You can imagine our deep sense of grief when occasionally we’d return to a city on our ground-school circuit and someone would say, “Did you hear about Bill?” “No,” we’d say, “what happened to Bill?” They would then explain the aircraft crash that had killed Bill. It happened all too often. We began to realize the things that were killing these learning pilots were things the FAA was not asking on the knowledge tests.
The problem was, the FAA wanted a bell-shaped distribution of test scores on the test results. It was difficult for them to get a bell-shaped curve because our highly motivated students would come back to our classes and discuss with us what they had been asked on their knowledge tests. We would immediately change our courses to do a better job of covering anything they had missed. Consequently, our next students would not miss many questions—frustrating the test givers. To get applicants to miss questions, the FAA had to make the questions trickier and more difficult—and less and less relevant to the risk-management issues pilots face in real life.
Martha and I began to realize that we were spending our weekends covering tricky questions and trivia that was irrelevant to actual flight, while the things actually causing fatalities were not being asked and, therefore, not being taught.
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Sudden Surprise Trouble
What the FAA taketh away, it giveth back.
LIFE IN THE AIR: Living the Dream
The journey from M X to CFI
Doc, David, Herb and the Cops
A once-in-a-lifetime B-29 flight
WHEN THE MUSIC DIES
VFR FLIGHT INTO IMC
WE FLY: FLIGHT DESIGN F2
AN ALL-AROUND ALL- COMPOSITE TREAT
Tail Tales
What works on one airplane might not work on another.
STINSON 108
THE FLYING STATION WAGON
Blame for the 737 Max
The FAA designee program is too big to fail.
Bittersweet Goodbye
Leaving the flight deck amidst a pandemic
An Aviation Mentor
Why it’s so important
UAS TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT The Key to the Future of Drones
In 2012, Congress passed the FAA Modernization and Reform Act, which established a deadline for the agency: achieve full integration of drones into the airspace by 2015. As the calendar rolls over into 2021, this begs an obvious question: “Are we there yet?”
A Colossal Challenge
Photographing Salem’s Oregon Pioneer
WAITING FOR PASSENGERS, AMERICAN PUTS BOEING MAX IN THE AIR
American Airlines is taking its long-grounded Boeing 737 Max jets out of storage, updating key flight-control software, and flying the planes in preparation for the first flights with paying passengers later this month.
EUROPEAN REGULATOR MOVES TO CLEAR BOEING 737 FOR FLIGHT
European regulators took a step closer to letting the Boeing 737 Max fly again, publishing a proposed airworthiness directive that could see the aircraft cleared within weeks after being grounded for nearly two years over deadly crashes.
FAA CLEARS BOEING 737 MAX TO FLY AGAIN
After nearly two years and a pair of deadly crashes, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has cleared Boeing’s 737 Max for flight.
CLEARED FOR TAKE OFF
Navigating the regulations for public sector drones
AMAZON PRIME AIR
Amazon recently received the FAA’s approval to operate its fleet of Prime Air delivery drones.
FAA CHIEF TESTS CHANGES TO BOEING'S GROUNDED 737 MAX
The head of the Federal Aviation Administration, a former military and airline pilot, said Wednesday that he liked what he saw during a two-hour test flight of Boeing’s revamped 737 Max jetliner, a key step as the agency considers whether to let the plane return to flight after two deadly crashes.
Amazon Wins FAA Aproval to Deliver Packages by Drone
Getting an Amazon package delivered from the sky is closer to becoming a reality.
REMOTE ID & UNIVERSAL TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT
Your top 10 questions answered