Originally published at: Truthfully, The FAA Could Do Better - AVweb
Bryan Bedford needs to set the record straight before he takes over aviation’s top job.
Well written and absolutely spot on. He lied on multiple occasions and when discovered, the very people who officially nominated him for the position of FAA Administrator should have immediately withdrawn his name and kicked him to the curb. Personally I think it would be appropriate for you to make the names of the Senate Subcommittee who pushed him through known in this forum so that each and every reader can see exactly who was and is willing to settle for a consummate liar to head the FAA. They too are compromised and now living the same lie through their nominee AND expect the rest of us to settle for their pitiful performance.
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I agree Russ. Especially, as you point out, because the FAA has zero mercy on pilots who don’t tell the truth. The Administrator would be in the position of “do as I say, not as I do.” No more hypocrites in top government jobs please. We’ve got enough already.
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If you have watched any of the hearings on almost any topic in which anyone connected with this administration has been asked a hard question, you can predict with 99.9% certainty how Mr. Bedford will answer this question in the full Senate hearing. He will try to avoid answering, he will avoid responsibility for the answer, and in the end, we will have yet another person in a critical role in our government who is unfit to occupy it. SSDD.
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Great commentary/ editorial Russ. It is hard not to agree with your key points. A few of the comments posted here appear to deflect attention and blame from the candidate Bedford, which weakens your point that he alone is responsible for his gross misrepresentation, by shifting blame to either Senate Republicans or the Trump administration. THEY are career politicians working in a sausage factory whose job it is to craft policy by swaying public opinion. I think your main point is the FAA administrator needs to be held to a higher standard because lives are directly at stake.
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Bryan Bedford can be counted upon to accomplish several items if confirmed:
- Raise the mandatory retirement age
- Reduce the training footprint in AQP
- Reduce 1500 to 750 flight hours
- Certificate approval of the proposed Republic/Mesa merger
- Grant many forms of relief to regional carriers
- And the one that will benefit Bedford the most - lovely door prizes
If I mis-stated things like this on my pilot application the FAA would revoke my license. mmmm.
That said, as a former Business Express pilot I can unequivocally state that Bryan is in it for Bryan. He will put airlines (and their profits) above pilots or safety.
“It seems inconceivable to me that the administration’s vetting process . . .” Why on earth would you think this administration has a vetting process?
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Integrity matters. The administration should move on to someone with solid credentials who knows that the FAA certificates pilots.; the FAA does not license anyone.
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Not telling the truth is disqualifying. Obscuring the truth is disqualifying. As pilots we are held to a high standard when sitting before an examiner or even when filling out forms. I remember being told by my instrument instructor that if even one number is not legible, they are going to disqualify the application…“so write LEGIBLY”.. Examiners are trained to be sticklers for accuracy. Mr Bedford has proven to me what he is made of. Will Bryan Bedford ever feel comfortable giving a talk in front of pilots?
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I would assert that FAA Administrator is a political position and therefore the most prominent skill for the job is the ability to lie to your face despite evidence to the contrary. The detractor here is that Bedford doesn’t appear to be good at that so I might disqualify him on that basis alone. I wince at the example the FAA would make of someone falsifying an egregious detail like I never took my checkride.
Spot on, Russ. Thank you for writing and publishing this.
The 1500 hour rule was dreamed up as a “do-something” response to a tragic accident that was in no way related to the flight experience of the pilots. It placated the families of the victims who had lawyered up sufficiently to probably win a huge suit against the FAA for lack of overbite. FAR117 on the other hand was a response to the same accident and it was a handout to the airlines cloaked as providing more rest. It was a colossal whitewash, but the families went along with it to get the 1500 hour rule. Military training exemptions allow a 50% discount from the 1500 hour requirement. Military training is good but it’s not 100% better. And depending on the type of aircraft, it might have very little crossover to flying a commercial transport. And, both the Ace and the guy who barely scraped by get the same exemption.
The 1500 hour rule needs to go away as a blanket requirement, or lift the commercial pilot minimum flight time to 1500 hours if it’s truly a safety rule. Flight training in the US needs to be brought out of the 1950s and utilize the excellent simulator capabilities available today. Much better situational awareness and judgement could be taught in simulators rather than 1000 touch and goes in an Archer.
Pilot retirement age should probably be ditched as well as long as medical and recurrent flight training and check standards are upgraded as well. Pilots will make the choice to avoid being washed out by pulling their own ripcord when they see the time has come.
The FAA has long needed a major overhaul and more accountability. Instead, they hire this chump. Again, profit will stay ahead of safety, customer service, and tax payer fund productivity.
Nobody (in the government) really wants anything connected with/to the FAA to change - they simply don’t care. Don’t expect change or progress.
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Most of the commenters are right on with their thoughts. A long time ago (late in the last century), I was at DCA for my semi-annual Cessna Citation Recurrent Training. I was there a day early, so I was asked to fly as short mission as Second-in-Command (yes, I was current). The PIC was the FAA Administrator. I asked to see his Pilot Certificate and found his Temporary Cert had expired several months earlier. An easy fix - I gave him a new Temp Cert, after confirming the information with OKC. This particular Administrator was imminently qualified to fly the mission, but not with an expired Cert. Now, how does this compare to a man who has no Commercial Pilot Certificate, and has lied about having had one for several years?
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This whole affair reminds me of a very old quote… that has many modern derivatives. Here is mine…
"We [FAA professionals] the neglected, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much, for so long, with so little, we are now qualified to do anything with nothing.”
/1/ Original version of this quote the unwilling from Konstantin Josef Jireček - Czech historian, politician, diplomat**//
/2/ FAA professionals are NOT the unwilling… as per the original quote… they have simply been the neglected for decades.
Meanwhile, pilots are taking webinars to make sure we correctly fill out line 322m on MedExpress because we’ll lose our medical if we get it wrong.
Maybe the United States could do better.
I don’t really get the huff n puff about future FAA Administrator Bedford. Within the current administration/ government are countless utterly unqualified people running a destructive shock and awe rampage campaign on the United States - and the rest of the world.
How utterly self-reflected must a character be, to type the words COMMERCIAL PILOT into a resume (or leave it there) even though no certificate was ever issued. Grotesque times we live in.
This is not an oversight.
Dig deeper and you may find more rotten fish.
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Russ,
The Senate Committee asked if he held a commercial rating.
There is no such thing as a commercial rating. Only commercial certificate.
He does hold all the ratings needed to apply for a commercial CERTIFICATE, but decided not to, apparently, because he didn’t need it for the new job.
Was he expected to explain to the senator what a rating is?
In his statement above he said he had ratings, which is correct. He did not say certificate. There is a difference. Rating is a privilege or limitation. It is not a certificate.
But they asked about his ratings, that he clearly does have.
The congress person might have used the wrong terminology but Bedford knew what he or she meant.
Question 2: You never held commercial pilot ratings, correct?
Response: Correct.