A group of more than 100 high ranking people recently gathered in Washington, D.C., to “discuss the shortage of pilots and mechanics facing the industry.”
Hallelujah, we’re saved. To be clear, that sentence should be read as dripping with sarcasm.
“The aviation community has always come together to tackle its most pressing challenges, and today we need to do it again,” FAA Acting Administrator Dan Elwell said at the start of the agency’s Aviation Workforce Symposium: Ensuring America’s Pilot & Mechanic Supply.
And yet, each time the community has tackled its most pressing challenges, the FAA finds a way to press the brake. Wait, maybe that was a tad cynical. Sorry. Go on Mr. Elwell.
“There needs to be a common understanding of the gravity and urgency of the situation. We have a diminishing supply of qualified pilots and mechanics and technicians.”
Right you are. Welcome to the party, Mr. Elwell.
Conversely, there appears to be ample supply of fencing and regulation — the former to make it harder for that next generation of “pilots and mechanics and technicians” to gain access. The latter to discourage those who do make it past those fences.
Next up at the symposium? Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao.
“This issue goes far beyond what the government alone can do. It is incumbent upon all of us to find solutions,” she said. “This summit was called to bring attention to this critical issue and to convene stakeholders who are experts, to create a path forward, so that we can work together to address this very important issue, comprehensively and collaboratively.”
Madame Secretary completely ignores government’s outsize role in creating the problem and is equally dismissive of its ability to help be part of the solution.
And don’t get me started on the airline industry long under-compensating their new-hire pilots.
Let’s see what I can come up with off the top of my head…
Ever heard of the Experimental Aircraft Association’s Young Eagles program? More than two decades in existence and more than 2 million kids taken aloft.
What about the Embry Riddle’s Gaetz Aerospace Institute? It’s only existed for 14 years as a “collaborative effort between Embry-Riddle and the state of Florida.” It’s in 140 schools across Florida and quickly spreading to other states.
Aviation Career Exploring is “a hands-on program open to young men and women from the 6th grade to 20 years old with an interest in learning more about careers in the field of aviation.”
Don’t forget about Teen Flight, where kids come together with mentors to build airplanes. Or the Aerospace Center for Excellence at SUN ‘n FUN that uses aerospace to grow students who become contributing members of society. There are dozens more groups and organizations.
As I read the story about the symposium I was reminded of a column – Have you put on some weight? – I wrote back in 2011. In that case, weight referred to the page count of the Federal Aviation Regulations.
There’s plenty of blame to pass around for the state of the industry. But the only consistent thing I see is industry trying to make a positive difference and government making sure those efforts are as difficult as possible to accomplish.
Old “joke” – give a man a fish and feed him for a day, teach a man to fish ….
…..and he needs a 14′ carbon fiber rod, high speed reel, custom net, creel, two 175 shp outboards, a great boat, a great trailer, a truck!, etc. etc.
Take a kid or adult on a young eagle or grey eagle flight and they get excited for a bit… but keep their interest and get them hooked and they need…and account at Sporty’s, memberships in AOPA and EAA, a hat!, flight bag(*s) special sun glasses, a club membership, a partnership, a plane, hanger, Foreflight or FlyQ subscriptions, etc. etc. (Think about this GA OEM’s and suppliers)
So how do we do that!!?? The expense of learning to fly, the high fences and razor wire, lack of instructors on a regular basis, access on weekends (most adults are working) etc. just make it hard.
We at the Cupertino Aviation Clubs (501 C3 – so all volunteer effort and true non-profit) are working on using the American GEM Youth Flight Training System (sorry acronym haters – Ground Effect Machine) to bridge the gap for teens after their YE or CAP Orientation flight, and get them simple stick time and LOTS of landings SOLO with an advanced primary glider – first as a Plane-on-a-Post windjammer trainer where all axis work in an 8 kt wind, then advance to a ground tow line system through taxi, hopping, grass skimming, GEM free flight over a semester and a summer camp. In Europe and Russia kids as young as NINE do this SOLO from day one! (And have been for 20+ years)
With a bit of effort, we will be demonstrating a USA design (based on Kolb Firefly) shortly. We already can and have “take the plane to school” eliminating the arguments about paying for bus and driver, arrangements and permissions etc. With our folding wings, we are on the school grounds, up and running in under 20 minutes from trailer to teaching! (Plane on a Post mode) [FB Cupertino Aviation Clubs]
We MIGHT have a part of the answer.
Seat of the Pants
Stick in the Hand
Wind in her hair
Smile on his face!
Eyes on a future – and not electrons on eyeballs
American GEM is going to be flight STIMULATION not simulation.
I did a community college aviation program then to University and Air Force ROTC. With a draft number of 40 during the Vietnam war you knew you’re going to be drafted the day you graduated. I should have gone to a regional airline after Community College if the draft wasn’t over my head. In the end I got through University and AF UPT and flew transports for 8 years, then got on with Pan Am 4 years before it died, what a great airline to fly for. There I flew with some guys without degrees they flew very well, it doesn’t take a genius to fly an airplane, I’m proof of that.
I then worked as an expat pilot in Denmark and Mauritius flying with guys who had just high school and a commercial/instrument/multi license and a real desire to learn to fly the ATR 42 turboprop well. I worked with them a lot and they were like sponges and took in everything. There is no reason that a pilot has to spend a 100 grand or more to get a degree on top of the 40 to 60 grand to get a commercial license, instrument and Multi engine rating. I had guys with just 200 hours total time and 25 hours of multi engine and a good check out with the chief pilot and they flew as good as the older guys who had flown at several other airlines/charter companies or instructed for a few thousand hours, and in some cases the 200 hour guys were better. I think a apprenticeship program for regional airlines should be allowed and worked out with the FAA. If a pilot can pass a FAA ATP check ride even if he doesn’t have his total time required he should be allowed to fly right seat.
The Rochester, NY accident did a lot of harm in making more pilots available, and I’m not sure 1000 hours of CFI time is helping anyone that much to being a better airline pilot (FO). The only thing it has helped is the shortage of guys with enough time to get an ATP to be a right seater for a few years. I do think it will effect the pay rates soon, it’s already has at Horizon there is a signing bonus and a bonus for finding them another pilot who is qualified. But the signing bonus is only for the first year and the second year you could starve unless you make captain. I’m sure ALPA’s support of the right seat ATP requirement had a lot more to do with with increasing pay thus increasing dues and less to do with safety.
Aviation is amazing. I wish there would be more school programs that incentivize students who have the dream of becoming pilots. I personally love airplanes and maybe one day I’ll pay for private lessons to learn how to fly small planes.
I commend all who put on the vast array of programs dedicated to bring aviation to our young people; yet there is one obstacle that has yet to be overcome, and that is having our high school counselors help bring our young people to aviation. When the student goes back to his or her school, the sentiment is they must go to college and get a degree, whatever that degree may look like. Many high school counselors still believe that the vocational trades are dummy trades…for the kids that can’t handle a traditional four year college degree program. Yet, for as high-tech as aircraft are getting, it is the best and brightest students we want to attract to the aviation trades! Are parents even aware of the wonderful four year aviation degree programs available for students? Nationally, let’s change the pre-conceived notions our high school counselors (and some parents) have about the vocational trades, and get them on board to support, not just the aviation trades, but many of the vocational trades our country will need. This is one area the Dept of Education can help with.
Your comment is ironic, Kirk. In the small town where I summer in central Wisconsin near Oshkosh, a Technical College has opened a new regional center on the campus of the town’s high school. They have an existing “robust partnership in K-12 programming with local schools” and are hoping to expand that partnership. With a 50 year aviation background being retired from both the USAF and aerospace, I offered my services to them to expose interested high school students to the various aspects of and opportunities within aviation.
You’re correct about aviation needing to attract the best and brightest for the aircraft and aerospace systems of the future. The new five year FAA Reauthorization Bill now on the President’s desk for signature contains three tenets germane to the discussion here:
•Directs the FAA to modernize the mandatory curriculum for aviation maintenance technician schools for the first time since the 1960s. (coffee grinder Narco radios are ‘out’)
•Authorizes the Aviation Maintenance Workforce Development Program, which focuses competitive grants to support career and technical development of aircraft mechanics to address a severe shortage of aviation maintenance professionals, and
•Authorizes the Pilot Education Program, which focuses competitive grants enabling high schools to offer ground school courses to young people.
Hopefully, I can find a way to present a workshop on this subject and “open the eyes” of local high school students to the myriad of wonderful opportunities currently open to them in aviation. I’m trying.
That said — and as Ben intimated succinctly in this article — WE within the target population are doing all we can. The new directions in the Bill are likewise welcome. But I can think of SO many more actions which could be taken by the Government/FAA to help … predominantly in the area of high cost of entry … as discussed below by others. I wish the FAA would come up with five, ten and 25 year plans to promulgate aviation and make the costs more palatable to interested prospects. Maybe having the first five year reauthorization in decades will provide them an opportunity to do just that?
Sometimes, I think that the FAA is seeking to make aviation 100% safe by driving everyone out.
Hmmm… Anybody think it might just be the overall cost of flight training these days? They need to find a way to lower this burden on middle class families with intelligent children interested or passionate in aviation. Private certificate alone is running about $7500 compared to the $5k it cost me 15 years ago. Total cost through CFII is over $40k. The middle class doesn’t have this laying around THEN add the cost of a Bachelor degree on top of that. This is the reason the demand will always exceed the supply, essentially a doctorate in Flight to the average person.
Most folks begin their association with aviation within the confines of GA. As GA goes … so goes the state of aviation overall. It’s as simple as that. This ain’t hard.
Dan and Elaine and Dr. Heather (USAF) … YOU are the ones that can make things better … not us! As Ben says … we’re giving it our best but it’s beginning to feel like pushing a ’59 Caddy uphill.
Flowers don’t pop out of the ground in a mature state … they start from simple seeds in fertile soil nourished by sun and water and fertilizer. What we have now is an occasional ‘flower’ (student start) finding a place in a rocky crevice screaming for more of the nutrients. The percentage of student pilot starts who go on to obtain a private certificate is abominable. Yeah, a few survive and thrive in the specialized programs but most don’t. There’s your problem.
Want to know how it’s going … go look at any ‘normal’ GA airport. Where 50 years ago there’d be a bevy of activity on a nice weekend day, today you usually don’t need the fingers of one hand to count the number of GA airplanes in the pattern at any given time, if that. And most of the players look like they just escaped the nearby assisted living facility. The aviation alphabet organizations brag about and highlight single gains in the target population while tens of thousands of youngsters are given intro rides. They all blather about the problem in generic terms yet they provide no systemic long term plan to solve the problem. Central to the issue is an intransigent FAA which is far better at making regulations than solving these problems from a systems standpoint and with five, ten and 25 year plans.
A one day symposium does not a focused solution to the problem make. It IS an ingredient in global warming, however. The “thrust” of your article is spot on and you hit the proverbial nail on the head.
What we need is an easy entry path into aviation which provides the ‘hook’ and then a system of systems to provide the upward mobility path to more serious activities. Light Sport was supposed to be that panacea but when a new decent LSA machine costs nearly 10 times what my IFR 1975 C172M did or a like 172 costs 20 times as much … we have a problem, Houston. Recreational pilot was supposed to help … how’d that go?
When the FAA was instituted in 1958, they had two goals: Safety (duh) and promulgation of aviation (Ben’s ‘hallelujah). That’s no longer the case. Now, every reg. is written by an army of lawyers who seek to make aviation 100% “safe” while ensuring there is no way for an errant pilot to escape their adversarial “justice” when it suits them. For grins, I went back and read Ben’s August 24, 2011 “Weight” article. He’s right. Just the other day I did a flight review. The CFI hands out a FAR/AIM book with each … so I measured the 2019 version. It’s 1 5/8″ thick and weighs three pounds. Are they kidding?
How can you attract a kid to aviation when you hand them a book you likely won’t take with you in your airplane because it’s too darned heavy? And that’s just the regs. And the number of acronyms has likewise grown. 50 years ago, there was far more activity with far fewer rules and we all survived. Give us all a break, FAA.
And don’t get ME started on drones. That’s just a way to make aviation just another game for kids who can text with their thumbs faster than I can touch type. If we want them to be “real” pilots, we have to provide that fertile environment I talked about above, not a set of VR glasses. We won’t need drone pilots … the George Jetson people movers of the future are going to be autonomous … remember?
Fine article, Ben. And your list of activities seeking to help is excellent. I know the person who runs the Aerospace Center of Excellence program at Sun-N-Fun. His proactivity is superb; we need to make that a National program. I met up with him at Airventure and he was as proud as a new Father about all the students he brought to Oshkosh. Now if we could just get D.C. to help provide that same fertile environment.
The FAA … making simple stuff hard since 1958.
Beautifully written, Ben. Articulate and telling. We can only hope those involved in the government side of the issue come to their senses, recognize their role in the continuing problem, and rectify it through…dare I say it…simplification of the rules and eradication of the unnecessary barriers they themselves have put in place.
Aviation like many other industries are seeing a vast change in market conditions and reasons for existence. Without change to absorb that change it will die. Look at the automotive world and the changes made there over the past 20 years or so, smaller aircraft haven’t seen the same kind of innovation and overall cost reduction and safety improvements. Sure you can talk about better autopilots, GPS and aircraft parachutes, but they have largely been novelties that have had limited impact. unlike impact airbags and crumple zone designs of autos that save lives every day.
Until the administrative bureaucrats open their eyes to the possibilities of what inventive designers and marketplaces are demanding we will continue to try and recreate the 1950’s in the 2020’s. That will leave European and Asian competitors to take the lead as they are demonstrating they are capable of doing. To change this we first have to educate legislators and administrative leadership to help government to get out of the way while we preserve safety and increase performance with new products never seen before.
Scary? sure, but that didn’t stop the Wrights or Lindberg when they looked for what was possible and said, “Yes!” Meetings like this might not seem productive at the time, but if they even crack the door to more productive conversations, then let’s have more and get started!!
Maybe another acronym or mnemonic will help solve the problem?
Sorry, couldn’t help myself.
I agree with you Ben Sclair! Parts of our Industry have historically stepped up as you mentioned.
Half of the elephant in the room was pointed out by @ManyDecadesGA: PAY. The other half is a regulatory burden, for pilots, at least. Getting from Private Pilot ASEL to ATP and “right-seat ready” is a costly road where oftentimes, the cost provides hours, but no real additional experience benefit.
A commercial pilot apprenticeship program, sanctioned by regulation at the level of Part 135 and not priced out of the realm of possibility by insurance underwriters may help.
Acknowledging Part 61 Training Programs, or removing the also costly benefit of Part 141 training (lower ATP minimums) would level the playing field again, allowing folks who don’t attend a school with a Part 141 program to get into the right seat at the same pace.
Finally, not everyone wants or needs a college degree. Does the flying public really care if either of their crew has a four year degree? That is an artificial barrier with no real PAY benefit imposed by hiring organizations.
We need people who love to fly, can fly (i.e., have the psychomotor and decision-making skills) and want to work in the air transportation industry. College degrees don’t teach that – that is what flight training is all about (just look at the ACS).
There is no pilot or mechanic shortage. There is only a pilot and mechanic PAY shortage. This entirely faux “crisis” has largely been manufactured and fueled by arguably greedy CEOs, boards, shareholders, investment bankers, takeover artists, and corporate attorneys, …in collusion with decades worth of completely faulty, over-specified, if not even irrelevant, airman and maintenance technician authority certification criteria.
–ref: Adam Smith
Partially true… Pay and benefits were on a 20-year down-swing until about 2010. But at the same time, neither were there programs like STEM and focus by schools, colleges, and the aviation industry to attract pilots and mechs. They didn’t need them and wouldn’t waste the money while many pilots were furloughed (AA furloughed 2500 pilots after 9-11-2001). So to say “shortage of pay” is the reason, quite understates the problem and leaves planning for future recruiting incentives out in the cold. There must be a pathway provided through schools, government and aviation industry that is attainable to those so-inspired, affordable, and not burdened with enormous government regulation and red-tape. Notwithstanding EAA, AOPA and other industry programs doing their best to attract new-blood into the industry, aspiring pilots and mechanics still need motivation, professionalism, ethics, intelligence and skills. There is no short-cutting the skills and ambition required to attain these top-paying jobs.
You are so right. I spent my entire working life in Aviation. From an $1.10 an hour A&E to an Engineer with an MBA. All underpaid and earning less than the industry average. Yes, I loved Aircraft and flyining from the CAP in WWII until I trtired in 1989. We are addicted to aviation, it is an illness, and the Avation Industry knows it, and takes full advantage of it. I enjoyed going to work every day knowing I could have been making more money in other industries. I live close to Montgomery Field in San Diego and I still go out and watch the students trying to find the runway.