To: Ed Winchester
Here is an example why I don’t like to fly although if I have to I will. Shortly after submitting a design deficiency report to my boss, relative to the wing of the A-310 and A-300-600, explaining that under certain conditions the wing would either explode of struck by lightning or if there was an internal failure of the flap PCU it would result in the flaps ripping off of a supercritical wing causing loss of the aircraft I had to fly to England for a meeting at BAe. I drove to Zurich (Cloten) and got on a Swiss Air airplane. To my good luck it was an A-310. The whole flight was of the white-knuckle variety. I got a chance to sit up front with the flight crew and I told them about the problems. When I left the flight deck the pilots were blankly staring out the windows.
On my present assignment I had to fly on an A-330 shortly before the Air Transat dead sticked into an island airport.
Regarding driving I do a lot of that to include trips of several thousand miles each way when going on a work assignment. Quebec is another story. In a conversation with an acquaintance I told him that in the United States they teach defensive driving. He asked what that was and I gave him the following example. In the USA they teach you to drive defensively by imagining that behind every corner there would be a big green truck and it would be partially in my lane. I was taught to consider that eventuality under all circumstances. The Quebecer asked the significance of the green truck and I told him that in Quebec everybody drives green trucks.