DOGE and the FAA

[jbarrass]

WDD is right. The Class 3 for the initial cohort was over 2 decades ago (7/2006 minus 3 or 5 years). Sport Pilot has been in place a couple decades too. The only study I've ever seen published is clear, no benefit.

 

[farangutan]

I would review all the price gouging by companies that sell to the government.

 

[luvflyin]

Ok, can we have a real discussion and try to keep this thread from being killed immediately?

With Elon and Vivek running the Department of Gov Efficiency (let’s just assume this is gonna be effective and make some great changes for this discussion)

What would you cut at the FAA? What would you change?

I would start by firing many involved with the insanity of MOSIAC and the red tape it is taking l to get this in play!

FAA airport infrastructure

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.

 

[cowman]

I don't follow it that close, but I thought Twitter/X had surpassed the subscribers and revenue it had before he bought it? Also, I don't think he necessarily bought it to make money. I won't get into those motivations for fear of triggering both sides and ruining the thread, but I'm also not certain it wasn't just a prank taken farther than he meant to lol.

The solar stuff is floundering AFAIK, and the Boring Company....I really don't get that one. The whole hyperloop thing. He has to be smart enough to know that isn't going to work? Or maybe I'm the dumb one?

Here's the thing...I no longer bet against the man. I remember rolling my eyes at the original Tesla roadster. I remember the early prototyping leading up to Falcon. I remember watching Falcon Heavy land both boosters simultaneously. Even after all of that, when he started talking about Starship, I thought there was no way they'd build something that big... and reusable, forget it. The video of that thing landing back on the tower blew my mind. I'm pretty certain I'm going to live to see a colony on Mars with a Spacex logo on the side of it.

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.


Back on the topic at hand though can we use this to our advantage? Elon and Vivek are going to be relying on info from others to know what to cut so why don't we help them out. It seems most of us think we don't really need a third class medical anymore and there's now good evidence to support that position. Elon seems to respond to tweets, does anyone have a twitter account? I haven't used it in well over a decade.

 

[Baked Potato]

Sure, Twitter lost 80% of revenue (advertising) but he cut costs 80% too, as a business guy, that's a wash. Number of users and posts is setting records. I'm not sure what metrics are relevant but the Owners are satisfied with where it is at.

Time will tell if he has an impact, but betting against him is frequently not a winning play.

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.

This is from Statista, and I can't see the actual source of the numbers since I don't have an account on that site.

 

[MauleSkinner]

Another thing I would change is to restore slow flight and stalls to the private pilot ACS.

Meaning what, since slow flight and stalls are in the private pilot ACS?

 

[Half Fast]

so getting rid of the 3rd Class medical would stop a LOT of pilots from being able to fly into Canada.

Nothing would prevent that small subset of pilots from getting a 2nd class medical if 3rd were eliminated.

 

[Half Fast]

I think the concept of a 3rd class medical is important because so many people take drugs that affect cognition, and have medical conditions that could cause them to lose consciousness.

Those exact same pilots can use Basic Med, and many are. Yet the sky isn’t raining airplanes.

 

[cowman]

Those exact same pilots can use Basic Med, and many are. Yet the sky isn’t raining airplanes.

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.

IMHO among people with the means and training to fly, most individuals are better judges of their condition and fitness than a bureaucratic process.

We can maintain basic med rules as they stand minus the requirement for a third class and still have most of the guardrails in place- a doctor still signs off on it. It just gets rid of the red tape.

 

[WDD]

WDD is right.

Whoa - I have to show this quote to my wife.

 

[172andyou]

Sure, Twitter lost 80% of revenue (advertising) but he cut costs 80% too, as a business guy, that's a wash.

As a business guy, you probably know this, but he didn't cut 80% of costs. He cut 80% of staff. Big, big difference.

 

[MRC01]

Meaning what, since slow flight and stalls are in the private pilot ACS?

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

 

[jbarrass]

80% is his stated number. But he also famously shut down redundant data centers, excess facility costs, moved to a no state tax state, and more.

But fair, it's his numbers vs the NY Times numbers. Hard to pick sides in a private company.

 

[Jim_R]

It's possible he is just bumbling through life getting lucky. But IMO at this point the preponderance of the evidence says he really is playing 6D chess.

I didn't say he was dumb. I didn't say he wasn't capable of accomplishing amazing things.

He might be great at 6D chess. My point is that the parameters he has control over running SpaceX or Tesla are very different from the parameters he has control over re: the federal government. Being a 6D chess master doesn't mean you'll excel at baseball.

 

[jsstevens]

I believe that both public and private, the amount of money you can get away with blowing is proportional to how close you are to the top of the hierarchy.

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.

 

[455 Bravo Uniform]

As a business guy, you probably know this, but he didn't cut 80% of costs. He cut 80% of staff. Big, big difference.

On a spreadsheet that’s zero difference. Headcount in most businesses is the biggest expense.

 

[172andyou]

I didn't say he was dumb. I didn't say he wasn't capable of accomplishing amazing things.

He might be great at 6D chess. My point is that the parameters he has control over running SpaceX or Tesla are very different from the parameters he has control over re: the federal government. Being a 6D chess master doesn't mean you'll excel at baseball.

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.

 

[172andyou]

On a spreadsheet that’s zero difference.

Nah.

Headcount in most businesses is the biggest expense.

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.

 

[455 Bravo Uniform]

On the Musk topic, Tesla finally became profitable only in the last few years. Prior to that, for over a decade, many considered Tesla a failure with no way out.

I think the Cybertruck has been out for a year now, with 8 or 9 recalls in that short time. I’m not saying it’s not going to be a failure, but I’m also not saying it is.

We shall see what happens to FAA in all this. Systemic changes are different from some of the programmatic ones we are discussing here. I think our focus on the thread, like BasicMed vs Class 3 is super narrow compared to bigger wholesale changes being considered. I’ll believe it when I see it, but won’t bet against it (don’t like ATC user fees, but that may happen).

 

[wanttaja]

Kind of quick to call the DOGE stuff inefficient when no one knows how the new "department" will function.

Does anyone know how it will be funded? Does anyone actually know anything about it? But everyone already "knows" it will be inefficient and not effective.

What should be the criteria that establishes whether it's effective? What metrics will be used to score it's results?

From what understand, it'll have a multimillion dollar budget and no authority. It'll suck money in, and produce nothing but advice.

It's basically just another beltway bandit. Gods know we spend enough money on THEM.

Ron Wanttaja

 

[172andyou]

Kind of quick to call the DOGE stuff inefficient when no one knows how the new "department" will function.

Does anyone know how it will be funded? Does anyone actually know anything about it? But everyone already "knows" it will be inefficient and not effective.

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.

 

[MauleSkinner]

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

So what do you think slow flight and stalls should be changed to?

 

[Half Fast]

So what do you think slow flight and stalls should be changed to?

I think Private Pilot slow flight should be done at MCA, just like Sport Pilot.

 

[MRC01]

So what do you think slow flight and stalls should be changed to?

I think Private Pilot slow flight should be done at MCA, just like Sport Pilot.

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.

Why? Flying landings too fast is more common than too slow. I believe one reason for this is that too many pilots aren't proficient in slow flight, they don't like how the controls feel, so they don't slow down enough. Then they wonder why they float halfway down the runway in ground effect. And if something bad happens, they're going faster which is more energy, more damage and injuries.

I'm not familiar with what sport pilot does, but if it's what the PTS for PP used to be before the FAA changed the slow flight rules, then yes, that.

 

[172andyou]

Why? Flying landings too fast is more common than too slow. I believe one reason for this is that too many pilots aren't proficient in slow flight, they don't like how the controls feel, so they don't slow down enough. Then they wonder why they float halfway down the runway in ground effect. And if something bad happens, they're going faster which is more energy, more damage and injuries.

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?

 

[MauleSkinner]

I think Private Pilot slow flight should be done at MCA, just like Sport Pilot.

That would probably require limiting private pilot checkrides to airplanes without nasty stall characteristics.

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.

Why? Flying landings too fast is more common than too slow. I believe one reason for this is that too many pilots aren't proficient in slow flight, they don't like how the controls feel, so they don't slow down enough. Then they wonder why they float halfway down the runway in ground effect. And if something bad happens, they're going faster which is more energy, more damage and injuries.

I'm not familiar with what sport pilot does, but if it's what the PTS for PP used to be before the FAA changed the slow flight rules, then yes, that.

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

And since pilots were flying way too fast down final before they changed the standards, I don’t see where changing them back would affect it.

 

[Tarheelpilot]

Exactly
At every government building I worked in, people had to buy their own coffee. Obviously the federal government is so wasteful, it won't even provide coffee for its own employees.
It was incredibly spartan. And the general feeling all around was that there was much more work than there were people, or time to do it. I don't work alongside feds right now, but still talk to some of them regularly. They often have to miss the same major industry conferences that I attend due to budget reasons. And when they do travel their expenses are quite tight.

Contrast that with the company my wife works for, which is public and is traded on major markets. You need to see the lavish expense reports that management submits after their many yearly trips. Business class travel for even the shortest trips, huge bills at fancy restaurants (and alcohol, which my federal brethren couldn't dream of expensing)

The mantra that private industry works much more efficiently than government is a lie, at least in my 20 years of experience between the two. I understand its attractiveness as a talking point for aspiring politicians though.

I think you have hit on an important point.

In my opinion it’s not an efficiency issue. It’s more of a total spending issue.

If we could get laws in place that prohibit deficit spending the problem would sort itself out without much drama.

 

[Doc Holliday]

On the other hand, should a career Fed professional lose their job, whether by being transferred or actually being shown the door, strictly because of a change in administration and the new one wants nothing but sycophants?

The discussion is on inefficiency in government.

 

[Half Fast]

I'm not familiar with what sport pilot does, but if it's what the PTS for PP used to be

It is. SP still uses PTS.

That would probably require limiting private pilot checkrides to airplanes without nasty stall characteristics.

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.

 

[Barrett50]

There is so much more to do on waste and inefficiency before they get near the FAA, it's going to be a few years before the FAA needs to have a sit-down.

Something has to be done about the fraud, waste and abuse in govt. It' just can't go on like this much longer.

 

[172andyou]

If we could get laws in place that prohibit deficit spending the problem would sort itself out without much drama.

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.

The real question is more like, 'what deficit spending is useful and healthy and what is wasteful'. And, for that, we elect 536 (435 house, 100 senate, 1 president) to represent our interests.

 

[Bell206]

From what understand, it'll have a multimillion dollar budget and no authority. It'll suck money in, and produce nothing but advice.

Interesting. I heard there will be no payroll, remote work, and done by July 4 2026?

 

[172andyou]

Something has to be done about the fraud, waste and abuse in govt. It' just can't go on like this much longer.

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?

 

[MauleSkinner]

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.

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.

 

[Tarheelpilot]

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.

The real question is more like, 'what deficit spending is useful and healthy and what is wasteful'. And, for that, we elect 536 (435 house, 100 senate, 1 president) to represent our interests.

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.

 

[172andyou]

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.

 

[wanttaja]

The discussion is on inefficiency in government.

Replacing an experienced employee with someone whose main qualification is political loyalty is not efficient.

Ron Wanttaja

 

[Jim K]

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.

Exactly. Deficit spending in case of emergencies, maybe, but politicians will make an emergency out of Tuesday.

In theory, congress controls the purse strings. In practice, every time somebody wants to control spending, someone else threatens to "shut down the government", and history has taught us that the American people tend to punish the party in power if that happens.

So like every thing else, we have met the enemy, and he is us.

 

[Baked Potato]

Replacing an experienced employee with someone whose main qualification is political loyalty is not efficient.

Ron Wanttaja

As someone who fears for his job since last Tuesday, this comment is an arrow straight to my heart.

 

[Doc Holliday]

Replacing an experienced employee with someone whose main qualification is political loyalty is not efficient.

Ron Wanttaja

You guys are trying hard to push this political. This thread will get locked soon.