sherpa

Very good. I opine that although politically aimed people will disagree with this, those of us that are familiar with the system, including the people directly hired into it, will totally agree. The FAA has become a social experiment. Still functional, but undeniably driven, in recruitment and promotion, by DEI and quotas.

I can't believe this guy showed up again. Background. I think Trump's comments were stupid and unnecessary, and certainly not germane to this accident. But.........I am well aware of this Les Abend guy. He wrote for years for "Flying Magazine," and did so as an airline pilot writing for small airplane people as a civilian background guy who simply lived the title. Most airline guys don't. He is one of those guys that probably has "Captain" prior to his name on his checks. Just a goof. I know all about him. He was junior to me at the same airline and same base, same airplane, the 777. CNN used him routinely as an "expert" after Malaysia 370 was lost. He would be on there nightly, offering his views. It was embarrassing to us. He was a civilian background guy who stated nonsense about his views on military night formation flying, which were preposterous. He stated things about the ACARS system, which is a data link reporting system that would have easily solved this if Malaysia had paid for it. The problem was that he was completely wrong, to the point that on our union website, the check captain that certified me as a 777 captain exposed him as an idiot and told him to stop, or at least shut up. Loves the camera. Probably wants his first name changed to "captain." Trump says really stupid stuff, but this guy is a total goof. Probably one of those guys that wore his uniform on a trip to the local convenience store. I would take a bet that on his gravestone he is going to have "Captain" inscribed before his name. Makes the rest of us cringe.

You are killing it today. Two years ago, and last year as well, flight schedules had to be curtailed in the NY area because the FAA could not properly staff to support it. Yet, tons of money spent on idiotic renaming of programs to eliminate gender pronouns. The FAA's NOTAM system completely broke down, resulting in a nationwide shutdown under this clown's watch, with no consequences, yet he bragged on and on about fining Southwest for a computer issue that shut them down for a few hours. The man is a disgraceful failure; a smug punk despised by the people he was in charge of, and his bizarre claim yesterday about his performance is only able to be believed by idiots who know noting about his.

Just incredibly stupid.

Good find. I saw it and couldn't believe it. Insanity. Buttigieg madness, among many other fronts.

While their hiring practices are not related this tragedy, it is completely known throughout the FAA and the airline industry that the FAA has a serious issue with their quota system of hiring and promotion. Their own employees talk about it constantly, and it a serious morale issue. During the last four years, it has become more and more an issue, as they have tried to expand it into pilot licensing. I saw a video last year where about five senior FAA folks were pushing some stupid :ramp to cockpit" policy seemingly aimed at getting ramp workers to get their pilots license. Completely crazy, but along with spending lots of time, money and manpower on de-genderizing language, this is what they were up to. Everybody knows all about it.

Late addition. I had never heard of this committee so I looked up it's charter, member and policies. It did not report to the FAA, as suggested by another poster above. It was a security group formed after the Pan Am explosion over Lockerbie in 1988. It met four times per year, and advised the TSA. Again, nothing to do with the FAA, and absolutely nothing to do with this midair.

For those not familiar with this industry, this is quite misleading. There are scores of safety groups in both the industry and the FAA, and constant contact between them. Lots of them.

Yes he did, but it is not clear who the helo may have been looking at. He obvious never saw the Eagle flight. I don't know the clearance parameters the helo was given, but it might have been wise to tell him to remain clear of the rwy 33 final approach path, no matter what his altitude restrictions were. I have heard that directive issued to many helos operating at very low altitudes.

There are specific mission requirements that involve currency, not total hours. As I pointed out, you could have hundreds of carrier landings in your logbook, but if you haven't done so, and day is different than night, in a certain time, you are not qualified. Still, the point is that no matter what each flight was doing, they should have been separated, as there is no surprise in this.

Could be as you state. But, being an ex military pilot, we operated with exclusions that were not applicable to civilian pilots. As an example, the speed limit is 250 knots below 10,000'. We had an exemption that allowed us to operate at 350 knots, because that was the speed we needed to relight the engine if it failed. My suggestion is what I have stated for years in the airline industry, having exposure to both. This nonsense of operating a helo taxi capability for pols is ridiculously foolish and expensive. There is simply no justifiable reason for an Army helo squadron operating with night vision goggles around Reagan National. None. I have never flown with night vision goggles, but I have operated, extensively, with FLIR, which is forward looking infra-red, including weapons delivery, and it is really different, and has no use in this environment.

There are specific mission requirements that involve currency, not total hours. As I pointed out, you could have hundreds of carrier landings in your logbook, but if you haven't done so, and day is different than night, in a certain time, you are not qualified.

Not quite. There are built in redundancies, and ultimately, in that airspace, it is the controller's responsibility to see that and ensure separation. That is all they are responsible for, in this case, a very small amount of low altitude airspace.

I get it and apologize for being unclear. You opined that they were "doing night flights all the time," and questioned that if so, why they might need this currency requirement. I stated that those requirements are per individual. A squadron may do things all the time, but there may be a need to get a person a certain sortie to satisfy their individual requirement. Happens all the time. The issue, in my view, will come down to this, and I have no doubt that I will regret this. The transportation of political figures via helicopter in this congested airspace is idiotic, unnecessary and ridiculously expensive. That may well be what this is ultimately about, as there is no military defense benefit to operating a helicopter unit in that area. It is pointless and intrusive, and the capability isn't worth it.

What you stated was that "they were doing many night flights all the time..." These are individual quals, so there is no info on whether or not this particular person needed an qual. The rest of your post indicates a lack of knowledge. No harm there, but I'm not going to spend more time on transponders or TCAS, when they are turned on and off and the algorithms involved. Not hard to do, but not worth my time as it will all come out eventually.

What you have done is posted an opinion as fact. Currency requirements apply to individuals. I have no idea who was involved, but if an individual needed to satisfy a currency requirement, they would generate a sortie to accomplish that. Total "all up rounds" are a required, reported performance stat in the military, including aircraft and personnel. If you had an airwing on a carrier, and only 20% were qualified at night, you'd have a serious problem. I have no idea about helo flying with night vision goggles, but I assume it is similar. I just wonder how those two aircraft tried to occupy the same airspace at the same time, being under full ATC control and known flight paths.

I have no reason to delete anything.

Not to cause a fork in the road, but you brought it up. Simple question. Are you in any way aware of who was running PATCO at that time, and what they we were offered and demanded? That is beyond the issue of breaking the law.

The military, and all aviation for that matter, has currency requirements. As a carrier aviator, I had to have a certain number of carrier landings, both day and night, in a certain period. The night vision thing is clearly similar.

Great question. TCAS runs by an algorithm that discounts/eliminates various modes at various altitudes near ground. During flight, it provides a traffic advisory, which is informational, and if the situation isn't resolved, and is bad, a resolution advisory, which actually tells you what to do, and displays the suggested command on the vertical speed indicator. Ten mins or so are spent on this issue and response in every simulator training period. While you don't turn the transponder on takeoff until just prior, there would still be so many that it would alert to that it cancels them out.

Not going to be anything in that. They got rammed.

Have I ever claimed he was the only one? Ever? He is simply a useless pos that was inserted into a major Secretary job and failed miserably because he was worse than useless. That is my claim. Simple. He now seems to be defending his uselessness by trying to jumpstart a moribund career by using this tragedy. He disgusts me.

This is not a subject I am comfortable with, and quite reticent about, but I am absolutely knowledgeable about. The FAA, especially during the last four years, and before, is an organization all about quota hiring and promotions. It suffers morale problems from this, and Buttigieg was a disaster. Got the job as payback from Biden for getting out of the primary system, back when the Dems used to allow one. Simply horrible.

No offense, but you're way off target. This is done every day. This is the droppings of a despicable clown trying to fertilize a political career. Hated by FAA employees. Hated by the airlines. Useless. A self promotional, ignorant moron.

Good. I cannot believe the media/youtube/political vector nonsense about this. I have been in and out or Reagan hundreds of times, initially as a narrow body captain, then as a commuter to NY, Miami and Chicago, to fly bigger airplanes, mostly in the jumpseats while hitching a ride on many carriers, and I am extremely familiar with the way it operates. It is disgusting to me how those "outlets" can put this crap out. Purely commercial and horrible.