To: heedm. .. .Quote:. ."Lu, attitudes towards alcohol have changed considerably over the last 30 years. While stories do come out about current abuses of alcohol and aviation (both civil and military), they are now the exception".. .. .Response:. .. .What you say about pilots and alcohol being the exception may very well be true but there are other aspects of alcohol and in some cases, drug consumption that could have a direct effect on the well being of pilots, aircrew and passengers.. .. .I worked in three major airframe and appliance manufacturers in Germany and in all three there were beer dispensing machines situated throughout the respective factories and engineering spaces and nobody was counting how many bottles were consumed by the workers. In two of these facilities wine and beer was sold in the company cafeterias and again nobody monitored consumption. In one of the companies large groups of workers in different departments would go off campus for lunch and many of them consumed large volumes of Kirsch Wasser a highly potent alcoholic beverage along with many beers. These three companies were responsible for building helicopters; fighter aircraft and landing gear and control systems for commercial aircraft as well as state of the art fly by light servos.. .. .Here is an illustration closer to home. My son was the senior coordinator on two major commercial aircraft programs at the world’s largest airframe manufacturer. He was certified for ground run-up and ground taxi for these two large widebody aircraft. He was fired because he came back to work two days late from a medical leave resulting from an on the job injury. He had many colleagues that were caught drinking or being drunk on the job and many were caught consuming drugs on company property. They were sent to rehab and later returned to work and some still had the habit.. .. .Now let’s take this one step further. Supposing one of the German engineers were under the influence when they were performing a stress calculation on a critical part or one of the technicians made a manufacturing mistake and a QC man that was under the influence didn’t catch it. Or, the same for the mechanics who under the influence of alcohol or narcotics making a critical assembly error and the QC man also possibly under the influence didn’t catch the error. All of these errors could lead to a catastrophic failure leading to the loss of an aircraft or helicopter, its’ crew and all of the passengers.. .. .Engineers like myself can calculate the reliability of a piece of equipment but no matter how hard the scientists try they will never be able to solve the human reliability equation. Especially if the companies involved permit or condone the use of materials that can cloud the judgement of the workers that are entrusted to design and build systems that are both safe and reliable.. .. .Now I’ll step down from my wooden beer case.. . . . <small>[ 24 March 2002, 17:15: Message edited by: Lu Zuckerman ]</small>