[FRIAM] Flight Training and Deprecated Skills/Languages, etc.

Thu Aug 13 17:26:39 EDT 2020

Steve:
*" I still have a coal-fired forge and an anvil, both probably manufactured
100 years ago, that I can shape and even temper iron and steel with (and
aluminum if I'm incredibly careful), but I do not and never will have the
skills required to do it well, and certainly not to replace what modern
industrial processes can achieve... barring a full apocalypse, it is merely
a quaint "hobby" that might afford me the opportunity to turn out some
rustic items others would mistake for "art",  or more often, repair the
various related tools I might *use*in my forge...   though in most cases a
strap and some bolts or rivets makes more sense than trying to re-weld a
broken connecting rod, or lever. " *

Do you watch "Forged in Fire" on the History Channel?
TJ

============================================
Tom Johnson - tom at jtjohnson.com
Institute for Analytic Journalism   --     Santa Fe, NM USA
505.577.6482(c)                                    505.473.9646(h)
*NM Foundation for Open Government* <http://nmfog.org>
*Check out It's The People's Data
<https://www.facebook.com/pages/Its-The-Peoples-Data/1599854626919671>*

============================================

On Thu, Aug 13, 2020 at 12:00 PM Steve Smith <sasmyth at swcp.com> wrote:

> I actually knew someone who lived near the Embry-Riddle location in
> 2000/2001 where several of the 9/11 pilots learned to fly well enough to do
> what they did.   She had friends (go figure) who worked at a strip-club who
> claimed these "boys" were regulars there.  It was pretty creepy 2nd order
> connection.
>
> My uncles were both pilots in WWII but the older was trained up on the
> newfangled idea of a helicopter and proceeded to become a test pilot for
> Sykorski.  He was forced into retirement (chief test pilot) to a desk at
> 65.   Nobody wanted to ground him, but "rules is rules" and in fact his
> health degraded acutely and abruptly and he died just a few years later.
> His family insists it was from "heartbreak" from being grounded.
>
> I have a "young" friend (now 40s) who was just finishing up his commercial
> certification at Embry-Riddle Prescott on 9/11 and claims that the bottom
> not only dropped out for commercial pilots for the next couple of years,
> but has "never recovered" and he has been making a living as a bartender
> ever since.   Perhaps it is time for him to revisit.
>
> My ex brother-in-law left his career in the Air Force to become "a bus
> driver" and recently was retired (for age) from Delta.   Even 30 years ago
> things were incredibly automated.   I see no reason that airliners won't be
> entirely automated and teleoperated in the next 20 years.   The
> risk-profile of such things is evolving as self-driving cars (and more
> aptly? Semi-tractors?) emerge.
>
> The hyperloop game is going to change long distance rapid-transit
> eventually.   I don't believe anyone is planning for underground
> "ballistic-trajectory-velocities" quite yet, but mag-lev-centered,
> evacuated tube, zero-grade velocities could still be pretty impressive, and
> energy consumption as well with magnetic (regenerative) braking.     The
> earliest days of railroading involved gravity-trains often with empty
> return cars being towed by animal power.   Yet others used water from the
> high-side source as "ballast" and if the up/down routes were mechanically
> coupled, the extra weight of water plus load would allow the empties to be
> returned "for free".
>
> Regarding Dave's friend's drug conviction, Denzel Washington's (one of a
> series of flawed) character in the movie Flight is a drug-addled pilot who,
> by implication in the story, actually achieves a heroic manouver *because*
> he's still jacked on the cocaine he snorted to lift himself out of his
> alcohol hangover.    The setup is that a jackscrew controlling horizontal
> stablizer breaks, forcing the nose of the plane down with no recourse...
> Denzel's character quickly recognizes the futility of the situation and the
> *opportunity* of rolling the dive into an inverted orientation such that
> the forced "nose down" is now "nose up".
>
> Popular Mechanics (of all places) had an article on the plausibility of
> the Cocaine effects supporting the story (rather than the mechanics of
> inverted flying).
>
> I suspect I could get work myself using my 40 year-stale FortranIV
> experience on "mission critical" systems already old at that time, but
> still in some sort of service.  I did a huge senior project on a FortranIV
> system for simulating exo-Terran atmospheres (e.g. Mars) which might well
> be still be in service?   Fortunately my COBOL/RPG experience is so slim
> I'd never be tempted to try that domain.
>
> I'd like to believe that the myriad "stale skill" job opportunities
> (demands) we see today are going to be yet-more-fully deprecated.   I still
> have a coal-fired forge and an anvil, both probably manufactured 100 years
> ago, that I can shape and even temper iron and steel with (and aluminum if
> I'm incredibly careful), but I do not and never will have the skills
> required to do it well, and certainly not to replace what modern industrial
> processes can achieve... barring a full apocalypse, it is merely a quaint
> "hobby" that might afford me the opportunity to turn out some rustic items
> others would mistake for "art",  or more often, repair the various related
> tools I might *use*in my forge...   though in most cases a strap and some
> bolts or rivets makes more sense than trying to re-weld a broken connecting
> rod, or lever.
>
> Meanwhile, the discussion of how our "first programming language" defines
> us, I believe that my earliest "programming" experience was more "analysis"
> of the circuitry of pinball (and vending) machines in my friend's father's
> workshop where he repaired them, and there were always an array of pinball
> machines in various states of repair, with all the guts open for inspection
> while operating.   Very much an analog/digital hybrid system while the
> older vending machines were essentially all "rod logic" (albeit simple).
> Later, at my first employer (radio station) I learned the ins and outs of
> automated infinite loop carousel "programming" which was a hybrid of relay
> and mechanical (rod/gear/lever) logics.    The "programming" was really
> simplistic, involving inserting "shorting pins" in matrices to define
> priorities and timing to get the "right" mix of commercials, PSAs, and a
> diversity of music played during any given period (usually a 4 hour
> shift).   I can't say how much it influenced my later understanding of
> "computer programming" which I was being introduced to simultaneously by
> our Driver's Ed teacher who had somehow wrangled a PDP-x rack into a small
> room with a teletype/paper-tape-punch.  He didn't really have a clue, he
> was learning BASIC along with us, following a simple set of "sample
> programs" listed in what I think was the "owners manual" for the machine.
>
> Ramble,
>
>  - Steve
>
> Does it include lessons on how to land the plane?
>
> —Barry
>
> On 12 Aug 2020, at 21:53, Frank Wimberly wrote:
>
> I just got an email from a flight training program offering me a nine month
> course to get a multi engine commercial license. They don't read the Friam
> listsrv, I hope. I'm too old in any case.
>
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
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