Flying Magazine

I didn't get to read it but I agree with what the guy commented whole heartedly. Recently GE has run commercials about a new software program running on various airliners. It has two guys diving off of a cliff and one makes a continuous clean dive all the way into the ocean below while the other man stops in mid air a couple of times only to make an ugly belly flop into the water below. During the video a spokesmen explains how there software not only increases efficiency and decreases noise but it states that landing an airplane used to be hard and labor intensive, with multiple step downs, checklists, and and procedures, this new software makes it all disappear, allowing for a steady easy descent... Now maybe this is just me taking it personally and the wrong way, but as an airline pilot I am insulted. I know that my Dash-8Q200 is a small turboprop, only seating 37, and with the exception of the EFIS displays and a couple of basic flight computers is a very manually flown airplane requiring good stick and rudder skill. I like my job, which is flying, I fly it up to cruise before I turn GEORGE on, often if a flight is less than an hour I fly it the whole way. I guess I would not be nearly as aggravated with GE if they would have just said, "This software helps the pilot do all of those things," Because thats what it does, rather than just say the software flies the Darn airplane.


Thoughts...
 
All I have are three basic requirements:

a. Be respectful to me and my users. I've heard it all, there's nothing you can say to hurt me that hasn't already been tried so don't waste your time, but be cordial to my users because one of them is liable to get pissed and cut your nose off. I don't tell my moderators to "pre-dig your holes" for no reason now... (:sarcasm:)
b. No matter what your opinion is, be helpful and explain yourself. "UFC is teh best sport EVAARR!" is cool, but if you can't calmly and cogently explain why, you're wasting everyone's time and doing the electronic equivalent of spray-painting "Yo, I'm a bad ass" on someone's fence. And if you're going to source something, SOURCE it. A URL to ChemTrailersAreReal.com/borrocks-birth-certificate-declared-invalid is not sourcing.
c. Don't get me on a bad website list. I'm not a prude, but the people who design website filters are.

If I have to run that many ads on the website, might as well shut it down because that just kills the user experience. Mission first, pay the bills second. Advertisers over the years have demanded I close certain topics or threads and I have to remind them that an erased bad topic is 5x worse than a calm, rational response. However, I have to agree that some people use anger + anonymity just to be a thorn in people's sides.

True story. I knew a guy who failed A LOT of checkrides where it was always, seemingly, someone else's fault. But it wasn't his fault, approach or responsibility, it wuz dat evil flight skool! YAAAAAAR! A lot time ago though.


Thats why we like ya Doug!
 
I didn't get to read it but I agree with what the guy commented whole heartedly. Recently GE has run commercials about a new software program running on various airliners. It has two guys diving off of a cliff and one makes a continuous clean dive all the way into the ocean below while the other man stops in mid air a couple of times only to make an ugly belly flop into the water below. During the video a spokesmen explains how there software not only increases efficiency and decreases noise but it states that landing an airplane used to be hard and labor intensive, with multiple step downs, checklists, and and procedures, this new software makes it all disappear, allowing for a steady easy descent... Now maybe this is just me taking it personally and the wrong way, but as an airline pilot I am insulted. I know that my Dash-8Q200 is a small turboprop, only seating 37, and with the exception of the EFIS displays and a couple of basic flight computers is a very manually flown airplane requiring good stick and rudder skill. I like my job, which is flying, I fly it up to cruise before I turn GEORGE on, often if a flight is less than an hour I fly it the whole way. I guess I would not be nearly as aggravated with GE if they would have just said, "This software helps the pilot do all of those things," Because thats what it does, rather than just say the software flies the Darn airplane.


Thoughts...

That stuff has been around forever. Heck, this 20+ year old Boeing design shoots fully-automated non-precision approaches in VNAV PTH like you wouldn't believe. Multiple stepdowns are replaced by a smooth computed glidepath to MDA. It's really sweet to watch it do its thing.

Is it safer than multiple stepdowns? Yep. Just like SteveC said, it's all about who's got their hands on the technology. Professional pilots flying automated jets are going to be safer than the guys flying steam around. The pros know how to work the automation to their advantage to reduce workload and increase SA. That Dash flying you're doing is no doubt some of the most challenging flying out there, but I'd wager you'd see an increase in safety with a bit more automation. Nothing wrong with that.
 
my google works, doesn't yours?
Don't get what you're saying.

I'm wondering what happened to all the good columnists that used to write on there. Now it is, as another poster said, just a vehicle for Bertorelli rants. Granted, he's got generally the right idea most of the time, but I miss the technical articles about stuff ranging from maintenance topics to What It Was Like flying The Hump in WWII.
 
Don't get what you're saying.

I'm wondering what happened to all the good columnists that used to write on there. Now it is, as another poster said, just a vehicle for Bertorelli rants. Granted, he's got generally the right idea most of the time, but I miss the technical articles about stuff ranging from maintenance topics to What It Was Like flying The Hump in WWII.


The question is rhetorical. What happened to all the "role models" you had growing up? The more we "mature" (this is significant) and the more we experience in life, the more we are to express a perspective about subject matter material. This means expressing opinions both pro and con. We, technically, have good/great "columnists" here on this site, but they're not getting paid. Additionally, we have "columnists" here in this forum who opinions I agree/disagree on relating to a multitude of subjects. . .i.e. - "logging PIC time." ;)

Cmon, what really makes a "good" columnist? After all, it's still an opinion "usual" in agreement with the opinion of the editor, right?
 
1) Flying Magazine is kryptonite to anyway who is even halfway attuned to advertising and its multivalent evils.
2) Dough is a pretty ok dude, which is as high praise as I give (to a dude)
3) The glass vs. steam thing has been done to death, but having reasonably extensive experience with both now (I think, anyway), I wouldn't give a plugged nickel for a glass Ace who has never flown steam. Bottom line. *shrug*
 
Cmon, what really makes a "good" columnist? After all, it's still an opinion "usual" in agreement with the opinion of the editor, right?
There are NO MORE columnists on there. All the columns-Leading Edge, Savvy Aviator, Pilot's Lounge-they've all gone dead with nothing to replace them. All it is is news and Bertorelli's blog.
 
1) Flying Magazine is kryptonite to anyway who is even halfway attuned to advertising and its multivalent evils.
2) Dough is a pretty ok dude, which is as high praise as I give (to a dude)
3) The glass vs. steam thing has been done to death, but having reasonably extensive experience with both now (I think, anyway), I wouldn't give a plugged nickel for a glass Ace who has never flown steam. Bottom line. *shrug*

OK, and you need to think back to the days when our grandfathers/grandmothers flew without the "technology" you/we are flying today. . . when you flew YOUR first flight as a neophyte pilot. If those "old heads" were computer/internet savvy, they would make the same "comment" about us.

Bottom line *shrug* ;)
 
There are NO MORE columnists on there. All the columns-Leading Edge, Savvy Aviator, Pilot's Lounge-they've all gone dead with nothing to replace them. All it is is news and Bertorelli's blog.

I stopped reading Avweb back in the day when the fat dude with the 310 sold it. Everything since then has been...eh, predictable.
 
Much of the argument centers around the tools (glass, automation, sophisticated navigation systems) when in fact it is not the system that creates safety, to quote Dekker. It is the people using the tools and creating a safety culture. And for every advance there is a new and often un-anticipated error being introduced. Also, as systems get more complex and connected they can and do fail in complex ways. If we take almost any event that blows into an accident, the aviator has to contend with going from a relatively low workload to a very high workload which is often presented with a LOT of information that s/he has to sort through to see what is applicable and relevant.

Personally I like a combination of some round dials with glass. With just a quick scan I can see where the needles are pointing and when they are moving. It takes a second or two longer to actually read the digits on the presentations.

As for flying different airplanes the first thing I ask is what will bite me and what are the strengths. I then play to the strengths and respect the weaknesses which ALL airplanes (and machines, systems, etc) have.

As for Flying, it is tough times for ALL magazines and print media. The advertising revenues are down. Look at Av Week which is a shell of its former self when it was an 80-90 page weekly. Writers are let go. The ones that stay are asked to multi-task and do streaming stuff. Garvey at BCA has had to take on multiple hats besides being editor. But good writing is still good writing and that is what will attract readers.
 
Oh, we all have our bottom lines, no question. I have the niggling suspicion that mine might be a little bit more informed by the business of flying airplanes than yours. *shrug* back atcha! ;)

. . .which I won't argue, honestly. My point? There's someone else with the same thought as yours believing he is JUST as informed as you are who will be quick to offer a dissenting opinion to yours. . .rhetorical as you know that statment is.

From watching "Bully Beatdown" today comes an applicable quote, "just when you think you're the biggest baddest guy on the block, there will come someone ELSE bigger and badder than you are." The analogy is the same.

Just a fact. . .
 
Look guys...we could turn this into a discussion about Glass vs. Steam, or stick and rudder skills vs. technically advanced aircraft people...but I really don't want to detract from what I wanted this thread to really be - a hatefest on Flying magazine and Goyer. Please get into the spirit of the thread.
 
Oh, we all have our bottom lines, no question. I have the niggling suspicion that mine might be a little bit more informed by the business of flying airplanes than yours. *shrug* back atcha! ;)

I'd have to agree with this post. AFAIK, the columnist being discussed here doesn't fly for a living, right? He may fly and make money, but not necessarily for a living.
 
From watching "Bully Beatdown" today comes an applicable quote, "just when you think you're the biggest baddest guy on the block, there will come someone ELSE bigger and badder than you are." The analogy is the same.

Just a fact. . .

Well, that seems more like an opinion to me. But I guess we all have our opinions about what the "facts" are.

For me, the fact seems to be that if you have not been taught to visualize (and then demonstrated ability in visualizing) yourself in three dimensional space via "low-tech" methods which require cognition and recognition of the elements that make up the picture, you are essentially hampered in your "situational awareness". The most apposite analogy I can come up with off the cuff is an artist being taught perspective by a "paint-by-numbers" system vs. an artist learning the same through experiencing and mastering the transmission of three-dimensional visual data to a two-dimensional representation of the same. Both artists can create a realistic looking canvas, but the one who has had to confront the difficult conceptual work of, for example, representing a distant cloud which is, say, rhomboid, in three-dimensional space, as a triangle (or whatever) has a deeper and more useful understanding of what's "really" going on in the job. And I submit to you that in the work of flying, these abstractions have very real, rubber-meets-road applications. And that if you haven't done the work of thinking in this way, you're just not going to be capable of understanding what you don't understand.

As an aside, your reductionist argument is enticing, but it's essentially bankrupt. Of course it's natural for those trained in the "old school" (of anything) to dismiss the competence, value, etc of those who aren't. The thing is, this doesn't make them either right or wrong, and arguing that an older way of learning things is superior doesn't necessarily indicate that the purveyor of this view is arguing so simply out of a fit of pique or an irrational attachment to "the old way" simply because it's "theirs". That may or may not be the case. In this particular instance, I don't think it is.

Again, I'm not making this up because it makes me feel special or "big" as your trite, smug analysis would suggest. I'm arguing it because it seems absolutely true in my neither exhaustive nor inconsiderable experience in the subject at hand. It's truly NOT necessary to advance an opinion to the exclusion of rational discussion, it's up to you.
 
Look guys...we could turn this into a discussion about Glass vs. Steam, or stick and rudder skills vs. technically advanced aircraft people...but I really don't want to detract from what I wanted this thread to really be - a hatefest on Flying magazine and Goyer. Please get into the spirit of the thread.

Big Tent, dude. There's room for both. Seeing rag-earred issues of "Flying" on some remote FBO coffee table makes me vomit in my own mouth, imagining all those starry-eyed little birdmen sucking down the "wisdom" of Advertisers.
 
Well, that seems more like an opinion to me. But I guess we all have our opinions about what the "facts" are.

:yeahthat:

Exactamundo. I'll agree with that fact. Most of what you addressed afterwards, I will agree as well. I will disagree with any "hint" of my being condescending towards you in this thread. I simply can't argue contrary to the perception of personal experiences of others. How it affects ME? Perhaps yes. . .as for others, I can't/won't ARGUE to the contrary. Provide a different perspective? Yes. Argue? Nope.
 
I will disagree with any "hint" of my being condescending towards you in this thread.

Oh now really! "Bully Beatdown"?!?

Believe whatever you like, I suppose, but I submit to you that any schema of knowledge which dismisses the literally received wisdom of experience as "just a different perspective" is deeply flawed. The real, no-poop value of communication is supposed to be learning, not cleverly constructed freshman level "theory of knowledge" feints and rejoinders. On subject: In my (apparently not so humble) opinion, the value of being able to fly steam is something like "where am I and where am I going" in a more fundamentally conscious way than a moving map is going to be able to give you. If pushing the buttons on the glass were really all it's about, computers really should have been flying the airplanes all along.

Enough abstraction. Let's say that your F/O (or your Captain) somehow manages to dick up the FMS in such a way that you can't undick it. Or...the database expired, or the satellite exploded, or someone didn't seat the cannon plug properly and you're on peanut gauges and green needles. Or, I dunno, the damn Russkies have jammed the Satellites, Lonestar style. Now you're adrift. The weather is closing down at your destination, which is...KASE. You've got just enough fuel to get to Denver, but now it's shutting down too, making the TAF a liar again. The procedure calls for you to do a VOR/DME approach with envelope-challenging stepdowns. You somehow manage (with no steam experience, remember, just from your hour of "reversionary" training in the Magic Box/Torture Chamber) to shoot the approach to the minimums (and remember, no stabilized descent here...too steep, gotta step it down "old school" style) but you don't see the runway. Now you have to do the missed approach which IMS, involves tuning an LDA which will fly you up a ragged valley to climb above the absurdly high mountains on either side. Uhoh, you're picking up ice. And, oh my God, what are the odds...you just lost an engine.

In this scenario: I'm a burning grease spot on a mountain slope, no question. But a guy whose entire experience with flying an airplane is in "glass"? He became a lumpen piece of ballast at the beginning of the first paragraph. Now, here's the thing. Obviously, I haven't had all of these things happen to me at once...if I had, I would be the aforementioned burning bit of gristle. But I've had ALL of them happen to me at one time or another. Glass is neat, I like glass. It makes my life easier and allows me to do my job more efficiently. But it's an overlay, a convenience item. And I again submit to you that if you haven't learned how to think and conceptualize instrument flying in your own head, you're a very technologically savvy passenger.

OK, said my bit. Back to bagging on Flying Magazine, which, btw, I'm radically in favor of.
 
Look guys...we could turn this into a discussion about Glass vs. Steam, or stick and rudder skills vs. technically advanced aircraft people...but I really don't want to detract from what I wanted this thread to really be - a hatefest on Flying magazine and Goyer. Please get into the spirit of the thread.

I did meander away slightly from the post, but Boris helped me. ;) I'm trying to understand "why" the 'hatefest' for Goyer and the magazine. Are you opposed to the opinions expressed in the publication? Did I not miss both yours and Boris' reasons as a disagreement on the magazine's editorials about glass vs. steam, etc? What have I missed?

Oh now really! "Bully Beatdown"?!?

Believe whatever you like, I suppose, but I submit to you that any schema of knowledge which dismisses the literally received wisdom of experience as "just a different perspective" is deeply flawed. The real, no-poop value of communication is supposed to be learning, not cleverly constructed freshman level "theory of knowledge" feints and rejoinders. On subject: In my (apparently not so humble) opinion, the value of being able to fly steam is something like "where am I and where am I going" in a more fundamentally conscious way than a moving map is going to be able to give you. If pushing the buttons on the glass were really all it's about, computers really should have been flying the airplanes all along.

Enough abstraction. Let's say that your F/O (or your Captain) somehow manages to dick up the FMS in such a way that you can't undick it. Or...the database expired, or the satellite exploded, or someone didn't seat the cannon plug properly and you're on peanut gauges and green needles. Or, I dunno, the damn Russkies have jammed the Satellites, Lonestar style. Now you're adrift. The weather is closing down at your destination, which is...KASE. You've got just enough fuel to get to Denver, but now it's shutting down too, making the TAF a liar again. The procedure calls for you to do a VOR/DME approach with envelope-challenging stepdowns. You somehow manage (with no steam experience, remember, just from your hour of "reversionary" training in the Magic Box/Torture Chamber) to shoot the approach to the minimums (and remember, no stabilized descent here...too steep, gotta step it down "old school" style) but you don't see the runway. Now you have to do the missed approach which IMS, involves tuning an LDA which will fly you up a ragged valley to climb above the absurdly high mountains on either side. Uhoh, you're picking up ice. And, oh my God, what are the odds...you just lost an engine.

In this scenario: I'm a burning grease spot on a mountain slope, no question. But a guy whose entire experience with flying an airplane is in "glass"? He became a lumpen piece of ballast at the beginning of the first paragraph. Now, here's the thing. Obviously, I haven't had all of these things happen to me at once...if I had, I would be the aforementioned burning bit of gristle. But I've had ALL of them happen to me at one time or another. Glass is neat, I like glass. It makes my life easier and allows me to do my job more efficiently. But it's an overlay, a convenience item. And I again submit to you that if you haven't learned how to think and conceptualize instrument flying in your own head, you're a very technologically savvy passenger.

OK, said my bit. Back to bagging on Flying Magazine, which, btw, I'm radically in favor of.

Boris, my "Bully Beatdown" analogy related strictly to those who perceive themselves as the 'Dalai Lama/E.F. Hutton' of aviation. They are not; there are far too many others with varied experiences who can help others to learn/grow as pilots, they aren't necessarily "columists." Most importantly, I don't believe anyone should criticize a differing "opinion." Fact? Sure. . .opinion? BS. To say that 'glass is better than steam' or vice versa? Please. . .stop the madness.

As for your hypotheticals above, my "bottom line" takeaway was neither the advantages or disadvantages of steam/glass but training. Training will help to improve one's changes of survival in a severely off-nominal flying situation. Your 'reversionary' training should ALWAYS be more than perfunctory. It should be as if your life depended on it. If it's a weakness, you should fly it until it becomes a strength. Kinda like stick/rudder hand flying versus autopilot. It's simply a more efficient 'tool' to minimize the workload. It's never a substitute for your primary skills.

So, would anyone be inclined to contradict that?
 
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