Putting FAA Handbooks on Librivox

[flatboat]

www.librivox.org is a volunteer organization that makes books in the public domain available as audio books for free download. The audiobooks are available from librivox.org, or you can download though iTunes for free or use some cheap apps. Personally i like Sci-fi short story collections, Sherlock Holmes, John Carter of Mars, and Mark Twain. I put some on CD's but i listen on my iPhone these days.

What makes this interesting for this group is that the FAA Handbooks are all in the public domain and can be read, proof listened and distributed by Librivox or any other group. The handbooks are outstanding. Having the books read as an audiobook won't be useful to a lot of people, but i hope for some people, that an audiobook will supplement learning while driving to work or to the airport, or maybe even pulling rivets, and eventually they may serve as an introduction to those who are borderline about getting into Aviation. The handbooks are graphics intensive, but i just plan on reading "see Figure X-Y" and either the text talks to the figure adequately or the listener should review figures before and after listening to the text. [Re: public domain. From wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipe...main_resources Title 17 USC §105, Subject matter of copyright: United States Government works, provides that "Copyright protection is not available for any work of the United States Government," defined in Title 17 USC §101, as "a work prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government as part of that person's official duties."]

I have started reading the Aviation Instructor's Handbook (FAA-H-8083-9A) as a solo reader. I'm a couple of chapters into it and probably won't be finished until the end of the year. (it won't be generally available until it is complete. I would include a chapter here as an attachment, but i would not want to overload the capacity.) You may think i started with the wrong book, but i have my own reasons, so no criticism will be ackowledged. ;-) Many Librivox books have different people volunteer to read different chapters. Every submission must be "proof listened" by a volunteer to meet the Librivox guidelines. I have a very nice lady who volunteered to be the Designated Proof Listener, who listens to the entire book, section by section as i submit it, and I act as the Book Coordinator. She catches my errors, offers suggestions and most importantly encouragement (like saying the handbook is interesting!) It takes me about 6 hours of reading, re-reading, editing, noise filtering, uploading, etc for every hour of audio (but i edit out lots of mistakes). The completed handbook will be on the order of 12 hours, or 2 weeks listening for my daily commuting time.

As a metallurgist, i later plan to read chapter 5 "Aircraft Materials Processes and Hardware" of the Aviation Maintenance Technician Handbook FAA-H-8083-30, and i will try to release that by itself. If there are other volunteers i would consider being book coordinator for that entire handbook.

Of course, I would really love to be able to download the "Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge" FAA-H-8083-25A as an audiobook. From the above it will be a while before I attempt to start reading or even volunteer as book coordinator on PHAK, since i would want to stay on top of it every day (to keep hopefully many volunteers happy and encouraged). But if you would be interested in volunteering I encourage you to get to know Librivox. You can find me on the forums as "Norman" or here as "Flatboat" if i can help you learn the ropes and all the free software that is available. Maybe if we can get some of these projects completed in the future, EAA and others can provide links to help people download the audiobooks to go with the PDFs from the FAA.

Best wishes and i hope you consider volunteering, or at least try listening to some free audiobooks from Librivox.
Norman
aka flatboat

[WLIU]

Uh, you do not have to go to all of the work of scanning the docs. They are online at the FAA web site if you dig. Example - look at

http://www.faa.gov/regulations_polic...-H-8083-9A.pdf

Best of luck,

Wes
N78PS

[FlyingRon]

He already knows that (he mentions it in the next to last paragraph). He's talking about making them available as (human read) audio books.

[flatboat]

I've got about 4 hours worth of the Aviation Instructor's Handbook recorded with about 8 more to go. It won't be available on Librivox until it is finished, but if you know anyone studying for CFI who has a long drive, or if you need help getting to sleep at night, its available at http://ge.tt/728Q9pr. The PHAK or some of the other handbooks might be of more general interest, but this is what i started with, and will finish before moving to another handbook. As a long term employee of a big aerospace company, i wish that i and more of my co-workers had gotten this basic advise earlier in our careers. Good instruction and good management can be a rare commodity. Norm

[flatboat]

If you, or people you know, would like to listen to the Aviation Instructor's Handbook as an audiobook you can download it at http://ge.tt/728Q9pr?c

As a volunteer, I have been recording for librivox.org<http://librivox.org/> the The Aviation Instructor's Handbook, FAA-H-8083-9A, as a human read audiobook. It is about 10 hours total listening time. The PDF of the handbook is available at http://www.faa.gov/regulations_polic...books_manuals/

From the preface "...the Aviation Instructor’s Handbook was developed .... in cooperation with aviation educators and industry to help beginning instructors understand and apply the fundamentals of instruction." I believe it does such a good job that it is a valuable resource for many other applications outside of aviation instructors. As an engineer, I think the first five chapters, and perhaps more, are appropriate to training and evaluating new engineers. The fields of instruction, development and evaluation have been boiled down to a comprehensive handbook that is easily understood and it should be of interest to a broad audience. I certainly could have used the guidance during my years as a new assistant professor, and when training engineers in the field of fracture control.

I have finished all the chapters as shown below. Some chapters were broken into 2 or 3 parts depending on size. You can download the chapters from http://ge.tt/728Q9pr?c and after i finish three appendices, the entire project will be available from Librivox.org<http://librivox.org/>. Once the appendices are finished, and the project is cataloged in librivox it can be downloaded through iTunes and other sources. I plan to finish the appendices over the next 3 months, but i wanted to make you aware all nine chapters are currently available. Audiobooks are not everyone's ideal learning mode, and as a volunteer project it is not up to the standards you may expect of a commercial venture, but i hope it is of interest to some.

Librivox.org is a volunteer project with the objective "To make all books in the public domain available, for free, in audio format on the internet." The FAA handbooks are in the public domain as confirmed with the FAA. More on public domain, from wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipe...main_resources Title 17 USC §105, Subject matter of copyright: United States Government works, provides that "Copyright protection is not available for any work of the United States Government," defined in Title 17 USC §101, as "a work prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government as part of that person's official duties." Therefore, only those works solely authored by US Federal Government employees are not protected by copyright in the United States.


Norman
Flatboat

Section	Title	Notes
0	Preface	5m 36s
1	Chapter 1 - Human Behavior	42m 06s
2	Chapter 2 part 1 - The Learning Process	48m 07s
3	Chapter 2 part 2 - Domains of Learning	62m 18s
4	Chapter 2 part 3 - Scenario Based Learning	61m 57s
5	Chapter 3 - Effective Communication	39m 12s
6	Chapter 4 part 1 - The Teaching Process	40m 31s
7	Chapter 4 part 2 - Training Delivery Methods	50m 33s
8	Chapter 4 part 3 - Coop. or Group Learning Methods	47m 05s
9	Chapter 5 - Assessment	51m 00s
10	Chapter 6 - Planing Instructional Activity	42m 07s
11	Chapter 7 - Instructor Responsibilities	50m 20s
12	Chapter 8 part 1 - Techniques of Flight Instruction	47m30s
13	Chapter 8 part 2 - Assessment of Piloting Ability	47m14s
14	Chapter 9 part 1 - Risk Management	41m13s
15	Chapter 9 part 2 - Situational Awareness	42m 10s

[flatboat]

The Aviation Instructor Handbook can now be downloaded from Librivox.org or the Archive.org (in a few formats.)

https://librivox.org/aviation-instru...dministration/

I started recording the Airplane Flying Handbook with other volunteers at Librivox. I'll post links when we get enough recorded for any potential new pilots you know.

Norman