A Flight Standards Update

If one is really interested in what is happening at the FAA, one could go to the web at www.faa.gov, or on the safety side, go to www.faasafety.gov. But at our St. Louis reunion meeting, we were privileged to receive a briefing about our FAA specialty from the new Central Region Flight Standards Division Manager – Fred Walker. Fred came out of the Flight Standards’ operations side of things. He started with the FAA as a helicopter specialist in Texas and just never stopped moving up through the ranks. Fred spent a lot of time in the Kansas City area, but had moved to Atlanta to become the Flight Standards Division Manager there. He seems to have had an affinity for Kansas City, however, and when the division manager job became open, he returned to what was familiar territory.

The FAA has had a history of progress in aviation safety. Most of it happened during “our” working years. Fred Walker started out by reminding us of these great strides and that they created an anticipation that even more advances could be achieved. Management has now recognized that incremental improvement in safety is all that we can expect – the easier fixes have already been accomplished. However, to highlight the drive for safety, the FAA renamed our AVR (Aviation Regulation) organization to emphasize safety. It is now named as the FAA’s AVS (Aviation Safety) organization. In addition, with Nick Sabatini, previously the Director of Flight Standards at its helm, an organization “values” concept has been adopted. Having observed that a number of industries have benefited from having organizational values, Nick set up a values concept for Flight Standards (Flt Stds). Flt Stds’ values were established as being “People, Quality, Safety, and Integrity.” The FAA Administrator liked the concept and the Flt Stds values have been extended to the FAA in its entirety.

AVS is now ISO 9000 certified! ISO 9000 is an international system for managing quality. To be recognized as meeting this standard, an organization must be evaluated by an outside accreditation body – a very strict process. This fall, AVS received its ISO 9000 registration certificate (October 16, 2006). The certification places all AVS lines of business under a single ISO registration (Flight Standards was certified earlier this year). This achievement is significant and unprecedented as it is the first time a government organization of the size, complexity, and scope as that of the AVS organization has ever been certified under a single ISO certificate.

A Customer Service Initiative (CSI) program. To better work with the public and provide them service, Flt Stds has started a CSI. The CSI gives the customer a way to challenge Flt Stds/AVS when confronted with an unpleasant response. This is a relatively new AVS Program that provides a way for Flt Stds’ customers to request reconsideration of an Aviation Safety office’s decision. The goals of the Initiative are to: 1) Document Aviation Safety decisions, 2) Make employees accountable for achieving Aviation Safety’s mission, 3) Promote earlier resolution of disagreements, and 4) Promote more consistency and fairness in applying FAA regulations. The initial effort is taking place at the FSDO level. If pertinent issues cannot be resolved at the FSDO level, they are elevated to the Regional level, and if needed, to the National level for resolution.

The Accident Prevention Program, which morphed into the Flt Stds Safety Program, has now made another change! Instead of a GA safety program manager at each FSDO, Flt Stds now has a FAAST (FAA Safety Team) program that is scattered about each region independent of the FSDOs. No longer tied to general aviation per se, it is now a mixture of air carrier, airworthiness, and GA safety program types. The position has been upgraded from that of a GS-13 to the equivalent of a GS-14 and the job’s emphasis is changing from its GA-oriented seminar system to a program that will involve the airlines, alphabet groups, etc., in addition to its home in general aviation.

Safety Management Systems (SMS)– AFS (AVS) is transitioning to SMS. What is it? Fred gave me a follow-up explanation of it as being a formal, top-down businesslike approach to managing safety risk. It includes systematic procedures, practices, and policies for the management of safety. The bottom line is a system that will enable the Agency to identify risk and focus our limited resources where the risk is greatest.

Asking around further, I learned that ICAO has recognized the value of the SMS concept. It has already implemented Standards and Recommended Procedures (SARPs) requiring the use of SMS for air traffic organizations and ICAO certified airports. In November of this year, ICAO is to publish a proposed SARP to Annex 6, requiring SMS for all ICAO "air operators" by January 2009. In anticipation of this, AVS has come up with an Advisory Circular (AC 120-92, "Introduction to Safety Management Systems for Air Operators”– dated June 22, 2006). The FAASTeam SMS product, while not originally conceived for ICAO air operator use, is fully interfaced and coordinated with the AC 120-92’s SMS requirements.

Flt Stds Certification System Oversight Program (CSOP). This is a method of prioritizing the certification of new Air Carrier/Air Operators based on FSDO workloads. There are approximately 300 applications for certification that were delayed and are now being worked through this process. This program was created when it was recognized that Flt Stds did not have adequate resources to provide the surveillance that these operators, once certified, would require. Fred told us that Congress is responding to this issue by acting to increase the resources available to Flt Stds.

Delegation of Authority! While the number of inspectors may be greater than ever, there is an even greater demand for service from Flt Stds. Flt Stds is using risk management tools to identify low risk job functions suitable for delegation. Using data collected from the FAA’s surveillance programs, Flt Stds is able to track operator performance and determine where it can safely delegate oversight authority. Along with data from my era’s computer-reporting “Program Tracking Reporting System” (PTRS), the Labor Distribution Report (LDR), a relatively new computer-reporting system, is being used to track man-hours and help to correctly identify these low risk job functions. Fred says that the LDR tracks how ASI’s spend their work hours and that it is working well. And more automation can be good – Fred says that, on the financial side, computer programs have advanced to the point where a travel voucher can go into the system and result in a reimbursement check within two to three working days.

Remotely Sited Inspectors (RSI) help Geographic Program/Principal Inspectors – For those of us that were air carrier inspectors (ASIs), we remember when, to provide adequate oversight, we had to call various FSDOs and ask them to check on our carrier’s operations and/or maintenance practices at some station far away from our home office. Today, with the Geographic Program, a Flt Stds Certificate Management Office (CMO) has certificate-assigned staff that may work out of a FSDO on the other side of the U.S. These RSI’s are trained in the specifics of the certificate holder and are better able to recognize when an operator is not performing as it should. This is in contrast to the generic training given to those of us that were ASIs and performing surveillance in the “old days”.

The Air Transportation Oversight System (ATOS) is another part of today’s airline oversight. This system, in place at our nation’s top10 airlines, helps identify potential problem areas in an air carrier's operation. Each CMO uses its staff of specialists to analyze the ATOS input to do a risk assessment as to where its oversight resources could best be utilized; i.e., each CMO determines its own workload priorities. In response to a question about today’s enroute inspections (and the reluctance of inspectors to write entries into the computer, Fred said that the current Enroute Inspection Forms have extensive “yes/no” blocks that the inspector checks off. He then submits his report into the system while avoiding any subjective text entries. While on the subject of enroute inspections, Fred said that the FAA is now re-looking at the new hire requirement to hold an FAA class I medical certificate. This may be changed to a Class II medical for new inspectors. He also educated us on the Agency’s Flight Operational Quality Assurance system (FOQA), a system of computer data on flight performance and pilot methodology. FOQA is a program for the routine collection and analysis of digital flight data generated during normal line operations.

FAR 135/Executive jets and fractional ownership (“time-shared”) jets are getting attention regarding “who has operational control of the aircraft.” Fred stated that Flt Stds has identified a number of questionable operations out among the “Doing Business As” (DBA) crowd. In a couple of cases they have been able to have inspectors at both an aircraft and then, hundreds of miles away, at the operator’s dispatch offices. In these instances it was not unusual to find that the operators were in violation of the FARs in their exercise of operational control. In FAR 135 operations the DBA question has become very complicated regarding who has operational control.

FAA Organizational changes – For those that have missed it, the Air Traffic Service and the Airways Facilities Service (which includes Flight Inspection) have all been combined into an ATO (Air Traffic Organization). A lot of people are being asked to transfer around the FAA system and the whole operation is in a state of flux. A level of Flt Stds consolidation occurred a year ago when the New England and Eastern Regions were combined. Off the top of my head, it looks like the FAA is being slimmed down to being ATO, Airports, and Flt Stds. Finance, Logistics, and Legal would pretty much finish off the FAA’s components.

Frederick T. Walker, Flight Standards Division Manager of the Central Region, ACE-200, provided almost all of the information in this article. Having been retired for just eight years, I found that I had to repeatedly ask for clarification so that I could understand what I wrote here. I dug out some of the information in the month following our reunion. For those of you that were in the room listening to Fred’s presentation, if this doesn’t sound like what you heard, don’t be surprised. I had to do some rearranging of Fred’s talk just so I would know what it was that I was repeating here.

Jack Kenton

Retired fm AWP-230, March 1998