse for probably 10+ years.

I've only managed 400 odd hours IF Flight time in the 10000+ hours I've logged. Considering that about 1/2 that total was SP IFR RPT and mostly with no autopilot you can see how hard it is to log real IF time in flight.

And yet I know of young chaps who think it's perfectly reasonable to log all time above FL210 or at night as IF Flight time(and all of that driving an A/P and FMS)...and not even showing them CASA's version of how you should log IF time causes them pause.

I never even saw a serviceable autopilot my first 5000 hours...as far as I'm concerned if you're logging more than about .5 IF per sector, and only then if you actually handfly fly an approach be it practice or real, you are BSing.


Chuck

[Chimbu chuckles]

This straight off the CASA websight;


All flight time during which the aircraft was controlled solely by reference to instruments may be recorded in the instrument 'Flight' column:
a) Time above overcast or at night in Visual Meteorological Conditions (VMC) is not counted as instrument flight;
b) In actual or simulated instrument conditions, only the pilot manipulating the controls or providing input to the auto-pilot may log all flight time as instrument flight;
c) A flight conducted on an Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) flight plan is not to be counted as instrument flight unless flying in IMC;
d) Instrument approaches are to be credited to the pilot (pilots, in the case of an airborne radar approach) manipulating the controls or providing input to the auto-pilot during the approach.


Doesn't seem to matter how dark it is!!

It will admit that for most of my career so far you were only allowed to log IF time when you were handflying...this 'providing input to the A/P' is a bit of a grey area and I never logged much I/F time while on A/P unless it was a coupled approach...I almost always handfly approaches anyway. I think a lot of people are abusing the rules and logging I/F time when they shouldn't be.

Note you must be in IMC to log I/F flight time....it mentions nothing about above FL210 and specifically excludes night in VMC or above cloud.

I may have underlogged my I/F time by perhaps 50 or 100 hours...there is at least another 500 hours of raw flight time I didn't log because of doing so many sectors a day we didn't log taxi time in PNG...average of say 8 sectors a day, 6 days a week for 10.5 months a year for 7 years of GA...you work it out.:D

Bottom line is for those of us who have been in the industry a long time there is a very discernable decline in the standards of many up and commers...not all by any means, I know some young guys/girls with less than 1500 hours that fly beautifully and have a wonderfull attitude to their chosen career, but a hell of a lot more have a wide gulf between their perception and the reality.

Companies like RFDS, which certainly sort the men from the boys, are IMHO going to be having more accidents in the future than they have had in the past.

The same situation existed, and to some extent still exists, in PNG. The general lack of movement in the industry through the late 80s ment that we all stayed flying Otters, Bandits etc for a long time...89 made it worse because 1600 guys were dumped onto the world market and therfore those of us that didn't scab stayed in GA a lot longer. In 94 when PX went on a hiring spree they virtually emptied PNG GA of experience. The average level of experience of my intake into PX was a little under 7000 hours with lots of turbine command, C&T, I/F time etc.

The same thing has happened in Australian GA (and Europe for that matter)...the airlines have emptied the industry of the best and brightest/most experienced etc. QF and VB are still hiring apace...there really has been no discernable effect from 911 outside of the contigous 48 states as far as airline hiring is concerned. The one good thing about the boom & bust cycle of aviation through 50s,60s,70s and 80s was it gave the industry time to recover from airline hiring sprees...time to restock experience...that has not had a chance to happen in the last 8 or 10 years of fairly constant hiring.

The industry has been given a temporary reprieve with the demise of AN dumping(temporarily) a large number of experienced ex GA C & Ters, Grade 1 Instructors etc back into the sytem...but with China, among others, hiring more and more expats, mostly Aussies, and more Aussies taking a world view and moving offshore to make good money...aided by short sighted beancounters paying $hit money here...that situation is only temporary.

In my view there may never be another period like that between the mid to late 70s and the late 80s when the airlines hired virtually no-one, ever again...certainly not for a very long time with countries like China growing at a mad pace and requiring a helluva lot more pilots than they can train over the next 20 years.

The smart guys and girls will make best use of the experienced guys and girls comming back from Airline jobs and learn from them...they will get ahead quickly and are tomorrows winners...a far more vocal group seem to hold the view that the demise of AN and the percieved slowing of career advancement as stripping them of the god given birthright to a 'dream' airline job right bloody now...they are the ones cooking their books to get ahead unfairly...I have had to deal with more of them than you would credit in the last few years...they are characterised by the fact that the don't even know enough to know how much they don't know...they are the people who stab you in the back to steal your job...the ones who moan about wanting a command when they don't have the experience or skills to do the job, but of course view themselves as virtually infallible.

Chuck.

PS A bit off topic but I needed a rant:D

[bushpig]

I have around the same total hours as a couple of posts here and about 1000 hours IF. My first 6000 or so were without auto pilots or if I had them I didn't trust them in IF so hand flew. 500 at night was also with no auto pilot mostly in remote areas and not just for the last 30 mins onto an ILS. I don't lie about that sort of stuff because I don't really give a stuff. To my mind you either fly to the standard or not and as we all know, hours are not always a good indication of skills in a particular area.

Dry season flying or Wet, one of the areas where IF skills are put to the test in RFDS type of work is when arriving at a flare lit strip in the middle of the "bindoo" at night and supposedly visual. Yes it is visual but all is black and a most likely case is that the flares are partly blown out or spread to far apart or quite crooked or all of the above. They are also not necessarily very bright, even in all that black. Any outside reference or to much "eyeball off the gauges" will have you unstuck quite quick. The circuit has to be flown accurately as the strip is probably only in the area of 1000 metres long. The way I've done it and others I've spoken to, is to accurately flying the gauges but being able to transition quickly and efficiently from one to the other as necessary, always one eye on the instruments though. I hand fly the aircraft for the last 15 miles or so just to get "the feel of things" approaching the circuit as you have most likely been sitting at flight levels for a while. All this means, to my mind, is that you need fairly well established IF skills and procedures that will normally only come with a reasonable amount of IF time under your belt. It is not something you are required to do on every second night either.

However it does occur to me when required to put down those IF hours on paper that they may seem a little high to someone reading them. The proof is in the pudding though I suppose when the check ride comes up as has been mentioned. If you don't have a bad day when you do it.

[flipside]

BIK
very interesting interpretation. From that I could add at least another 1000hrs IF to my 250 odd, but really I couldn't care less now as long as I get 3 in 90. I will have to keep an eye on these posts to see whos interpretation wins.

[Capt Fathom]

15000+ and only 800 IF. Then again...I don't like flying when I can't see where I'm going!:o

[The Baron]

Chuckles and Shakespeare's totals sound about right to me. Mine are about the same, 8200 hrs to 400 actual IF stick time. I only have ever logged the time I've hand flown on instruments. That might not be exactly in accordance with CASA but who wants to be anyway? Maybe autopilot management should have it's own column...

[compressor stall]

3400 and 150 IF...

Half the TT and most of those IF hours in FNQ though...

[I Fly]

Question for BIK_116.80. Using your interpretation I suppose the is very little Night VFR / Night VMC flying. How does the PIC log IF time in Night VMC / Night VFR if s/he is not under the hood??????????

[Sheep Guts]

3850TT 200IF.
Sounds good but your only as good as your last approach. IF requires practice. I will soon be doing more VFR flying again so it will dwindle down. I believe the average is around 10% IFR Plan, especially in Australia.
I have looked at some resumes and seen sometimes as much as 30% which, I think is a little much, unless your flying RPT from Mawson to ScottBase in Antartica:D

[alidad]

5 to 10% of total time is a reasonable ratio to expect for IF time.
I know of boys flying coastwatch who used to log 1 hour IF on every flight for the passes they did on targets on a sky blue day because "they were on instruments." These individuals went on to fail B737 line training and the like because at the end of the day they did not stack up.
The line training and routine job of RFDS/ Air Ambulance is probably on ef the most demanding flying jobs in the world. Particularly with the shift work, single pilot, and dozens of unfamiliar destinations you may be called to at short notice; flare paths etc
One would hope that these organisations maintain their stirling safety records via a rigid C and T system that will weed out the BIC pilots.

[clear to land]

6000+TT, 700IF, ex GA, Mil , RFDS and now RPT. It does depend on what you have done with it. As far as RFDS goes, if you can't fly the clocks (screens) OK don't bother applying. Flares are fun, Car headlights/no moon are the real challenge: NVG's would help but CASA doesn't like that idea. :D

[I Fly]

BIK_116.80, to quote part of what you wrote
“(a) Time above overcast or at night in Visual Meteorological Conditions (VMC) is not counted as instrument flight unless there are insufficient external visual cues (including a useable natural horizon) to fly the aircraft – refer CAR 2 definition of ‘instrument flight time’”

I suggest that the Australian regulations require that you must log as instrument flight time any time during which :

* you are the pilot flying; and,
* you are in IMC; or, there are insufficient external visual cues to fly the aircraft (eg dark night with no useable horizon, or between layers of cloud with no useable horizon); or, you are "under the hood";

We do a lot of Night VFR flying in VMC where there is no or very little visual horizon. Are you suggesting that is not legal (I.e. no clouds and no moon). The way I read it, we log IF time if we are on an IFR flight plan, in cloud or under the hood or if we are VFR (night or day) only if we are under the hood.
Perhaps with the rules being re written CASA might find clearer words to describe what they mean.

[Icarus2001]

I Fly, I think you have answered your own question.:)

Centaurus

It can be open slather to the unscrupulous to fake instrument flight time because there is no way CASA can detect it. From talking to CASA personnel there is no knowledge of anyone ever been caught logging false instrument flight time. Not because it does not happen - but because it is impossible to police.

No way CASA can detect it? Impossible to Police?

If CASA actually got out of the office occasionally and conducted the safety audits they they are in existence to perform they would discover all sorts of things about GA. You cannot find if you don't look.

There are more and more GA types entering CASA as FOI's. Some friends of mine for example. When I chat to them about why they don't look at issues that they are personally well aware of they tell me that they have no resources. Read time and money. Why is this? FOI's are well paid by GA standards, how do they fill their days.

Back to the issue of logged IF. It is a simple matter to choose an entry from a candidates log book, request a report from the Bureau of Met for forecast and actual on that day, request tower logs for the time in question. Then put the whole lot together. If it was a charter flight the FPL should be on record with the operator.

So all of these items can be checked. On flights originating or terminating at airports with open towers it is quite simple. As I look out my window today, all I see is blue, so anyone logging IF in my neck of the woods would be easy to catch out.

The point is CASA may have told you Centaurus that it is "impossible to police". Clearly that is not true but there has to be a will, then they will find the way.

[Zone 5]

Even with the change to "autopilot input" :rolleyes: I still only log hand flying - just short of 600 IF for just short of 9000 TT, so I guess I fit that "5-10%" nicely. Quite frankly, I reckon the logbook is for me first, employers second, so I want it to be a real reflection of what I've done....

In another life a long time ago I didn't even log IF for NGT/IMC auto TFR... knew some who did. They might claim manual flying(using FD and TF scope), but if it was more than the tiniest fraction to coax your way thru XXH precip, you'd have to question their sense of mortality and hence suitability to be in command of any kind of aircraft.

:eek:

Suggest that the hybrid human/horse relax about it all - as ex-C&T aeromed I can assure you that if they're telling porky pies about the IF experience it tends to show during the line training. To the correspondants proclaiming the difficulty of the aeromed task I say:

"Thou art not wrong, sport!"

Stay cool.

:cool:

[Centaurus]

Although in my career I have had my fair share of black night IMC, I tips me lid to the RFDS pilots who have surely the most demanding flying job in the industry. The Police Air Wing helicopter pilots do a similar job and magnificently at that.

What has always concerned me, particularly after the RFDS crash at Mt Gambier, is why the RFDS management continue to crew their aircraft as single pilot when, as some of the respondents to this thread have shown, the RFDS fly into some terrifying conditions at night to help the community.

The aircraft they fly may well be single pilot certified, but the environment in which they operate would surely dictate that they be crewed by two pilots for safety reasons.

The corporations and mining companies that charter turbo-props to carry their staff, usually insist ccontractually on a two pilot crew because accident statistics indicate that a two pilot crew is safer than single pilot under IFR. Perhaps that is why the RFDS set 250 hours I/F as a starting point for new pilots into the job.

If, as some have suggested here, that regardless of claimed hours, the simulator check will sort out the faked I/F hours from the real I/F hours, then what is the point of setting 250 hours instrument time as a recruitment requirement?

Some fine pilots may be missing out on a job with the RFDS because of this arbitary 250 hours requirement. Drop it if you like to (say) a 100 hours I/F and open up the field. The sim check will still sort the men from the boys, regardless of claimed I/F hours.

[dodgybrothers]

Centaurus,

Apart from FNQ and Western Ops, the RFDS is in a bidding war for the right to fly the contracts. The good days of the RFDS and the great job the did and Dr Flynn blah blah are gone. IF the bids for the NSW contract are near what I am told, a couple of companies will be lucky to have school kids flying let alone two pilots.

Leave the air amboze to the pros, RFDS for me.:cool:

[wilburworm]

What sort of simulator check do the RFDS do. Does anyone know what type and where it is at.

[Centaurus]

BIK-116.8.

Very erudite description of night flying over the outback. You have obviously been there - done that.

You are quite right that CASA could nail people that do not log autopilot instrument flight. The chances of that happening is zilch. I recall that the autopilot logging came about when it was not possible to keep up currency at hand flown I/F due to some operators actively banning their crews from hand flying.

With the advent of LNAV - VNAV and all that stuff, automatic pilots came into their own and providing the right buttons were pressed they flew very nicely, thank you very much.

I recall reading an Air New Zealand submission to their CAA on the difficulty of maintaining hands on I/F skills because of autopilot policy and the CAA then allowed automatic pilot I/F logging just to avoid controversy.

From before the 1939-45 war civilian pilots log books had a column for instrument flight sub headed "In Flight" and "Ground". The in-flight part was either under-the-hood or actual instrument flight conditions.

Service log books used by the RAF and RAAF of that era also had instrument flight columns. They were headed "Instrument/Cloud Flying" and were split into Dual - which was under-the-hood, and "Pilot" which was actual cloud flying. There was no specific column for ground, so an extra column was drawn in and labelled "Link".

Logging of instrument flying was hands on only - never auto-pilot. Service pilots had their log books audited each month and signed by their flight commander somewhat similar to that of student pilot log book checks of today. Instrument flight hours were logged honestly. There were no lost job opportunities simply because one had only two instrument rating renewals or lack of I/F hours. That strange method of assessing instrument flying skills remains a quaint civilian GA peculiarity

Computer skills cannot be equated to hands-on instrument flying skills. There is no skill required to "monitor" current sophisticated autopilots nor such ancient pieces of equipment as the Century autopilots in GA aircraft.

CASA regs requiring logging of auto pilot instrument flying suggests that total instrument flying hours as a measure of a pilots skill, is a myth - especially as there is no differentation between hand flying on instruments or monitoring an automatic pilot. RFDS and other operators requiring applicants to have X number of renewals and instrument hours are kidding themselves.

I recall seeing the log book of an airline first officer who had logged 5600 hours total time of which 2800 were logged as on instruments. I wondered if his captains had also logged the same hours. He had been flying F27 and Boeing 727 aircraft within Australia since he joined one of our now extinct domestic airlines from GA. I guess he was happy with his I/F skills after that lot.

My I/F hours are sweaty hands on flying and will stay that way, too.