TAILWIND Keeping pilots current during a pandemic O Your voice, your nextGen ver the past 18 months, there has been a severe reduction in flying operations for airlines all over the world, not least for our UK-based carriers. By Senior First The majority of commercial pilots in the UK have Officer Dale Mudie, fallen into one of four categories: furloughed; forced Chairman, part-time working; minimal flying; or, unfortunately, BALPA nextGen redundant. For those of us who have been lucky enough to keep our much-loved jobs, the extra time hasnt all been spent doing DIY and learning to play guitar. Although thousands of pilots have been furloughed, most airlines have done their level best to keep their pilots current, ready for the return of flying operations. Remaining current in a legal sense means completing three take-offs and three landings in any 90-day period. When there are no or a severe lack of revenue-generating flying sectors, there are a number of ways in which airlines can keep their pilots current. The first and most widely used method is with simulators. This normally involves a constituted crew (a captain and first officer, or two captains), under the supervision of a training pilot, each completing the required takeoffs and landings in the simulator. As simulators are usually booked in fourhour slots, there is extra time to practise other manoeuvres or to refresh pilots minds with the normal operating procedures. The cost of purchasing, running and maintaining simulators Most airlines have done means that airlines generally dont have their own. Instead, their level best to keep they block-book time in simulators owned, run and maintained their pilots current, by aircraft manufacturers or flight-training organisations. ready for the return of The second method of keeping pilots current is by using flying operations non-revenue sectors (non-revs). These are flights operated by the company with no paying passengers or cargo on board, and can range from a quick 15-minute circuit to a flight from Inverness to Exeter. If a pilot gets the chance to operate a number of nonrevs or can combine these with simulator sessions they are able to log the required take-offs and landings to remain current. Non-revs have an added, lesser-known, benefit to airlines. Commercial aircraft are not built to sit on the ground for long periods of time. If they are forced to, they can quickly fall out of the terms of their certificate of airworthiness, and airlines then have to spend huge amounts of time, effort and money getting those aircraft back to an airworthy state. This can be avoided by flying the aircraft once every 30 days even just for 15 minutes. It sounds counterintuitive, given how much it costs to put an aircraft in the sky, but such is the expense of simulator time and maintenance that it is often the most cost-effective option.