Pilots may soon get to pilot different aircraft on the same day

Bangalore: In a move to address pilot shortages, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has decided to introduce ‘multiple pilot licence’ to enable a pilot to fly different variants of a same family of aircraft in a same day. FE had first reported the introduction of such a multiple pilot licence in January. This licence, however, will at present be limited to the A-320 family.
Earlier, due to safety considerations pilots of scheduled operators were not allowed to operate two different kinds of aircraft on the same day. But, recently, as some scheduled operators in the country, like Indian Airlines and Kingfisher Airlines, have inducted different variants of the same family of Airbus 320 family of aircraft, airlines had forwarded a request to the regulatory authority’s office for permitting their pilots to have type endorsements on their licenses to operate the aircrafts falling under the same family.
The matter was referred to Airbus Industries and also to the regulatory authority of the European nations. After taking into consideration the experience of the different operators, DGCA has decided that, ‘pilots who are type rated to fly A 320 variants (A 318, A 319, A 319 CJ, A 320 and A 321) endorsed on their licence shall be allowed to fly the variants on same day/ duty cycle.’
DGCA, however, has placed certain restrictions, which include, a minimum experience on A 320 family of not less than 300 hours and not less than 50 hours on each variant of A-320 family as Captain or First Officer. When flying a second variant for the first time, the pilot will have to undergo a route check and pilots will not be allowed to fly more than two variants on the same day, are the two other requirements.
08/02/07 Atreyee Dev Roy/Financial Express

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Categories: General Aviation feb 2007, safety feb 2007