Video video video video video video. I'm running out of breath.

What good is that youtube channel I've subscribed to if you don't post anything?

Re the people who think pilots aren't necessary, they used to have a great series on youtube that followed pilots on real flights as they explained all the procedures. The most interesting thing for me was all the discretion required to operate the automation. On those autolands you've got multiple decision points, etc.

Would they let you film the "top of decent" through the final, outlining what you have to do with the nav computers and autopilots?

Just a thought...

Yes! Something else to fulfill my nearly unquenchable aerophilic need for aviation porn.

Caught the article in the Times the other day about the captain demoted to first officer and making 30K a year.

Two reasons I wouldn't be a pilot even though I'm sure there are moments of the job I would love more than anything:

1. I sometimes turn the coffee maker on without first making sure the pot's underneath. You could argue if I had a "pre-coffee checklist" this wouldn't happen, but when I'm flying I prefer to think the people up front, in addition to their many checklists, aren't the absent-minded type.

2. Janitor pay. I truly salute the legions of underpaid professionals who slave away in simulator assessments and who suffer short turnarounds at the regionals, all for pay equivalent to an office temp (or less, if you fly props). Following the healthcare debate and comparing the US to other countries it's a truism to me that experienced captains should be paid the same as doctors - pilots should make substantially more and some doctors should make less.

This won't get read, but...

Very good interview.

The strange part is you, Glenn, are HARDLY making the case that we don't need to worry about Ahmedinejhad, or that Iran shouldn't be taken seriously - you're just putting things in an apples-to-apples context. By doing nothing more than restating the facts you gradually illustrated how out-of-whack the debate over this subject is. Even Ariana Huffington is talking about Holocaust denial.

Boy you sure got blowback for suggesting people were saying Iran is evil, too. Nobody disputed the facts you stated so plainly, but they were all over the "evil" thing.

Keep it up.

Glad to see there are some big guns on the side of reform.

I like the strategy. Wait until the conspiracy theorists have...um...expressed themselves, then pounce. Maybe Something Really Stinks would like to demonstrate exactly how he'd vary the cabin pressure in a 767 cockpit. (Why did he add the "really" to his name?)

PS - re reality series, didn't read the comments for last week's column but my advice to you as someone peripherally affiliated with the entertainment industry is produce something yourself and post it online. Television notoriously only looks backward toward proven models. (That's why some of the new shows seem so anachronistic.) But they are open to ideas that prove themselves. I for one would love a Patrick Smith web series. And while it may be true that personality sells more than subject matter that's largely a function of your comfort on camera - read: experience. There's no reason you can't be the "dog whisperer" of aviation.

I did the same thing, but I'm kind of crashing the party by asking tough questions.

Makes you wonder if that's the same position Glenn Beck was in at CNN. How many of these people really believe what they're spewing and how many are just nihilists taking the money?

You offer a "straw man" argument.

no one is claiming that anyone who opposes the present health care reform bills is crazy, right wing, or fringe.

The article made specific references to statements by Michael Steele. While there are perhaps legitimate differences in philosphy about the role of the federal government between liberals and conservatives, and legitimate concerns about corporate influence shared by both, Michael Steele, Glenn Beck, Chuck Grassley, and the town hall protestors are not talking about those.

People who either disseminate misinformation or trumpet it are by definition not engaged in honest intellectual debate.

If more conservatives would denounce the disingenuous arguments against reform, maybe you'd have more credibility making the legitimate ones. All the same, no is saying that the fact you disagree - on its own - makes you crazy, right wing, or fringe.