- Fri Aug 11, 2017 8:08 pm
#516736
Dear Kyle,
Kyle Ramsey 810181 wrote:The clients all have a transponder and pilots should/shall/must use it.
the way I understand this discussion, it is about the meaning of words. In my many years of real-world aviation, the U.S. of A. particularly maintained the following definition of words as found e. g. in the Flight Operations Manual of the Bell 206 B3 (BHT-206B3-FM-1 rev. 8, Oct 2000), approved by the U. S. DOT:
- "Shall" has been used only when application of a procedure is mandatory
- "Should" has been used only when application of a procedure is recommended
- "May" and "need not" have been used only when application of a procedure is optional
- "Will" has been used only to use futurity, never to indicate a mandatory procedure
Unfortunately, I do no longer own a copy of my FAR/AIM Handbook from the mid-90s when I did my civilian flight training in said country, so I cannot check what was written in Part 1 then.
However, there seems to be a shift in paradigm, at least as far as I understand the content of the following web page:
https://www.faa.gov/about/initiatives/plain_language/articles/mandatory/The way I see it, none of these references seem to indicate that "should" ever meant "mandatory" in an aviation context. I believe that's the reason for the ambiguity expressed by some commentators her.
Now, how do we remedy the situation? As a quality management expert I would like to respectfully suggest an "improvement measure" in the form of a revision of the CoC, taking into account the resources in the above mentioned web page and the content linked to. In plain vernacular: Say "must" or "has to" if it's mandatory.
As we currently experience in this thread, ambiguity is doing nothing but wasting resources, namely your and some other dedicated members' time.
Last edited by Johann Schuhwerk 1199725 on Sun Aug 13, 2017 3:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Cheers
"Hans" Schuhwerk
Chief PTD VATSIM Germany, C1 EDMM