@inclined2fly
USAF Veteran, Pilot, Former Designated Pilot Examiner, NTSB Aircraft Accident Investigator and retired FAA Aviation Safety Inspector. Flight Instructor, Airplane Single & Multiengine; Instrument Airplane; Glider. 44 years of flying experience...so far.
It's not just United Airlines. The FAA is critically understaffed and lacks resources to properly oversee just about everything. They've lost too many experienced inspectors and institutional knowledge in CMOs, FSDOs and policy branches to conduct safety assurance.
gizmodo.com/watchdog-say...
Sir Ian McKellen performing a monologue from Shakespeare’s Sir Thomas More on the Stephen Colbert show. Never have I heard this monologue performed with such a keen sense of prescience. Nor have I ever been in this exact historical moment.TY Sir Ian, for reaching us once again.
#Pinks #ProudBlue
Last Saturday night in Bakersfield, California.
That's the best way to do it. Once you learn it, that never goes away. It makes you a better pilot for whatever comes next.
If the public only knew how much chaos. It literally causes everything to grind to a halt. Training, inspections, certifications, policy and rule changes, meetings, all of it paused or cancelled. It takes months for offices to recover.
www.politico.com/news/2026/01...
Having been a POI for some very large 10 or more 135 operators, I can say that retired airline pilots are not always the best people to hire. I've known some great ones who went from 135 to 121 and back. The ones who never flew GA were usually a problem. Regardless, follow the damn rules.
So, if the retired airline pilot had a trained and qualified SIC (as his type rating required), Greg Biffle and family would probably still be alive? Gosh, following the rules might be a good idea after all.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZS-...
That was the fun part about working for the NTSB. Digging through the layers to find the fault.
The reason so many foreign airlines have schools in the US is not because our training is better. It's because it's much cheaper and easier to get pilot certificates in the US than anywhere else. They get the basics here, and go back for airline specific training in their home country.
All of those problems he cited in 1970 still exist today, especially when it comes to flight schools. It's probably even worse now.
It was nice to get a brand new, higher capacity non-burney battery for our older Bolts. I got one for my 2019. I wish Jeep would do the same for my Wrangler 4xe. We're on our third "your battery might explode any minute now" recall.
Those are just the newest players. 20 years ago it was Jane Garvey (former administrator) and Lockheed-Martin. This is nothing new. Follow the money.
It depends on what you mean by "privatization". If ATO was removed from the FAA and made a stand alone organization (think USPS or Amtrak), thereby removing it from the annual appropriations debacle, that would help. FAA would continue an oversight role. Giving it to Lockheed Martin, not so much.
MTG setting the example...
They are the best in the world, and they're not getting paid at the moment. What a country.
In 2003, AVS-1 decided we needed to be ISO-9000 certified. They built a "Quality Management System" that everyone in the field told them wouldn't work. $60M later, the QMS program was a disaster. They stopped using it after a few years. The contractors (former FAA) made lots of money though.
I can't speak for ATO but in Flight Standards, each change in Administrator caused upheaval, but then each change is AVS 1 and or AFS 1 caused even more. The automation was a huge problem. It was always poorly designed and implemented mostly by contractors headed by former FAA "leaders".
Blakey was my boss at the NTSB. When I joined the FAA, Garvey was administrator, followed by Blakey shortly after. With every change from then on, all the way to Witless Whitaker, it was chaos while the "new guy" changed everything and the last one went to industry to work against the FAA.
US aviation safety continues to devolve.
abcnews.go.com/US/plane-cra...
I'm surprised he knows anything about it.
It's all part of the plan. Break the system to make the case for privatization. Read Project 2025.
A goal of Project 2025 is to split the ATO from the FAA and either contract it out or set up a USPS or Amtrak like corporation, thereby removing it from the annual budget process. FAA Flight Standards would retain an oversight. They want it to fail so they have ammunition to force the change.
I think I got to episode 4.
“The FAA’s decision is particularly difficult to justify in view of the imminent risk of loss of life from a similar accident, the minimal effort required to accomplish the Service Bulletins..."
Minimal? Not when your support staff gets fired and your inspectors quit.
apnews.com/article/lear...
Here's a better picture of Tom (front seat). I had finished the commercial add-on and we started working on the CFI in his Duo Discus. I had thousands of hours as a CFI (airplane) already, but now I had to "teach" a man who literally wrote the book (many of them) on soaring. What a treat that was.
That's a very special photo. I took that while I was training for my commercial/CFI glider add-on ratings. The gentleman in the photo between the tow plane and the glider is Tom Knauff, who was my instructor for the course. Best instructor I've ever worked with.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_...
Looks a lot like this ASK-13 I flew at Eagle Airport in PA.
They launch Tomahawks off the coast of CA into a corridor that crosses north of Santa Barbra, across Highway 1, 101, 5, 14 and 58. The corridor disappears into numerous restricted areas in CA, NV and into UT where it emerges into the Dugway Proving Ground. There are chase planes, of course.
10,000 meters would be nearly 33,000 feet. In a Cessna 172. Not likely. That isn't even 10,000 feet.
