Two Different Worlds

Cat Driver · Post by **Cat Driver** » Sat Jul 10, 2004 12:00 pm

I would like to share some thoughts with the troops.

There are several discussions taking place here in the past couple of months regarding pilots and FSS.

What I read lends me to believe that some of us do not fully understand how this industry is structured.

When I read comments from pilots slagging our colleauges in FSS due to differences in opinion or sometimes personalities clashing I must point out that the FSS guys and gals are in exactly the same boat as us, they are regulated and monitered by TC.

And therein lies the problem.

We the owners of aviation companies, mechanics, FSS, pilots and all the rest of the grunts that make this industry work are accountable for any deviation from regulations, rules and what ever the flavour of the month is for TC. With this accountability comes a punishment decided by TC, and at their whim.

I know of no other industry where the powers bestowed on a TC inspector can be arbitrairly enforced with severe penalties handed out before any court hearing. Our only recourse is a tribunal, sometimes inhabited by political flacks who have the power to make desisions that can be skewed by their personal biases and political leanings.

That is one world.

The other world is the TC employee who operates under a completly different set of rules with no real accountability for their actions due to those in upper management at TC having the mindset that they can never admit to wrongdoing.

So it would stand to reason that we should try and be more tolerant of our colleauges and try and mimic the regulator by protecting each other, rather that being devisive.

I find it revolting that our FSS brethern are forced to write up AOR's on every deviation from the norm, whatever in hell that may be at any given moment.

FSS writes us up due partially to the fear factor of TC monitering what they do and intimidating them by being on the receiving end of enforcement should they not write the AOR. What the fu.k is our industry coming to?

Any comments on this?

Cat

Doc · Post by **Doc** » Sat Jul 10, 2004 3:17 pm

Well Cat, it seems (to me at least) to have become an us vs. them relationship with ATC, FSS, or whatever you should refer to them as. I have, and I'm sure you have, as well been in a situation where ATC has screwed up a clearance, vectored us into a loss of seperation etc. You wouldn't dream of writting up our "buddies" in ATC! And neither would I! They, however have no such aversion to jumping down our throats when, for whatever reason we should goof. And the "TC is monitoring us" BS is getting a little weary...at least to me! The service we get from ATC is, for the most part good....but they have their days!
Me, I'm frankly fed up with the whole nine yards. Tired of whinning pilots. Tired of working my way down...I started at the bottom, and I'm still going down! Tired of walking on eggs. We are an industry that eats our young!

Cat Driver · Post by **Cat Driver** » Sat Jul 10, 2004 4:19 pm

I must agree with you Doc, the industry is getting worse by the day.

I have not flown commercially in canada since 1996 so I have kind of gotten out of the loop with the day to day goings on on in flying in Canada.

However I do fly here in Nanaimo and the B.S. rules that are slowly eating away at flying are truly depressing.

The FSS guys here tell me that they have to write us up for any deviation from the norm, fu.k I was written up for walking across the taxi way from the airplane .... they had just approved us to park on the grass. Now that is really bizzare how in fu.k did they expect us to get across the taxi way?... fly?

You should come over to Europe with me if you want to see rule making gone mad.

The pilot that is Director of flight operations in Holland asked me to go through the check lists for flying the PBY before he submits them to the Dutch CAA for their approval.......

Now, I kid you not there were pages and pages of checks, truly stunning crap he claims that "must" be followed when we start flying the airplane.

I do not know what in hell I'm going to do, I just can't imagine going through those checks every time I fly with them.

I said to him, you are paying me 250 euros an hour lets make a short check list that will cover the essentials to save some time...he claims we have to go through the whole thing so they can pass their check ride and the fu.kin CAA will be with us most of the time anyhow.

So brace yourself for the same crap coming over here.

Maybe its time we just quit and let the new guys deal with it, they have no idea of how simple life was when we started.

Hmmmm, Doc.... how come we flew all those years without big brother dictating to us how to make every move?

I wouldn't mind so much if the people making the rules had a clue but I guess if they did we wouldn't have this B.S. to put up with.

Any of you FSS brethern care to comment?

Cat

lilfssister · Post by **lilfssister** » Sun Jul 11, 2004 12:37 pm

Doc wrote:Well Cat, it seems (to me at least) to have become an us vs. them relationship with ATC, FSS, or whatever you should refer to them as. I have, and I'm sure you have, as well been in a situation where ATC has screwed up a clearance, vectored us into a loss of seperation etc. You wouldn't dream of writting up our "buddies" in ATC! And neither would I! They, however have no such aversion to jumping down our throats when, for whatever reason we should goof. And the "TC is monitoring us" BS is getting a little weary...at least to me! The service we get from ATC is, for the most part good....but they have their days!

You don't have to write up your buddies in ATC (or FSS). We have the pleasure of having to write ourselves up.

Cat Driver · Post by **Cat Driver** » Sun Jul 11, 2004 12:54 pm

Howso lifesister.

Please explain how that works.

Who requires you to write yourself up? bang head

Cat

lilfssister · Post by **lilfssister** » Sun Jul 11, 2004 12:59 pm

I dunno Cat...it seems on our end of things that every time one person does one not so brilliant thing, we get 5 or 10 pages of amendments to our MANOPS, changing the way we have to do things. Findings from TC or NC investigations give us a lot of these, I suppose, trying to find ways to prevent those "swiss cheese" holes from lining up another time.

(Okay, I gotta give you that one, regarding how the heck you were expected to get from point A to point B. It does seem to go without saying that unless you were going to set up housekeeping in the plane, that you would have to walk across the taxiway.)

With regards to the us vs. you thing, it's definitely not the way I think. I attempt to do everything I can to avoid having to write something up, by trying to prevent stuff from happening before it gets that far. Of course, some on here seem to resent our suggesting and requesting anything. I can only speak for myself, but I don't suggest or request anything unless I have a darn good reason for it. If I have time, I'll tell you the reason. If not, you can assume I'm too busy on the vehicle control frequency, or on the phone with ATC, etc. to explain.

lilfssister · Post by **lilfssister** » Sun Jul 11, 2004 1:08 pm

Okay, I'm not going to strain my brain too much trying to remember where exactly the directive comes from, but it's probably in the Management Manual that both ATC and FSS operate under. On the daily CADORS reports you see sep loss reports filed by NC on themselves, as well as ones filed because someone busted an altitude/heading. On the FSS side of things, say for instance I forgot to get a vehicle off the runway, and you had to overshoot, I'd have to file a report.

Cat Driver · Post by **Cat Driver** » Sun Jul 11, 2004 1:30 pm

Thanks lilfssister:

By the way what in fu.k is a lilfssistr?

I'm thankful that most of my aviation career was lived in a less rules and policy snowstorm era.

Is'nt it strange that we managed to actually open up Northern Canada flying airplanes before there were even maps availiable with accurate terrain features and we had only the most basic of navigation aids?

Not to mention we did it with old piston engine aircraft such as Norseman's , Beech 18's, DC3's etc.

Just imagine how profficient and skillful I would be today had I had all this help from rule makers and enforcers.

Anyhow I'm on your side, I've always had a lot of respect for people who can do a far more difficult job than just flying an airplane, like keep track of a whole fleet of airplanes on a radar scope and guide them to a runway.

Cat

lilfssister · Post by **lilfssister** » Sun Jul 11, 2004 2:04 pm

A little fss sister...nick chosen because my big brother turned me on to the first aviation related forum that I registered on, as lilsister. Then, when I started asking/answering questions, I decided I should identify myself as an FSS, so that it MIGHT imply that I had at least a little bit of knowledge in that area.

Cat Driver · Post by **Cat Driver** » Sun Jul 11, 2004 2:38 pm

So I gather you are a person of the female gender?? Wave

lilfssister · Post by **lilfssister** » Sun Jul 11, 2004 2:43 pm

That would be a correct assumption...boy, you can't slip anything past some of you pilots!

Cat Driver · Post by **Cat Driver** » Sun Jul 11, 2004 3:49 pm

I don't mind being called bad names but I draw the line at pilot.

Do you want me to be a little more circumspect with my language and use some other word besides f.ck to describe things?

Anyhow you can't really blame me to much because I got hit in the head to many times in bar fights and I'm not normal, however I'm still bright enough to feel uncomfortable being called a pilot.

Cat

ahramin · Post by **ahramin** » Sun Jul 11, 2004 3:59 pm

Whoops. lilfssister, now that you have admitted being of the female persuasion Cat Driver will not tell you his definition of relative humidity. Though you are not missing much.

lilfssister · Post by **lilfssister** » Sun Jul 11, 2004 4:13 pm

Cat, there's nothing you can say that I haven't said myself. (Usually just after releasing the mic button

). I've had to put up with worse on here

.

lilfssister · Post by **lilfssister** » Sun Jul 11, 2004 4:21 pm

ahramin, If I wasn't assumed to be female, we'd have to be worried about a certain individual's posts on a thread we're letting die, I think

!

lilfssister · Post by **lilfssister** » Sun Jul 11, 2004 4:55 pm

Cat Driver wrote:There are several discussions taking place here in the past couple of months regarding pilots and FSS.

Cat

I think on about page 5 of the thread we're letting die, another FSS, named FSS

, said that in 40 years it's the most exposure we've gotten. While some of the comments are less than flattering, FSS is right. We DON'T get a lot of exposure, and when we do, the non-aviation community has NO idea what we do. In one high-profile accident several years ago, it was ridiculous the way media reports portrayed our role, if they acknowledged our existence at all. (Well, in fact ANY media reports of ANYTHING we might have been involved in are like that).

I know on a forum like this I'm preaching to the choir, but it's rare that our side of things ever gets out there. It's frustrating, to say the least, that outside of our aviating community, we're unknown and unappreciated. Probably what started me on the roll I'm on here lately, is when the aviating community (or I guess I should say "some members" of...) fail to appreciate us.

Like those of you in the pointy end, most of us spend our day (or night) at work trying to make sure you get from point A to point B safely. Like you in the pointy end, there's good ones, mediocre ones, and ones who should find another line of work. Like you in the pointy end, there's days when we're pleasant and cheerful, and days when we're tired and cranky. Like you in the pointy end, we have rules to follow that we sometimes find annoying.

Despite all that, I can honestly say that in the time I've been doing this job, there's been damn few days when I woke up and said "&&^%$, I have to go to work!"

cow-tipping-in-the-night · Sun Jul 11, 2004 8:35 pm

ahramin
You've yet to tell us all what Cat's def of relative humidity is.
I think I know why. . .

A.W. · Post by **A.W.** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 11:06 am

Benwa · Post by **Benwa** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 11:08 am

Man you're dumb A.W.

Where do you think Nanaimo is ? Japan ?
http://www.city.nanaimo.bc.ca/

hz2p · Post by **hz2p** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 11:13 am

From the tone of his postings, A.W. is probably a Transport (or ex-Transport) employee who doesn't think . should be allowed to say bad things about the government.

Do a search on his postings and you'll see what I mean. As such, you probably don't need to pay much attention to what he says.

lilfssister · Post by **lilfssister** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 11:20 am

Perhaps Cat chose to stop flying commercially in Canada because of the state of the industry? Just a W.A.G. on my part, though.

A.W. · Post by **A.W.** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 12:40 pm

qqqqqq

Cat Driver · Post by **Cat Driver** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 1:40 pm

Lilfssister :

Exatly, my decision to no longer fly in the Country that I am a citizen of is " only " due to not wanting to have to have any connection with TC, other than my Doctor sending in my medical results.

I commute to other countries to earn money flying because those countries grant me authority to do flight training on Catalina's based on my experience and licenses held. ( of which some are Canadain. )

The Dutch CAA as well as other countries such as Australia have granted me an exemption from the JAR regs to fly their aircraft and train their licensed pilots based on my qualifications and with my Canadian ALTP without having to go through the JAR license requirements.........anyone see anything weird here? Canada won't allow me to fly C150's to earn a living, yet other countries go out of their way to approve me to fly large complex aircraft.

I am home for a short time out, will be leaving for Amsterdam on Airtransat on wednesday July 21 then flying to Seattle on August 07 to fly fifty hours with another Cat operator for insurance requirements.

Once again, several years ago I applied for a FTU OC to operate two C150's.

TC denied me the authority to hold the certificate because in their " official" opinion I was not suitable to operate a flying school in Canada.

So I guess if I'm not suitable to work in my own country who can blame me for working in countries that will approve me?

Cat

A.W. · Post by **A.W.** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 2:35 pm

aaas\q

lilfssister · Post by **lilfssister** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 3:10 pm

Dog Person, I am not in the least bit being reeled in, or becoming a disciple. Most of Cat's posts, I have no (valid) opinion on, because they involve aspects of the business that I know nothing about or could care less about. Some of them I ignore. But if someone chooses to enter into a (mostly) civilized dialogue about a subject that I know and care about, perhaps with a bit of friendly banter thrown in, it makes a nice change from a lot of the cr*p that shows up on this site.

Two Different Worlds

Two Different Worlds

Re: Two Different Worlds