Pilot-Supply Sustainability—Standards, Outreach, and Mentoring

Flight training organizations in North America are experiencing strong student interest in flight training and a career as a professional pilot. In addition, airlines have introduced successful recruitment and retention programs. Experience has shown that most staffing challenges are successfully resolved by improving the work/life balance, pay, and career-progression offerings. In addition to strategies used to address pilot-supply, the entire pathway from student pilot to line-pilot should be viewed as an ecosystem. This ecosystem must maintain the resiliency and capacity to train and certify future generations of pilots and adapt to market needs and swings. Industry must be cognizant of changes that may upset the equilibrium that exists today. Environmental factors, such as airspace, aircraft, mechanics, regulations, potential candidate pool, and others all play a role in helping the ecosystem of pilot production. The United States first officer qualification (FOQ) standards provide an effective structure within this ecosystem by maintaining a continuous stream of flight instructors to train the next generation of pilots. A review of the ecosystem will show how the market has responded, data on ATP/R-ATP issuance rates, and the stabilizing effect that the FOQ has had. In addition, the importance of professional, practical, and academic development of pilots as they begin and progress in their careers, allowing us to remain the most robust and resilient system in the world will also be discussed

Airline Pilot Supply and Pilot Experience

A well-trained and highly skilled pilot is the most important safety feature of any airline flight. Since 2010 there have been no passenger fatalities on board an airline aircraft in the United States. This remarkable achievement coincides with FAA rule changes that mandated higher levels of minimum experience for airline pilots. ALPA continuously monitors the current trends in pilot hiring, pilot license certificate issuances, and pilot supply forecasts. With an eye towards ensuring that airline safety remains the highest priority, the presentation will begin with a review of the current pilot supply data. An argument is made for valuing high-quality pilot experience using accident reports. The paper will examine studies that claim training duration and washout rates of newly hired pilots is an indicator of the quality of a pilot. Various aspects of experience will be discussed, including key elements. . As many have postulated, the foundational training received during the pilot’s education and flight training is important. However the pilot’s training environment, types of testing, the diversity of airports and weather encountered, mentoring, and even a pilot’s life experiences outside of aviation are all contributors to pilot safety

Air Carrier Pilot Training, Supply & Recruitment Challenges

The route to airline recovery following the global COVID-19 pandemic is flush with opportunity for airlines, unions, and regulators to work together within current regulatory structures to recruit the next generation of aviation professionals, while continuing to ensure they are properly trained, qualified and mentored for safe flight operations. As an industry we have raised interest in pursuing aviation, but more still should be done. The pace of the recovery from the pandemic induced reductions in air travel is testing United States pilot training and recruitment systems. The reductions in air travel at the beginning of the pandemic led to extended leaves, early retirements, as well as seat and aircraft transitions of existing pilots and instructors. In many cases air carriers are now struggling to keep up with the extensive requalification training of them fast enough to accommodate the precipitous increase in passenger air travel. In addition, the need to hire new pilots and instructors is exacerbating the air carrier training department capacity challenges. In some cases, these heavy loads on air carrier training departments are leading to long delays during training, and even retraining due to the excessive delays, adding to the training capacity challenges. This presentation will focus on solutions to safely meet that need with a diverse supply of qualified pilots. This presentation will provide the audience insight into the unique perspectives from human factors, training, and pilot supply experts from the world\u27s largest pilot union on the current state of pilot training, supply and recruitment

Lithologies contributing to the clast population in Apollo 17 LKFM basaltic impact melts

LKFM basaltic impact melts are abundant among Apollo lunar samples, especially those from Apollo 15, 16, and 17. They are generally basaltic in composition, but are found exclusively as impact melts. They seem to be related to basins and so could represent the composition of the lower lunar crust. They contain lithic clasts that cannot be mixed in any proportion to produce the composition of the melt matrix; components rich in transition elements (Ti, Cr, Sc) and REE are not considered. To search for the mysterious cryptic component, we previously investigated the mineral clast population in two Apollo 14 LKFM basaltic impact melts, 15445 and 15455. The cryptic component was not present in the mineral clast assemblage of these breccias either, but some olivine and pyroxene grains appeared to be from lithologies not represented among identified igneous rocks from the lunar highlands. In addition, none of the mineral clasts could be unambiguously assigned to a ferroan anorthosite source. We have now extended this study to Apollo 17, starting with two LKFM impact melt breccias (76295 and 76315) from the Apollo 17 station 6 boulder. The results from the study are presented

Embedding Peer Support as a Core Learning Skill in Higher Education

Abstract Information, digital and academic literacy skills are more important than ever as the nature of global information streams becomes more complex and increasingly online. New methods are needed to ensure that students are taught to identify, use and critically evaluate this complex information myriad during their education and in their future careers. Peer assisted learning is one method that has been shown to help, and previous research in the field of peer support has indicated that the interaction between students at different levels enhances a first-year student’s successful transition into higher education (HE). In 2016, a peer support scheme was introduced at the Technological University Dublin (ITT Dublin) as collaboration between the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the library. Initial evaluation of the programme showed that some students respond positively to the inclusion of peer support within an academic module. We also found that peer tutors have a critical role in the support of a first-year student’s learning and their transition into higher education. They act as role models and guides and can help students form the essential linkages between the different resources they will need to be successful in higher education and beyond. An attractive social strand to the programme can act as a critical motivator for students. Further research is needed to identify the essential elements required

A Chiral Schwinger model, its Constraint Structure and Applications to its Quantization

The Jackiw-Rajaraman version of the chiral Schwinger model is studied as a function of the renormalization parameter. The constraints are obtained and they are used to carry out canonical quantization of the model by means of Dirac brackets. By introducing an additional scalar field, it is shown that the model can be made gauge invariant. The gauge invariant model is quantized by establishing a pair of gauge fixing constraints in order that the method of Dirac can be used.Comment: 18 page

A Glass Spherule of Questionable Impact Origin from the Apollo 15 Landing Site: Unique Target Mare Basalt

A 6 mm-diameter dark spherule, 15434,28, from the regolith on the Apennine Front at the Apollo 15 landing site has a homogeneous glass interior with a 200 microns-thick rind of devitrified or crystallized melt. The rind contains abundant small fragments of Apollo 15 olivine-normative mare basalt and rare volcanic Apollo 15 green glass. The glass interior of the spherule has the chemical composition, including a high FeO content and high CaO/Al2O3, of a mare basalt. Whereas the major element and Sc, Ni, and Co abundances are similar to those of low-Ti mare basalts, the incompatible elements and Sr abundances are similar to those of high-Ti mare basaits. The relative abundance patterns of the incompatible trace elements are distinct from any other lunar mare basalts or KREEP; among these distinctions are a much steeper slope of the heavy rare earth elements. The 15434,28 glass has abundances of the volatile element Zn consistent with both impact glasses and crystalline mare basalts, but much lower than in glasses of mare volcanic origin. The glass contains siderophile elements such as Ir in abundances only slightly higher than accepted lunar indigenous levels, and some, such as Au, are just below such upper limits. The age of the glass, determined by the Ar-40/Ar-39 laser incremental heating technique, is 1647 +/- 11 Ma (2 sigma); it is expressed as an age spectrum of seventeen steps over 96% of the Ar-38 released, unusual for an impact glass. Trapped argon is negligible. The undamaged nature of the sphere demonstrates that it must have spent most of its life buried in regolith; Ar-38 cosmic ray exposure data suggest that it was buried at less than 2m but more than a few centimeters if a single depth is appropriate. That the spherule solidified to a glass is surprising; for such a mare composition, cooling at about 50 C/s is required to avoid crystallization, and barely attainable in such a large spherule. The low volatile abundances, slightly high siderophile abundances, and the young age are perhaps all most consistent with an impact origin, but nonetheless not absolutely definitive