Neither you, nor 99% of the populace, will be willing to travel via fully 
automated airplane, for three reasons: 1) inability to write/produce 100% 
correct software; 2) pilots are in the cockpit (nice sexist name) for those 1 
in a million events that are completely unpredictable (Scully landing in the 
Hudson); and 3) airlines will have blanket immunity from liability and 
therefore absent any degree of trust.

RE: COVID ending by June. The only reason it did not happen is a **liberal, 
anti-Trump, conspiracy** to suppress the, at last count 30, 
drugs/treatments/aerosols/etc. that would ameliorate the effects (for all 
except those with significant co-morbidity factors) and or dramatically 
decrease the risk of infection getting a toehold. * :)  :)*

davew


On Thu, Aug 13, 2020, at 12:00 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
> I actually knew someone who lived near the Embry-Riddle location in 2000/2001 
> where several of the 9/11 pilots learned to fly well enough to do what they 
> did.   She had friends (go figure) who worked at a strip-club who claimed 
> these "boys" were regulars there.  It was pretty creepy 2nd order connection. 
>   

> My uncles were both pilots in WWII but the older was trained up on the 
> newfangled idea of a helicopter and proceeded to become a test pilot for 
> Sykorski.  He was forced into retirement (chief test pilot) to a desk at 65.  
>  Nobody wanted to ground him, but "rules is rules" and in fact his health 
> degraded acutely and abruptly and he died just a few years later.  His family 
> insists it was from "heartbreak" from being grounded.   

> I have a "young" friend (now 40s) who was just finishing up his commercial 
> certification at Embry-Riddle Prescott on 9/11 and claims that the bottom not 
> only dropped out for commercial pilots for the next couple of years, but has 
> "never recovered" and he has been making a living as a bartender ever since.  
>  Perhaps it is time for him to revisit.  

> My ex brother-in-law left his career in the Air Force to become "a bus 
> driver" and recently was retired (for age) from Delta.   Even 30 years ago 
> things were incredibly automated.   I see no reason that airliners won't be 
> entirely automated and teleoperated in the next 20 years.   The risk-profile 
> of such things is evolving as self-driving cars (and more aptly? 
> Semi-tractors?) emerge.   

> The hyperloop game is going to change long distance rapid-transit eventually. 
>   I don't believe anyone is planning for underground 
> "ballistic-trajectory-velocities" quite yet, but mag-lev-centered, evacuated 
> tube, zero-grade velocities could still be pretty impressive, and energy 
> consumption as well with magnetic (regenerative) braking.     The earliest 
> days of railroading involved gravity-trains often with empty return cars 
> being towed by animal power.   Yet others used water from the high-side 
> source as "ballast" and if the up/down routes were mechanically coupled, the 
> extra weight of water plus load would allow the empties to be returned "for 
> free".   

> Regarding Dave's friend's drug conviction, Denzel Washington's (one of a 
> series of flawed) character in the movie Flight is a drug-addled pilot who, 
> by implication in the story, actually achieves a heroic manouver *because* 
> he's still jacked on the cocaine he snorted to lift himself out of his 
> alcohol hangover.    The setup is that a jackscrew controlling horizontal 
> stablizer breaks, forcing the nose of the plane down with no recourse...  
> Denzel's character quickly recognizes the futility of the situation and the 
> *opportunity* of rolling the dive into an inverted orientation such that the 
> forced "nose down" is now "nose up".

> Popular Mechanics (of all places) had an article on the plausibility of the 
> Cocaine effects supporting the story (rather than the mechanics of inverted 
> flying).

> I suspect I could get work myself using my 40 year-stale FortranIV experience 
> on "mission critical" systems already old at that time, but still in some 
> sort of service.  I did a huge senior project on a FortranIV system for 
> simulating exo-Terran atmospheres (e.g. Mars) which might well be still be in 
> service?   Fortunately my COBOL/RPG experience is so slim I'd never be 
> tempted to try that domain.

> I'd like to believe that the myriad "stale skill" job opportunities (demands) 
> we see today are going to be yet-more-fully deprecated.   I still have a 
> coal-fired forge and an anvil, both probably manufactured 100 years ago, that 
> I can shape and even temper iron and steel with (and aluminum if I'm 
> incredibly careful), but I do not and never will have the skills required to 
> do it well, and certainly not to replace what modern industrial processes can 
> achieve... barring a full apocalypse, it is merely a quaint "hobby" that 
> might afford me the opportunity to turn out some rustic items others would 
> mistake for "art",  or more often, repair the various related tools I might 
> *use*in my forge...   though in most cases a strap and some bolts or rivets 
> makes more sense than trying to re-weld a broken connecting rod, or lever.

> Meanwhile, the discussion of how our "first programming language" defines us, 
> I believe that my earliest "programming" experience was more "analysis" of 
> the circuitry of pinball (and vending) machines in my friend's father's 
> workshop where he repaired them, and there were always an array of pinball 
> machines in various states of repair, with all the guts open for inspection 
> while operating.   Very much an analog/digital hybrid system while the older 
> vending machines were essentially all "rod logic" (albeit simple).   Later, 
> at my first employer (radio station) I learned the ins and outs of automated 
> infinite loop carousel "programming" which was a hybrid of relay and 
> mechanical (rod/gear/lever) logics.    The "programming" was really 
> simplistic, involving inserting "shorting pins" in matrices to define 
> priorities and timing to get the "right" mix of commercials, PSAs, and a 
> diversity of music played during any given period (usually a 4 hour shift).   
> I can't say how much it influenced my later understanding of "computer 
> programming" which I was being introduced to simultaneously by our Driver's 
> Ed teacher who had somehow wrangled a PDP-x rack into a small room with a 
> teletype/paper-tape-punch.  He didn't really have a clue, he was learning 
> BASIC along with us, following a simple set of "sample programs" listed in 
> what I think was the "owners manual" for the machine.

> Ramble,

>  - Steve

>> Does it include lessons on how to land the plane?

>> —Barry

>> On 12 Aug 2020, at 21:53, Frank Wimberly wrote:


>>> I just got an email from a flight training program offering me a nine month
>>> course to get a multi engine commercial license. They don't read the Friam
>>> listsrv, I hope. I'm too old in any case.
>>> 
>>> ---
>>> Frank C. Wimberly
>>> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
>>> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>>> 
>>> 505 670-9918
>>> Santa Fe, NM
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>> 
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