FSDO going away

pmanton

pmanton

En-Route
PoA Supporter
Joined
Jun 7, 2008
Messages
4,746
Location
Indian Hills Airpark Salome, AZ
Display Name
Display name:
N1431A
The FAA is officially disbanding the regionally structured Flight Standards Service (FSS) on Monday. As of Aug. 21, the FSS will be based around four functional areas—Air Carrier Safety Assurance, General Aviation Safety Assurance, Safety Standard, and Foundational Business. According to the Information for Operators briefing the FAA released on the reorganization earlier this month, the initiative “is a service-wide effort to transform the culture of Flight Standards into an organization that facilitates critical thinking, interdependence and consistency to better serve aviation safety.”

I wonder how this will affect us as pilots and A&P IA's.

Paul
Salome, AZ
 
But for the most part, while titles and organizational codes will change, the people you deal with won't. At least not initially.
 
From what I've heard from my FSDO friends the local offices aren't going away. They are just getting rid of the regions and restructuring who is over what. The ASI task list is supposedly going for a few hundred "jobs" down to a handful. Basically instead of a ASI being the jack of all trades you'll have your 141 guy, your RVSM guy, your accident guy, etc...

Good example is one of my friends had to cover an accident near Memphis. While Memphis has a FSDO, Little Rock owned everything up to the river even if it's hours away. Now it's who's office is closer and staffed.

Hopefully, this doesn't make my current application null a void for an ASI position.
 
ARFlyer said:
Hopefully, this doesn't make my current application null a void for an ASI position.
Click to expand...

You're quitting the airlines, again? I think by the third resignation they start taking a hint you might not be in it to win it :D
 
Everything I've heard is that it's just an internal re-org. You still contact the same folks, and they report up a "specialty chain" now instead of a "regional structure". Air carrier, GA, rotary wing, etc.
 
denverpilot said:
Everything I've heard is that it's just an internal re-org. You still contact the same folks, and they report up a "specialty chain" now instead of a "regional structure". Air carrier, GA, rotary wing, etc.
Click to expand...
That's consistent with what I heard when I discussed it with my local FDSO Manager and FAASTeam Program Manager last week. Same people. Same buildings. Different chain of command.

I can still envision it will result in changes. Hard to tell what they will be or even if they will be positive or negative until the dust settles. I can even envision a change being positive in some geographic areas and negative in others.
 
midlifeflyer said:
I can even envision a change being positive in some geographic areas and negative in others.
Click to expand...

Same thoughts. On another forum someone indicated that there was politics going on within the org about how our region was managing DPE activity and someone was supposedly salivating at the bit to "fix it" with these org chart changes.

That screams "uh oh" to me from having been involved in big re-orgs before. Not because it might not help. Sometimes it does. More often than not, you want to be FAR away from the "go getters" during times of big shifts internally in companies... they use that confusion to get what they want and often it's not a team effort and not the best course of action.

I hope it doesn't reach down and mess with our DPEs too much. I haven't met any that are "bad" and most are super at what they do. Have heard stories of ONE who's causing some heartburn and I haven't had to fly or even talk/meet with that one.

Too often these things rattle *everyone's* cage to deal with a specific one-person or department problem. Sigh. BTDT. Got the t-shirt. Unless your able to really fix something major, digging a trench, keeping your head down, and living to fight another day is often the best tactical plan. Depending on where you fall in the new org chart, of course.
 
So last year the LAS FSDO merged with (took over) the Reno FSDO office. Now all one region. Then last night I hear it's not LAS FSDO, it's Nevada FSDO.
 
hindsight2020 said:
You're quitting the airlines, again? I think by the third resignation they start taking a hint you might not be in it to win it :D
Click to expand...

LOL. I only left once. Still here at my second airline. :D The ASI thread from last fall, I think, was during my inbetween airline job which didn't work out. University realized it's kinda hard to start a 141 school in a dead economic region. o_O

So I decided to bow out with my boss, who also moved on, and return to the airlines to get my hours and experience up quicker. It's been fine so far.
 
Last edited:
pmanton said:
Air Carrier Safety Assurance, General Aviation Safety Assurance, ...
Click to expand...

I'm all for safety, but I think that it's overselling it to use the word "assurance" in the organization's name.

The word suggests a certainty. And it suggests making an absolute promise. For safety, that's definitely a stretch.
 
NoHeat said:
I'm all for safety, but I think that it's overselling it to use the word "assurance" in the organization's name.

The word suggests a certainty. And it suggests making an absolute promise. For safety, that's definitely a stretch.
Click to expand...

Ominous because somebody inside an organization named that, is certainly going to try to live up to the name, eventually...

In an activity where safety is far from assured.

AND they're going to feel picked on when the social media jokes start after the first unsafe things happen. "Check out how well they assured that safety!"

This kinda subtle re-wording to be PC is how we went from "Software Testing" (guaranteed failure, nobody minded, everybody wanted them to find bugs so the end product would be better) to "Quality Assurance" (all that same code is now great and those darn QA people are in our way! We're trying to release the Quality on time here!"
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top