[FRIAM] Flight Training and Deprecated Skills/Languages, etc.
Steve Smith
sasmyth at swcp.com
Thu Aug 13 17:38:44 EDT 2020
Tom -
I have not, but then I don't have conventional TV... however it
appears I can *stream* anything I want these days... I'll look it up!
- Steve
PS. Mary's grandfather was a full-time old-skool blacksmith in Nebraska
up into the 50s. Appropriately his surname was Strong. He was
apparently built like a dwarf. I got my start from an Irishmen built
more like a leprechaun... I had to stoop to use his anvil but his
forearms were more like Popeye's than a normal leprechaun. He could
also recite lines from myriad Irish poets and writers. How did our
generation get to be so dull?
> 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 <mailto: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
> <mailto: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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