Mooose

Yup, another question about converting military time. But this is a unique one, I promise.

We know you qualify for an R-ATP at 750 hours if you went through a military flight program. However, 100 hours of this total can be in a simulator, per 61.159:

"Not more than 100 hours of the total aeronautical experience requirements of paragraph (a) of this section or § 61.160 may be obtained in a full flight simulator or flight training device provided the device represents an airplane and the aeronautical experience was accomplished as part of an approved training course in parts 121, 135, 141, or 142 of this chapter. "

It's important to note that the military simulators do not count towards this, but simulators from FSI and CAE do. So, as a military aviator, you can technically qualify for an R-ATP at 650 flight hours, right?

But wait, we can go even lower. Many employers allow for a conversion adjustment of military time to civilian. Some allow for 0.3, 0.2, or 0.1 per sortie, and others multiply your military time by 1.3.

So here's my question: If you're below the 750 hour requirement (650 flight + 100 sim hours), can you still get an R-ATP on your own? Or can you only do it through companies that convert your time a certain way? For example, if I add 0.3 for every military sortie or multiply my military flight time by 1.3, I'm able to reach the 750 requirement. However if I only add 0.2 or 0.1 for every military sortie, I don't meet the 750 number. If I were to pursue my R-ATP on my own dime, would the examiner reviewing my hours be okay with converting my military time a certain way?

rickair7777

The answer is: Neither

The 1.3 or whatever conversion is a convention used by *some* private employers to get an apples-to-apples quantitative comparison between mil experience and civilian industry norms.

The hard deck for employers however is that they can't hire you if you don't meet the FAA mins for at least an R-ATP.

There is absolutely no regulatory provision to grant mil aviators an extra 30% on top of their logged mil flight time for any FAA purpose.

Attempting to do so for purposes of aeronautical experience for a cert or rating would be logbook fraud. The universal penalty for that is revocation of all airman certs. This is not a "run it up the flagpole" or "better to beg forgiveness" kind of situation.

Mooose

Right, but as I said initially, 100 of these hours can come from a sim, and various companies do allow for the conversion. So you absolutely can get hired with less than 750 military logged flight hours.

You're right there is no regulation from the FAA about the conversion, but the conversion still exists. I have military friends that have taken advantage of the conversions by United and other companies to reach minimums, which basically means the company is willing to vouch that you actually have the minimum hours. The FAA apparently has no problem with this. But this leaves a regulatory gap. Why is someone below mins allowed to convert their military times via an employer for an FAA certification, but someone who tries to without the backing of an employer unable to?

I have no intention of converting the time myself and plan on logging only what my military docs say, but I am planning on calling the local FSDO come monday.

rickair7777

Maybe someone else can weigh in on this, but what you're saying makes no sense. I've been doing this for 20+ years, multiple airlines, types, and instructor ratings. And I've never heard of this?

In the past the competitive mins were so high that there was never an issue with actually meeting regulatory mins for an ATP, in fact you had to have an unrestricted ATP in hand to even apply.

The FAA already grants extra credit for mil aviators: the 750 hour requirement is the lowest time anyone can have and still get an R-ATP.

Here are UAL's published mins, right off their website this morning:
Flight time:

• Require a minimum of 1,500 hours of total time
• Prefer 1,000 hours of fixed wing turbine time
• Prefer a minimum of 100 hours of flight time within the last 12 months

You may be misunderstanding what's happening. It's possible that UAL for example is hiring mil folks with less than 1500 hours logged hours, by giving them a mil conversion credit to meet UAL's published mins.

THEN they can credit some sim time towards the 1500 hours to get them over the hard regulatory line for an unrestricted ATP.

ALSO possible that they hire them based on mil conversion to get to 1500, and then if they don't get to 1500 actual hours in the sim, just give them a *restricted* ATP, which only requires 750 logged hours for mil. Then after they do some line flying they can convert the R-ATP to a full ATP via paperwork drill.

I would simply contact a recruiter at one or more majors and seek clarification.

I would NOT bother asking a FSDO because ...
1) They are often local yokel characters who don't understand all the nuances of the regs. FSDO's don't do airlines, there are separate CMO's for airlines.
2) More importantly anything they tell you is NOT binding on the FAA. If they are wrong and you hang your hat on it, it's YOUR problem.

What you can also do is write a letter to the FAA legal office and ask for clarification. They actually respond to those, reasonably quickly, and the responses are in a public database and often serve as "case law" for future precedent. I would ask two separate questions:
a) Can logged mil time be "pumped up" with a mil conversion factor by an airline and CMO for purposes of meeting aeronautical experience requirements for an ATP?
b) Can an individual do the same?

I'm pretty sure the answer is no to both, for two reasons:

1. I'm pretty familiar with the regs, including all things military. There's nothing that says you can do that. Flight time (actually "Pilot Time") is clearly defined in part 61.
2. Different airlines use different conversion factors. Why would the FAA allow variable standards across the industry? They wouldn't.

Mooose

United's Military Pilot Program page has more information. Here, in the FAQ, they state:

"Certificates and Ratings: Does United use a conversion factor for military flying hours?
Yes, United converts military hours to the equivalent number of hours in our FAA Part 121
operation. This conversion happens in our system and is visible to our pilot-hiring staff. Enter
military flight hours as they appear in your logbook / flying records."

https://careers.united.com/us/en/uni...-pilot-program

https://cdn.phenompeople.com/CareerC...5909784405.pdf

So, they do their own conversions behind the scenes to calculate your hours. But whether that's 0.1, 0.2, 0.3 per sortie, or 1.3 of military flight time is less clear. Regardless of the method used, airlines clearly convert military time to civilian time that helps transitioning military pilots reach the required minimums.


Will be interested to see if anyone else can contribute. I'll report back with what the FSDO says, as well as any recruiters I can get a hold of.

rickair7777

"Required minimums" almost certainly refers to airline hiring policy. I'm about 95% sure that does not and cannot extend to FAA aeronautical experience requirements.

Since UAL "wants" 1500 hours, they can still hire folks with less actual logged time and either get them to 1500 in the sim, or just give them an R-ATP with less than 1500 actual based on 750 mil. I don't think they can, or would, hire a sub-750 hour mil pilot. Especially if they cannot get you to 750 in the sim (within the normal training footprint, sim is $$$ I doubt they would let you just build time that way beyond what's normally allocated for the program).

Mooose

This makes sense. Although I do know people whose conversion allowed them to get an unrestricted ATP rather than their restricted, even though they were under the 1500 total.

Interesting discussion all around. Will report back if/when I find out more.

Otterbox

There are very specific ways those 750hrs need to be broken down to qualify for the R-ATP. I regularly encounter people who have the TT but are still short in various categories. Your sim time only counts as part of an approved training course… not sure those two categories are related (sim training and R-ATP mins… once again R-ATP mins are clearly broken down by category). There’s no .any conversions for the FAA minimums. People have asked and have been told no. The only way you could possibly do that is if you kept your own logbook in parallel to your .mil flight records since mil only allows takeoff to land time +5 min vs engine start to shutdown.

rickair7777

Maybe involving sim time. But I'm sure no major airline would do that with some arbitrary in-house conversion, they would know better.

rickair7777

I would agree that if you kept your own book and logged mil time per FAA standards, that would *probably* be just fine.

I'm not sure if it would be a good idea to go back and "reconstruct" such a logbook years later since that would obviously involve some "estimates", as opposed to logging the actual time the day it happened.