February 2011 - Indian Airforce

Could this daily briefing incorporatesome innovative concepts. It could bea picture of the area depicting beforeand after condition, may be a picture ofthe equipment used in maintaining theaerodrome clean, may be a picture of theman operating these equipment, maybe highlighting the importance of eachactivity, may be the quantum of work andwork analysis in terms of man hours, maybe a flight safety thought for the day, maybe some interesting feature covered byASIO/MSIO.From the MTD in the aircraft manoeuvring area,to the technician working on the aircraft, to thepilot who occupies the seat in the cockpit, tothe technicians working on the aircraft in thehangars to the air traffic personnel and the birdwatchers—each one of them needs to be ableto give his one hundred percent to the job onthe aircraft- and for that, every individual in thestation, in every task he is doing, has to contributetowards safety- by ensuring that he does not addin any way to the worries of the individual directlyconnected with aviation activities- by conveyingto them that flight safety is ‘our ‘ baby and that‘we care ‘ for him.Is this change possible?Can we bring about a change where flightsafety becomes ‘our baby’ for everyone, whereevery individual in the IAF thinks flight safety inwhatever he/she does? Yes, we can. In the nextfew paragraphs I will try and suggest some stepsthat we can take to try and possibly bring aboutthese changes.Firstly, the daily flight safety briefing. Are theytoo drab and monotonous, such that while welisten yet do not perceive either the content orany obvious changes in the data and their flightsafety implications, e.g., a typical flight safetybriefing daily would cover the labour/ workdeployment of the previous day, work statusand work planned for that day. At the most, ofinterest only to the AOC, CEngO, CADMO is theavailability/ serviceability of the jungle jims andthe manpower available/not available. Couldthis daily briefing incorporate some innovativeconcepts. It could be a picture of the areadepicting before and after condition, may be apicture of the equipment used in maintainingthe aerodrome clean, may be a picture of the manoperating these equipment, may be highlightingthe importance of each activity, may be thequantum of work and work analysis in terms ofman hours, may be a flight safety thought for theday, may be some interesting feature coveredby ASIO/MSIO. If not daily, atleast on a regular/periodic interval. These are simple steps whichcan be implemented and I feel can have definiteimpact on the awareness about flight safetyactivities in a station. Not that some of theseare not done, they need to be done in a way ‘toinvolve’ the audience.Similarly, the weekly flight safety briefingconducted in most stations cover the accidentor incident rates and a brief narrative circulatedabout the event is read out. All these can be mademore interesting or interactive, possibly by askingquestions from the audience, the significance/implication of the incident that have occurred,and again some thought for the week. If theincident rate within the command is showingan upward trend compared to previous years orINDIAN AIR FORCE 2 0 1 1 F e b r u a r y Aerospace Safety 15