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Post virus instructing

Almost nothing in a general sense. Not when the distribution of the virus is as low as it is now. It is virus density dependent, not population dependent. Increasing virus density will increase the effect of masks, but only by roughly 40 % or something, and when the density reaches values where wearing masks is important, then being stricter on social distance and hygiene is many folds more effective in any case. That’s how I understand it.

The only important thing is to prevent spreading. If it’s you or somebody else who get covid-19 is irrelevant – for the virus. It’s the virus we have to beat.

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

MattL wrote:

As virus transmission drops, I believe the risk of obscuring lookout, heat stress, distraction, comms problems etc.. from these shields and masks far outweighs the real risk of getting COVID if other sensible non intrusive mitigations are taken

I agree, not sure where the boundary of risk from virus vs training comfort & safety stops?

In the other hand people do fly with helmets, oxygen masks, night vision google, immersion suits, funky flying suits or even full up chemical protection suits with sealed head coverings but all take a lot of time to get used to: just wearing masks does interfere a lot with mics and ability to break squelch…

For COVID19, don’t think there is much yet with purpose built and tested for GA cockpits, I would say one now has to accept droplet transmission risk, take disinfectant and wipe down the cockpits to reduce contact risk

Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

I suspect that the young will make this judgement differently from the older ones. They will be happy to fly dual.

And they will be happy to fly by airline to all the usual places. They already do; see the new virus hotspots on the Greek islands popular with partygoers, and this is even though very few N European countries are flying there.

Everybody has by now seen the distribution curves for serious disease and deaths, and the sharper ones will know that obesity is a killer at all ages.

If you are under say 30 and normal weight, and no known issues, your risk is low even if you catch it. And you will catch it doing this sort of thing.

Somebody has to get the economy restarted…

As always this is fine so long as you don’t live with your parents

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I´ve been instructing again for about four weeks now, maybe 30hrs total. We have to wear face masks in the cockpit, and while it´s annoying you get used to it after a while. I would prefer not having to wear them though, especially because I seriously doubt it will be of much use in the cockpit of a Katana after two hours together.
Intercom is a bit tricky sometimes, but otherwise there are no big problems with these things in the cockpit.

I´m currently flying with students in their teens up to mid-fifties, and every single one of them would be willing to fly without masks. We are at about 6000 known active cases in Germany, a bit more than 400 ICU patients. Today I´ve read about a study that about 60% of the deceased in Germany lived in some sort of nursing home. The likelihood catching the virus is not very high, at least for the moment, and the chances of dying from it are negligible for me. So the only things keeping me from instructing is lack of time and airplanes, there´s certainly no shortage in students.

EDFE, EDFZ, KMYF, Germany

Peter wrote:

If you are under say 30 and normal weight, and no known issues, your risk is low even if you catch it. And you will catch it doing this sort of thing.

I’d go further than just saying it’s low.

In my age band (30-39, just!), my risk of dying in the event of a symptomatic infection is 0.08%. Of course the unknown is how many infections are symptomatic, but it is clear a very significant proportion are not so the actual risk in the event of infection is lower.

I like the take on it that Sir David Speigelhalter (professor of public understanding of risk at Cambridge) has on it. He says ok you take this 0.08%, but remember that is the average risk for a person in that age group. It is not the risk for the average person in that age group. Nearly all the risk in that age group sits with people who are already in poor health, whether they are obese and just generally unhealthy or they have some underlying condition. For an otherwise-healthy member of that age group the risk is soooooo much lower, probably so low as to be insignificant.

The same applies to those in higher age groups – even though the headline risk may be higher the actual risk (if you are healthy) is nothing like that high.

The problem is spreading it around the population (and what it then does to the vulnerable) rather than the risk to the individual. If someone is healthy enough to fly an aeroplane then they are probably healthy enough not to have to worry much about Covid-19.

A second-wave defence should be based around shielding the vulnerable, IMHO.

Last Edited by Graham at 22 Jun 10:47
EGLM & EGTN

Some instructors are refusing to take trial lessons (pleasure flights, mostly, but you can’t call them that ) on the grounds that they will be exposed to a much wider range of passengers than if training their regular students.

They may well have a good reason, in some areas of the country

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Understandable. If you only fly with your regular students, your risk of exposure to SARS-COV2 will be much lower than if you fly with everyone and their grandma. Especially if you have a few regulars with whom you fly lots of hours.

Low-hours pilot
EDVM Hildesheim, Germany

I’ve restarted my PPL training in the past couple of weeks. At my school the instructors are not bothered about wearing masks, we just clean controls/switches/handles in the cockpit before and after flight.

United Kingdom

According to the trade press there is a surplus of instructors now, due to large numbers of airline pilots having been laid off.

Presumably if they instructed previously, they still have the FI rating and just need to renew it with an FIE?

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

There is over two year waiting list for instructor rating course

Most airline pilots today were spared having to pay their dues flying Navajos or instructing so most need to spend time: getting an FI ticket; then instructing PPL to get unrestricted; then getting CPL and Night privileged; then PIC time in an MEP to get a MEP privilege; etc etc

Unfortunately if any thing there is a structural shortage of qualified professional integrated instructors.

Oxford (EGTK), United Kingdom
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