3 Basic Flying Rules to Live (and Keep Alive) by

Flying in all its forms is remarkably safe considering the unforgiving nature of the environment pilots operate in. A fundamental way to keep operations as safe as possible is to be mindful of and adhere to three basic rules. These apply to normal as well as unusual and emergency situations. Following them will go a long way to keeping normal flying from becoming emergency flying.

The rules are:

1). AVIATE
2). COMMUNICATE - and-
3). NAVIGATE

I've presented them in descending order of priority, but a pilot or crew absolutely has to do all of them. Here's how it works:

Aviate. Simply put, someone must always be flying the airplane. This means tending to the basic stick and rudder functions and the care and feeding of the systems that keep you aloft and in controlled flight. With more than one pilot, it is crucial (but unfortunately not sufficiently obvious) that someone has to be unambiguously responsible for flying the airplane. You can rely on automation to relieve some of the second by second workload, but can never abdicate control of your fate to an autopilot. The monitoring and assessment tasks you perform as a pilot are identical irrespective of whether you are hand flying, using a wing leveler, or a full-blown multi-axis autopilot. The rule applies to your Cessna-150 or a Boeing 747. One area of special emphasis is your response to abnormal flight situations. The temptation is powerful to devoting all the brainpower in the cockpit to solving a systems problem. This temptation has to be avoided by a one person crew as well as a multi-member crew. And one person has to be clearly in charge.

This brings us logically to our next rule;

Communicate: This is how everyone knows who is in charge, who is doing the flying ("I have the airplane", is a good declarative statement to make. All the better when it is clearly and promptly responded to: "Roger, the airplane is yours."), and what the gameplan is. Communication is a fundamental and essential element of effective resource management for a multi-person crew. Another dimension of communication is external to the cockpit. You have to ensure that ATC personnel and, as appropriate, other users of the airspace, know where your are, where you're going, what your situation is, and any other factor that forms what we will refer to as "your intentions." If you have passengers, it is certainly helpful to apprise them of the situation and your intentions.

And this leaves the final rule;

Navigate: By this I mean more than X marks the spot on a sectional chart. You must navigate successfully through the landscape that is your total situational awareness. Knowing about the terrain below you; relative range and headings to airports, fields, and other landing opportunities, and their conditions; and the location of nearby traffic is critically necessary but not sufficient. You must also address things like your fuel situation, weather, and aircraft system status. When you're successful navigating, the intentions you formulate will always be within the capabilities of your crew as pilots, and of your aircraft.

A STRANGE CONFLUENCE OF EVENTS

Whitey Bulger, notorious Boston organized crime figure, informant, and long-time fugitive, was found guilty of racketeering, conspiracy, and murder today. He was acquitted of a lesser federal offense of dancing with a mailman. Auspiciously, his guilty verdict comes on the same day as Elon Musk's disclosure of the plans for his Hyper Loop transportation system (some assembly required).

This got me to thinking about all the technological wonders and societal developments we are on the very verge of...

When Whitey is sentenced, his story might very well go *something* like this:

1). Federal Marshals on Segway scooters will escort him to a central transportation mode where;

2). He will board a hyperloop "train" to the node nearest the federal prison where he is to serve out his sentence. He will arrive at his destination 16 minutes before he left.

3). Transport from the node to prison will be via a Tesla Model W sedan that will make use as required of supercharger stations along the route. For security reasons, robotic battery swaps will not be used. Marshals have been instructed to make judicious use of air conditioning and headlights and to ensure that New York Times (paradoxically enough now owned by Elon) reporters and the gang from Top Gear are kept at least 300 miles from the planned route which will be cleared of the typical hordes of Google self-driving cars that have not yet collided with each other due to subtle bugs in their Ubuntu 17.04 operating systems.

4). Electricity to power the chargers will have been derived from room temperature fusion contained within a 1000mL laboratory beaker augmented by a Kenner Easy Bake Oven purchased off of Ebay and slightly modified in Italy. If accomplished entirely during the daytime on a sunny day, or if conditions in the region are suitably blustery, the option exists to power the journey entirely with renewable energy. In this event, Bulger will be credited with a $2500.00 green energy rebate.

5). Federal agents will keep to their tight delivery schedule by frequently consulting Apple Newton devices.

6). If Bulger misbehaves while in the custody of his terrestrial prison, he will be transferred to the Bigelow Inflatable Incarceration Facility (BIIF) in geostationary orbit over Devil's Island.

7). He'll be boosted up there aboard a Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser lofted by a SpaceX Falcon Heavy. The winged Dream Chaser will then be recovered after an autonomous horizontal landing at Mohamed Morsi National Airport (named for our 47th President who presided over the expansion of the US to 57 states and the District of Baghdad - which is still safer than the District of Columbia). Airspace safety will be ensured by a fleet of Lockheed Martin RQ/4Q2-297 hunter-killer drones set to maximum aggression/indiscriminate wedding party crasher (IWPC) mode.

8). After becoming somewhat acclimated to the micro-gravity environment, Bulger will be offered work as a Helium-3 miner on an asteroid that was captured and moved to low earth orbit.

9). If he accepts such work, Bulger will be paid the federal minimum wage of $17,500.25 per hour. Obama Care (now called Hillary Care for some reason) will address all his health insurance needs at no cost and he will earn the Incarcerated Person Income Tax Credit of $300,000,000.00 annually.

10). Over time, and with good behavior, Bulger will be entitled to quarterly conjugal visits. His partner will use the Dan Goldin Better, Faster, Cheaper Memorial Space Elevator to make the round trip to and from orbit. If Bulger opts for a non-carbon based partner, his right to do so is protected by Constitutional Amendment Ninety-Five, the Protection of Robosexual Marriage Act.

11). Irrespective of the sentence Bulger receives, there's always the possibility of parole sometime down the line. In this case, Bulger will be assigned to a halfway house in Detroit. A number of properties have already been purchased against this eventuality at an average cost of $147.38 each.

Sticking around through the end: A surprising management trend and the danger of Faith-based Engineering

During my career and across a number of engineering/management consulting engagements, I have become aware of a phenomenon that many of the more cynical among us have either seen firsthand or suspected - managers and leaders being promoted, reassigned, switching jobs, or otherwise moving on from roles or positions before their poor decision "chickens" come home to roost.

This takes the form of a manager setting unrealistic expectations, encouraging the team to embrace wildly optimistic performance goals, making Faustian budget bargains, setting crazy schedules, and other forms of "faith-based engineering". Before the consequences of these misjudgments become obvious or acute, the manager has left the project, program, or company and the problems fall into the laps of (at least relative) innocents.

Recently this pattern has been disrupted. Because of the economy, the opportunities for escape from an effort you've screwed up have been reduced. There are less new projects, programs, and job vacancies. Managers find they are more likely to have to stick around long enough for their errors and misdeeds to catch up with them.

Bottom line is: pay attention to the decisions you're making; that future you're mortgaging just might turn out to be your own.

Dud and Oi! - a short review of the Discovery Channel's series Blood and Oil

Update 28 July 2013: Appears I was not alone in my low opinion of the "merits" of this show. B&O seems to no longer be on Discovery's broadcast lineup. Perhaps lawyers for Particle Drilling pursued some sort of injunctive relief in order to divorce their product from this train wreck?

Blood and Oil chronicles the struggle of the Cutter Oil Company and the Cutter family in Ohio against the predations of the evil monolith that is "Big Oil". I was hopeful that the show might depict for the public what energy exploration and production is about in at least a semi-realistic manner. My foolish hopes are dashed. Most of their struggles are against self-inflicted problems.

The scion of the Cutter family (after his dad's recent death), CJ, is an idiot; Homer Simpson personified, but with absolutely none of the charming goofiness or humor. It's small wonder that everyone around him is depicted as being frightened, just as any reasonable person would be in the presence of a real world Homer and all the potential for harm that his surliness, ridiculously hot temper, and incompetence would imply. Suffice it to say that impulse control doesn't seem to be big in his skill set.

Younger brother Josh has a degree (in geology -- of the "rocks for jocks" variety, I assume) that is never put to use in selecting drilling sites. Nor is seismology or any other technological tool that might be used to mitigate risks of a $500K investment. The show stresses (every 8.3 seconds, it seems) that "Cutter pays for drilling costs out of their own pockets", in contradistinction to the free-loading finks of big oil.

The first well they drill is in their sister's backyard (quite literally), started without her knowledge or consent. At least we can't accuse CJ of being a NIMBY type (or at least not a NIMSBY - Not in my Sister's Backyard). Drilling operations seem to be conducted in a blissful universe where permits, OSHA, and basic common sense safety practices are as yet undiscovered.

CJ frequently refers to "turning up the crazy" as a means of getting things done. Sadly, the crazy knob appears to be coaxial with the STUPID knob, and both get twisted up to eleven. A group of looters descends on the Cutters' ancestral homestead -- CJ's carefully considered strategy, tear the 150 year old structure down with a back hoe and then set the wreckage afire with a flare gun. That will teach them pesky looters. And oh yeah, smash the thieves' presumed vehicle while you're at it. Having a bad day? Turn that frown upside down by smashing something big into pieces that are small.

CJ, Josh, and the unfortunates who are condemned to work for them decide to destroy a grain silo (which makes sense because all they do in any grain storage area is grapple each other into submission, WWE style). CJ's "turn up the crazy" concept is to place an arbitrary blob of some sort of explosive in an arbitrary location in the silo and detonate it with a rifle shot. All this seems to accomplish is blowing off the top of the silo, thus inadvertently educating viewers on the rocket principle. Then they enter the silo (I mean what could possibly go wrong) and go for round two with a double-sized charge. After reentering the now more precariously leaning silo to inspect their handiwork, CJ sets about knocking it down with his back hoe, all the while noting how dangerous this all is.

My recommendation is to only watch this show with its wooden (or maybe leaden) dialog delivered so ineptly in a purely ironic sense in much the same way that one might enjoy watching Sharknado. You'll probably be able to get through two and one-half episodes this way.

Quote of the Day: "Through a combination of dancing, singing and Kung Fu moves, he was able to defuse the situation." http:

The "situation" was:

A) Old Dirty Bastard resolving a contract dispute over Wu Tang Clan's debut record.
B) Jimmy Carter convincing a group of hostile Israelis and Palestinians to meet in a public forum.
C) A globe-spanning cyclist encountering a pistol-packing gang of Siberian motorcycle enthusiasts.
D) Jackie Chan explaining box office performance of his two recent films to studio executives.
E) President Obama's uncle facing deportation after a DUI arrest involving a police cruiser.
F) Edward Snowden explaining his future plans for an IT career to Venezuelan diplomats.

Read about it here: nyti.ms/12dx6eJ 

My Lunch With a Radical Futurist...

Over lunch with one of the most compelling and fascinating conversationalists I've ever known (and he's asked me to keep his name out of this), I assumed the conversation would be heavy on sports, as we shared a table in a Houston Buffalo Wild Wings sports restaurant. But no, we had a far-ranging conversation on a few current topics of national moment. Here are some nuggets:

• More people die in bus-related accidents in India in a week than have died due to commercial nuclear power since the industry existed.
• [on the "green-ness" of pure electric cars] The best thing folks can do today is to maintain and continue driving whatever cars they own right now. Manufacture and eventual disposal of battery packs for pure electrics will place on enormous burden on the environment. Cash for clunkers, aside from jacking up the price of all used cars, has at least gotten many of the real rattletraps and gas guzzlers off the road. Electric cars' demands for things like rare earths put the US at a strategic disadvantage with China, a condition we needn't exacerbate.
• Tesla is a technologically advanced electric but still in no way a "people's car" or a practical sole car for average Americans to own. True long-term costs of ownership remain unknown and ephemeral incentives are fueling a "bubble"that Elon is quite rational to reap.
• China has no intention of conforming to "environmental norms" for the foreseeable future. This seems to be baked into their "cultural DNA" from the individual to the top apparatuses of government and economic power. Look at the pictures of Beijing smog turning noon into midnight that their leaders are trying to suppress. 
• When you talk about something like adulterating baby formula in China, that wasn't perpetrated by some ignorant-ass peon. Someone with very advanced knowledge of the chemistry and how the product would be tested was required to figure out what adulterant to use, when to introduce it, and how much was permissible.
• The leadership in Japan is at some level grateful for the atomic bomb. They see that it saved a good bit of the population from terrible slaughter in fire-bombing campaigns such as had been unleashed on cities like Dresden and Tokyo. On a larger scale, they recognize it saved Japan from Stalin and the experience of eastern Europe post-war.
• On the topic of sports, he did offer that RG III perhaps was "out there a bit too much" with press conferences, etc., and would be better served by "keeping more mystery". He also reports that he's not been to an Astro's game since they switched to the American League.

DRONING ON ABOUT DRONES

DRONING ON ABOUT DRONES

Seems there remains not much new under the sun. Concepts for and actual drones have existed at least since the days of World War II. Granted, these were not the surgically precise death-dealers of today, but drones they were.

Historically drones have been used (or designed to be used) for multiple purposes, among them:

• Flying active or passive decoys to draw attackers away from "real" aircraft
• Primitive air-deployed cruise missiles armed with either conventional or nuclear warheads
• Aerial photography or spy systems
• "Sniffers" to fly through or around nuclear detonation clouds to sample radioactive debris 
• Remote control targets for air or ground-based gunnery and missiles. It remains common that conventional aircraft past their prime are converted into drones for this purpose and several of them have lived to perform numerous flights, seemingly unkillable.

Modern drones capitalize on the confluence of technologies that allow them to be more autonomous; higher, faster, longer, and farther flying; reusable; multi-faceted; more perceptive in terms of the sensors they employ; and more accurate and lethal because of the weapons they carry.

Drones can be less intrusive (i.e., quieter and smaller) than a conventional manned aircraft and they can generally be counted on for more persistence over or near a specific location. They certainly ought to be less costly than manned airplanes and, minus the human element, can execute maneuvers that would disable or injure a human pilot. Losing a drone either to accident or enemy fire is not as problematic as losing a human pilot in enemy territory (although recent examples highlight the technological risks of such losses). Most drones today are remotely operated by human pilots. The pilots can be half a world away and their degree of involvement can vary from intensive "stick and rudder" control, setting objectives for a mission, overseeing execution of the mission, to giving final consent to fire a weapon.

Newer and more capable drones can fly their missions completely autonomously, including identifying and selecting targets and making the shoot/don't shoot decision. Therein lies the big moral issue with this new way of waging war: combat without casualties -- except for the bad guys, of course. Recent progress has been made in integrating drones within the hectic and exquisitely coreographed operations of aircraft carriers. Another concern with drone operations is how nicely they can interact with the existing air traffic control system and infrastructure.