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Reborn Wings: Flying's Newest Editor Returns to the Sky

Connie Sue White recently joined Flying’s editorial team as managing editor.  Connie Sue, a University of Florida journalism grad, brings 20 years of magazine publishing experience to Flying, as well as a strong flying heritage (thanks to her father’s passion for aviation). Her first memory of “taking” the controls was during a family trip in her father’s Bonanza when she was 7 (yes, there’s a bit of a story behind that!). Not too long after that, her dad, a young 42, quit a well-paying white-collar job and started a new career: rebuilding Waco biplanes (and yes, there’s a story behind that, too!). Then, he purchased a grass strip in Zellwood, Florida. With airplanes all around her, mostly antique biplanes and high-wing taildraggers, and plenty of time hanging out at the airport (her dad lived on the airport), it was only natural that she learned how to fly. Her first “lessons” began with her father in a Piper Cub when she was 12. She later transitioned to an Aeronca 7EC Champ, in which she soloed on the morning of her 16^th birthday (much to her mother’s dismay, but that’s yet another story). Connie Sue flew casually around the patch for the next couple of years, before heading off to college. When she returned home, it was always her intention to learn how to fly her dad’s Waco, Big Red.

“Flying in that open cockpit seemed to be about the purest kind of flying there is, so peaceful and gentle, ” she recalls. “When we’d go up, I would regularly glance back at my dad and we’d always flash big, wide grins at each other.”

But, tragically, her father died in an airplane crash when she was 26. Her drive to fly died, too, and she never looked back — until now. Twenty-eight years after her first solo, she’s not only working at a venerated aviation magazine, but she is also back in the air, working toward a private pilot’s certificate at FlightSafety Academy in Vero Beach, Florida — two turns of events she never would have dreamed of happening. Join her on what will be a candid account of the continuation of an emotionally rich journey that was interrupted by a heartbreaking personal tragedy. Beginning with an account of her first day back in the air….

 

BLOGBOOK ENTRY 1

On Saturday, an entry was made into my pilot logbook for the first time since 1981 (yes, I did keep my original logbook). My instructor, FlightSafety CFI Seth Zeigler, and I flew for 1.1 hours in N9213D, a Piper Cadet, out of KRVB (Vero Beach). My last logged flight was Oct. 4, 1981, in N16JV, an Aeronca 7EC Champ, out of Bob White Field, Zellwood, Fla (X61). I had my student pilot's license then, so I was taking the Champ around the patch a few times that day, doing touch-and-gos on 09/27 (the only runway). But, now it’s a little bit different, to say the least. This time I'm starting from scratch and working toward my private's license through FlightSafety Academy. We knocked out the first two lessons: Lesson 1 was a three-hour briefing going over the POH  (more on that later) and Lesson 2, the Discovery Flight. Prior to the flight, I couldn't help but wonder how it was going to feel...would I remember how to control the airplane or would it be like starting over? After the preflight, Seth let me taxi to our run-up area. Once we went through the run-up, he took over and we took off on 11R with a 9 kt crosswind. He turned the controls over to me once we got to our desired cruise altitude (1,500). It was a bit choppy, but I was able to maintain straight and level, and do the 30-degree banks w/out losing or gaining much altitude. This was a big part of my lessons as a kid. My dad and I worked on it a lot at the beginning because I had trouble with it. "Keep an eye on the altimeter," he'd yell in regular intervals from the back seat (I say "yell" because we didn't have headsets and it was a bit noisy in the front/back seat-configured Piper Cub in which I began my first lessons). This time was different. It came right back to me and I was able to maintain altitude without much problem, both by feel and instruments. It felt natural. It surprised me that nearly three decades later I still had a feel for it. Seth was surprised, too. He commented during our post-flight briefing that on their first few times up most students can't maintain altitude through turns, or even when straight and level. He said things went "really well.” That made me feel good and filled up my confidence meter for the next time, which means my "fear" meter will be on the way down. Ok, maybe I can do this ...

BLOGBOOK ENTRY 2

It was only two months ago that I decided to get back into flying. It was too hard to resist once I started working on the magazine and reading it word for word. It brought back so many memories and a familiarity from which I had become estranged after my dad’s death.  And a frank realization: Aviation is a significant part of my personal heritage and has a wee bit to do with who I am today. Funny, how a tragedy can make one block out an important segment of one’s life.  But I digress.  When the opportunity to go to flight school at FlightSafety arose, I couldn’t pass it up. Admittedly, my feelings were a mixed bag of excitement, fear and curiosity.

 

Excitement because of the adventure — and it was flying after all!

 

Fear because I couldn’t help but wonder if it would be tempting fate since my dad died in a plane crash, as did his brother 26 years before. Irrational? Probably. But too many things have happened in my life against the odds. I countered my fear by telling myself that doing this would “break the chain” and, of course, that it was silly to think that way.

 

Curiosity because also I wondered if I could really do it — overcome my above-mentioned fear and accomplish the mental challenge.

 

The only way to find out was to jump right back in and continue the journey.

 

BLOGBOOK ENTRY 3

The first thing I did in preparation for flight school was to pull out a dusty storage bin from my closet. It hasn't been touched for more than 11 years (when I moved into my house). Inside, was my logbook with the earliest entry from 31 years ago and the last, 28. I wanted to log my “new” training in this book. The pages are yellowed and crinkled, but the writing is still legible. Including that of my dad’s. His scrawled entries hit me with a breath-taking force of familiarity: PA-12: climbs, shallow turns, pilotage; Waco UKC: discovery flight; Stinson 108-3: turns, stalls, climb, approach to landing; Stampe: straight and level, turns; Bonanza: short cross-country. Needless to say, along with the logbook, there were other bits of memorabilia in the bin that I had turned my back on years ago because of the pain they brought me... pictures of my parents during their second life together (of course, there’s a story behind this as well), of my dad with his airplanes. I gazed upon these reminders with wistfulness and love. The heart-wrenching pain was finally gone — or at least temporarily out to lunch. Maybe it really is time for me to move forward with this journey, I thought as I placed the top back on the bin.

Stay tuned for the next BLOGBOOK ENTRIES, from getting my medical to beginning ground school my very first day at FlightSafety, where a I meet someone who turns out to be a familiar acquaintance ...

Al Mooney, Automatic Airplanes, and Dogs in the Cockpit

I've been thinking a lot about automation lately, largely because of the holiday shopping season, which is more and more about automation, as are the rest of our lives. I'm a bit of a gadget geek to begin with. I've got two laptops (including one of those cute little netbooks you can't type on), a smart phone, a few MP3 players (including the little bombproof one with which I've run my last two marathons), a car navigator, a Garmin Forerunner running GPS watch, flat screens out the ying yang and a Netflix settop box I can access when I decide I really need to see Letters from Iwo Jima and see it right now. 

Sometimes I wonder what's running the show. And every time I get my Verizon bill and swoon a little, I wonder all the more. Are all these gadgets, wires strung hither, thither and yon around the house, subscriptions piling up in my in-box, upgrades waiting to be installed, helping me live a simpler, more fulfilled more convenient life, or are they using me as a tool to enrich the people who foist them on us? This, I wonder, as out of the corner of my eye, I scan the features of a new Android phone I pretty much have to get.

Automation in aviation is a completely different subject, right? The big difference is, of course, that if I don't get to watch Letters from Iwo Jima to satisfy my insomniac need, I'm still going to be fine. With airplanes, automation can make the difference between your being dead and alive. Literally. I see accident reports all the time for small to not-so-small airplanes where I think that it's likely that if that guy had just known how to use the stinkin' autopilot, he and his passengers would be walking and talking among us today. That is nothing short of tragic.

Back in the day--meaning, "back before I wore long pants and knew how to fly an ILS," the folks at Mooney installed a new device in their airplanes called "Positive Control," which was basically a full time wing leveler. I've heard some people say good things about it, but I've always heard that they were frequently disabled or simply removed by pilots who got tired of holding down the little override button on the yoke every time they wanted to turn base.

Today, of course, there's a big gap between those who install and use autopilots and those who don't, though the ratio between the two continues to grow in favor of the flight control proponents. "Luddite," one who distrusts and eschews technology on principle, is a tough word to sling around, but I think it fits here. Autopilots are critical tools in flying safely for transportation, and not having one in a transportation airplane, or not knowing how to use it well, is asking for trouble. (Guess which side of the debate I come down on here?) 

There's the old aviation joke about airplanes of the future having a dog in every cockpit, the pilot's job being to feed the dog and the dog's job to bite the pilot if he tries to touch anything. We're still a ways away from that scenario, but if you listen closely, you might be able to hear barking.

Make no mistake, automation on a scale unprecedented in light aviation is around the corner. We now have synthetic vision (a computerized view of the world on our primary display), enhanced vision (superman vision seeing through the clouds and showing us on a display in the cockpit), WAAS for ultra accurate navigation, including for precision approach, and more coming soon.

The "more" part is where it gets interesting, and here I'm talking "envelope protection" and "autonomous flight." Envelope protection uses the autopilot (or "autoflight" system) to keep us from doing anything stupid. Like wrapping up the airplane base to final, not that that would ever happen to a good pilot. It could, in theory, be programmed to provide any kind of protection, like keeping us from taxiing, but the initial functions will be things like keeping the pilot from overbanking the airplane or from overspeeding it.

Autonomous flight, on the other hand, will remove us from the job of pilot and turn us into systems managers instead, presumably without much ability to take control of things should something go wrong, a scary thought. This kind of technological disenfranchisement is the stuff of science fiction, that is, if you don't count the thousands of drones flying around the world today being controlled from a trailer halfway around the world. Fighter jocks and would be fighter jocks are scared for their jobs, and rightfully so. Airline pilots haven't started to get worried . . . yet.

The total control scenario is sad and a bit frightening, though I'm very much in favor of smart envelope protection.

I wish I didn't have to take sides, because at heart, I'm a old fashioned airplane guy. Give me a tube-and-rag taildragger and a grass strip, maybe in the mountains, on a clear and calm day, throw in a sighting of elk in a high meadow and pancakes at the other end, and that's what I call heaven.

Then again, nearly all of my flying is for business, and my big goal at the end of the day is to wind up safe and sound in bed somewhere with my heart still pumping away. If automation, be it XM Weather or envelope protection, helps make that goal a reality, then I'm all for it.

Do we run the risk of the word "pilot" meaning less than it once did? I don't know. Maybe. I think it's more likely that there will evolve two distinctly different kinds of pilot, ones that fly like pros--God bless 'em--and ones that fly like poets.

There's a place in the world for each kind of aviator, and I aim to be both for as long as I can, though at some point it might be hard to reconcile the two worlds. For now maybe I'll just stick the dog in the back seat. He can sleep while I fly.

by Robert Goyer

How to Keep Controllers from Killing You: Lessons from the Denver Near Miss

A couple of weeks ago controllers at Denver International made what the FAA is calling a mistake (and it sure sounds that way to us) when they gave a Republic Airways regional jet arriving at DIA a heading that required it to turn back through the flight path of a SkyWest RJ that was also on approach. The resultant turn brought the two RJs into very close proximity, and the jets were forced to take evasive action when their TCAS systems commanded it. The good news: the collision was avoided and I'm writing about a near miss and not a tragedy.

Without going into great detail, the incident seems to have been caused by the controller clearing the Republic RJ direct to a waypoint it had already passed. The republic pilots questioned the clearance but reports are that it was repeated and the pilots complied, bringing their jet into direct conflict with the SkyWest RJ. A third jet also lost legal separation but was much further way and didn't have to take evasive action.

The incident brings up a couple of very important points for all pilots but especially those who are learning the ropes at busy airports.

First, controllers are human. As much as a few of them act like little demagogues--and we all, unfortunately, know those guys--they make mistakes and we need to be aware of that.

An approach controller and a tower controller once unwittingly worked together to almost get me killed. I was on arrival at Sikorsky Airport in Bridgeport, CT, (BDR) with the New York controller when he advised me he was going to "stay with me" a while longer because there was traffic arriving there (a Gulfstream G4) and he wanted to monitor the separation. Nice. But the handoff to the BDR tower controller apparently didn't include the information that I was already on downwind by the time I went to tower, so the tower guy told me to "enter on a 45" for left downwind. I advised him that I was on downwind but he, maybe not understanding, repeated his instruction. I turned right to leave the pattern and enter on a 45 (a stupid thing to have done without further clarification) and saw the G4 on downwind a couple hundred yards away but, thankfully, 500 feet above. (Hey, that rule does make sense.) By the time the controller figured out what had happened, he was mad at me, but only briefly, after realizing his mistake, and he just let it go, which was, I'm sure, a smart move considering that no one had anything to gain there. 

But I learned some important lessons. Know what the controller knows and doesn't.  In this case, BDR didn't have radar, so the controller wasn't seeing me on his screen, because he didn't have one. In his mind I was where traffic arriving in that sector always ways, several miles out in perfect position to enter on a 45 for downwind. Only I wasn't. Had I been more aware and experienced, I would have insisted that I was not in a position to make a 45 for downwind.

And also, be willing to stand up for what you're right about. In the case of the Denver near-miss, the pilot should have questioned the clearance not once but twice. A 180-degree turn to a fix you've already passed on arrival makes no sense whatsoever unless the controller makes it clear that it's an out-of-the-ordinary clearance.

Controllers make mistakes, admittedly, a lot fewer than pilots do. And we need to vigilant about that possibility. If something doesn't make sense to you, ask. There are controllers, too many of them, who will give you a hard time about asking, but that's their problem. A good controller wants to make sure you understand the clearance and, if there's a problem with it, that he knows that too.

By Robert Goyer

Are we losing our stick and rudder skills? If so, how much does it matter?

We got an email from a reader the other day, a former Air Force fighter jock who was shocked by what he saw as the lack of flying skills on the part of the pilot flying the Q400 that crashed in Buffalo earlier this year. In his email, the reader went into exacting detail about exactly how he would have extricated himself from the mess (that in real life quickly ended in disaster) and what he saw as the root cause of the crash: poor stick and rudder skills.

It seems to be a widely held belief, that pilots today suffer from a serious lack of basic flying skill and that their inability to fly the airplane makes them particularly vulnerable when the chips get down.

But is it true?

Unfortunately, it's impossible to say with any certainty if our hand flying skills have eroded over time. Are there indications that they might have? Sure. And there is a lot of anecdotal evidence to support that view. But how does one measure that? If one were to look at accident statistics as a yardstick, one might come to the opposite conclusion. There are fewer accidents per hour these days compared to the good old days of spinning before solo, so our hand flying must be better, right? Okay, probably not, but my point is, it's a hard thing to quantify.

Back to Buffalo. Let me say that while the NTSB hasn't issued a final report on the crash, it's hard if not impossible, based solely on the transcripts, to defend the conduct of the flight.

But the questions remain: would the pilots have had a chance to recover if they had flown the airplane more proficiently at the point that the airspeed started to erode? And what could they have done to ward off the incipient stall in the first place?

Now, I'm not attempting any in-depth analysis of the Buffalo crash; I'm only using it as means to discuss the kind of thinking that I hear all the time from pilots about upset recovery.

First, I think the answer to the first question--could they have saved the day?--is probably "yes." But only if the pilots had executed recovery techniques quickly and without mistake. Neither of those things happened. Pulling back on the elevator when the airplane is stalling is good technique only as part of an aerobatics routine. Had the crew pushed the nose down, powered up and commanded gear up as soon as they became aware they were in trouble, could they have recovered? It would have been close, but probably. 

That said, this kind of Monday morning quarterbacking (Tuesday morning, that is: my Pats got killed last night) is a tempting thing to do. And predictably, our performance with nothing but time to think about it and absolutely nothing at stake is remarkably good. I know I always save the day, at least in my own mind. (For the record, I have also saved the day once in real life, as well. Hooray for me.)

Part of this strong (too strong?) self belief might stem from the psychological need we have to protect ourselves from perceived risk. After all, who wants to believe that we have no little or no power to ward off disaster in our daily flying? Not me. I want to think I could save myself if the need ever arose (again).

And let's be realistic. When the chips are down in the sim, pilots, good pilots, pilots with ten times as many hours and skill as me, crash all the time. Any pilot can be overcome by circumstance. That's just a fact.

The second question is much easier to answer. What could they have done to ward off the incipient stall? Just paying attention to airspeed would have done the trick. That simple awareness would have saved 50 lives that day.

That doesn't mean that stick and rudder skills are irrelevant or even overrated. It just means that keeping yourself out of situations where you need those skills to save your life is a much more prudent approach. Had the Buffalo pilots simply been aware of their airspeed, there would have been no need to recover from anything. Risk management was a much easier and more clear cut answer to cutting risk. Paying attention would have eliminated the need for upset recovery techniques.

That might not be a comfort to pilots, like you and me, who want to believe we have the right stuff and can save the day when the chips are down, but it's far more realistic, and far more likely to save lives than heroic measures.

by Robert Goyer

China, China, China.

There was one word I didn’t use in my blog last week. That word was “China.” One commenter brought this to my attention in no uncertain terms. “Well, interesting story Robert, but like so many have said - CHINA, CHINA, CHINA !!”

In my piece that wasn’t about the SkyCatcher being built in China (click here if you haven’t seen it) I was simply explaining why airplanes cost as much as they do and in the process used the SkyCatcher, Cessna’s two-seat LSA trainer, as the example to make my point.

Yet despite the fact that I didn't mention the China connection, a large percentage of the replies to my piece were all about that fact. People clearly want to discuss it.

Several respondents were upset that SkyCatcher production was being outsourced at a time when American jobs are being lost en masse. One said, “My one and only complaint is that no one . . . talks about where the 162 is built. The last time I heard it was being built in China at the same time that Cessna was having massive layoffs in Wichita. I don't care about all the usual excuses, that just isn't right.” For some readers, the question was one of national loyalty and pride. “I would never buy this airplane,” one reader said. “Made in China - forget it. Cessna lays off so many Americans and then moves construction of the 162 to China - COME ON! Forget it, you could sell it for $50,000 and I'd still say NO THANKS!”

Several commenters saw a more complex picture. “The whole China/US made argument boils down to "how much extra are you willing to pay to support someone whose product or efforts cost more?" It plays out everywhere, such as in anti-WalMart campaigns. Here at our home airport, the FBO, run by a neighbor, sells gas that generally runs $.45/gallon higher than a vendor only a few miles away. Should I cough up the extra $25 or more per fill-up to support him? Or should I go with free enterprise, which has provided us with our fantastic lifestyle? What would you do?”

A friend and a longtime aviation manufacturing professional posted that, “After spending that last 16-plus years witnessing and being part of a certification process the cost of building a new aircraft is beyond comprehension. I understand why Cessna is building in China but it does not make it any less frustrating to see a once all American industry being exported.”

Yet another reader pointed out that Cessna doesn’t need to be in the training market at all. “Cessna could make lots more money just selling their highly successful jets but instead put lots of time and money into re-starting the flight training market. They want more pilots and they want them starting in Cessnas. These guys are very savvy and know what they are doing; the Skycatcher will succeed marvelously.”

Finally, one commenter made a point that was dear to all of hearts whether we support Cessna’s decision to build the airplane in China or not: He said, “Personally, I don’t care where the 162 is built. My Ford Focus is built in Mexico, my Ford Crown Victoria in Canada. So that’s the fact of today’s international world. What really worries me is that young kids are not getting into aviation at all."

I strongly agree with his last point. Regardless of where it’s built, the SkyCatcher is a step in the direction of reversing that alarming trend.

Why the Critics Are Wrong about the Cessna SkyCatcher

I got an email the other day from a curmudgeonly character named "Bill" who, despite his gruff manner and reluctance to discuss the subject in any detail, nevertheless voiced some criticisms that are quite common these days.

The reason for Bill's rant--and something tells me he doesn't need much to get going--was the piece in this month's issue by Mac on the Cessna SkyCatcher. Bill was rankled at the positive review Mac gave the airplane and called the 162 a "reinvention of the wheel with some shiny stuff on it" and a "$100,000 toy." 

I've always thought the "reinvention of the wheel" saying was hilarious. Thank goodness the wheel has been reinvented again and again. The first ones were terrible! But through constant reinvention, they've been getting better ever since.

As far as the "shiny stuff" comment is concerned, the crack implies that the shine is for the sake of the shine, and nothing could be further from the truth. The Garmin avionics in the 162 make the gauges in an old 150 look positively prehistoric. The Garmin suite does a lot more, does it more reliably and makes things safer and is cheaper to buy and maintain. But apart from that, it's all flash. Sheesh.

Bill's "$100,000 toy" comment was off base, too. First of all, the SkyCatcher is not a toy. Most of these airplanes will go onto the line as trainers. Is $100,000 (actually, a bit more than that) too much to pay for a trainer? It depends. You can get a couple of 162s for the price of a 172, and Cessna has sold hundreds of those airplanes in recent years to be used as trainers. So maybe not. And the 162 is, indeed, one of the top two or three airplanes that I would have my kids train in.

I do agree that airplanes cost a lot.  Do they cost too much, though? Sometimes, they do, but not in the  case of the SkyCatcher. Its price is actually very good. Believe me, Cessna is not going to get rich building this airplane. The margins are far too slim. Besides, saying the SkyCatcher costs too much is like saying that my house costs too much. That is, it's like saying that we wish that airplanes cost less. I strongly share that sentiment. But it's not going to make my house or your dream airplane cost less.

And let me make one thing clear: Airplanes cost a lot not because the airplane makers are artificially inflating the prices of their wares in order to dupe unsuspecting consumers but because it takes tens of millions of dollars to get a very light airplane to market and the number of sales a company can hope to get on that airplane are relatively small. And remember that airplane manufacturers have to pay other companies--engine makers, avionics suppliers, tire makers, accessories suppliers--a huge percentage of the value of the airplane before a consumer pays penny one. And that's not even factoring in the cost of overhead. Let's face it, the 162 is very attractively priced. Besides, if we care about aviation, we want airplane companies to make money. We really, really do.

I didn't write this piece, but I get the criticism from time to time when I write a strongly positive review of an airplane that I've glossed over the weaknesses. I think it's important to understand that the airplanes we fly are, for the most part, certified to extremely stringent standards. And Flying has always and always will be strongly supportive of strict standards, as there is overwhelming proof that these standards improve safety. The truth be told, most of the time, not all of the time, the airplanes I'm flying are just good airplanes.

Are some more comfortable, better handling, easier to land or faster than others? Sure. And we say that. Now, the SkyCatcher is an LSA and is, therefore, not conventionally certified, but as Mac pointed out in his piece, that didn't keep Cessna from going through internally the same process it uses to certify a Part 23 airplane. The result, no surprise, is the kind of positive review Mac gave the airplane. Because it's a good airplane at doing what it was intended to do.

Does it cost more than a run-down 30-year-old Cessna trainer? You bet. But if Cessna tried to build the 152 all over again, it would cost $200,000 or more. That is a fact of economics.

But I do wish airplanes cost less. They just don't.

There are options, renting, flying clubs, partnerships and shared ownership. But the whining option seems silly and self defeating. If you want to fly, find a way.

The SkyCatcher happens to be one such way. We should be celebrating that fact.

By Robert Goyer

Is Wichita Obama's Post-Katrina New Orleans?

Immediately following Hurricane Katrina, President Bush took a lot of heat for his tepid response—both personally and nationally—to the disaster. His airborne photo-op observation of the site of the catastrophe struck many Americans as being an insensitive and wholly insufficient response to the disaster. Only many days later and after the criticism did he hit the ground in New Orleans (though once on the ground, his “Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job” remark proved another lowlight of the Katrina response).

            I know you can’t directly compare what is happening in the aviation industry to Hurricane Katrina’s ravaging of the United States Gulf Coast, a natural disaster as a result of which around 1,500 people died, and one that threw hundreds of thousands of lives into chaos. Many of those lives are still in disarray.

But over the past year the aviation industry in the United States has suffered a catastrophe of unprecedented proportions itself. As you know, the calamity is largely due to the world economic crisis that struck last year that crippled the commercial and private credit markets. The result of the collapse was the dumping of hundreds of late model business aircraft on an already saturated used market and the wholesale canceling of hundreds more bizjet orders, with order holders abandoning even large deposits to dump their spots.

But the industry suffered a double whammy when a number of politicians, including President Obama, piled on a staggering industry, portraying business aviation as an expensive and irresponsible perk.

The result of these twin attacks, one economic and one political, soon impacted the lives of tens of thousands of aircraft workers who build and support the airplanes that are at the heart of what we do. There are approximately 1.2 million of these skilled and valuable workers.

In Wichita alone, aerospace companies laid off 27,000 workers. And that’s not just a big number. It’s a big number of people. People with incomes, health benefits, with children in schools and with homes to maintain. And in Savannah and Little Rock and Phoenix and Duluth, the effect was the same. Lost jobs, lives thrown into disarray and no relief in sight.

The effects of such job losses on the economy are easy to compute—they total into the billions--but the personal costs, in terms of family life, opportunities for the children of those who lose their jobs and the loss of hope and optimism are not well known but are great.

True, there was no actual Hurricane that blew through Wichita, but the calamity there is very real and can be measured in the economic and emotional casualties on the ground there, and everywhere in the United States where aviation businesses let people go for lack of business.

And it’s time for President Obama to get on the ground in Wichita, to get his hands dirty and meet those people face to face who have lost their jobs and are in trouble today and who face an uncertain future.

It will take a lot of courage for President Obama to make that trip, because unlike his predecessor with Katrina, President Obama bears some personal responsibility for this catastrophe.

On the Mythical Pilot Shortage, Airline Pilots on Food Stamps, and Jumping to Conclusions about Buffalo

Last week's blog about the controversial crisis in pilot hiring and flight training elicited some of the most emotional, most strongly worded, and articulate responses to any piece I've written in my nearly-15 years at Flying. To refresh your memory, in my blog I recounted the ideas floated around the table at a conference held by Delta Connection Academy about what many attendees saw as a coming crisis in flight training. Many there blamed the crisis on the credit crunch for students looking for loans to foot the training bill. Every issue was on the table at the get together, from low starting salaries, to difficult working conditions for regional pilots to the advisability of even choosing airline flying as a career.

While responses to my piece ran the gamut, the lion's share of the opinion was that there is no crisis in flight training, because there's no shortage of pilots.

One commenter wrote, "The reason pilot wages are low is because of simple economics- PILOT SUPPLY FAR EXCEEDS DEMAND so employers can easily pay a low wage to fill their pilot employment needs. This supply and demand metric will continue to be out of our (i.e. pilot's) favor well into the foreseeable future."

Another commenter disagreed, "Do the flippin' math! There will be a pilot shortage in the next few years. The military guys are not going civilian anymore. Many of the older guys that were furloughed with families will not return to aviation. Student starts are near zero! CFI's are not earning hours. Where are we going to get the new crop of pilots from?"

But there was little disagreement that pay has to increase for starting pilots. My modest suggestion that there should be a starting minimum salary of $30,000 was widely criticized . . . for being too low. I agree and argue only that I was trying to be realistic. Will an industry, the Regional Airlines, whose members feel justified in paying pilots indefensible starting salaries, ever be willing to pay more?

And my suggestion that the airlines start footing the bill for training was dismissed by some, not as being bad policy but for being naive: "Sadly, the simple fact of the matter is that pay will never increase," one commenter wrote, "and the airlines will never take on the financial burden of training it's own as long as $99.00 coast to coast fares remain an American birth right. A monster the airlines themselves created."

One reader sent me a link to a piece in which the author met the pilots of an RJ he'd been flying on and learned that he had been on and off of food stamps while fully employed as an airline pilot. Both pilots had part time jobs, one as a substitute teacher. The quality of life/safety nexus is hard to ignore. And while no one brought up issues associated with new, poor pilots commuting long hours to their assigned base, at the conference it was a topic of great concern. 

A representative of the Regional Airline Association said that we should not jump to conclusions about the Buffalo crash of a Colgan Air RJ that left 49 dead. But reading the transcript of the cockpit voice recorders leaves one with an inescapable impression that the flight was conducted in a non-professional manner by pilots who admitted on tape their lack of appropriate experience and discussed their commuting woes.

And our readers agreed. One weighed in on that "The Colgan crash never would have happened if they used a furloughed United pilot as a F/O. But then no United F/O would be working for such low pay. Pay has everything to do with safety."

One poster pointed out a parallel: "Deregulation has historically created these types of issues. We saw it in the trucking industry as well. The carriers kept undercutting one another until the poor driver didn't stand a chance."

A father of a young man who has been a professional pilot for a few years weighed in young people becoming pilots. "For the young prospective pilots.....I hate to say it like this but hear it goes.....find another profession. most people do not have the money it takes to become marketable. The pay is too low to make up any ground. Don't waste your time.

Finally, one poster hit the nail on the head as to why there will always be prospects for that new-hire right seat job: "My passion for flying will not even come close to being consumed by this negative attitude! Of course education costs money and a Master's in Aeronautical Science and all the ratings do not come cheap. Flying as a profession is a very personal choice and I hold it very dear to my heart. I can't see my life without it. So whatever it takes..I'll be in the cockpit..."