FAA’s Bobby Sturgell Deserves a Break
Close on the heels of this 4th of July comes the realization that the most heated presidential election we will probably see in our life times is really upon us. The relentless drum-beat from both nominees is that this nation is in serious need of some serious change.
While I’m not quite ready to throw in the towel with those who say the U.S. is busted, there is little doubt that the Congress has forgotten the meaning of the words leadership and compromise. No where does that seemingly worn out notion of leadership - or the lack of it - hit home more than at our own personal bunch of sky-bobbies, the FAA.
You’ve all heard me and many others beat these management folks up in the past year, whether it’s about the failure of the agency to negotiate some sort of settlement with the nation’s air traffic controllers, to the mess the inspectors uncovered with their bosses in Washington over how much self-policing the airlines should be allowed, to why a guy in a lawn chair over Idaho isn’t in jail for endangering the safety of the flying public after launching his balloon-powered seat over Oregon over this weekend. And don’t get me started on user fees and Next-Gen or the JPDO …
The overall responsibility for all this FAA silliness ends up precisely where it should, on the desk of Bobby Sturgell, the man who would be administrator pictured here with his political appointee pal Mary Peters.
But for once, let’s cut Bobby a little slack … not too much though, because while Bobby has proven he’s great at making speeches - thirteen in the past three months in fact - he is not up to the job of evoking change at the agency, much less leading it anywhere. When I went through FAA Management School in Lawton OK 20 years ago, management of everything was the job to be learned, not leadership. It seems that little has changed.
So why show Bobby Sturgell any mercy?
Pilots Flock to Stick & Rudder Safety Clinic
It’s been awhile since I’ve attended an FAA safety seminar. With good intentions I read all e-mail invitations FAASafety.gov sends, but other weekend responsibilities too often take precedence. A tailwheel clinic, on the other hand, is more important than cutting the grass, especially when it’s held in a place where airplanes are born.
Located on the Rochester, Wisconsin, airport, the American Champion Aircraft (ACA) factory wasn’t hard to find. In the main assembly hangar several dozen people, many wearing their best aviation T-shirts, milled around the tables where the Rochester Library Association sold coffee Grande and high-octane pastries for $1 each. Based on the safety clinics I’d attended in the past, the crowd seemed average.
Nearby, a High Country Explorer guarded a sea of 200 empty chairs that faced a large screen standing before a yellow Scout on tall Tundra Tires. Rather optimistic attendance hopes, I thought, given that taildragger pilots are a minority among aviators.
Then an amplified voice echoed through the hangar. “Let’s get started,” said Jeff Taylor of the Wisconsin Bureau of Aeronautics. Those with coffee and donuts got the best seats. Right behind them were the pilots who had been exploring the CNC mills and towering racks of aluminum and steel airplane parts. At 9 a.m., it was hard to find an empty chair.
What’s going on here?
United and Continental Airlines: Dumb and Dumber
As a marketing-communications guy, JD Power and Associates recent labeling of Continental Airlines as one of the best in the nation for overall customer satisfaction, as well as the Best U.S. Airline award CAL also grabbed from the Official Airline Guide crowd was pretty darned impressive. It’s the kind of brand recognition marketing people live for. And Continental has surely slugged its way through enough bankruptcies to feel good about reaching this point in the aviation industry.
And it is precisely because of Continental’s strong brand that I think that airline’s CEO Larry Kellner and the board of directors at the Houston-based airline must have lost their minds when they decided to hook up with a bottom-feeder airline like United, an airline JD Power ranks at the bottom of the heap too. 
If you missed this piece of recent high-level airline strategy, Continental plans to “cooperate extensively, [with United] linking their networks and services to create revenue opportunities, cost savings and other efficiencies.” Continental also withdrew from the Sky Team alliance ( KLM, Northwest, Delta, Aeroflot and a few more) to join the larger Star alliance with United and 19 other carriers (see reply below). A merger between the two carriers was ruled out a few months ago when Continental said, “No thanks,” to a United offer to marry up.
Icon Aircraft Preaches to the Congregation (Finally!)
Stand with me brothers and sisters of the air and remember June 11, 2008. On this day upstart Icon Aircraft left the cloistered alcove where the choir of aviators sings. It took the public pulpit, inhaled deeply, and sang in pure notes to the congregation of nonflyers–flying for fun is for you!
Yeah, I know. You’ve heard this hymn before. But never like this. In the cathedral of aviation this is different. So different that the glitzy LA debut of the A5, described as the “ultimate recreational vehicle,” caught the attention of publications like Forbes and Business Week.
And the Wall Street Journal summarized the difference succinctly in its article, “Start-Up Wants a New Audience to Take to the Air,” calling Icon’s marketing plans “a novel concept: a small, sleek propeller plane aimed at the same mass market that includes motorbikes, personal watercraft, and powerboats…affluent thrill-seekers — a group that already spends billions of dollars each year on trekking, white-water rafting, hang gliding, parasailing and similar adventure sports.”
The Icon A5 is an amphibious light-sport aircraft made of carbon fiber. But that is not what makes it special. Nor is it the A5’s folding wings and optional trailer, allowing owners to keep it at home like a boat. What makes it unique is that the sleek, sexy machine was designed for the consumer–not a pilot.
Skywriting: Who Says a Flying Job Can’t be Fun?
I walked out in the alley on Saturday near my home just north of Chicago and was surprised to see a bunch of kids all staring up at the azure-blue sky to the north. “Hey guys. What’s going on?” I asked. One small boy said nothing and only pointed up to the sky. That’s when I was treated to an aerial display I hadn’t seen in at least 20 years … a skywriter.
When I was a kid - yes, long before the 20 years so no smart aleck remarks - skywriting was a part of the integrated mix of marketing messages a company used to blast its message to thousands of people in a moment. I towed banners from a 7KCAB Citabria many years ago, but skywriting looks like way more fun than I ever had dragging rags.
Where is the Best Aviation Blog?
As much as stay awake at night wondering how many people around the globe are clicking through the stories here at Jetwhine, I know we are only one small fish in the sea of people who think they know just about everything when it comes to air travel.
So as a public service - and because the curiosity is simply keeping me awake at night - I hope you’ll tell us here at Jetwhine what other aviation blogs you read and why. They might be about air travel, or ATC, or airline flying or learning to fly. Your choice.
Why Bother?
Seriously, blogging is all about sharing the conversation with others. If you check out our blogroll here on the right, you’ll find some of the blogs I read.
What about you? Let’s gather them up and I’ll post a final list before the blogger-fest at AirVenture next month.
Backyard Flying: Fun & Cheap
Would you be interested in a ready-to-fly single seater, complete with engine for $12,000 to $15,000? How about a two-seater with a BRS ballistic chute for $25,000 to $30,000. Yeah, me too!
Dicks Starks is a long-time friend, and I always stop what I’m doing when his messages appear in my in box because they always bear interesting tidbits, and his goofy good nature always makes me smile.
If that name sounds familiar, maybe you’ve seen his articles in magazines like EAA Sport Pilot or Kitplanes. Or you’ve read his book, You Want to Build and Fly a What?, which chronicles his start in flying and how he and some friends built Volkswagen-powered Nieuports and formed the Kansas City Dawn Patrol.
Dick wrote recently to say his new book, Fokkers at Six O’clock, which picks up where the first book left off, was at the printer and that he hoped to make Author’s Corner at EAA AirVenture. And he sent some photos of his wife’s new plane, a Morane parasol designed by Robert Baslee of Airdrome Aeroplanes, the same guy who built four full-scale Nieuport 17s for the movie Fly Boys.
Then he recounted his trip to Valley Engineering/Culver Props in Rolla, Missouri. The father and son team of Gene and Larry Smith make engines, reduction drives, and props. Their Big Twin, a four-cycle 38-hp V-twin powers the Morane, and they also make fuel-sipping VW-based engines that Dick raves about.
Jetwhine Welcomes Papua New Guinea
Bloggers think they know everything. Or at least that’s what we believe when we get started as bloggers. Once we really get up a good head of blogger steam though, we realize just how little of a good blog is about us and how much of it is about the people we meet along the journey.
A friend - Thierry Pouille - e-mailed me today from Dubai, his current stop on an around-the-world journey with a group of other pilots in a PC 12, a TBM 700, a Conquest, a Turbine Royal Duke and a Citation Mustang. I’ll be blogging more about this next week, but am I ever glad to hear someone I’ve gotten to know better through this media is involved with something so cool.
I never cease to be amazed at the places on the globe people tune in to Jetwhine from, 92 different countries to date according to the Google software we have installed.
But here’s one of the most amazing locations. Jetwhine picked up its first reader from Papua New Guinea last week … from Port Moresby to be precise. Near north of Australia, this is about as far away as an aviation buff can possibly be from Jetwhine’s home outside Chicago.
Bloggers Will Gather at AirVenture 2008
This year, AirVenture will include something never before seen at the massive annual trek to Oshkosh … bloggers coming together to talk about the two things they love best … airplanes and social media. Will you be one of them?
The First Annual AirVenture Blogger Fest - sponsored by Jetwhine.com - takes place at AirVenture on July 28th at 4 PM. The AirVenture folks have been nice enough to - appropriately enough - offer up the GAMA building for the event.
Being an active blogger is not a requirement to attend. We’ll be talking about blogging and aviation in general and anyone is welcome to come listen and learn more about how social media is providing a new kind of voice to the aviation industry.
Since all I can guarantee right now are cold drinks to all trying to beat the summer simmer of Oshkosh in Ju
ly, I’m open to ideas that will keep the discussion flowing for an hour or so. Certainly we’ll cover a few basics such as writing, blogging platforms, LSAs, pilot careers, airline industry chaos, FAA, air traffic control, flight training, electronic media, business aviation, aviation marketing etc., etc., and so on for starters (I can talk pretty fast!). Who knows where the discussion will lead once our hour and a half is up?
Tell your blogger pal - both ladies and gents of course - that bloggers will be gathering at Oshkosh on July 28 at 4 PM.
Make a note to come join us and say hi. RSVP’s are not necessary, but questions or ideas can be posted here or sent via private e-mail to rob@jetwhine.com. See you there.
Aerotrekking Back to Coffin Corner
Given the world’s sorry state and aviation’s place in it, hope for the future is at the coffin corner. To help maintain that delicate balance it is natural to withdraw into–and protect–our little corner of aviation’s diverse world, sacrificing the others for our survival.
Over the past year or so this survival mechanism has surfaced in many conversations, including those that have followed several past posts, Low CFI Birthrate & Graying Population Adding to Teacher Shortage and Cessna Pilot Centers May be GA’s Last Hope for Reversing Pilot Population Decline. Needless to say, it pitched me into a death-spiral of despair. In tough times we need to support each other. And if we, the family of pilots, are sharing our isolationist critiques with newcomers–directly or indirectly– then we deserve to be a dying population.
My recovery to the coffin corner of hope came from an unexpected resource, the current issue of National Geographic Adventure. It introduced its more than 600,000 readers to aerotrekking in an eight page feature story, John McAfee’s Flying Circus Wants You!, written by Tom Clynes and photographed (including this one) by Dawn Kish.