I don’t know if it’s as bad as it once was, but the Controller ‘train to succeed’ program created a lot of of waste. It started a few years after the strike in 81. The failure rate at the Academy was still around 50% like it had been for years. Congress didn’t like that so train to succeed began. For awhile the Academy was no fail. Everyone passed and was sent out into the field to be trained. If they were failing there, the solution was more training. Many who simply didn’t have the inherent skills to be a Controller continued in training for years. Stopping that program would make things a whole lot more efficient.
I have good internet access for the first time in a very long time because Starlink exists. A lot of politicians from the local level all the way up to president promised something "just around the corner" for nearly 2 decades. Starlink was the first promise that actually delivered. That one thing endears Elon to me somewhat. Before starlink I'd have to start updating Foreflight the day before a flight because not only was my 2Mb terrestrial wireless connection slow but it cut out all the time requiring me to restart the download. Now I just start it before bed and it just updates... I suspect I could probably start it when I first get up in the morning and have it finish before I'm ready to head out the door but old habits die hard. That's just one of many examples as I do IT work being able to download something in 5 minutes that used to take a couple hours is a major quality of life improvement.
I am not sure if anyone outside of Twitter really knows now, since they're no longer public. But people have varying estimates from looking at web traffic. Musk says they're growing but he's Tweeted lies tons of times before (and has been fined by the SEC for doing so when it involves his public companies). I wouldn't believe statements made by him.
Meaning what, since slow flight and stalls are in the private pilot ACS?
Also sport pilot existed for a long time before that only requiring a valid driver’s license. As far as I’m aware there wasn’t a significant difference in medically related accidents between sport pilots and private pilots holding a third class.
Whoa - I have to show this quote to my wife.
As a business guy, you probably know this, but he didn't cut 80% of costs. He cut 80% of staff. Big, big difference.
I didn't say he was dumb. I didn't say he wasn't capable of accomplishing amazing things.
And very much on how big the hierarchy is. A very large organization can have lots of places to "hide" the inefficient. My experience in companies is that large ones (even HalfFast's beloved Lockheed-Martin) are not terribly efficient and small ones often are because they have to be.
And, it's unlikely that he's actually any good at 6D chess, since he's in the global top 20 in diablo. Takes time to get good at both those games and he's busy with other things.
Nah.
Sure, often the single largest. But that doesn't mean 'only', or even 'only meaningful' expense. Especially when talking about a company that has data centers and is buying hundreds of millions of dollars worth of gear to try and be relevant in the AI space.
What should be the criteria that establishes whether it's effective? What metrics will be used to score it's results?
Yes, that's right. Given 50-ish years (the ones I can remember) of programs like this being washouts and given the two guys being put in charge this time around, seems like a safe bet.
So what do you think slow flight and stalls should be changed to?The FAA's New "Not-So-Slow" Slow Flight Procedure
As most flight instructors know the FAA recently changed the requirements for slow flight in the private pilot ACS. Slow flight must now be accomplished at a speed higher than MCA or Minimum Controllable Airspeed (a speed at which the stall horn is continuously activated). Why? The FAA feels...rodmachado.com
Learn to fly the airplane behind the power curve, the region of reverse command, all the way to the buffet just on the cusp of stalling. Learn to do gentle turns at that speed, to recover to normal airspeed smoothly without stalling, and to stall it intentionally and recover keeping wings level. Nothing new here, just the stuff we used to do before the FAA changed it.
I thought the flipside was that overruns were vastly less likely to injure the humans on the plane than getting too slow and spinning in. Or have I invented a memory?
That would probably require limiting private pilot checkrides to airplanes without nasty stall characteristics.
if the difference between flying 5-6 knots above a stall instead of 1-2 knots above a stall is causing people to float halfway down the runway, pilots are seriously ****ed up. Beyond repair
I think you have hit on an important point.
It is. SP still uses PTS.
Why? Pilots trained this way for decades before the FAA changed it, and did so without limitations on the planes’ stall characteristics. Were we killing students in slow flight? Furthermore, we’re not presently killing SP students who have to fly at MCA.
No serious economist wants that. Deficit spending is one of the most important tools a government has available to it to stabilize the economy during things like covid, the great recession, the dotcom recession, the late 80's recession, the early 80's recession, the opec oil crisis, etc.
Interesting. I heard there will be no payroll, remote work, and done by July 4 2026?
Trust me, I'm not arguing that government waste is a good thing. But it's also true that I'm old enough to have been hearing the "can't go on like this much longer" for 50 years, so I'm suspicious that, finally, this time it will be true. Heck, when I bought my first house, in the 80's, I remember the old-timers telling me that housing was unaffordable and they didn't understand how 'kids' could do it. Sound familiar?
What are the stall characteristics of Malibus, Cirruses, Barons, TBMs…? The previous standards were written when very few pilots went through initial training in high performance airplanes. The mere fact that they wrote the Light Sport standards after the Private standards were changed indicates that there’s a difference.
A debate worth having. I think it would be hard to find a serious economist that sees our current level of deficit spending as healthy.
Yep, both of those things can be true.
Replacing an experienced employee with someone whose main qualification is political loyalty is not efficient.
Exactly. Deficit spending in case of emergencies, maybe, but politicians will make an emergency out of Tuesday.
As someone who fears for his job since last Tuesday, this comment is an arrow straight to my heart.
