Flight Crew Composition and Training - ATPL 070 — Operational Procedures

This lesson is a flight crew career in regulatory order: composition, conversion, command, currency, and conduct. Its home is the flight-crew subpart of Part-ORO, with the crew responsibilities of Part-CAT and ICAO Annex 6's recent experience rules closing the circle. The licences themselves belong to Air Law; what the operator must add on top of a licence is this lesson.

Who sits up front

Composition starts at the certificate: the flight crew is never less than the minimum in the aircraft flight manual, grows with additional members when the type of operation demands and never shrinks below the operations manual's own figure, and every member holds the appropriate licence and ratings. An operator engaging freelance or part-time pilots verifies compliance across everything they fly elsewhere, counting the total types operated and the flight and duty times rendered to other operators. For commercial air transport two counted rules follow: no crew contains more than one inexperienced flight crew member, the guidance treating a pilot as inexperienced after a type rating or command course until 100 hours and 10 sectors within 120 consecutive days, or 150 hours and 20 sectors without a time limit; and under IFR or at night the minimum crew is two pilots for every turbo-propeller aeroplane with more than nine seats and every turbojet, other aeroplanes needing two unless the dedicated single-pilot conditions are met. Helicopters above 19 seats always fly with two pilots, and above nine seats under IFR.

In-flight relief has its own ladder. The commander may hand the flight to another qualified commander, or, for operations above FL 200, to a pilot holding an ATPL with the operator's conversion and type rating training, all recurrent training and checking, and the route and aerodrome competence of a commander. The co-pilot may be relieved by another suitably qualified pilot, or above FL 200 by a cruise relief co-pilot holding a valid CPL with instrument rating, whose conversion omits the take-off and landing training and whose recurrent checking includes no take-offs and flies its landings at least as pilot monitoring: a pilot qualified for the cruise, and only the cruise.

Becoming the commander

One pilot in every crew is designated by the operator as pilot-in-command, in commercial transport the commander, and the designation has three preconditions: the minimum experience the operations manual specifies, adequate knowledge of the route or area and the aerodromes to be used, alternates included, and, in multi-crew operations, a completed command course when promoted from co-pilot. The command course itself is a six-part syllabus: training in an FSTD including line-oriented flight training and/or flight training, an operator proficiency check operating as commander, command responsibilities training, line flying under supervision as commander for at least 10 sectors on aeroplanes, or 10 hours including 10 sectors on helicopters, a line check as commander with a demonstration of route and aerodrome knowledge, and CRM training.

For the single-pilot commander flying commercial transport on a CPL(A), the rule sets hour gates. Carrying passengers under VFR beyond 50 NM from departure takes 500 hours on aeroplanes or a valid instrument rating, the whole condition waived for VFR-day operations of performance class B aeroplanes. Operating a multi-engine type under IFR takes 700 hours of aeroplane time including 400 as pilot-in-command, of which 100 under IFR and 40 in multi-engine operations, and single-engine IFR asks the same stack without the multi-engine leg; in both, co-pilot hours in an established multi-pilot system may substitute for the 400 at two-for-one.

The route and aerodrome knowledge behind the designation is maintained on clocks: aerodrome knowledge by operating there once within 12 calendar months, route or area knowledge by operating on it once within 36 months, with refresher training after 12 months away. The knowledge itself covers terrain and minimum safe altitudes, seasonal weather, the meteorological, communication and ATC picture, search and rescue and the navigation facilities. Aerodromes are sorted into three categories: category A needs a straight-in 3D approach of at most 3.5 degrees, a runway free of performance-limited procedures and night capability; category B, anything falling short or demanding extra thought, is opened by a recorded briefing or self-briefing; and category C, the demanding fields, add a visit as an observer and/or instruction in a suitable FSTD, all recorded.

Learning the operator's aeroplane

The operator conversion course is due in exactly two cases: changing to an aircraft needing a new type or class rating, and each time a pilot joins an operator, however familiar the type. CRM is integrated into it, its length follows the operations manual's standards against the pilot's previous training, and once begun it locks the pilot in: no flying duties on another type or class until the course is completed or terminated, softened only for performance class B fleets and single-engined helicopters. The order of events is fixed: the operator proficiency check and the emergency and safety equipment training and checking come before line flying under supervision, and the line check comes after it. Pilots rated through zero flight-time training add a sprint: line flying under supervision within 21 days of the skill test, six take-offs and landings in an FSTD within the same 21 days under a type rating instructor, and the first four take-offs and landings of line flying flown in the aeroplane under a TRI's supervision.

Below the full conversion sit two lighter treatments the exam loves to swap. Differences training demands additional knowledge and training on the aircraft or a device, and is for operating another variant of the same type or another type of the same class. Familiarisation requires only the acquisition of additional knowledge, and is for operating another aircraft of the same type. Changing equipment or procedures on types already operated triggers equipment and procedure training, and the operations manual says when each applies.

Staying sharp

The recurrent machine runs on calendar clocks, each counted from the end of the month in which the training or check was completed. The operator proficiency check, flown in the normal crew complement and without external visual reference where IFR is flown, is valid 6 calendar months, with one seasonal exception: VFR-day performance class B operations in seasons of up to 8 months need one check before the season. The line check and the emergency and safety equipment training and checking each run 12 months, the latter including every year the actual donning of a life-jacket and protective breathing equipment and the handling of the extinguisher types. Ground and flight training, in an FSTD or the aircraft, recurs at least every 12 months, CRM is woven through it all with modular sessions spread evenly over three years, and the training programmes, syllabi and devices all carry the competent authority's approval.

Underneath the operator's clocks ticks the oldest one: recent experience. Neither a commander nor a co-pilot is assigned to the controls for take-off and landing without three take-offs and landings in the preceding 90 days on the same type or in an approved simulator. The cruise relief pilot keeps a gentler version: within 90 days, either service on the type as pilot-in-command, co-pilot or cruise relief pilot, or refresher training in the cruise-specific procedures with approach and landing practice, which may be flown as the pilot not flying.

Which seat, which types

A commander whose duties include the co-pilot's seat, or training and checking from it, completes additional training and checking covering at least an engine failure during take-off, a one-engine-inoperative approach and go-around, and a one-engine-inoperative landing, valid 12 months; sitting in the co-pilot's seat never excuses the commander's-seat checks from staying current, and where the differences between the seats are not significant, the practice may be flown from either. Flying more than one type stacks the rules: every requirement of the subpart applies per type or variant unless the operational suitability data grants credits, and the operations manual's approved procedures cover minimum experience, the experience needed before starting a new type, the qualification process and the recent experience per type. The guidance then caps the load: on single-pilot aeroplanes no more than three piston types or three turboprops, or one turboprop with one piston type or a class; on multi-pilot types no more than two licence endorsements without credits, only one endorsement flown per duty period unless procedures allow preparation, three months and 150 hours on the base type before training on a new one, and 50 hours or 20 sectors flown solely on the new type after its first line check.

Mixing categories has the tightest cap of all: a pilot operating aeroplanes and helicopters together is limited to one type or class of aeroplane and one helicopter type, the helicopter side stretchable only to one approved group of single-engined VFR types. Two aircraft worlds, one of each.

The paper trail

Training only counts if it is written down, and the retention table is exam bait: licence and attestation records for as long as the crew member flies for the operator, training, checking and qualification records for 3 years, recent experience for 15 months, route and aerodrome competence for 3 years, and dangerous goods training for 3 years. The records are kept even if the operator loses the aircraft or the employee, are shown to the crew member on request, and follow the crew member to a new operator within those timescales.

Duty, authority and the flight deck door

The crew member's own duties are drawn in Part-CAT: proper execution of everything the operations manual assigns, reporting to the commander any fault, failure, malfunction or defect that might affect airworthiness or safe operation and any incident that endangered or could have endangered the flight, feeding the occurrence schemes, and complying with the flight and duty time limits the module's last lesson will count. A pilot flying for several operators keeps individual flight, duty and rest records and gives every operator the data to schedule lawfully. The unfitness list is absolute: no duties under psychoactive substances, when unfit through injury, fatigue, medication or sickness, until a reasonable time, 24 hours in the guidance, after deep-water diving or blood donation, when medical requirements are unmet, in any doubt of performing, or when fatigue is known or suspected to endanger the flight. The alcohol instructions the operator should issue are at least: none within 8 hours of reporting for duty or standby, blood alcohol no higher than the lower of the national limit or 0.2 per mille at the start of duty, and none during a flight duty period or standby.

Authority mirrors duty: the operator takes all reasonable measures to ensure every person carried obeys the commander's lawful commands for the safety of the aircraft, its people and property, the muscle behind the emergency powers the commander lesson taught. The flight deck itself is a controlled space: no one is admitted or carried there but an assigned flight crew member, unless they are an operating crew member, an authority representative on official duty, or a person permitted by and carried per the operations manual. The commander ensures admission causes no distraction, that everyone up front knows the safety procedures, and holds the final decision on the door. As for the rest of the aircraft, the earlier lessons carry the recall: the cabin-safety lesson seats, secures and briefs every passenger, and the commander may refuse the carriage of deportees, inadmissible passengers or prisoners whose presence raises the risk.

CRM at the operator

The operator's initial CRM course is completed before a pilot flies unsupervised line flying, delivered by at least one suitably qualified CRM trainer who may be assisted by experts for specific areas. A pilot who never had human-factors theory to ATPL level completes, before or combined with the course, a theoretical course built on the human performance and limitations syllabus. From there CRM never leaves: integrated into the conversion course, woven through recurrent training, and served as modular sessions covering all major topics across each three-year cycle. What those topics contain, the science of error, workload and communication, is the Human Performance course's territory.