The Art of Aircraft Maintenance: Painting a Picture of Complexity and Detail

By Greg Paxson, A&P/IA, Senior Aviation Maintenance Consultant

Do you have a great Technician or a Professional Maintenance Manager?  Hopefully, you answered yes to “both”, because you need both.  Safety, experience, and training are the hallmarks of any reputable management company’s maintenance department.  Most owners, pilots and anyone looking for a management company will probably know to look for these things.  But, does a technician who participates in the company SMS program, goes to recurrent training and knows his way around your aircraft, equal professional maintenance management?  Not always.  There is a lot more to maintenance management than a sharp technician and a well maintained aircraft.  Professional maintenance managers are artists, like Michelangelo or Renoir, who can elegantly add value in ways and areas not obvious Continue reading →

Air Turbulence 101 – What Every Passenger Should Do To Stay Safe

As Aviation Safety advisors Business Aviation Solutions often gets questions from the general flying public.  Here in a video blog, BAS Founder and Senior Consultant, Ed White, discusses air turbulence and the one thing every passenger should do to stay safe while flying.

http://bit.ly/2b3ye5c

BAS’ Safety Guru Verdea Keeps Himself and Top Flight Departments in Shape

June 1, 2016 – Tulsa | Here is Business Aviation Solutions’ own Nick Verdea in Business & Commercial Aviation magazine.

Click here for the article:  Run, Nick, Run!

IS-BAO FAQ’s: So You’re Considering International Standard-Business Aircraft Operations Certification? Considerations for Implementing IS-BAO.

As leaders in IS-BAO auditing and implementation Business Aviation Solutions often has clients who come to us asking questions about becoming certified to the International Standard-Business Aircraft Operations.  Here are a few of the most frequently asked questions with our replies.

Why do I need to be ISBAO certified?   

If you fly internationally ICAO’s Annex 6 Part II requires a Safety Management System, a core component of the IS-BAO, to be legal.  But even if you’re a US domestic operator the IS-BAO can be important!  It raises the bar of professionalism for your flight department.  IS-BAO certification makes you accountable to an internationally accepted protocol of best practices, it necessarily increases safety margins and it proves to your company that your department operates to high standards  –  not just because you think or say so, but because your department Continue reading →

Challenge Yourself to be a Better Leader Through NBAA’s Certified Aviation Manager Program – Opportunity for the Present and Future

By Nick Verdea, CAM

The Certified Aviation Manager (CAM) certification program administered by the NBAA and certified independently by National Commission for Certifying Agencies is fast becoming the standard bearer for business aviation leaders and professionals. More and more companies during their leadership and manager searches are looking to see if their candidate obtained a CAM designation. It acknowledges to the employer that a candidate with a CAM designation has certain knowledge and experience in 5 crucial areas for an aviation professional to possess: Leadership, Human Resources, Operations, Technical and Facilities Services, and Business Management. As one looks at other business units of a company there are essential skills necessary to lead and manage those business lines and those managers’ will typically participate in internal company programs, higher education, and certification programs in their field; so shouldn’t the same be true for a professionally managed business aviation unit? –You Bet!

With over 300 certified CAM’s around the world a new bar is being raised for business aviation leaders to bring more Continue reading →

Call To Action – Stop ATC Privatization and the Big Airline Power Grab

Listen up, Zeke!  If it ain’t broke, why fix it?  The federal government and the airlines are currently considering privatizing the nation’s Air Traffic Control (ATC) system.  Our ATC system is not perfect, but it’s not broken.  Make no mistake.  This is a power grab by the airlines to better control access to America’s airspace and airports.  It will surely favor the airlines and will penalize a vital part of our economy, business aviation.  As the NY Times says, privatization is a solution looking for a problem.

The US air traffic system has long been a model for the rest of the world.  Providing relatively unfettered access to airports nationwide, our ATC system is an enabler for business.  With US airlines serving only about 500 airports of the 5000 airports in this country business aviation is an important resource for many small and mid-sized communities who are not served well, or at all, by the airlines.

Simply, we can’t allow the big airlines a power grab, as this will remove important economic resources away from small and mid-sized communities that need air service.

Please contact Congress today to share your opposition to this privatization act.  It takes less than five minutes.  Click here to make your voice heard.

Consider the following from the National Business Aviation Association: Continue reading →

Act Like a Leader Before You Are One

weblog via HBR.org by Amy Gallo on 5/1/13

If you want to become a leader, don’t wait for the fancy title or the corner office. You can begin to act, think, and communicate like a leader long before that promotion. Even if you’re still several levels down and someone else is calling all the shots, there are numerous ways to demonstrate your potential and carve your path to the role you want.

What the Experts Say
“It’s never foolish to begin preparing for a transition no matter how many years away it is or where you are in your career,” says Muriel Maignan Wilkins, coauthor of Own the Room: Discover Your Signature Voice to Master Your Leadership Presence. Michael Watkins, the chairman of Genesis Advisers and author of The First 90 Days and Your Next Move, agrees. Not only does the planning help you develop the necessary skills and leadership presence, it also increases your chances of getting the promotion because people will already recognize you as a leader. The key is to take on opportunities now, regardless of your tenure or role. “You can demonstrate leadership at any time no matter what your title is,” says Amy Jen Su, coauthor of Own the Room. Here are several ways to start laying the groundwork. Continue reading →

Are You the Top Gun You Think You Are? Unsafe Perspectives and the Dunning-Kruger Effect

I can remember my father, an Eastern Airlines captain, saying to me as a young aviator, “The most dangerous time in a pilot’s career is after they get their Commercial license up until about the time they get their ATP.”  I hadn’t given that much thought until recently.  I fondly recall that period of my career.  I was cautious, but I also had a sense of unfounded bravado that I really knew what I was doing.  Looking back, boy was my perspective wrong.

Lately I have been running across many operators who are not best practices or IS-BAO, are not particularly safe, or are even operating under CFR 14 Part 91 illegally – not because they want to, but because they don’t have the perspective to know any better.  Moreover, their bravado puts them, their companies or owners, and the general public at risk.  Please read on…

You’re saying, “Hey, that’s not us.”  Research shows, however, if you are in denial you have a high likelihood of overestimating your knowledge.  I challenge you  to see if perhaps your operation is at risk from what’s been called the Dunning-Kruger effect.

One of the best titles for a scientific paper has to be the Ig Nobel prize winning “Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in recognizing one’s own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments“.  The paper compares people’s skill levels to their own assessment of their abilities. In hindsight, the result seems self-evident. Unskilled people lack the skill to rate their own level of competence. This leads to the unfortunate result that unskilled people rate themselves higher than more competent people. The phenomenon is known as the Dunning-Kruger effect, named after the paper’s Cornell University authors. Continue reading →

Machu Picchu Earns Its Distinction as “One of the World’s Most Interesting”

As you may know I love to write.  I often apply that passion on Yelp!, the foodie web-community.  It’s a give and take situation where I frequently search reviews taking recommendations for cuisine, rating and value.  The advice on the site is very insightful, and I’ve found many hidden gems with the “locals knowledge” provided.  I enjoy “giving”, too, with over 300 reviews submitted.

Similarly, as a business aviator I find Rick Steve’s travel shows and other travel logs quite interesting.  In a recent consulting engagement I met a great guy and fellow pilot, Lee Hale, who shared with me a story of his recent visit to Peru, Cuzco and the famous ruins of Machu Picchu.  It was quite an interesting story – one that he has shared in his local newspaper, The Coloradoan.  I urged him to share this with us, and he graciously obliged.  I hope you enjoy Captain Hale’s travel blog on Machu Picchu!

______________________________________________________________

By Lee Hale

The first view is every bit as spectacular as I had hoped.  The green mountain pillars surround the ancient ruins, with wispy clouds moving up and down the valley opening and closing views of one of the world’s greatest sites: the Incan ruins of Machu Picchu.

I travel a lot, often too much.  After all, I am a professional pilot and have been “raising money” for my family driving airplanes for more than forty-five years.  This means that most trips are ho-hum affairs that simply represent another week or two away from home.  My recent eleven day trip to South America did not fit this mold.  It was interesting and exciting every step of the way. Continue reading →

10 Leadership Lessons From George Washington

You may remember Valley Forge from Junior High history, but to refresh your memory, it was where the American Revolutionary soldiers wintered in 1777-1778.  Conditions were brutally cold.  Clothing in tatters.  Shoes nonexistent. Many wounded soldiers died from exposure.  And those left living had to contend with typhoid, jaundice, dysentery, and pneumonia.  George Washington wrote, “To see the soldiers without clothes to cover their nakedness, without blankets to lie upon, without shoes…without a house or hut to cover them…and submitting without a murmur… can scarcely be paralleled.”

Approximately 2,500 American soldiers died in Valley Forge that year.  Why? Yes, these men loved freedom.  But according to historian David McCollough, it was mainly their love for Washington. They would go anywhere with him and do anything for him. They knew how much Washington cared for them and how he put himself in harm’s way.  In earlier battles, Washington’s two horses were shot out from under him and four bullets passed through his coat. The American soldiers knew this. And bled for him. Continue reading →