Visiting Embraer Legacy 450

Had a nice little visit from an Embraer Legacy 450 demonstrator at work today. It was heading back to London on the way back from EBACE in Geneva. 

Embraer Legacy 450 - Demonstrator aircraft from Embraer

An awesome looking thing, inside and out, much bigger than other aircraft in its category such as the Hawker 800/900XP! The only thing that I noticed that I didn't think was very good was the lack of a wet galley, and as such you wouldn't be able to effectively prepare or heat hot catering... It can be added as an optional extra, but you end up losing a seat, so not ideal when trying to compete with the rest of the market. But it cruises faster than anything else in class and has excellent range!

Oh and the flight deck looks awesome! :)

It's safe to say, I want one!

(NB. Naturally I have blanked the registration for privacy reasons...)

Crew Resource Management (CRM) Course

So on Monday I went on a pilot Crew Resource Management (CRM) course, at the request of my manager. I was expecting to go into the course and was bored out of my mind. However, it was a remarkably interesting and I was able to take away A LOT of good information which we can apply in the operations department.

I had been on a team resource management course about 5 months ago, as have all of the staff at my company, but it was nowhere near as interesting or useful for the staff.

One of the most interesting parts of the course was about the effect of sleep and how it affects the ability to think, the ability to fly, and how it refreshes you. For example, for in-flight rest, 20-minute segments of sleep are recommended as these are the most mentally refreshing and resting parts of sleep (hence a 20-minute power nap) and problems with flying straight after sleeping in different phases.

We also covered AAIB (UK's Air Accident Investigation Branch) reports on various incidents in the last 5 years, looking at how poor CRM contributed to those incidents.

Overall I found the course really interesting, and found that a lot of the information on the course could also be brought back to the office, as well as used in the air... I would recommend anyone who works in any aspect of aviation try and get themselves on one of these courses, you'd be surprised what you can learn!

Failure to check NOTAMs

Another thing that really annoys me, its when one of my ops guys fails to read the NOTAMs for a departure, destination or diversion airfield. 9 out of 10 times this doesn't affect the flights for the day, however, I walked into the office this morning to a commercial headache.

We had a paying client who had booked a flight from Cherbourg to London at 1000 UTC, he had arrived at the FBO expecting to be able to walk straight onto the aircraft. When he and the crew went to board the aircraft, they were told by the handling agents that they would not be able to fly until 1100 UTC due to runway closure. It then transpired that the runway closure had been posted in the Airfield's NOTAMs 5 days before.

So then we had to talk to the client's broker to explain that we had missed a NOTAM during the planning process, and his client would be delayed by at least 1 hour. Understandably, both the broker and client were very unhappy and expected a partial refund. 

The reason for the runway closure? BBC Top Gear had booked the airport to film some footage for the new series.

This goes to show how closely you need to pay attention to the little details when planning or booking a flight for a paying customer, especially posted airport or airspace notices and NOTAMs. Like I mentioned earlier, you can get away with not paying attention to these 9 out of 10 times, but when you get caught out that one time, it causes a major financial and operational pain in the arse...

Flight Time Limitations (Standard 2-Crew Operations)

Flight Time Limitations (FTLs) are a major part of the initial planning process at any commercial airline (whether type-A or type-B). FTLs were introduced as a safety regulation by the CAA in CAP371 to reduce the risk of an accident through flight crew fatigue on long days or when working several consecutive days. 

These regulations, found in the CAP371 or in section 7 of an airline's Operations Manual Part A, limit the number of hours a pilot can work in a day depending on the time of duty start, the number of sectors being flown and preceding rest. Pilots are also limited to the number of days they can work consecutively without taking a rest day within a certain period.

FLYING DAYS:
The big restriction for crewing or operations departments when trying to plan ahead and ensure crew members are available for flights is days off or rest days. A "Day Off" consists of a 24hour period preceded and followed by a local night (8 hours between 2200L and 0600L). Having a day off or multiple days off resets the 'timer' for how long the crew member can work, and the restrictions are as follows: 1 day off within 7 days and 2 consecutive days off within 14 days. So to get the most out of your flight crew, they need to have 3 days off, two of which are consecutive, within a fortnight.

FLYING HOURS:
For most European operators working within the EU, the operations or crewing departments can rely on the table below for calculating the maximum crew duty periods. This is the easiest way to interpret the limitations, all you have to do is look at the time the crew have to report, and then the number of sectors they are planned to fly in the duty day. 

2 Crew Acclimatised Maximum FDP

So for instance, a flight crew reports at 0845 local time, and have to perform 4 sectors throughout the day. This means the maximum time they are allowed to be at the controls of an aircraft is 11 and a quarter hours. This table is only to be used by crew members who are "Acclimatised" to the local time zone. The local time zone, can be within 2 hours of the previous time zone the crew were acclimatised to. So for instance, a London-based crew will always be acclimatised when they are in Paris or Berlin. However, if a crew member is outside of the two-hour difference in time, the member will be unacclimatised. This further restricts the amount of flying a pilot can do, which will be covered somewhere below. For a pilot to become re-acclimatised, they must spend 3 uninterrupted local nights in the time zone.


There are sometimes situations when a there is a two sector flight with a large gap in between the two sectors, sometimes the gap causes the duty day to be longer than what is allowed. This can be rectified through the use of a Split Duty Period.

Extension of FDP through use of a Split

This is where you take the crew off-duty in between the two or more sectors of flying, and when the time off duty exceeds three hours, half of the off-duty time can be added to the Maximum FDP. So for example, on a two sector day starting at 0615LT, the maximum allowed FDP is 12 hours and 15 minutes, but if between the 2 sectors there is a 4and a half hour 'split' the maximum allowed FDP will be 14 hours and 30 minutes. The off-duty period can be a maximum of 10 hours and a minimum of 3 hours, as per the table.


When a crew member is unacclimatised to a time zone, and is required to perform flights within the acclimatisation period, the maximum flight duty period is even further reduced. The table below shows the maximum hours a pilot can operate when unacclimatised.

2 Crew Unacclimatised Maximum FDP

As the table shows, the pilots can be on duty for a certain number of hours depending on the number of sectors to be flown (as per the above), but also depending on the rest they have had when they left their previous time zone.
So for a crew that has had 9 hours of rest, and scheduled to fly 3 sectors, they are permitted to be at the controls of an aircraft for 11 and a half hours. 

The reason for the reduction of allowed FDP between 18 and 30 hours rest is due to "Jet-Lag" typically being worse in that period of rest. So as an operator, if there is the potential for a trip whilst down route and outside of our time zone, we try to plan the crew to have up to 9 hours or over 30 hours rest, to maximise the duty they are allowed.



So that is a brief entry level look at Flight Time Limitations and Flight Duty Periods, and how an operations or crewing department of an airline has to plan their crews' days off and rest periods between flying duties. Most major airlines have whole departments which just look after this aspect of trip planning, however for smaller airlines like mine it is just another part of the daily flight planning job!

The German MOT Headache

So, one of the most annoying tasks we have to face when flying to Germany is paperwork, compared to other European (even some Asian countries) there is just so much we have to do. 


And the most annoying bit of paperwork I have to encounter is the MOT (Mineral Oil Tax) Exemption Certificate. This is used to show that the airline is operating from a foreign country, and is exempt from any taxes the German government puts on aviation fuels. Most countries accept a copy of your Air Operator Certificate (AOC) and your Operation Specification certificate to show that the aircraft you are wanting to fuel is a fully commercial aircraft. In Germany however, this isn't enough, so you are required to complete a separate form bespoke to every single flight we perform in Germany.

Example of German MOT Exemption Certificate

Not only is it not an automated system, but it also required pre-approval from a German Customs Officer before fuelling can commence. So you have waited half an hour for your fuel releases to come back from your designated supplier, and then you have to wait from anywhere between 30 minutes and 3 hours for an approved and signed copy of the MOT exemption certificate to come back! 


This usually isn't too much of a headache when you are operating to a major airport such as Cologne, Berlin or Hamburg. However, when operating to somewhere small like Lübeck or Augsburg, there isn't a 24hour customs service (sometimes no customs at all!). This is where the headache begins... In these circumstances, we need to send the AOC, Operations Specification, MOT forms, proof of flight and proof of departure from Germany to a customs office at the nearest international airport. This is usually followed with a phone call to explain the purpose of flight, and why you are sending the paperwork to a Customs officer in Hamburg when the flight is operating from Lübeck blah blah blah blah blah... There is no end to what they ask you! The longest we have had to wait for this is around 6 hours, by the time the paperwork had been returned, we had accepted to pay tax and already flown back to the UK.


So, when people say "What is one of the most annoying things about flying in Europe?", I will often reply with this, or dealing with commercial pilots ;)

An Introduction

Hello!

My name is Alex. I am an Operations Controller and Aviation Security Manager for a Commercial Business Jet Operator/Airline in the UK. 

I have thought about doing this for a while now, not only to document the daily occurrences within my Job and my Industry, but to also share a little of the knowledge that I have learnt in the two years I have been doing this. 

I'm not sure this is going to get very far, I'm not even sure very many people are even remotely interested enough to bother reading this, but I thought I should at least give this a go.

So here is my blog, the life of an Operations Controller.

AW