Happy New Decade!

Yes, most people just wish you a happy new year and yes, it has been a new decade for almost two weeks now.

I've been playing a LOT of Arsenal of Democracy. It may be just a computer game, but it takes far more brain cells and is far more realistic than my job.

My current job (still at Boeing) is working on airplane certification. This means that I create and edit plans and reports talking about how wonderfully compliant Boeing's airplanes are with Federal Aviation Regulations. The final destination of these documents is no less a body than the FAA itself... once they pass through several Boeing groups.

As you might guess, each group up to and including the FAA can reject any of these documents for any reason, and each has their own, often non-compatible, requirements. No one ever rejects a document on a technical basis, however, because the documents themselves contain no technical information. Instead, they talk about OTHER documents, which will also go through their own bureaucratic ordeal. Yes, my job is to do paperwork about how other people will do paperwork.

Too easy, you say? Well, yes, there are other problems.

See, every so often the FAA decides to change the rules. This tends to happen approximately as often and slightly after Boeing or some other aviation company thinks they've come up with something that will make for better airplanes. Now, since the FAA and the Federal Aviation Regulations are set by the Code of Federal Regulations, you'd think that Congress or something might be involved in changing the rules. Nope. The FAA can just send around memos, and if Boeing doesn't like it the FAA can pull our license to manufacture airplanes.

Or the license we hold to manufacture a certain type of airplane, like the 777 family.

Or the license we need to get for each individual airplane we produce. Yes, even if they're the same as one we've already built. We need paperwork to prove that the paperwork on this airplane is the same as the paperwork on the last plane. Oh, paperwork to prove the airplanes themselves are the same? Yeah, we probably need that too, but that's not what my group does.

None of those licenses, of course, would let us operate any of our airplanes in commercial service. No, the airlines need their own licenses, as do the pilots.

Now you may wonder how Boeing can afford to pay me to do paperwork about paperwork for months on end. Well, I'd like to say it is because I'm really good at paperwork, but I'm not. I'd like to say it is because I understand all the requirements, but I don't. I'm not allowed to. Boeing has people who's job is to decide what the Federal Aviation Requirements really mean and explain them to lowly design engineers. These people, naturally, have licenses from the FAA to do the demanding task of reading and understanding Federal regulations. OK, I shouldn't joke about that - go read parts of 14 CFR 25 and you'll see why it takes a specialist.

Now, you might think that the people who's job it is to understand the regulations might be the ones to do the paperwork, since after all they have to be the ones who sign it and say that it is good paperwork. No, they're FAR too busy for that. See, you can only be one of these special people if you've been doing the same job for many years, and you can only interpret the regs for that job section. Engineering groups have high turnover; people seldom work the same job for more than a few years at a stretch. Now think of how many people that leaves who are at Boeing doing the same job for a long time. These are the engineers who Really Know How To Design Airplanes. Understandably, Boeing wants them to spend their time designing airplanes, not doing paperwork. Why not take just a few of them and have them do the paperwork? Weeelll... remember how they're only allowed to interpret the regs in one small area? Yup. They're no better than me OUTside that small area, and inside it there's work to be done.

This post is in compliance with all Gridley Regulations as of 1/13/2011 AD and was created using standard processes and procedures. Revision A, archive location Google Blogger, authority version.