Downpours and chilly temperatures couldn’t keep Boy Scout troops from setting up camp behind AOPA’s headquarters at Frederick Municipal Airport in Frederick, Maryland, recently for an aviation camporee weekend to work toward their aviation badges. Frederick Troop 1998 hosted the event.
After pitching their tents in the rain, the scouts warmed up inside AOPA headquarters Friday night to watch movies with aviation themes. On Saturday, the scouts learned about gliders, fixed-wing piston singles, helicopters, and jets. Sunday’s events included an opportunity to fly AOPA’s flight simulator, while the visual projection in the AOPA media room allowed other scouts to critique the “pilot’s” performance.
Scouts rotated through various stations that included an explanation of aerodynamics and glider operations by the Mid-Atlantic Soaring Association, preflight demonstrations from local pilots, a question-and-answer session about helicopters at Advanced Helicopter Concepts, building a wing rib for a Van’s RV-8 with Experimental Aircraft Association Chapter 524, a look at jets inside Landmark Aviation’s hangars, a tour of the Maryland State Police hangar and medevac helicopter, hands-on science experiments with Kraemer Aviation Services, and flight planning at Frederick Flight Center. The Air Safety Institute showed the scouts a Pinch-Hitter® video, aimed at helping people new to aviation understand the basics of flight.
The scouts impressed volunteer pilots with how much information they had retained. Members of Troop 470 quickly rattled off the four forces of flight and parts of an aircraft.
Pilots encouraged to ‘fly friendly’ over marine sanctuaries
NOAA cautioned on bid to restrict airspace
AOPA is ready to work with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to encourage pilots to “fly friendly” in the vicinity of the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary and other noise-sensitive areas.
Pilots will be urged to comply with FAA guidance to avoid overflight of noise-sensitive areas below 2,000 feet agl. The guidance, contained in FAA Advisory Circular 91-36D, is recommended, not mandatory.
AOPA said it would work to educate pilots about voluntary compliance with recommended flight altitudes, but continues to question NOAA’s authority to impose overflight restriction zones over marine sanctuaries. Any such mandate should be enacted by the FAA through the normal rulemaking process, AOPA said in formal comments on the NOAA’s proposed revisions of rules for the Olympic National Marine Sanctuary in Washington state.
The proposed rule changes include language stating that NOAA will improve compliance with the Washington sanctuary’s “wildlife disturbance mitigation (overflight restriction) zone through collaboration” with AOPA and the Washington Pilots Association “to improve outreach products for and communication with local pilots.”
Industry, FAA seek fix for knowledge tests
Reforms coming, but question banks remain in place
By Dan Namowitz
The FAA, responding to an outpouring of criticism from AOPA and others for unannounced changes to the knowledge testing system, has promised better coordination with the flight training industry on future reforms (see "President's Perspective: A New Knowledge Test").
Officials of the FAA’s Airman Testing Standards Branch met with AOPA and other industry participants to address concerns about changes that without notice altered the content of numerous knowledge test question banks, spiking failure rates.
The changes drove up some failure rates to as high as 56 percent from about 13 percent on one exam. In a joint letter with the National Association of Flight Instructors (NAFI), AOPA called on the FAA to restore the previous test questions, and expunge failures of new tests from student records.
Flight training industry members who attended the meeting emphasized the need for the FAA to provide guidance on training that matches the FAA’s new testing expectations. For the industry to function, providers must know the completion standards that have been set, they said.
AOPA stressed that the industry was not calling for the FAA to resume publishing all test questions, as it did until about seven years ago. Test applicants should be able to prepare with an understanding of how the FAA validates its learning expectations with the knowledge tests.
Unfortunately, the test changes—and the FAA’s apparent reluctance to reverse them—hurt the FAA’s credibility with students and flight training providers, said AOPA Manager of Regulatory Affairs Kristine Hartzell.
The FAA does not have test standards for the knowledge exam, leaving instructors and students to “speculate what learning objectives might be tested based on the extremely broad knowledge areas” provided in regulations, handbooks, advisory circulars, and other texts.
Hartzell said she is encouraged to hear FAA officials commit to changing the way it communicates changes in knowledge-test learning objectives to the industry.
“They will implement a process by which any knowledge areas will be first changed in training handbooks and Practical Test Standards, and be made available to the public for 90 days before any new knowledge test questions on the changed subjects will appear in an exam,” she said.
Based on requests from several people in the aviation industry, the FAA agreed to form a steering committee of industry leaders to make recommendations on system changes, for quick enactment.
The FAA also revealed that it is considering a modular testing format; test takers would be required to pass each module of a test with a score of at least 70 percent, officials said.
Related Articles
