Taking this industry back to the day when Morse Code was used as the communications medium, imagine, if you will what would have been the state of things if it hadn't been replaced by voice communications. If we were still obliged to conduct our communications by Morse Code, we could not accommodate onetenth of the traffic that is now being handled. Relatively speaking, we're about at the stage we were when Morse Code became automoded only now it is voice communications which are becoming too laborious and slow. It is, therefore, obvious that imagination, associated with serious research and development, must be used immediately.

WEATHER MINIMUMS

ALPA representatives and All-Weather Flying Committee have worked diligently over the years with industry to help establish safe procedures for establishing lower minimums.

We strongly recommend that approving operations to the lowest Category II minimums be delayed until the interim CAT II minimums of 150' ceiling 1600 RVR have been in effect for an extended period of time to gain service experience. The present FAA minimum required period of six months is considered totally inadequate. A more realistic requirement would be approximately two years-or more. In this way public safety would be served. At its Fourteenth Air Safety Forum ALPA safety representatives adopted this resolution:

Whereas several air carriers have been approved for operations as low as a decision height of 150 feet and an RVR 1600 feet for over a year; and

Whereas the number of actual approaches at these minima have been very few, and little practical exposure and operational experience has been gained in this low visibility environment; and

Whereas these carriers contemplate further reduction of these minima as low as a decision height of 100 feet and RVR 1200 feet; and

Whereas, in addition to flight operation problems, there exist many serious unsolved problems, such as ATC, training, communications, simulation, human factors, etc., Therefore, be it

Resolved, That it is the consensus of the delegates to the Fourteenth ALPA Air Safety Forum, that landing operations with less than a decision height of 150 feet and an RVR of 1600 feet would be premature at this time; therefore be it further

Resolved, That the delegates to this Forum strongly recommend that no ALPA member shall conduct any approach to minima lower than a decision height of 150' and an RVR at 1600 feet, at this time.

There are extreme hazards associated with premature operations at low minimums which makes it prudent not to hurry the acceptance of lower minimums until everyone is entirely comfortable, confident, and ready to use them. This will assure progress while the use of the available improved aids at present weather minimums for an extended period of time will assure safety and schedule reliability.

Probing into the Category II area must be done with more safety than heretofore, not less. We must have fewer, not more, missed approaches in Category II weather. If equipment and aids will not provide this safety factor, we should not be conducting the approaches.

PILOT TRAINING

ALPA has long stressed the concept of "training to proficiency rather than checking for proficiency". Apparently we are not in accord on this matter with the FAA who regards recurrent assessment of an airline pilot's proficiency as being in the public interest and essential to the proper discharge of FAA's statutory responsibility. We do not disagree with this in principle, but rather in the manner it is implemented. FAA's function is to assure safety in the public interest and this can be assured by spot-checking and monitoring of the airlines' flight and ground school training programs. We contend that this is the FAA and the air carriers' responsibility by regulation.

Most professional people in a certain field of endeavor attend formal academic courses in preparation for their final examination or "check", and sucessful completion will terminate their exposure to any additional type of "checking during the remainder of their professional career. They are never required to again demonstrate the level of knowledge and skill which they had attained at the completion of their training. The professional pilot is unique in that he is constantly required, by current regulatory language, to successfully complete the equivalent of another "check" or final examination every 6 months for the

captain and 12 months for the copilot. The regulatory language should be revised in a manner which will eliminate the adverse psychological effect created by such a "check". Consideration must be given to the number of times an airline pilot is required to successfully complete this "check" during his career. For example, assume a pilot joints an airline at age 23 and is advanced to Captain status at age 30. If he is only qualified on one type of equipment he will have completed 97 "checks" during his career.

We point out that funds are greatly needed to improve other areas of aviation safety and that the public interest would best be served by so utilizing the money now spent on excessive and unnecessary FAA air carrier flight inspection activities. We stress this because the next ten years will indeed see great expansion in airline operations and certainly it is not necessary or in the public interest to increase FAA flight inspection activities commensurate with such airline industry expansion, We emphasize that the industry requires only that FAA provide surveillance and monitoring to assure that regulations are complied with by the airlines. This procedure is approved by FAA and is satisfactorily practiced by using FAA designees in many other critical areas of FAA responsibility for safety of airline operation, as well as airplane manufacturing and maintenance. Our position on this matter is shared by other segments of the industry. Another problem which must be faced is that accidents continue to occur during pilot training which shows the need for an immediate review to assure that this training is realistic, meaningful and conducted without undue exposure to hazard by occupants in the airplane or people and property on the ground. Over the years the ALPA has participated with the industry to provide the airline pilots' contribution in regard to training requirements and to assure that the pilot can cope with normal and expected emergencies.

Some progress has been made in updating pilot training regulations recently. However, further and continuous review is in the public interest.

The state of the art of flight simulators has progressed to the point where virtually all in-flight emergencies can be practiced and demonstrated in this ground installed training aid. The maneuver to a landing with 50 percent of the airplane's engines inoperative can be safely practiced in an approved flight simulator and several airlines are proving this during the current 6-month moratorium on the two engine out asymmetrical landing maneuver on 4-engine airplanes.

THE SYSTEMS APPROACH

If you were to drive your automobile from New York to San Francisco or Chicago to Miami before the interstate highway system was developed, you could probably have broken a hundred laws a day for several days. Why? Because every Village, Hamlet, State and County had a sizable variance in their local traffic laws. Highway design was not necessarily realistic from the standpoint of accommodating low-speed, automotive traffic, much less high speed. Intersections were loaded with obstructions, the surface construction may have been extremely slick when wet, now warning signs existed in most instances, turns were sometimes flat or banked away from the turn rather than into it. It was not uncommon to come around a sharp turn obstructed by hills or buildings and immediately cross one or more railroad tracks, bridges were commonly narrower than the highway itself, and we could go on and on.

To a degree, our airports and related aviation facilites have grown like Topsy, too. This cannot be permitted to continue unless we wish to build-in accidents, inefficiency, general chaos and delay.

The entire aviation system must be just that: A SYSTEM. This runs the entire gamut of the industry, starting with the airport, followed by the navigational facilities and equipment, the air traffic control system, registration and licensing of aircraft, registration and licensing of airmen, and, above all, standardized traffic rules of the air, the latter of which, incidentally, should be international in scope by agreement with the other States of the world.

The foregoing may sound quite Utopian and it is. On the other hand, if we are unwilling to think, act, plan, construct and implement realistically, then we are, in fact, preparing for calculated chaos and not too well calculated risks from here on out.

CONCLUSION

The foregoing remarks constitute a cursory evaluation of a few of the safety problems we and the industry face in an era of growth which is staggering to the imagination. There are many problems which this Association has docu

mented for FAA and Congress over the years. Problems in airworthiness, performance, crashworthiness, rescue and fire, aeromedical, flight time/duty time, aircraft instruments, fuel explosion, fire protection and powerplants are a few that affect the overall safety of pilots and the flying public. Of all of the problems, prevention of the mid-air collision is foremost in the minds of the air line pilot as well as other pilots and the industry. Expeditious solution of this problem must not be hampered by lack of funds. At ALPHA's 1967 Air Safety Forum in Washington June 20-21, mid-air collision prevention, airport development and pilot training were featured panels. Panelists were the most knowledgeable and experienced representatives of industry and ALPHA.

ALPHA shall continue to press for improvements in all these areas. Many of them do not require research or development. The solutions are well known and can be attained at a minimum cost. Several subjects referred to in this statement fall in this category.

Air Safety is the primary responsibility of every air line pilot and is therefore a principal concern of the Air Line Pilots Association. The air line pilots by the very nature of their continuous "user" experience, provide an input of knowledge to the aviation industry which cannot be duplicated. We offer this knowledge and experience to your Committee and will be pleased to support or assist you in any manner that will accelerate implementation of the many safety programs we have strived to attain.

[ATTACHMENT B]

RESOLUTION OF BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Whereas current trends in turbine-powered transport design indicate there is virtually no limit to the size, weight, speed or passenger capacity of future designs, and

Whereas the trend in the industry is to fly transport aircraft to ever lower weather minimums as evidenced by the Category II program now inaugurated and the planned Category III A and B and Category IV programs, and

Whereas traffic congestion in the low and intermediate levels will increase at an extremely high rate, and

Whereas the inadequacy of radar coverage at these flight levels will not permit relief from the necessity to rely on the "see and be seen" principle for traffic and collision avoidance in the foreseeable future, and

Whereas the operating experience of two pilot crews flying turbine-powered transports indicates the need for a continuing review of Association philosphy on minimum crew requirements, and

Whereas a definite guideline for the benefit of the aircraft manufacturers and the air line companies would enable them to design aircraft and specifically cockpits to a well-known parameter thus benefiting the pilots as well as the manufacturers and air line companies; therefore be it

Resolved, That the following shall become mandatory policy of the Air Line Pilots Association as such policy relates to crew complement and crew requirements on turbine-powered fixed wing transport aircraft:

1. That all members of the flight deck operating crew excluding navigators shall be pilots except that job protection may be provided for currently employed non-pilot operating crew members;

2. That all future turbine-powered transport aircraft certificated after the adoption of this policy, excluding "stretched" basic models of turbine-powered, twin-engine aircraft presently certificated, will be manned by a minimum crew of three pilots;

3. The third crew member requirement on present aircraft shall be continued and nothing herein shall prevent the addition of pilot crew members to presently certificated aircraft.

Mr. RUBY. Miss Peterson has a statement that she will summarize. If you have questions on what I have stated, either I or any of the working pilots here will be most happy to try to answer them. Mr. FRIEDEL. Miss Peterson, you may proceed.

STATEMENT OF IRIS PETERSON

Miss PETERSON. Thank you, Mr. Friedel.

My name is Iris Peterson. I am a vice president of the Air Line Pilots Associated Steward and Stewardess Division, currently employed as a flight attendant for a large U.S. carrier. This statement has been prepared from experience as a flight attendant, as a safety representative for my airline, and from experience in accident investigation. In addition, for approximately 3 years I have been a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers as a flight attendant representative on the A-20C Committee and in that capacity have contributed a great deal of work toward the goal of successful passenger evacuation from disabled aircraft.

Based on this background the following statement is submitted in the interest of safety for the airline passenger.

The flight attendant's job is multifaceted and has been defined to include responsibility for the comfort, enjoyment, and safety of the passenger. Of the three, the most important element is that of passenger safety. Toward this goal the training of the flight attendant is focused and during conditions of emergency, if lives are to be saved,