If, during the course of your airline operations you find yourself, or your
staff literally "winging it," you better call Wing It Aviation
Consulting, Inc. for a solution to your problem. Whether that problem
relates to airline start-up obstacles, manual production, program creation
and/or production, crew training, regulatory compliance issues, hazmat or
dangerous goods, or just plain general operating issues encountered during
day-to-day airline operations, Wing It Aviation staff and associates are capable
of handling any crisis, obstacle, or problem encountered in the airline
industry. Our prices are always reasonable as well as competitive.
Mission Statement
Our mission is to provide the airline industry with an outsource alternative
for dealing with the problems and "surprises" encountered in both the start-up
phase of an airline, and during the course of day-to-day operations once the
airline is up and running. Since - due to budgetary constraints - most
start-up airlines operate with minimal staffing, when a problem arises, airline staff
generally must either assume the task of dealing with the problem in addition to
performing their regular duties (to the detriment of both), or be re-assigned
from their regular duties to address the problem exclusively. In either
circumstance the performance of the start-up airline and its staff are both compromised.
Further, experience has shown that, while most airline staff are fully
qualified and capable of fulfilling their regular duties and responsibilities,
they are generally inexperienced when it comes to identifying the actual
problem, coming up with a viable solution or comprehensive fix for that problem,
and then ill-equipped for the production of a plan, or course of action for
rectifying the problem once identified, or in the
alternative, its implementation in accordance with
applicable regulations.
Wing it Aviation Consulting, Inc. is in the unique
position of being able to step into most problems or
"situations" encountered in the airline industry, clearly
identify the problem, or its cause, formulate a viable
solution or comprehensive fix for the problem, develop a plan or course of action
to address the problem, and then implement and manage that plan or course of action through fruition.
And doing so, generally, without disrupting day-to-day
operations.
This has several advantages, both economical and logistical. First of
all, it frees management from the constraints of dealing with problems when they
arise - beyond the awareness stage. Second, it allows airline staff to
stay focused on their day-to-day duties and responsibilities thereby keeping the
airline operating on schedule. Third, as consultants, Wing It staff do not
have to be afraid of offending anyone in the airline corporate tree who might be
offended by a subordinate identifying them as the cause of the problem or a
responsible party. Forth, Wing It staff stay focused on the problem, or
project, and do not suffer the distractions of daily tasks outside the realm of
the issue at hand. These items combined produce adequate as well as
functional solutions in the shortest possible period of time, all of which
represent substantial financial savings for the airline.
Company Profile and Background
Wing It Aviation Consulting, Inc. was founded in 1995 to meet the specific
needs of several South Florida airlines. Those needs were the development, FAA
approval, and implementation of training programs for both flight crew and
maintenance personnel. Since that time, Wing It has expanded its field to include all phases and areas of airline operations, with its
current staff comprised of airline professionals, with extensive airline
management (executive and FAR 119) and/or FAA backgrounds in either flight
operations, maintenance, or both. The youngest member of the team has over 15
years of airline experience as a maintenance supervisor, flight engineer, pilot, instructor,
technical writer, and member of an airline management team.
On August 7, 1997, the very day Fine Air stock went public, a Fine Air DC-8-61
freighter (N27UA) crashed on takeoff from Miami International Airport, killing
the four occupants of the aircraft, and one person on the ground. In the
months preceding that accident, both regional and national FAA inspection teams
had come to Fine Air's headquarters located on the field of Miami International
Airport, and conducted their individual inspections. Since the inspection
reports of both the FAA's regional (RASIP) and national (NASIP) inspection teams rated Fine Air as a
professionally run operation with no apparent violations, when it came time to
identify the cause of that crash, and assess blame, the finger-pointing could
not go too far beyond the conclusions of those inspection reports.
It was ascertained, and finally agreed, that the cause of the crash was
improper cargo loading, and (although there was no hazardous materials
being transported onboard the accident aircraft)
hazmat was identified as an area that needed to be addressed. Soon after
the crash, Fine Air was pressured into "voluntarily"
surrendering its operating certificate, and thereby ceasing its flight
operations until a comprehensive fix was developed, approved
and implemented. The founder and president
of Wing It Aviation Consulting, Inc. who was at the time employed by Fine Air as
their Director of Training was personally approached by
Frank Fine, the President and CEO of Fine Air, who stated:
"I believe you're the only one in this company capable of
getting this thing accomplished. Can you get me back in the
air?"
Fifty-six days later, after completely re-writing the cargo loading
procedures, completely re-writing the hazmat training program, getting
the necessary FAA approvals, writing and publishing appropriate revisions to Fine's
manuals, and orchestrating the training of more than 600
newly identified Fine Air employees located in Miami, and
both Central and South America as those requiring cargo loading procedures
and hazmat training, through the efforts of Wing It's founder and president,
Fine Air returned to the air.
That 56 day time period saved Fine Air from the inevitable extinction that
would have occurred had the time frame gone over the 'one revenue flight
performed within the preceding 60 day' time period as specified in their
Operations Specifications.
Furthermore, that 56 day time period constitutes a record for an airline
comeback following a suspension of flight operations as the result of an
aircraft accident. A record which has yet to be broken.
In addition to all this, the hazmat course written for the occasion became
the model used by the regional FAA in their evaluation of other airlines.
For that effort, Wing It's founder and president was "rewarded" with
an
appointment to the position of Director of Safety of Fine
Air at the insistence of the FAA. That additional title expanded
the responsibility to include developing, implementing and managing Fine Air's Internal
Evaluation Program.
Fine Air's initial Internal Evaluation Program (based on
the the FAA's model Internal Evaluation Program) had
some serious flaws inherent in its design. In that FAA model program,
auditors, when needed, are supplied by the various departments within the company, selected and assigned
by a department supervisor to whom the individual auditors answer during normal work assignments
other than the audit team assignment. The logical question being,
in this arrangement, during an audit
of a particular department, to whom would the auditor be loyal, the audit team supervisor or the supervisor who
assigned them to that team and who would no doubt become
their supervisor once the audit was complete? In an
ideal world, the answer would be it shouldn't matter, but in
the real world politics of airline management, the reality is the assigned auditor would
be loyal to his or her normal daily supervisor, with the end result being the
department audit would be biased, and perhaps compromised.
This design flaw was rectified by restructuring the Fine Air training department.
Would-be auditors were selected from the various departments within the airline,
and interviewed. Those with a teaching, instructor, or supervisory
background, or those with a desire and/or natural ability to teach were given
the opportunity to become instructors, and then, once their individual
instructor training had been completed, they were assigned to the training department.
In their new instructor position they were given the opportunity to improve the training
programs with which they were familiar, and would be administering. The
benefit of this employee reassignment allowed former mechanics who possess an in-depth knowledge of the aircraft in Fine
Air's fleet to teach new hire and recurrent mechanic training classes, and
former cargo handling staff with an in-depth knowledge of Fine Air's cargo
acceptance, handling, and loading procedures to teach new hire and recurrent
cargo handling staff with a genuine
insights of the task at hand. To maintain individual currency and recency
of experience, these "new" instructors
would be allowed to undertake general assignments within their respective department when teaching assignments were not available.
Once implemented, quarterly safety reports showed a remarkable decline in
on-site accidents and incidents, and dispatch reliability had increased
significantly.
One benefit of the training department restructuring - having a pool of
instructors available to address the day to day training needs of the company -
allowed the founder to truly address program development. The products
developed during that program development soon made their way to the other cargo
carriers in the Miami area. From that exposure, there came a point when the client base of Wing It Aviation expanded to
where it was no longer feasible, nor practical for Wing It to be a
part-time undertaking, and the company was launched full-time.
Since then, Wing It Aviation, Inc. has been a major contributor to
the Pan Am International Flight Academy's A-300 B-4 training program, with Wing
It assuming the task of writing several course presentations for Pan Am's A-300
training curriculum. During initial new hire classes at the Academy, it
was not uncommon for Pan Am's own A-300 instructors to attend system
classes, produced by Wing It for Pan Am, and using Corel Presentations. As stated
by one instructor, a retired Pan Am A-300 B-4 Captain: "Your presentation
is the only one in existence that actually shows me how the pneumatic system
works and to the point where I can actually understand it, and I've been on this aircraft since it arrived 'new' from the factory!"
Wing It Aviation, Inc. also produced a training video on the A-300
Automatic Flight Control System (AFCS) for the Academy, specifically developed
and designed at the insistence of the flight crewmembers of Express.net Airways.
Once produced and distributed the instructional video demonstrated that, when
used by the students, two simulator sessions could be omitted under the 'train
to proficiency' guidelines.
Recent projects include the certification of the Bahamas as a Category 1
country through the re-certification and launching of Laker Airways (Bahamas)
Limited, a B-727-223 aircraft operator, and the restructuring of Planet Airways
Technical Publications department.
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