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Jerry_Atrick

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Posts posted by Jerry_Atrick

  1. The one thing I notice in RA/VH experimental A/C is the panel layouts go from well thought out organised Std set up's to a real dogs breakfast! (the latter mostly the case) Whilst it's all about choice the worrying offshoot to all the unesesary fancy gizmos is who's looking out the window anymore?

    A recent flight in well equiped experimental that had all the bells & whistles showed that the driver was heads down for a lot of the flight even in the circuit!

    We will never really know how many inflight close calls we actually have cause nobody is looking out the window anymore! All this stuff interferes with reaction time and we ha e seen no doubt a lot of auto accidents attributed to the fancy techno crap!.

     

    For a long time, even though I had a Skydemon (something like OzRunways), I still marked up the map, manually entered the PLOG (using a beauty of a whizzwheel I got from LaTrobe Valley Aero Club), marked everything off as I went, did in-flight calcs, etc.. On one occasion though, I was running a tad late, so skipped the manual bit, punched the plan into Skydemon on my phone, checked wx, enroute NOTAMs, etc.. All good to go... jumped in and away we went.

     

    Normally, I try and familiarise myself wioth landmarks, but thought follow the magenta line - she'll be right. Had the map, not marked up.. No PLOG (which I hand write enroute checks in mnemonics).. just the phone.. And some old GPS unit of which the database wasn't updated since the day it was fitted. What could possibly go wrong?

     

    I made sure the iphone batter was fully charged, took off and as I knew the area well, headed west along a railway line past Farnborough. Sometime after, the landscape wasn't quite familiar. No worries (or wuckers if you are from my generation).. With flight mode on, the yellow plane was faithfully following the magenta line.. Problem was, I stoopidly (spelling error intentional) followed the magenta line with my eyeball. Hardly looked out until we got visual with the Severn river as I knew that area well (we - I had my son! - routed slightly out of our way as the inlaws live near there). While I was doing my best to follow the magental line, the actual track oscillated either side of it in a sort of random pattern.

     

    I flew IFR (I follow Roads) from the Severn Bridge to Clearwell, a small village in the Forest of Dean where the in-laws live, after which we turned left a bit to head north of Cardiff. I didn't even know what heading to take, I just followed the magenta line again.After passing Cardiff, we lost GPS.. from the phone - and the isntalled GPS unit. There was no NOTAM warning of GPS jamming, and my first response was (embarresingly) to almost panic. I sort of know where I am - but no idea where I am supposed to go. After about a second, I worked out I was roughly heading in the right direction - and we were flying direct to Haverfordwest.. Finally, I took note of the bearing, picked a landmark in the distance and headed for it.

     

    For the FIRST time since I left familiar territory, I recall looking out of the aircraft.. The little yellow plane sprung back to life after a few minutes, but I thought stuff that, I am going back to visual outside the cockpit.. And the plane followed the magenta line with very little deviation.

     

    It does suck you in... That flight taught me a lesson.. about why I love flying. Although the latest tech is a godsend, I like the challenge of getting everything right using my own noggin... I would write more, but my mate wolfie is banging on the door!

    Edit, the red circle in the picture below shows roughly where I lost GPS...

  2. Well you might not be such a loss but it matters to Facthunter so it matters to me

     

    @turbs - that is a little below the belt, ol' chap... Or at least the way I read it, it is.

     

    Whilst my business has all but evapourated, it has provided another window of opportunity I am working on... And, while I have been in general support of the response by governments who have taken early and strong responses to the virus - there does come a time where we have to look at adopting measures to allow society to open up again. However, we needed (and probably still need) a period of time of swift and strong measures to protect, whuile we work out enough about the virus to determine next steps. Are we there, yet? I am not sure. In the UK we are getting flare ups. BoJo has just mandated

     

    And, for each society, it will be different based on the culture of that society. For example, someone earlier provided data on the affect on Japan, not having had the harsh measures we have had. Well, this may work for Japan, as they are pretty well monocultural (one advantage to being that), and they tend to be a culture of obedience. I don't know if anyone recalls, but when they suffered the tsunami that knocked out Fukashima, there was news footage of younger Japanese walking in deserted streets (calmly) and stopping at Don't Walk pedestrian lights until they changed to walk - without a car on the road (well, maybe one or two were floating by ;-)). This could have been staged by whoever was broadcasting it (or the syndication network), but having worked with a Japanese Bank for a year (one of my clients), that culture of obedience is very strong (The Japanese never wanted to return to Japan for what was admitted to be the amount of freedom they had with their company here - which wasn't much). Sweden, who normally have an obliging population (and somewhat monoculture compared to many other Western European countries) have had a different outcome.

     

    One of the problems we (Aussies, Brits, etc) have to overcome, and one of the first steps to transition is an acceptance by all cultures (and I include Bogans and Ferrals) is that we have to comply with social distancing and other protective measures.. and like having sex with someone while you know you are infected with HIV, not complying is a serious criminal offence (over in England and Wales, having sex with someone while you are knowingly infected with HIV is an attempted murder or manslauughter charge - I think). And it has to be enforced. The minority groups, new from war torn countries or established, have to be educated (not just of the measure, but why) and there are no religious or other exceptions... Once some way to emperically meausre that the message had got out and has been understood/agreed upon, then you go to the next phase. etc etc etc. Exactly what those phases are, I haven't though about.. but the above is just a thought...

     

    The other thing is there does not appear to be a plan - from most of the western countries (though, Italy, France and Germany appear to be ahead of the curve). The population is getting restless. There needs to be something that they can hang their hat on - even if it has to change as new information comes to light. Without this, they may think things are rudderless and this allows conspiracy theories and general ignorance to propagate unchecked.

  3. If the Queen is in residence at Windsor, which is about 5 miles south of the approach to 09L, the will route the plaes into 27 (L/R) even with a tailwind component of, I think from memory, up to 10kts - may be lower.. so as not to inconvenience her maj, even though the noise that she would get would be not terribly instrusive compared to the 10's or 100s of thousands directly under the final approach into either 27 runway.

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  4. I have been to the middle east once for work - to a country that is considered quite western in its approach and lifestyle. Never, ever going back (voluntarily). A complete cesspit of depravity, opression and hypocrisy. People are deminstrating in the streets against slavery but if you look beyind the thin veneer of civility, in this country, slavery is alive and well. When work tried to send me again, I resigned. They retracted the requirement for me to go; I retracted my resignation.

     

    I have only seen the pyramids and the wailing wall from a postcard (well, on the 'net now).. I won't miss not seeing them in real life.

     

    Back to aviation, with the same company I worked in the Czech Republic a lot. There was no way, back in the late 90s I was going to take an Eastern European airlines flight regardless of the fact they had started flying Boeings. However, their flight times were more convenient and I was talked into taking them once.. I was flying with a colleague who was quite a bit heavier than me (I was once svelt). When we got to our seats, the row in front were bolted not parallel but to a decent angle to us where the ailse seat was so much close than the window seat, she had to give up her preferred ailse seat to me. My immediate thoughts were a) how the hell did they do that as I would have expected their would be fixing points for the seats; and b) if they aren't providing enough care on what we can see, what are they not doing right for what we can't see.

     

    Anyway, coming in to land, I could see we were too fast and the descent rate was too high... thinking they would go around, the bone compressing landing was followed by some serious braking that resulted in underseat life jackets coming out and induced a noticable skid on dry day! I have never flown that airline since.

  5. I suggest we carry this on through messaging rather than bore other people with our views.. But I want to state these three things publicly:

    • I used the term squire as a term of respect; I was going to use the term mate, but thought that may be interpreted too sarcastically/cynically. Maybe I should have used the term, sir or not reference the person.. so if you took offence, I publicly apologise - it was not the intention.
    • I don't think you are a hypocrite - quite the opposite actually - and I never asserted you were. I called the defending of U/L in this context and defending its use while castigating people for the use of ICAO codes as hypocritical. I was, in common parlance, attacking the ball, not the man. If the majority of the site take the position, then I don't resile... but I am calling the position of the site hypocritical - not the people or the site itself. So, please don't take it personally; in fact I respect and admire you as a person (online), your publicly expressed views and your publicly expressed opinions. And most often I agree with them. As I was accused of making a joke of everything, I thought it required me to be explicit.
    • ICAO Codes are synonymous with abbreviations. Unf. too many countries start with A and somehow we ended up with Y. The next 3 letters (e.g. BDG, MMB, etc) are abbreviations of the name of the aifield where they can; unf some airfields share similar names and they can't always be reflective. Either way, code or abbreviation, they are not easily understood without knowledge, especially colloquial ones - the difference is semanitcal..

     

    I personally don't see the considered use of codes and abbreviations as a big issue, especially for the reason cited. Happy to take it offline because I may be missing something.

  6. We will have to disagree, Nev.. I wasn't making a joke, I was making a point in an attempt at being non-offensive and not having a public spat on a public forum. People are being castigated for using internationally designated OFFICIAL aviation codes/abbreviations because it will put off those new to aviation. Anyone new to aviation and coming to this (or any other aviation forum) would reasonably expect aviation abbreviations and jargon to be used and I would hazard to guess, not be too put off by it (unless it was an over-exuberant use); and would happily google it. I have to admit, I get a little annoyed when people use them and I don't know what they are, but a quick google sorts it out.

     

    But using a colloquial abbreviation in a context to describe the properties of a landing area - by referring to the type of aircraft it can accomodate rather than saying short field or even spelling out the word ultrlight, and new people to "recreational flying" let alone aviation are supposed to somehow, by osmiosis, I suspect, work out what it is - and that is OK and defensible. Sorry, squire it is called hypocrisy by any other term. You either require people to use spell out all but the most common and easily decipherable codes/abbreviations etc so newbies aren't forever googling - and in the U/L case with no real prospect of working out what you mean - or don't castigate people for using them.. simples.

     

    I don't even get your point about the AUF.. Recreational flying may mean light sport aircraft or what we in the UK refer to as permit aircraft... but the term recreational virtually everywhere else in the English speaking world refers to private flying - and includes general aviation.. I honestly had no idea what you meant by U/L in the context of landing areas.. and google was of no assistsance, either.. Maybe in the context of diuscussing different types of aircraft, I could work it out.

     

    I would go so far as to say, after this spat, that the issue with using ICAO airfield codes is not because it would put newbies off, after all, newbies to any forum of a particular subject would expect OFFICIAL codes/abbreviation and possibly jargon to be used and be prepared to look it up - I think it more has to do with people not wanting to look things up and expecting others to spell it out for them to make their lives easier..

     

    Frankly, this issue is tiny.. if I don't understand anything or know anything, I look it up and if Mr. Google can't give me anything, then I ask - as happened with SIS (and no one complained about its use).

     

    [edits to correct typos - though I did invent a new word for a minute - abbreaviation... ]

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