THE BRITISH THREAD II

By the way George, and anyone else who is following this incident & investigation, the UK professional pilots have a "rumour network" at http://pprune.org.uk/
but the server is too busy at the moment.

Many many moons ago I entered a novelty race at our local swimming pool. the object was to progress the length of the pool using any means apart from swim or boat. I chose and rode a bicycle. I'll have you know its damn near impossible to ride a bicycle underwater.

thanks dp

I dont intend to get further practice.

Sounds like a good plan for England during the winter steve.

Irn-bru?
enlighten me

I could look it up i suppose but you owe me for being droll

You can take courses in one of the pools in our local thermal spa ´(they've 12 underwater bicycles) ...

Irn-Bru is made in Scotland from gurdurs.

I have had several experiences in directing after-the-fact investigations of aircraft accidents (all in the military). There is almost always a substantial element of ambiguity or uncertainty - except in those relatively rare cases of demonstrable material or systems failure (a good deal of effort goes into the design of systems to make them immune from single point catastrophic failure -- as a result failure at the man-machine interface is more common.)

In commercial aircraft accident investigations the financial and liability stakes can be very high on all sides - pilot, airline, manufacturer, airport, controllers, etc. This doesn't make it any easier. However, I expect the British aviation authorities will do a good job of it - though it may well take some time.

Flying is still relatively safer than riding in an automobile - or riding a bycicle through deep streams.

http://www.visit4info.com/details.cfm?adid=14590&version=6

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfiqrkV_ZqI&feature=related

Following George.

That got me wondering whether insurance companies, exploiting cross-directorships, old-boy networks, future promises, tickets for Wimbledon and such like things, would, operating on sound and tried and tested business principles, could arrange, or partially arrange, that the investigation came up with the answers which were the least likely to cause them any unnecessary outflows of moolah.

After all- the profanum vulgus can be made to swallow anything in these technical areas with the appropriate amount of spin and by offering explanations which can be carried off to the pub and used to parade an insider knowledge the rest of us are too stupid to understand.

Last night in the pub one could easily tell which newspaper someone had read by simply comparing their astute insights into this matter with the range of emphasis which various newspapers had chosen to speculate upon and that emphasis is determined by their knowledge of the type of reader they attract and the expertise within their offices immediately prior to putting them to bed.

Does anyone know how insurance is arranged for these long haul flights? One might imagine, with large amounts of readies on the line, that the premium for a 777 flight of 8,000 miles with 130 passengers would not be the same as that for a similar flight bringing back 400 senior executives with litigious dependents. What does the fine-print look like on the agreements and are these negotiated on a minute by minute basis as the exchange rates are?

The mind boggles.

A bloke in the pub has a mobile phone which can tell you what tune is being played on the tannoy and who the artists/s is/are simply by holding it near the speaker. A few seconds and the screen flashes it up. He said that if you tapped out a rhythm on the bar top with your finger it can identify that as well. So I tried On Ilkley Moor Baat 'at and up it came although it didn't identify the artist on that occasion.

If they can blame it on Boeing, they will. :wink:

That's an amazing phone. I've got a pal who can do that, for anything recorded before 1975 only though.

you are excused. The professor said its an unusual derivative, bi from the latin and cycle from greek. Hence bicycle.

In your highly valued opinion George do you think "pilot error" is the cheapest for the insurance companies?

Always follow the money is what they say.

Depends on whose insurance companies you are speaking of. The airline is on the hook no matter what is the outcome (assuming there are no, as yet undisclosed, air control issues). Equipment failure could transfer some of that liability to the manufacturers. (I suspect that is a key issue.) The pilots have a mostly personal stake in the matter, in that a finding of gross error could affect their future employment.

The truth is - as was noted earlier in the thread - it is remarkable that passenger injuries weren't far worse than what resulted.

Of course its the cheapest option. But 10/1 it wont stick this time.

Anyhoo for those concerned about my recent near drowning/bIcYcling experiences rest assured I will not have to re build the main crank. My friend says keep it warm, bring it inside for a few days. Fine but where does mrs Steve sleep?

There never was a bike built for Britain yet that couldn't take a lot of water.

British women are the same. Bulldog breed.

Irn-bru made from gurders. I'm having trouble with that but I get the picture.

We have beer. Its made from ... beer, with ... attractive yeast.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Mj-z-BbvlHs

What kind of people put commercial adverts on YouTube? People of advanced geekiness I suppose. Or mad people, like me.

That horse was a Clydesdale by the way.

The Carlton united brewery clydesdales are really quite famous here. The company still maintain a team of hoses for show and promotion events.

http://www.fosters.com.au/Clydesdales/

The advertisers put the commercials on youtube. any exposure is good exposure

Georgeob--can a 777 land fully by wire?

McT- we made a haggis the other year, vile is a word that I use to describe it.
I believe that with such a marketing slogan, sales would plummet.
We should let spendi dissect that sentence. (keeps im in the home)

Steve, bicycling in water sounds interesting.Id opt for an all plastic one though. Amazing things can be done with plastics these days. Ive heard that they even have a bamboo bike.

Yes - they have been around for a long time. There may well be some local airfield/aircraft certifications & restrictions limiting it in some places - however I suspect Heathrow has all the best features.

We even had systems that were theoretically able to land an F-14 (and other aircraft) on a carrier at night. However, I don't know anyone who would trust it - there is just no way to compensate adequately for the motion of the flight deck, which describes kind of a figure eight with vertical & lateral amplitudes of (typically) +/- 20 ft, in a normal sea and over twice that in rough conditions. (your hook to ramp clearance on a perfect pass is about 13 ft and you have to engage the wire within 10ft of the centerline.) However we would often use it at night up to about a quarter of a mile from the ramp. The auto throttle was more useful - it would adjust engine thrust to maintain a preset angle of attack (this may sound a bit backwards, but - unlike airliners - we flew a constant attitude, nose high approach all the way down the glide path.)

Disengaging either system had its pitfalls if the pilot wasn't aware of it and alert. That was the basis for my speculations above.

Finally the ships would frequently restrict their electronic emissions to avoid detection, and there seemed little point in becoming dependent on an automatic system (the data link to the auto pilot) that might not be there when you really wanted it.