While I do know that I ultimately want to fly, in what capacity, I'm not entirely sure. I do like the idea of Corporate Aviation, but I am not dead set on that.  The idea of flying for an Air Ambulance company--such as Survival Flight--also appeals to me.  However I have not discounted the airlines.  What route I take will be largely determined by the opportunities that are presented to me.  Because of that, narrowing down on a problem within the industry I am most interested in is a taxing task.  There is, however, one aspect that applies to all pilots, no matter the realm, and that is the over-realized on cockpit automation. Not glass cockpits per se, but the use of planes flying themselves, and pilots losing hype it skills levels on how to fly a plane.

Flight Safety Foundation's CEO, Bill Voss, comments of this matter. “We keep trying to pretend this snuck up on us but it had all the stealth of a freight train,” said Voss. “Now we’ve had that event [the A330 accident], we have to have a serious conversation about stick-and-rudder skills, and we do see progress at airlines–notably Emirates Airline, which has inserted two days of manual simulator flying into its pilots’ recurrency training." As Voss stated, a lot of airlines are taking measures to try and prevent this. They are basic skills that pilots learn--the basic contorls of an airplane--and piltos are allowing themselves to become complacent in these matters. This shows that some of the basic skills are being lost at a more advanced level.

Since I do have a strong interest in Corporate aviation, I can draw attention to another basic skill that is a problem in corporate aviation.  "One of business aviation’s most glaring challenges is runway excursions, which have accounted for a growing number of accidents and incidents in recent years. “Business aviation is not doing well on runway excursions,” he said, “but they’re a major issue for all operations.”

We, as pilots need to take a certain responsibility to keep our skills up.  While the implementation of increased training management can provide are steps in the right direction, there is a sort of professionalism upheld for such a highly qualified job and it is up to pilots to not become over-reliant on the plane to fly itself.  To review airport dirhams before taxiing onto a taxiway. These are basic skills we learn and it seems in this day and age, as a generation who grew up on on computers and cruise control enter the aviation field, pilots need ot break this mentality, and take up the responsibility. The responsibility that ultimately lands with the pilot, not the computers.  

The Ex-Im Bank is the official export credit agency of the United States. It assists in the financing of US exports to companies that normally would not be able to get credit in the private sector. In addition the bank provides funds to fill gaps in financing, enabling the export of American goods and services to many markets. 

A large issue in regards to export/import banks is related to aviation. Boeing is one of the biggest advocates for this, and stating that "for 2012, Boeing Capital estimates that commercial aircraft financing will exceed $100 billion  This shows that there is a return to US companies like Boeing.  Manufacturing companies clearly are going to benefit by the ability to move more of their aircraft at lower interest rates of foreign carriers and, in that sense, Ex Im is a good program.

On the other side of the coin, however, is the long term effect.  This is what worries me, personally.  Because of the lower interest rates the foreign companies potentially may have the ability to charge far lower fares in the future. Currently, the location of most of hone foreign companies may not be much of a finical threat to the US companies but if over the course of time those foreign companies take the money they are save it relocate and start to provide the US with a lot of domestic flight services within the US the US companies may not be able to keep up.  This could cause some US carriers to go under in the future.  I also wonder how the cultural or potential regulatory differences would effect the safety around aviation should foreign carriers become the leading form of US domestic travel. Currently, the US is the leader in Commercial Aviation. While that is not a in jeopardy currently, I can't help but wonder what is to some.  

Aviation Organizations

As we know, the career of aviation is a very small community and it is beneficial for people in the aviation community to belong to aviation organizations.  One of the most predominant organization for Pilots is the Aircraft Owners and pilot’s Association or AOPA.  Another beneficial organization is the FAASTBlast organization.

AOPA is an organization that provides different levels of memberships, including a student introductory membership.  They offer exclusive savings on legal and medical coverage at their premium level and all levels are automatically subscribed to their magazine.  This helps pilots and aircraft owners remain abreast to things that are happening in the industry and with the “Flight Training” magazine offers tips to student pilots as they begin their career.   Any of these memberships can be selected by clicking this link: https://www.aopa.org/Membership.aspx

FAASTBlast is an organization is a extremely beneficial program for a pilot to join. This allows pilots to set up for an email subscriptions that will help keep pilots abreast on changing in regulations.  TFR notifications are sent out as well as upcoming local safety seminars.  FAASTBlast promotes safety in aviation and, as we can all attest to, if the most important aspect of the industry.   It’s very easy to create and account (which is free) here: http://www.faasafety.gov/default.aspx

Ultimately, when flying a plane, the pilot-in-command has ultimate authority for the safety of that flight—and that includes what’s on the ground.  That includes joining memberships and making safety something that is not only practiced, but studied as well.  There are hundreds of aviation organizations that pilots can join to help achieve tis goal, and even though both of the above listed organization are very well known, there is a reason for that: they contribute a lot fo the industry in promoting pilot’s rights and aviation safety.

Sky Safety

An aviation company I would possibly be interested would be survival flight. As a paramedic, which is a job that I really love, it would be interesting to me to be able to combine the two fields. As a paramedic, there comes a certain satisfaction with helping people: to see them on their worst days and know you can make a difference.  As a pilot I would not only love the physical act of what I am doing, but knowing that I a bigger aspect of a much more critical patient.  I have worked with companies that I have brought the ambulance to an airport to meet with a plane or helicopter and have seen how critical these patients can be and--had it not been for the air transport--the patient may not have made it.  If I could be a pilot and know that I helped make that difference with something I truly love going.  It would be the combination of the best of both worlds for me.

The description of survival flight is a little different.  The fixed wings tend to be on a more set schedule while helicopter pilots tend to be more of the "on scene" personnel. The primary focus for the pilot, is, of course, the safety of the flight and all on board.  That is also where some of the dangers come in.  Through my paramedic training, the first thing they drill into. Your head over and over and over and over is called "scene safety". That is, if for whatever reasons if the scene is not safe, do not try to help the patient.  If the patient is in a car with live telephone wires over it, touching the car to get the patient out is only going to hurt the paramedic and what good would that do for anyone?  Bearing that in mind from an  aviation standpoint, a pilot may sometimes think of hone important of "helping" the patient before safety of the aircraft.

That presents itself as a safety and liability issue.  These are generally mitigated in by a separation of the aviation and the EMS personnel.  Most Air Ambulance companies are two combines combined.  Survival Flight employs the paramedics and nurses through University of Michigan while the pilots and everything else aviation related are supplied by Pentastar.  This separation tried to help eliminate that sense of “helping” While going through my UMBC training for my Critical Care Paramedic training we discussed the safety features in place for flight transportation.  A rule that Survival Flight used was “The rule of three.”  That is, there were three people who had to agree to the flight.  If a single person said “No” the flight would not take place.  The pilot had to agree, the flight medical staff had to agree and the patient’s primary physician had to agree.  On the aviation standpoint, the person who had given that lecture to my class had told a story of the flight crew going out with the pilot while he prepared his pre-flight check.  The nurse had noticed a small bit of ice on the fence going around the airport hanger.  She brought it to the attention of the pilot.  The pilot had advised the conditions were fine for their flight, but the nurse was still uncomfortable with it, so the flight did not take place and the paitnet would be transported another day.  Safety measures in place like this are something that I would like to look for in a company. 

Every one who has a job has some level of professionalism.  Professionalism sounds like a very astute word, but, really, to be a professional just means to be paid for something.  It implies some sort of training that makes a person qualified to performed—and be paid for—performing a task  One of the ways that professionalism was lacked in this accident was due to the PIC changing the weight of the plane to get it “approved” for takeoff.  That demonstrates a lack of professionalism because it shows the lack of training—or ignorance of that training—to perform the job he was paid to do.

Two things that I would do personally if I were to ever get this job is to just keep the patient in mind.  Safety is important for the patient.  This job would take “scene safety” t a whole new level.  And if all aspects of the flight ae not safe, no help can be brought to the patient and harm may come to the crew.  I would also try to keep a very positive attitude.  When it comes to helping others, a positive attitude goes a long way.  As a pilot, I would want tha patient—and their families—to know that they are in safe hand with me flying the plane.  A positive, confident attitude would help to exude that.

Distraction. Maybe We Should Learn To Work With Them?

The NTSB has a lot that they would like to address in the name of safety and it is not all aviation related.  However there are two aspects of their 2013 "most wanted" list that are very applicable to aviation.  One of them is the identification and communication of hazardous weather in general aviation.  The other is distractions in all form of transportation--including aviation.  In the issue of the distraction it sites an accident in which a medical helicopter crashed in Missouri on Aug 26th, 2011.  The crash occurred because the helicopter ran out of fuel and "The pilot, James Freudenbert, 34, of Rapid City, S.D.,exchanged 20 text messages, over a span of less than two hours preceding thehelicopter crash, documents made public by NTSB show."

While I do feel that distractions in the cockpit is an issue that needs to be addressed, I think this again is victim of slight overhype. It seems we like to pick and choose what distractions are acceptable and with at ones are not. Aviation is a field littered with distraction. While flying the plane you need to constantly be checking your location, possibly communicating with others, looking for other traffic--all things that could distract you from holding your altitude and heading. We do, however, learn to adapt those distractions and incorporate them. I feel the accident sited is just a poor example.  The text messages were sent prior to the actual flight. Presumably during the pre-flight checklist and it is being argued that because of the text messaging is why the pilot did not check the fuel. The NTSB says "personal electronic devices", or "PEDs" was the cause of this distraction.  For this case in particular, that may have been the case. But if the pilot had needed to use the restroom quickly during his pre-flight and when he returned he had mentally skipped over that step in the checklist? Would we ban using restroom facilities prior to a flight? What if he was going through the pre-flight checklist the pilot's supervisor had called out to him to ask him a question? Would we then have to make an effort to ban speaking when performing a pre-flight checklist?

Distractions of any kind can be bad and I feel that PEDs are being used as the primary scape goat. My mother was I a debilitating car accident that made it so she was never able to walk again. The accident was cause because she flicked the ash off her cigarette (back when actual cigarette trays were in the car) and looked down the speedometer. Should smoking while driving and checking your speed be outlawed? Instead of taking an effort to ban all kind of distraction we should be training people to adapt to them and work around them--just like we do in all other aspects of aviation distraction.  No one ever says that unfolding a sectional chart could be a distraction, instead we say to in operate that distractions into your flying.  Haven't we lerned yet that elimination doesn’t seem to increase safety, but adaptation does?

From a career standpoint I'm not entirely sure that a new job positions could be created in eliminating distractions in and of themselves. I suppose a software could be developed to lock out personal texting when activated by the pilot during pre flight so that he would not miss anything during the preflight. But that would still require the pilot to activate the program.  You could have someone inspect the pilot as he inspected the plane to be sure he wasn't distracted, but again, existing personal could always already do that and would that inspector also tell at the pilot's supervisor if he called out to him?

There is room, however, for education.  I think PEDs have the potential to do more good than harm.  Perhaps instead of using paper checklists have an electronic checklist as an app that a pilot can use on their PED.  When activated it could potentially lock out personal text messages, but, more importantly the pilot would have to tap the item checked after it was checked--maybe changing the color of a checklist from red to blue? This way if a distraction--any distraction--occurred and the pilot was momentarily taken away from a checklist, when he would look back at the app he could say "oh, the fuel is still red.  I haven't checked that yet.  I should check that."  Job opportunities could be put toward creating such a software and then possible seminars to ensure the proper teaching of caption and application to the app. Distractions are going to occur all the time.  Rather than eliminate them, I feel we should work around them.

Landing at the wrong airport is obviously not something to be taken lightly.  Not because of the mistake itself--oftentimes these mistakes have no threat to the cargo or passengers on board and result in a safe landing.  The part that makes it a concern is the implications that pilots may not be aware of what's going on. As pilots, we are taught to have a very good situational awareness.  Landing at an airport demonstrates a complete lack of situational awareness—and that’s the main concern. The two incidents already discussed--both the Dreamlifter and 747--are the most pro dominant, but this is not the first time this has happened.  On Sept 7th, 2011, Continental Connections flight 3222 was inbound for a destination of Lake Charles, LA. It landed at the wrong airport that was eight miles away.  

Some of the hazards of this kind of mistake are very obvious. Others, not so obvious.  In this incident--and those mentioned earlier--no harm was done to passengers or the cargo. If everything goes well, when landing at the wrong airport there is no damage done.  There are the obvious problematic implications; that the runway may not longer be enough for takeoff, or possible fuel problems that may occur if a plane needed to make another takeoff or landing. The less obvious implications, I think, are more regulatory ones.  What if that additional landing would put the pilots over their rest requirements? Could the pilot landing at the wrong airport be a sign that the pilot is already fatigued and shouldn't be flying anyway?  It also adds another landing and takeoff to keep in mind in oncoming up to the next inspection.

Of course, there are reasons for mistakes.  There are reasons for every mistake in every field. And every mistake in every field can always be attributed to an error somewhere. And, in a perfect world, those mistakes can always be avoided. But this isn't a perfect world. We, as humans, in any field are going to make mistakes. I don't know...maybe I just don't think like a lawyer like most of this country does. However, I do believe incidents like this aren't as big of a deal as their made out to me.  Don't misunderstand me, landing at the wrong airport IS a mistake and corrective actions should be taken, however I do feel as thought he media has taken these more recent events and blown them a tad out of proportion. 

A google search of "airplane lands at the wrong airport" yields dozens of the same result.  It takes a little bit of playing with the words to find other incidents--and there are other incidents--of Commercial aviation making a meatier mistakes. While these incidents are not entirely isolated, they are very overhyped in the media, it would seem.  And a little bit of circumstance should be taken into consideration when evaluating these incidents.  Even in the article Al Yuman explains that with regionals they may be working the same amount of hours but have more takeoffs and landings.  I would be interested in a survey conducted on percentages comparing regional and major mistakes. If you are doing something more often, there is more room for error than if a task is only being performed once in a shift.

But even though these incidents aren't entirely isolated, that also does not mean there should be no ramification when the mistake is made.  In the case on Sept 7th, 2011, the pilots were both suspended, but with pay. I do feel that is a fair disciplinary action,  Largely because it accepts that safety was not compromised, but that some things need to be evaluated to ensure this does not happen again. To me, this shows a company willing to he improve their employees and their customer service--too learn from their mistakes--rather than discard them. 

Aviation is a field that is constantly changing and should itself be constantly improving. Moving forward is to get away from the mentality of "cut off the hand of a thief" and instead teach the thieves to not steal. There will always be mistakes.  It is part of what makes us human. As long as we retain that humanity--the essence as a species--we need to accept that these mistakes will happen, and perhaps review the consequence on an individual basis and come with ways to correct it in the future.  Instead of overdramatizing the mistakes, and making people feel as if certain aspects of aviation are not, accept that mistakes will happen and move forward!

 Allons-y!