From May 11, masks will be mandatory in trains, buses, taxis and car-share. I guess they will be too in airplanes. We will have to get used to it.
No problem talking in the headset with a mask ? Masks sometime fog up my glasses when I shop.
Personnally, i would only allow flying with household members and pilot manage themselves their proficiency. But, can pilots be trusted more than the average population ?
And what about using an airplane that another pilot used just before you ?
Snoopy wrote:
Good points, thanks. I also bought alcohol disinfectant spray.
Be careful around GPS screens, especially touchscreen ones. They are best wiped down – or so we’re being told – with lens leaning wipes like the ones you use to clean your glasses. As long as they contain 70%+ alcohol, they apparently kill the nasties.
IMHO it’s almost impossible to sanitize a cockpit. I thought about this before my recent flights. Looking at the cockpit and then thinking about what I (or any pilot) would touch. All of a sudden you realize what an extremely high-touch environment an airplane cockpit actually is. I wiped everything down before and after my flights, but am 100% sure to have missed things. You can only reduce the risk, not eliminate it.
It’s correct that you cannot effectively sanitize a shared or hired aircraft.
However hands are not an issue directly, it’s just the control of how they do, or don’t transfer a virus to yourself.
A- Directly (mouth, eyes) or
B- indirectly (a common area such as personal belongings/ clothing) in a way that you can’t remember and protect for, and may touch later without sanitizing.
Once the R Factor is below 1;
Once the pilot & Instructor know neither have had any symptoms within the previous 14 days;
Once both act sensibly – wearing masks; remaining without personal contact etc. – they have to decide whether their risk is greater than getting TB.
Actually, sanitizing a cockpit to a reasonable degree is fairly simple but not instant – just put a UVC light inside for a sufficient time (though you may need several of them, or putting one light in several places in turn).
RobertL18C wrote:
@MedEwok thank you for the post, might you have more details on what precautions the commercial FTOs are using?Is your mask of the valve variety, I can imagine an FFP2 mask might get quite ripe without a valve.
I’m not sure if the ATO I’m chartering from is really representative. It’s a small “family business” and the owner was initially uncertain whether he should continue school flights at all. Then on the day of the flight he told me the local Ministry of Transportation had approved flight training to resume, but I have since been unable to find an official document that outlines the specific requirements.
The idea to wear masks came from the owner. We also discussed disinfecting the cockpit, but dismissed this as impractical. At the time of the flight, the aircraft had not been flown for at least two weeks, so no residual virus particles were to be expected.
The FFP2 mask I wore was without a valve. It did not get “ripe” during the just under 1h flight. It did not interfere with radio calls.
I washed my hands afterwards before touching anything and put the mask in the oven at 70°C, following guidelines for their re-use that have since been retracted (apparently 60 Minutes at 70°C is not completely safe).
From what I know, the number of customers at the ATO is still quite reduced, so many airplanes sit still for days between flights. Charter flights seem to outnumber training flights heavily.
I don’t know if the ATO has, in the meantime, set down concrete rules for the conditions of dual flights. When I did mine, it was rather improvised, as everyone is still uncertain how to deal with the new reality.
One thing is certain imho: The risk of infection during dual training is not zero and cannot be significantly reduced without disproportionate, impractical measures, which will still not reduce it to anything negligible…
Actually, sanitizing a cockpit to a reasonable degree is fairly simple but not instant – just put a UVC light inside for a sufficient time (though you may need several of them, or putting one light in several places in turn).
Even better: use UVC lamps which make ozone.
However all the lamps with any power are hard to get now. I got some from China (they are all made there anyway) via a contact.
You have to ventilate the area before getting in, because making ozone by UVC in an area with normal air also creates nitrous oxide. If you want pure ozone you need to start with pure oxygen 
