I wish you wouldn't bother with the "all due respect" disclaimer--it just makes you look bad when you're unable to follow through.
This is a little no-p.c. nit-picky of me, but I just need to get it off my chest:
A "flight deck" is found on a naval carrier--pilots work in a cockpit.
Nothing about the argument, against arming pilots, that I've put forward here is "absurd"--so spare me your histrionics. That whole *tsk, tsk* routine is the bad substitute for logic, from hell, as far as I'm concerned.
As a former load master and mechanic, I've shared the burden of responsibility for aircraft, crew and passenger safety with pilots--so it's not as if I don't "get it". Now, I may not have to die with you, but that doesn't mean that I'm incapable of gleaning, from that experience, some insight into the pressure that you're under.
Nobody's discussed the procedure for assuming control of your aircraft with me--so I don't know exactly how they intend to safeguard against terrorists using that same system to their advantage. I do know that it wouldn't be tactically difficult to protect you from that possibility--but entrusting one source, especially a lumbering bureaucratic source, to handle it would be extraordinarily unwise.
As far as airfield availabilty goes, pardon my candor, but you're as good as dead anyway. Now, if I can get you onto a friendly military airfield--fabulous--you had better believe I'm going to do that (even if we have to wait a few hours for the anti-terrorist team and equipment to arrive). But if you're only wet enough to put you out over the Atlantic or any other unpopulated area, where your aircraft can't be used as a weapon to kill more people than are already going to perish onboard anyway--that, unfortunately, is precisely where you're headed. I'm terribly sorry; it isn't fair. Please forgive me--but that is exactly what's going to happen.
Nearly every commercial jet in production today is capable of completing a cycles without a flight crew. I sure as hell wouldn't trust it--unless I absolutely had to. But then, that's what we're talking about here, isn't it? A situation so dire has arisen, onboard this aircraft, that you absolutely must rely on it.
No guarantees? When have you, in any facet of your existence, been guaranteed anything? Ever? The probablities may have been high--but you have never been guaranteed anything--not ever; I promise you.
You want to work with a gun on your hip? I don't blame you. I wouldn't mind slinging an OICW over my shoulder too, for deterrence and safety--but that doesn't make it a good idea.
I know it sucks to face this rationally. But if you will throw your energy into productive means of addressing these threats--then this public will back your play and pressure this government and carriers into putting their money where your posteriors are.
Last edited by mriya225; 23rd May 2002 at 22:39.