Since retiring, I’ve heard little or nothing from pilot friends about choosing to meet the 61.56 mandatory two-year flight review by enrolling in the FAA’s FAASTeam program.
When I investigated, it seemed obvious that this route is more complicated—certainly more than when the WINGS program began in 1996.
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Here’s the process:
> Go to the official website of the FAASTeam (www.FAASafety.gov).
> Click on the “Create an Account” link.
> Enter and confirm your email, providing your email address twice for confirmation.
> Under “Airman Certificate,” select “Yes” if you hold a current airman certificate.
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> Enter your last name and certificate number.
> Choose and answer your security questions.
> Check your email for a temporary password.
> Log back in to FAASafety.gov. using the temporary password, then change it to something more memorable.
> Go to your home page within the account.
> Click on the “Quick WINGS” link to access features related to the WINGS Pilot Proficiency Program.
This free process—if all goes well—allows access to online safety courses, the WINGS Pilot Proficiency Program, and the AMT Awards Program. As a certificated airman, the system can link your certificates and ratings to your account, making participation in the WINGS program easier. Without an email address or access to a computer, FAASTeam Representatives or some CFIs can help you create a special account.
You know that traditional flight reviews require one hour of ground review and one hour of flight. It isn’t a pass/fail test, but an instructor can withhold endorsement if proficiency is not demonstrated.
This FAASTeam alternative allows you to attend an FAA safety seminar in person or online and take three hours dual instruction within a two-year period. It’s impossible to fail…sort of.
So now you supply proof on the website of a seminar attendance and the dual you received. Under 14 CFR 61.189J flight instructors must verify the WINGS applicant satisfactorily demonstrated skill and knowledge in accordance with FAA ACS standards in specific maneuvers, including takeoffs, landings, go-arounds, slow flight, stalls, and emergency operations.
So much for the no pass/fail.
A CFI can renew their own rating by putting three pilots through the three dual requirement and attending a seminar within two years.
Before I retired, having been defrocked as a safety program manager, there were few online seminars, but I always held at least one a week. OK, I loved flying around the southern and rural southeastern parts of Ohio with speakers or films or just me talking. And I was famous for trying to get the projector to work. I could even fit a 6-foot screen in the ski tube modification on my old 180.
There were always refreshments (homemade pies in West Union, cookies and brownies at Waynesville, and sometimes my homemade chili). It was fun and, I believe, important for people to get together, share stories, and hear interesting speakers or watch some great films. Plus, it got me out of the office…but coming in unpaid on weekends for paperwork.
In 2006, the FAA scrapped the old program for “more comprehensive and culturally focused safety education.” Since this new FAASTeam would have only one safety program manager (SPM) per state, I went to Chicago on a gray, winter day to apply. I felt like hell (with walking pneumonia) but enthusiastically explained our success with a WINGS Weekend we conducted each summer.
It was obvious they were not impressed, so I came back to Cincinnati, to return to my old operations inspector job. I was eligible to retire. It was time.
Looking for comments on FAASTeam success in the past 19 years, I found the following:
“The FAA had the right idea (continuing education) but buried it under a soul-crushing amount of bureaucracy.”
“I did it once, [but] it was a pain in the [expletive] to make sure everything was properly credited. I went back to doing BFRs [biennial flight reviews].”
“The administration of it is abysmal…easier to keep track of a BFR.”
“The website is terrible in finding and searching through the tasks.”
“Not since the megalomaniacs in the FAAST program ruined it (I swear the software involved is so bad that someone got a kick back on that). [WINGS] used to be an effective, practical, simple program, but it’s pointless now. Even my insurance company, while begrudgingly accepts it as a way to get the proficiency discount, realizes it’s crap…”
“FAA’s published participation level in the program is 1.75 [percent].”
“It’s designed on the shoulders of an army of unpaid civilian safety volunteers who are appointed in each region as ‘FAASTeam representatives.’ They work for a FAASTeam program manager who now (again) works out of local FSDOs and selects, trains, and provides the volunteers with equipment and materials.”
“These program managers process Wright Brothers Master Pilot and Charles Taylor Master Mechanic awards applications but are rarely seen ‘in the field.’”
“As GS-14s they start at $124,531 per year and, after a few years, make up to $161,889.”
For 12 years, with help from volunteers, Bob Conrad, Clippard Company and Hartzell Propeller, we’d set up for a WINGS Weekend every June at Butler County Regional Airport (KHAO) in Hamilton, Ohio. There were two three-hour (free) dual sessions each day, and pilots brought their own airplanes, or we’d provide a rental. About 75-80 CFIs would volunteer, and I’d renew their certificates for donating dual time.
Once, I tried scheduling in advance. It was chaos, so we paired them on the spot, which, despite dire predictions, worked. Flight Service set up shop for weather briefings, and pilots could attend ongoing seminars in the Clippard Hangar, where we’d throw a banquet on Saturday night. There were speakers—Bill Kirschner, Joe Kittinger, Paul Poberezny, Neil Armstrong, Phil Boyer, and Sean D. Tucker—plus door prizes, wings pins, and certificates for as many as 200 pilots.
Exhausted by Sunday after working hard all weekend, we’d dismantle everything. By Monday morning, with airplanes gone, tents taken down, and sound system silent, I’d gaze out over the field and whisper, “Brigadoon.”
This column first appeared in the August Issue 961 of the FLYING print edition.
