“I love it. It inspired me.
“This feels like something I’d like to engage in. I’d like to try to attend the Charleston Flight Test Safety Worship in May 2019. I’m thinking whether there’s a recent topic I could propose for a presentation.
“I’ve long found that we can’t motivate ourselves to give a serious and conscientious review of a flight test plan until the testing is imminent. The issue spans multiple organizations and types of testing, at all risk levels. The person writing the test plan is deeply engaged, but almost everyone else gives a lackadaisical perusal with some sporadic comments. Maybe it’s hard to envision an event far in the future, or maybe other things always seem more ‘urgent’. Whatever the reason, time and again, we get serious about reviewing a test plan only in the few weeks before a test. Suddenly we want to rewrite procedures, add parameters, or improve monitoring. It’s often too late to do all those things. Beyond individual discipline, how can an organization remedy this situation? And how should we respond when, time and again, we receive important feedback when it seems too late to incorporate it?“
editor’s note
I plan to post feedback, both positive and negative, on a weekly basis. The convention I will use for these articles appears in the title of this post: “19-w03,” where 19 is the year, and w03 indicates the week.
Links to this column will appear on twitter weekly using #feedback. The feedback that appears in this column may include complete “letters to the editor, ” or it may simply be an excerpt. With permission, I will publish the author’s name and contact information.