Texas Fall/Winter thread!

[pacerron]

Over the busy years we seem to have gone through a lot of strings of mini lights for our Christmas trees. I'm not the decorator so didn't pay much attention.
I did tell my wife to save the bulbs since some have to still be good even though they keep changing the design of the
removable bulb bases.:thumbdown:

This year, after accumulating a heaping butter bowl full over the years, my wife says: "If your not going to do something with those bulbs I'm throwing them out." Then she says: " We need to get a couple new strings as two of the ones we have are driving me nuts."
When she starts talking about throwing things out, my hearing improves and I pay attention, since I wonder if I'm next.
So I spent about 30 minutes making a "Rube Goldberg" tester and touching the bare wire ends to the prongs on the plug.
Surprisingly, to her, there were only 10 bad bulbs in the entire mess.
So I think we have a lifetime supply of bulbs and don't need to buy any new strings.
Wonder if that qualifies me to get a new implement for the tractor? She said: " not only no, but xxxx no"

 

[Western]

FG19 Gets some big points!!

On the news (wish I had a link for ya) But their is a growing mountain of evidence of pilots now days over relying on instrumentation. They where talking with an "expert, that said many newer pilots did not properly know how to fly by manual control???!!!!

They said they are going to force airlines to train more to the tune of over 260 million dollars cost to the airline industry.

The "for instance they gave" was the crash in San Fransisco, said the young pilot could have made the landing, if he had only engaged more throttle manually. Apparently he had also accidentally turned off the computer control and the LA alarm sounded 15 sec's before impact.

Just as FG was saying back a few months ago:thumbsup:

 

[jinman]

So I spent about 30 minutes making a "Rube Goldberg" tester and touching the bare wire ends to the prongs on the plug.
Surprisingly, to her, there were only 10 bad bulbs in the entire mess.
So I think we have a lifetime supply of bulbs and don't need to buy any new strings.
Wonder if that qualifies me to get a new implement for the tractor? She said: " not only no, but xxxx no"

Ron, I wait until the end of the season and then buy the lights when they go on sale for 50% to 75% off. That makes them so cheap that it's hardly worth testing.

Charlie: When I was in the US Navy, we got lots of rabbit in the chow hall when we were near Australia. They cooked it up fried and it was delicious. The bones are much smaller than chicken, but the flesh is tender and tasty when battered and fried. I loved it.

 

[farmgirl19]

Sad thing is, the airlines can't teach this. It needs to be basic training, and learning to listen and feel and FLY your aircraft. No amount of remedial work will teach the basics. They need to go back and get in a small taildragger!!!! Good luck finding flight instructors that can fly a taildragger, much less give lessons in one! It will only get worse from here. Many of the flight instructors don't know the basics that were once taught, so they can't teach them. We used to teach spins and had to pull out with accuracy on heading. They did away with that, 20+ years ago. I hear now they do not even teach stalls and recovery. THAT will get even more people hurt/killed!

And to compound the SFO crash issue, many cultures do not question authority. There was supposedly an "instructor pilot" on that flight. Any of the pilots could have added power, or initiated a "go around". Since the "instructor pilot" did not, the others were not going to question him, so basically allowed the aircraft to crash.

Anyone else hearing rumblings if another ice storm coming right after Christmas? What I am hearing is it will make this last one look mild. I sure hope those folks are wrong. I am so TIRED of winter! I want to get back to gardening and brush hogging, and rain dancing, (au natural, of course!).

 

[jinman]

The "for instance they gave" was the crash in San Fransisco, said the young pilot could have made the landing, if he had only engaged more throttle manually. Apparently he had also accidentally turned off the computer control and the LA alarm sounded 15 sec's before impact.

Just as FG was saying back a few months ago:thumbsup:

Dennis, situational awareness and crew management/flightdeck management training is severely lacking in many airlines, especially the ones who contract training rather than do the training themselves. Those airlines always look for the highest return on their investment and take a minimum approach to training. It's no secret that making a profit in the industry requires penny pinching on every level. Often the budget that gets slashed first is training. Add to that also that there is extreme pressure in many foreign countries to be successful. It can be a huge embarrassment and shame to anyone who cannot successfully obtain a type rating or upgrade. Failure can mean a loss of employment and essentially be a social outcast; at least among their peers. It is almost legendary that any foreign student going through training will say they understand you when they may have no clue what you are talking about. Put one of them in a class full of people who do understand and are high achievers and it will surely result in them struggling to pass an oral exam and certainly also not be able to do the flight training in the prescribed time. Nobody who knows their stuff wants to do the sim training with an incompetent person in the right seat. Pairing them with anyone but a flight instructor is almost impossible. Even then, they either blow their training or they have to have many additional simulator hours added to their training.

In the private/corporate jet sector, we've seen people sent from foreign countries (largely mid-east) who have only 200 hours total flight time and have never flown anything but a twin engine prop plane with no pressurization. These people have no concept of turbine engines, pressurization and environmental systems, hydraulics, pneumatics, etc.. Your sales people often have a big contract with some organization and the owner's son is the one with the 200 hours. To refuse to attempt training that person would mean the loss of the entire contract. You are not only insulting the son, but the whole family. What do you do?

With automation at the level it is, even experienced pilots forget the first rule: Fly the airplane. One button on the yoke will disconnect the autopilot so that the pilot is in control. With proper flightdeck management and crew coordination, one person is always flying the plane. The other person is doing the grunt work of finding checklists, radio comm, monitoring instruments, and even lowering the gear at the proper time. In the case of the San Francisco pilots, it's amazing that neither pilot suggested an increase in throttle until a go-around was called. I'm not even sure they increased the throttle for that. The aircraft came in too low and was doomed. It's an unforgivable mistake unless both pilots were physically incapacitated. Any loss of life is horrible, but losing only three people is a miracle.

As the world economy expands, we have to work to end that feeling of shame that goes along with failing at flight training. I have no idea how to do that, but it leads to unqualified people at the controls of aircraft flying over our heads in the US. We also have to teach our own pilots at every level in the USA that flying an airplane is not a video game. Sometimes you have to set automation aside and fly that darn airplane. If you can't do that, you have no business in the cockpit.

 

[bindian]

Sad thing is, the airlines can't teach this. It needs to be basic training, and learning to listen and feel and FLY your aircraft. No amount of remedial work will teach the basics. They need to go back and get in a small taildragger!!!! Good luck finding flight instructors that can fly a taildragger, much less give lessons in one! It will only get worse from here. Many of the flight instructors don't know the basics that were once taught, so they can't teach them. We used to teach spins and had to pull out with accuracy on heading. They did away with that, 20+ years ago. I hear now they do not even teach stalls and recovery. THAT will get even more people hurt/killed!

And to compound the SFO crash issue, many cultures do not question authority. There was supposedly an "instructor pilot" on that flight. Any of the pilots could have added power, or initiated a "go around". Since the "instructor pilot" did not, the others were not going to question him, so basically allowed the aircraft to crash.

Anyone else hearing rumblings if another ice storm coming right after Christmas? What I am hearing is it will make this last one look mild. I sure hope those folks are wrong. I am so TIRED of winter! I want to get back to gardening and brush hogging, and rain dancing, (au natural, of course!).

Send all Y'alls winter down here. We will embrace it with open arms.
hugs, Brandi

 

[farmgirl19]

Send all Y'alls winter down here. We will embrace it with open arms.
hugs, Brandi

I wish that I could! ALL of the winter weather and cold would be diverted, if I had my way! :cold:

 

[pacerron]

Sulley, the captain that landed in the Hudson River a few years ago, was interviewed the other night on TV.

He said, with all the training the pilots get in how to manually flying the plane, but growing up in a computer controlled automated world, they just do not have the personal confidence to believe they can do it better than the automated systems.

 

[bindian]

Over the busy years we seem to have gone through a lot of strings of mini lights for our Christmas trees. I'm not the decorator so didn't pay much attention.
I did tell my wife to save the bulbs since some have to still be good even though they keep changing the design of the
removable bulb bases.:thumbdown:

This year, after accumulating a heaping butter bowl full over the years, my wife says: "If your not going to do something with those bulbs I'm throwing them out." Then she says: " We need to get a couple new strings as two of the ones we have are driving me nuts."
When she starts talking about throwing things out, my hearing improves and I pay attention, since I wonder if I'm next.
So I spent about 30 minutes making a "Rube Goldberg" tester and touching the bare wire ends to the prongs on the plug.
Surprisingly, to her, there were only 10 bad bulbs in the entire mess.
So I think we have a lifetime supply of bulbs and don't need to buy any new strings.
Wonder if that qualifies me to get a new implement for the tractor? She said: " not only no, but xxxx no"

Ron,
I guess that is awesome if you are stuck in a snow storm, but I use this......... Home Depot - Light Tester customer reviews - product reviews - read top consumer ratings

Especially to zap the shunts to get the line working with a burnt out bulb and it does remove the frustration.
hugs, Brandi