Copilot Flying

[LJPilot]

Our company has the following policy: Copilot sits until 50 hours in type. Flies empty legs until 200 hours in type. After that we can alternate legs. Its not a bad policy if you fly all the time. If your company flies only 200 hours in a year, it is not enough time to build flying skills or confidence in the aircraft.

As for contract flying, some insurance companies do not allow contract pilots to fly. It doesnt matter if you have 5000 in type. If you are not full time, you do not manipulate the controls. It sounds pretty stupid, but its fairly common.

 

[CelticCitation]

Recap

Just so I understand-

1. A chief pilot should only hire guys that have experience enough to fly the aircraft.

2. Anyone with a pilot certificate is qualified, so if you don't hire him and let him fly every leg, you are insecure.

3. If the airlines do it, it must be right.

4. Entitlement for jobs starts as soon as you can stop rewinding the volleyball scenes from Top Gun.

I'm glad that things get cleared up so well on FI.

 

[Say Again Over]

(after a couple of beers) Too lazy to read all the posts, IMO, anyone who doesn't allow the right seater equal legs is an idiot, I do it with 180 pax every duty day and most of my FO's have less than 500 hours, the boss not comfortable or the moron in the left seat has no clue how to manage. :nuts:

 

[gutshotdraw]

I have been flying Gulfstreams for 15 years now and will soon be transitioning from a G-IV Captain position to the G-V/550/450 as a Captain. Nevertheless, I will be flying only empty legs for the first few months with more senior Captains and I wouldn't have it any other way. I don't care how much time or experience you have, the best way to learn an airplane in corporate or fractional flying is to fly it from the left seat on empty legs. Sure, you could jump in cold and get it from A to B safely with pax in back, but could you really FLY IT efficiently and smoothly? That takes time for anybody. Fortunately my employment offers plenty of empty leg flying which are valuable learning experiences for F/O's as they prepare to upgrade. There have even been occasions when F/O's have refused my offer for them to fly from the right seat with passengers on board because they would much rather fly the empty leg from the left seat. We have even had F/O's refuse right seat flying for the entire six months until their first recurrent (company policy) when they could then fly empty legs from the left seat.

That said, I agree that once that intial "comfort level" is reached, legs should be swapped without regard to whether passengers are in the back. The saddest situations are the PIC's who are so insecure about their own abilities that they won't let the F/O fly even when it's an EMPTY leg.

Airline flying is a completely different kettle of fish with regard to F/O flying and not really applicable to this discussion in my opinion.

 

[G100driver]

Our company has the following policy: Copilot sits until 50 hours in type. Flies empty legs until 200 hours in type. After that we can alternate legs. Its not a bad policy if you fly all the time. If your company flies only 200 hours in a year, it is not enough time to build flying skills or confidence in the aircraft.

As for contract flying, some insurance companies do not allow contract pilots to fly. It doesnt matter if you have 5000 in type. If you are not full time, you do not manipulate the controls. It sounds pretty stupid, but its fairly common.

This is a common sence approach to flying a new aircraft with a qualified PIC. At some point, everyone has to fly. I think that we all agree there needs to be a road to both pilots flying the airplane consistantly.

As for the contract thing, I typically do not have a contractor fly live legs but give him the empties. If he is a regular we alternate. The policy stated above is the IS-BAO policy and many flight department use this.

 

[Say Again Over]

I don't care how much time or experience you have, the best way to learn an airplane in corporate or fractional flying is to fly it from the left seat on empty legs. Sure, you could jump in cold and get it from A to B safely with pax in back, but could you really FLY IT efficiently and smoothly?

Yes, it's called proper training and IOE in the world that I work in, let's face it, we live in two different worlds, a little bump on a landing in the commercial airline world is tolerated, in the world of the Bill Gates and other VIPs maybe not, some corporate operations are very anal, some by design of the flight department manager, some by the owner. I think as experienced pilots we can all agree that, there is no one way of doing things. I used to do some part time RHS work on a CJ2 and couldn't fly unless the leg was empty, this was understandable.

 

[Americam]

If they do not let you fly as a co-pilot, How will you ever learn how to be a Captain?

Being a captain has nothing to do with stick and rudder skills... being a captain is all about decision making skills. We all know the most senior captains bounce 'em on every once-in-a-while. As an FO, whether you're on the controls or not, as long as you’re part of the decision making process, you’re gaining the most important experience. If you feel like you're being left out of the decision making process, be assertive and make yourself part of it. The captain, if he's worth flying with and knows anything about CRM, will recognize your efforts, and reward you will a little more responsibility.