At 03:30 PM 7 October 2002 -0700, Ezra Steinberg wrote: >It makes me think of the role of safety some more as it relates to >metrication. For >example, we have the one incident in Canada reported as a mix-up of >gallons and >litres that (nearly?) caused the plane to run out of fuel. We also have >the issue of >non-SI units used in aviation here in the States and SI units in other >parts of the >world. I don't believe one has to be an expert in failure analysis (or >wait for a >highly publicized collision -- or didn't we recently have one in Europe >between that >Russian aircraft and another one) to sensibly worry about differing sets >of units >being used in the same industry or area of commerce. The appropriate >governing body >could conceivably mandate a change to SI units for all aircraft built in >the US so >that SI units only would used in communications between aircraft and >controllers. >But airline companies are consumers. Why not wait for "market forces" to >reach the >point where the aircraft builders would see the market pressure for SI-only >instrumentation and only then switch their gauges, thus inducing the >controlling >agency to switch the rules because airline companies and their suppliers >are pushing >for the change?
Of course, I support using market forces to effect metrication, but such forces don't work well in areas that are already government controlled (e.g., Pat's example of fire hose fittings). That's not to say I think the government should control commercial aviation to the degree that it does, but, given the state of affairs, I don't think there is any way market forces will ever metricate commercial aviation. The two solutions are to (a) get government out of commercial aviation (OH MY GAWD --- DON"T YOU CARE ABOUT SAFETY??? -- PLANES WILL BE CRASHING ALL OVER THE PLACE!! --- THE SKIES ARE SAFE **BECAUSE** OF THE GOVERNMENT!!!! or (b) let the government plan and implement the change. Sadly, we will end up with (b) and it will take at least another decade or two. Jim Elwell, CAMS Electrical Engineer Industrial manufacturing manager Salt Lake City, Utah, USA www.qsicorp.com
