PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - NYT: How Boeing’s Responsibility in a Deadly Crash ‘Got Buried’
Old 21st Jan 2020, 04:15
  #25 (permalink)  
wonkazoo
 
Join Date: Nov 2015
Location: Bay Area, CA
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What is Airmanship??

This thread has sparked a thought, one that has lingered through the MAX saga.

What is "airmanship??"

I know what I think it means, and I know what a lot of posters here on PPRuNE think it means, but in concrete terms what exactly is airmanship??

Before you answer with a concrete definition let me share my day with you. This morning started at 0400 in Fountain Valley, CA where I was staying with my son for a hockey tournament. Come 1100 we were on our way home to Half Moon Bay, through the entirety of the LA basin, the Grapevine, the endless expanse of Rt 5 to the Pacheco pass etc. When we started I was reasonably coherent and my usual race-car driver (for real) self. By the time it started to rain five hours later on Rt. 5 just before Los Banos my eyes were blurry with fatigue and I had to use every ounce of energy I had to maintain focus on the road and the copious (and insane) traffic around me. Was I unsafe?? I do not think so. (If I did think so I would have stopped) But could I have responded to a series of life-threatening events occurring in quick sequence with the same level of reaction time and cognition that I had five hours earlier in LA?? Nope. Not a chance.

I've spent roughly 4,400 hours of my life at the pointy end of flying objects in full responsibility for returning them to the ground in the same state that they left it. I failed to do this once- and I have the caterpillar pin to prove that on that day my "airmanship" was enough to at least keep my ass from dying, even if it could not save the airplane. So do I have "airmanship??" I honestly have no idea, but if I do I also know that given enough fatigue, distraction or illness it can be erased in a heartbeat.

Anyway I return to the question: What the heck is "airmanship" and why is it so great at saving airplanes that have been poorly designed??

Warm regards- apologies for the length- as stated the day started quite awhile ago.
dce
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