The image of the senior pilot carrying his big flight bag full of charts, plotters, headsets, and other goodies is one that remains strong in my mind from my initial days of flight training. The big flight bag full of all of the tools of the trade seemed like a mark of an experienced professional to me. Who knew what special and important goodies such a pilot carried with them as they headed out to the ramp to pilot aircraft larger and faster than the first training aircraft I was flying. Continue reading
New students and their completions isn’t the only answer to the dropping activity levels we have seen in aviation over recent years. Over the past two years, much has been highlighted about instructors need to “do a better job” at any number of things to help students improve their completion rate in training. Numbers being cited indicate that there is something near a 70% non-completion rate for pilot training. I agree, this is something that we as instructors should and can work to help improve. We can try to improve our training process, the service we provide, and give good clear paths for our students to follow to success. But once we have done that, the aviation industry needs to help find something for these pilots to do once they have completed their certificates. Continue reading
The argument over user fees for general aviation activities doesn’t seem to be going away. The President keeps putting them back into his budget proposals. Outside the U.S., user fees have had significant effects on GA activities in other countries. A recent article (http://www.aopa.org/whatsnew/newsitems/1999/99-2-002.html) highlighting significant increases in New Zealand, an example that should scare us here in the U.S.
The concept of user fees has seen strong opposition by aviation organizations, the strongest opponent being AOPA, and the vast majority of the GA community, but that opposition hasn’t made the discussion go away. Perhaps it is time we think about this differently. What if we had to live with some sort of a user fee? Is there any user fee structure that we could manage, one that would actually do something positive for our aviation community? Many different proposals have been discussed ranging from pay for access to airspace to landing fees, per flight fees and flight plan fees. In many of these proposals unintended consequences would be difficult to foresee, but some simple ones may be easily forecasted. Continue reading
Just three months from now, the United States aviation system is poised to experience one of the most significant regulatory changes in its history; the deadline for implementation of the requirements of Public Law 111-216. On August 2, 2013, along with many other requirements of the law, any pilot serving in an airline (Part 121) carrier will be required to have at a minimum an ATP pilot certificate with a minimum of 1500 flight hours. The ramifications of this are going to be felt throughout the entire aviation system from initial training, to commercial pilot career considerations, and most likely, in the service levels that airlines are able to maintain based on their pilot workforce capacity. Continue reading