Just like riding a bike.
 

With the recent crisis and grounding of so many aircraft and crews having to stand down, when commercial flights do start to resume, will crew just be able to start again just as they left off or will there have to be some sort of cognitive retraining?
With the issues of bringing back so many “parked” aircraft after so many weeks, will the first few flights by crew be a little tentative, or will it be just like riding a bike?

The regulations will determine what happens although some airlines may have stricter currency rules than the legal minimums. My airline has a well set out process and what, if any, training is needed and it is based on the time off between flights. Most pilots will need either some flights with a trainer or time in a simulator. Recently qualified pilots may require more training than more experienced ones. For my outfit the training department are working out the requirement for each individual pilot. A rather difficult task I imagine! Hopefully it will come back quickly for most of us and fingers crossed we get to fly again soon.

I wondered this, after being grounded for seven months following an accident in which I was the non flying pilot. I rented a plane, and hired an instructor, and the flying was just fine - like I flew it a few hours the day before. The instructor not only gave me a pass, but actually complimented my flying. I can't speak for the freshness of other pilots, and more complex flying environments, but for me, yes, just like riding a bike when I came back to it. 'Truth is that I had more trouble coming back to the bike!

You're correct about it harder to go back to the bike than a plane...last time I rode a bike I was wobbly...but when I started flying GA I knew immediately that I still had my flight chops, planes are easy; it's the ground that I don't understand.

I wonder if the recently deceased PIA crew would differ with you on this matter.
Had a few warm up rides in my day that got the "refreshing" pilot to grab the controls.
Only problem with messing up on a bike is a skinned knee or egg on face. (And when one's 11 year old son gets to watch that fall, he'll never let you forget it :p )

It was reading through that distressing thread that prompted this topic.

I had a suspicion that might have been the case, so I cut to the chase. ;)

After a ten month medical lay off I had a couple of refresher sims; first one being the full cockpit prep which was good as that is the stuff that gets a little rusty. I found the flying part absolutely fine as per Pilot DAR's experience!

I think a manual handling sim after a couple of months off should usually do the trick for the majority of pilots:ok:

Yes, but not just on an individual level.

It’s not uncommon for pilots to have several years off during the middle of a career, due medical reasons, loss of employment or just a desired sabbatical for whatever reason. When returning to their flying job however they are going back via a training system and comprised of instructors, both simulator and flying, who have maintained total recency with the current environment and procedures, and their first few months will be with line crew who as well haven’t had years off work so they’re cognitively quite sharp.

With the groundings of entire fleets and airlines, for a period of some which may be years, you have a unique situation where all pilots, line and training, in that airline or fleet haven’t been operational for that time. And in the intervening time have been focusing their brains not on aviation but other pursuits.

The upcoming situation when large groups of pilots return to the air all at once after considerable time off will produce challenges that aviation safety systems will need to mitigate.

Some of us continue with a full roster.
For the rest it isn’t going to be a big rush back into the air; it will be a slow build up which should be easily manageable in a safe and deliberate manner.

At some airlines, yes. In other airlines, no, entire fleets have been grounded and will not resume operations for some time.

And some airlines have been continuing recurrency sims during lockdown, with appropriate health precautions, so that most are very current when flying resumes. Not difficult if well planned.

I could not agree with you more. The real challenge is not with the individual but with the system that is no longer anything like what it was. Not simply a challenging time, but a potentially very dangerous time. Airline safety is highly dependent on established systems and procedures, in addition to being expensive. It will be some time before it is back where it was at the beginning of the year, if ever.

I think it depends greatly on experience levels both in total and on type. When someone is still relatively new to aviation then, at least in my experience, it tends to take a little bit longer before performance is back to pre-break levels. The same is true when someone has recently converted to a new type. With a few thousand hours total time and say at lest a thousand or so on type I find that the return after a break is typically not problematic. I hope airlines and/or regulators will take this into account when flying picks up again. I suppose a combination of a relatively inexperienced captain and a relatively inexperienced F/O, yet neither of them necessarily low time on type as per the regs, could be the most problematic.

If you don't want to look cr4p on day one back in the Sim, rent another Sim for a few hours. £350 per hour for a Level D Sim down the road, including the instructor.

Edit Level CG

I had little problem with the flying, it's the SOP calls and stuff when you've been off a while. Changes and reversion from previous SOP sets are a danger.

I'm thinking there might be more issues with the aircraft than the pilots. Time spent reviewing the MEL might prove more useful than time spent in a Sim.

After a nine month grounding it was indeed like riding a bike. Yes, i was required to complete three simulator sessions and a short LIFUS phase (line flying under supervision), but that was more about SOPs and getting up to speed with those than flying itself. So pretty similar to what the others have said here.

What i would say though, be aware that you are just a tad slower than normal, so take your time and be thorough in what you do. At least that is my observation. However, aircraft that have been basically in maintenance for the last few months, that could be interesting.

I don't care how i look on the first back to work SIM, that is training, and why would i ever consider to train for the training on my own dime?

Not just recurrent sims are possible, recency sims as well.
Ensure you do 3 takeoffs and landings at the controls and you're good for another 90 days

Flying isn't the hard part. It's the procedures and SOP's that get rusty. I've been grounded several times for 2-4 months in the airline business. With experience it comes back quickly. Obviously you're slightly rusty but for normal ops it's fairly straight forward.

Coworker and I were both grounded for 12 months from flying an attack aircraft. I was grounded first, he followed after I returned to flying, so he asked me what it was like. I told him it would it come back much quicker than he realized. I flew with him on his first return flight, on a low level flight, to the bombing range. Returning to base I asked him "so, what do you think?" "SOSDD." There are some restrictions when you come back to flying, like the minimum low level altitude was raised to 500', no low level pop-up bombing runs, etc, because your brain does process slightly slower and the maximum of 5 seconds wings level on the bomb dive goes by quickly (!).