Hi Folks -- I suppose you've heard about the Airbus A320 that ditched in the Hudson river, in the shadow of downtown Manhattan, on Thursday. As crashes go, it must be considered a success, since there were no fatalities and almost no serious injuries.
Around here it has received around-the-clock news coverage. The commentators are amazed at how lucky the passengers were. They all use the same word: It's a miracle. I disagree. Any time your airliner loses both engines is *not* your lucky day. And while a successful ditching may involve a small amount of luck, it mainly and primarily involves a large amount of skill. As I have said on other occasions, part of the romance of aviation is to do everything better than necessary. If the runway is 50 feet wide and the airplaneās wheelbase is 10 feet wide, it is technically possible to land on the left half or the right half of the runway. But everybody tries to land exactly on the centerline. If you were off by one foot last time, you try to be off by half a foot next time. This is done partly for fun, just for the challenge of it, but there is also a serious purpose to it. Safety is not directly affected by your best performance, or even your average performance. What matters, directly, is your worst-ever performance. This is called the _minimax_ principle. I don't pretend to know for sure, but I suspect the Airbus-in-the-Hudson story revolves around a pilot who is very, very, very good at his job. =========== I mention this on the FlightGear list because simulators (in general) play an important role in pilot training (in general). Heretofore FlightGear has not played much of a role in real pilot training, but it has the potential to do so. I reckon virtually everyone on this list would like it to go in that direction. The question is, who is willing to do the work necessary to take it in that direction? This requires a certain amount of forward thinking. As the saying goes, you do not build a bridge based on the number of people who drove across the river _before_ the bridge was built. By that criterion, no bridges would ever get built. By the same token you shouldn't judge the value of FGFS features based on the current user community. Right now the user community consists of folks who care about nice-looking liveries and nice-looking foliage, because that's what FlightGear provides. Folks who care about cockpit instruments that actually work properly have to go elsewhere. The community I'm talking about is not small. The last time I checked, there were 700,000 rated pilots in the US alone. Practically all of them have PCs. There is a need for simulator-based training that is not being met by the multimillion dollar simulators at FlightSafey Inc. and suchlike. It is not yet being met by FlightGear ... but that could change. So, how about it? Who is serious about going down that road? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This SF.net email is sponsored by: SourcForge Community SourceForge wants to tell your story. http://p.sf.net/sfu/sf-spreadtheword _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel