Do You Know What Bugs Me!

Do You Know What Bugs Me!

What bugs me, and tell me if I’m wrong, is seeing people operating on a flight crew with no aviation and aerial work sense. Over the last ten years as I’ve expanded from just military sensor operations to civilian I’ve noticed one major thing.  That major thing, especially on the civilian side, is the blindness of both the individual who says “Cool, I’ll work the sensor while you fly Mr. Pilot” and the organizations that allow people on a flight crew without proper training & standards.  

Why is this? Is it because people in the aviation and aerial remote-sensing business don’t care or because it really won’t affect flight safety, the data collection or the flight organizations bottom-line? Or better yet, the PIC can handle it all if the half ASO/Half passenger goes Tango Uniform during the flight.

My thought on this is: REALLY! Is that the best we can do as an industry sector? What are your thoughts?

Patrick Ryan

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Patrick brings over 25 + years of experience helping government and business aviation organizations plan and executes manned and unmanned C4ISR and Aerial Surveying and Mapping operations. Most recently, He's spearheaded the start-up of the Airborne Sensor Operators Group, writes for AVBuyer magazine and served as the Director of European, Middle East, and Africa Operations at R4 Incorporated. Before becoming a Senior Consultant and writer, Patrick led operations for aerial C4ISR projects in Africa for EG&G, the leading government services company. Other roles have included Chief of U.S. European Command Joint Reconnaissance Operations (JRC) for Europe & Africa, standup of the first RQ-4 GLOBAL HAWK squadron as Deputy Commander and Commander and led numerous Joint and Coalition planning and remote-sensing flight crews for contingency operations around the world. Patrick received his B.S. from California State University Fresno and an M.A. from the University of Oklahoma.

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