A full crowd attended the popular “Meet the Regulators” presentation at the 2024 Aerial Work Safety Conference in Boise, Idaho. (VAI Photo)
VAI Briefs: 2024 Aerial Work Safety Conference Sees Record Attendance
The VAI Aerial Work Safety Conference enjoyed the highest attendance in its history last year, with more than 400 members of the vertical flight industry gathering at the Boise Centre in Boise, Idaho, for the popular annual event.
The conference, held Nov. 19–21, 2024, included VAI industry advisory council (formerly working group) meetings, educational presentations, vendor exhibits, one-on-one discussions with US government agency representatives, and plenty of networking opportunities.
Human external cargo (HEC) operations were a key focus on the first day of the conference, with approximately 150 people attending the VAI Utility Patrol & Construction Industry Advisory Council (IAC) meeting, where the foremost topic of discussion was the draft of the FAA policy statement for HEC. (For more on the policy, see “VAI Leads Collaboration on HEC Policy.”)
Also on Day 1, the VAI Aerial Firefighting & Natural Resources IAC and the VAI Restricted & Experimental Category Aircraft IAC met to discuss issues important to their sectors, including the use of unmanned aircraft systems in aerial firefighting and perceived deficiencies in guidance for processing restricted category-type certificates.
Day 2 of the event included presentations on various topics, including:
• How to mitigate stress, by Volo Mission CEO Kimberly Hutchings
• The FAA’s instructions for continued airworthiness (ICA), with aviation attorney Sarah MacLeod
• Navigating the FAA medical certificate process, by Keith Roxo of Wingman Med.
Hutchings was blunt in her portrayal of the seriousness of stress in vertical aviation. “Our industry tolerates stress very well, but it doesn’t talk about it,” she told attendees. “Burnout is actually a medically defined condition.”
In her talk, MacLeod emphasized doing your regulatory homework. “Know the rules, policy, and politics,” she advised the audience. “And always question authority.”
The second day of the conference also featured the annual “Meet the Regulators” presentation, where attendees asked a panel of FAA officials about issues such as the agency’s delays in processing paperwork, which the panelists attributed in part to a lack of necessary documentation from applicants and workforce shortages.
Matthew West, president of Hawk AeroSafety, gave a presentation about the effectiveness of safety management systems (SMSs) and a positive safety culture in reducing hazards and accidents and building safety awareness among frontline employees.
A half-day briefing by the US Forest Service (USFS), which included a Q&A session with audience members, highlighted the third and final day of the 2024 Aerial Work Safety Conference. The conference often features presentations from the USFS, which has National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) and National Interagency Coordination Center (NICC) offices in Boise. This setting allows representatives from firefighting companies to assess the previous fire season, learn about changes to USFS contracts, and hold in-person meetings with USFS contracting teams.
Eric Pacheco, senior pilot with the Los Angeles County (California) Fire Department, led the final session of the conference, examining why helicopter pilots continue to strike power lines and how to avoid them. Pacheco encouraged pilots to stay “on the clock,” maintaining awareness of where wires are at all times, even encouraging the repetitive use of playful mantras like, “Where da wires at?”