currency background

[Guest NSTR]

First time post, I searched and didn't see any other threads that were even close to this but if there were and I missed it, I apologize

I'm looking for the study, or any information on the background on why we(AF)/the FAA have currency/ recency requirements. I know what the numbers are, and know good and well why we have minimum takeoffs/landings etc. I'm looking for the document that says pilots abilities decrease by x with x amount of time out of the cockpit or something to that effect.

thx much

[WeMeantWell]

Welcome to the forums-

Don't worry, your question won't be on your checkride...

You may find a document somewhere that states, "pilots abilities decrease by x with x amount of time out of the cockpit or something to that effect". I doubt you will be able to find a logical link from scientific-based rational research to FAA or *gasp USAF regulations. If you do, I would venture to guess that the date of the document was well after the regulation was written (someone trying to justify a reason).

Many moons ago, the regulations were written by groups of pilots, based on years of experience/experimenting/accidents/deaths/etc... and then someone that controls the money to pay for currency got involved, (Enter your own humorous reasoning/rationale (or lack of) for USAF/FAA guidance). I could imagine the rational is something like this:

A new plane built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 351 knots. The pilot spins the VV knob instead of the IAS knob. The plane crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a new training currency requirement? Take the number of planes in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of another pilot screwing up, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a new training currency requirement, we don't do one.

... Of course, I think that gives too much credit, it is probably more like:

Experienced Pilot says, "Pilots need to fly x things in y days"

Leadership dude climbing the ranks with no concern for anyone else's bottom line but his own, and whoever's he needs to take care of to get further up the ranks; and who could not tell you how many engines a glider has, says, "Well, don't they have an autopilot or something?", etc, etc...

Is this research for something? Give us a little more insight and we might be able to point you in a better direction...

[Guest NSTR]

Ha ha, stellar Fight Club reference. Appreciate the welcome too, actually been reading the forums here for a couple of years, I just didn't sign up til recently.

So the reason I'm looking for this reference is for a Masters paper. The paper is essentially talking about how additional duties have pretty much become our primary duty and flying has become the additional duty. The paper talks about the AF cutting flying hours and the unique position that the AF is in where unlike the airlines, it tends to pull its most experienced pilots out of the cockpit. Essentially what I'm looking for is the documentation or study or whatever, not just for the AF but the FAA as well, where they looked at experience/experimenting/accidents/deaths/etc. and determined the minimum amount of flight hours etc that are safe to fly. I've searched quite a bit, and this has been pretty difficult to find.

Appreciate the reply

[SurelySerious]

The paper is essentially talking about how additional duties have pretty much become our primary duty and flying has become the additional duty.

I'd be interested in seeing that paper.

[Champ Kind]

I'd be interested in seeing that paper.

"2" - because it's true.

[MacGyver]

"2" - because it's true.

it would be interesting to look at the training reg for a specific platform from 30 years ago to now, to have some actual numbers to compare currency requirements to.

compare that to accident rates, airframe losses, etc.

[Guest NSTR]

Since a couple people mentioned it, I attached the paper now that I'm done with the class. I never actually found exactly what I was looking for so the paper ended up with more of a qualitative more so than quantitative touch, but I found enough "ballpark" info to write a pretty decent paper. More so than anything, I guess the paper took on a feel pretty similar to a lot of posts on here.

thx for the replies

More with less.doc

[Karl Hungus]

It seems I'm not the only one who uses the AF as a topic in most of my papers, and mostly as an example of how fucked up the organization is. Perhaps baseops.net could create a masters gouge section, where people post their papers and others can look them over and see if any previous research would be beneficial for their own assignments. This would be purely for reference use only, I'm not at all advocating that someone try to use all available shortcuts to try and ease the pain and hassle of getting a more or less worthless check-the-box masters degree. Yes, for reference use only. Cough cough.