When the U.S. Congress recently passed a law requiring pilots to possess an airline transport pilot (ATP) certificate before flying as second-in-command (SIC) for an airline operating under Federal Aviation Regulations Part 121, it gave the industry the ability to improve on what initially was a meat-ax approach to setting pilot qualification standards (ASW, 9/10, p.12). While the ATP specification would require a candidate pilot to have at least 1,500 hours of flight time, the law also allows the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to substitute academic training for part of that total.
An aviation rulemaking committee (ARC) of regulators and user groups was convened to study this opportunity. That report, we understand, would allow academics, combined with specific types of actual flight experience and qualifications, to bring down the total required flight time …
