Pilot Check: Considerations for Transport Inspectors

MAGAZINE

Current Issue

Past Issues

MARKETPLACE

COMMUNITY

RESOURCES

Pilot Check: Considerations for Transport Inspectors

Do we pilots need proficiency checks? Apparently not. Transport Canada has decided to cancel the requirement for yearly proficiency checks conducted by its inspectors. Beginning January 2007 only qualified company personnel will conduct these evaluations on their fellow employees. Do we pilots need proficiency checks? Apparently not. Transport Canada has decided to cancel the requirement for yearly proficiency checks conducted by its inspectors. Beginning January 2007 only qualified company personnel will conduct these evaluations on their fellow employees. This sounds like great news to many of us professional pilots who had to regularly submit to outside audits of our knowledge and flight abilities. Helicopter company management across Canada will likely be delighted they don’t have to incur costs associated with this process nor will they have to go through the scheduling hassles to obtain the services of these TC representatives – sometimes in very remote areas.

Any pilot who has submitted himself or herself to a PPC with Transport Canada may remember trepidation associated with their upcoming flight check. Still others may have despised the ground portion with the oblique questions that were conducting safe flights. A decade ago, I took a break from international fire suppression training to fly with a Canadian operator. I had none of the abovementioned fears until a TC inspector with an axe to grind grilled me for a lengthy time on information from the VFR Supplement, AIP and remote information sources. I was very humbled that I apparently didn’t know as much as I thought about helicopter flying after all. Apparently, I had been extremely lucky to have stumbled through 33 years of accident-free, highly-paid aviation with such a huge lack of knowledge.

Nonetheless, the unexpected nightmare continued when we approached the helicopter for the walkaround. The inspector, who was a relatively high-time Huey pilot, began asking me technical questions about the bird that an AME would have been challenged to answer. I guess he was trying to impress me with his knowledge questions were unimportant in terms of conducting a flight from a pilot’s perspective. By the time I had completed my pre-flight inspection, the inspector was so unfavourably impressed by my knowledge that he suggested there was no sense in going flying if my aviating skills were as pathetic as my knowledge. I was emotionally decimated.

The flying portion of the check ride did in fact show that I could fly a helicopter – very well, as a matter of fact. At one point the inspector asked if he could take the controls and hover for a moment as he didn’t get much flying time at Transport Canada. That became obvious. I was prudent enough not to offer constructive criticism to overcome his handling. Needless to say, this shaken aviator/writer passed the check and went on to save dozens of lives that year in a fiery inferno and win the Transport Canada Aviation Safety Award from those happened to those lives had that TC representative grounded me from commercial operations that year? Incidentally, I see no reason to name that TC inspector as he has left its employ – for whatever reason. Another TC inspector who flew with me subsequently crashed with a another pilot on a flight test and had to retire from flying ops. This is another reason operators resent TC inspectors flying in their machines as it increases the accident rate and often enough causes the helicopter company to end up having to pay their insurance deductible.

Suffice to say, the PPC experience left me perplexed about TC’s goals with that program and its worth. How can someone with time logged on 60 helicopter types, test piloting background and over 10,000 flying hours at top industry pay and a wall full of safety awards come close to failing a PPC over inconsequential questions? The PPC program was established presumably to enhance safety by allowing TC to monitor pilot procedures and skills. However, it evolved as a political program to promote TC’s latest buzzwords and current ‘hot topics’. In effect it was at times an attempt to ‘educate’ pilots or perhaps indoctrinate them to TC’s perspective. The industry hated the PPC headaches and apparently TC has found no beneficial reason to continue the program.

Now, I’d like to play devil’s advocate. I recently flew a PPC with a TC inspector that flipped my decade-old opinion upside down. I don’t mean we accomplished aerobatics but rather I met an honest, modest, government representative who accomplished the task and did so in an exemplary manner. He arrived on time at the company office, well dressed and immediately put me at ease talking about our industry. Once again, I didn’t get all of the verbal questions correct during our pre-flight classroom session. But those I missed resulted in the inspector verbally leading me to an understanding of the principles he was seeking in the testing. This expanded my knowledge on the helicopter type that I hadn’t worked in many years and his guidance in the performance data section of the flight manual enhanced my understanding and thus safety.

Similarly, the pre-flight inspection went well and without criticism – however, I did take the opportunity to ask him a couple of questions on the type and obtain his opinions on several matters. He provided an opportunity to amplify my understanding of the helicopter and I appreciated that input because the helicopter company’s senior pilots were off on operations. I also enjoyed his reviewing my flying procedures and while he had no negative observations it was gratifying to have another high-time pilot confirm my actions and to know that TC hadn’t changed the principles of rotary-wing aerodynamics while I was on overseas operations.

Some Other Opinions

I have spoken informally with TC’s training expert, Jim Dow, on a number of occasions with respect to written pilot exams. Many of us have complained about the complexity and questions on the current exams and I frequently quip that I likely couldn’t pass the private pilot’s exam nowadays. Although my tongue is resting firmly in my cheek, it has become obvious to many of us that some of TC’s training goals are not adequately preparing candidates for real-life conditions.

As a graduate of the highly praised School of Instruction Technique, my recollection is that exams should be designed to test the student’s knowledge of the course material – not to be an investigation into the prospect’s knowledge of English, oblique questions or answers of varying ‘correctness.’ Dow has taken these criticisms very well and accepts them at face value. He responded by saying he would gladly change the exams to be more representative of the knowledge needed in the real world – an area TC doesn’t fly in (more on this below). He claimed he would welcome a get-together with industry to provide more realistic questions and tests. How about it, guys and girls – would you like to invest a little time and money to improve your students’ knowledge and safety and provide TC with some guidance?

Us and Them

While talking about real-world flying I would like see TC inspectors freelancing during their holidays by flying with helicopter companies or even filling a slot as a safety officer! In the past, TC set a policy that forbids working in the industry as the organization belives that this would constitute a conflict of interest. For whom? The industry would/should welcome TC inspectors flying within our ranks. Who better to know the current ‘thinking’ behind TC policies? Who better to incorporate the safe practices that TC preaches to operators? What better opportunity would exist for inspectors to hone their skills, enhance flight test skills and see current conditions in the professional field of corporate or charter flying? In my military times, I can recall numerous pilots who invested their holidays commercially with summer contracts. We did not consider that a conflict of interest. They came back refreshed with sharply enhanced flying skills and the knowledge they gained was circulated among their peers. Moreover, the companies benefited from well-trained pilots with safety-oriented goals.

While some commercial aviators might not like to see TC inspectors in our midst, they would likely be the operators who may be leaning heavily against the regulations or flying inappropriately. (Reckon there could be anyone like that out there?) Besides, most inspectors would relish the opportunity to get away from Big Brother and rejoin their industry for a brief respite, and the last thing on their mind would be auditing the industry for TC during these outings.

Furthermore, with respect to safety, inspectors and taxpayers could greatly benefit from inspector participation in the civilian helicopter industry. Real flying operations would hone the inspectors’ skills and remind them of our challenges and the difficulties we face. I don’t see TC in an us-and-them scenario, I simply see them as brothers in aviation and feel we should all be working in the same direction.