Originally Posted by
Kerosine
And another thing scroggs, all due respect to the moderator, but are you not supposed to be working for the benefit of the forum, not using pprune as mild stress relief?
Dave
When you start paying me - and I accept a contract with you - I'll start doing as you wish. Until then, I will do as I see fit! I am not here to blow bubbles up the backsides of those who want reassurance, nor to say what you want to hear.
I have lttle patience with those who, despite having found a source of information as vast and as comprehensive as Pprune, make absolutely no effort to research the subject before blundering in with an ill-thought-through question. I make allowances for age and lack of experience, but I don't see it as my 'job' here to drag the more inadequate Wannabes up to an acceptable standard. Quite the opposite, in fact: there are far more of you than there are jobs for you to go to, therefore it is in your interest that I discourage those who, for whatever reason, I feel are not likely to make the grade. There will still be hundreds of perfectly acceptable candidates applying for every job!
This facility is here to aid you in getting to the truth of professional flying training, and the process of gaining a job. It provides you with the information, but it's not here to spoonfeed you, or to hold your hand while you try the water. It is up to you to do the research yourself, to search for what has been said before, and to apply a reasoning, critical and intelligent mind to what you find. Those who, wide-eyed and innocent, simply believe the Daily Mail-type headlines of 'aviation crisis looms due new taxes' are not ready for or suited to the rigours of training for this profession. They may become so, but that is for them to sort out, not me.
Now, the issue of aviation and emissions of greenhouse gases, and how the world tackles that problem, is an interesting one and it's provoking discussion in far more august forums than this one. I have no doubt that some draconian measures will be proposed - and will be rejected. The fact is that this business is fundamental to the health of the world's economy, and will continue to expand. The rate of expansion may be restricted - particularly in the West - but expand it most certainly will. The taxes proposed or applied will have little effect on the travelling public - indeed, they are designed not to! The UK government has no wish to deter people from travelling; it doesn't even intend to invest the extra tax income in research to alleviate aviation emissions. It simply wishes to raise more money to spend on other things.
Aviation emissions will be tackled by the application of technology to the problem. In the UK, at least, that technology will be paid for entirely by industry. Other countries may use taxation to fund research, but not UK. If (and it's by no means certain) anthropomorphic contibutions to the total of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are a significant factor in global warming, then the science will demand that the greatest contributors are tackled first and hardest. Aviation is nowhere near that - it's not even in the third division. If, on the other hand, it turns out that man's contributions to the total of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is not significant, and that natural causes are to blame, and are uncontrollable, it matters little what aviation does to improve its record. Either way, aviation is not a major player in this question and is unlikely to be seriously affected in the short to medium term - unless the sensationalist press decides to encourage uninformed public opinion to turn against the industry.
Of course, while all this is going on, aviation is subject to the normal economic roller-coaster, and could quite easily have the stuffing knocked out of it by a recession in the USA, or another 9/11, long before (and to a far greater extent than if) global warming measures seriously affects it. To that end, anyone entering flying training is taking a risk - just ask those who graduated in October 2001.
Scroggs
PS. For Global Warming argument, please go
here. Wannabes is not the place to discuss it.