Fate is the Hunter

[radarlove]

While that has been wonderful, how much greater to have that approach to minimums in drving rain, to hear the drops impacting the windscreen, the thunder over the engine noise, and, to say, " this one looks tough sir, it's your airplane." To see their calm, to watch them caress the controls, go with the turbulance, and see that smile once more as the wheels squeak.

I'm sorry, this sentance made me retch for some reason.

Maybe because I've been there, done that, got the tee-shirt, lost friends, and enjoyed a bit of frostbite that I don't see any romance in what was a truly dangerous time. I worked for a company that over five years, lost 10% of its fleet in NTSB catagorized "accidents", with many, many more "incidents".

Y'know what? Every SINGLE one of those accidents was caused by a dumb move by the captain. That's why I don't cut much slack to Gann when he takes off without cargo fully secured, or doesn't get his cargo weighed, or lets his airplane be over-fueled, or lets the airplane get double-loaded. None of these are "heroic" acts, they're the types of things that got my friends into trouble, and twice, killed.

For those that will take this as flame-bait, you're welcome to get mad, but I'm still a bit on the "okaaaaay..." side with some of his stories, especially the one about the engineer taking him to dinner and explaining that they had done exhaustive calculations and ONLY BECAUSE HE DID THINGS EXACTLY RIGHT DID HE LIVE TO SEE THE NEXT DAY THEY PROVED IT WITH THIER SLIDE RULES. Okaaaay, sure.

 

[Captain Overs]

Times were different back then. It's easy to look back at that time knowing what you know now, which isn't much. It's called "Monday morning quarterbacking". Heard of it? This job is what it is because of "Pioneers" who blazed the trail before us. Failing to appreciate that process shows your lack of empathy for the pilots who came before us. Why do you think A.L.P.A. came into being?

 

[radarlove]

Times were different back then. It's easy to look back at that time knowing what you know now, which isn't much. It's called "Monday morning quarterbacking". Heard of it? This job is what it is because of "Pioneers" who blazed the trail before us. Failing to appreciate that process shows your lack of empathy for the pilots who came before us. Why do you think A.L.P.A. came into being?

I don't think weight and balance was "pioneered" in 1940--I think they might have had a handle on that pretty early on, don't you think?

 

[Captain Overs]

Don't avoid the subject. You're still clueless about what pilots went through back then. If you want to nit pick the issue and try to prove you know what you're talking about fine. I know a few books that would help you understand what pilots went throught in the early days. I would be willing to send you a PM with those books so you could check them out, but I'm not sure you'd make it past the pictures. Cheerio!

And for the record...stop defending yourself. Your comment on this post say all that needs to be said about your lack of understanding.

 

[Captain Overs]

I almost forgot......Can you believe they used to fly single engine biplanes to deliver the mail in the 1930's? Jets are so much safer, I can't believe they would even consider flying recip biplanes.

 

[radarlove]

And for the record...stop defending yourself. Your comment on this post say all that needs to be said about your lack of understanding.

Lack of understanding of what? Certainly not of weight and balance. Or do you think it's heroic that of the eight or so harrowing stories, four were related to him not being concientious about things that pilots are supposed to be concientious about?

Next will come, "I'm tired of talking with you about this", which is the ultimate admission that a serial poster is wrong and can no longer make a coherent argument.

 

[Captain Overs]

I would never use that logic. You seem to be the one who's avoiding the issue and focusing on weight and balance. I'm talking about the whole era and what they went through. Your lack of understanding shows in the fact that you made your initial post. 95% of pilots think it was an incredible book. Flying was more of "Seat of your pants" back then. Things that would get you fired from an airline for doing today, but since you're "All-knowing" you already knew that.

 

[BoilerUP]

Its hard to ensure your cargo is secure when its been loaded by a bunch of Army soldiers and you are a civilian under military orders to make this flight and make it now. Could you have survived under such duress? There is a reason so many pilots died back in those days, and not all by what you would characterize as "stupid mistakes".

You want to know how we came to do things the way we do today? Ask an old-timer. They'll tell you how it "used to be", with no trumped-up chestbeating like you are insinuating here. Crappy weather, poor forecasts, face-on encounters with thunderstorms, unreliable equipment and poor charts helped cause just as many accidents (probably many more) than pilot error, but Gann never says the pilots weren't at fault in their accidents...he just said the numbers are indiscrimiate.

If you don't want to believe Gann's stories, thats fine; there are plenty of people who have corroberated his tales. But please, don't belittle the effect these men had on aviation.

 

[Crzipilot]

Lack of understanding of what? Certainly not of weight and balance. Or do you think it's heroic that of the eight or so harrowing stories, four were related to him not being concientious about things that pilots are supposed to be concientious about?

Next will come, "I'm tired of talking with you about this", which is the ultimate admission that a serial poster is wrong and can no longer make a coherent argument.

Hmmm..weight and balance issues. In present day life, the non-skeds and even some of the bigger freight operators had to change how they did things, Involving cookie sheets, and nets and tie downs and such, due to a little incident that occured. Some cargo shifted, prob. overweight (can you believe they'd lie about the weight of something going into an airplane), nets frayed, cookie sheets not tied down, cookie sheets damaged, etc etc etc. This happened in '97 and all of a sudden the feds started looking at how freight was handled. So let me guess, those pilots that were on that flight in '97 weren't concientious about it? You obviously have no clue as to why we are where we are today, as someone said earlier.

 

[BD King]

radarlove----------I guess I have failed. Other than making a few bucks, one of the reasons of starting a publishing business and republishing old aviation classics, was to try and educate today's pilot. That is to give a self understanding of who we are (were) and how we got to where we are today. With you, I have failed.

Ernie Gann gave his definition of an aviator verses that of just a pilot. I will not get into the definition, but you are only just a pilot, and will never graduate to that of an aviator. For some reason, I think most of the greybeards here will agree with me.

www.bdkingpress.com