Crew Training Module

I. Setting up the crew training program

In order to set up your Training Program, go to the Company Settings in FL3XX and click on.

You can start setting up your Training Program as described below. If you would like to preload the official FAA or EASA setup, please contact support@FL3XX.com.

Typically the root structure of the tree will comprise your main training groups as well as non-flying personnel like Management:

The groups “Pilot 91” and “Pilot 135” (or in Europe “Pilot Private” and “Pilot Commercial”) determine which qualifications are used for a flight under the respective regulations. This behavior is set by choosing Type: Commercial/135 Branch or Type: Private/91 Branch in the respective root level entry:

The principle is that whichever Type/Difference Training a crew member is assigned to, all of the Qualifications/Training it contains and those of all its parents are considered for the assignment (see analysis tooltip below).

Elements that define the Structure of the tree and Assignable Items are highlighted in bold. You can collapse/expand the branch with a click on the triangle.

Training Items are in normal font, as displayed in the screenshot below

You can use the icons on the right side of any list entry to duplicate the entry or sort its children alphabetically. 

To get an analysis of any assignable item, hover on the 'i' next to "Assignable", and the system will display in a tooltip all considered qualification items for this particular Assignment. 

II. The Training/ Qualification Template

For each element in the tree, you can set the following parameters: 

Name: The name of the element. We recommend using unique Names and Abbreviations (for quick display on the Licenses page) to identify them easily on the Staff page. The best practice is to include the Aircraft Type in the name. 

Type: This element is used to determine the critical items in the tree: 

• • Commercial/135 Branch: Defines the main branch of 135 / Commercial qualifications
  • Private/91 Branch: Defines the main branch of 91 / Non-Commercial qualifications
  • Type Rating: Defines a Type Rating and may be linked to a specific a/c (type) in a/c settings too
  • Difference Training: Defines a Difference Training. If this is used, a qualification can be issued with “Course” = Difference Training. In that case, it is connected to the “Base Aircraft Item” and will expire when the “Base Aircraft Item” expires if that is earlier than its calculated validity
  • US Medical Cl. 1: Defines a US Class 1 Medical. Calculating the validity automatically based on the age of the pilot
  • US 61.58: Implements the Dual Qualification of PIC proficiency check between different aircraft types as defined in FAR 61.58

Relation: A special relation with an Airport can be set up here so the system can flag if a training element is required when planning a flight to a specific port. This should match the setup on the airport page as per the below screenshot.

Lock Expiration: When this is checked, the user cannot change the calculated expiration date of a renewed qualification manually. 

Required: When this is checked, the Training/Qualification will be considered for the calculation of pilot currency and will flag on the Dispatch page as 'missing' if expired or not valid.

Applies To: Select whether a Required item applies to PIC, SIC, or Both.

Display on Roster: When this is checked, we display the qualification in the Roster next to the crew member’s name. This is useful for pilots under Line Training, Examiners, etc.

Recency: When this is checked, the system calculates recency based on the appropriate Type Rating. Once checked, pls select in the drop-down list whether to apply US or EU recency rules.

Assignable: When this is checked, the element can be assigned to a crew member on the Staff Page.

Training Forms: You can attach training forms to each element.

Type Ratings / Difference Trainings

With the tree structure, you define the hierarchy of Type Ratings and Difference Trainings in your operation.

Please make sure that you use the exact same Type Name in both branches “Pilot Private” and “Pilot Commercial” (or Pilot 91” and “Pilot 135” in the US) so that the system can match them depending on the respective flight type.

For the module to work, please set up the required Type Rating (and the Variant if applicable) in the tree and aircraft settings page too. They will look like this in the screenshot below: 

III. Crew Assignment and Currency

In Staff/ Assignment create a new assignment with the "+". 

The assignment “Date” determines whether an Assignment is active. As long as there is no date entered, the Assignment is considered inactive irrespective of the 'show' tick mark.

Currency:

The last three columns of the assignment table indicate for each Assignment and Position the Currency of the crew member

• Recency = earliest of all recency items (as determined by the recency type selected - EU or US)
• Good Through = earliest expiry of any training item required for the respective Assignment including Recency
• With Grace = earliest expiry of any training item required for the respective Assignment including its grace period and Recency

IV. Required Qualifications

Based on the Assignments of a crew member and the qualifications tree, the system determines the required qualifications. The list of required qualifications comprises all qualifications of the current node and all its parent nodes until the root.

 

Required qualifications will be displayed on the Staff page of the crew member with color codes:

• white = current; once the training/qualification is completed
• yellow = qualification in the grace period or due to expire within the next period
• light red = 5d before the end of the grace period
• red = qualification missing (no data) or expired
• flashing red = end of grace period until 2d after end of grace period
• a qualification that is not required by the assignments and expired will be moved automatically to the Archive section at the bottom of the page

Recency

US Recency Calculations

• Three currency conditions are tracked automatically by FL3XX according to FAA regulations 61.57 and 135.247.

EU Recency Calculations

• EU Recency Calculations are based on a calculation of 3 Landings on Type within the preceding 90d.

Manual Recency Update

• The expiry date for Recency Items can be entered manually. This is useful especially when a new pilot joins the company. As soon as enough data points for a calculation are available and the calculated Recency is further in the future than the manually entered one, the system will override the manually entered value and calculate the Recency automatically.

V. Renew Qualifications

On the Staff Page, qualifications can be renewed by using this button. 

 

In this case, the Initial Date is copied over from the current version. The Issue Date can be set manually. The Expiry Date is calculated based on these parameters and the settings for Validity and Grace (see section Training/Qualification Template).

 

If a Grace Period is set and the Issue Date is set within that period, the base month is carried forward. If the Issue Date is set outside the Grace Period, the base month is calculated based on the validity of the qualification.

 

We keep all qualifications in the system. The current version is always displayed. All old versions are collapsed behind the. Click it to review the full history of a certain qualification.

VI. Crew Scheduling

When selecting crews either in Dispatch/Crew or from the Timeline, the colours follow the same principle as in the Currency Table in Staff.

Pilots are sorted as follows:

• Tail-Assigned Crew

On top of the list, we display crew members that are assigned to the respective tail.

• Type-Assigned Crew

Next, we display crew members that have an active assignment to the respective aircraft type, considering the regulation the flight is operated under. Crew members that are assigned to another tail are excluded.

• Other Crew

Then we display crew members that have an active assignment to the respective aircraft type, regarding the regulation the flight is operated under, and that is assigned to another tail.

• Limited Part-Time Crew

The last part in that list is limited part-time pilots/freelancers as applicable.

In the drop-down, PICs are highlighted with.

VII. Crew Initialization

On top of the Staff Page, you find the Initial and Total Flight hours for the crew member: 

• All Aircraft
• All Aircraft (PIC)
• All Aircraft (SIC)
• Turbine Aircraft
• Multi-Engine Hours
• Multi-Engine Hours (PIC)
• Multi-Engine Hours (SIC)

You can enter the Baseline hours of a pilot by clicking the "Edit" button next to "Initial". In this edit mode, you can enter the previous flight experience of a new pilot on 

• Rotary Wing
• Multi-Engine
• Single Engine
• Instrument
• Turbine
• Night

in Total, as PIC, in the Last 90 Days and in the Last 12 Months.

In the last column “As of Date” you can enter the initialization date that goes with these numbers. After this date, the system will count all logged hours accordingly.

At the bottom of the table, you can enter the crew member’s landings in the last 90 Days and Last 12 Months.

In the second table below you can enter experience on type in Total, as PIC, in the Last 90 Days and in the Last 12 Months.

You can add several types with “+”.

VIII. COVID Extensions

In the settings page, you can activate current FAA extensions for COVID (if applicable). When you activate the setting, the following extensions will be applied to existing Qualifications and Recency items:

• Part 135 Qualifications
• Part 91 Qualifications
• Medicals