HAI/ROBB COHEN PHOTOGRAPHY
INTHESPOTLIGHT continued
system. We’re not responsi- ble for ensuring the eco- nomic vitality of US aviation. But I believe that the conse- quence of not having enough pilots and mechan- ics in the labor force could have an impact on safety. Our goal is to improve safety as we go forward.
What attracted you to aviation, and how do you think we can replicate that experience for today’s youth? When I was a kid, aviation was still really sexy. In the 1960s, airline pilot or astro- naut, something like that, was named in a survey as the No. 1 dream job. Being an airline pilot isn’t in the top
HAI President and CEO Matt Zuccaro
(left) and FAA Acting Administrator Dan Elwell spoke to
attendees at the HAI Annual Membership Meeting and
Breakfast at HAI HELI-EXPO 2019.
By 2036, we’re projected to be short more than 7,500 helicopter pilots and 40,000 maintenance technicians. Are you concerned about workforce development? The FAA does see it as a problem, and we have to attack this problem from a number of angles. Our workforce across the nation is aging, but particularly in aviation, as there has been proportionally fewer young people com- ing into aviation than three or four decades ago. So we don’t have as many new workers coming in, and we have an acceleration of people going out. We need to come at this from two ways. First, we
have to make it less onerous and less expensive to become either a technician or mechanic or a pilot with- out compromising safety, and that’s the challenge. Second, we need to recognize that a robust aviation
workforce is good for the country and the economy. Some professionals, such as doctors and teachers, are recognized as critically important, and they get special rates on federal loan repayments and things like that. It would be good to have aviation recognized as that same sort of field—there’s lots of aviation jobs that are public service jobs. There is nothing in our mandate that says the FAA shall ensure enough pilots and mechanics for the
20 ROTOR SPRING 2019
20 anymore. It’s just not viewed as sexy a profession as some of the other high-tech things that kids are getting interested in.
So being a pilot was thought to be a really cool thing
when I was a kid. Then when I was in fifth grade, my teacher, Mr. Tyler, offered anybody in the class who wanted to go a ride in his 172 on the weekend. You can sit as a passenger in a plane a million times,
but until you sit in the cockpit and have the cockpit expe- rience of taking off and looking up in front of you, you have no concept of what flight is like. Once I got that, I knew that I was going to fly. I didn’t know how, but I knew I was going to. [Elwell earned his pilot’s wings after graduating from the US Air Force Academy.] I think that still applies today. I don’t care how many
PlayStation games kids do, I don’t care how many Call of Duty championships they win, there is nothing that com- pares to physically flying an airplane. I would also include the high-fidelity simulators that we have today—that’s just the ultimate video game. The more kids you put in a sim, the more on fire they get for the industry. And there’s really very affordable sims. Red Bird
makes sims that you could probably afford to get into elementary or junior high schools. And that’s where you have to target the kids—you can’t wait until high school.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80
