Top Letters and Comments: May 14, 2018

Regarding legislation that creates a program and funding to help with the shortage of aviation mechanics, I submit something that is a factor in the equation. Several weeks ago in the Phoenix area there were protests demanding the minimum wage go to $15 per hour. McDonalds was targeted by supporters of pending legislation.

In the Want Ads, in the same reporting paper there was an ad wanting an A&P mechanic with at least five years experience. Starting wage was $20 per hour. A burger flipper will be getting $ 15 and the repair station wants to get a five-year experience A&P to work on multi-million dollar G650s and pay $20 per hour? Why is there an aviation mechanic shortage? Well DUH!

Homer Landreth

More? I think the question should be "should certain Light Sport Aircraft be used in training." Consider the Piper Cub. Many versions qualify as LSA. You can get your private license in a Cub. Two-seat trikes are now LSAs. If you want to get LSA qualified, you can do it in a trike.

High-end LSAs can be used for an IFR checkride, not because they are IFR certified, but because they can adequately demonstrate the candidate's ability to fly under the hood, with a qualified pilot, such as an examiner, on board.

Jeff Parnau

From the point of view of someone who wants to see GA prosper, the answer is unequivocally yes.

If I put myself in the place of someone running a flight school, the answer is less clear. I could perhaps acquire a fleet of LSAs for less than certified aircraft, but the 1320-pound weight limit almost certainly means some instructor/student combinations won't be able to fly. I'd be forced to acquire some certified airplanes to supplement my LSAs. What's the right ratio of certified to LSA? With Americans weighing what they do these days, will it make sense for me to have more than one or two LSAs, period?

I watched a local flight school deal with this conundrum. Several years ago, they acquired two C162 Skycatchers to supplement their fleet of 172s. Having already had my PPL, I only needed to get checked out on the aircraft. I loved flying those airplanes. I thought the handling and performance were superior to a 150, the systems were simple, visibility was excellent, the stoke- style control was cool and unique, and situational awareness was great with the Garmin G300 system.

The big problem was the weight. At the time, I weighed about 170 pounds and my wife weighed--well, I shouldn't say an exact figure--but she weighed significantly less than me, and far less than your typical male instructor. With the two of us on board, we could just barely put full fuel on board. My point is, while the 162 was a great machine, it was completely hamstrung by its weight limit. Doing flight training with my preferred instructor, who was north of 200 pounds, would have been impossible. Heck, training with a typical male instructor would have been impossible. So, after a few years of having the C162's on the flight line and probably not renting them much, the flight school sold them both.

I realize this is significantly over 200 words, but clearly there's a lot to say about LSAs. If we could just get the gross weight increased even 100 or 150 pounds across the board, that would breath new life into these machines and massively increase their utility. It would of course be incumbent on OEMs to prove the structures can handle the weight increase.

Hunter Myers

I do listen and read the card because I listened to talk by Al Haines about UAL 232. To get people to listen and use the cards, here are some thoughts, all requiring some research:

Confederate--if you can get some people in the cabin to listen and read the cards, others should. In other words, any deadheading crew should always listen to the brief, read the card, and thus passively encourage others to do the same.

Look to research like this "Dealing with Resistance in Initial Intake and Inquiry Calls to Mediation: The Power of 'Willing'" Key words that may get people to help during the brief.

Also, the same researcher from mentioned aboe researched key words in publications. For example, getting people in hotels to re-use towels through more effective little sayings on the cards in your bathroom.

Bill Tuccio

Well, this is a first. I was the first to respond to the Sunday click-bait question!

I actually do always watch the briefing, find the exits, and read the safety card. In fact, my wallet pattern is a safety card:

Neil Cormia

In your survey, I said I don't listen to airline cabin briefings. But that's only because I've heard them so many times that I could recite the briefing myself, without a cue card. I have over 1 million miles flying on American Airlines and probably an equal number of miles on all other airlines, combined.

I do, on every flight, observe the location of the nearest exits and count the rows, both in front of me and behind.

Peter Murphy

Ref Paul Berge's blog on FSS and DUATs, What pilots need is a flow chart explaining the FAA's organization plan with a pizza coupon if you finish. Just when I thought I understood Flight Service Stations (forget DUATS), the name changes to something unexplained; the functions, says the FAA, are the same; they are not, say the FSDOs. Lockheed Martin reaches in with a lovely new website that leaves me in total confusion.

Used to be I thought, you opened and closed flight plans with a FSS; you could get weather advisories; you could be handed to an appropriate facility or given their radio frequency. Now, they say, everything has changed and it all remains the same.

So is it "Radio," or "ACAS," or "LEIDOS"? And before we all go ICAO, how does this all lay out on a flat surface? Do I have to take the name FSS out of my software?

Richard Herbst

The Southwest emergency is not a good example because its a relatively straightforward emergency descent, secure, and divert. I think an autonomous system could probably do that now at least as effectively as an average crew.

But I have my doubts about a lot of other scenarios. Smoke, gusty conditions, microburst, windshear caused by rotor, GPS jamming or multiple failure, failures caused by lightning strike and son. I sit in an airliner to perform the routine and manage the unexpected and unforseen.

There are times that pilots make things worse but that's unusual. In general, we get it right and work through problems. The worst thing about the potential of autonomous flight will be the transition between the two--the thought of pilotless aircraft interacting with ones with pilots terrifies me!

Tom Moutrie

I commend the crew of the Southwest flight for safely bringing their charges to the ground after an uncontained engine failure. However, as a 36-plus year pilot for another carrier, I admit I am a little surprised that so much is being made of what is actually not such a difficult flying situation for any well-trained airline crew.

I personally landed at least half a dozen twin-engine airplanes with engines shut down, and a couple of those were after catastrophic engine failures. I was fortunate that none involved parts penetrating the fuselage or injuring or killing passengers. But had that happened, I would have flown the airplane (or managed the copilot doing so) in exactly the same manner.

Airline pilots safely land airplanes with engines shut down on a regular basis, and though this one was particularly unfortunate for the passenger who was killed, the demands on the flight crew are really no different than any other engine-out situation. I also wonder if the gender of the captain, (obviously not the one flying the jet because she was managing the emergency and doing the communicating) has had a bit too much to do with the kind of coverage received.

During my career, I flew with many highly-qualified and skilled women. But I think the goal of getting people to accept women in their rightful place as members of professional airline crews would probably be furthered by our not making so much of their genders when they just do their jobs, professionally and successfully, exactly as do their male counterparts. If we want women on the flight deck to be seen as normal, then why shouldn't we treat them normally, instead of like something unusual?

Ron Cox

Twenty-plus years ago, when I worked for Sperry/Honeywell, we investigated several 1.5, 1 pilot and no-pilot cockpit and avionics designs. Sperry did remote pilot aircraft starting in WW I, WW II and made drones out of hundreds of surplus airplanes for the military. It will happen, just a matter of time.

Larry K. Clark

Of course automation could handle it. But I think it will be many years before AI will be sophisticated enough to weigh the options and make the decision to ditch an airliner in a body of water. Like, say, the Hudson.

JohnMininger