Flight Safety Magazine

[flywatcher]

Please tell me I am senile, I must be to put up with aviation over the last fifty years, but can you tell me why Airservices Australia, with a great furore, cans the printed version of the Flight Safety Magazine and comes out with an electronic version which arrived in my email today. This is a 32 meg download which they tell me I can read on my computer or my tablet (I may be old and stupid but I do have a couple of both). However there is no way of saving it for future reading and as soon as you close it down it is gone forever and it is a 32 meg download if you want to look at it again. I am sure this is really great for safety. If you are in the great outback with a slow connection do they expect you to spend half of your day downloading it again, or do you just consign it to where it belongs.

I have seen, in the last 50 years, some incredibly stupid things perpetuated on the aviation community, including the latest NAIPs debacle and then working backwards through varying levels of stupidity and uselessness. This piece of thoughtless inaneity really makes me wonder why I bother. I wonder why my tax dollars keeps these managers in positions where they can push their poorly thought out schemes on poor sods like us who have to figure a way through their minefields to eke out a living, at the risk of a regulator descending with all the power inherent in their incomprehensible regulations upon our heads.

Thankfully I am now no longer in commercial aviation and free of the over riding culture of oppression and stupidity that has descended on us over the last twenty years but my thoughts and sympathy go to those of you who are forced to remain.

[Chu Mai Huang]

You are senile. (well, you asked!)
CASA puts out Flight Safety Aust.

[stevep64]

I just downloaded the latest copy, still on my hard drive till I bin it. Maybe you should stop using Windows :yuk:

And it's not Airservices Australia anymore, they dropped the Australia bit last year :O Sorry, just being pedantic.

Oh, and your tax dollars don't pay for Airservices, the airlines do.

[flywatcher]

Told you I was senile. Probably living in the past as well. Still don't like it though. Don't pay tax anymore either.

[Jabawocky]

And FSA this edition was......well not worthy of printing on paper either.

I usually read them front to back regardless of the content, this one not even that.

The format is bad in the online version and maybe a download is better.

The paper mag was at least able to be read, even as a cure for insomnia.

This one will die some time soon I fear.

[jas24zzk]

Flywatcher,
it depends on which browser you are using.
They all deal with PDF 'downloads' differently

Though all can save if you know how.....most actually do save, just a matter of knowing where to find it. First port of call would be the recent documents tab in the start menu, but you probably want better access than that.

If you tell me what browser you are using, i can tell you how to find it again, even if you choose to move it for later reference (best idea)


Cheers
Jas

[Capn Bloggs]

Got got a link in a CASA email to this page:

Civil Aviation Safety Authority - Flight Safety Australia (http://www.casa.gov.au/scripts/nc.dll?WCMS:STANDARD::pc=PC_91346)

Plenty of download options there. ;) Get yourself on the FSA mailing list (did I say that?! Smack!).

The "tablet" version is still just a basic two-columned PDF document. The contents list at the front isn't even hyperlinked. Reading columns on a smallish device is a pain (sliding from side to side), and Text Reflow doesn't look pretty either. And that's on my wide green man; can't imagine how bad it'd be on one of those stretched matchboxes. :}

CASA should bite the bullet and go one step further by producing a single-column version as well. Probably take about 10 minutes of reformatting. Throw in some PDF bookmarks so one could skip the cr@p and it could be a goer.

[Up-into-the-air]

Exactly Jabba!!

Yup, could download this and save the file for later.

However, there is no option to close the file and it steadfastly refused to close until the "CTRL-ALT-DEL" was used - not a good start.

Further, the font is too small for my laptop and if enlarged the whole file becomes very un-manageable.

2 out of 10 Mr. casa

[fullboost]

There's no way i will be downloading 30 odd megs of that crap. If the content and layout was of the standard of the old Flight Safety Digest i would be happy to pay a sub to read a printed version. I know its just another cost but i think worth it......in the interests of safety.

[peuce]

Now I'm going to have to setup a PC in my loo.
It's the only place I have time to read!:O

[baswell]

To read it on the iPad, first buy "Good Reader". Seriously, don't cheap out here, you'll love if for all the other PDFs you have. (pilots guides, VFG, etc.)

Then go to that CASA web page and tap on the PDF to view it in Safari.

After it loads, tap "Open in Good Reader". It will be saved in Good Reader for easy reading. :ok:

That said: WHO THE HELL THINKS THAT CREATING A MAGAZINE LIKE YOU ALWAYS HAVE AND THEN POSTING A HUGE PDF ON THE WEB INSTEAD OF SENDING IT TO YOUR PRINTER IS A GOOD WAY TO MAKE AN ELECTRONIC VERSION OF A MAGAZINE??? :ugh:

Seriously: what's wrong with a normal website? Install WordPress, buy one of the many "magazine" layouts for it and start publishing as and when you have stories instead of the bi-monthly drop.

[Old Akro]

Just put it out of its misery and stop it, All it is is reprints from old accidents, articles pushing a CASA line with no real world insight. Seriously, what action would you take after reading the article on the sterile hangar? its an article based on an academic paper, with no real word input.

Why not stop Flight Safety Magazine and put the money into fixing the RAA Aus thing? Wouldn't that be an overall better result?

[Jabawocky]

Akro

I thought the same thing, well almost, split it between the RAAus and the GA Task force.

[Di_Vosh]

If you're using Windows...

From the CASA page, instead of clicking on the "Download the desktop pdf" icon, RIGHT CLICK the same icon and use the option "Save target as" to download to whatever folder you like.

DIVOSH!

[flywatcher]

jas24zzk, divosh, baswell, thank you very much for your help, which I appreciate. My point is, why do they need to issue it in a format that needs your assistance? What about the thousands of pilots our there (now there is a contradiction) who don't have your advanced knowledge and just want to read the rag, and perhaps save it in a normal accepted method, rather than sort through caches etc. Why can't they publish it, in all its lack of glory, in plain old Adobe where you can click to save it, and that is the end of it.
I really can't understand why they need to make it so complicated, if they couldn't get readers in the printed edition, they certainly won't get too many the way it is.

[Capn Bloggs]

Flywatcher, right click "Save Target As..." is one of the basics of Windows. The links on that page from CASA ("on the email") have all the PDFs you could dream of there.

I will retract one of my previous criticisms: the "print-friendly version" list is just what I wanted for my phone (single column), but those 10 articles could have been strung into one PDF.

[bdcer]

As unpalatable as it sounds, change is the one constant in the equation of life. I don't always enjoy embracing it, but it's going to keep happening.

Right click is a great tool, so is the iPad with Goodreader.

[Old Akro]

I would suggest that the tenor of this thread is that its Flights safety magazine that is not embracing change. If its serious about electronic editions, it should be done properly rather than the current half way house mess.

On a slightly different note, I'm still trying to understand why anyone wants to save it on a hard drive.

[truthinbeer]

I don't like the electronic version of the magazine. As a paper edition it was easy to pick up and thumb through whenever you had 5 minutes. I don't even open the online version.

[Slippery_Pete]

FSA has been a POS for years anyway, directed at a small part of the industry.

Same old VFR into IMC stories every time.

Useful for old mate with a PPL.... Completely irrelevant to Australian airline pilots.

[Old Akro]

SP, that's pretty funny because as a GA pilot, I'd say it doesn't have much relevance to us because there is too much about airline accidents, CRM, etc.

The think that irritates me about Flight Safety (and in fact a lot that comes out of CASA) is that its not based in the real world. CASA (and its predecessors) have been collecting data on incidents and accidents for probably more than 70 years. Yet we get lectured on things that committees of public servants THINK might be issues rather than using the data to identify the real problem areas.

So instead we get articles that are superficial and fatuous.

[Capn Bloggs]

Completely irrelevant to Australian airline pilots.
I would have thought that "Airline" pilots would have enough nouse to get good safety info from other sources like the ATSB/NTSB/AAIB or their own in-house safety departments. Let's face it, who's currently getting killed in aviation accidents in Australia? That is what FSA should be aligned towards helping.