Originally Posted by
USMCFLYR
Come on scambo - those comments are just misguided.
For example - some of the technicians making sure that those ILSs and other NAVAIDs that you depend on are out of a job, or the test pilots/technicians who are working up in ACY on technologies to make your job safer and more efficient; and it looks like they will be for another month. Those approximately 4000 employees are about 10% of the work force.
Your statements show that you don't know what the FAA does in the big picture and basically think that everyone that works for the FAA is one of the despised FSDOs or Safety Inspectors riding in your jumpseat. Couldn't be further from the truth. Could we do without as many "managers"? Probably - but what large organization couldn't?
USMCFLYR
USMCFLYR;
You are talking to the wrong guy. I, like you, spent a good long time in gov't service (29 years mil active and reserve) and as an aerospace test contractor working with and for the DoD and NASA. It has been my experience that the FAA is always playing catch up technically. Why is it that RNAV RNP took so long to get approved by the FAA? Because they were steam guage 727 brains. The FAA doesn't develop things they contract it out and then question the product.
I dont despise the FAA, one of my best friends is an FAA SES and another is a Mx inspector (fulltime FAA) an old bud is an FAA flight check pilot.
I dont have a thing at all against the FAA. I am just speaking truthfully about what I have personally witnessed and been party to.