Daily Log page for 5/27

One aspect of September 11 that is not yet fully understood is that it highlighted the tension between US aspirations to be the capital of an integrated world and traditional security considerations. The latter will play a much more prominent role in the next decade than the former, as the article below illustrates. Inevitably, some non-American flight schools are going to upgrade themselves to capture the new markets opening up. Limitations on the American role in flight training will thus not have a long-term effect on flight safety.

Flight Schools See Downside to Crackdown

By DAVID FIRESTONE with MATTHEW L. WALD

he security crackdown meant to keep terrorist hijackers out of American flight schools has forced thousands of foreign students to train overseas, weakening the country's global dominance in aviation training, officials in the industry say.

That shift, they warn, could ultimately mean greater risks for air travelers, because American flight schools are the main source of well-trained commercial pilots for foreign airlines.

"The United States has always made most of the aircraft in use around the world, we produce most of the instructors and we train most of the pilots," said Joseph E. Burnside, vice president for government and industry affairs of the National Air Transportation Association, the trade organization for the general aviation industry. "But now we're concerned that we may be losing that market."

"If the government doesn't get its act together, students are going to begin training overseas, and that training will be of lesser quality than they would receive in the United States," Mr. Burnside argued. "There will be an impact on aviation safety worldwide."