Viewing page 73 of 136

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

COPY

15

AIR LINE PILOTS ASSOCIATION
International

August 4, 1948

Subject: Air Safety Recommendations
To     : All Local Councils

Dear Chairman:

I would like to say a word in this Council Mailing about our air safety activities. ALPA has always been extremely active in promoting the air safety and working conditions of its members. There has been no time during the life of ALPA that we have not been more active in this respect than during the past year. Our activities in this direction are far more extensive and costly than the average member realizes. Hardly a day goes by that we are not participating in some air safety activity in some part of the country -- conferences, investigations relating to crashes, engineering and air safety Civil Air Regulations, performance, airport design and engineering, air dynamics, airport lighting, approach lighting, all forms of airway aids, manufacturing inspections, etc. For example, recently there has been much boasting in the papers about the fact that Idlewild at New York is the largest airport in the world. ALPA is solely responsible for the size of Idlewild. It's a never-ending chain of air line safety activity, without which I hesitate even to make a prediction as to the state of air safety affairs that would exist if the air line pilots were not as active as they are in air safety matters. Things are bad enough as they are and much improvement is still necessary, but it wouldn't even come close to what it is without ALPA's constant vigilance and effort in the field of air safety.

The most effective method of improving safety of air line equipment, airway aids and fields, removing dangerous obstructions and all the rest of the vast air safety picture is through our system of air safety recommendations. Every council has these forms. Attached are a half dozen such forms for your convenience. You have an ample supply in your council material. At each council meeting, there should be allotted a specific time to safety discussions and making air safety recommendations. The councils have not been taking full advantage of this machinery that has been established for them to improve air safety and they should do so beginning now.

On a recent rip to Washington, from which I returned on July 31, I made special arrangements with the CAA for the processing of air safety recommendations. They have designated a special CAB official to do nothing except process air safety recommendations sent to the federal regulatory agency by ALPA. This official's name is Ed Pennock, a former veteran air line pilot. He promises to do his best to get results on every air safety recommendation we sent to him. Each of these recommendations, when they are started to the CAA by Headquarters, are given a number and are followed up until the recommendations are accomplished or until it is proven impossible to accomplish or impractical.

As a result of this Council Mailing, we ought to have at least fifty