Proficiency vs. Currency
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Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Florida,USA
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Proficiency vs. Currency
Have prob, require input...
Current job means decent hours during 'season', but little otherwise(the other 4/5 months). Entails night flying (fixed wing) at low level (circa 300' agl), soon to use NVGs, and day (rotary wing) at treetop level.
Prob is twofold :
1) Beancounters/admin-policy types continue to cut 'training' hours as they are hell bent on reducing costs (if only hangar-side).
2)Gingerbeers have not uncommon mindset 'if they fly them, they'll only break them'. (This of course is nonsense as,empirically, we know that they break much faster if you don't exercise them).
Can invoke 'Flight Safety' and indulge in various histrionics, but it would be good to have some anecdotal, better yet academic,data to thump table with. Have found hardly anything on net, and response from various sources involving Human Factors type studies (Universities etc.) have zip. Likely this is because, outside of Mil Av, if you're flying they are taxing you to the limit, rather than converse.
FAA/JAR currency regs are adhered to, but these hardly promote proficiency- plus, nature of job is fairly high risk (even compared to Mil Av).
I seem to recall a big stink when Brit Fling-Wing Sqn pilots were reduced to 2 hrs per month some years ago... don't know what or if there was a resolution to that one.
Any and all input will be very gratefully received.
F.I.D.O.
Current job means decent hours during 'season', but little otherwise(the other 4/5 months). Entails night flying (fixed wing) at low level (circa 300' agl), soon to use NVGs, and day (rotary wing) at treetop level.
Prob is twofold :
1) Beancounters/admin-policy types continue to cut 'training' hours as they are hell bent on reducing costs (if only hangar-side).
2)Gingerbeers have not uncommon mindset 'if they fly them, they'll only break them'. (This of course is nonsense as,empirically, we know that they break much faster if you don't exercise them).
Can invoke 'Flight Safety' and indulge in various histrionics, but it would be good to have some anecdotal, better yet academic,data to thump table with. Have found hardly anything on net, and response from various sources involving Human Factors type studies (Universities etc.) have zip. Likely this is because, outside of Mil Av, if you're flying they are taxing you to the limit, rather than converse.
FAA/JAR currency regs are adhered to, but these hardly promote proficiency- plus, nature of job is fairly high risk (even compared to Mil Av).
I seem to recall a big stink when Brit Fling-Wing Sqn pilots were reduced to 2 hrs per month some years ago... don't know what or if there was a resolution to that one.
Any and all input will be very gratefully received.
F.I.D.O.
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: uk
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competency vs currency
Seriously, though. The question is a fair one - I have never equated currency (my definition: flying just enough to stay street legal) with competency (: flying enough to stay good and get better).
Difficult to give actual data or case histories in this case. The subjective opinion ought to be easy enough to argue - in fact IMHO I believe you already have in your post. Objectively though, quite difficult without data - really the point of the post!
Guess we could all come up with a horror story of a Station/Squadron/Flight commander who hardly ever gets out of the office, then flies on a day when you could not quite see the curvature of the earth and inevitably intersects it at something more acute than a tangent...
(Just read this prior to posting - rambles on dunnit!)
Difficult to give actual data or case histories in this case. The subjective opinion ought to be easy enough to argue - in fact IMHO I believe you already have in your post. Objectively though, quite difficult without data - really the point of the post!
Guess we could all come up with a horror story of a Station/Squadron/Flight commander who hardly ever gets out of the office, then flies on a day when you could not quite see the curvature of the earth and inevitably intersects it at something more acute than a tangent...
(Just read this prior to posting - rambles on dunnit!)
