Category: In The News

USA Today reported: February 8, 2016
FAA: Drone registration eclipses that of regular planes

WASHINGTON – The number of drones potentially flying in U.S. skies has eclipsed the number of piloted aircraft — from Cessnas to Dreamliners, the Federal Aviation Administration said Monday.

More than 325,000 people registered their drones as of Friday, FAA Administrator Michael Huerta said. That surpasses the 320,000 piloted aircraft registered with the agency. And the numbers could actually be higher, Huerta said, because one registration covers all the drones a person owns. The average operator has 1.5 drones, he said.

The registration numbers show the surging popularity of remote-controlled aircraft, which are flooding airspace already packed with passenger planes and leading to concerns over midair collisions. About 7,000 planes fly in U.S. skies any time during the day, according to the FAA, along with an untold number of drones.
Full article:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/02/08/faa-drone-registration-eclipses-regular-planes/80002730/

Austria’s Auto Touring reports: January 31, 2016

Austrian Exclusive Interview with Chesley Sullenberger

Full article:

https://www.oeamtc.at/autotouring/01-02-2016/chesley-sullenberger/11.226.028

Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, the pilot who heroically landed US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River, speaks with Hannah Storm about his emergency water landing that saved the lives of all 155 passengers aboard his aircraft and dealing with PTSD.

Watch the video interview on ESPN

Take it from a guy who knows a thing or two about mid-air collisions, drones are a growing threat to civil aviation.

The use of drones—both recreationally and commercially—is on the rise, offering a boost to a booming drone industry expected to create billions of dollars worth of economic activity in the U.S. over the next decade. But significant uptick in close encounters between drones and manned aircraft—a quadrupling, in fact—is pushing many to call for increased regulation and better enforcement of the regulations that are in place.

One of the more prominent voices bringing attention to the heightened risk of a drone-on-aircraft collision is Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger. Sullenberger, most readers will recall, is the now-retired US Airways pilot that in 2009 managed to safely land his Airbus A320 passenger jet in the Hudson River, saving all 155 persons aboard.

Read the full article

Forbes.com reports: July 28, 2015

This article is by Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger III, safety advocate, speaker, author, CBS News’ aviation and safety expert, and chief executive of Safety Reliability Methods, Inc.

If there is one thing that we know about business—and every other aspect of life—it is that the unexpected happens.

The New York Stock Exchange is forced to suspend trading. United Airlines has to ground all its flights. The Wall Street Journal‘s website crashes. And those three things all happened on just one day, July 8, 2015.

Which raises an important question in a society as heavily dependent on technology as ours: What kind of leadership best enables men and women in positions of authority to navigate unexpected situations that range from the merely inconvenient to the truly grave?

Full Article

http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesleadershipforum/2015/07/28/what-is-needed-when-the-unexpected-happens-and-it-will/#6f9aac31669f

his article is by Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger III, safety advocate, speaker, author, CBS News’ aviation and safety expert, and chief executive of Safety Reliability Methods, Inc.

If there is one thing that we know about business—and every other aspect of life—it is that the unexpected happens.

The New York Stock Exchange is forced to suspend trading. United Airlines has to ground all its flights. The Wall Street Journal‘s website crashes. And those three things all happened on just one day, July 8, 2015.

Which raises an important question in a society as heavily dependent on technology as ours: What kind of leadership best enables men and women in positions of authority to navigate unexpected situations that range from the merely inconvenient to the truly grave?

View the full article

LinkedIn.com reports: April 13, 2015

Last month’s tragic and horrific plane crash in the French Alps has raised an important and unprecedented question: How can we prevent a pilot fromintentionally crashing a commercial flight ever again?

Some have suggested that we eliminate the risk by eliminating pilots—and rely solely on advanced automation technology.

Such thinking is, in part, the result of the ubiquity of technology in our lives. But more significantly, it reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of what pilots do, and what technology can and cannot do.

In the nearly half-century I have served as a pilot (much of that as an aviation and safety expert) I have seen tremendous changes in aviation technology. And these changes have dramatically changed the pilot’s job. We have gone from flying entire flights by manually manipulating the controls to flying them using technology for most of the flight and flying manually for only a few minutes.

  Full article: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/technology-cannot-replace-pilots-capt-sully-sullenberger