TC finally wising up and changing the duty regs?

[Minimums]

Been hearing a lot lately that tc is finally going to modernize duty day times and limitations and put us a little closer to the 21st century. One such change was for every TO and landing, your duty day would be less by 15minutes, ie 14hr days now becomes 13:45. Another was if you began duty before 6am local, you duty day would be limited to 8 hours, as well as a few others, no more 14 hour days for multiple days straight, etc. All sounds like practical solutions to an ongoing problem, but I cannot seem to find anything anywhere to back that up other than word of mouth. Has anyone else heard anything of this? Proposed start date was Jan 2010?

[Chuck Ellsworth]

One such change was for every TO and landing, your duty day would be less by 15minutes, ie 14hr days now becomes 13:45.

Great, the water bombing pilots will have some real short duty days.

[cessnafloatflyer]

Seaplane rating instructors too!

[Chuck Ellsworth]

You gotta love these deep thinkers.....lucky for you they are only navel gazing because they don't have a clue about the real world out there.

[pelmet]

Wonderful. It was already bad enough when we lost the ability to do 3 weeks on-3 weeks off. Now we cant even do 2 and 2?

[Doc Driver]

Sounds way too sensible for tc. The t/o and landing rule is a great one. In and out, up and down all day is more taxing than sitting in cruise for 12 hours. Bad weather days magnify that in a huge way.
Jan. 2010. That's funny.
'Hey, there's a real safety issue here so we're going to do something about it.....13 months from now.'

[cessnafloatflyer]

Ah -- the rumour mill...

[200hr Wonder]

Yeah so I can see the self dispatched pilots sitting in an FBO with a confused look on there face. OK we dispatched at 05:50 this morning and have done 4 legs so we can fly till? Uh wait no that was in the other time zone so it was 06:50, does that missed approach count? Ahhh screw it lets go.

[wallypilot]

Seaplane rating instructors too!

Not to lend any validity to any rumours, but if such a change ever happened, my guess is that it would only apply to 704/705 ops.

As for changes to the regs, there's no doubt that for 704/705 ops, the landings and t/o rule would be a good change, I think.

[trey kule]

One thing the CAA (UK) regs do is limit the number of legs to 12 in a duty day. A simpler easier way rather than the calculate on the run as someone mentined. They also have a nice rule that does include charter operators with regards to days off and it is well defined and the company needs to give you a weeks notice of your days off. Very nice, but hard on the operators sometimes .

Oh, and it does not include t/os for training flights and only takeoffs and landings that are stop and start...not circuits. Though instructors are under the same duty day/time off limitations

What I dont understand, if this rumor has any validity to it, why TC would not be asking for comments from the flying community. Seems they all get an idea, determine it is a good one, and then put it into play without actually letting anyone know about it. Perhaps someone could explain this.

[CD]

This ground has been covered once or twice before, but there are proposals in the regulatory pipeline that would amend the F&D times. Links were posted on the global report on pilot flight duty times thread. Note that these are all dated 1999 and 2000... It takes a while to get regulatory changes through the government system -- possibly even longer now with the new Cabinet Directive on Streamlining Regulation.

So, unless the existing proposals contain the changes you are thinking of, it's likely all just a rumour. What is more likely to happen is that fatigue risk management will become a required component of an operator's SMS, as that is the direction that ICAO is heading in Annex 6...

[DBR]

In Europe there's a 15 minute penalty for every landing after 3 sectors. It would be good to see that happen here too.

[square]

The t/o and landing rule is a great one. In and out, up and down all day is more taxing than sitting in cruise for 12 hours.

Are you kidding? Have you ever sat in cruise for 12 hours? It would be excruciating, I'd much rather do 6 trips with some stuff going on and a bit of time milling around the office. I did a 6 hour leg once and got impatient and bored about an hour in, then my ass went numb after 2 hours, ran out of food after 3 hours, and when we finally landed I could barely walk down the ramp. It was horrible.

[Flying Nutcracker]

Hemorrhoides???

[200 hrs]

This is good. Pilots won't do missed approaches if they know they can land and get home 15 minutes earlier!

[Troubleshot]

With aircraft utilization such a major factor in making a buck these days wouldn't airlines require more pilots to fly the same about of aircraft?...If so wouldn't this effect wages, profits, costs, etc... I'm not taking the side of the operator but this type added expense could be the straw that breaks the camels back with alot of airlines out there no?

[square]

Troubleshot, money doesn't get a say in safety.

It's just the only way.

[Fly4Fun]

Are you kidding? Have you ever sat in cruise for 12 hours? It would be excruciating, I'd much rather do 6 trips with some stuff going on and a bit of time milling around the office. I did a 6 hour leg once and got impatient and bored about an hour in, then my ass went numb after 2 hours, ran out of food after 3 hours, and when we finally landed I could barely walk down the ramp. It was horrible.[/quote]

To add to this experience, it doesn’t help that now a days the flight crew is locked behind a locked bullet proof door and as no interaction with passengers, and limited access with the fellow crew members and flight attendants. Try spending 8, 10, 12 or 14+ in a flight deck with limited social interaction,,, it is very fatiguing

[Fly4Fun]

Or an after thought, the ability to stand up, walk outside, stretch, get the blood flowing and get a breath of fresh air, can't do that at 36,000 feet with a locked flight deck door. And at the end of the day you are required to perform an approach and landing in poor weather conditions. Canada is in the stone ages. TC should do a little research on the NASA website, NASA has spent millions of dollars researching this topic and the rest of the modern world has accepted and implemented their research except north america.. how ironic.

[skydivepilot]

That TO & LDG rule would certainly shorten the duty day for any skydive pilot. I've done as many as 28 flights in one day so would hate to see that rule become a reality.

[Driving Rain]

If you want to run with the hounds you can't keep pissing like a puppy.
skydivepilot quote.

[I've done as many as 28 flights in one day so would hate to see that rule become a reality.]

I once did 100 touch&goes and 1 full stop in 4.0hrs. Man I hope they implement the new rule soon. It would sure brighten my remaining summers.

[Minimums]

My interperation is these rules would apply to those pilots who are working 12-13-14 hrs a day, all day, everyday IE most 703-704 ops. Not to say that floatdrivers do not work hard, they certainly do, be them a 415 driver, skydriver or otterman, however they also have a limited season in which they can do a lot of work and have half the year off to recover from it. I hear of more and more airplanes flying long days at various companies, day in, day out, almost all with the same crews from first prop to last prop turn of the day. I can certainly see validation to the fact that there is no down time for them unless you time out at the months end, have a few days off, time reset, and your good to go full bore once more. Certainly operators will complain as they have hire more crews to do the same amount of work, but it all boils down to safety.
You hire 1 driver and pay good money, he/she is going to drive all day for you, one after another, because, well, you pay well. Second, they are going to continue to drive because that is what they are paid for, there is no one else, pressure is put on them to keep the job going, you (the operator) can't really afford to pay anyone else, or choose not to, because well, you don't have to. Then something happens, who's at fault? PIC who drove himself into something because he/she was fatigued. TC will point the finger at the pic for not calling in fatigued, but in all reality, who does that? You have to work, there is no one else, and if you don't, you don't get paid, hence you won't have a job very long. Truth be told you were still following your 14hr duty days limits for the last 3 weeks, does that make it right?

Guess that makes it like everything else, just a rumour, and only until something happens, someone is killed, metal is bent and feeling are hurt that changes will then be immediately and unconciously put into place, followed by the phrase "that should of happened years ago"