Don't reduce real time
I am a captain and instructor on Air France's Airbus A318/A321 fleet, and also adviser to Isabelle Petroff of the French civil aviation authority. We are both involved in the International Civil Aviation Organisation Panel working on the planned new multi-crew pilot licence (MPL), designed for co-pilots on multi-crew aircraft (Flight International, 27 April-3 May).
This is designed to be a "new" competency-based training programme that provides a procedural and interpersonal simulator course to prepare an ab initio student for the co-piloting task, not just for a licence. But the needs for basic single-pilot competency, including upset recovery, night flight and flight in instrument meteorological conditions goes much further than the level of private pilot licence competency, and we don't agree in France or at the International Federation of Airline Pilots Associations (IFALPA) on reducing time on real aircraft to the 60h under consideration. The cornerstone objectives of the project are to get a higher level of competency and a higher level of safety. It is not aimed at lowering the cost of training.
Your article shows ICAO chief of personnel licensing Paul Lamy to be optimistic and enthusiastic. But the ICAO air navigation commission is not sure that 60h could be an international ICAO standard. We need to design and test a good quality system, including the on-line training and probably more. And we intend to take the time we need to do it properly or to stop it.
Capt Jean Delattre Chamant, France
Short-term strategies
The design reason for the multi- crew pilot licence (MPL) (Flight International, 27 April-3 May) was given as saving training costs. For the move from person in the street to right seat of an Airbus A320/ Boeing 737, this is valid. The move from right seat to left seat, for the holder of an air transport's pilot licence (ATPL) is a matter for the airline, not the regulator.
Institutional piety will, of course, demand more rigorous and expensive steps from MPL to ATPL, than from commercial pilot's licence (CPL) to ATPL. However, the candidate will have had years of paid work (probably at MPL rates) to ease the burden if he/she is expected to pay all, or part of, these costs.
I will soon retire, but I give thanks to the war-weary generation that regarded my youth as a national asset to be cultivated with opportunities to fit capabilities. Now, youth is a resource to be exploited with self-sponsorship and often rewarded with academic qualifications that equate to the emperor's new clothes. The world economy used to be run by "managing professionals"; it is now the domain of "professional managers". So I consider the start of "retiring baby boomers" from British Airways, and its like, to be a more probable source of the MPL. Saving time between street and right seat will soon become the bigger problem for modern, short-term strategies.
R A Kirby Stockport, Cheshire, UK
Follow rules
Graham Smith (Flight International, 15-21 June) expresses concern about hull losses; perhaps this should have been better quantified. Hull losses may be declared by underwriters where the cost of repair or recovery exceeds the insured value.
The European Joint Aviation Authorities notice of proposed amendment 29 is concerned only with commercial operations and the safety statistics appended are based on commercial operations in the West. Mr Smith is right to raise concerns about flight in icing conditions, but aircraft by themselves do not fly into these conditions, it is the pilots - and they do it mainly through lack of training, situational awareness or failure to comply with the flight manual. Cessna Caravans have for many years and thousands of hours flown safely during the day and at night.
The JAA notice of proposed amendment specifies the additional equipment required, including US Federal Aviation Administration and European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) certification for flight into known icing conditions, plus extensive initial and recurrent training for the pilots, maintenance and incident reporting. All of which far exceeds that required by other countries that already approve single-engine instrument meteorological (SEIMC) flight operations.
Bob Crowe Bedford, UK
HyShot flight
I would like to correct your statement about the Australian HyShot scramjet experiment (Flight International, 25-31 May): the first supersonic combustions in history already were achieved by the Russian axisymmetric Kholod scramjets, on 27 November 1991 (Mach 5.6 during 28s), and on 12 February 1998 (M6.41 during 77s).
In the same issue you say that the Dassault Rafale is still undergoing operational evaluation by military pilots. The Rafale M has been operational with Flotille 12F since the end of 2001. Seven Rafale Ms participated in the operations in Afghanistan, from 1 December 2001 to 1 July 2002. They were the first fourth-generation fighters to be operational from an aircraft carrier.
Philippe Jung Association Aéronautique et Astronautique de France, Verneuil-sur-Seine, France
Source: Flight International
