Human Trash

[photofly]

Subject to a minimum standard, as I made very clear. we can argue the toss as to whether that standard should be higher than it is today, or not.

But unless you give examiners a personal direct and continuing stake in their "product" meeting a bar that a) has the potential to be higher than that of other examiners and b) ongoing and personal (which requires personal reputations and branding) you will not change the current system.


And yes, different ISO9000 certifying bodies charge different amounts and give their imprimatur and logo to the certificated entity. Branding, and extra value, in action.

[captcrunch2013]

Airlines don't need accidents, even small firms use triangulation, three people doing interviews to fly a Cessna 182 etc.

With every year, it seems that pilots rely more and more on automation and a lack of general flying skills, is being replaced by computer gamers, and those with fast typing skills.

Instead of flying the airplane with hands on stick, throttle, feet on the rudder pedals, they want to
have the FMS fly the airplane but the airplane does not know if that data is correct.

Basic flying skills seem to be increasingly disregarded with more attention to paperwork and generic standards rather than "can he or she fly"..

[triplese7en]

But unless you give examiners a personal direct and continuing stake in their "product" meeting a bar that a) has the potential to be higher than that of other examiners and b) ongoing and personal (which requires personal reputations and branding) you will not change the current system.

If you are to have students exceed the standard I think this must be done at the level of the instructor, not the examiner—or both of them. I think instructors, especially the 'young n dumb' who are employed by flight schools just after having passed the PPL and CPL themselves, do not realize that they are really the ones that are saying if the pilot should get a PPL or CPL. The PE is there to confirm the instructors decision that the candidate is worthy of a PPL or CPL. A lot of schools will put some form of pressure on the instructor to recommend students that shouldn't be recommended—this is a problem. It not only negatively affects the instructor's record if the student doesn't pass, it also lets pilots who don't have consistent skills get a pilot license. I've had a few students who have struggled with an exercise, such as forced approaches, want me to recommend them the first time they actually complete the maneuver satisfactorily. They will miss the field 4 times in a row and the next day they make the field and ask for a recommend!

Maybe there should be a limit as to how many times you can retake a written and flight test. Or the time between tests should be longer.

[triplese7en]

Captcrunch... spot on!

[Shiny Side Up]

But unless you give examiners a personal direct and continuing stake in their "product" meeting a bar that a) has the potential to be higher than that of other examiners and b) ongoing and personal (which requires personal reputations and branding) you will not change the current system.

You're missing the point of the examiner then. The fact that a lot of PEs have a stake in their "product" is exactly the problem. As you point out, the product that they're selling "a pass" is the same currency at the end, but while that might satisfy TC, its not doing its job of protecting the aviation consumer. Hence why the two are at odds. As long as examiners have a personal stake in how well their customer performs, they will always be lenient on the standards. Selling a pass becomes more important than being the gatekeeper of pilot quality.

Almost every large school and most smaller ones have a PE on staff. Can you not see where a conflict of interests may lie?

Who's watching the watchmen?

[photofly]

As long as examiners have a personal stake in how well their customer performs, they will always be lenient on the standards.

I don't think we have the same meaning in mind for the word "performs", or "stake" then. You're using it in the sense that as long as they have a stake in the grade they give. I mean it in the sense of having a stake in the future performance of the pilot.

The Soviet way would be to examine the flight record of every pilot involved in an accident or infraction - and send their examiner (and quite likely their instructors too) to the gulag. That would give the examiner a personal stake in the ability of the pilot. No examiner would pass a marginal candidate, to risk 10 years at hard labour in the future. Do you see?

Personally I prefer the capitalist way. Allow the market to reward examiners who pass only competent well-trained pilots and fail those who aren't. That's what's missing at the moment.

Almost every large school and most smaller ones have a PE on staff. Can you not see where a conflict of interests may lie?

It depends if the flight school that employs the PE values its reputation for passing only good pilots. A PE who passes poor student just to up the pass rate damages the reputation of the school that employs him or her, so no - there's no necessary conflict of interest.

[triplese7en]

Personally I prefer the capitalist way. Allow the market to reward examiners who pass only competent well-trained pilots and fail those who aren't. That's what's missing at the moment.

They already do that with instructors by penalizing instructors for students who fail their flight test. How would you do that for examiners? You're going to have TC read the TSB report and from the TSB report they're going to determine if the examiner was at fault? What if the student actually did well on the flight test, legitimately? You're going to wait until there is an accident before you take the pilot's license away? Doesn't that go against your purpose for this rule in the first place? We're trying to prevent accidents, not penalize people after an accident.

This idea seems far to radical in my opinion and not easily enforceable.

[Shiny Side Up]

It depends if the flight school that employs the PE values its reputation for passing only good pilots. A PE who passes poor student just to up the pass rate damages the reputation of the school that employs him or her, so no - there's no necessary conflict of interest.

You need to think a little bit more about this one. Reputation is usually the last concern. What's the primary objective of capitalism?

[photofly]

No, I'm aware of what you mean. I'm just saying there are pressures the other way, too.

[Shiny Side Up]

No, I'm aware of what you mean. I'm just saying there are pressures the other way, too.

Good that we're on that page then. Forgetting about the monetary ethical problem Here's something else to think about. If you're working for a school and you get a bunch of test candidates from your school you have to fail, doesn't that make your school look bad? Doesn't say a lot for the instruction. If you pass those students then their quality is also going to speak against you. Sort of lose/lose if you will.

[AirFrame]

I'd be concerned with using capitalism to try and motivate better training. Right now, we seem to hear a lot about flying schools maximizing the number of hours spent getting a license... Someone who takes 100 hours to get a Private, for example, has either been given the instructor shuffle to maximize revenue, or maybe they're just not suited to flying as a hobby and someone needs to take them aside and have a frank conversation.

[xysn]

In a way some of this is already being done with OpenAirplane in the US.

If your skills are "certified" ("Universal Pilot Checkout") by OpenAirplane you can rent a plane with minimal hassle at any of the OpenAirplane network of flying clubs.

Basically this speaks to the fact that flying clubs do not have much confidence in the current FAA standards and are demanding the higher standard that OpenAirplane provides.

This works because it gives the pilot an incentive to meet a higher standard. (i.e.: Ability to rent anywhere)

[photofly]

Personally I prefer the capitalist way. Allow the market to reward examiners who pass only competent well-trained pilots and fail those who aren't. That's what's missing at the moment.

They already do that with instructors by penalizing instructors for students who fail their flight test. How would you do that for examiners? You're going to have TC read the TSB report and from the TSB report they're going to determine if the examiner was at fault? What if the student actually did well on the flight test, legitimately? You're going to wait until there is an accident before you take the pilot's license away? Doesn't that go against your purpose for this rule in the first place? We're trying to prevent accidents, not penalize people after an accident.

This idea seems far to radical in my opinion and not easily enforceable.

my example was how the Soviet system might have done the job; mthey weren't known for embracing market forces on the pursuit of improvement. But the point is getting lost.

Having TC (government) regulate anything is not market pressure. Market pressure is achieved through better job prospects, better insurance rates, better hire availability (thanks Xsan for the example) and other private enterprise systems.

Governments can step in but it's usually heavy handed and too late, as you point out. My basic point is that government incentives to maintain training standards isn't working very well, which we might all agree with. Time to open the system up.

[azimuthaviation]

Did you read the accident report? He was operating in violation of the regs. He was not current and had no business flying that plane in those conditions. Those regs are in place for a reason, and if followed, that tragedy could have been avoided.

You're completely missing the point.

The CYOW ILS 07 Cardinal pilot should have
NEVER held an instrument rating.

The people that enabled him might have acted in
accordance with the regulations, but they did
not act in an ethical manner. They have to live
with that horrible personal failure for the rest of
their lives.

Aviation is NOT egalitarian. Aviation is NOT
a soccer game that no one keeps score for.

[Colonel Sanders]

Those regs are in place for a reason, and if followed, that tragedy could have been avoided.

AFAIK the only CAR contravened is that he supposedly
(and we don't know this for sure) didn't have 5 takeoffs
and landings at night in the last six months, to carry his
passenger.

I hate to break it to you, but 5 takeoffs and landings at
night in VMC would NOT have helped this guy hand-fly an
ILS. Totally irrelevant. And if he didn't have the pax on
board, he would have been legal.

Maybe he did some night circuits and in fact was totally
legal, but forgot to log the flight. I forget to log all sorts
of flights.

One could measure the side of his registration letters on
the tail, too. Perhaps they were 4 inches instead of the
regulation 6 inches. That would have been completely
irrelevant, too.

Perhaps he was late on filing his taxes. That would certainly
make him a Bad Man (tm) but again, would have no bearing
on the cause of this accident.

[azimuthaviation]

If you are assuming he may have had five take-offs and landing within six months then you can assume almost anything. But going by what the information states, lets assume all the facts are as they are stated.

The lacking six take-offs and landings may not have helped this pilot fly the ILS, but they sure would have helped his passenger. At the least the human cost would have dropped 50%, at the most, who knows? Reading accident reports it's very rarely one factor that causes a crash, it's multiple. Removing any one might have had a completely different result.

[Colonel Sanders]

they sure would have helped his passenger

No. Not sure you "get it". Even if he had done a measly 5
takeoffs and landings at night VFR in the last six months, he
still would have crashed the ILS. They have absolutely nothing
to do with each other.

He might have had some unpaid parking tickets, too. Evne if
he had paid them off, he still would have crashed on the ILS.

You don't know the difference between regulatory compliance
and safety. This is common, and supremely depressing.

[azimuthaviation]

Maybe youre right, which is why I said the lacking 5 take offs would have helped as in if the pilot was following the regs then the passenger wouldn't have been in the aircraft at all. And if the passenger was not in the aircraft then the stress level in the cockpit may have been reduced and the effect of the passenger of PDM could be excluded, although that may be going off on a tangent.

[Shiny Side Up]

my example was how the Soviet system might have done the job; mthey weren't known for embracing market forces on the pursuit of improvement. But the point is getting lost.

Having TC (government) regulate anything is not market pressure. Market pressure is achieved through better job prospects, better insurance rates, better hire availability (thanks Xsan for the example) and other private enterprise systems.

The problem with that idea is that market pressures in this case run counter to the public good. Its the whole point of having government. While yes, not everything can be solved by more government, by the same point, not everything can be solved by turning the free market loose either. Keep in mind that the main market pressure is to make flight training (and therefore tests by extension) a product that is cheaper, more convinient, and satisfies other needs (like stroking the customer/student's ego) than it has pressure to turn out quality. As of right now, there is no industry pressure to improve flight training - it already satisfies them by producing volume of product (new CPLs) which they can really pick and choose the best of the bunch, hopefully those who can overcome bad training schemes. Your comparrison to the "Soviet" system is not valid. Every government has regulating industry in its mandate, by its nature regulation is much like policing. It really counts on those doing it having a strong interest in serving the public good.

Currently the system has went more laissez faire - PEs are no longer only the business of our regulator. While this has made things better for the customer (student pilots and schools) I'm not so sure that it has stuck to its mandate of the public good or interest. Remember that's what's at stake here. The same public interest is something us pilots should be more aware of. We excersise the privilidge of flying airplanes around as long as we play by the Colonel Sanders's Two rules and One guideline of aviation - codified in way too complex of form in the CARs. The point of testing is to ensure that anyone we license as a pilot is going to play by those rules - or at least satisfy the public that they are going to try real hard to do so.

Governments can step in but it's usually heavy handed and too late, as you point out. My basic point is that government incentives to maintain training standards isn't working very well, which we might all agree with. Time to open the system up.

No opeing the system up doesn't work, not in these sorts of cases. What we need to do is make the government do its job. The government isn't supposed to offer incentives to maintain standards, its to ruthlessly revoke the privilidges of those who don't. In this case, I'm not asking that they get that far, we're just asking that they uphold the actual laws that are in place, something they're not doing. What we need to do is hold their feet to the fire to do their job. Some very simple things could be done though to ensure that standards are being met though. The first of which would be to make it so that schools were required to get independant oversight of their graduates. There needs to be a larger pool of PEs out there so we get a better sample size (and also better customer service on this end) with that should come the mandate that a school must use independant examiners for a certain portion of its tests, ideally random ones appointed by TC itself. Some of these independant examiners could be one in the employ of other schools. Coupled with that should be then extensive review of flight test reports from both of those pools of examiners. Might require that we have a few more people at transport to handle this workload, and especially get more PEs out there. Ideally no one should be making a business out of being an examiner -as I suspect is happening now. Impartiality is what we should be shooting for.

[photofly]

I agree that your points make a lot of sense. We're stuck at the moment with half a free-market system: PEs are free to go and solicit and compete for customers for tests, but they're not free to design their own product.

I think we should have either a free (or free-er) market (as I described) or else TC should provide all the examiners from staff. Unfortunately expanding the government payroll looks bad, and shrinking it looks good (to the electorate) so that's why we are where we are. There's no way TC would take the roll of PE in-house.

[Colonel Sanders]

Ideally no one should be making a business out of being an examiner

SSU: you're kidding, right? Around here, PE status
is handed out like plums to CFI's with long and faithful
service to TC. A nearby FTU that TC loves has THREE
examiners. We don't get any, because TC doesn't like us.

It's $300 a flight test, just for the examiner around
here. One in the morning, one in the afternoon is
$600/day with zero expenses. Do that for say 15
days a month, that's $9,000/month.

And no one is making a business out of it?!

[Beefitarian]

Plums? What kind of 8000 year old mystical analogy is that? Sounds like something Dave Suzuki would say.

[Shiny Side Up]

Ideally no one should be making a business out of being an examiner

SSU: you're kidding, right?

Note that I used the words ideally and should. I'm well aware of how things actually are, which I think is the main part of the problem. One should also note that the current set up, while making things favorable to both those getting flight test and those giving flight test, isn't currently in the public interest.

You and I are on the same page with this, why didn't you weigh in on this sooner? Would have saved me a long debate with photofly.

[Colonel Sanders]

Same reason I don't break up a fight between
two women - I like to watch.

Not that I want to see you and PF kiss, I hasten
to add.

[photofly]

Does he shave his legs? I'm quite picky.