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goodgig

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 11, 2006
Posts
264
Don't you think there should be weekly maximum duty hour limit?
Damn. It is possible to get 90 hour work weeks in with 135.265.
 
It's possible to work a lot of hours, there's no doubt. 6 days in the week at fifteen hours a day, 90 hours...but also only 34 hours of flying.

135.265 is for scheduled operations. Are you sure that's the part that applies to you?

14 CFR 119.3 defines a scheduled operation as:

Scheduled operation means any common carriage passenger-carrying operation for compensation or hire conducted by an air carrier or commercial operator for which the certificate holder or its representative offers in advance the departure location, departure time, and arrival location. It does not include any passenger-carrying operation that is conducted as a public charter operation under part 380 of this title.

With this in mind, generally scheduled operations aren't scheduled for maximum duty time. That's not to say they can't be..you could be scheduled for an hour of flight at the beginning of a maximum length duty period and one at the end...with waiting in between...but where the schedule is published in advance, and generally where the operator has prescribed start and stop times as part of that schedule in advance, going for maximum duty time isn't so much of an issue.

Where the basic unmodified minimum rest under that part is 9 hours, it exceeds the recommended average adult 8 hour rest time by one hour. While this doesn't grant a lot of free time to go hit the clubs, that's a decision one makes when one accepts the job. Remember, it's scheduled; one knows in advance. If the average adult can get by on 8 hours of rest a day, and many do less, it's hard to say on that alone the operation isn't safe, or that it requires revision.

Remember that 91.13 always applies; you're restricted from operating in an unsafe, or careless or reckless manner, and it serves as a two edged sword. It will hang you and protect you. 91.3 also applies, in your duties as pilot in command.

135.265 doesn't prescribe duty times; it prescribes everything but duty. That subpart covers rest requirements and flight time restrictions...what's left may be duty, or may simply be time other than rest (not necessarily duty)...but the subpart doesn't address duty. Just rest.

The only part of the 135 duty, rest, and flight time regulations which actully prescribe duty times are those found in 135.267...referring to a regularly scheduled duty period...and even here the key point is rest, not duty. Duty is inferred. That's a narrowly defined regulation, too; it specifically points to a crew member that has a regular duty period (eg, from XXX o'clock each day to yyy o'clock every day) on a regular basis. Most 135 operators don't fit in this category.

A regularly scheduled duty period enables more flight hours to be assigned in a rolling 24 hour period, because crews operating on a regularly scheduled duty basis--135.267(c)--do so on a callendar day...whereas unscheduled crews work on a rolling 24 hour consecutive look-back period.

It's important to note that a regularly scheduled crew has nothing to do with published flight schedules or scheduled operations...but the scheduled operations referred to under 135.265 refer specifically not to crews, the pre-published and advertised flight opeation schedules. 135.267 refers to crews not flight operations, and 135.265 refers to flight operations and not crews. The two are often confused.

Bottom line is that while the schedule can be arduous, intrinsically it's not unsafe on it's own accord. If it becomes such, then you have the requirement and the protection under the regulation prohibiting you from opeating unsafely. Barring your decision to call a safety of flight issue and refusing to operate, you have at a minimum daily protection in the required rest periods that meet or exceed those prescribed for the average adult.
 

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