“Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.”— Winston Churchill 

The distressingly unprecedented events of early 2019 gave me an equally unprecedented opportunity for reading. Among other tomes, I worked my way through several books by British author and journalist Tom Standage. A science and technology writer, Standage’s oeuvre includes several history books, such as “Writing on the Wall: Social Media — The First 2,000 Years,” “A History of the World in Six Glasses,” “An Edible History of Humanity,” and “The Victorian Internet,” which is a history of the telegraph. 

As the book titles suggest, Standage uses unusual themes as an innovative, engaging, and downright entertaining prism for reviewing certain aspects of world history. Given the focus topic of this issue of FAA Safety Briefing, I was particularly struck by points Standage makes in addressing the not-so-new aspects of social media and the now-defunct telegraph industry. Even lacking the guidance of the deft paral­lels that Standage draws, you can’t read either book without realizing that some things in the cycle of change and innovation truly never change. On the one hand, human beings seem wired to create and innovate, to find better ways of living and working and doing just about everything. On the other hand, human beings seem equally wired to resist changes — to stick to traditions and stubbornly cling to the “we’ve always done it this way” mentality. 

A Perpetual Balancing Act 

The Winston Churchill quote about art neatly frames the never-ending challenge of correctly balancing tradition and innovation. You could substitute the word “aviation” for “art” and find that the sentiment still works. The safety that we take for granted in modern aviation is a product of both tradition and innovation. In this context, “tradition” would include the body of rules, regulations, poli­cies, and procedures. Such “traditions” have been derived and developed in part from what we learned in investigating the painful mistakes and tragic accidents of our aviation forebears. But what we now incorporate in our view of “tradition” is also the product of scientific research, learning, and innova­tions that improved aviation even as they overturned less efficient (or less safe) ways of doing things. 

As you have read in these pages, the FAA has been, and continues to be, deeply immersed in finding the right balance for aviation safety. The stakes are high, because — as the popular cliché goes — aviation is terribly unforgiving of careless­ness, incapacity, or neglect. So there is a long and mostly understandable tendency to stick to meth­ods that have been tested, tried, and proven to pro­duce safe outcomes. 

Policies like NORSEE and the performance-based approach of the revised part 23 rules recog­nize, though, that achieving a higher level of safety can also require forging a new path. Sticking to prescriptive rules and rigid policies for design, pro­duction, and retrofit can have unintended adverse impacts on safety. So I am proud of the way my FAA colleagues are working with our aviation community partners to re-balance the equation, so as to ensure that the industry we love will thrive in the safest pos­sible way. We may not always get it right, but we do have the right mindset to keep striving for the best and safest possible outcomes. (FAA Safety Briefing – MayJun 2019)