Flight Time Basics

As you may already know, flight hours (or flight time) refers to the total amount of time spent piloting aircraft and is the primary measure of a pilot’s experience. It is defined as time “when an aircraft moves under its own power for the purpose of flight and ends when the aircraft comes to rest after landing”.

This is measured primarily by a piece of equipment on most aircraft called the Hobbs meter, a piece of equipment named after John Weston Hobbs (1889–1968). Fun fact, Hobbs founded a company, also named after him, which originally manufactured the first electrically wound clocks for vehicle use. World War II led to a demand for aviation hour meters leading to the development of the Hobbs meter.

The Hobbs meter records time in 0.1 hour increments and can measure time in a handful of ways depending on the aircraft: one, it can activate and measure the time that the electrical system is on; two, it can be activated by oil pressure running into a pressure switch -thereby only activating and running only while the engine is running; three, it can be activated by an external switch such as an airspeed sensing vane under a wing or a pressure switch attached to the landing gear (this method essentially records time spent in the air); and four, it can be activated when the engine alternators are online. No matter how the Hobbs meter is activated, it is used as the primary source for most pilots to track their flight hours.

Accordingly, all pilots who are pursuing certifications, jobs, or tracking recurrent training maintain a logbook. This pilot’s logbook is the lifeblood of a pilot’s experience and is even considered a legal document. Since most government licensing regulations and job listings require an audit of a pilot’s logbook to some degree, it is easily ranked among a pilot’s most valuable belongings.

Not only does the logbook track a pilot’s lifetime flight hours, it also tracks many details about each flight including flight conditions, pilot roles, aircraft specifications, and even a short description of the flight. Nowadays, logbooks can be legally maintained in a traditional hard copy book or an electronic record.

Certificates and Ratings

Each certificate or rating that a pilot accumulates requires an increase in the quantity and quality of flight hours successively. Luckily, some requirements can be “stacked” (applied to multiple requirements), one example is that flying cross-country in instrument conditions (IMC) fulfills both cross-county and instrument hour requirements simultaneously. You can learn the details of each rating in 14 CFR Part 61, however here’s a brief summary of the most common types:

Did you notice the 1,250 hour gap? Yep, that’s right, 1,250 hours between obtaining your Commercial Pilot Certificate and your Air Transport Pilot Certificate; the specific certificate required to fly in the airlines. Yes, this is a very large gap, but it was created with good intentions after a very unfortunate airline incident on February 12th, 2009, known by some as the Colgan Crash.

The Colgan Crash

On that date, Colgan Air Flight 3407, operating as Continental Connection, crashed into a house on approach to Buffalo Niagara Airport, killing all 49 passengers and crew as well as one person on the ground. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) eventually concluded that the crash was the result of the plane’s two pilots failing to respond properly to cockpit warnings that the aircraft was about to stall.

There have been many arguments made as to the reason that this tragedy occurred (some include flight crew fatigue, poor airline procedures, pilot professionalism, and remedial training) but we won’t be climbing into that rabbit hole today. Specifically, we will be discussing the response made by the U.S. Government and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and how that affected the American aviation industry as a whole.

The Colgan crash led to a re-examination of entry-level requirements for U.S. airline pilots, resulting in the passage of the Airline Safety and Federal Aviation Administration Extension Act of 2010. Among other measures, the bill instructed the FAA to increase the minimum number of flight-training hours for commercial airline pilots from 250 to 1,500 hours, which would eventually take effect in 2013.