Rotor & Wing International

Implementing ADS-B in the Gulf

Over the past eight years, I covered quite a few offshore subjects, but I have never done a profile on the number of personalities that have made offshore helicopter operations the preferred method of traveling to offshore rigs and other support vessels.

Over the past eight years, I covered quite a few offshore subjects, but I have never done a profile on the number of personalities that have made offshore helicopter operations the preferred method of traveling to offshore rigs and other support vessels.

There have been articles about the early pioneers within the industry like the Suggs family and others who have found a space in the executive suites. They certainly should be recognized for the sacrifice and leadership they provided in the early days. Many of them have been profiled in other publications.

Bless them all, but my thoughts have gravitated to the men and women who have done and still do the hands-on daily managing and decisionmaking that cause the successful all-weather helicopter support activity that we see today. One man who defines that description and has been on the forefront of offshore safety innovation for more than 20 years is Casey Lowery. He now hangs his hat with Omni Helicopters International as global head of business development.

Lowery began his aviation career as a pilot with the U.S. Army National Guard and Petroleum Helicopters Inc. (PHI). He quickly moved into management positions with Tennessee Gas, Unocal Corporation and Chevron Inc.

He was recognized as a leader early in his career. In the early 1990s, he was selected as a company representative to the Helicopter Safety Advisory Conference (HSAC) and to the National Business Aircraft Association (NBAA) as a member of the Airport and Heliport Committee. These appointments were in addition to his management and flying duties. After a short time, he was installed as the chairman of HSAC.

As chairman, Lowery left a huge footprint for Gulf Coast helicopter operations through his participation in establishing one of the first ADS-B operational uses of that system. This project was a multi-faceted program needing intense cooperation between the FAA, HSAC, the oil and gas industry, commercial technology contractors, Helicopter Association International (HAI) and many Gulf Coast helicopter operators. Because the system was established in the Gulf, HSAC became the center for coordinating almost all of the associated activities of the participants.

The HSAC is fully a volunteer organization, and every regular member is sponsored by the company for which they work. That includes owners and managers — there are no paid positions within the organization. Also there are a number of associate members who volunteer their time.

To get the system off the ground, a great deal of coordination was needed between all of the participants with many different members wearing more than one hat.

Lowery was central to all of the participants’ needs by helping to direct traffic and schedule meetings on an impromptu need. To get an understanding of the size of this project, there were some hurdles he had to cross.

Central to the entire project was getting a memorandum of agreement signed by the helicopter operators and the oil companies with offshore platforms. Space on these platforms is sacred, with almost every square inch accounted for. Lowery was instrumental in helping with these negotiations, resulting in the needed space being provided.

Being a government project, its funding had to be provided by the FAA. To expedite that need, a meeting was set up in Washington, D.C., through the auspices of HAI. Lowery traveled to Washington along with the HSAC vice chairman and the president of HAI to meet with Gulf Coast congressmen and the FAA’s deputy administrator. The meeting was successful, and funding was made available in June 2006.

To quote Lowery, “Out of all my accomplishments throughout my 30 years in aviation, I am most proud to have had the opportunity to lead HSAC during the implementation of ADS-B in the Gulf of Mexico. It proves that safety can bring helicopter operators, oil companies, manufacturers, technical contractors, professional organizations and government agencies together working to achieve a common goal. We did it when we turned the switch on with ADS-B in the Gulf of Mexico in 2009.” RWI

If Everything is Important...

The word “mandatory,” by definition and implication, conveys a sense of importance and value.

The word “mandatory,” by definition and implication, conveys a sense of importance and value. Use of the word “mandatory” therefore imbues any subsequent word with a mandate of completion. At the same time, there is also hope that the word won’t just be frivolously thrown about.

I can’t honestly tell you when the term “mandatory training” gained common usage in the military, but it has made a slow creep from a few well-intentioned classes to a painfully bloated construct that could now easily fill the entirety of a drill weekend.

These classes have become so cumbersome for the modern warfighter that a 2012 study found the military devotes more than 17.2 million hours each year to training not directly related to a service member’s ability to do his or her job. That’s more than 8,200 warfighters spending every work hour of the year doing nothing other than what is now considered mandatory training.

This rightfully garnered the attention of new U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis and U.S. Army Secretary Mark Esper soon after they assumed their positions.

Don’t misunderstand me — there is a reason for many of these classes. Sexual harassment, substance abuse, suicide and many of the other issues addressed by these classes are intolerable in a voluntary fighting force, which should and must be held to a standard high above our civilian counterparts.

America has long been considered as one of the brightest beacons of hope, prosperity and unity in a world too often darkened by the actions of vile and immoral peoples. Our nation is becoming increasingly dependent upon the men and women of our armed services to serve as the sole representatives of a code that begins with the three brilliant words, “We the People.” With the many threats to our nation’s security and reputation, every incident of military misconduct must be considered as a threat to the very foundation of freedom and equality.

But the question must be asked, “Can classes prevent these offenses, or is there a better way?” Maybe it’s naivety or my base belief that most military members are inherently good, but I don’t believe a class, book or standard operating procedure could prevent evil-doers from doing evil. Certainly this is a far larger question than my simple mind could ever answer, which is why I applaud the secretaries for their mandate to study policies that could be altered to focus more of the warfighters’ time on the art and science of warfighting.

Those responsible for deciding the fate of mandatory training will look at the pros and cons, but must focus on the larger question: How does an organization as large as the U.S. Defense Department prevent behaviors that would be considered embarrassments to our nation?

Is the solution mandatory training, no training at all, some strange concoction of personal accountability and training? I wouldn’t be a good warrant officer if I simply espoused an issue only to leave it without some form of solution.

We, the military, must be proficient and current on all threats that endanger our nation. We must be fluent with those threats to limit information leakage, curtail sexual harassment, prevent suicides and address all the other issues we face. We must assume the heavy burden to be better than the average American, and we must live the core values that our oaths demand of us. No course can force us to assume this undertaking; we must first believe in those values, make them non-negotiable parts of our very souls and be that beacon of hope for the world.

If we each became personally accountable for those difficult tasks, there would be no need for mandatory training because we would never relive events such as the Tailhook or Abu Ghraib prison scandals.

Now I leave it to the smart folks to solve the difficult social math problem of how to make each U.S. military member hold him or herself accountable for all of that. Good luck…

“How did you find the mess hall if it wasn’t in this book?” - Lt. Daniel Kaffee, A Few Good Men RWI