Too Big to Fix

Originally Posted November 24, 2008

The media is full of discussion about huge organizations that are being bailed out with taxpayer money because they are “too big to fail”. According to the arguments, letting a General Motors, a CitiGroup, or any of dozens of other compnies fail would result in unacceptable consequences in terms of the economy and job losses.

What I wish someone would talk about is whether these mega-corporations are really too big to fix. Rather than putting them on public life support, would it be better to let them slip away into history?

Fly Safe!
Neil

WAAS Up?

Originally Posted October 9, 2008

The flight school where I work part time as Assistant Chief Flight Instructor added a new Cessna 172 to its training fleet recently. Like two others we operate, it is equipped with the Garmin G1000 integrated cockpit system. Unlike the others, this airplane is also WAAS equipped. WAAS (Wide Area Augmentation System) adds to the precision of the GPS navigation system by adding a signal broadcast from the ground.

In many ways, the addition of WAAS is a subtle change. There is no WAAS switch and no WAAS light to tell you it is working. It does, however, add some very useful capabilities. Among these are the ability to navigate vertically as well as horizontally. The system will provide guidance during descents in cruise and on instrument approaches. The glide path it displays looks and works very much like the glide slope for an ILS approach. There is also a general upgrade in the accuracy of lateral guidance over GPS-only equipment.

The primary benefit of WAAS lies in its ability to provide accurate vertical guidance. So many accidents result from the pilots’ lack of awareness of where the airplane is relative to a safe descent path. The WAAS system, properly used, can help to fill that gap.

WAAS capability comes with a price, however, and that is additional complexity. To fully take advantage of its capabilities requires additional programming and an enhanced knowledge of the modes of operation and displays. Autopilots designed to take advantage of WASS also have more features, and therefore a steeper learning curve.

Like so many technological innovations over the past several years, WAAS requires a bit of training before the pilot can really take advantage of it. This is yet another reason to be sure you spend some quality time with your instructor to receive personalized training on the equipment you use.

Fly Safe!
Neil

Keep the Change

Originally Posted September 9, 2007

As you probably know, a debate is raging about how to change the way we fund the FAA. The airlines are promoting a plan that relieves them of most fees and charges – passing them on to their passengers and to general aviation.

Represented by their industry group, the Air Transport Association, they are lobbying for yet another round of cost cuts. In the recent past, they have robbed their employees, vendors, and stockholders in their efforts to reduce costs to match their artificially low prices. Now they are casting business jets as the bad guys – responsible for delays and all manner of ills that cost the airlines money. The balance sheet, of course, is the issue. The airlines don’t seem to consider their lack of ability to provide good service to their customers a problem.

I’m sure it is no secret that I don’t hold the airlines in particularly high regard. For decades they have proven they are unable to solve the most fundamental equation of business: Profit equals price minus cost. The number of airlines that have failed, or have passed through bankruptcy, is astounding.

This latest round of smoke and mirrors is not likely to succeed since general aviation has one of the best lobbying groups in Washington, the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association. You can read their side of the story on their web site. Try getting that kind of detail from the ATA web site.

Meanwhile, perhaps we can institute a program similar to Bank of America’s, allowing the airlines to keep the change from any tickets they sell. That would be more dignified than having them sit on a corner rattling a tin cup.

Fly Safe!

Neil

New FAA Publications

Originally Posted November 24, 2007

Many of us think of FAA publications as being stuffy and out of date, but there have been a number made available recently that could change your mind.

The newest revision of the “Instrument Flying Handbook” includes material on basic instrument flying using the new generation of glass cockpit instrumentation. This book is a companion to the“Instrument Procedures Handbook” , which was also revised this year to update information on GPS, RNAV, and RNP procedures. Together, these are excellent resources for any instrument pilot.

Until recently, FAA guidance on the conduct of an Instrument Proficiency Check (IPC) was vague and out of date. In August 2007, however, FAA released "Instrument Proficiency Check (IPC) Guidance", a document that gives instrument instructors and pilots helpful hints on how to prepare for and conduct the IPC. Complementing the IPC book is "Conducting an Effective Flight Review". Together, these two books provide solid recurrent training guidance for just about any instructor or pilot.

Another excellent resource is last year’s “General Aviation Pilot’s Guide to Preflight Weather Planning, Weather Self-Briefings, and Weather Decision Making”. This provides excellent tips on weather strategy and tactics.

Finally, FAA has been promoting the use of scenario-based training for the last few years. A clear and understandable guide to this training technique is found in “Introduction to Scenario-Based Training”.

Fly Safe!

Neil

Complexity

Originally Posted November 5, 2008

My wife and I each have our own alarm clock. Her's is a traditional analog type with the little pointer that indicates what time the alarm will go off. Mine is a fancy digital clock radio that has two different alarm times and lets you choose either an alarm tone or the radio.

If she is in a hurry to set the alarm, it can be as much as 15 minutes early or late. If I am in a hurry, I am likely to get a very precise 12 hour error.

“Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it.” - Alan Perlis, Computer Scientist

There is no question that my alarm is the more complex of the two, so I suppose it is no surprise that it would be more prone to operator error. This relationship is found in our cockpits as well. Avionics have made a huge jump in capability, and complexity, over the last decade. I often instruct in aircraft equipped with the Garmin G1000 and Avidyne Entegra glass cockpit systems. While I feel I am very proficient in their use, I still learn new things about them from time to time. And my customers have to work hard to take advantage of everything these systems can do.

Researchers tell us that there are two different types of complexity. The obvious one is “detail complexity”, which relates to equipment or situations that involve many facts or elements. My digital alarm is a perfect example of this. It has lots of knobs, buttons, and indicators.

In aviation, detail complexity shows up in avionics systems (particularly GPS navigators), airspace, ATC procedures, and flight and security regulations. The trend is toward increasing complexity.

The other variety of complexity - called “dynamic complexity” - involves situations where cause and effect are separated by time or space. In the fast moving world of aviation, this kind of complexity is increasingly apparent. Just like a error setting my alarm (like missing the small AM/PM indicator) leads to a surprise 12 hours later, we see cases where the result of something we do in the cockpit may not show up until some time later.

Dynamic complexity is particularly troubling in aviation. We see this in IFR flying, where an error copying and comprehending a clearance may not manifest itself until later when we fail to follow the expected path. Autopilots can be incorrectly programmed and not behave as intended. Faulty entry of a flight plan into a GPS navigator can lead to inadvertent airspace incursions hours later.

The bottom line is in managing this complexity to ensure it doesn’t lead to an unsafe situation. The key to this is knowledge of the systems you are using, proficiency in their use, and keeping workload at a reasonable level so you can monitor the complex systems.

Fly Safe!

Neil

Top 10 Reasons GA is Better Than the Airlines

Originally Posted March 7, 2007

Airline travel has become progressively more unpleasant, which is helping boost the market for private and business aircraft. Here is my list of the top ten reasons the airlines have become the second choice to general aviation (GA) for air travel.

1. You don’t have to stay on the airplane for 8 hours when you divert.
2. You don’t get treated like a terrorist upon arrival at the airport.
3. You get to pick who you sit next to.
4. The weather in New York doesn’t make your flight from Dallas to Phoenix late.
5. Some guy in a golf cart doesn’t yell at you to get out of his way in the terminal.
6. There is never another plane at your gate when you arrive early.
7. You don’t have to wait for your luggage, and it NEVER gets lost.
8. Your airplane will not go bankrupt an hour before you get to the airport.
9. You don’t have to wait for the crew to arrive from Cleveland.
10. You don’t arrive with 5 minutes to change planes while sitting in seat 36A.

And the bonus reason:

Every seat is a window seat!

Fly Safe!

Neil

The Trouble with Trouble

Originally Posted February 17, 2007

One of the difficulties, and attractions, of flying is how easy it is to get into trouble. And, once in trouble, how hard it can be to get out. For as long as man has ventured into the air, we have devised gadgets intended to keep us safe.

One of the newer ones is the “whole aircraft parachute” system. Such systems float the entire airplane down to the ground, and have been adopted widely in the ultralight community. Under the name of CAPS (Cirrus Airframe Parachute System), this equipment is installed on every Cirrus Design product. These systems are credited with saving numerous lives, but are still the object of passionate debate in airport lounges and online forums. Folks either love them or hate them.

Many Cirrus owners claim that the CAPS system was the feature that sealed the deal for their purchase decision. As an instructor, I have given a lot of thought to the philosophical aspects of CAPS. A recent post on the Cirrus Owners and Pilots Association members forum helped me focus my thinking. A very wise member, also a lawyer, wrote about his profession “I can either keep you out of trouble, or I can get you out of trouble.”

It seems to me that airplane parachute systems fall in the later category. For KEEPING out of trouble, we have a brain and many other wonderful gadgets – but the parachute is not one of them. It only becomes useful AFTER we GET into trouble. So, my philosophy is that the parachute is a good thing, but I am going to work really hard so that I never get so far into trouble that I need it.

Fly Safe!

Neil

Wind Your Watch

Originally Posted February 10, 2007

Back in the ‘80s, I was part of the team that started SimuFlite – at the time the largest startup in dollar terms in aviation history. Besides seeing how a new business is born from the inside, I had the opportunity to give simulator instruction to some of the best business aviation crews in the industry. I spent many hours in the Learjet 35/36 and King Air 200 simulators running training scenarios that taught, tested, and sometimes humbled the pilots.

One session I remember vividly involved a Learjet crew who were very sharp – and quick. They had handled every emergency the lesson plans called for with accuracy and blinding speed. They always took the correct action, and often completed the emergency checklists from memory. It was too good to be true.

Toward the end of the week, we had just a few more items to cover. Shortly after takeoff I introduced a fuel computer (now called FADEC) malfunction which increased the N1 on the affected engine to 109 percent. The left seat pilot automatically did the “dead foot, dead engine” routine in his head and called “engine failure”. Together, they began their “blur-of-switches” routine, shutting down the good engine. Seconds later, they realized they had no control over the remaining engine – the good engine shut down and the bad engine still producing huge amounts of thrust. Finally studying the engine instruments, the pilot muttered “Oh shit” under his breath.

There’s an old saying in aviation that before acting on any emergency you should wind your watch. Now I haven’t owned a watch that needed winding in years, but the idea is still sound. Taking a few seconds to analyze the situation can go a long way toward preventing a bad situation from getting worse. Just remember, while you wind you watch, you still have to fly the airplane!

Fly Safe!
Neil

The Third Era of Aviation Training

EVENT BASED TRAINING

It seems to me that there are three eras of training that we have been progressing through in our industry. The first era came early as we realized that training was important and made it mandatory. Training requirements have been defined by the subjects to be covered and the amount of time to be spent in training. Typically, these requirements are defined as part of the regulatory structure. This was the event-based training era. Many of us are still living in this era today. The weakness of this approach is that it does not allow tailoring to pilots' individual abilities and needs.

PROFICIENCY BASED TRAINING

More recently, we recognized that event-based training didn't necessarily provide any assurance that crew members were maintaining proficiency over the long term. To address that, we developed proficiency-based training, which required a formal definition of proficiency standards and developed a process to go with it. Called Advanced Qualification Program (AQP) in the airline training world, it is designed to ensure continuing proficiency throughout the career of an airman. Some of us are now in the middle of the proficiency-based training era. There has been a recent trend to refer to this as competency-based training, but the idea is the same.

With the advent of a systems approach to training development in the 1970's, as embodied in the Instructional Systems Design (ISD) process, this process has enabled the shift from event-based to proficiency-based. This approach allows training designers to optimize training time, media, and budgets based on the actual needs of the target population.

The proficiency-based training era shares a weakness with the event-based training era, however. The weakness is that a single performance standard is used to evaluate proficiency regardless of whether you are on your very first qualification check for a new aircraft or the hundredth recurring check. Neither era provides opportunities for, or expects, professional growth during an airman’s career. Such expectations rely on our professionalism, not the regulatory requirements.

GROWTH BASED TRAINING

I propose that we move toward a new era in training called the growth-based era. In this era, we will not encourage professional growth. We will require it. This brings us full circle back to the basic premise of Tony Kern’s book "Redefining Airmanship". For now, airmen must create their own growth plan, but in the future, those of us in the training department may be tasked with providing support for those efforts.

Fly Safe!
Neil

We Are All Learners

We understand that ...

... we learn in different ways from one another.

... we learn the same way, locally or at a distance.

... we do not learn in a new way because we have a new technology available.

... presenting bad training with a new technology does not make it good training.

We learn best ...

... at the time we need the information.

... when we can directly relate what we are learning to past experience and knowledge.

... when we can set our own learning objectives.

... when we can use our own personal learning strategy.

... when we interact with our peers, not with machines.

... when what we are learning supports our values and beliefs.

... when the learning environment approximates the real world.

We engage in three types of learning:

Facts about things

How things work

How to work things

Each type of learning is best accomplished in a different learning environment:

Facts about things are learned using presentations.

How things work is learned through the use of models.

How to work things is learned using simulations and real world experience.

Fly Safe! 

Neil

Word Allergies

Originally posted February 3, 2007

My years in the aviation industry have been evenly split between time in the cockpit and time behind a desk – over 15 years of each. In my desk-life, I have worked in management for some of the most successful companies in aviation – SimuFlite, FlightSafety International, Bombardier, Raytheon, Hughes Aircraft, and General Dynamics. I not only learned a lot about being a pilot, I learned about business. What I have learned makes me believe that sometimes they are not compatible.

Imagine, for example, sitting in a business meeting with your boss and coworkers. The boss asks if the project you are responsible for will be finished on time. If you answer “No”, the results are not likely to be pleasant. The same is true if you say “You will have to wait.” It seems that in our results-oriented business world, you need to develop an allergy to words such as “no” and “wait”.

At work, these allergies can be the key to success. They help keep things moving and ensure high levels of performance. Once successful business people move to the cockpit, however, those allergies start working against them. Now imagine a passenger asking the businessperson-pilot if they can still get to their destination in the marginal weather they are faced with. Given the behaviors that have made him or her successful at the office, that pilot may have a hard time saying “no, we will wait”. What is necessary for success in industry can be the recipe for disaster in the air.

Last year, AOPA surveyed almost 6,000 adults between the ages of 25 and 60 who were not current pilots or students to determine their interest in learning to fly. What they found was there are more than 3 million Americans in this demographic who answered they would be “very interested” or “somewhat interested”. The most likely individuals are married with children and fall between the ages of 40 and 49. They have an annual income of more than $100,000, they are college educated, and almost a third are self-employed. They are described as take-charge, professionally successful, extroverted, and intelligent. They describe themselves as eager to learn, reliable, independent, and hard working.

You don’t get into the demographic AOPA describes without being successful – in business. Our challenge is to make sure that those word allergies that made them successful in the meeting room don’t get in the way in the cockpit.

Fly Safe,
Neil

On Being a Fan ...

Tonight my beloved Texas Rangers take on the dread Yankees.  Why do I care?  Read this...

“What I do know is that this belonging and caring is what our gamers are all about; this is what we come for. It is foolish and childish, on the face of it, to affiliate ourselves with anything so insignificant and patently contrived and commercially exploitative as a professional sports team, and the amused superiority and icy scorn that the non-fan directs at the sports nut (I know this look — I know it by heart) is understandable and almost unanswerable. Almost. What is left out of this calculation, it seems to me, is the business of caring — caring deeply and passionately, really caring — which is a capacity or an emotion that has almost gone out of our lives. And so it seems possible that we have come to a time when it no longer matters so much what the caring is about, how frail or foolish is the object of that concern, as long as the feeling itself can be saved. Naivete — the infantile and ignoble joy that sends a grown man or woman to dancing and shouting with joy in the middle of the night over the haphazardous flight of a distant ball — seems a small price to pay for such a gift.”

Roger Angell

Fly Safe!
Neil

The Future is Now

Nearly two decades ago I wrote a short scenario describing my vision of the future of flight training.  At the time, technology was far simpler that it is today.  The Internet was still a dream.  Desktop computers were mostly used as glorified typewriters.  Portable computers barely fit into the overhead compartment of an airliner. Mobile phones were the size of a brick and only made phone calls. Here it is without revision:

"The captain arrives in flight operations a little early, as is her habit. Entering the briefing room, she removes a small device from her flight case and flicks it on. Quickly, it displays today's schedule, crew composition, and weather. Driven by a software agent, the device notes from the captain's log that she has not flown in thunderstorms such as those expected today in a long while. The device advises the captain to don a pair of eyephones and launches a mini-lesson on wind shear recovery techniques, including a dynamic 3-D model of the wind flows around rapidly developing super cells and their effects on aircraft performance."

"It has also been almost a year since the pilot last flew the instrument approach expected at the second stop of the day. As a review, the device conducts a short simulation of the arrival at the airport, with the net-conferenced instructor placing particular emphasis on the high terrain underlying the arrival route."

"The agent also notes that the aircraft assigned for today's first leg has a history of unresolved generator trips. It offers a review of generator-out procedures, which the captain accepts. She spends five minutes simulating the cockpit flows for single and dual generator failures. Then, noticing the time on the display, the captain closes the device, returns it to her flight case, and walks to the lounge to brief her crew."

There are still a few aspects of this vision that would require development of new technologies - primarily 3D technology.  But as a trip to the local electronics store proves, these developments are no longer in the distant future. Now that the future has arrived, those of us who are dedicated to aviation training can push forward toward making this vision a reality.

Fly Safe!
Neil

Quote for the Day

When we walk to the edge

of all the light we have 

and take the step into the 

darkness of the unknown, 

we must believe that one of two things will happen.... 

There will be something solid for us to stand on 

or we will be taught to fly. 

Patrick Overton

When the Going Gets Weird ...

Originally posted January 22, 2007

The media recently reported the 25th anniversary of the Air Florida accident in a snow storm at Washington, D.C. in 1982. These reports touted the “sweeping legacy” of this accident and the safety improvements that it spawned.

This accident remains fresh in my mind, partly because I watched the live reports on the then-new CNN as survivors and wreckage were pulled from the icy Potomac River, partly because I used this accident as a case study in Crew Resource Management (CRM) classes in the years since.

As with all accidents, there was a chain of events that led to the end of 73 lives. As with most accidents, the crew had several chances to break the chain of events and avoid the accident. Their last opportunity was as they began the takeoff on KDCA’s runway 36.

15:59:24 TWR "Palm 90 cleared for takeoff."...

15:59:35 [SOUND OF ENGINE SPOOLUP]...

15:59:51 CAM-1 "It’s spooled. Real cold, real cold."
15:59:58 CAM-2 "God, look at that thing. That don’t seem right, does it? Uh, that’s not right."
16:00:09 CAM-1 "Yes it is, there’s eighty."
16:00:10 CAM-2 "Naw, I don’t think that’s right. Ah, maybe it is."
16:00:21 CAM-1 "Hundred and twenty."
16:00:23 CAM-2 "I don’t know."

38 seconds later they impacted the 14th Street Bridge.

During the takeoff roll, the first officer (CAM-2) repeatedly commented on the fact that the engine indications didn’t look right, but the captain (CAM-1) assured him that they were. Neither pilot took any action to resolve the discrepancy.

The NTSB investigation ultimately determined that the engine instruments were displaying faulty readings because the crew decided not to turn on the anti-ice system that keeps the engine sensors clear of ice and snow.

Within days of this anniversary, NTSB released the cockpit voice recorder transcript of last August’s Comair accident in Kentucky. The first officer’s comment “dat is weird with no lights” as they accelerated down a closed runway is eerily reminiscent of the first officer’s concerns on Air Florida.

Like Air Florida 90, Comair 5191 will likely become a CRM classic. There were numerous opportunities for the crew to interrupt the chain of events that was leading toward the deaths of 49 people.

There are several lessons for us in these two tragedies separated by one-fourth of the history of powered flight. The first is that regardless of the technology we bring to bear, the weak link in the system is still the Version 1.0 human being who runs things. Second, just because we have mandated CRM training for airline crews, we didn’t “fix” the human factors failures that lurk within the modern aviation system.

And finally for us pilots, if something seems “weird”, there is probably a reason that needs investigation. If you are on the ground, stop and talk about it. If you are in the air, get away from the ground and into a low workload environment so you can figure it out.

As the old saying goes, “If it doesn’t seem right, it probably isn’t.” Or maybe there should be a new version – “If things seem weird, they are.”

Fly Safe!
Neil