Making flying less of a chore and more fun

[Holding Pattern]

Preface: I'm not a pilot. I have yet to go up in a CAP aircraft. I am, however, a squadron commander.

I'm interviewing my pilots to figure out where there are certain points of our SOPs that make flying more of a chore than they need to be.

One of the questions I have for captalk is this:

What areas of the pre-flight tasks can the ground crew assist with to make life easier on the pilots? Is there formal paperwork we can help take care of, or scheduling confirmations that we can handle for ride coordination, or other areas I don't know about where we can decrease the time suck on the pilots?

Are there any other ways we can make things easier on the ground side?

I am getting the impression that we've managed to suck some of the joy out of flying. I'm trying to see what can be done to alleviate that (without compromising safety or violating regulations of course).

[THRAWN]

Preface: I'm not a pilot. I have yet to go up in a CAP aircraft. I am, however, a squadron commander.

I'm interviewing my pilots to figure out where there are certain points of our SOPs that make flying more of a chore than they need to be.

One of the questions I have for captalk is this:

What areas of the pre-flight tasks can the ground crew assist with to make life easier on the pilots? Is there formal paperwork we can help take care of, or scheduling confirmations that we can handle for ride coordination, or other areas I don't know about where we can decrease the time suck on the pilots?

Are there any other ways we can make things easier on the ground side?

I am getting the impression that we've managed to suck some of the joy out of flying. I'm trying to see what can be done to alleviate that (without compromising safety or violating regulations of course).

There may be some that they can help with, but the FARs are pretty clear about who is ultimately responsible for making sure things are done right.

[Eclipse]

There may be some that they can help with, but the FARs are pretty clear about who is ultimately responsible for making sure things are done right.

+1.  Also, other than insuring it's comprehensive per sortie, I don't think I've ever seen CAP pilots doing much in the way
of pre-flight that any other good GA pilot would do.

The main complaint I've heard over the years if the sortie paperwork, which of course doesn't exist in private GA flying,
where a pilot can run out to his plane with his car still running and take off with the tie-downs still hanging on the wings if he wants to.

That's not going anywhere, and frankly, CAP sorties need to be at least a step removed from "fun".  You're not there
for "fun", you're there to perform a specific function, which is either mission-related, training, or transport.

[etodd]

While yes, its nice at a FBO to just drop off the keys after a flight and walk away, the CAP paperwork and online forms are not as bad as some will talk about. Confusing at first , yes, but after a few sorties, a pilot should be able to do these things in mere minutes. Its not rocket science, and once familiar, so much is redundant enough you can zip through it.  But I guess thats the issue for newbies .... they need enough sorties, and fly often enough,  to get to that point. If they just fly 2 or 3 times a year, it'll be like starting over again each time, figuring it out.

[etodd]

What areas of the pre-flight tasks can the ground crew assist with to make life easier on the pilots?

What ground crew? If I'm running out to the airport for some proficiency sorties, it could be just me, or maybe one or two others going, depending on who needs some practice.

If I had to wait until I could schedule a ground crew to be there as well, we'd never fly. Lots of my C12 proficiency flights are spur of the moment, weather is nice, lets go!

[Live2Learn]

There may be some that they can help with, but the FARs are pretty clear about who is ultimately responsible for making sure things are done right.

+1.  Also, other than insuring it's comprehensive per sortie, I don't think I've ever seen CAP pilots doing much in the way
of pre-flight that any other good GA pilot would do.

The main complaint I've heard over the years if the sortie paperwork, which of course doesn't exist in private GA flying,
where a pilot can run out to his plane with his car still running and take off with the tie-downs still hanging on the wings if he wants to.

That's not going anywhere, and frankly, CAP sorties need to be at least a step removed from "fun".  You're not there
for "fun", you're there to perform a specific function, which is either mission-related, training, or transport.

+ 1 more

[Live2Learn]

While yes, its nice at a FBO to just drop off the keys after a flight and walk away, ...

Joke, I hope?

[etodd]

While yes, its nice at a FBO to just drop off the keys after a flight and walk away, ...

Joke, I hope?

Good FBO.  Line folks take care of the rental plane, I drop off the keys with the nice young lady at the desk and yes, I'm on my way.  Now when flying the CAP plane, its another few layers of work for sure. But nothing worth complaining about, as I said above.

[Live2Learn]

While yes, its nice at a FBO to just drop off the keys after a flight and walk away, ...

Joke, I hope?

Good FBO.  Line folks take care of the rental plane, I drop off the keys with the nice young lady at the desk and yes, I'm on my way.  Now when flying the CAP plane, its another few layers of work for sure. But nothing worth complaining about, as I said above.

Interesting.  Does the FBO do a post flight look at the plane too?  FWIW I've found various damage to aircraft after landing them myself, or stuff that shoulda been caught by the prior crew or pilot.  It's happened with CAP, 135, and my own machine.  Things like dinged props where a rock was picked up somewhere after my pre-flight or a gouged main from fresh mower FOD on the runway or taxiway.  It's helpful to know the plane is in flyable  condition before leaving the airport.  For example, I found a damaged exhaust stack that showed up in my pre-flight early one morning.  The deep ding in the  stack wasn't there when I did my post-flight before I entrusted locked & chocked  (but parking brake 'off') aircraft to the FBO. 

[Holding Pattern]

My takeaway from these posts is that everything that pilots are doing right now is everything that pilots SHOULD be doing, and there are not ancillary tasks that a support team could theoretically help with.

Is that a fair assessment?

[PHall]

Other then the Flight Release there's not much "the ground crew" can do. Though a wash and a detail job wouldn't hurt.

[Spaceman3750]

For mission flying, a lot of times I will have the 104 pre-loaded and waiting for a quick review, W/B, and ORM. It saves the pilot or MO some time and gives them a written reference of what I'm asking them to do.