2120-0747 2014 A

Supporting Statement

for FAA Safety Briefing Readership Survey

OMB #2120-0747

A. Justification

1. Explain the circumstances that make the collection of information necessary. Identify any legal or administrative requirements that necessitate the collection. Attach a copy of the appropriate section of each statute and regulation mandating and authorizing the collection of information.

Circumstances that make the collection of information necessary. The Federal Aviation Administration, an agency of the Department of Transportation (DOT), was created (see Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations) to provide for the safe and efficient use of airspace. In part, the DOT Strategic Plan (2006-2011) states:

“The safety of commercial aviation remains a high priority. In the last three years, there were only 0.017 fatal accidents per hundred thousand takeoffs — the equivalent of one fatal accident per 5.9 million flights…However, the fatal accident rate for general aviation, especially for Alaska, remains a concern. To address this, we continue education of the pilot community and deploy new technologies.”

The FAA strategic plan includes a specific goal for reducing the number of fatal general aviation accidents. For example, according to the National Transportation Safety Board, in 2012 there were 1,471 general aviation accidents. Of these, 271 were fatal accidents, which led to 432 fatalities.

The FAA uses a number of methods to improve safety and reduce fatal general aviation accidents. Many of these methods are regulatory, e.g., rulemaking and the certification of airmen and aircraft. Other tools are consistent with the DOT Strategic Plan and involve education and outreach. For one, the bimonthly print and online publication FAA Safety Briefing is designed to improve general aviation safety by: (a) making the community aware of FAA resources, (b) helping readers understand safety and regulatory issues, and (c) encouraging continued training.

FAA Safety Briefing is targeted to members of the non-commercial general aviation community, primarily pilots and mechanics. These largely include individuals who fly for sport and recreation and individuals who maintain these aircraft. Unlike airline or corporate aviation pilots, many general aviation pilots do not have the benefits of corporate training and safety departments. And, the “personal flying” category of general aviation is the category with the great number of accidents. Of the 260 fatal general aviation accidents in 2010 (the latest year NTSB data is available for), 189 of these were in the personal flying category.

According to data from the FAA Civil Aviation Registry, the potential audience for FAA Safety Briefing includes:

222,596 private pilots

93,202 flight instructors

8,536 private helicopter pilots

326,276 mechanics

41,056 repairmen

Some of the above categories overlap so the potential audience is not equal to the total, but it approaches 500,000 people. Through its current distribution, FAA Safety Briefing reaches an average of 28,500 people each issue, or fewer than 6 percent of its potential audience.

This survey is intended to help the editors of FAA Safety Briefing better understand the target audience. The survey will help the editors learn more about who is reading FAA Safety Briefing as well as who is not reading the publication but is in the target audience, how they are reading it (print or online), how they improve their safety skills/practices, and what they need to know to improve their safety skills/practices. With this information, the editors can craft FAA Safety Briefing content more targeted to current readers as well as to potential readers.

Attached is the appropriate section of each statute and regulation mandating and authorizing the collection of information.

2. Indicate how, by whom, and for what purpose the information is to be used. Except for a new collection, indicate the actual use the agency has made of the information received from the current collection.

As stated in number 1, the information is to be used by the editorial staff of FAA Safety Briefing to target and develop content that is appropriate for the potential audience and desired by the potential audience. For example, if the survey results show that a large percentage of the audience operate single-engine airplanes, then the content would be geared to single-engine airplane operations and not to twin-engine airplanes. Furthermore, if the survey results show that the target audience wants to know more about new avionics, flight planning and understanding weather rather than about cockpit management and ATC communications then the editorial content can be focused more sharply on the former and not on the latter.

Right now, FAA Safety Briefing staff has access to some demographic information of the pilot community at large, e.g., the average age of student pilots in 2008 was 33.6, but we do not have detailed information about what aircraft general aviation pilots operate, what they need to know to become better pilots, and how they prefer to learn it (e.g., should the staff expand its internet usage?). The same questions apply to general aviation mechanics and repairman — what do they need to know to improve their safety skills and how do they prefer to learn it?

3. Describe whether, and to what extent, the collection of information involves the use of automated, electronic, mechanical or other technological collection techniques or other forms of information technology, e.g. permitting electronic submission of responses and the basis for the decision for adopting this means of collection.

FAA Safety Briefing staff plan to use existing commercial internet data collection tools, e.g., Survey Monkey. The readership survey is 18 questions, with 17 of these multiple choice and one opened-ended question soliciting comments. Use of a tool such as Survey Monkey provides efficient collection of data as well as provides automated means for analyzing the data (filtering and cross-tabs) and for providing reports.

This collection method is in compliance with the Government Paperwork Elimination Act since 100 percent of the collection will be submitted electronically.

4. Describe efforts to identify duplication. Show specifically why any similar information already available can be used for the purpose described in Item 2 above.

The FAA does not have the information that it is seeking to obtain from the FAA Safety Briefing readership survey.

5. If the collection of information impacts small businesses or other small entities, describe any methods used to minimize burden.

The audience is individual pilots, flight instructors, mechanics, and repairmen. Furthermore, it is only 18 questions, which should only take the individual no more than a few minutes to complete.

6. Describe the consequence to Federal program or policy activities if the collection is not conducted or is conducted less frequently, as well as any technical or legal obstacles to reducing burden.

The FAA Safety Briefing staff is undergoing the rigorous requirements of the federal paperwork elimination and reduction acts for the sole reason of improving general aviation safety by continuing education of the pilot and mechanic community to reduce accidents. The information will be used to improve FAA’s safety outreach efforts and programs with the general aviation community. FAA Safety Briefing staff will share the survey results with other FAA groups who interact with the general aviation pilot and mechanic community. FAA Safety Briefing staff members have already coordinated with these other FAA groups in developing the survey questions. There is no measurable consequence to not performing the survey, except that the taxpayer should expect that more than 6 percent of the target audience receives valuable safety information, especially information from the government agency responsible for the safe and efficient use of airspace.

7. Explain any special circumstances that would cause an information collection to be conducted in a manner inconsistent with 1320.5(d)(2)(i)-(viii).

There are no circumstances, special or otherwise, that would require respondents to report more than one time, much less quarterly. The online survey will be available for a period of four to six weeks. The off-the-shelf software allows us to restrict the responses to ensure respondents can only respond one time. We do not have any plans to perform another survey any sooner than two years after this first survey is conducted. The survey will be conducted online and the only written responses sought are any voluntary comments in question #18, which is the only open-ended question that says “Other comments” and leaves space for any additional comments to what was covered in the previous 17 questions. We do not ask respondents to submit anything. Nor do we intend to use the results for anything beyond the purposes of a traditional readership survey, which is intended to help FAA Safety Briefing improve and better target its content. There are no plans to generalize the results to any other field or endeavor than improving and targeting FAA Safety Briefing content. FAA Safety Briefing will keep the results confidential and none of the questions seek confidential information.

8. Describe efforts to consult with persons outside the agency to obtain their views on the availability of data, frequency of collection, the clarity of instructions and recordkeeping, disclosure, or reporting format (if any) and on data elements to be recorded, disclosed, or reported.

The people outside of the agency who are communicating with the FAA Safety Briefing target audience are private-sector for-profit organizations, e.g., Flying Magazine and the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, which publishes AOPA Pilot and Flight Training Magazine. Their information on their subscribers is proprietary; we have not consulted them. FAA Safety Briefing staff members do make FAA Safety Briefing available to these publications and promote it to them.

FAA Safety Briefing staff members have conferred with the publication’s Editorial Board, which consists of members from across the FAA. Also, we have the numbers on the potential audience from the FAA’s Civil Aviation Registry.

A 60-day notice for public comments was published in the Federal Register on May 12, 2014, vol. 79, no. 91, pages 27030-27031. No comments were received.

9. Explain any decision to provide any payment or gift to respondents, other than remuneration of contractors or grantees.

There is no plan to provide any payment or gift to respondents. All work related to the survey will be performed by FAA employees.

10. Describe any assurance of confidentiality provided to respondents and the basis for the assurance in statute, regulation, or agency policy.

There is no plan to ask for anyone’s name and the survey will include a consent form and a statement that FAA Safety Briefing will do its best to protect the information being collected.

11. Provide additional justification for any questions of a sensitive nature.

There are no questions of a sensitive nature.

12. Provide estimates of hour burden of the collection information. This information should: Provide number of respondents, frequency of response, annual burden, and an explanation of how the burden was estimated.

FAA Safety Briefing would be pleased to receive a 2 percent response, which is an industry response standard. The survey link will be sent and promoted to subscribers of the FAA’s Safety Program Alerts and Notification System (SPANS). SPANS has 256,045 “pilots and instructors” and 88,997 “mechanics and others” on its distribution list. It will also be promoted in the biweekly FAAST Blast, which is sent to SPANS subscribers. We anticipate having the survey posted one time on the Internet for one four- to six-week period. A 2 percent response would total approximately 7,000 respondents. It takes no more than 10 minutes to complete the survey. Multiplying 7,000 times 10 minutes equals a total hour burden of 1166.6 hours.

13. Provide estimates of the total annual cost burden to respondents or recordkeepers resulting from the collection of information.

There is no estimated annual cost burden to respondents or recordkeepers since through the off-the-shelf program this is entirely automated.

14. Provide estimates of annualized cost to the Federal government.

This will be done during normal work hours by the FAA Safety Briefing staff members, who may ask for support from other FAA employees who have survey and data analysis experience. The primary analyst makes about $35 per hour and will spend up to 100 hours on this data for a cost of $3,500. The team lead, who makes $67.91 per hour will spend up to 20 hours reviewing the analyst’s work, for a cost of $1,358. The total cost in employee wages is projected to be: $4,858.

15. Explain reasons for program changes or adjustments reported in Items 13 or 14 of OMB Form 83-I.

There are no changes from the previous submission.

16. For collections of information whose results will be published, outline plans for tabulation, and publication. Address any complex analytical techniques that will be used.

The results will not be published.

17. If seeking approval to not display the expiration date for OMB approval of the information collection, explain the reasons that display would be inappropriate.

We are not seeking approval to not display the expiration date.

18. Explain each exception to the certification statement identified in Item 19, “Certification for Paperwork Reduction Act Submissions,” of OMB Form 83-I.

There are no exceptions.

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