APenNameAndThatA

How many hours do you have to have for s pilot licenceHow much for lessons $$

Wellcome to the club.

 

 

The safety people I have to deal with list seven controls including those you listed. Yes, automation counts a a control and is very good. I really care whether automation or other methods improved safety, because once applied, the safety people are very reluctant to remove it.I understand what you are saying in regard to equating safety with Hi-Viz and hard hats, but I have yet to meet a person employed in safety that doesn't seem to believe that Hi-Viz and hard hats will fix almost everything. My problem with it is that even though automation may have successfully lowered injury rates, the other controls tend to remain whether needed or not.

 

You say "Who Cares?". Well, myself and most people who are forced to wear such things and abide by processes that provide no benefit, and sometimes actually create a hazard. If they actually did as Turbo suggests and add or remove processes as actually required in a timely manner, they might get a bit more respect. We like the bare minimum of words to communicate, so why not the bare minimum regulation. Not to mention that Darwin's system work whether or not you try to stop it. They always find a way. Why can't society ditch the idea of having to protect people from themselves.

 

We had a busload of safety people (employed by the same company) tour our facility today in two groups. Each group was larger than our entire shift. No-one on the floor can work out why we have so many, especially as they keep telling us money is tight and our injury rate is pretty much non-existent and has been for years. (before we had so many)

 

The documentation is there to cover their arxe if the end with an investigation (see the OP). If they didn't need to cover that, then they wouldn't do it. Every course I've done emphasises the importance of documentation in case you end up in court and highlight it with a video (or several) featuring someone who did something silly then blames his employer for not stopping him.

That does sound a crXp situation where people work hard and are told to be efficient, and huge amounts of money are wasted on safety that does not include safety. I suppose there might be the problem of empire building and people wanting to cover themselves: both powerful motivators to not make safety systems more efficient.

 

 

I think this is just the opposite; over the past few years you had to pay to go to an institution to get a Certificate for food handling.For volunteers, this was an unwelcome expense. I haven't seen what the improvement has been from the start of food handling training, when 40,000 people a year were hospitalised from food poisoning (with a similar percentage in the US), but my perception is there has been a huge improvement.

This appears to be a volunteer sector, where the people involved can train themselves up to a required standard.

I think OME was complaining about the wording, not complaining about the training.

 

 

The greats, from Brubeck to Picasso, Hemmingway to Blanchett, are allowed to break the rules; but first they must learn them and master their field of activity.Meanwhile, the rest of us should stick to the rules.

Hemmingway did not break the rules. If he did break the rules, his books would be respected but people would not enjoy going to the effort of reading them.

 

 

Agreed that such things reduce injury and deaths, but it doesn't tell the story about how effective OH&S regulation is. Automating someone's job doesn't tell how much protection they got from their hardhat or safety vest, or how effective documenting training is. The documentation is there for one reason and it has nothing to do with safety.

Automation is a *much* better way of achieving safety than hard hats and vests.

 

The hierarchy of controls (as stated in Wikipedia) is as follows

 

• Elimination
   
   
  
• Substitution
   
   
  
• Engineering controls
   
   
  
• Administrative controls
   
   
  
• Personal protective equipment
   
   
  

 

 

Automation would count as elimination or as an engineering control, depending on the degree of automation. Automation is a very good method of making people safer. Hard hats and vests are personal protective equipment (PPE), the lowest form of maintaining safety. So, no, the figures do not say if the decrease in serious accidents was due to automation or PPE, but who really cares? The more it was due to automation and the less it was due to PPE the better.

 

As for documentation is for one reason and it not being safe, that cannot be literally true. The miners avoided more and more actual accidents to actual workers and the safety documentation was part of it. That does not mean that the documentation that *you* saw was useful, just that the overall documentation was part of a system that actually worked. If you equate safety with hard hats and hi vis vests, then that might be part of the problem.

 

 

Have they measured the extent that automation has been involved and factored that into their figures?

The rates were per 1000 workers so they probably did include drops due to automation, but not include job losses due to automation. The figures included the mining boom period, so they would have had increasing staff numbers for that period anyway.

 

Automation is a perfectly valid way to decrease injuries.

 

 

Well, doesn’t Avalon get called Melbourne by Jetstar even though, I am told, it is in Geelong?

According to Google maps, Avalon is 30 km from Melborne CBD and Melbourne Melbourne is 15 km from the CBT. Also, Melbourne and Geelong are merging into each other. Wellcamp is 10 km WEST of Toowoomba. It is a 142 km drive to the Brisbane CBD, and separated from Brisbane by the following towns/cities: Toowoomba, Helidon, Grantham, Gatton, Plainland and Ipswich. Brisabane and Ipswich are merging. Ipswich is probably Brisbane's Geelong. If they called an Ipswich airport "Brisbane Coalfields" then that would be fine with me.

 

 

It doesn't affect me but I see that the information about Brisbane West Wellcamp is on the CASA website. For those who don't know Wellcamp is a commercial airport being built West of Toowoomba and South of Oakey.CASA is studying the situation at the momennt, but I can see a large number of ALA's could be badly affected and more restrictions place on West of Brisbane flying areas.

Why would anyone do business with a family that would call an airport at Toowoomba "Brisbane West"?

 

 

Germany Is Buying 4 Northrop Grumman MQ-4C Triton UAVs

 

Says that Germany will buy 4 for 2.5 bn. Weird.

 

 

Its not a concern, more of an observation derived from years of reading inflated claims about sport aircraft performance.It is to be expected that a manufacturer/sales team will endeavour to cast their product in the 'best light" . All to often this marketing "understanding" is abused by highly improbable claims - particularity (but not exclusively) of high speed cruise, take-off, climb and range performance.

As an example - It might be worth checking out the wide range of light aircraft powered by the ubiquitous Rotax 912 ULS (100 hp). It is just not credible that a larger, heavier aircraft can outperform a lighter, slipperier aircraft fitted with the same engine, however there are a host of very sexy looking models that claim just that. There are a small number of Rotax 912 ULS powered aircraft that have had their performance independently verified. One such is VH-SGS built & modified by Robin Austin. Compare his world class performance with the unverified claims of so many others.

 

In my humble view, if an aircraft performance claim can not be supported by impartial testing/test data, the potential customer should view such claims with a very high degree of suspicion.

Wouldn't you just take along a GPS for the sales pitch flight?

 

 

 

The app seems to have a dislike of long sentences. It is fashionable to write in short sentences, and I try to. But good authors make long sentences work, adding richness and precision. I believe that the sentence above is actually easy to read, even if it is not worthy of a great author, or any sort of author. What do you think? I actually like it as a sentence, FIGJAM!

 

 

My thread. My drift.[ATTACH=full]61135[/ATTACH]

 

That's what that website thinks of the first paragraph of Ernest Hemingway's book, A Farewell to Arms! But I do agree with the audit of what I wrote.

 

 

[ATTACH=full]61134[/ATTACH]The mining industry serious claims rate has been falling for a long time, the safety systems seem to be working.

That is fascinating. Safety has been improving, even this century, never mind what happened in late 20th century. Also, mining looks about as safe as the average of other industries, which is huge, IMHO.

 

 

That is one of the reasons that it's ridiculously expensive to do business in this country. We have to employ so many non-productive people to cover the arxe of all levels of management. So many non-productive hours of safety meetings and toolbox talks. All so they can document their safety training.We have a ridiculous number of safety consultants and safety system managers, yet nothing has got any better. They just burden the workers with more process and paperwork in an environment where we are already drowning in documentation.

Yes we need safety, but there needs to be a balance. What we have and where we are going is nothing more than a parasitic industry sucking the life out of Australian business with little or no added benefit to anyone except those employed in the safety industry.

I agree that there needs to be a balance. If the safety process goes too far the other way, then there will be unnecessary injuries, which are very expensive. From time to time I see workers who have not come close to being killed, still look healthy, have some limitation caused by the injury and are no longer able to work in their usual job. In the short term, safety does make a business less efficient. James Reason, the original guru of safety systems, said that there is a pattern where businesses gradually get less safe and more efficient, have a serious accident, immediately become much safer, and then go back to being gradually more efficient. I wonder if something like that happened at Dreamworld. It opened in 1981. As far as I know, there were no deaths for 30 years. Then, bang! One accident and the whole business stops being viable. Amazing.

 

The safety stuff that you have described seems to outside the above model, with the safety people reducing efficiency without increasing safety. OME listed out the ISO 9001 requirements. The 9001 document is very short and can be summarised into one page, the quality cycle, as far as I can remember. The legislation, unified across Australia, is pretty simple, too: be as safe as practicable for the workers and customers. How to use a particular machine should be written in a manual. How to deal with particular situations like welders and fumes should also be well documented and in books. As far as I can tell, the stuff linking the top level (ISO, legislation) with the bottom level (machines and exposures) is where things get *really* complicated.

 

It should be that the people who try to increase safety, and the people who are frustrated by safety practices, should be able to meet in the middle. It would be really great if an external auditor would look at a business to see if their safety systems were making them inefficient; the high-ups businesses would love that information. Toolbox safety meetings are supposed to get information from the workers, at least as much as give information to them. The toolbox meetings should be an opportunity for workers to point out inefficiencies as well as point out dangers. The "safety officer" who was doing 100 kph in a 60 zone did not seem to be up to the job, to be frank. It is not a simple job. In the words of Rodney Rude, "You're supposed to ******* help, not make it ******* hard".

 

 

So why do so many people start their sentences with “So”? It is a pandemic.

Well, there are probably a few reasons. They are indicating that they have thought about what you said and they still have some questions. It is like saying “How are you?” when you meet someone. You don’t want to know how they are, but you want them to know that you are thinking about them and willing to be sociable.

 

 

"There is a Coronial Inquest being conducted at the moment in Queensland into the deaths of four people on a thrill ride at the DreamWorld theme park in 2016."

 

"at the moment" and "There is" do not provide any information. This would have been just as informative: "A Coronial Inquest is being conducted in Queensland into the deaths of four people on a thrill ride at the DreamWorld theme park in 2016". IMHO, the closer "Coronial Inquest" is to the start of the letter, the more punch the letter will have.

 

I do not expect any of you to care, but the base of the sentence is "A Coronial Inquest is being conducted" - pretty much a subject, verb and object. There are five unbound modifiers:

 

in Queensland

 

into the deaths of four people

 

on a thrill ride

 

at the Dreamworld theme park

 

in 2016.

 

Putting all the modifiers at the end of the sentence is good. If "Queensland" was at the start, the sentence would lose impact. If "2016" was earlier in the sentence, it would make it seem as though the inquest was in 2016. (The first two modifiers are about the Inquest. The last three modifiers are about the deaths. The last three modifiers helped move the sentence along, and not just end with just a description of the Inquest itself. ATM l am listening to lectures about unbound modifiers, you see.)

 

If you said "There is a Coronial Inquest in Queensland into the deaths of four people on a thrill ride at the Dreamworld theme park in 2016", then you save "being conducted": an inquest cannot exist if it is not being conducted. But saying that would add two different words, the sentence would lose the energy of "being conducted", and the reader might be left wondering what happened to the dramatic action (verb) that they were expecting. To me, the words "being conducted" make me imagine that I am the subject of the inquest, and motivate me to read the rest of the message. I don't know if commas should separate the modifiers.

 

It was easy for me to pick holes in the first sentence of the message, but a closer look showed lots of good things about it. I bet there were more that I did not spot. My own belief is that carefully auditing your writing will help you best serve your clients and yourself. Thank you for reading!

 

 

What style do you want me to adopt when I am writing to business owners? Shud eye youse leetspeak?

Um, you could be less stilted, use fewer zombie nouns and fewer unnecessary words?

 

You could ask, "What writing style do you think business owners would prefer?"

 

The sentence you wrote has you doing two things: adopting a style and writing. The sentence only needs to have you doing one thing: writing in a style. The phrase "the fact that" can usually be removed. You can direct the reader to something without telling them that the thing is a thing: one thing, not two.

 

 

I sent to following to the organisations for whom I conduct management audits. I think the message is well worth posting here.

DreamWorld and the Importance of Records of Training

 

There is a Coronial Inquest being conducted at the moment in Queensland into the deaths of four people on a thrill ride at the DreamWorld theme park in 2016. The evidence already given to the Inquest should be ringing alarm bells and waving warning flags in the face of every organisation that has a legal responsibility to safeguard the safety of persons (Work, Health & Safety) and the environment.

 

The evidence so far is pointing to a corporate culture in which training (in this case, of safety related matters) is haphazard. There also appears to have been no documentation of the content of the training topics, nor of the successful completion of the training by recipients.

 

Earlier, a former Dreamworld employee described witnessing an incident in which four rafts collided on the Thunder River Rapids ride over 15 years before the tragedy on the same attraction in 2016. Joe Stenning was beginning a shift as a deckhand on the ride in January 2001 when the empty rafts collided, forcing one to flip over. Mr Stenning said he couldn’t recall if he underwent any emergency training or retraining on the Thunder River Rapids ride after the incident.

 

The Inquest heard Dreamworld staff had openly discussed among themselves their desire to undertake emergency drills, a Queensland Inquest has heard. Training and compliance officer Amy Crisp told the court that emergency training was something staff were keen to receive.

 

“It was something that as operators we talked about wanting,” Ms Crisp told the Inquest. “It was just in conversation with other operators that there was an operator that used to work at Movie World and at Movie World they did things like this.” Ms Crisp is just one of several staff to tell the Inquest that not only had she not undertaken any emergency drills at Dreamworld she also had no CPR or first-aid training.

 

What has this got to do with Environmental Management?

 

Quite clearly this Inquest has brought into the open the fact that, if an incident occurs that gives rise to an inquiry with legal ramifications, either criminal or civil, then the inquiry will place a great deal of reliance on documentation of procedures and records that show that persons required to carry out those procedures have been adequately trained (including exhibiting their competence in following the procedure).

 

During audits conducted by Shark Consulting, attention is paid to the existence of this documentation, and related records. At previous audits, the focus has been on the practicalities of environmental risk management, and not so much on the documentation and records. This previous focus has proved effective for most client organisations.

 

Commencing with the 2018/2019 triennial independent audits, the focus will be on documentation, training and records. Not because these things are niceties, but because these things are an organisation’s insurance policy if it is drawn into an inquiry having legal ramifications.

Did you have to sound so stilted, and use so many zombie nouns and unnecessary words? For example, "Quite clearly this inquest has brought into the open the fact that" could have been left out. Instead of "place a great deal of reliance [zombie noun] on", you could have said, "rely [verb] on". You are changing how you audit - which is humble and self-reflective - but the way you announced it made you sound pompous.

 

 

But WHY is it always for the young or female.No chance of an older person needing a helping hand to change to a Job they could only dream about.

My cousin (UK) did three job changes before his short flying career. (depressurization popped an eardrum),

 

Ended up as a maritime navigator.

 

Sister-in-law's grandson is now a Jet jockey after his armed forces stint. Well out side your age bracket.

 

If you get a mature person that is interested, they could be (like me) put off trying.

 

spacesailor

One reason might be that young people have less disposable income than older people. They only get one TIFF, not all their lessons paid for.

 

 

:offtopic:

Why? What for? 

 

 

The Neville Chamberlain approach has something to be said for it. 

Maybe believing that was the only way she could cope with the situation. 

 

 

 Brest beating looks more masculine and gutsy than talking peace. Japan was cut off from  essential raw materials . That is a fact. You also make stronger those whom you bully. Harley Davidsons were built in Japan with agreement with the American company in the early 30's. They were called Rikuos .   Getting tough on IRAN now, mean the moderates there are not going to be able to influence anything. Just when they were starting to have influence.   Nev

The Neville Chamberlain approach has something to be said for it. 

 

 

There is, of course, an alternative view of the Pacific War.Lots of evidence points to a grand strategy by Churchill and Roosevelt to get a reluctant US into the war. They knew war with Japan was inevitable.

 

They must have known how the Empire of the Sun would react to the trade embargoes which were starving Japanese industry of the oil and minerals it needed.

 

This forced Japan into a war she knew she couldn't win.

 

The plan was to damage the US fleet and then, from a position of strength, negotiate a peace deal that restored Japan's access to raw materials.

 

If those two aircraft carriers had still been in Pearl Harbour, if Japan's Washington embassy had decoded and passed on the final ultimatum in time...

Puh-leese! WW2 started in 1936 when Japan invaded China. If the brakes had not been put on with the embargo, then Japan would have got stronger and kept on invading more and more places. If Japan had wanted access to raw materials, then they could have withdrawn from China and said "Sorry"! 

 

 

I haven't really looked at the Blackshape Prime as it is way out of my price range and also not what I require.It must be hard to be a dealer for this type of plane because the sales volume is so small that the price has to be upped to make it viable. One of the members who frequents this forum was dealer for a very nice plane, fast, looked good, nice aeroplane, but I don't know if he ever sold one and no doubt he bought the one he flew as a demo plane. Good luck to anyone who is trying to increase the number of flyers.

 

It is not necessarily better to be faster and in some ways, slower is best. The low slow Savannah or Drifter pilot will see far more on the journey, than i will in my faster Corby or RV4 and in some cases could even be faster point to point, by not having to stop to refuel. On a trip of about 120 miles I gave a Savannah a start of the time it took to preflight the Corby. We arrived at the destination at the same time and I think the speed difference is between 15 and 20kts.

Well, the Blackshape Prime is hardly any faster than a C182, an aircraft that murders it on practicality. Because of the range, the C182 would be much faster on a long trip. And, if you no longer have your GA medical (something that will happen to me one day) then you should probably be in a slower plane. 

 

 

I'm not sure that the Zero was more manoeuvrable than the Spitfire makes it a better plane. In the Pacific, the American fighters had a huge kill ratio at the end of the war. They swooped down, shot the Zeros, and left. If they had stuck around to dog fight, they would have been shot down. Speed is a great characteristic in a fighter.