SM4 Safety Articles & Resources
A wealth of knowledge provided by experts in aviation safety can be found here in our Aviation Safety Resource Library. From time-proven safety and risk management principles to updates on the latest in aviation safety regulation, you’ll find the information you need to strengthen the safety culture in your organization. The content available here can be used as curriculum in your organization’s safety systems, and the experts whose content appears here are available as aviation safety consultants and safety trainers.
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Train for you!
Hello, summer! With the COVID vaccine now readily available, the demand for travel is bringing back air traffic and the empty skies of 2020 will soon be a piece of aviation history. As we dust off our flight bags or update the iPad applications, be mindful that skill loss, albeit temporary, is a reality we need to contend with.
Humble Inquiry: Are You Asking the Right Questions?
An excellent organization is one that can nimbly execute its strategy while continually learning from itself. Its structure is designed to provide management with constant feedback and performance from normal work. Its safety leadership spends considerable resources to carefully listen to the ”weak signals” from frontline employees, work teams and key stakeholders alike to help build the capacity and risk tolerance necessary for employees to fail fast, fail softly, learn how to learn quicker and perform brilliantly.
3 Things To Keep Your Eye on as Global Business Aviation Begins To Rebound
Since COVID-19 first entered our world in January 2019, it has taken us on quite a roller coaster ride with plenty of twists and turns. Few would have thought that we would still be in that situation over a year later, but here we are. It has been a challenging time for the aviation industry, but with global business aviation activity up 28% compared to 2020, down only by 9% compared to 2019 year to date, it looks as if our rebound is here.
Caffeine Will Enable Me To Power Through My Day. Right?
Worrying about the current public health crisis and how it affects our jobs, our lives and our health is something that all of us have experienced to some degree over the past year. Unsurprisingly, an increasing number of people have been reporting sleep disturbances since the COVID-19 pandemic began.
Risk Is a Choice: How an SMS Can Help Prevent Runway Excursions
Every accident starts with a choice. It is a decision among a sequence of actions that can still be within the boundaries of rules, but for too many business aviation operations, it is a sequence of choices that ends in a runway excursion.
SMS for the Small Operator
“I know that there are those who complain that they’re too small for a Safety Management System (SMS). Or that it’s too costly. Or that they don’t have time. One by one: No one and no company is too small for a SMS. The cost of a SMS is far less than the cost of an accident.”
Pilot Error Accidents: There Is More To the Story
Working directly with an aviation emergency response firm gives me unique insight into the complex and often cascading factors involved in understanding accident causation. Although pilot error is an often-cited root cause, it is easy to see it is rarely, if ever, that simple.
SMS Policy Review: Is Your Safety Culture Adaptable, Flexible and Resilient?
As the early months of 2021 unfold, this is a gentle reminder that it is time to dust off the SMS manual and perform your company’s annual policy SMS review. While our current work days continue to go sideways with pandemic-based tasks, this might be a perfect opportunity to get some quality Zoom time with your accountable executive (AE).
When Systems Fail: Overcoming Systemic Comfort Zones and the Rebirth of Self-Reliance
In the last week, I found myself smack dab in the middle of the plunging polar vortex that took power, heat, water and the ability to travel away from millions of people in Texas (including my family). This has become the focal point of a national debate about electrical grid reliability across the nation.
How to Combat Revenge Procrastination
We all know that sleep is important. When we don’t get the 7‐9 hours of daily sleep recommended by the National Sleep Foundation and endorsed by a consensus of top scientists, we feel groggy and irritable. It can affect our relationships. Our performance at work suffers.
15 Steps to Starting and Running a Successful Drone Business
Thinking about starting a drone business as a side gig or as a main source of income? Doing so can seem like an overwhelming task, but having a plan and doing things the right way can make it more attainable (and profitable). Here are 15 steps that will help you on your way to developing a successful drone business.
Was There a Decrease in Runway Excursions in 2020?
We now know that a global pandemic affects different industries in different ways. Retail liquor stores, package delivery companies and online meeting software all saw COVID-related bumps in sales. Restaurants, bars and most of aviation have experienced a COVID slump.
Enhancing Aviation’s Value & Relevance in Today’s Pandemic Environment
The COVID-19 pandemic has violently disrupted nearly everything we previously considered “normal.” Who could have imagined that during the middle of March 2020, the business world would be so dramatically and radically changed?
2021 Is Here—Are You Ready?
The new year has begun and with it an assortment of resolutions to make ourselves better in one way or another. January is generally the month in which everyone shares those resolutions, and as a flight safety academy, we see numerous pilots interested in additional professional development events and training focused on countering loss of control-inflight (LOC-I). All great news!
How Many Hours Are You Really Working?
While commercial airlines continue to struggle amid a dearth of passenger volume, many business aviation and charter air operators have experienced a strong recovery since the initial COVID-19 slowdown this past spring—and indeed, some are busier than ever.
Your Pandemic Operating Plan: Process vs. People
By now, most organizations seem to be well on their way to developing their pandemic operating plan, how they will continue to do business in a pandemic environment. In business aviation, the plan must detail how you will move people from location to location, stay compliant, and meet your responsibility and defensibility goals.
The Bedrock of Aviation—Standard Operating Procedures… Consider the Variables!
Aviation is all about standard operating procedures and their more-beloved acronym “SOP.” With the current COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on staffing levels, operators have had to make some hard decisions, whose impact may not be readily apparent. This article illuminates the risk in assuming SOPs are, in fact, standards.
Unmanned Aircraft Systems and Optimizing Operational Capabilities During the Pandemic
I think it’s safe to say that we are all waiting for the day when we can put COVID‐19 behind us and “get back to normal.” However, the reality is that this pandemic will continue to affect how we live our lives and conduct business for years to come.
Aviation Needs More Poets Right Now
Most of us began as dreamers and poets, all wanting to “slip the surly bonds of earth… dance the skies on laughter silvered wings… and reach out to touch the face of God.” Most know these words came from John Gillespie Magee Jr., who was a World War II Royal Canadian Air Force fighter pilot and poet. Most don’t know that he was killed in a mid-air collision over England in 1941.
Making your Risk Assessment Tool a STAR
Mention the acronym GUMPS to just about any fixed wing pilot and watch their eyes move upward and to the right. Their neurolinguistics are probably showing you they are visually remembering: gas, undercarriage, mixture, props and safety. It is a tried-and-true mental checklist and litany that has served, and saved, many a pilot
