It has been very interesting reading your responses and yoko1's missives.For a Company as big as Boeing it would not surprise me that they have there "lawyers" pouring over the web in search of "technical" discussions. One would assume that these "lawyers" now realize they have their work cut out to meet the demand of potential law suits.Don't really care for lawyers, but I do for the families of the loved ones lost in these accidents.For closure for all of these families, let us all take a moment to reflect on the gravity of the situation and ensure that we all channel our efforts to ensure that the Boeing Company make strides towards openness, safety, training and honesty for our pilot cadre and for consumers flying in the 737.
Well said.
One of the things that brought me to PPRuNe maybe ten years ago was the fact that pretty much everyone who posted, from self-admitted SLF to 30,000 ATP flying heavy iron, all were focused on sharing their experience and expertise for the greater or common good. Passionate people involved in sharing ideas, knowledge and experience, without an agenda, to try to find some sanity in the world. (Can you tell I usually visited when something metal and heavy flew into the ground somewhere in the world??)
What I have seen in the last six months are examples that are discordant and do not follow with that former description of PPRuNe. These examples are in most cases polished, speak in dogmatic or nuanced catchphrases that are not intended to educate or share, but to shift a discussion either on to a certain topic or off of another one. They are also stupendously verbose and frequently consume every conversation and all participants with the sheer volume of their nuanced work. And nuance is the key word. A malcontent who truly believed the pilots were to blame and eff-all anyone who says different would be instantly recognizable. Someone who says, "well yes, there's Boeing, and the FAA, and all the others who contributed, but really folks, it's the guys flying the plane who are at fault..." And then repeats that phrase but carefully reworded: "The pilots could have recovered the airplane if only they had followed the checklist," or "all they had to do was follow the checklist," or "the first Lion Air incident showed that it was survivable. Why are you arguing about it being survivable?" is basically being coy.
This repeats and repeats and repeats. 6 posts per day in some cases. For months now.
PPRuNe appears to have been, I hate to say it, been compromised and is (I believe) being used as a messaging tool by outside entities. I know this because for the first time I am seeing something I never saw before: Someone proselytizing for a certain belief- in this case the fault of the pilots of the doomed airplanes. That same someone singularly well-informed to boot. Sure, they have branched out to other areas in their posts, but every four posts or so you will see a return to that area of expertise: "It was not Boeing- it was those damn foreigners who flew a perfectly good airplane into the ground..."
In the past PPRuNe was a (relatively) free exchange of ideas from individuals with no dog in the fight. No one was selling anything and everyone just wanted to know what the eff happened.
By all appearances that is simply not so today.
Thank you for listening,
dce.