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I can't believe I'm saying this but Manitoba was waaaaaayyy ahead of the rest of the country when it came to vaccination passports. I received mine on June 8th. Since then I've has no one kick in my door or tail me. I have had my personal email hacked but that's happened before my vaccinations too. Keep on removing privileges from those that choose not to get vaccinated and adding perks to those that have is fine by me.

No this is not aviation but since we’re talking a lot about the effects of COVID-19 on our lives, I thought it worth sharing. In these days of lockdown, there are plenty of examples of artists who are getting together to record music from a distance and some of them are really well done. I’ve been seeking them out and came across this one which was actually done a few months ago. It includes Robbie Robertson for some Canadian content. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

You are entitled to this belief and you are certainly not alone. Here's why I think your conclusions are a little unfair. I've tried to look at this from a familiar place and compare it to a similar crisis in aviation. I looked for an incident that presented similar issues. For best fit, it would need to be one which: the captain and crew had no hand in creating it - they were simply the ones on duty that day; none of the crew had ever seen it before, either for real or in a simulator; there was no SOP or checklist; the crew's ability to respond was significantly hampered by one or more unknown factors; and no matter what they decided, someone was probably going to die. The best example I found was the UAL DC10 that suffered a catastrophic engine failure and lost all hydraulics, leaving Captain Al Haines and crew with very little control over the aircraft. We all know how that day turned out. We also know that in spite of a textbook case of the application of CRM principles, many people still died that day when they "landed" at Sioux City. Yet not once have I heard anyone lay even a modest amount of criticism at the feet of Haines and his crew. They were lauded as heroes for their efforts because they had somehow managed to pull off a miracle. Yet none of them basked in the light of their accolades. They were all steadfast in their disappointment that things didn't turn out better, but they took solace in the fact that they did the best they could with what they had available. None of our current government leaders is responsible for the state of Canada's level of preparedness for a global pandemic on the day before this thing broke (sorry, but SARS was a mere blip by comparison). Our lack of preparedness was decades in the making. None of our current leaders negotiated the free trade deals that saw almost all of our pharmaceutical manufacturing capability move offshore. Every leader (nationally AND provincially) has made decisions which were later found wanting, but in many cases those findings came after more data was gathered and the situation was better understood. But according to some, their mere position of power makes them responsible for a lack of before-the-fact hindsight. IMHO, that's like saying Al Haines should have been able to spot that impending turbine failure during his walkaround, or that he should have anticipated that such a blade failure could wipe out all of the hydraulics on his airplane. Sure, okay, sounds reasonable ... I am not suggesting that all criticism be muzzled, I merely believe that our criticisms should require us to understand that none of us was being asked to make the decisions as this situation has evolved. I for one am glad that we've had the leadership we've had - warts and all. When this thing has passed and there's been time for reflection, I suspect that unlike the recently deposed man to the south, every political leader in this country will sincerely wish we could have stopped it sooner and that more lives could have been saved. They'll wish the damage to our social fabric had been less pronounced and that we could have come through this with less economic cost. I hope someday we'll all have a chance to reflect and at least try to understand that for all of the troubles this mess has brought, the notion that making decisions for an entire province or a country when so much uncertainty prevails is not for the faint of heart.

It's surreal to see the major aviation companies struggle to find AMEs and wonder why they can't find them. While the blame can't be completely attributed to them for the AME supply collapse, they had such an important role in reducing the attractiveness of the trade through stagnation of wages, reduction in benefits and a general contempt for their workforce that a wage uplift offer such as the one offered by Westjet, is both ridicule and insulting. Best of luck to Westjet maintenance staff!

Spent almost a year at Canada's Naval college. (HMCS Venture in Victoria), and then they changed their syllabus for us students to commence pilot training so I opted to resign and applied to RCAF. Short story.... After a month at HFX RCC as a controller I was made CO . Previous CO had a beverage problem. Down the hall was the office of MARCOM ops and there was always friendly rivalry between Navy and RCAF as both were housed in the Admiralty building. Shortly after my "upgrade" we had a search going between HFX and NFLD as a vessel with about 8 souls onboard went missing. My immediate boss was a full Colonel, (RCAFNavigator)., and he phoned me to tell me tha Admiral was coming into the RCC and wanted me to brief him on the search. The Admiral arrived, my boss behind him, and I took the Admiral over to the plotting board to brief him with what was going on. I pointed out that we had scrambled an Argus out of Greenwood and some Helos out of Shearwater and were waiting for a C130 from Trenton. Another Argus would join the search soon. I mentioned that the aircraft could cover more area in a shorter time and obviously had an excellent visibility even at 200-500 feet . I then stated we had his "boats" doing shore crawls because their visibility was restricted by their height above water. ((When I saw him give a slight grimace with the word "boats" , I knew I had him)) I mentioned that two of his "boats" were shore crawling the East coast of NS and we had one of his "boats" doing the same thing on the south coast of NFLD. More grimacing but he turned to me and thanked for the briefing and my boss and the Admiral left the plotting room. My boss returned shortly after, trying to look stern through his smile and suggested I stop using "boats" and use "Ships" when briefing the Admiral. BTW, the Colonel was a really good fellow and the morning HMCS Assiniboine ran aground when proceeding out of HFX harbour he came down to my office and suggested we go to the Stadacona Officers Mess and have a drink and then lunch......I wasn't going to turn that down.... We arrived,and the Officers mess was full of Navy officers, just us two in CAF uniforms with wings showing....The bar was crowded but my boss, who was about 6' 4", pushed through the crowd and said to the Steward " We'll have two of those new Navy Drinks" The Steward looked puzzled so the Colonel said to the Steward, a bit louder than necessary ," You know...we'll have a couple of Assiniboine on the rocks". The mess got a bit quiet and we departed with our drinks for the dining room. Real cool guy and he made sure I got C130s after my RCC tour.

https://skiesmag.com/news/rcaf-aircrew-assist-in-arctic-search-and-rescue/ Two crew members and eight passengers of an Air Tindi charter could have spent a very cold and uncomfortable night near the Nunavut-Northwest Territories border if not for the training and skill of three Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) search –and rescue (SAR) technicians and four members of the Diavik Diamond Mine emergency response team. The three SAR techs were part of a CC-130H aircrew from 435 Transport and Rescue Squadron at 17 Wing Winnipeg, Man., that responded to a call for assistance on the afternoon of Dec. 27, after a DHC-6 Twin Otter 300 operated by Air Tindi struck terrain about 20 kilometres from the Diavik mine. The charter flight had departed from Yellowknife, N.W.T., earlier that day for Lac De Gras, a lake near the territorial border about 300 kilometres away. The charter was in support of winter road construction in the area. The cause of the accident is still under investigation. 435 Squadron currently has a portion of its aircrews and CC-130H Hercules at 19 Wing Comox, B.C., supporting search and rescue from 442 Transport and Rescue Squadron while the RCAF finalizes operational test and evaluation of the new CC-295 Kingfisher fixed-wing aircraft. But the squadron had a primary SAR crew and aircraft on standby over the holiday. The call from the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre (JRCC) at 8 Wing Trenton, Ont., came in the early afternoon, said Captain Jason Shaw, who would serve as the aircraft commander. Alerted by an activated ELT beacon, the centre had contacted the Twin Otter crew and had detailed information about the location of the aircraft and the condition of all on board – including the extent of some of the injuries. After initial planning with the JRCC, Shaw and the rest of the aircrew and support staff began preparing the Herc, loading operational equipment and additional fuel as they finalized their flight plan for the three-and-a-half-hour transit from Winnipeg. On route, Shaw and Sgt Vincent Benoit, the SAR technician team lead, had developed some options for inserting three SAR techs onto the crash site. But once they arrived overhead, “it became apparent the weather was going to be a challenge for us,” said Shaw. “There were low layers of cloud, low visibility, and gusting snow and high winds.” Moreover, the sun had set and they were facing a parachute jump in the dark. The CC-130H ascended a few thousand feet and began releasing flares as it circled to illuminate the surrounding area, a means for the crew to survey for potential obstacles — high terrain or otherwise — and to get a look at the crash site. After establishing a visual picture of the larger area, the CC-130H then descended over the aircraft to allow the SAR techs to assess the Twin Otter and the likely landing area before finalizing their jump plan. SAR techs require at least 1,500 feet of visibility to parachute to a crash site, and when the Hercules arrived above the distressed aircraft, the strong, gusting winds and low ceiling made even flying a pattern around the site difficult, said Shaw. “It was definitely challenging.” By the time the crew had completed its initial assessment, the cloud cover had risen, and visibility had improved enough to consider the jump, said Benoit. “It looked like we might have a small window to do that.” Parachuting under such adverse conditions is a collective decision. While the JRCC may task the team to assess a situation, the final decision belongs to the aircrew. And circling above the Twin Otter, it quickly became apparent that the wind speed was well above the SAR tech’ training limit. Knowing there were 10 people on the ground who needed assistance was a factor, Benoit acknowledged, but they decided to jump despite the weather once they deemed it safe. Following a procedure SAR aircrews train for repeatedly, the Hercules climbed a few thousand feet to release more illumination flares, and then descended to about 2,000 feet as the SAR techs exited from the ramp. The CC-130H pilots then ascended again to drop additional flares to light the techs’ descent — a safe and “uneventful” drop despite the buffeting winds to an area close to the Air Tindi aircraft, said Benoit. The Twin Otter had sustained significant damage on landing, but was still in good shape to provide a shelter. The SAR techs found six of the passengers in a small survival tent, some with minor ailments, and four in the aircraft, two in more critical condition being attended by two more with minor injuries. After assessing the scene, Benoit called for a drop of emergency equipment — a toboggan, tents, heaters, stove, food, sleeping bags, and warming clothing, including boots. The Hercules crew dropped three bundles to the site and remained overhead for almost four hours before returning to Winnipeg via a fuel stop in Edmonton. Benoit could not disclose the exact nature of the injuries, but said all Twin Otter crew and passengers improved throughout the night once they were under warmer shelters. As the equipment bundles were dropping, four members of the Diavik mine emergency response team arrived on two snowmobiles and immediately began helping assemble tents and move the injured. “I was quite surprised in that blizzard night to see two snowmobiles showing up,” said Benoit. “They were really competent and tough people. They were a huge assistance throughout the night.” Benoit maintained radio contact with the JRCC in two-hour windows, providing patient updates and details on a possible extraction. Doing anything more than night proved impossible due to the weather, but the morning offered blue sky and no wind — “like nothing had happened overnight.” At 10:30, three Airbus AS350 B2 (AStar) helicopters arrived at the crash site and, in two waves, airlifted all passengers and SAR techs to the mine, about 20 kilometres north, where they were met by an Air Tindi Dash 7 Combi that flew them to Yellowknife. “We were pretty proud of the outcome, of achieving that mission,” said Benoit. “We train hard for those types of missions.”

https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/rescue-underway-for-downed-twin-otter-in-northern-canada/ From the article: Air Tindi President Reynolds had high praise for all rescuers involved, but special praise for the three who parachuted from the C-130. He said, “In the middle of the night, in the subarctic, with 70-kilometer-per-hour winds and very poor visibility, those search-and-rescue technicians are something else.”

This will probably make me unpopular but I see it like this. Is (insert airline name here) also going to be responsible to provide me a clear highway for my commute from Abbotsford to YVR, or Guelph to YYZ? Where does it all end? When one chooses their place to live, one is responsible to get themselves to work. And also, commuting is a choice - deadheading isn't.

I'm guessing you haven't been to Florida.

It’s interesting that the political word of the year is “unacceptable” (Rogers… unacceptable, Hockey Canada… unacceptable, passport delays… unacceptable, airport delays… unacceptable, Catholic Church… unacceptable, inflation… unacceptable, higher interest rates… unacceptable, situation in Ukraine... unacceptable, etc, etc, etc) yet it doesn’t seem to apply to the people running the government or the price of gas.

Merry Christmas... Happy Holidays... Happy Saturday... I hope you are all keeping well and holding your loved ones close in these difficult times. What else could matter? Cheers all!

I am not the author but I wish I was.

It is not. It is identical. When drugs are fully approved, the manufacturer brands them. And vaccination is not forced. No one is going to strap you to a table and inject you with anything. We, the 80% prefer not to expose ourselves to the heightened risk you, the 20% pose to us. No vaccine is perfect, and even if the odds are greatly reduced that I will get sick, I choose not to sit or work beside an anti-vaxxer. I will not go to dine, indoors, at a restaurant, if it admits you, because what we know of now of the virus (its spread by aerosols primarily) and Delta (its the most contagious variant yet), the odds of me getting even an asymptomatic case are better than zero. And some of the same people who are anti-vaccination are anti-mask, intolerant of people who prefer to protect themselves. So no one is going to come to your house and grab your arm, but don't expect to mingle freely in all places with the vast majority who aren't buying your nonsense.

Of course in Feb 2020 the consensus was that curtailing travel was not necessarily effective. Secondly, the objective then (as it should be now) is to keep the hospitals from being overloaded. The intention was NOT to bring the case count down to zero as Australia and NZ have targeted. That type of policy is successful only if a vaccine is available and, at the time, that was not a known. Lockdowns have massive effects on the populace. We know suicides have more than doubled, that alcoholism has increased etc. The number of people who have lost their jobs or businesses is not minor. I find it a bit galling when I hear talk about shutting everything down and I note, that in most cases, those who do have that opinion are financially stable, work in government organization (with no risk or low of losing their job) or who have other guaranteed income. The average person, struggling to survive and the poor in particular, do not have that luxury. SO I throw those travel whiners into the same group as those who espouse a complete lockdown - they are not looking at the reality of the situation. Instead we should be asking why and how our fed and provincial governments allowed thousands of older people to die this autumn and winter after they KNEW, based on last spring, that these people were at risk. 69% of all deaths have occurred in LTC homes. It appears to me that the lockdowns are politically motivated as they appear to be 'leaderlike' and strong while at the same time deflecting from their absolutely woeful response.

https://www.jccf.ca/ We will be through the pandemic before this gets to court but the Justice Centre is calling JT on the latest measures. Federal government faces imminent lawsuit over unlawful confinement of returning Canadian travelers Jan 29th, 2021 OTTAWA: The Justice Centre today announced that immediate legal action is being prepared against the Trudeau government over the declaration that Canadian residents will be subjected to mandatory quarantine, at their own expense, after returning from international travel, regardless of their negative COVID status. These measures are a blatant violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, including the right to enter and leave Canada, the right to liberty and security of the person, the right to not be arbitrarily detained or imprisoned, the right to retain legal counsel, and the right not to be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment. Furthermore, it has come to the attention of the Justice Centre that the federal government is already arresting Canadians arriving in the country by air and transporting them to a secret location, even though they possess a negative PCR test. These citizens are being held unlawfully despite not having been convicted of any offence, not having had access to a lawyer, and not having appeared before a judge.

There's a pettiness in our politics that leaves us with a 24 Sussex Drive that is empty and should be either renovated or replaced, old jets when new ones would, in the long run be cheaper to operate or maintain, etc. Why not just get a bipartisan committee together and settle these issues. It's not terribly difficult. They can solicit expert opinions, and move all these files forward. We're not talking billions of dollars here. For an economy Canada's size, coming up with a nice but not extravagant residence for the PM can't be hard. And just replace those old challengers with new jets with longer range so the A310s don't have to fly politicians around except for the largest state visits abroad.

Who cares how Southwest feels. They got what they demanded, they get what they deserve.

I had a well-known scammer promise me a modest short-term deficit of less than $10 billion for each of his first three years and then a balanced budget by the 2019-2020 fiscal year. I was obviously smart enough not to fall for it but so many naive people were so easily fooled that I now have to help pay for it for the rest of my life. And those naive people never seem to learn their lesson.

Indeed Kip. IMHO, if someone thinks Canada is even remotely like one of those dreaded "stans", I suggest they actually go try the real thing for a while. We have our issues, but please ...

Turbofan.. Thank you for such a detailed response. In my opinion....of very little value I confess.....people are pursuing hollow grails. At the end of the day, if ACPA is de-certified and ALPA becomes the bargaining agent, the AC pilots are a "component" with local executives and a master council. The same people are going to seek election whether under ALPA or ACPA. The same happened when CALPA was de-certified. There were new names at the beginning....trusted and known names....but within a relatively short time, the guys whose voices were heard in crew rooms were elected and resumed the norm. Yes....you will have access to ALPA resources....but who will make the decision to access those resources? I suggest.....the very same people you have now!! If you are unhappy....change your reps....emphasize the Wacon (sp?)....become more grass roots...let your voices be heard. But...I don't think changing agents will make an ounce of difference. Ok...I'll shut up now!!

Dr Joetey Attariwala is quite an industry fluffer. The Kingfisher is an unmitigated disaster. The three aircraft that have actually been delivered are hangar queens. The get dragged out once a month, started up and then quickly rolled back in to hiding. Not a single line pilot has been trained on it. Testing has revealed multiple problems with basic airworthyness of the Airforce variant. If they ever get signed off, Operational roles will not include deploying SAR tech's without major alterations as jumpers risk being struck by the tail as they exited. It's what happens when Govt minions in charge of purchasing get overwhelmed by the glossy brochures of unproven prototype equipment.

I am one of those recent retirees and I couldn't care less anymore about "pilot shortages" after the struggle I and so many of my former colleagues faced over the last 35 years to obtain decent working conditions and wages in the Canadian aviation industry. Serves the airlines and the traveling public right. Good riddance to the industry. I'll take the train. Or just drive.

My wife (who is legally blind)travelled to Vancouver Island last Saturday on WestJet. The aircraft (737) was full, lots of children and thus quite a handful for preboarding etc. From the time we checked in upon arrival at YYC, I was impressed with the professionalism of the agents. I was given a gate pass so I would accompany my wife to the gate. We got there quite early and took a seat. When the agent came on duty, she spotted my wife (white cane) , came over, introduced herself and verified who my wife was. The agent then explained the boarding process asked if my wife needed a wheelchair or if she was comfortable with walking. She then told us that she or the other gate agent would come over and take my wife to the aircraft. Just prior to the first boarding announcement, she came over to us took my wife to the aircraft. Well done WestJet...................... Thanks.

Mitch; Much has changed in terms of the sophistication of flight planning systems, historical fuel burn, wind modelling and route analysis. When I started flying the big iron, it was common to see 2 to 5% errors in the planned fuel burn. These days, flight plans are virtually bang on the great majority of the time. That in itself has helped build confidence among most pilots. But like any other type of automation, it’s still not perfect. No operation should question a captain who can reasonably justify fuel that the dispatcher didn’t include in the flight plan. Maybe they missed a hitch in the forecast, or a NOTAM that hints at delays enroute or for arrival. If you point it out calmly and without accusing them of missing something, dispatchers will usually see your point and agree with the adjustment. But taking extra “just because” is thinking from a time when flight plans were less accurate and there was a lot less information and support available to flight crews. Bottom line is carrying extra fuel costs money and increases our carbon footprint - 4% per hour flown is what it costs for extra fuel carried (on average). As a guy who supports taking it easy on our planet, you understand that cutting back on our fuel consumption where it’s safe to do so is also a good thing for the environment.

Hi guys, I've been away for a while. I was reminiscing about this place and the many heated... err, interesting discussions in which I've participated over the years. I'm happy to see that many of you are still here and that you appear to be doing well. I remember joining back in the Pam days- in... '96? I'm not sure of the exact date this forum was started but it must be coming up on a 25 year anniversary. Anyway, hello, glad to see the place is still alive and vibrant.

Hello again, Seeker - Ok, I'll move "for Pete's sake" to the strong response cupboard (& try to tone it down) My dilemma: the Seeker that wrote: "Look, I'm not blaming the experts - we just really underestimated the problem or overestimated our ability. Really - not blaming anyone for this. We're all in it together and it turned out to be harder than we thought" doesn't sound the same as the guy above who predicates his question with the premise vaccinations aren't working. When the manifestly are, but limited by a difficult cohort that won't take them. An earlier post outlines the confirmation of that in current ON #'s. Again I'd invite you to consider the aspirational #'s if almost everybody was vaxxed. The recent levels of infection & transmission would show about 2-400 instead of 7-900 daily new ones. But with full vaxx uptake, we'd never even have reached those levels. With community spread reduced by more than half, R#'s would be way below the expansionary range, and outbreaks could be quickly contained. You wrote: "Somewhere early in the process we were told that we (society) could throw a bunch of money and our best experts at the problem, have an expedited vaccine ready in a year or so, vaccinate 75%-80%, achieve herd immunity and then Build Back Better." We could apply the same inference to ON #'s for an 80% uptake, i.e. about 12M vaxx'd instead of current 10M, yielding about 200 or so fewer dailies. Don't know exactly where that would place R#'s, but pretty sure it's < 1. All that with the hope that an even more communicable variant doesn't mutate while we've still got these millions of determined human petri dishes. The guy that wasn't blaming the experts would be onboard, instead of talking about vaccines "not working". Quick thought about Ivermectin that just might resonate for you . Your no-harm-no-foul approach could be analogized with the power of prayer. No apparent harm (not even nausea and/or diarrhea), and far be it from us to prevent good folk from praying their hearts out if they think it "works" . BTW, of course off-label usage of prescription drugs is widespread and respectable. It's also usually conducted in relatively quiet privacy. The problem with loudly validating these off-label usages online, even as panic courses through the web, is that stupid people feel encouraged to unintentional self-harm. Whether that should matter at all or not is another type of discussion altogether. Cheers, IFG

Yabut… mathematically, it’s working just as perfectly as it can given the vaccinated/non-vaccinated ratio.

At a certain point we all have to transition from lockdown to living with Covid. Transition to dealing with it like every other risk in our lives. Ethically you want everyone to have had an opportunity to have both doses first. But at a certain point people who choose not to vaccinate, can not have the world in lockdown forever. Like smoking. Warn them. Give them free programs to quit. But if they don't want to? They have to live with it. The US thinks along these lines more strongly than Canada. In the fall there will be a small forth wave of those unvaccinated. Nothing will shut down. You can't. If you shut down for a wave of unvaccinated you will never reopen. There will be stories of Joe down the street who didn't vaccinate. The reality of transitioning to risk management will push more to vaccinate when they ask themselves" am I managing this risk appropriately"? In the mean time the Joe's of this world will be a shame. I hope people are taking seriously the choice not to vaccinate and have weighed the risk.

Perhaps venting on this forum is good for the "inner-self" and it is to be expected...We are all tired of the COVID issues and no matter who puts forth any opinion as to who is right, who is wrong, and who did what, we are stuck in this situation and all the blustering in the world is not going to change feelings deeply embedded in people. I just hope that we, as Canadians, can keep our cool and understand that this is a great country, full of good people, many of whom imbibe on this forum. Those of us that have become "dots" know how good it was, and how much we appreciated each others input into the fun of aviation, and more importantly, respected each and every arm of the industry. Hopefully this entire "dumpster fire" will be a fading memory, in the not too distant future, and everyone can go back to what they considered as a normal way of life. In the meantime just look at this venture as a long walk on a stony beach, in a wicked wind, just to find that one cafe you like is closed... Take care, love your family and be thankful we all live in this land of round door knobs..?

My father served with #407 during this period. He rarely spoke of the war when we were growing up but began to do more so as he entered his twilight years. The family thought his recollections captured an unvarnished sense of the times and convinced him to write about some his more memorable experiences. An excerpt from one of them follows: MISTAKES ! After I became an air navigator and was posted to operat­ions, I promised myself that, if ever we failed to return safely to base, it would not be as a result of a mistake that I made. I rather suspect that all surviving air crew, at some point in their careers, made a similar promise to themselves. In spite of that, we were all obliged to survive serious mistakes, and not necessarily our own. It was those mistakes that made veterans out of rookies. I do not mean ordinary, everyday, garden variety mistakes, but with mistakes that are made during wars. They can kill you, and your companions too. Careless oversights, bad judgments, or lack of pertinent knowledge, in ordinary times, might even escape comment, but in war they can be fatal. No matter how well trained aircrew were in their respective trades, their trade was still a narrow specialty and they could be real dunderheads when called upon to perform a task outside that specialty. If one was fortunate enough to be able to review one's mistakes with hind­sight, they could look like a series of inexcus­able stupidit­ies. The related story covering such a series of mistakes is fairly lengthy and I have appended it as separate pdf to reduce 'scrolling fatigue' for those who may an interest in some of the equipment and operational challenges of that period. Mistakes.pdf

Trump is not the problem - he's one of the symptoms. A disease is eating away at Democracy. It's not working the way we need it to and the Left is just as much to blame as the Right.

You’ve established your priorities over a number of comments on this subject, and unfortunately you seem unable to understand that the attitude you put forward touches a nerve - not just with a few on here - but with a fair chunk of your fellow citizens. Suggesting that those who disagree with you are somehow lacking in intelligence is the final icing on a pretty smug cake, IMHO.

From where I'm sitting, your points are pretty clear. You want to go about your business as if there isn't a pandemic going on, and anything that slows you down from that is an infringment on your rights. I'm fairly certain I'm not the only one picking up what you're putting down, no matter how you wish to disguise it. I may not be as highly edumicated as some people here, but I'm not the dullest tack in the elevator either. Your "reward" for being vaccinated, as I'm sure you already know, is that you are FAR less likely to get ill and/or die from the virus. That said, I'm sure you also know that just because you are relatively immune to the virus now that you are fully vaccinated, you can still carry and spread the virus to others who are less fortunate. Selfish or sell fish; only one of them applies here.

Who knew?? Relic ... from the Beachcomers tv series (which ran for 18 seasons!!) was awarded the DFC.. Robert Clothier... https://www.bombercommandmuseum.ca/chronicles/robert-clothier-relic-of-the-beachcombers-was-a-bomber-pilot/ And this search started because of a meme about Relic and Nick trying to free up the container ship stuck in the Suez!! ?

I'm genuinely curious on how they conduct these sim exercises. Having test pilots or FAA inspectors doing the flying isn't a proper assessment in my view. It's like having a biased jury in a local trial because they have been immersed in the news. They should be doing a "change of venue". Line pilots who don't spend any more time in simulators than legally required. Pick a range of crews from high performing to low performing (based on training records) and give them a very basic briefing (the "dumbed down version"). That's where they should be setting the benchmark. A pilot took 4 times longer than expected eh? Well guess what... in the airplane on a dark and ugly night over the water on departure some time in 2 or 3 years from now is when its going to come up, and I'm certain that it will be unexpected. So a couple of test pilots or FAA inspectors bolted firmly to the sim bay floor after days and months and now years of working on this doesn't scratch the sniff test with me. As for the other points of the article about Boeing's coziness with the regulator, old news and nothing seems to change.

Well I don’t know whether to laugh, cry or puke! This man and his government are so disconnected from reality, it’s beyond words.

Friday Toe Tapper///Have a nice weekend aef.mp4

Saturday Morning Heart Starter....

Thanks Canoehead ! good link. I was very lucky to meet Max Ward after he retired. Our hanger was right next to his in YXD. Our aircraft had the same engines as his Challenger,and we knew how to fix Twin Otters! So we got to know his Mechanic Dan Mcniven. I would pop by Dan's office for coffee, expecting that if Max was there, that I would carry on smartly and leave them to their business. Max was very welcoming, Dan was a character ! Many interesting conversations. Yes JL , it was like being in the presence of Aviation Royalty. One of the Ground handlers wanted a poster of a Wardair 747 signed. Dan suggested I leave the poster, and Max would sign it when he came through. Patti wanted to have it signed in person, and to meet Max. Arrangements were made. Max was in the cockpit of his Challenger preparing for a flight when Patti got there. She emerged about 20 minutes later with a signed poster, and looking like she had met her Hero! The Challenger was broken outside of customs at YXD. Something wrong with steering. Max was out there in his white coveralls working on it! After I moved out to YEG I got to know the Air Canada mechanics. An RJ100 was grounded for lack of a navigation light bulb. Max happened to be across the ramp with his Challenger. We went over and asked if maybe he carried a spare could we borrow it. Max was more than happy to go digging through his airplane and gave us all the spares he had. Later I brought him a box of bulbs from Air Canada. Max Ward was very well respected in Edmonton. A Legend. He deserved it, he was Amazing. Tony

What if Right sizing means getting rid of a large percentage of the fleet? Should a government help pay the rent or loan payments for underutilized/stored aircraft? I don't how many Westjet aircraft (or other airlines) are currently in long term storage but it seems foolish to throw money in that direction. Might be better off having the government subsidize NavCanada and help the airports in exchange of lower operating fees than to interfere while normality is far away and the airlines need to "right size" to this new normal.

What troubles me with this government is I think they'd happily let AC, WJ and everyone else die so they can take green credit for it. I've never been so nauseated in my whole life with these crooks in power.

This forum is a connection to the greatest career I could have imagined. Thanks ?

14,000 Words Of "Blame The Pilots" That Whitewash Boeing Of 737 MAX Failure The New York Times Magazine just published a 14,000 words piece about the Boeing 737 MAX accidents. It is headlined: What Really Brought Down the Boeing 737 Max? But the piece does not really say what brought the Boeing 737 MAX down. It does not explain the basic engineering errors Boeing made. It does not explain its lack of safety analysis. It does not mention the irresponsible delegation of certification authority from the Federal Aviation Administration to Boeing. There is no mention of the corporate greed that is the root cause of those failures. Instead the piece is full of slandering accusations against the foreign pilots of the two 737 MAX planes that crashed. It bashes the airlines and the safety authorities of Indonesia and Ethiopia. It only mildly criticizes Boeing for designing the MCAS system that brought the planes down. The author of the piece, William Langewiesche, was a professional pilot before he turned to journalism. But there is so much slander in the text that it might as well have been written by Boeing's public relations department. The piece is also riddled with technical mistakes. We will pick on the most obvious ones below. The following is thus a bit technical and maybe too boring for our regular readers. Langewiesche describes the 737 MAX trim system and its failure mode: That’s a runaway trim. Such failures are easily countered by the pilot — first by using the control column to give opposing elevator, then by flipping a couple of switches to shut off the electrics before reverting to a perfectly capable parallel system of manual trim. But it seemed that for some reason, the Lion Air crew might not have resorted to the simple solution. Wrong: The manual trim system does not work at all when the stabilizer is widely out of trim (i.e. after MCAS intervened) and/or if the plane is flying faster than usual. That is why the European regulator EASA sees it as a major concern and wants it fixed. Langewiesche knows this. He later writes of one of the accidents: The speed, meanwhile, was producing such large aerodynamic forces on the tail that the manual trim wheel lacked the mechanical power to overcome them, and the trim was essentially locked into the position where the MCAS had left it Is that a 'perfectly capable system'? Of the crashed Lion Air flight 610 Langewiesche writes: At 6:31 a.m., 11 minutes into the flight, Suneja got on the radio for the first time. He did not know their altitude, he told the controller, because all their altitude indicators were showing different values. This is unlikely and has never been explained. Wrong. The value given by an Angle of Attack sensor is also used in calculating the speed and attitude of a plane. If one of the two AoA sensors fails the instruments on the side that with the failed AoA sensor will show different values than those on the other side of the cockpit. Langewiesche knows this. Further down in his piece he writes: That story actually starts three days before the accident, when the same airplane — under different flight numbers and Lion Air crews — experienced errors in airspeed and altitude indications on the captain’s (left side) flight display that weren’t properly addressed. Those indications are driven by a combination of sensors on the surface of the airplane. Is that 'unlikely' and unexplained? This is an unfounded claim: Boeing believed the system to be so innocuous, even if it malfunctioned, that the company did not inform pilots of its existence or include a description of it in the airplane’s flight manuals. Wrong. Boeing sold the new plane with the dubious claim that it handled no differently than its predecessor. It left MCAS out of the manual because it did not want to add to training requirements for the pilots which would have contradicted its marketing claim. Furthermore Boeing did not do any additional safety evaluation when it later increased the effect of the system. Another wrong part: A set of independent duplicate sensors drive the co-pilot’s (right side) display. A third standby system provides additional independent backup and allows for intuitive troubleshooting when any one of the three systems fails: If two indications agree and the third one does not, the odd one out is obviously the one to ignore. This sort of arrangement helps to explain why flying a Boeing is not normally an intellectual challenge. Furthermore, the airplane provides an alert when airspeed or altitude indications disagree. There is no general third standby system on a Boeing 737. There is a set of standby instruments for altitude and airspeed. But these give uncorrected values that differ from the ones shown on the two flight control displays. Those values are calculated by two flight computers and each takes the value of only one pitot (speed) tube and one AoA sensor into account. If an AoA sensor fails the instruments on one side show wrong values. The instruments on the other side will show different but hopefully correct values. The standby instruments will show different, uncorrected values than both of the calculated ones. Langewiesche describes an earlier Lion Air flight that also experienced an MCAS failure but was by chance saved: Immediately after liftoff, the captain’s airspeed indication failed, airspeed-disagreement and altitude-disagreement warnings appeared on his flight display and his stick shaker began to rattle the controls in warning of an imminent stall. The Bali captain was enough of an airman to realize that he was dealing with an information failure only — not an actual stall. No direct mention has been made of this, but he must have immediately identified the replacement angle-of-attack vane on his side as the likely culprit. Wrong. How would the pilot know that? The pilot noticed intermittet automatic down trim. That failure mode was not in the flight manuals and pilot had no way to attribute it to an AoA sensor. The claim is also contradicted by the pilot's maintenance log entry of which Langewiesche writes: After pulling up to the gate in Jakarta, the Bali captain informed a company mechanic about “the aircraft problem” and in the maintenance log noted only three anomalies — the captain’s airspeed and altitude indication errors and the illumination of a warning light related to a system known as Feel Differential Pressure. That was it. Apparently the captain noted nothing about the failure of the newly installed angle-of-attack sensor, or the activation of the stick shaker, or the runaway trim, or the current position of the trim cutout switches. If true, it was hard to conclude anything other than that this was severe and grotesque negligence. The captain noted nothing about the AoA sensor because he did not know that it failed. The captain did mention a trim problem but he had not experienced a runaway trim. A classic runaway trim is continuous. An MCAS intervention like the one the captain experienced stops after 9 seconds. But the pilots on that flight did not even know that MCAS existed. The captain reported all the basic symptoms he experienced during that flight. A runaway was not one of them. Langewiesche fails to mention, probably intentionally, the captain's additional entry in the maintenance log. The captain wrote: "Airspeed unreliable and ALT disagree shown after takeoff, STS also running to the wrong direction ...". STS, the Speed Trim System, moves the stabilizer trim. It does that all the time but discontinuously during every normal flight. The pilot correctly described the symptoms of the incident as he perceived them. Those were not the symptoms of a continuously runaway stabilizer. But the pilot knew, and documented, that he experienced an intermittet trim problem. It was the mechanic's responsibility to analyze the underlying error and to correct the system which is exactly what he did. The author's "blame the pilots" attitude is well expressed in this paragraph: Critics have since loudly blamed it for the difficulty in countering the MCAS when the system receives false indications of a stall. But the truth is that the MCAS is easy to counter — just flip the famous switches to kill it. Furthermore, when you have a maintenance log that shows the replacement of an angle-of-attack sensor two days before and then you have an associated stick shaker rattling away while the other stick shaker remains quiet, you do not need an idiot light to tell you what is going on. At any rate, the recognition of an angle-of-attack disagreement — however pilots do or do not come to it — has no bearing on this accident, so we will move on. An AoA sensor failure and a following MCAS incident will cause all of the following: an unexpected autopilot shutdown, an airspeed warning, an altitude disagree warning, a stall warning and, after MCAS intervenes, also an over-speed warning. The control column rattles, a loud clacker goes off, several lights blink or go red, several flight instruments suddenly show crazy values. All this in a critical flight phase immediately after the start when the workload is already high. It is this multitude of warnings, which each can have multiple causes, that startle a pilot and make it impossible to diagnose and correct within the 10 seconds that MCAS runs. To claim that "MCAS is easy to counter" is a gross misjudgment of a pilot's workload in such a critical situation. After blaming the pilots Langewiesche bashes the foreign air safety regulators which are now investigating the MAX accidents: According to sources familiar with both investigations, Boeing and the N.T.S.B. have been largely excluded and denied access to such basic evidence as the complete flight-data recordings and the audio from the cockpit. ... It is a forlorn hope, but you might wish that investigators like those in Indonesia and Ethiopia would someday have the self-confidence to pursue full and transparent investigations and release all the raw data associated with the accidents. I am not aware of an accident in the U.S. where the FAA investigators released "complete flight-data recordings and the audio from the cockpit" to foreign entities that were suspected to have caused the incident. Nor will the FAA "release all the raw data" associated with an accident. Certainly not before an investigation is finished. Boeing screwed up by designing and installing a faulty system that was unsafe. It did not even tell the pilots that MCAS existed. It still insists that the system's failure should not be trained in simulator type training. Boeing's failure and the FAA's negligence, not the pilots, caused two major accidents. Nearly a year after the first incident Boeing has still not presented a solution that the FAA would accept. Meanwhile more safety critical issues on the 737 MAX were found for which Boeing has still not provided any acceptable solution. But to Langewiesche this is anyway all irrelevant. He closes his piece out with more "blame the pilots" whitewash of "poor Boeing": The 737 Max remains grounded under impossibly close scrutiny, and any suggestion that this might be an overreaction, or that ulterior motives might be at play, or that the Indonesian and Ethiopian investigations might be inadequate, is dismissed summarily. To top it off, while the technical fixes to the MCAS have been accomplished, other barely related imperfections have been discovered and added to the airplane’s woes. All signs are that the reintroduction of the 737 Max will be exceedingly difficult because of political and bureaucratic obstacles that are formidable and widespread. Who in a position of authority will say to the public that the airplane is safe? I would if I were in such a position. What we had in the two downed airplanes was a textbook failure of airmanship. In broad daylight, these pilots couldn’t decipher a variant of a simple runaway trim, and they ended up flying too fast at low altitude, neglecting to throttle back and leading their passengers over an aerodynamic edge into oblivion. They were the deciding factor here — not the MCAS, not the Max. One wonders how much Boeing paid the author to assemble his screed. --- Previous Moon of Alabama posts on Boeing 737 MAX issues: Boeing, The FAA, And Why Two 737 MAX Planes Crashed - March 12 2019 Flawed Safety Analysis, Failed Oversight - Why Two 737 MAX Planes Crashed - March 17 2019 Regulators Knew Of 737 MAX Trim Problems - Certification Demanded Training That Boeing Failed To Deliver - March 29 2019 Ethiopian Airline Crash - Boeing Advice To 737 MAX Pilots Was Flawed - April 9 2019 Boeing 737 MAX Crash Reveals Severe Problem With Older Boeing 737 NGs - May 25 2019 Boeing's Software Fix For The 737 MAX Problem Overwhelms The Plane's Computer - June 27 2019 EASA Tells Boeing To Fix 5 Major 737 MAX Issues - July 7 2019 The New Delay Of Boeing's 737 MAX Return Will Not Be The Last One - July 15 2019 737 MAX Rudder Control Does Not Meet Safety Guidelines - It Was Still Certified - July 28 2019 737 MAX - Boeing Insults International Safety Regulators As New Problems Cause Longer Grounding - September 3 2019 Boeing Foresees Return Of The 737 MAX In November - But Not Everywhere - September 12 2019 Posted by b on September 18, 2019 at 16:41 UTC | Permalink

" being very high off the ground! ' but Don that's a good thing. It's that last foot above the ground that can be really troublesome.

Well an ALPA rep explained it best, at least for large airline equipment. Airliners fly because the world hates money and pilots are overpaid so the earth repels them. This also explains why wide body pilots must make more than narrow body drivers do. The wide bodies need far more lift. Now as I recall this fellow was a 747 driver so perhaps there was another agenda. Vs

Nice that the article shows AC metal as the main pic on an article about capacity reduction and suggestion of restricting supply to prop up prices when in fact AC is offering the same number of seats, but a competitor is not. Not exactly journalistic excellence.... Vs

Yeah, that was pretty bad reporting. Doesn't even mention the aircraft type. Was it an Airbus? As for your question about preventing turbulence, everyone knows about the Weather Radar input to the CIDS system, which will trigger the Turbulence Avoidance function, deploying the O2 masks and playing the "Emergency" message through the cabin audio system, simultaneously taking control of the AFCS and commanding the turbulence avoidance manouvers. This gives the CIDS the authority to climb or descend within an envelope of 10,000ft. I'm happy to see that the Captain continued to allow the flow of O2 to the passenger masks after they had been deployed.

Warning and caution lights illuminating are not unique to aircraft that have sat idle. They can illuminate at anytime. Light comes on, follow the checklist, talk to maintenance and go or no-go depending on the outcome. Not really news-worthy.