A multi-engine, instrument rated pilot, James Wynbrandt has been an AIN and Business Jet Traveler contributor since 2003. His in-depth reporting and insightful features have won more than a dozen editorial honors, including two National Business Aviation Association Gold Wing Awards (2019; 2021), and his articles have also appeared in the New York Times, Barron’s, Fortune, Forbes, and Smithsonian Air &amp; Space. He has flown his Mooney M20K 252 on assignments throughout North and Central America and the Caribbean. Wynbrandt is also the author of Flying High (Wiley &amp; Sons), a biography of Jet Blue founder David Neeleman, as well as histories, references works, and books on a variety of other topics from major publishers. He lives in New York City.

Contributor - Business Aviation

James Wynbrandt

Reduced flight time resulting from Covid-19 is degrading professional pilots’ performance, according to Paul Ransbury, CEO of training provider Aviation Performance Solutions. Ransbury made the observation&nbsp;Thursday in an online presentation, “Manual Flight Operations—Proficiency Fallout due to Covid-19,” at Bombardier’s Safety Standdown.

 


“It's really unprecedented for a large body of pilots to go this amount of time without flying or having an alternative way of staying current,” he said, citing operations declines ranging from 60 percent initially to today’s 40 to 48 percent. Meanwhile, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University research into pilot reports from the FAA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System filed during this period found “items identified most readily with a proficiency-currency issue increased by 1,000 percent—a tenfold increase” in the aftermath of operations reductions, Ransbury said. He identified manual flight control skills as those most affected.

 


Pilots with little experience “are the most vulnerable” to loss of this proficiency, while those with “a substantial amount of experience can get back up to a very high level of proficiency in a relatively short period of time,” Ransbury said. Mitigation strategies include improving awareness of the aircraft state,&nbsp;following the guidelines from ICAO’s 2014 Upset Prevention and Recovery Training manual,&nbsp;and “dedicated practice.”

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