For those of you involved in Airline Reliability Programs, and particularly for those who attended my session titled “Deferrals Per MEL and Airline Reliability Programs” at the 2013 ASA Conference, I want to give you an update on efforts to revise key FAA Advisory Circulars.   In 2005 there was an accident involving a Turboprop which crashed into a department store garden center shortly after takeoff from Manchester-Boston Regional Airport (MHT). The aircraft was destroyed and the pilot of the c...

Don’t you hate it when you go out shopping for a product, try several stores, and make your purchase, then discover that someone else had the same product for a lower price? The truth is I was likely conditioned to assume that only those stores I tried could offer that product at a price I thought competitive. Perhaps those stores had culled my favor by being the biggest, or what I thought was the only source of the product. Regardless, the seasoned shoppers among you would tell me that my proce...

Governmental Agencies provide a host of services including, but not limited to Certifications and Inspections. Certifying Fish, Meat, Airplanes, Repair Station Applicants, Aircraft Parts, Health and Sanitary Inspections, Air Traffic Control, and Hospitals comprise just a short list of those services. Most commonly, the continuance of business relies on those certifications, services, or inspections. This brings us to the current ‘sequestration’ environment. In the media we see rising alacrity am...

According to the book “Slang: The Topical Dictionary of Americanisms” by Paul Dickson, during WW II the use of slang by American and Royal Air Force flyers got so deep, that the newspapers had to run occasional articles to point out that bombs were eggs, anti-aircraft balloons were pigs, student pilots were kiwis, etc. Unsurprisingly, Dickson points out that aviation contains a great deal of slang or jargon, and this extends to our colleagues who are directly involved in the vocation of sales or...

Some gestures are universally understood. When a person with first aid skills observes another person at a restaurant frantically clutching their throat, that is a universal sign that aid should be rendered to extricate the offending victual from the patron’s airway. One of my callings in life is to let drivers know when one of their taillights is out. I’ll pull up alongside and gesture with a circular motion for them to roll down their windows, whereupon I inform them of the condition requiring...