The Risk Assessment by a line captain, over and above the criteria mentioned by JB, and published as a Minimum Equipment List etc for his aircraft type, can be broadly characterized as a "feeling in his/her water". In other words experience, especially if one has been scared f***less with a similar condition previously. Hence my dramatised example for AC. He criticised it as a poor example as manufacturers guidance would assure me to the contrary. That is the difference between old pilots and engineers. He believes them, I don't (necessarily). But all this is by the way, because the basic truth here is not a tension between pilots and engineers, but between the front line and the rear echelons in the MOD. The former are at war, and their fate may be determined in the most arbitrary way. The latter, with honourable exceptions, Tuc, are sitting fat dumb and happy having supplied the former with non-airworthy aircraft. That is a bloody disgrace!
Last edited by Chugalug2; 8th July 2007 at 18:41.