A rose by any other name

The primary reason I became a writer is due to a lifelong love of reading. Storytelling in various forms just fascinates me.

When I was very young the teachers at my school would hand out order forms for books. We little ones were able to order from a wide variety of titles. Of course, we were best served if we checked in with our parents prior to submitting that order. The books weren’t free and my neighborhood wasn’t the most prosperous on the planet.

My good fortune came in the form of my mother. It was her belief that reading often would be beneficial. So she put no limits on how many books I was allowed to order. She also put no limits on what those books might be about.

On book day I was always the boy with the biggest stack piled high on my desk. Carrying them home was sometimes a challenge. We hadn’t yet had the bright idea to send kids to school wearing backpacks.

Oh, those were the days.

In high school I caught a break, too. While I was a solid “D” student with little ambition to do well in the educational arts, I was fortunate enough to attend a school where reading was a major factor in one’s course load. My fellow students and I read some of the greats.

For example, it was in my sophomore year that I was required to read 978035333849. This really was a stroke of luck because while my school considered Vonnegut’s classic to be a must read, the school district in the next town over would fire a teacher who handed it out to even one student.

And so, I came to read 9789381529614 with great joy, and 9780679732761, and even 9780743253970. I was so taken in by that one that I read it in one day. I can still remember huddling under my blankets with a flashlight to find out what happened to Gene and Phineas in the end. It was quite a story.

All of that is true. Every word of it. But you may be wondering why I have chosen to refer to these remarkable books by their catalog number and not by the titles they’ve become famous for.

In order those titles are “Slaughterhouse-Five” by Kurt Vonnegut, “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding, “The Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison, and “A Separate Peace” by John Knowles.

As a side note, I once walked past Vonnegut on 23rd Street in New York City. He was headed south while I was headed north. This is just across 5th Avenue from the Flatiron Building. We were so close our shoulders practically touched as we passed each other. Even now, nearly 40 years later, that happy memory is etched in my mind.

I didn’t intrude on Kurt’s privacy because I knew from reading his work he didn’t care for being accosted by fans in the street. And so I respected that minor limitation and went on my way, absolutely thrilled as I would have been if I’d been fortunate enough to share an elevator with Mark Twain for a few floors.

Now, there is a point to all this.

You see, I read those books and so many others based on the reputation of their authors, the shared opinion of other readers and writers, and the easily identifiable titles that stuck in my memory.

Titles are important. I’ve published a variety of fictional books in hardcopy, ebook, and audiobook formats. I couldn’t tell you the catalog number of a single one of them. I know the titles though. All of them. I suspect that’s true of fellow General Aviation News writer and good friend Joni M. Fisher, too. Her Compass Crime series is worth seeking out.

But I digress.

The FAA publishes a massive amount of material each year. Its handbooks and manuals are updated, accurate, and worth every penny you spend on them. Most are available for free to anyone willing to download a PDF copy off the Internet.

Easily accessible, truly affordable, conscientiously thorough, rock-solid information is available 24/7 to the entire pilot, mechanic, and air traffic controller community. And yet, few of us bother to seek it out or brush up on what’s new.

These resources are all good. In fact, they’re great. The challenge for research geeks like me is that FAA folks rarely seem to feel comfortable referring to these masterpieces of educational material by title. Rather, they use an almost unintelligible coding system that neither trips off the tongue or sticks in our memory banks.

Want proof? Flip open any Airman Certification Standard (I’m using FAA-S-ACS-6C) to seek out the reference materials supporting the areas of knowledge, risk, and tasks set out for applicants to master.

Are you interested in Airworthiness Requirements? Go check out FAA-H-8083-2, FAA-H-8083-3, or FAA-H-8083-25. It’s all there.

That clears things up nicely, doesn’t it?

Personally, I have a hard time believing that ink is in such short supply at the FAA it can’t spell out Risk Management Handbook, Airplane Flying Handbook, or Pilot’s Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge. Reading and taking note of the information contained in those three books, all readily available, would serve any pilot applicant well. Yet, how many actually know they exist?

I suspect they see the reference number, their eyes glaze over, and they disconnect. This causes them to seek out other equally uninformed students and CFIs to guess what the best answers to their common and entirely predictable questions might be.

That’s not an ideal situation.

It has been said that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Some guy named Shakespeare wrote that a long time ago. It’s true, though.

The information the FAA has to share is exceptional. I may never understand why it refers to it in such indecipherable terms a large portion of the audience they’re trying to reach simply disregards the recommendation and moves on, no better for the experience.

Now, if you will excuse me, I’m currently reading 9780593376287 and I’d like to get back to it. What a story!