Among programs new to NBAA this year is the Cessna-sponsored Single Pilot Safety Standdown. Part of the slate of educational programs intended for NBAA’s cancelled Light Business Airplane show originally scheduled for last March, the standdown, which takes place on Thursday, aims to provide single-pilot owner/operators with the same quality of safety education available to other segments of
the industry.
“What we want to do is take a format that we’ve seen work pretty successfully in other venues, most notably with Bombardier’s Safety Standdown, and export the concept to a community that we believe can benefit from the safety education that occurs elsewhere,” said Doug Carr, NBAA’s vice president for safety, security and regulation. “There’s no reason why a lot of the experience can’t be shared with people who don’t get paid to fly for a living. If you are up there flying, you are a pilot; it doesn’t matter if you are an owner/operator or a paid flight crew, everybody stands to benefit from enhanced safety education.”
The five-hour event–which has an attendance limit of 150 participants and is included in the NBAA convention registration–will cover several key topics in aviation safety including single-pilot resource management, fatigue, icing and professionalism. “The goal is to keep this very generic,” Carr told NBAA Convention News. “There are going to be a whole lot of different kinds of operators there, operating everything from single-pilot jets to piston-powered single-engine aircraft, so we can’t focus on any particular manufacturer.”
According to the program organizers, the event will concentrate on the cognitive elements of pilots as opposed to the technical elements of operating the airplane, and to accomplish this they are bringing in experts on the subjects to facilitate interactive peer-to-peer discussions rather than simply presenting lectures.
“Our goal is having interaction with those in the audience so we not only understand who they are but also can draw out their experiences,” said Carr, who added that NBAA will be taking careful notes during this inaugural event and closely reviewing participant feedback to improve it for the future. –