Big Brutha:
Are you a pilot at all: I came out of flying training 40 years ago and have been flying 4-engined aircraft ever since - apart from nearly 8 years on a three-holer.
Dried-up prune: My wife would probably be the first to agree that I have more than a passing resemblence to a dried-up prune but that is not as a result of dehydration.
Knowledge: Yes, I have picked up some knowledge over the last 40 years otherwise I would not be alive today.
Self righteous: I don't think I am any more self righteous than any of the others who post on these forums.
Manager: I am not, never have been nor do I ever intend to be a manager. Mind you, I have met some very good and some very nice managers over the years - I have also met some who have been pretty useless and nasty with it!
Dehydration: See below.
Bucking Bronco:
I note that you are eagerly awaiting my reply so I do hope that I haven't kept you waiting too long.
411A: I have said it many times before, I am not in any way connected with the esteemed gentleman in Arizona. When Danny went on to the new system, my old nom de plume got lost and I keep appearing as JW411 which was my old password. I cannot be bothered to change it.
Shame on you: I do not feel any sense of shame at all. Hand Solo started this when he made his 25 years without a crash statement. Sadly, he did not say that dying on the ground didn't count. I thought it was rather insensitive of him to brush off the Manchester 737 tragedy as an "on ground INCIDENT" which gave the impression that it didn't really matter. I would have thought that it was at the very least an on ground ACCIDENT and a pretty tragic one at that. Once again, I stress that I do not point any blame at the operating crew. They did the best possible job in the circumstances and with the information they had available to them at the time. It was not me that trivialised the event.
TCAS at Linate: The BA crew displayed excellent airmanship by refusing the take-off clearance from ATC at Linate. Indeed, they should never have been given take-off clearance until the SAS MD80 had reported "airborne".
747/Penta: You are quite right. The captain paid the ultimate penalty and surely that was an avoidable tragedy. However, I don't think you can dismiss it totally by saying that the 747-100 had a habit of wandering around the localiser. Were they not attempting a Cat 3 approach when the whole crew were not qualified and the aircraft equipment was not up to snuff?
757/Athens: I had no idea that the new captain was a TT on his first night into the booze. That is very sad. I am sure that you are right in stating that the rest of the crew would have done something about it but wasn't it the receptionist at the hotel who sounded the first alarm bell by calling BA at the airport?
Dehydration: I note that your Highland Spring (there's posh) label tells you that most people don't drink enough water and that we should drink much more. Could it just possibly be that this exhortation is a commercial whose purpose is to get you to buy more Highland Spring?
Being serious now, I still could not put away 1.5 litres of H2O on a London to LAX flight. (It used to take us closer to 11 hours for we cruised at 0.82M). I used to drink mostly soda water or ordinary water but must confess to taking the odd coffee and Coca Cola which are, of course, very bad for you!
So were the cold beers in the hotel afterwards and the air-conditioning was less than helpful. I used to have to make a conscious effort to rehydrate before going flying. Ah well, none of us are perfect.
One interesting experiment that I got involved in in the Middle East; I used to have to sit in an aeroplane for about 2 hours at night while a bunch of co-pilots did touch and go landings etc. It was very hot and very humid and we could not pressurise the aeroplane for obvious reasons.
The aviation medics got us to record the volume of fluid (of any sort) that we drank in the following 24 hours. The average was a mind-blowing 16 pints after only 2 hours of this sort of flying.
Thought: I think SBA has asked the question but if you chaps don't like the responses that you are getting then why do you discuss bottles of water on a public forum? Would you not be better advised to stick to the BA forum and then we will all leave you in peace.
Finally: If you are looking for another reply then you will have to wait for I am going to commit aviation tomorrow and will be on the road for a week.