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Yes, the pilots of NW 188 made a mistake. However, it is a shame that we are so focused on blame and punishment. What ever happened to "learning from our mistakes"? Given their experience (and especially their most recent experience) and previous records, I can think of no other flight crew I would rather have in the cockpit the next time I fly.
I know they would be on top of their game because they know it can happen to them. But, no, I'll be riding with a low time, marginally qualified crew who may have never seen ice and doesn't know what to do if it is encountered, or a crew that can't tell they are lined up on the wrong runway, while these two highly experienced pilots are looking for a new career. Is it about safety or about punishment?
Jim Oeffinger
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It is always a treat to open my e-mail and find a new edition of AVwebFlash awaiting me. This morning was no different, although this latest installment carried an extra surprise. The featured Letter of the Week was written by an old acquaintance, J. Christopher Robbins. Although we have never met, this age of the Internet once allowed us to work together on a widely distributed and particularly timely aviation related piece that focused on aviation safety.
As bright, talented, and ambitious as Mr. Robbins is, I would be remiss in my duties as an instructor if I didn't publicly contradict his pronouncements regarding online ground schools. Mr. Robbins finds them to be a pale imitation of the real deal. I'll take the other side of this argument. In my view online ground schools are an incredibly valuable tool in the educational arsenal aviation has to offer both users and observers.
As an example, consider the potential flight student who lives in a rural corner of the world. Online ground school programs allow that newcomer to our ranks an inexpensive and convenient method of learning the vocabulary of the airport, it demystifies the markings and lighting seen on the field, and explains the various classes of airspace, unseen overhead. They can become proficient in the subject of regulations, weight and balance, introductory aerodynamics, and meteorology.
In short, online ground school is effective and viable for these users. It inspires and whets the appetite of a potential pilot, mechanic, or administrator in a way that looking out the window and dreaming never will.
Letter of the Week: Internet Ground School a Mistake
Your remember yours. I remember mine. Every pilot remembers ground school.
Mine was in a dingy and dark corner of the low-rent district of our Florida airport. The three-classroom facility smelled like stale coffee and mildew. The air conditioning worked fine; at least when the owner the Part 141 pilot school felt like turning it on. There is nothing like sweating over a whiz wheel.
This familiar scene could, however, become a thing of the past. The FAA is considering requests by several "on-line" universities. They want to offer Internet-based flight training. Students would satisfy the ground school requirement by logging into their computers, grabbing a beverage, and "attending" on-line classes.
As an aviation attorney and college professor, I do not buy into the hype surrounding Internet education. I never have. Online education is not effective. It is unsupervised. It lacks the give and take among students and instructors that makes a classroom environment successful.
Also absent from online classes is confrontation. A classroom environment should put students on the spot. They must be required to defend their positions, the facts they believe, and their views on issues. Instructors should be able to engage them, to question them, and to confront them when appropriate. The flight deck is not a passive, docile, and forgiving place. Nor should be the classroom.
Kent Grayson, CFII, ATP, and the dean of Morton Aeronautical University agrees. Despite the excellent revenue potential of online flight training, Mr. Grayson said his institution will not consideri it. "Flight training needs personal interaction between the student pilot and instructor," he says.
"Our purpose is not just to impart facts and figures. The job of the institution is to build a student pilot's confidence and character. This is not an easy job and we are not willing to entrust it to impersonal and unsupervised online classes," Mr. Grayson said. Dean Grayson specifically mentioned lessons relating to flight planning, critical thinking, aviation weather, emergency procedures, and go-no-go decision-making. "These do not lend themselves to an online format. These areas deserve narrative, discussion, personal context from the instructor, and a hands-on approach."
Indeed, if your flight training experience was anything like mine, you probably learned as much from your CFI's war stories and bull sessions as during formal study. Internet-based ground school students will miss a lot of that.
As a college professor myself (I teach contract law at Holmes College), I am very sour on Internet-based programs and curricula. Online education has not lived up to its billing. Such programs usually attract the lowest quality instructors. And it should therefore be no surprise that they attract the least qualified and least ambitious students; ones not willing to dedicate the necessary amount of time or money to a proper educational experience.
The FAA is accepting comments on this proposal until November 30, 2009. You can send the FAA your comments by logging into Regulations.gov. You will need to enter the docket number for the proposal:
FAA-2008-0938
J. Christopher Robbins
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Good observations. At the core the problem was, and always will be, moral leadership.
Always set the example by your actions, not just your words; do unto others as you would have others do unto you; be honest; consider all the stakeholders, internal and external; inspire and empower your co-workers; give them the constructive leadership, the tools and the respect they need to strive for excellence. Control your greed. I could go on and on, but hopefully you get the idea.
One last thing: We are all leaders. We always influence others. The choice we have is whether we influence others in positive, constructive ways or in negative, non-productive ways that diminish them personally instead of building trust, teamwork, a solid work-ethic, esprit de corps, etc. These things increase productivity and allow for continual improvement. They allow us to keep our jobs and provide better products at lower costs. They allow us to stay in business.
Larry Gillespie
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When I was in the industry, I was a "party" on a major accident investigation involving the airline I was employed by. I was assigned to one of the investigative groups and signed a formal agreement that defined my role and set forth ground rules for participation.
I agreed that noncompliance with the agreement would result in my being removed from the investigation. One of the fundamental issues in an aviation accident investigation involves release of information, and participants agree that the Board will be the sole [recipient].
While it is regrettable that NATCA was removed from the investigation, I really don't see how the NTSB had any choice. If you allow one participant to violate the agreement, how do you stop the next one from doing the same? NATCA should have been patient and allowed the NTSB to correct their misstatement, which they did.
Harlow Vorhees
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Once again, know-nothing politicians are reacting and not thinking. The two river VFR exclusions in New York have been an absolute necessity for helicopter and floatplane ops here for many years, and, as one who has spent thousands of hours in the corridor, flying floatplanes into 23rd Street and Wall Street (when it was open to us), I have strong feelings about any further regulation here. I will say this, though: Except for a fatal mid-air between an NYPD helo and a commercial floatplane in 1982, these accidents in the river have involved "out of town" amateur pilots.
These VFR exclusions are tricky, and this is recognized by the professional pilots in the NYC area who use them. I recall that at least once every year, both helicopter and floatplane pilots attended a briefing at FAA facilities to discuss new or existing procedures involving flying this airspace and the river exclusions. These meetings were invaluable for all of us as we began another busy season flying "down the river."
The only "regulation" that needs to happen here is for [someone to devise] a way to formally educate out-of-town pilots on the nature of conditions and procedures prior to allowing them to penetrate the East and Hudson River Exclusions. We should leave it to the pilot community and FAA to figure out how to really put this into effect, but it would go a long way to avoiding more of these tragedies.
Gayle Michener
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I enjoy your aviation reporting, but your reporters should refrain from touching and leaning on the aircraft they report on. This gives gives the general public the idea that this activity is OK, when it's not.
A sweaty arm leaning on a polished aluminum surface leaves a mark that only re-polishing can remove. I always teach young people to look and not touch and to put their hands either in their pockets or behind their backs.
Tony Stein
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Regarding your article "APA Uses Continental 61 to Support Age 60 Rule": Scott Shankland's comments are biased and not founded in fact or reality. The referenced pilot could have just as easily been under age 60 and died of a heart attack. Many do. The causes related to heart attacks are tied to genetics and physical fitness, not age. Depending on the individual, one may live a very long life without any
heart condition. It is not related to age.
In your article, you stated the FAA had changed the age 60 limit to age 65. Not true. Congress made the change after we lobbied them for more than a decade.
Also, I'd like to know why you interviewed a pro-age 60 pilot but failed to give equal coverage to pro-age 65 pilots?
Actually, we did not ask for age 65 as the new retirement age for airline pilots in the legislation. In fact, we asked for, and got written into the legislation, that pilots could retire at their individual social security retirement age. Thus, there would have been no fixed age for retirement — we believe a fixed age is wrong. However, Sen. Stevens came out of conference one day about four years ago and said he could not get consensus so he was changing the age limit to match the ICAO's standard of age 65. That's how we ended up with age 65 — not because we asked for it.
Stan Sutterfield
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Has anyone suggested that transient pilots be offered a national pass so they may use all of the airports listed to alleviate this bottleneck to pilots and airport officials? By "national pass," I mean the individual pilot would be submitted to a background check, including fingerprinting, and if the pilot passed, he or she would be issued a document to come and go at will. I am a corporate pilot who has to go to many different airports, and to be required to get the ID badges they mention seems ridiculous.
I did the procedure to gain access to the "DC 3" airports, and it seems like the right idea to solve this act.
James Galbraith
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We at Flying were pleased to see AVweb report that our magazine has joined the Bonnier Corp. team. With nearly 50 special interest titles, Bonnier is in a unique position to understand Flying's mission and its audience — readers who, simply stated, are passionate about flying. Indeed, Bonnier, with its long and keen experience in enthusiast titles, and Flying, the world's foremost newsstand aviation magazine, are nothing short of a perfect fit.
While it has not been previously announced, we are happy to report that Bonnier has retained the entire staff at Flying, including our lineup of popular columnists. So the September issue of the magazine, the first that will be published under Bonnier's stewardship, will represent not a fresh start but a continuation of an 82-year legacy of excellence. We expect that tradition to flourish under Bonnier.
Despite tough times for the industry, we at Flying are confident in our shared future. And we are confident that our new place as a part of an impressive media team at Bonnier will allow us opportunities to grow the magazine and its online component while remaining faithful to our mission, to provide pilots with the kind of incisive and insightful content that keeps us all in the know.
Robert Goyer
Senior Editor, Flying
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