Dear Ezra and All, It is interesting that you mention an:
> 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. On Monday my wife noticed a midday movie called 'Freefall � Flight 174' and said, 'I bet that's the Gimli Glider.' This is the story that you refer to, it is about an Air Canada flight that was loaded with pounds of fuel after the calculations had been done in kilograms. The error arose from a confusion of the fuel density figures. Sure enough the midday movie turned out to be the story of the Gimli Glider. It's not a great movie but it is well worth watching. I would highly recommend it for high school classes and for student pilots. BTW You can find the complete story of the Gimli Glider at: http://www.cadetworld.com/rgs/story2a.html Cheers, Pat Naughtin CAMS Geelong, Australia on 2002-10-08 08.30, Ezra Steinberg at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Thank you, Pat, for this useful bit of information. > > 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? > > Ezra > > > Pat Naughtin wrote: > >> Dear Ezra and All, >> >> An interesting situation arose in Australia a few summers ago when one state >> (Victoria) was experiencing a worse than usual bush fire (I think these are >> called wild fires in the USA). They called for help from a neighbouring >> state (New South Wales) only to discover that each of the two states had >> decided to use differing standards for purchasing of their hose fittings � >> the two fire service's fittings wouldn't fit. >> >> At the post mortem held after the fire, I don't think that issue such as >> 'market forces' and 'individual freedom' were very high on the agenda. All >> Australian states now have fire fighting fittings that are made to uniform >> standards. >> >> Cheers, >> >> Pat Naughtin CAMS >> Geelong, Australia >> >> on 2002-10-08 04.47, Ezra Steinberg at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >> >>> >>> Jim Elwell wrote (in part): >>> >>>> He (the "metric martyr" -- Ezra) refused to use a NEW approved scale >>>> system. >>>> He had a perfectly good one >>>> that the government had approved in the past. >>> >>> So, then, for example, if a manufacturer has an existing long-standing >>> approved >>> fire-protection system for his plant and is suddenly told by the government >>> that a different fire protection system must be installed, is that ALWAYS >>> unacceptable? Should "market forces" only decide which kind of fire >>> protection >>> system should be used in the country? >>> >>> Ezra >>> >
