Billy Nolen was appointed acting FAA Administrator in April 2022. Previously, Nolen served as FAA’s Associate Administrator for Aviation Safety (AVS). The Aviation Safety Organization’s programs are carried out by 7,400 employees located in Washington Headquarters, regional and directorate offices, and 125 field offices throughout the world. The AVS safety purview covers over one million registered aircraft, over one thousand approved manufacturers, over one million active pilots, and over 50,000 flights every day.
Billy has over 33 years of experience in operations and corporate safety, regulatory affairs, and flight operations. He started his career as a 767, 757 and MD-80 pilot with American Airlines. His passion for operations and safety led to the role of Manager of the Pilot Aviation Safety Action Program (ASAP). He then became Manager of Flight Safety with responsibility for Accident/Incident Investigations, Flight Operational Quality Assurance, Line Operations Safety Audits, and oversight of the Pilot and Maintenance ASAPs.
After American Airlines, Billy served as Senior Vice President of Safety, Security and Operations with Airlines for America, where he collaborated with leaders across the airline industry, government and other key stakeholders to enhance safety and operational performance.
He subsequently served as Executive Manager of Group Safety & Health for the Qantas Group. In that capacity, Billy played a key role in the Qantas Group Safety Governance Framework and was responsible for providing assurance and advice to the Qantas Board, principally the Corporate Health, Environmental, Safety & Security Committee, the Group CEO, the Qantas Group Management Committee, and Qantas’ executive management.
Billy came to FAA from his position as Vice President of Safety, Security and Quality at WestJet in Calgary, Alberta. Reporting to the CEO, Billy had responsibility for overseeing safety, security and quality across WestJet, Encore and Swoop, 14,700 WestJet employees, and the millions of passengers flying on WestJet aircraft each year.
My last experience with military radar is over half a century old so I do not think I am gibing away valuable intelligence. Big high fast radar targets are the easiest. Small slow low targets are tough. We never saw bugs, cockroach to VW, but just about everything else. The question is what do you want to see, or more properly, locate. My unit wanted to locate low fast aircraft. If it was on the top side of the grass and moving over 200 kts we had’em. Just looking at the antennas of the USAF one can tell that they can see almost anything. In hindsight it turns out that they had that balloon from launch. OK, so now China knows that we can see into China well enough to locate a large but very slow mover, a very difficult object to locate. I wish that the Chinese were still guessing about that. Any attack coming will be better camouflaged.
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Risk has 2 elements, likelihood and consequence, while quoted statistics imply likelihood hasn’t changed, all the tolerances are lining up on the consequences side. Do the statistics on incursions/incidents break out technical violations vs “OMG” moments?
Having watched a minor system performance statistical variance consequence explode in front of me, with aircraft/crew loss, and then riding thru the same issue two weeks later (with no consequence), I am less tolerant to “lightning doesn’t strike twice”…don’t blame lightning if the root cause is complacency/stupidity.
Hopefully reminding people that stupid has a consequence will be sufficient…and the worst we endure is another movie like “1941”.
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Paranoia amongst airline pilots is not new to me.(I am an ex-). When the upcoming mobile phone wave was suspected to influence the onboard electronic systems, suddenly many “strange things” happened in electronic cockpits. Which we previously would dub as “spurious signals” and forget about them. Or other designation which I cannot write here. Boy, were those things DANGEROUS!
Then came the drones, suddenly pilots saw them everywhere, like I saw a report of a spotted drone several thousand feel below. He probably missed a career as a sharp shooter. During my airline career and hobby flying is saw millions of birds, yep, and I hit a few, alas. Never saw one drone from the air (still flying GA).
I think you are confusing Nolen (the acting Administrator) with Philip Washington (the nominated Administrator awaiting confirmation).
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Party Balloons are a real thing. I have passed several on approach into LAX. Regardless if they are a thing to be concerned about, I reported them to approach. I think hitting one would be a non event but I would rather no find out.
Regulate a balloon that slipped out of the hand of an inattentive 4 year old is a bridge too far.
A Balloon club launching a hobby balloon into the jet route structure would likely have only slightly higher chance of disrupting things but still the potential is there and should be mitigated.
Sparky
“… a minor system performance statistical variance consequence…”
Rich, you must have dug deep into the bafflegab thesaurus to pull that one up. Bravo!
In my 30+ years of flying jets from coast to coast, I have seen what I thought were weather balloons myself or heard ATC issuing a BOLO for them. No one seemed to know or care where they came from. They were always above us (>41,000) and we NEVER heard anything about them in the news. Now we are at the “Danger Will Robinson, DANGER” stage?
Makes me wonder if any of the responsible agencies have researched who manufactures these gas bags and who their customers are?
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Unmanned balloons were (still are?, not flying in those regions anymore) normal in Rio, even huge ones with a gas container for longer pyrotechnics and endurance. I heard there were versions of 100+ kgs. Flew low over the city. National pastime. Most landed in the sea…most. Anyway, one could SEE them VERY well 
Big kites in Jakarta, Indonesia, on FINAL. Same. Several times the mechanics had to remove the kite wires from between the LE flaps… No airline stopped flying for those reasons…
Skimming active volcanoes during the approach in MEX and Guatemala.
Welcome in the airline worldwide club where nothing is like home…
I’m waiting for some actual data to be released on the “spy balloon” payload and purported maneuvering system that it is claimed would allow it to navigate to secret sites and even park over them, but that part of the story seems to have faded away after some confusing reports as to whether they actually did locate, or recover, anything useful. I’m not paranoid enough to embrace huge conspiracies, but I have no problem accepting - even expecting - minor machinations such as quietly putting aside information that doesn’t support a narrative.
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The above resume is directly from the FAA’s website: https://www.faa.gov/about/key_officials/nolen
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In the resume posted below, what exactly is lacking? Any, specific referenced criticism of his past performance and qualifications? You know, something based on verifiable fact….
First, I’m a balloon pilot, hot air, not gas (as in helium or hydrogen).
Second- expensive ordnance was a waste of our tax dollars to bring down the high altitude balloon with instrument arrays underneath. In talking to many other LTA pilots we agreed It would have been a lot more efficient to throw a hammer (or some other inert object) at the envelope and rip a hole in it allowing the gas to escape gradually and have it descend slowly thereby saving the time and $$ to look for the debris in the ocean. (More tax $$ wasted). One other issue recreational gas balloon pilots have raised is that looking forward, if any yahoo with a high powered rifle sees a lower altitude manned gas balloon flying below 10000ft they might be prone to think its another spy balloon and take a shot at it to bring it down. There are people like that that walk among us.
Paul,
Your “battle of LA” after Pearl Harbor makes a valid point. On the other hand 22-23 years ago, government bureaucrats from both party’s ignored the warnings from Sim providers and their own Minneapolis and Florida based law enforcement agents about what was considered then an impossibility, the 9/11 attacks. Considering all the TSA rules GA is now stuck with and Congress dropping the model airplane exemption for FAA regulations, I’m surprised that private organizations are allowed to release any balloon into the air without some sort of FAA notification. How to balance the two extremes?
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I didn’t get real excited about the balloons. Biggest concern was what harm the debris in the ocean might do to wildlife. After #2, #3, and #4, I figured there was some “chinaman” with some cheap balloons and some helium, or hydorgen, snickering after each launch, knowing the USA would spend a million dollar missile to shoot down his $10 balloon. Well, Ok, $400K missile. Makes one wonder who can keep it up longer?
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Until yesterday, I couldn’t tell a pico balloon from pico de gallo. It turns out, these things circumnavigate the globe on 40 ma and solar power and weigh about a half ounce. They’re out up there by a bunch of STEM kids.
A half ounce? Really? I’m gonna guess that’s not enough to snuff an engine and I wonder if it would even nick a windshield. A starling–which won’t snuff an engine or nick a windshield–weighs for time more.
I say let them fly the things.
He should not be there in the first place.
Thank you, Paul, for the words of reason!
The Canadians tried that several years ago. Apparently they put around 1000 rounds into the balloon and it took 6 days before it finally came down. Not to mention that the jets shooting it down would have to get much closer to it than using a missile, which at 60,000’ would have meant an increased risk factor.
#2-4 were entirely political IMO, because of all the squawking about how the first one should have been shot down sooner.
“Lest you think conspiracy theories are a recent thing, there were claims of a cover-up meant to give coastal defense industries an excuse to move further inland.”
And judging by at least some of the comments here, it appears conspiracy theories are always ripe for picking, even when the facts show the conspiracies are out of season.
There seems to still be plenty of coverage on the recovery efforts of balloon #1. Just recently (in the past day) I saw an article about how they have managed to recover most of the remains. There was even an article about how they specifically chose the spot it was shot down because the water was only around 50 feet deep at that point.
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There is only one thing that concerns me more than what it was doing, was that it was manipulated and controlled.
Google Earth offers very clear images of missile silos in Montana so why would the Chinese need balloons? Anyway what nobody realizes is that all military uniforms include fibers from China which in the event of a conflict will by remote control dissolve the uniforms. The big question is whether the US military can fight while stark naked?
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In 1994 Tom Clancy wrote Debt of Honor which ended with a Japan Air 747 flying into the White House. Did nobody in the DOD read that book?
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Mine was, "… why not kick paranoia to the curb and jump straight to hysteria?
That is correct.
“You are about to enter another dimension. A dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land of imagination. Next stop—The Twilight Zone."
“ I wish that the Chinese were still guessing about that”
I agree. Unfortunately the Epoch Times Hysteria team members could not understand that the “Guvmint” had good reason to simply let this thing float-on-by without making a big hullabaloo over it… until the “media” and the Krazies made so much panic over it … the politicos had to reveal our intelligence capabilities and gasbag-marksmanship.
Hey Moderators…. Are you gonna let Richard G continue his repetitive krap endlessly?
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They aren’t naked, they’re wearing stealth uniforms - a variant on the emperor’s new clothes.
They might not have, but I did read that. It was better than that, or perhaps I should say more severe as it was a joint session of congress something akin to the annual president’s state of the union address with everyone from the members of congress to the supreme court present.
Tom Clancy was an excellent writer, although since the scene was near the end of the book he was wrapping everything up and didn’t spend a whole lot of time on the graphic details that might have burned it more into our collective memory.
Was that a Chinese drone, lurking about to spy on out technology?
More valuable data was collected during the F-22 missile shoot than any amount of time spent over Montana.
Ummm….no. That first (actual Chinese) balloon was a lot of things. But it wasn’t a “oil and gas survey balloon”. However, as consolation let me offer this: If they do a movie about the above-mentioned Battle of Los Angeles, you get my vote to play the Secretary of War.
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But really good ones are still relatively hard to make. And all of them are reasonably easy to thwart if you know their orbits and keep tabs on when they are ‘looking’ where. That’s when a pass from a cheap, disposable and (hopefully) unexpected-to-the-target collection asset can be really handy.
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I love the ‘E ticket ride’ reference. How old does one have to be to know what that means?
Actually they did…mostly. John Belushi in 1941. A spoof of the 1942 actual event.
“And all of them are reasonably easy to thwart if you know their orbits and keep tabs on when they are ‘looking’”
And those same EMCON conditions are just as easy to implement when a balloon is overhead.
Those EMCON (and other measures) were taken as the Chinese balloon flew over. So, little or no new data was collected.
However, the F-22 missile shoot was a gold mine of data. It’s not very often that an adversary gives you front row seats to a missile-ex. And to have your SIGINT collection device the target:priceless.
You get the award for top conspiracy theorist, and have lost any credibility you may have.
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Do they get to paint a balloon kill on the side of the plane? Also, how many balloon kills does one need to claim ace status?
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Wacko stories can be attributed to, among other things, selective inattention and confirmation bias.
The Sun comes up every day, that must be the cause of my problem!
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The new ARSR4 sees everything. It sees so much, a great deal has to be mapped out.
Depends what is hanging below the student launched balloon. Some of the payloads look to be pretty large. Striking the balloon at 500 mph wouldn’t be the issue… the payload maybe an issue.
I guess you missed the news… it has been admitted they tracked it from the moment it left Chinas airspace.
They have admitted to tracking the balloon from the moment it left Chinas airspace… so, either they are incompetent boobs at NORAD… or… they knew exactly what this balloon was doing and where it was heading.
“SIGINT satellites have been around for decades.” First SIGINT Satellite launch was in 1960. Several shortly thereafter. Three or four years after the Sputnik scare.
With Elvis.
When I towed banners in a Stearman, later in AgCats, I use to collect stuff like that. At one time I had a box full of trophies I’d collected while I was towing. Sometimes I’d have to make a second pass but the flying wires and N struts made for great balloon nets.
The WWII bombing of an oil refinery was in a part of the coast south of Santa Barbara called The Rincon. The refinery is still there to this day.
As local lore has it, in the pre war years while we were still selling raw materials to Japan that would later be used against us, they sent over people to take notes of how we produced oil. A Japanese official was touring the Rincon facility and slipped down a stairway into some cactus. The oil fielders laughed, like oil fielders will. This was an insult to the Japanese official. Turns out the Japanese official was a submarine commander and when the war broke out, he motored his sub all the way to the Rincon to exact revenge and restore his honor.
As Paul Harvey would say, that’s the rest of the story.
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Paul’s note of caution about not getting spun up about the rash of recent accidents and incidents is good advice however, I’m going to play devils advocate on this one. Paul says, “I always urge waiting until there’s good reliable data and information before concluding anything”. The truth is that we humans see things that aren’t there and we don’t see things that are right in front of us. There is lots of cognitive science on this phenomena. That being said, some people have to be able to “see around corners”. as my former boss would tell me. This meant coming to conclusions and making decisions without sufficient data. It can be done and quite successfully I might add. Successful entrepreneurs are examples of people who make countless decisions on gut feel. Shouldn’t someone in the FAA be looking around the corners? With the increase in accidents and incidents in 2022 and 2023, something is going on. Not just in aviation but in the food and petroleum industry and train automotive transportation as well. It could be the news is just showing us more accident stories as Paul says however, have you received your automotive insurance increase yet? If not, you will and it will be a shocker. According to insurance agents I’ve spoken to, automotive accidents and deaths have increased dramatically. Something is going on and the FAA better see around the corner or there could be a major airline accident very soon.