When a senior executive, especially one in the current Bush White House is in trouble, there’s nothing like a little good PR to help balance things out. Trouble is, it can be pretty tough to convince a reporter - especially one for a national newspaper - to take the time to say good things about a politician when almost everyone knows it’s fluff. You know those fluff stories … when the poor beaten upon politician is shown to be a real human like the rest of us by holding puppies and kittens or playing with kids.

So when the Washington Post’s Christy Goodman wrote the glowing piece on FAA’s Bobby Sturgell - on Sunday no less - you know that someone at the Post must have owed someone at the DOT or the FAA a favor big time. But a good public affairs person at FAA or DOT gets paid precisely to make the case for these kinds of stories.

While I appreciate the fact that Bobby was a Navy pilot able to plunk an airplane down on a moving aircraft carrier at night in IFR weather - how many of us can do that? - he is still not the person to run the agency even in good times. While I’m sure he reads books to his son at night when does get home - I love a dad that does that actually - it has nothing to do with his qualifications to run an agency that is as screwed up as the FAA.

Right now, FAA is living through a nightmare of the worst credibility gap in its 50-year history, a mess in which our friends at the airlines and business aviation, not to mention the agency’s own employees like controllers and inspectors are being beaten up severely for much of what is the agency’s fault to begin with. And Sturgell has been at the helm during the worst of it.

Bobby. You’re a nice guy I can tell from Christy’s story … really.

But FAA has problems that are way beyond what you can do to fix them on your own. As a PR guy, let me tell you too that Bush appointee Mary Peters support for your nomination really isn’t helping your case either.

The beginning of a fix to the FAA won’t even start - I should have said maybe start - until the current White House tenant leaves next January.

In all honesty, none of the candidates - Republican or Democrat - has said much of anything about where aviation fits into their agenda either. That should make everyone in this industry more than a little nervous.

Are you serious about a flying career? Then you’ve probably already heard someone speak to the value of a Flight Instructor rating because it offers an opportunity to build flight time until you get hired by the airlines or with a corporation. Almost without question though, if a pilot mentions teaching people to fly for a living, the laughter is bound to be loud. That’s because many of the folks who work hard for their CFI only make the effort because they want to fly, not teach.

With the severely reduced experience standards required at the regional airlines, there will be even fewer pilots choosing a flight instructor rating, especially of course, those who never wanted to teach in the first place. 

So first a disclaimer.

If you have absolutely no interest in learning why a career as a professional flight instructor is worth pursuing, stop reading now. If you’re not even remotely curious about why a great flight instructor needs to also think like a business owner/operator, click that little red “x” in the upper right corner of your screen now because I can guarantee you’re going to be bored.

But, if you’re even the least bit snoopy about how one flight instructor I know - Max Trescott - has managed to make teaching people how to fly - and writing about teaching people to fly - a business he enjoys and is paid well for, read on. Who knows, you might just walk away with a fresh opinion about teaching.

And in answer to the question I know I’ll receive, why Max? Because being the 2008 National Flight Instructor of the Year counts for quite a bit in my book. Max is the fourth one I’ve had the pleasure of knowing and honestly, some of their enthusiasm is rubbing off on me. He’s also a NAFI-designated Master CFI.

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On the ground and in the air, ever increasing fuel costs are eviscerating the disposable income of wannabe pilots and the profit margins of flight schools who teach them to fly. Looking forward, many schools are wringing their hands and searching for viable solutions. May I suggest the light-sport aircraft.  

Today’s typical trainer is a decades old four-seater. Running full rich most of the time, with a lot of power changes, their 150 to 180-hp engines are burning 100LL 10 gph, give or take a bit. At $5 a gallon, give or take a bit,  that makes President U.S. Grant every student’s pocketbook passenger.

Most fixed-wing special light-sport aircraft fly on 100-hp Rotax or Continental O-200. In the same thirsty training environment, they sip 4 to 5 gph, taking that $50 bill twice as far. As a bonus, an appropriately equipped LSA can expand the pool of possible students because it can serve the needs of both sport and private pilot candidates.

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If I were a United Shareholder …

Still trying to recover its corporate composure after a stinging slap in the face last week from Continental, United Airlines is now turning its focus on US Airways as a potential partner to reach the holy grail of corporate success … increased shareholder value.

Continental would have been a good fit, at least for United. Luckily for Continental, their managers were smart enough to run while they still had the chance however, because I think they smelled the blood in the water.

Rumors floating around the industry about this new US Airways merger run the gamut … that a desperate United, on the verge of another bankruptcy filing, is seeking a leadership bailout from a more stable carrier or that United’s employee groups will do everything under their power to oppose this joint venture because they already see another train wreck ahead … and they should know.

Employee relations have been terrible at United for almost as long as I can remember, certainly back before the 1985 pilot strike when the airline hired a few hundred new pilots in the face of those on the picket line, a decidedly poor decision when you have a collective bargaining agreement in place.

Employee chaos isn’t limited to pilots, although they often seem to garner most of the publicity. Mechanics watching many of their jobs being outsourced are angry and flight attendants still remember they were excluded from the Employee Stock Option Plan a few decades ago.

Left Holding the Bag

But if I were a United shareholder I’d be asking why those folks at Continental left us standing at the altar.

Here’s are a few thoughts.

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I had a call from one of my graduate school professors a few weeks ago who wanted to know how my book was doing. You remember that book McGraw Hill published last summer … a Professional Pilot Career Guide? The book is a dandy volume for anyone struggling with the tough career questions that will help them decide whether a cockpit career is for them. I’m told the book looks and reads great. Of course the marketing help from McGraw Hill has been pretty dismal so when I heard about a new delivery method for my book I was all ears.

Have you been Kindled my professor asks? Little did I know that I had indeed been Kindled without my knowledge. So perhaps McGraw Hill isn’t as bad as I thought … but I think the jury is still out on that one.

The Kindle is Amazon’s new electronic book reader. The design offers a bright screen that makes the text appear as if it was actually printed on paper. In fact, Amazon calls the product inside the machine electronic paper. The kindle weighs in at about half a pound and is capable of holding as many as 200 books, although obviously there is only one volume I can think of that should come installed.

The Kindle is wireless so adding new books is a snap. And with only 115,000 titles in the Kindle format, I’m pretty honored to be running in the same circle as some of those folks on the NY Times best seller list.

The Kindle also lets you stay in touch with your favorite blogs via an RSS feed. That means there are no more excuses for not reading your daily dose of Jetwhine.

I’m told that when you solve one problem and you often create another. That’s one of Amazon’s big problems.

The Kindle is pricey, $399 in most places which leads to the next problem. The darned things are almost impossible to find anywhere.

But if you do find one, let me know what you think. In the meantime, I’m going to try a little PR magic on the people at Amazon. Maybe they’ll let me test one for a year or so.

Homebuilders have been a bit twitchy ever since the FAA formed an aviation rulemaking committee to take a look at the 51-percent rule (see Homebuilt Aircraft: How Much is More than Half?) Especially anxious were the manufacturers and builders of aircraft on the FAA’s list of  “approved” kits. Would they have to resubmit them when the FAA launches its new evaluation procedures?

The FAA answered that question April 18 when it published a policy decision in the Federal Register.  In short, it said the FAA will “not re-evaluate or remove any kits from the agency’s current eligibility list as a result of developing new evaluation procedures.”

It’s good news, but kit companies and builders shouldn’t give a total sigh of relief. The grandfathered kits, and those which will be evaluated under the new procedures, only determine whether a kit is eligible for certification as an amateur-built experimental aircraft.  It does not guarantee it.

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AOPA ran a Town Hall meeting in Chicago the other night and Phil Boyer asked the group a penetrating question. How do we convince more people to learn to fly? Despite being a flight instructor and a communicator all my life, I didn’t have a good answer. Phil was nice enough to find me at the end of the evening and tell me he’s a Jetwhine reader which was quite the compliment. Now I felt really motivated to give him an answer to his pilot population expansion question, but my mind was simply a blank.

After a trip I took this weekend though, I think I might have one of the many right answers to Phil’s question.

I was invited to fly a Socata TBM850 from south Florida to Indiana a distance of about 950 NM. Socata is part of EADS group that also owns Airbus and Dassault. The TBM850 was provided by the folks at the EADS Flight Department at Fort Lauderdale’s Hollywood North Perry Airport, just north of my old stomping grounds at Miami Opa-Locka.

The TBM850 is the top-end of the new generation of owner flown propeller-driven airplanes. To the best of my knowledge, it is the fastest single-engine turbo-prop airplane flying and it’s a breeze for someone upgrading from a Bonanza or a Cessna 210, or even some of the older piston twins since the reliability of the PT-6 engine far exceeds its piston predecessors. All I needed to make a few hours in the TBM a reality was get myself to south Florida from Chicago.

Wayman Luy was the brave aviator Socata assigned to fly with me - thanks for that Wayman! 

During a lull in the flight, he got me thinking that a part of the answer to how we convince more people to learn to fly rests with us, people who already fly. But since few aviators have any marketing or sales background, we often don’t realize how important a personal recommendation from one of us can be to a potential aviator. We tend to think we possess a cool skill and often assume others will simply line up for lessons based on our aura, I guess.

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Few events rival EAA AirVenture in capturing the attention of residents here in Oshkosh and nearby towns. The filming of Michael Mann’s Public Enemies, starring Johnny Depp as John Dillinger, has come close.

Like AirVenture, traffic had to follow new routes around town and locals crowded Main Street establishments hoping to catch a glimpse of visiting celebrities. And like the annual aviation gathering, EAA and Wittman Regional Airport played a key role in the event, which wrapped up its visit here last Friday.

Repainted in American Airways livery, EAA’s 1929 Ford Tri-Motor played the airliner that carried Dillinger, in FBI custody, from Arizona to Chicago. Don’t look for an N-number. With FAA approval, it flew without one.

Joining the Ford on the set, but not in the air, period aircraft from EAA’s collection enriched the feeling of aviation in the 1930s. Look for the Pitcarin PA-7S Mailwing, Fairchild FC-2, Travel Air E-4000, and Waco RNF.

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Posting anonymous comments to a blog could be on its way out of the social media spectrum if some recent legal action is found to have any teeth.

Aviation International News reported last night that aircraft builder Eclipse Aviation had subpoenaed Google in an attempt to uncover contact information for a number of anonymous blog posters to the Eclipse Critic blog hosted by the the online giant. Since its inception a few years ago, the Eclipse Critic blog has been, well … upset at what posters see as insincerity at best by Eclipse and at worst downright fabrications about the shortcomings of the company’s only product, the Eclipse 500 Very Light Jet.

Many of the negative posts on the blog have, in the end however, turned out to be accurate.

Eclipse Aviation president Vern Raburn said his company does not wish to shut down the offending blog, but does not believe it is legal for unnamed authors to defame the company’s products while Eclipse simply stands by and watches from the sidelines. He said his company should have an opportunity to know precisely who is saying what about its products.

Google is reported to have passed the subpoena on to the Eclipse blog administrator. Making the task of locating the anonymous writers all the more difficult is that the Eclipse Critic blog administrator is an Irish citizen living in Ireland.

Despite having spent a significant part of my life as a communicator, I know what people think about public relations. Many think it’s fluff. Some call it spin … that magical talent for transforming an often ugly issue into something else entirely to divert the reader’s focus … to force their brains to think about the other side of the story.  

Regardless of what people think, however, a little work on the strategic and tactical communications dials and levers to convince people to see the other side of an issue is not always a bad idea.

Take airport community relations. Without it, most people living around an airport would never think about anything except aircraft noise. If a community relations program works well and adds a little much needed balance to the debate, everyone learns more about the economic importance of an airport.

However … the importance of using bright, truly clever communicators and letting them run with their gut feelings about an issue is critical, although in our industry even that doesn’t often seem to help much.

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