Military aircraft operations manuals (was: Thank God for good documentation)

["Katie Henry" <katie-henry -at- worldnet -dot- att -dot- net>]

I work for a company in the DC area that produces operations and procedures
manuals for U.S. Navy aircraft, so I know a thing or two about this subject.

Some years ago, funding to the military was cut dramatically and many
installations were closed. Centralized pubs groups were eliminated and
writers were laid off. Documentation was taken over by individual operating
groups, with varying levels of success.

There were a number of "mishaps" (typical understated aviation terminology)
that were attributed to inconsistencies in procedures and training between
groups. As a result, a task force was formed to standardize procedures. Each
aircraft has a model manager who organizes periodic conferences that are
attended by pilots and flightcrew members from each operating group and
maybe someone from the manufacturer. They go over each manual with a
fine-tooth comb. Every change, no matter how minor, must be approved by the
group. Conferences are taken very seriously.

These changes are then sent to my employer. We convert the manuals from
whatever into Interleaf and incorporate the conference changes verbatim --
absolutely no changes allowed. (Yes, it's a boring job, but the pay is good
and it's a grim job market.) There are no writers or editors involved at any
step of the process, but it's obvious that the knowledge in those books is
invaluable. And the truth is, there's not much I could contribute that would
improve these manuals beyond some light editing. What do I know about
crash-landing a burning cargo plane or escaping from a sinking helicopter?

Katie



Subject: Re: Thank God for good documentation
From: Gene Kim-Eng <gene -at- genek -dot- com>
Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2003 08:18:22 -0700
X-Message-Number: 22

Or non-existant.  I have used the arguement on a number of occaisions (with
varying results) that if an effort to provide documentation is not made
up-front,
users and service personnel in the field will inevitably create their own,
and
that the materials created in the field will be unreviewed, inconsistantly
verified
and most of all, *unknown* to those in the home office.  So the Colonel was
very fortunate to have had a troubleshooting guide prepared by his squadron,
and was even *more* fortunate that the document didn't contain any
previously
undiscovered errors in the part that he needed.  But what happens when
another
squadron leader whose people *didn't* produce a similar field doc, or who
did
but didn't do as good a job of it, runs into the same problem *next*
week...?


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