More Failed Aviation Administration nonsense

The Lockheed Martin AFSS main computer system was shut down
overnight March 11-12 to do a software upgrade. The main
FS21 computer at LM should have been shut down for only a
couple of hours overnight, but it ended up down for about
24 hours because the fix they were adding was not right.

As has happened several times in the past, the upgrade
resulted in a full collapse of the main fS21 system, and
briefers had to work with the backup computers. They were
also told during a system wide telcon that even though some
data was not reliable, to go ahead and use it anyway.

But it gets worse.

The FAA has "secret shoppers" that call LMAFSS for
briefings, and then score the service that LM provides.
This is known as the "Performance Metric 2A Evaluation."
Ahhh, thanks Marion...a performance based system at last!
Blakey's term in office makes the Hindenberg look like a
popcorn fart.

But anyway...part of the Lockheed Martin bonus is based upon
this scoring system on how the work is being done. These
are RANDOM EVALUATIONS done by FAA hired auditors that
determine part of the payment for the contract.

Guess what happened during the unscheduled outage?

Someone at Lockheed Martin CALLED THE FAA OFFICE IN CHARGE
OF THESE EVALUATIONS, AND ASKED THAT THE EVALUATIONS BE
SUSPENDED UNTIL THE COMPUTERS WERE FIXED. Worse still, the
FAA managers running the evaluations AGREED to stop the
evaluations until the computers were fixed. Whaaaaaaa?

Yeah, it really happened. Shouldn't the FAA be evaluating
the service, NO MATTER THE CONDITIONS of the computers LM is
using?

Weren't those 24 trouble-filled hours part of the time
LockMart agreed to provide Flight Service? Why in God's
name would you NOT evaluate your service provider when they
were doing their absolute WORST work?

Translate to air traffic---The New York TRACON is having a
lot of operational errors and separation difficulties. Am I
to understand that the Manager should call the FAA in
Washington and ask them to suspend further evaluation of the
facility until performace improves? (Marion and other
dullards: the correct answer is "no.")

It's no wonder the Administrators Fact Book for this year
has the following disasterous data:

Jan-Sept 2006 17,705,000 FSS operations

Jan-Sept 2007 8,200,000 FSS operations

NINE MILLION PILOTS HAVE GIVEN UP. (And how IS that search
for Steve Fossett coming, anyway?)

NINE MILLION PILOTS HAVE given up on service. Given up on
safety. Given up on reliability. And given up on their
government holding their best interests at heart. Nice job,
AOPA. You led your members to SLAUGHTER on this one. If
the President of AOPA had the integrity God gave your
average hamster turd he would resign in disgrace. He turned
his membership into "Client Number One," and they got
front-of-the-line priveleges for a good, clean screwing.

(Bragging note because, yes, Virginia, I do have an ego: I
correctly fought the privatization sons-of-bitches from long
before my first day in office to my last. In fact...some
controllers will recall a particularly impassioned speach I
gave at the microphone at one of our conventions...92, 94,
96, I don't recall. All I remember is how it ended: "Pick
up a brick and fight.")

Now, get this. The guy that ran this service into the
ground after the FAA gave it to LM was Dan Courain, who just
stepped down from the project, supposedly to retire. He was
the Lockheed guy in charge from October 2005, until very
recently.

Rumor has it he just got a $1.5 Mill BONE-US.

For what.....destroying an integral part of the national
airspace system? For stealing pensions and retirements from
2500 deserving federal employees? For cutting "customer
traffic" in half, as your "customers" give up on your stupid
ass and rely instead on the fat black weather guy on the
Today Show?

Sort of like the FAA manager that told Southwest it was OK
to delay inspections.

Specialists nationwide got an internal email on Saturday
from Ron Petro (he replaced Dan Courain as the head of the
AFSS program) acknowledging that things were not so great
the day the computers went down; however, they worked to fix
the problem. Mr. Petro went on to state in that internal
email that the FAA agreed to suspend the evaluations until
the problems were fixed.

This is an internal LM email to all employees through their
communications director, and here's the salient portion:

March 14, 2008

Communique' from Ron Petro to AFSS Specialists

Hi everyone,

I know that I don't have to tell you guys that from a system
standpoint yesterday was very disappointing. The problem
with the system turned out to be a memory issue or what the
technical folks call a memory allocation/deallocation error.
In any case it was finally resolved late yesterday. We
have put a team in place ti do a complete bottom up review
of the test system to understand how a problem like this
could make it through test and not show up until we were in
production.

At one point in the morning, it looked pretty gloomy. The
service level was abysmal and we were getting pounded. By
mid morning you folks had jumped in and brought things back
under control. You did a superb job and I'm proud to be a
part of a workforce that pulls together like you do. You
demonstrated what a team is all about! You immediately went
to back-up using all available tools to take care if the
pilots. Many of you stayed over and others came in just to
work during a difficult time.

We had every available person certified as a pilot weather
briefer on position including QAS and PPS. As a result, we
ended the day in pretty good shape. The service level
yesterday was 80.3% with only a 4% abandon rate both of
which are well within the APL goals. We actually received
several compliments from pilots on your professionalism and
attitude during what was a difficult and stressful period.
The FAA did agree to suspend 2a evals during this period but
not before you folks had several passes with very high
scores. Also during this period wehad two individuals who
passed their National Weather Service (NWS) evals. The word
WOW just seems inadequate in describing what you folks did!

While I have a complete copy I am hesitant to put it up
here---these guys work black ops and spook **** and there's
no telling if they digitally fingerprinted it. I don't want
to get my spies fired or anything.

The head of the program admits the Failed Aviation
Administration agreed to suspend evaluations on this
government contract---the very evaluations that determine
LockMart's success and bonus money. He tries to justify it
by saying, hey, you passed a couple of evals before you
would have augered in faster than United 93 trying to
provide half-ass service to half the customers you had last
year. Nicely done, Marion. You got your Flight Service
running like a business, all right. A very shoddy, crappy
mortuary.

These criminals stole 2500 pensions from hard working civil
servants so they could do THIS? I swear, a tribunal of some
sort is in order. Let's get a few of these skulls stuck on
sticks out in front of 800 Independence as a warning to the
next group.