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The effect of culture should not be underestimated here. There really is a cooperative spirit among pilots, air traffic controllers, weather briefers, mechanic

The effect of culture should not be underestimated here. There really is a cooperative spirit among pilots, air traffic controllers, weather briefers, mechanics, the FAA, etc. Controllers are willing to help pilots with special requests if able, pilots file weather reports for other pilots if what they encounter aloft is different from what they expected, mechanics take pride in their work and are highly regarded by pilots. I generally take a dim view of regulators, who generally seem to have less expertise than the people they're regulating. That's mostly not the case here. I'm libertarian and a pilot - and I like the FAA. Nobody is out to nail you for a minor technical infraction, but they will yell at you for something that's unsafe but technically legal. This encourages people to report near misses, even if casts them in a bad light. The regulations themselves are generally reasonable, and frankly feel like they were written by pilots, controllers, and airport operators. The point is this - regulations matter and budgets matter, but if the culture is toxic, people will find a way around it anyway. When I see a problem elsewhere in society - investment banking in the 2000s for example - people propose heavy regulatory solutions. That may work, but wouldn't be so much of a battle if the culture were better. I haven't thought deeply about what "better" means in this context, nor about how to intentionally change a culture. I'd rather just fly.

maxcan 10y ago
> I'm libertarian and a pilot - and I like the FAA Me too. For every frustration about what they've done to the costs of things in GA, and those are valid, their accomplishments in general are incredible.
THE_PUN_STOPS 10y ago
I've often heard it said that FAA regulations are written in blood. Meaning, if a rule exists, it exists for a damn good reason. For anyone interested, NASA's ASRS [1] (Aviation Safety Reporting System) is what the parent commenter is referring to regarding reporting near misses. The idea is, anyone can submit an incident report with NASA, a neutral separate party from the FAA, which is placed in an anonymized public database and cannot be used to justify punishment against anyone involved in the incident. This promotes transparency and learning from the mistakes of yourself and others, instead of covering them up. Frequently, the person who caused an incident in the first place will promptly report it to ASRS, as the FAA looks favorably upon those who come forward to ASRS on their own and dimly upon those who do not. I think more industries could use this kind of transparency in reporting sketchy situations. [1]: https://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/overview/confidentiality.html https://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/overview/confidentiality.html
- markbnj 10y ago
  I often remarked in the same vein to my daughters as they were growing up and learning to drive. Everywhere you encounter a stop sign, a light, etc., is a place where people were badly injured or killed on multiple occasions. That stuff is there for a reason.
  - ceejayoz 10y ago
    New road construction starts with stop signs and traffic lights. They don't just leave it a free-for-all and add them later on. Now, when you see quadruple stop signs (i.e. 16 total) and a jury-rigged flashing red light attached to them, as there was in my home town, chances are that one came about after some accidents.
    - athenot 10y ago
      There's this place in Atlanta where one makes a 180 turn from one interstate to another. They added flashing lights, paint all over the place, signs. Still, there are so many vehicles going off the road that no grass ever grows there. Here's the Google Street view of the dirt patch, complete with vehicle debris which accumulates almost every day. https://www.google.com/maps/@33.7939354,-84.3917037,3a,75y,157.42h,82.52t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sP-2dmY0b-lGZLjXCXNi6YQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com/maps/@33.7939354,-84.3917037,3a,75y,1...
      - Swizec 10y ago
        At what point do you change the turn? Signs and paint is great, but maybe the fundamentals are just bad.
      - lostlogin 10y ago
        That road is knackered too - is that a commmon state for roads around there?
        sanswork 10y ago
Eric_WVGG 10y ago
"elsewhere in society" also education, health care
marcosdumay 10y ago
It helps that everybody's economical interests are aligned into a hight safety level. This environment would never exist in an area where companies could be created overnight, sell something for a while, and safely fail before their social (PR) costs become obvious.
- astrodust 10y ago
  If bank executives had a device implanted in their chest that would explode if their bank ended up insolvent they'd probably run things very, very differently.
flashman 10y ago
There is also a fair bit of "systems thinking" in aviation, which focuses not on who to blame when things go wrong, but how were systems set up to permit failure. Barring gross negligence or malice, most things go wrong for reasons other than the immediately involved actors.
- crymer11 10y ago
  > Barring gross negligence or malice, most things go wrong for reasons other than the immediately involved actors. Anytime I hear of systems failing, I can't help but think about Dr. Cook's paper on How Complex Systems Fail - http://web.mit.edu/2.75/resources/random/How%20Complex%20Systems%20Fail.pdf http://web.mit.edu/2.75/resources/random/How%20Complex%20Sys...
rubicon33 10y ago
Culture yes, but also consequences. The consequences for a failure in aviation, is often death, and this is probably why everyone is on their best behavior. Consequences for a failure in banking policy are less obvious. I get the feeling that people don't regard wiping out someone's savings and destroying their retirement, as grave as death, and so profiteers will either consciously or subconsciously, use that as justification for their actions.
- rodgerd 10y ago
  > The consequences for a failure in aviation, is often death, and this is probably why everyone is on their best behavior. Well, except for the pilot who took off with inadequate fuel and killed a football team.
  - heartbreak 10y ago
    > In a sad coincidence, that this article was posted on the same day that a plane crash in Colombia killed 71 people. Not every region of the world has been as fortunate as ours, and we are wise not to gloat.
- russdill 10y ago
  The consequence of death does absolutely not discourage people. Several people die everyday in the US because they were texting while driving. The problem with the consequence of death is that no one believes it will happen to them.
  - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
    Or rather, we have a terrible intuition about relative probabilities. Explains not wearing seatbelts, playing the lottery, and lots more.
  - MaxfordAndSons 10y ago
    I think fear of death is a universally strong motivator. The problem with drivers is that they're allowed to drive with a pittance of training, and not fully educated about the various ways they can put themselves at risk. Also there's a rationalization that occurs even in drivers who should know better: even if you put yourself at risk and get into an accident, many types of auto accidents, even catastrophic ones, are survivable. A pilot would never make such a rationalization because aviation accidents have much worse survivability rates.
waqf 10y ago
> I generally take a dim view of regulators, who generally seem to have less expertise than the people they're regulating. The thing that always worries me is — if we try to prevent the "revolving door" whereby regulators hire from the industry they're regulating, then how will we ever have regulators who know what they're doing?
- protomyth 10y ago
  Most of the problem isn't people retiring to a government job, it's people leaving the government to a private sector job.
  - taneq 10y ago
    Exactly. The promise of a well paid private sector sinecure after your time in public office is what creates the perverse incentive for regulators.
pdog 10y ago
> When I see a problem elsewhere in society - investment banking in the 2000s for example - people propose heavy regulatory solutions. That may work, but wouldn't be so much of a battle if the culture were better. The toxic culture of investment banking is a feature, not a bug. If you cleaned it up, it wouldn't be high finance anymore.
- woodandsteel 10y ago
  No, for a long time starting with the new deal, we had high finance with a much less toxic culture. The change happened because a bunch of conservative politicians persuaded the government that high finance is natural self-regulating and so it would be just fine to gut many of the key regulations. The crash of 2008 was one consequence. And Trump is very much on the financial deregulation side.
gech 10y ago
" That may work, but wouldn't be so much of a battle if the culture were better." The culture of guys moving people around in the air or the culture of guys making bets
WalterBright 10y ago
As a former Boeing engineer designing flight critical systems for the 757, the safety of airliners is deeply embedded in the culture at Boeing. Nobody wants to be responsible for a fault that results in a crash. Furthermore, Boeing is acutely aware that if an airliner design acquires a reputation for shoddiness, unsafety, etc., it can very easily put them out of that business (that has happened to other airframe companies, look what happened to Lockheed with the Elektra).
- maxcan 10y ago
  They got the largest military aircraft contract ever? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning... In all seriousness, I've done a floor tour of the boeing factory, its really an incredible place. The work you and all the engineers do there is amazing. Thank you.
  - WalterBright 10y ago
    The Elektra's reputation caused Lockheed's exit from the airliner business. (Getting a tour of the Boeing factory floor is really quite an experience!)
    - maxcan 10y ago
      Fair point. The tour was amazing. AOPA set it up as part of the Bremmerton (sp?) fly in. Coming from the software world, seeing the efficiency and precision of the floor was unreal.
pjc50 10y ago
> a problem elsewhere in society - investment banking in the 2000s for example - people propose heavy regulatory solutions Air flight is not "adversarial", has the ability to directly and spectacularly kill people, and doesn't have the same upside potential for making extraordinary amounts of money. You can cut costs, but only asymptotically towards 100%. Whereas in finance, the potential upside to misbehavior is unlimited, the negative side effects are indirect, and there is already an adversarial culture of "beating" other people in your deals. So the regulatory culture ends up having to be adversarial as well, because you can't get people to give up multi-millions for the sake of playing nice.

maxcan 10y ago

> I'm libertarian and a pilot - and I like the FAA Me too. For every frustration about what they've done to the costs of things in GA, and those are valid, their accomplishments in general are incredible.

THE_PUN_STOPS 10y ago

I've often heard it said that FAA regulations are written in blood. Meaning, if a rule exists, it exists for a damn good reason. For anyone interested, NASA's ASRS [1] (Aviation Safety Reporting System) is what the parent commenter is referring to regarding reporting near misses. The idea is, anyone can submit an incident report with NASA, a neutral separate party from the FAA, which is placed in an anonymized public database and cannot be used to justify punishment against anyone involved in the incident. This promotes transparency and learning from the mistakes of yourself and others, instead of covering them up. Frequently, the person who caused an incident in the first place will promptly report it to ASRS, as the FAA looks favorably upon those who come forward to ASRS on their own and dimly upon those who do not. I think more industries could use this kind of transparency in reporting sketchy situations. [1]: https://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/overview/confidentiality.html https://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/overview/confidentiality.html

markbnj 10y ago
I often remarked in the same vein to my daughters as they were growing up and learning to drive. Everywhere you encounter a stop sign, a light, etc., is a place where people were badly injured or killed on multiple occasions. That stuff is there for a reason.
- ceejayoz 10y ago
  New road construction starts with stop signs and traffic lights. They don't just leave it a free-for-all and add them later on. Now, when you see quadruple stop signs (i.e. 16 total) and a jury-rigged flashing red light attached to them, as there was in my home town, chances are that one came about after some accidents.
  - athenot 10y ago
    There's this place in Atlanta where one makes a 180 turn from one interstate to another. They added flashing lights, paint all over the place, signs. Still, there are so many vehicles going off the road that no grass ever grows there. Here's the Google Street view of the dirt patch, complete with vehicle debris which accumulates almost every day. https://www.google.com/maps/@33.7939354,-84.3917037,3a,75y,157.42h,82.52t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sP-2dmY0b-lGZLjXCXNi6YQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com/maps/@33.7939354,-84.3917037,3a,75y,1...
    - Swizec 10y ago
      At what point do you change the turn? Signs and paint is great, but maybe the fundamentals are just bad.
    - lostlogin 10y ago
      That road is knackered too - is that a commmon state for roads around there?
      - sanswork 10y ago

Eric_WVGG 10y ago

"elsewhere in society" also education, health care

marcosdumay 10y ago

It helps that everybody's economical interests are aligned into a hight safety level. This environment would never exist in an area where companies could be created overnight, sell something for a while, and safely fail before their social (PR) costs become obvious.

astrodust 10y ago
If bank executives had a device implanted in their chest that would explode if their bank ended up insolvent they'd probably run things very, very differently.

flashman 10y ago

There is also a fair bit of "systems thinking" in aviation, which focuses not on who to blame when things go wrong, but how were systems set up to permit failure. Barring gross negligence or malice, most things go wrong for reasons other than the immediately involved actors.

crymer11 10y ago
> Barring gross negligence or malice, most things go wrong for reasons other than the immediately involved actors. Anytime I hear of systems failing, I can't help but think about Dr. Cook's paper on How Complex Systems Fail - http://web.mit.edu/2.75/resources/random/How%20Complex%20Systems%20Fail.pdf http://web.mit.edu/2.75/resources/random/How%20Complex%20Sys...

rubicon33 10y ago

Culture yes, but also consequences. The consequences for a failure in aviation, is often death, and this is probably why everyone is on their best behavior. Consequences for a failure in banking policy are less obvious. I get the feeling that people don't regard wiping out someone's savings and destroying their retirement, as grave as death, and so profiteers will either consciously or subconsciously, use that as justification for their actions.

rodgerd 10y ago
> The consequences for a failure in aviation, is often death, and this is probably why everyone is on their best behavior. Well, except for the pilot who took off with inadequate fuel and killed a football team.
- heartbreak 10y ago
  > In a sad coincidence, that this article was posted on the same day that a plane crash in Colombia killed 71 people. Not every region of the world has been as fortunate as ours, and we are wise not to gloat.
russdill 10y ago
The consequence of death does absolutely not discourage people. Several people die everyday in the US because they were texting while driving. The problem with the consequence of death is that no one believes it will happen to them.
- JoeAltmaier 10y ago
  Or rather, we have a terrible intuition about relative probabilities. Explains not wearing seatbelts, playing the lottery, and lots more.
- MaxfordAndSons 10y ago
  I think fear of death is a universally strong motivator. The problem with drivers is that they're allowed to drive with a pittance of training, and not fully educated about the various ways they can put themselves at risk. Also there's a rationalization that occurs even in drivers who should know better: even if you put yourself at risk and get into an accident, many types of auto accidents, even catastrophic ones, are survivable. A pilot would never make such a rationalization because aviation accidents have much worse survivability rates.

waqf 10y ago

> I generally take a dim view of regulators, who generally seem to have less expertise than the people they're regulating. The thing that always worries me is — if we try to prevent the "revolving door" whereby regulators hire from the industry they're regulating, then how will we ever have regulators who know what they're doing?

protomyth 10y ago
Most of the problem isn't people retiring to a government job, it's people leaving the government to a private sector job.
- taneq 10y ago
  Exactly. The promise of a well paid private sector sinecure after your time in public office is what creates the perverse incentive for regulators.

pdog 10y ago

> When I see a problem elsewhere in society - investment banking in the 2000s for example - people propose heavy regulatory solutions. That may work, but wouldn't be so much of a battle if the culture were better. The toxic culture of investment banking is a feature, not a bug. If you cleaned it up, it wouldn't be high finance anymore.

woodandsteel 10y ago
No, for a long time starting with the new deal, we had high finance with a much less toxic culture. The change happened because a bunch of conservative politicians persuaded the government that high finance is natural self-regulating and so it would be just fine to gut many of the key regulations. The crash of 2008 was one consequence. And Trump is very much on the financial deregulation side.

gech 10y ago

" That may work, but wouldn't be so much of a battle if the culture were better." The culture of guys moving people around in the air or the culture of guys making bets

WalterBright 10y ago

As a former Boeing engineer designing flight critical systems for the 757, the safety of airliners is deeply embedded in the culture at Boeing. Nobody wants to be responsible for a fault that results in a crash. Furthermore, Boeing is acutely aware that if an airliner design acquires a reputation for shoddiness, unsafety, etc., it can very easily put them out of that business (that has happened to other airframe companies, look what happened to Lockheed with the Elektra).

maxcan 10y ago
They got the largest military aircraft contract ever? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning... In all seriousness, I've done a floor tour of the boeing factory, its really an incredible place. The work you and all the engineers do there is amazing. Thank you.
- WalterBright 10y ago
  The Elektra's reputation caused Lockheed's exit from the airliner business. (Getting a tour of the Boeing factory floor is really quite an experience!)
  - maxcan 10y ago
    Fair point. The tour was amazing. AOPA set it up as part of the Bremmerton (sp?) fly in. Coming from the software world, seeing the efficiency and precision of the floor was unreal.

pjc50 10y ago

> a problem elsewhere in society - investment banking in the 2000s for example - people propose heavy regulatory solutions Air flight is not "adversarial", has the ability to directly and spectacularly kill people, and doesn't have the same upside potential for making extraordinary amounts of money. You can cut costs, but only asymptotically towards 100%. Whereas in finance, the potential upside to misbehavior is unlimited, the negative side effects are indirect, and there is already an adversarial culture of "beating" other people in your deals. So the regulatory culture ends up having to be adversarial as well, because you can't get people to give up multi-millions for the sake of playing nice.