Letter in local paper - Speedophiles

"Peter Fox" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Great new word.

A heartwarming letter. Expect the "speeding isn't really dangerous, it's the cameras that are the
problem" brigade to wade in with their ususal bovine excrement.

Have you forwarded this to the CTC?

--
Guy
===

WARNING: may contain traces of irony. Contents may settle after posting.
chapmancentral.comchapmancentral.comOpen ↗

Peter Fox said:

If you flew on a commercial airline with a drunken pilot, or a pilot who chatted on their mobile
phone or ate a bag of chips from their lap, we could rightly expect them to be permanently
banned from flying.

Except airline pilots regularly eat a full meal from their lap in their pilots seat, and chat on the
"mobile" to air traffic control - especially at critical times like take off and landing ;-)

Tony

--
"If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything." Mark Twain .

Peter Fox said:

Great new word.

From the Colchester Evening Gazette, Sept 4, 2003 Put speedophiles on a national drive register

If you flew on a commercial airline with a drunken pilot, or a pilot who chatted on their mobile
phone or ate a bag of chips from their lap, we could rightly expect them to be permanently banned
from flying.

I work with someone who used to be a head stewardess for Quantas, she has plenty of interesting
anecdotes about pilots reeking of alcohol who stay awake for take off and landing and sleep off
their hangovers on the flight. Fortunately there are generally two steering wheels on a plane and
another pilot in the form of the first officer.

Peter Fox said:

Great new word.

From the Colchester Evening Gazette, Sept 4, 2003 Put speedophiles on a national drive register

If you flew on a commercial airline with a drunken pilot, or a pilot who chatted on their mobile
phone or ate a bag of chips from their lap, we could rightly expect them to be permanently banned
from flying.

I work with someone who used to be a head stewardess for Quantas, she has plenty of interesting
anecdotes about pilots reeking of alcohol who stay awake for take off and landing and sleep off
their hangovers on the flight. Fortunately there are generally two steering wheels on a plane and
another pilot in the form of the first officer.

"Tony Raven" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Except airline pilots regularly eat a full meal from their lap in their pilots seat, and chat on
the "mobile" to air traffic control - especially

at

Quoted message said:

critical times like take off and landing ;-)

Unlikely to be using "the mobile" from commencement of roll-out until some height is gained,
likewise during touch-down. These key stages require full concentration. With auto-pilot and two
officers on board eating isn't an issue.

In clear weather maintaining height and elevation in a light aircraft without auto pilot presents a
far smaller workload than driving a car down a busy urban road, eg a typical commute. This is mainly
due to seperation.

My daughter learned to fly a glider at 14 but stated that learning to drive a car at 18 is more
difficult!

In short I'd say the OP

Peter Fox said:

From the Colchester Evening Gazette, Sept 4, 2003 Put speedophiles on a national drive register ..

I hope they're serious! I remember once writing a letter to a local newspaper advocating the death
penalty for parking offences, and reading the letter, I wasn't sure whether it wasn't something of
the same kind.

Pete Barrett

On Fri, 5 Sep 2003 15:23:15 +0100 someone who may be "Tony Raven" <[email hidden]>
wrote this:-

Quoted message said:

Except airline pilots regularly eat a full meal from their lap in their pilots seat,

Not while flying the aeroplane.

Quoted message said:

and chat on the "mobile" to air traffic control - especially at critical times like take off and
landing ;-)

They get clearance to take off and land. When they have this they do not chat to anyone.

--
David Hansen, Edinburgh | PGP email preferred-key number F566DA0E I will always explain revoked
keys, unless the UK government prevents me using the RIP Act 2000.

David Hansen said:

On Fri, 5 Sep 2003 15:23:15 +0100 someone who may be "Tony Raven" <[email hidden]>
wrote this:-

Quoted message said:

Except airline pilots regularly eat a full meal from their lap in their pilots seat,

Not while flying the aeroplane.

Wanna bet?

Quoted message said:

They get clearance to take off and land. When they have this they do not chat to anyone.

That's funny, I wonder who all those pilots I've listened to were talking to during take off and
landing then

Tony

--
"If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything." Mark Twain

theres actually no need for pilots, on a recent flight out to corfu upon landing the pilot said that the whole journey was done by the auto pliot- take off and landing aswell, it communicatesd with the ATC tower and does it all, pilots are only there so we get on the planes and in case of emergency! would you get on a plane knowing it was all automated? it would have meant 9/11 wouldnt have happened!

thauts my 2c anyway

Tony Raven said:

Peter Fox said:

If you flew on a commercial airline with a drunken pilot, or a pilot who chatted on their
mobile phone or ate a bag of chips from their lap, we could rightly expect them to be
permanently banned from flying.

Except airline pilots regularly eat a full meal from their lap in their pilots seat, and chat on
the "mobile" to air traffic control - especially at critical times like take off and landing ;-)

Tony

S'funny, last time I was cycling @ 38,000 ft I never noticed any bad piloting... Mind you, it *was*
rush hour and the planes were all nose to tail in traffic, so they weren't in much of a position to
give me any trouble.

Even so, some rotten git had already had all their wing mirrors off!

Gary
😉

--------------------------------------------------
Reply to gary <at> data <dot> mildenhall <dot> com
--------------------------------------------------

On Fri, 5 Sep 2003 22:15:13 +0100 someone who may be "Tony Raven" <[email hidden]>
wrote this:-

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Except airline pilots regularly eat a full meal from their lap in their pilots seat,

Not while flying the aeroplane.

Wanna bet?

I do not bet.

However, you will find that there is an autopilot which is perfectly capable of flying the
aeroplane while the pilots eat, read a book, do the knitting and the other things that they do for
most of the flight.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

They get clearance to take off and land. When they have this they do not chat to anyone.

That's funny, I wonder who all those pilots I've listened to were talking to during take off and
landing then

You did not hear the person flying the plane talking.

--
David Hansen, Edinburgh | PGP email preferred-key number F566DA0E I will always explain revoked
keys, unless the UK government prevents me using the RIP Act 2000.

David Hansen said:

On Fri, 5 Sep 2003 22:15:13 +0100 someone who may be "Tony Raven" <[email hidden]>
wrote this:-

You did not hear the person flying the plane talking.

Funny, I don't remember you being there at the time

Tony

--
"If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything." Mark Twain

On 6 Sep 2003 08:44:00 +0950 someone who may be dailuggs <[email hidden]>
wrote this:-

Quoted message said:

theres actually no need for pilots, on a recent flight out to corfu upon landing the pilot said
that the whole journey was done by the auto pliot- take off and landing aswell,

ISTR that such things date from the 1960s when the military developed them as a way of recovering
aircraft to aircraft carriers even if the pilot was injured.

Quoted message said:

would you get on a plane knowing it was all automated? it would have meant 9/11 wouldnt have
happened!

No, it would have happened in a different way.

Anyway automatic operation is not infallible. An example is a train crash near San Francisco in
the early 1970s. Approaching a terminus a train was given an instruction to coast along the
platform at restricted speed. The train had not been maintained properly and interpreted the
instruction as an instruction to accelerate to maximum speed, which it did until it crashed
through the end of the line.

--
David Hansen, Edinburgh | PGP email preferred-key number F566DA0E I will always explain revoked
keys, unless the UK government prevents me using the RIP Act 2000.

David Hansen said:

ISTR that such things date from the 1960s when the military developed them as a way of recovering
aircraft to aircraft carriers even if the pilot was injured.

The first scheduled service aircraft to land fully automatically was a BEA Trident at Heathrow in
1965 using a Smiths Autoland system. In 1966 one made the first automatic landing in anger at
Heathrow in 50yds visibility when everything else was grounded Even in the '90's when it got foggy
at Heathrow BA would often roll out the old Tridents and keep the Boeings in the hangars :-(

Quoted message said:

Anyway automatic operation is not infallible. An example is a train crash near San Francisco in
the early 1970s. Approaching a terminus a train was given an instruction to coast along the
platform at restricted speed. The train had not been maintained properly and interpreted the
instruction as an instruction to accelerate to maximum speed, which it did until it crashed
through the end of the line.

Its a damn site less fallible than humans. 80% of air accidents are due to human error, 20% to
mechanical or system failure. Ergo automatic operation is safer than manual although people don't
like the thought of having no-one up front.

Tony

--
"If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything." Mark Twain

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by David Hansen
On 6 Sep 2003 08:44:00 +0950 someone who may be dailuggs <[email hidden]>
wrote this:-

Quoted message said:

theres actually no need for pilots, on a recent flight out to corfu upon landing the pilot said
that the whole journey was done by the auto pliot- take off and landing aswell,

ISTR that such things date from the 1960s when the military developed them as a way of recovering
aircraft to aircraft carriers even if the pilot was injured.

Quoted message said:

would you get on a plane knowing it was all automated? it would have meant 9/11 wouldnt have
happened!

No, it would have happened in a different way.

Anyway automatic operation is not infallible. An example is a train crash near San Francisco in
the early 1970s. Approaching a terminus a train was given an instruction to coast along the
platform at restricted speed. The train had not been maintained properly and interpreted the
instruction as an instruction to accelerate to maximum speed, which it did until it crashed
through the end of the line.

--
David Hansen, Edinburgh | PGP email preferred-key number F566DA0E I will always explain revoked
keys, unless the UK government prevents me using the RIP Act 2000.

although the technology has developed a lot since the 70's

recently a pilot crashed at an airshow while trying to show off, autopilot was not on but active in the sence that it told him to pull up on several occasions because he was descending at too steep an angle, he turned it off and guess what ... he crashed!

personally id put my faith in technology- it cant fall asleep, be drunk, be playing with its mobile.

on another note i really hate the oil companiesd becuase there is no nead for petrol- the electric car has been around for ages and if it had of been introduced when it was first developed it would now be upto decent speeds for the speed freaks to enjoy- but the likes of esso have majot political influences and so it aint gonna be around on a massive scale for a while.

dailuggs said:

personally id put my faith in technology- it cant fall asleep, be drunk, be playing with its
mobile.

Except that requires putting your faith in programmers. At least the pilot (most of the time) has a
personal interest in not hitting the ground - the programmer is probably thousands of miles away,
tucked up in bed. It's not just idle speculation - as anyone that knows what a boeing chinook fadec
is can tell you (cue Paul McCartney song).

On the bright side, Microsoft has mostly stayed out of embedded systems. Sadly, it probably
won't last.

regards, Ian SMith
--
|\ /| no .sig
|o o|
|/ \|

"Ian Smith" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

On 8 Sep 2003 05:28:29 +0950, dailuggs <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Except that requires putting your faith in programmers. At least the pilot (most of the time) has
a personal interest in not hitting the ground - the programmer is probably thousands of miles
away, tucked up in bed. It's not just idle speculation - as anyone that knows what a boeing
chinook fadec is can tell you (cue Paul McCartney song).

Yes but they only have to get it right once, pilots have to get it right every time.

Quoted message said:

On the bright side, Microsoft has mostly stayed out of embedded systems. Sadly, it probably
won't last.

Queue Bill Gates comment that "if GM had kept up with the technology like the computer industry has,
we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon." To which Lee Iacocca
responded "If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars which, for no
reason whatsoever, would crash twice a day."

Tony

--
"If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything." Mark Twain

On Sun, 7 Sep 2003 19:08:44 +0100 someone who may be "Tony Raven" <[email hidden]>
wrote this:-

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Anyway automatic operation is not infallible.

Its a damn site less fallible than humans.

Yes and no.

What happens with automatic systems is that the responsibility passes from those directly involved
to those indirectly involved. Instead of relying on drivers one relies on maintenance staff and
programmers.

There is also the problem of what to do when the automatic system fails. The general means of doing
so is for the driver to drive, but this is a problem if the driver has lost their skills due to not
exercising them enough. A way to avoid this is to make the driver drive manually at times, for
example on the Central Line in London the idea was (I assume that it has been implemented) for
automatic operation only to take place in the peak periods when it is essential to run the service
as smoothly as possible. Outside these ours drivers drive, under the supervision of the automatic
system, to ensure that they keep their skills.

--
David Hansen, Edinburgh | PGP email preferred-key number F566DA0E I will always explain revoked
keys, unless the UK government prevents me using the RIP Act 2000.

David Hansen said:

On Sun, 7 Sep 2003 19:08:44 +0100 someone who may be "Tony Raven" <[email hidden]>
wrote this:-

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Anyway automatic operation is not infallible.

Its a damn site less fallible than humans.

Yes and no.

What happens with automatic systems is that the responsibility passes from those directly involved
to those indirectly involved. Instead of relying on drivers one relies on maintenance staff and
programmers.

There is also the problem of what to do when the automatic system fails. The general means of
doing so is for the driver to drive, but this is a problem if the driver has lost their skills due
to not exercising them enough. A way to avoid this is to make the driver drive manually at times,
for example on the Central Line in London the idea was (I assume that it has been implemented) for
automatic operation only to take place in the peak periods when it is essential to run the service
as smoothly as possible. Outside these ours drivers drive, under the supervision of the automatic
system, to ensure that they keep their skills.

Still ignoring the fact that 80% of air accidents are due to pilot error I see ;-)

Tony

--
"If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything." Mark Twain