Two airliners narrowly missed each other on a foggy runway in February, the federal NOTAM system crashed in January, and Southwest Airlines suffered an operational meltdown in December. Are all these stories related, warning signs for an industry about to break, or are they just random stories that are misunderstood by the non-aviation media? Veteran aviation reporter Jon Ostrower shares his opinion about recent safety lapses and explains why changes in the media business resulted in a loss of aerospace expertise. Jon also talks about his new project to build a mobile flight sim controller and makes his predictions about many hot topics in aviation, including: electric airplanes, autonomous airliners, the 1500-hour rule, single pilot airline flights, and much more.
Quotes:
- "I spoke with a lot of airline pilots this week, who all kind of relayed the same feeling from the cockpit, which is: it's time to slow things down."
- "Resilience costs money, and it probably will end up increasing airline costs."
- How well do you think the media industry does at covering [aviation]? "One the whole, pretty poorly."
- "We are taking flight sim mobile."
- "I think the next seven years are going to define how the next 30 play."
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