CARs that you think should be changed

[MrWings]

Very good explanation, Shiny Side Up. I see the point.

[CID]

This thread was doomed from the get go. The CARS, and any other regulations attempt to strike a balance between permissiveness and safety. Some expect the regulations to save them from themselves and other see them as an obstacle.

And yes, they are written with consideration of a legal team. They are, after all, "regulations" under the Aeronautical Act.

For every person that hates a particular regulation there's another who loves it. It all depends on what you fly for. And of course there will be the handful of curmudgeons who have been forecasting the demise of the aviation industry at the hands of the CARs for as long as there have been CARs. If you aren't part of the solution, you're likely part of the problem.

Comparing our system to the US is a bit of a dead end too. The same people who are blowing kisses at the FAA for their training policy are completely demonizing them for taking Bob Hoover's license away. And it's worth noting that the accident rate on training flights is significantly higher in the US than Canada. You have to ask yourself what's better when safety is at stake. "Cheap" or "Easy".

I'm not so sure it's possible to ever come up with the perfect system of regulations and standards for aviation. At least not a system that everyone will be happy with. Take Max Ward. He fought hard for deregulation. He insisted that TC was the main obstacle between him and a fair profit. He was partially right but when the regulations came down he couldn't compete and went out of business. Sometimes you have to be careful what you ask for.

[Beefitarian]

Comparing our system to the US is a bit of a dead end too.

Agreed.

And it's worth noting that the accident rate on training flights is significantly higher in the US than Canada. You have to ask yourself what's better when safety is at stake. "Cheap" or "Easy".

Is it higher per volume or just higher because the amount of training in the US&A is even higher again than that of ours?

I know you're reading these Sanders. We should probably take Cat Driver with us, at least in the winter time. Set him up with a Cub doing tail dragger type checks.

[CID]

Beef, "rate" is "rate".

[Colonel Sanders]

It doesn't matter what I think.

However, it is interesting to note that via the 2006 IPL pilot licensing reciprocity agreement, Transport will convert FAA private, commercial, ATP, multi, instrument and type rating certificates to equivalent TCA licences and ratings.

Transport can't think too badly of the FAA pilot training system if that's the case.

[Shiny Side Up]

This thread was doomed from the get go.

Not necessarily. If we went through the extensive list of CARs we'd find that most are common sense items, and numbers regulations - some of those numbers might seem arbitrary like say who decided that 200 hours was the right ammount of hours for a CPL holder to have - but we can mostly agree that they are reasonable requirements. Some though, are out of date or unprecedented. The aforementioned FTUOC regs for instance. AFAIK, no where else in the world has this requirement. It seems out of line, and serves a questionable purpose, and so far none that really serve the public good. It really stems from an old BCATP requirement where civillian assets and personell were dragooned into service, and the public interest was to have a large ammount of flight training be supervised and approved. It maybe worked well when you had a large comission of people whose main job was to oversee and issue the old equivilent to the FTUOC. Not as good of a reg if you have maybe a handful of people to administer it, of whom which the issuance isn't even their primary job. If anything, it needs to be re-examined, some addendums made or TC themselves have to put forth the resources that admittedly they don't have.

edit: just at the CARs pages online, TC needs to spend less time changing that stupid page for the worse, and more time actually looking at what they got that page for.

[co-joe]

ie no "our ops manual says 1 hour is enough time for you to drive home, make dinner, have a shower, and get to sleep, plus drive back to the airport tomorrow even though it takes you half an hour each way to drive home."... 9 hour turnaround bullshit.

If they are only giving you an hour for personal duties and it takes you an hour of driving time, then you are not being given the legally required time.

I can't see that passing any kind of scrutiny by Transport.

It seemed to if you flew a 200 350 or 1900 at an outfit in YYC that boasts ARGUS Platinum Rated safety on their web site. The best I was able to get was someone else to do my walk around and paperwork and get that 1 hour stretched to 1.5 hours. But I had to fight for it and got tonnes of attitude from dispatch for my troubles.

Would it be that difficult for the CARs to specify that unless you are sleeping in the hangar you will have to commute. Time for personal duties should be a hard number. 2 hours minimum. 3 if either your departure or arrival time check in times are within rush hour in a major city.

Obviously if you sleep at the water base 1 hour can be enough, but if you commute on Deerfoot Trail in winter you may as well be required to own a 5th wheel! What's it like in Tarana? Does flight exec pull this trash?

[Beefitarian]

Beef, "rate" is "rate".

Ok, I'll blindly believe you then, as long as no one proves other wise. I won't go so far as to say it doesn't make some sense. The standards are lower on everything. Currency, training, maintanence, they're allowed to fly those AN-2s there it's like a wild west show.

[Colonel Sanders]

who decided that 200 hours was the right ammount of hours for a CPL

A lot of that stuff is dictated by ICAO.

However, nowhere in ICAO does it require our insane FTU OC structure, which doesn't survive even a cursory cost/benefit analysis.

[Cat Driver]

I'd argue that Jersey Shore is but that is for another debate.

Specifically what is so wrong with it?

I applied for a FTUOC and was denied the OC because in the opinion of the top managers in the Pacific region I was not suitable to hold an operating certificate.

The process from start to finish took over two years, in the end I sold the two airplanes I had bought at a loss due to the drop in the US dollar at the time I owned them, I also lost all the time and money I had invested in hangar and office rent and salary for the CFI who I had hired.

And I lost all the money I spent in my legal battle with T.C.

Maybe I am just biased in my opinion and should just accept the fact I am not qualified to own a flight training business in Socialist Canada?

[tyndall]

Being unable to learn to fly on an aircraft unless you're the owner. If a freelance owns an aircraft and wants to teach on his/her aircraft, this should be ok.

What's the CAR for this? Can you borrow a plane and hire an instructor?

[MrWings]

I applied for a FTUOC and was denied the OC because in the opinion of the top managers in the Pacific region I was not suitable to hold an operating certificate.

On the surface, that seems wrong. But what was the reasoning?

Lists of infractions/suspensions? Lack of flight training experience? Poorly maintained aircraft? Failed tests/interviews?

They have to give you something more than a simple no.

I know a couple of guys that started up their own air service starting with one plane. Sure it took a lot of time and money, but they jumped through the hoops set out for them and got it done.

Not sure why a FTUOC would be drastically different.

[Cat Driver]

Lists of infractions/suspensions? Lack of flight training experience? Poorly maintained aircraft? Failed tests/interviews?

It's a long story Mr.wings.

First off I have zero infractions/suspensions.

My flight training experience is extensive starting in 1958 when I received my flight instructors rating in Canada. When I retired in 2005 I held flight training approvals on my Canadian licenses in Australia, South Africa, and under JAR in Europe.

I also owned a flight school both fixed wing and helicopters from 1986 until 1991 in Canada.

I owned a AMO In the same company and never ever had a maintenance issue ever.

I also owned a very successful aircraft repair/rebuilding business based in London England.

I have never ever failed a flight test in either fixed or rotary wing aircraft..ever.

But I did fail an interview with four of the top management in the Pacific Region during the latter part of my FTU OC application.

The problem was not what I had done wrong...it was what T.C. did wrong.

Dealing with T.C. is far more risky than dealing with the Mafia in my opinion.

[Colonel Sanders]

The thing to remember is that there are people that TC likes, and there are people that TC doesn't like. It doesn't matter why. That's just the way it is.

TC can make life very difficult for people it doesn't like. That isn't fair, but then again, neither is life. Get over it, and move to another country if necessary.

[Shiny Side Up]

who decided that 200 hours was the right ammount of hours for a CPL

A lot of that stuff is dictated by ICAO.

Which of course leads to the question of where did ICAO pull this number from. Slightly OT, but of interest, the magic 200 hour number comes from the BCATP and old USAAC training plans. At 200 hours you were considered service ready, depending where they put you. It varied slightly depending on what aircraft your were flying. 35 to 50 hours were considered enough for basic training on whatever initial types were on hand (incidentally pretty close to PPL standards). Prior to the war the numbers were pretty random - considering that guys like Glenn Curtiss esentially taught themselves. It would be interesting to see though again where those numbers were determined from, I suspect there was a Royal commision of some sorts...

[trey kule]

You know, If I recall correctly, when I got my commercial license, there was two minimum hour specifications. 150 hrs for an approved course or something like that, and 200 hours for an unapproved Neither applied to me at the time , but it seems there were some differences in the requirements for each. As a matter of fact, I thought it did not actually change until the late 80s to the present 200 hours.`
I do recall some of the reasoning for some things. Canada did not have the navigation aids or weather reporting facilities the US had, and so did not allow VFR OTT. When they brought that in I believe they put the 5 hour instrument requirement on the PPL, and increased the night rating requirements...the thought being if you got stuck on top, you could get back down through it with some control. I could well wrong about that, but I remember looking at the standards for the instrument training for the PPL at about that time, and trying to make sense of them. Maybe it has changed, but when it was first introduced it was a bit lacking in the training objectives.

I personally feel that there should be an overhaul of the duty times, time off, and better definitions of what a day free of duty is, and.....that they should apply to instructors at FTUs.

[flyinthebug]

You know, If I recall correctly, when I got my commercial license, there was two minimum hour specifications. 150 hrs for an approved course or something like that, and 200 hours for an unapproved Neither applied to me at the time , but it seems there were some differences in the requirements for each. As a matter of fact, I thought it did not actually change until the late 80s to the present 200 hours.`

You recall correctly. I did my PPL in 1984 in YOO and my Lic # started with YYZ-. There was an "approved course" for the PPL that was 35 hours & an "unapproved course" that was 50 hours. I did the unapproved 50 hour course. The CPL was as you stated.

[Colonel Sanders]

duty times (etc).....that they should apply to instructors at FTUs

The FARs says that a flight instructor shall not fly more than 8 hrs per day. Pretty simple, but we don't even have that in Canada. If a flight instructor at an FTU wants to log 16 hrs per day for 10 years in a row, he can.

[sakism]

How about updating CAR 724.115, section 22. The fact that the regulations dealing with use of RNAV/GPS/FMS are 13 years old is ludicrous.

(22) Area Navigation Systems (RNAV)

(a) General Training
(amended 1998/09/01; previous version)

[AirFrame]

Pitot/static system calibration - I can calibrate my airspeed indicator with my GPS more accurately than necessary for VFR flight. My transponder encoder is my EFIS, and I can check its operation on every flight. And the transponder shows the reported altitude, so I can cross-reference it with my EFIS. It's all self-checking now, so why should I have to pay $400/year to an avionics shop to confirm it? An annual note in the log that the system was checked and correct operation confirmed should be all that's necessary for non-commercial flights.

ELT requirements - Still in need of serious updating. The ELT system has been surpassed by many, many cheaper and better options on the market today. SPOT, Spidertracks, and others all provide better coverage and greater crash-survivability because the position reports are there *before* you hit the ground and your ELT antenna gets ripped off. Mandating 406MHz ELT's is just going to again add a lot of cost by forcing an upgrade to a mostly obsolete system.

[trampbike]

I hope these guys never found a flying job, but it pisses me that they still managed to get their CPL by flying CYHU-CZBM-CYHU dozens of times.

Why does that piss you off?

It is interesting that many of the changes listed in this thread are to make more hoops for people to jump through. They seem to think there are people out there that hold a licence or a rating which they don't somehow deserve.

True, I don't believe that someone who flew most of his 200h on local day flights with perfect weather and always less than 7kts of crosswind on paved runways of a minimal lenght of 3500 feet and minimal width of 100 feet in always the same empty C172 and never had to use a map because the Garmin tells him where he is anyway (and he doesn't need it, he's always flying over the same fields), deserves a CPL and should be allowed to fly people for money.

We can't change most FTU, but longer and more frequent cross-country flights + some upset recovery should help a little bit.

[Doc]

Wow! Even a simple question like..."CARS that you think should be changed......" cannot be answered intelligently by most of you without the "my dick is bigger than yours...." syndrome rearing it's ugly head!

I'd like to see the requirement to call an FSS facility in advance/prior to an IFR hand off abolished. They know we're coming. We can sort out runway use etc., after the hand off. It would reduce unnecessary radio traffic, and allow the crew to concentrate on ATC clearances. Question answered. Reason given. Not up for debate. I think it should be changed.

[Shiny Side Up]

We can't change most FTU, but longer and more frequent cross-country flights + some upset recovery should help a little bit.

Hence the changing of requirements for obtaining a FTUOC. My feeling is that this would rejuvenate a lot of small airports since it would be reasonable to start up a lot of single airplane, single pilot/instructor training options. The two things you would see a lot of would be complex singles available for IFR training or rent, especially to do serious cross country work, and tailwheel/aerobatic/upset training machines. Thirdly you might also see a lot more multi training options.

[esp803]

421.34: ATPL requirements PIC time increased to somewhere in the 1500 range, Night PICXC removed in favor of just night or instrument time.

421.38: Seaplane Rating, if a multi-engine rating requires a test then so should float ratings.

723.33: VFR OTT... just go IFR

[fish4life]

ATPL should require minimum 200 IFR time

I think someone said it but 200 IFR time required to fly single pilot IFR as wel

CPL should have a 20-25 hour requirement for low / marginal VFR flying even if we are talking either 2-3 miles vis or ceiling less than 1000' give these CPL pilots some real world flying experience instead of just BKN 5000 and P6SM flying days at least that way when the poor fresh new CPL does his first revenue flight and is 700 feet and 3 miles in snow or rain he isn't in completely unfamiliar territory.