IP: Re: Iridium wants to provide real time airline "Black Box"services

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

As a pilot also, is this person right.

Dave

> Dave -- if you choose to distribute this, please post this without 
> attribution.  I'm a well-known public figure in my community, and am not 
> interested in attracting the special attention of the local FAA office.
>
> --
>
> A short response regarding real-time monitoring of the cockpit on 
> commercial airliners.
>
> How would you like to have your every move in the workplace subject to 
> monitoring and recording by the Feds?  Remember that personal photocopy 
> you made last year?  It's all on tape if your manager or the authorities 
> choose to use it.  If we want our commercial pilots to be smart, decisive 
> and proactive, we need a workplace that appeals to that sort of person.
>
> Further, with the arcane and conflicting net of regulations surrounding 
> aviation, minor violations of the rules happen regularly.  Here's an 
> example _right now_ of the thinking that goes into aviation regulation in 
> the US:  the FAA has put in place special regulations prohibiting flight 
> under visual rules around large cities.  That means that I, an instrument 
> rated private pilot with hundreds of hours of flight experience, am not 
> allowed to fly under visual rules from the airport near my 
> house.  However, the same rules allow a _student pilot_, with 20-30 hours 
> of experience, to fly under visual rules from the same airport.  Even the 
> student's instructor, who has hundreds of hours of experience and a 
> commercial ticket, is not allowed to fly under visual rules without a 
> student on board.  It's crazy.
>
> Finally, many observers of the regulatory enforcement process would say 
> that the FAA is arbitrary in its enforcement of the regulations;  this 
> would put the sword over every commercial pilot's neck at the discretion 
> of the FAA enforcers.



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