May 27, 2011

There were 2 posts published on May 27, 2011 (this is page 1 of 1).

Air France 447 black boxes

Ages ago when I was taking ground school, thinking I would get my pilot’s license, I asked my pilot friend some questions about the mechanics of flying. To my surprise my friend, a retired Eastern Airlines Boeing L-1011 pilot, could not answer my simple questions. I wondered to myself how a seasoned pilot could not know the basics. It seemed to me that, like many things people do in their jobs, the skill of flying a plane becomes second nature to many pilots and they no longer have to think about what they’re doing.

Except when they do have to think. Like in an emergency.

The news today is that investigators of the doomed Air France flight 447 have found evidence that pilots were pulling the nose up on the plane in reaction to the stall warning.
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Doggie arms race

The suspect

I’m locked in a doggie arms race when it comes to the garden. Once the plants were in the ground, I surrounded the garden with a two-foot-high wire fence, thinking that that would be enough disincentive for Rocket, our boneheaded Labrador, from wandering in and grazing.

I should’ve known better. At first I surrounded the garden on all sides but one, leaving a three-foot-wide opening to walk in. I was anticipating Rocket would be too lazy to walk all the way around. Needless to say, it didn’t take long to see that this wasn’t working. A few days later, I put up more wire fence to block it all the way around.

Then I saw the fence next to my new fence was dented outwards, as if a big, clumsy, lazy dog had not quite cleared it on his way out. I didn’t do much about that, preferring to keep an eye on it. Turns out I never saw that happen again: it seems the height was enough to keep him from jumping it.
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