One more time, there is no gray area. If you are caught, you can be violated. Your certificate can be suspended for 90+ days, depending on how many different occurrences they charge you with. If you fight it, you will lose. Don't believe me? Ask an aviation attorney.

WMU, not even sure why you are all fired up about this. Based on your past posts it seems like you abide by, or at least understand, the reg. You sound young. You'll learn how to stand up for yourself. Bustinmins had some good advice back on page two or three.

 

Here's an idea. Every time we run into one of these small time, pilot-pushing, low-ball operators, snitch 'em out. If you work for one of them, report your competitors. Your boss (and others who follow the law) should love that, and eventually his company will get reported by someone else. Anonymous reports of FAR violations can be reported to:

 

Here's an Idea " let's not and say we did "

 

SR22 makes a valid point that if you are doing this and your competitor is not they have strong incentive to turn you in. These would be the first guys to turn in someone else in for operating a 134 and a half operation. Besides they seem to think it is legal. I do not know which is worse; a professional pilot knowing its illegal and doing it anyway or a professional pilot not knowing its illegal

I would be interested to find out if/when any pilots have been violated for this. If they haven't yet, I have a feeling some will be with the FAA being pushed to take a look a hard look at fatigue by the NTSB. Has anyone watched how ugly the hearings are getting?

I do have a major problem with one pilot pushing another pilot into illegal operations by threatening their employment. That has got to be one of the most unethical things I have ever heard of in aviation. How would you like it if your boss told you to break the law and risk ruining your career or be fired. Pretty much the same thing isn't it.

I would also recommend that any pilot being pushed like this to consider the new pilot records reporting rules. It is alot easier to find a new job than it is to find a new career. Checkride failures are now a major issue for hiring due to the increase in oversight requirements (extra line checks etc.....) Imagine the backlash from a willful FAR violation on your record.

If you are actually fired for this, I would contact a lawyer and go sit at the beach while they pay you your salary for nothing.

 

A lawyer isn't a free thing. It takes money to hire them and have them review your case. It's hard to pay when you don't have a job.

Somewhere out there is an FAA interpretation that says a 135 pilot can have telephonic conversations with their employer during the rest period without it resetting the rest period clock. Supposedly, as long as the operator is not assigning work for within the rest period, but after it, one is fine. If anyone gets their hands on this source, I'd appreciate it.

 

It's simple, I don't work for companies that expect their flight crews to blatantly violate regulations. Thus, I wouldn't want the job.

...and before you ask, yes. I have walked out of interviews when it was discovered that they expect pilots to be "on call" with only X "hard" days off per month. It's not about getting my certificate revoked or being fired for saying "no". It's about being fatigued, running into a mountain and not going home to my wife after the duty period.

I just did a quick search and can't find it either, but it's out there. Someone with more time will have to do the digging. It's there, though. I've seen it.

BTW - Congrats! A birdie told me you got a new gig and a medical! WOOT!

-mini

 

In one of the many legal interpretations that I have read on this lately.

It says " the Employee must not be required to answer the phone, during the rest period, but that the employee may willingly answer the phone without resetting the rest clock"

In one interpretation they said if you're on reserve for 7 days, and don't fly it's considered rest, but if you were called any of the 7 days it's not rest so I dunno

The " on call thing " is the industry standard for 135 operators, I cannot imagine a whole country of 135 operators violating a reg and getting away with it, I personally have never heard of anyone getting violated for rest time regulations.

I would imagine that most FSDO's turn a blind eye to the practice because the cost of the extra pilots to cover the gap would cripple or kill most small 135 operators and realistically almost any flight could be canceled because of schedule conflicts if someone were to start arguing about duty time and being on call.

As far as snitching people off for your interpretations of the regulations, you might wanna be real careful, for you might find yourself in a civil court defending yourself for defamation.
Just ask the flight attendant's who decided they knew better than the pilots of a US Air flight about deicing the airplane and decided to call the FAA on them.

 

Which interpretation? I'd really like to read that because it's exactly the opposite of the interpretations they've written saying rest has to be known in advance. For now, I'm going to raise the shenanigans flag to this one.

hahahahahahahahaha

Consider yourself lucky. I know of at least one operator that had the POI come in and audit the records and say "well that's funny...when was the rest period?" and violated the pilot and slapped the company on the wrist.

That makes it okay. It's okay to operate illegally if the extra cost associated with safe and legal operations would cause a company to go under. It's called "the cost of doing business". If you can't afford to operate safe and legally, you should be out of business...especially this business.

I'll stop you right there because it isn't SR22's interpretations. It's the FAA's and they're pretty darn clear on it. The nice thing is that your FSDO doesn't have the power to legally interpret regulations, so the excuse of "well our FSDO said" holds no weight nor is it relevant. The FAA has spoken on this and their word is final. If you choose not to follow rest regulations, I can't stop you...I'm just another pilot. Just do me a favor and don't ball one up because you were up all day and got a call at 10 at night to go cover a trip when you were winding down for bed.

Why do companies get away with it? Because pilots like some of the folks posting in this thread are willing to put up with it so they can have a job. They're also the same ones that complain about training contracts, low pay and FOs paying for their seat (generally). Typically, they do just as much damage by putting up with "on call" and not saying anything.

-mini

 

here are some definition's for you out of the FAR's

Duty period means the period of elapsed time between reporting for an assignment involving flight time and release from that assignment by the certificate holder. The time is calculated using either Coordinated Universal Time or local time to reflect the total elapsed time.

If someone has not been called then they are not on duty,

but hmm then there is this nugget

Rest period means the period free of all responsibility for work or duty should the occasion arise.

wow looks like a contradiction to me

 

Why?

Just because you're not on duty, that doesn't mean you are at rest. The opposite is also true. Just because you're not at rest, that doesn't mean you are on duty.

Travel not local in nature is one where you're neither on duty nor at rest. Same with "on call". You're neither on duty nor at rest.

There's no contradiction. Just a flaw in the way you want to interpret them.

Remember that for 135, the FAA cares only about rest. "Have you had your required rest?" Not "have you been off duty long enough?".

-mini