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berniemac

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Hi everyone. I'm new to the forum and based in the UK.

Do you or your companies include your logged recreational flight hours with your commercial flight hours and treat them as one total or are they treated as two separate records?

I ask this question as the company I work for have said that recreational flight hours will not be included in the flight hours used to determine professional experience. Surely flight experience regardless of where you do should count?

Part of me thinks that a manned aircraft pilots flight hours and experience all count regardless of aircraft type, recreation or commercial. I just cannot seem to find any regulation regarding this to challenge this new policy.

Cheers.
 
First WELCOME to the forum :)

We do "consider" recreational flight hours for some portions of our requirements (Where you begin in the program as far as flight instruction and testing) but most of our requirements are type of aircraft and payload specific. Plus most of our operators don't even log "Recreational" hours unlike Manned Pilots where we log everything.
 
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Hi everyone. I'm new to the forum and based in the UK.

Do you or your companies include your logged recreational flight hours with your commercial flight hours and treat them as one total or are they treated as two separate records?

I ask this question as the company I work for have said that recreational flight hours will not be included in the flight hours used to determine professional experience. Surely flight experience regardless of where you do should count?

Part of me thinks that a manned aircraft pilots flight hours and experience all count regardless of aircraft type, recreation or commercial. I just cannot seem to find any regulation regarding this to challenge this new policy.

Cheers.
The company you work for are totally wrong.

The CAA requirement is based on cumulative hours and they have no stipulation on how these flight hours are logged.
In order to renew a PfCO you must demonstrate a logged flight hour total of 2 hours within the preceding 3 months/90 days.
Your log should be continuous and have no gaps, so your cumulative hours will be made up of both, business and recreational flying - the total hours is just that ....the total hours you have clocked up flying. This could be maintenance flights, test flight, flights for your own amusement or business related flights. It makes no difference.

They do not care how these are aquired, only that they are. Imagine as a PfCO holder you had absolutely no work in the 90 days before your renewal - this would mean you could not submit an application for the next year. You can simply go out and fly 2 hours recreationally and log it as such and that is fine

Whoever told you that is not acceptable is totally clueless
 
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The company you work for are totally wrong.

The CAA requirement is based on cumulative hours and they have no stipulation on how these flight hours are logged.
In order to renew a PfCO you must demonstrate a logged flight hour total of 2 hours within the precessing 2 months/60 days.

When did it change from 2 hours in 3 months which in the majority of OMs? Even my very recently renewed OSC only needs 2 hours in 3 months and that lets me operate down to 5m and fly up to 750ft!
 
When did it change from 2 hours in 3 months which in the majority of OMs? Even my very recently renewed OSC only needs 2 hours in 3 months and that lets me operate down to 5m and fly up to 750ft!
Doh - brain fart time.
You're correct. 3 months/90 days

Post ammended. ?

Have to confess, my flight time is always well over that every month so it's ages since I even checked that in my OM. No excuse though. ?‍♂️
 
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Doh - brain fart time.
You're correct. 3 months/90 days

Post ammended. ?

Have to confess, my flight time is always well over that every month so it's ages since I even checked that in my OM. No excuse though. ?‍♂️
The interesting point is: where did the 2 hours in 3 months come from? It’s definitely not in 393 and there’s no mention in CAA guidance from 722/A...so what is the basis for it? If it considered appropriate for an OSC like mine then why does it need to be the same for somebody flying at 30/50m?
 
The interesting point is: where did the 2 hours in 3 months come from? It’s definitely not in 393 and there’s no mention in CAA guidance from 722/A...so what is the basis for it? If it considered appropriate for an OSC like mine then why does it need to be the same for somebody flying at 30/50m?
Under the section 'Logbook'

This has been the norm for as long as I can remember. Probably like you I held PFAW for a number of years prior to PfCO as it is now and I can remember it came up with my NQE as a requirement.

Probably just some arbitrary figure the CAA came up with before they actually thought about UAV's with any real seriousness and it has never been looked at since!
 
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