A multi-engine, instrument rated pilot, James Wynbrandt has been an AIN and Business Jet Traveler contributor since 2003. His in-depth reporting and insightful features have won more than a dozen editorial honors, including two National Business Aviation Association Gold Wing Awards (2019; 2021), and his articles have also appeared in the New York Times, Barron’s, Fortune, Forbes, and Smithsonian Air &amp; Space. He has flown his Mooney M20K 252 on assignments throughout North and Central America and the Caribbean. Wynbrandt is also the author of Flying High (Wiley &amp; Sons), a biography of Jet Blue founder David Neeleman, as well as histories, references works, and books on a variety of other topics from major publishers. He lives in New York City.

Contributor - Business Aviation

James Wynbrandt

Developments in the fields of human factors, automation, UAS operations and a host of other topics critical to safety in the skies filled the agenda at the 62nd annual Business Aviation Safety Summit (BASS), held in Phoenix in early May. The event is organized by the Flight Safety Foundation (FSF) in partnership with NBAA, and board chairman Ken Hylander noted the foundation’s key role in safety initiatives as he welcomed attendees “to join us in our march to aviation safety.”


The concept of partnership, collaboration and teamwork as essential components of safety programs ran throughout the presentations, starting with Capt. Ron Mumm’s keynote observations on Teamwork and High Performance. Mumm, owner and managing director of Raven Aviation and former commander of the USAF Thunderbirds, attributed superior team performance to three principles: “resist less and assist more; include everyone; and be passionate about performance and critiquing.”


He used anecdotes, photos and video from his Thunderbirds career to illustrate his points, starting with a potential clash with Arnold Palmer, upset about an airspace closure the team’s performance created, that Mumm defused. (“In that brief moment, the paradigm shifted and we became a team,” Mumm recounted.) Upon taking command of the Thunderbirds, he learned prison inmates provided janitorial services for the squadron, and involved them in the team’s activities, with some surprising results. (“We all have inmates in our lives,” he said of the need for complete inclusion.)


Mumm explained that each Thunderbirds performance is recorded from multiple angles, and each maneuver is graded on a scale of zero to 10. In 225 shows before some 20 million people while he was Thunderbird 1, their average performance score was 4.2. Team members were sometimes “uncomfortable with the grading criteria,” he said, “but passionate about performance and critiques,” and those rigorous reviews kept the team aiming higher

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