LO
That's not to say that we should not respect each others' knowledge and experience
I agree chap, thats why i said i would never tell anyone else of any other profession how to do their job.
I'd also put it to you as a working hypothesis that the reason that we don't crash 300 RAF aircraft a year, as in the early 1950s, and that we don't have weekly airline crashes (which we would if we multiplied 1950s-1960s accidents rates by today's traffic) is that we learn from the accidents that did happen and the accidents that didn't.
Sorry LO
there is very little evidence to support this (certainly on the flying side). The reason we do not crash as many aircraft is because our understanding of material science and our maintenance and servicing techniques have improved drastically. NDT and environmental health monitoring systems mean that these days the engineers can do a better job for us than ever in the history of aviation.
Didnt mean to stop the debate at all. Just get miffed off with people bad mouthing someone when they dont know what happened.(did prefix my message with i need a rant! - not an excuse granted)
Tigs