Letters to the Editor
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Published Letters: 50 Editor's Choice: 9
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Second time's the charm
[Read the article: Ask the pilot]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]or maybe not. I gave up reading on the eighth page of responses, but since I failed to chime in in support of our intrepid columnist last time...
First, Patrick is still right about legislation. It probably won't come into play very often, and when it is invoked, it's as likely to complicate matters as it is to relieve the problem at hand. It does make for good reelection copy, though.
Second, although I wouldn't have written something exactly along these lines were I in Patrick's shoes, can you blame the guy for elucidating his position and clarifying some of the misreadings and misconceptions that arose in last week's responses?
I did love the sub-hed, though. Patrick is right - the public hates the airlines. Why? Because it's the intar-wub, and it's fun to hate stuff on the intar-wub. Also, because passengers more or less fit into two categories: the frequent flier, who has crappy experiences just due to averages catching up, and the once a year flier, whom the airlines depend on. The airlines depend on them because they:
A - make up the majority of passengers, and
B - fly infrequently enough that they will buy based on price and nothing else, taking their chances with spotty service. Also,
C - if they have a bad experience, not expecting to travel again soon will leave them less likely to reject a given airline in the future.
Net result? Everyone thinks that air travel sucks, from business travelers stuck in line behind people who haven't heard of the TSA (shoes off? who knew?) to the family who's once in a lifetime trip to Disney World was ruined when they ran out diapers midway though a multi-hour ground hold at JFK. And yet, most individual consumers have no compelling reason to exercise their economic clout. Who would they go to anyway? The other airlines with more or less the same crummy service?
Until the underlying problems (congested airports, airlines which can't afford to charge enough money to afford to run their business properly, and so forth) are addressed, all the legislation in the world won't prevent people from having a craptastic time every once in a while - or more often.
Eagerly awaiting next week's column...
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Totally worth it!
[Read the article: Ask the pilot]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This column was worth the time to read just for the term "eyeball gasper." I had no idea that was what the air vent thingees are called. My life has been enriched.
As for the magic of flying, well, all I have to say is that it's hard to feel it given the surroundings. I tend to put the blame on the airport experience - it seems that most major airports I've been through are either dingy and overcrowded, or undergoing renovations, resulting in both dinginess and overcrowding. And there's the TSA.
I have fond memories of receiving a silvery plastic set of pilot's wings on every flight I took as a child, but what really gets my nostalgia going is reading books set in the 1960s and 1970s (mostly Travis McGee mysteries and the like) in which characters could simply walk up to a counter at the airport and buy a one way ticket to Mexico City with cash, and get on the plane inside of an hour. It was clear that this was strictly jet-set behavior, but still! There was a jet set. How cool is that?
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Yaw and Wolfgang
[Read the article: Ask the pilot]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Dern ya, Patrick Smith! You're going to make an aerophile out me one of these days.
I have a few chimes to add in, though. First, in response to JIM3CH, who wrote:
Ok, you heavy jet heavies out there. Is the British Airways 777 pictured under the link titled “proper touchdown technique” in a powerful crosswind really doing it right? I would have expected more yaw and less bank.
I'm no expert, but I've been taught that you can yaw all you want on approach, but when it comes time to round out and put the wheels on the runway, you need to use rudder to point straight down the runway, and compensate for the crosswind with aileron (dipping the upwind wing). I'll leave it to actual pilots of big iron to determine whether this picture shows proper or excessive bank angle. HINT : check out the windsock visible in the picture.
Second, I learned about landing technique in part from Wolfgang Langewische's Stick and Rudder. Just wanted to get the name and title out there, together for easy reference. It is the Bible for pilots. Come to think of it, it's a worthwhile and accessible read for the non-pilot who wants to get a fair idea of how airplanes work, and what pilots do to get them up in the air and back down safely.
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Oh, the irony
[Read the article: Shaha Riza's Iraq travel plans]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I can't say I'm surprised that a person of Ms. Riza's political and philosophical stances would be a coveted asset in the pre-war Bush administration. But what I am really curious about is the phrase "wither Iraq project." Is this a transcription error not caught by Callan and the FT editors? Or is it an unconscious error made by the unnamed official, and repeated in the FT article? Perhaps sweetest of all the possibilities is that the irony was intentional, for Iraq has been effectively withered. Mission accomplished, indeed!