Flight Safety Australia magazine. A plea for plain English language
The proposition to change the current format of FSA back to the original Aviation Safety Digest that had always enjoyed universal success, was canvassed two years ago with the current editor. The proposition was knocked back based on the fact that FSA magazine had to pay it's own way and it could only do that by copius advertising which is what we see now.
Dr
I kept every issue I received of the crash comics and any others I that crossed my path that were otherwise unwanted - and then I read every word. Suffice to say I've never kept its replacement and at best have only ever skimmed the rag.
From the very first edition of FSD even Blind Freddy could see it was a poor substitute for the ASD.
From the very first edition of FSD even Blind Freddy could see it was a poor substitute for the ASD.
Join Date: Mar 1999
Location: Australia
Posts: 87
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Sun-Tzu remarked over 2500 year ago:
If the instructions are not clear, if the orders are not obeyed, it is the fault of the general. But if the instructions are clear and the soldiers still do not obey, it is the fault of their officers.
Too bad no-one in power seams to have read Sun Tzu
If the instructions are not clear, if the orders are not obeyed, it is the fault of the general. But if the instructions are clear and the soldiers still do not obey, it is the fault of their officers.
Too bad no-one in power seams to have read Sun Tzu
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Oz
Posts: 469
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Why CASA bothers to print and distribute FSA is a mystery.
According to the 'fine print' on the contents page
"The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors, and do not necessarily represent the views of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority"
So it would seem, one can't believe or take anything published in FSA seriously.
Sums up the value of it pretty well I think.
tipsy
According to the 'fine print' on the contents page
"The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors, and do not necessarily represent the views of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority"
So it would seem, one can't believe or take anything published in FSA seriously.
Sums up the value of it pretty well I think.
tipsy
Other work caused the project to be put to one side but I have the relevant contacts and it will be resurrected in the near to medium future. Centaurus and I have long had a desire to see the old crash comics be available for all the new chums .. who would benefit from learning the lessons of those who often hurt themselves ...
I've also got a few duplicates so if anyone's keen on a copy or two shoot us a PM and I'll put it in the mail.
Join Date: May 2007
Location: Aus, or USA, or UK or EU, or possibly somehwere in Asia.
Posts: 320
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Bring back the Crash Comic - Totally agree, Mac Job, we miss you.
ASD was well written and illustrated articles from which major safety lessons could be gleaned. Totally absorbing and based on a wealth of experience from industry and GA especially. This publication reflected the issues that faced those who were likely to become statistics by review of the type of accidents that had happened.
Not this glitzy Graphic artist's playground that we are subject to now.
count the amount of words on the pages!! this pathetic offering could be condensed into a few pages of so-called 'information' and the rest is a waste of brightly coloured ink used on meaningless graphics created by some one who does't even know which way and aeroplane points. the proper purpose of graphics (or pictures or even illustrations as we used to know them) is to ADD to the overall tranfer of information by making things clearer and easier to understand. These juxtaposed shaped and colours are not only useless at improving knowledge of the topic, but are in many instances incorrect and distracting from the core article that is a couiple of hundred words with lots of bullet points spread over several pages, big typeface and single column per page in some instances. utter waste of resources, trees chould not die for this nonsense.
I have seen all the excuses and 'explanations' of why it all went pear shaped and why we must accept this pap that is dished up to us now - what utter tripe!!! If this is a really is better type of format then all our manuals should look like children's books, a few words and lots of big colourful but factually innacurrate graphics.
The requirement for technical style of writing and illustration is endemic to aviation, we want to stick with this theme, we understand it AND LIKE IT. At least I do and all those I talk to about this from time to time do as well.
I have only the anecdotal eveidence of every one who knew the old crash comic to go on, but I just cannot see the so-called safety benefit that this current garbage could possibly provide over the old crah comic, that I still have a pile of and that I still browse to this day.
Put ads in if you have to, though i can see conflict of interest rearing it's ugly head, but go back to a more traditional and improved format , writing and editing style my friends and we will once again have a wothwhile and useful safety product that will stay with pilots through their flying careers and beyond.
(Shakes head in complete disbelief that ANYONE could attempt to justify the current pathetic magazine as a 'safety' publication and slowly walks off, broken and dispirited by this obvious symbol of a CASA absolutely out of touch with reality)
Rant over - for now
HD
ASD was well written and illustrated articles from which major safety lessons could be gleaned. Totally absorbing and based on a wealth of experience from industry and GA especially. This publication reflected the issues that faced those who were likely to become statistics by review of the type of accidents that had happened.
Not this glitzy Graphic artist's playground that we are subject to now.
count the amount of words on the pages!! this pathetic offering could be condensed into a few pages of so-called 'information' and the rest is a waste of brightly coloured ink used on meaningless graphics created by some one who does't even know which way and aeroplane points. the proper purpose of graphics (or pictures or even illustrations as we used to know them) is to ADD to the overall tranfer of information by making things clearer and easier to understand. These juxtaposed shaped and colours are not only useless at improving knowledge of the topic, but are in many instances incorrect and distracting from the core article that is a couiple of hundred words with lots of bullet points spread over several pages, big typeface and single column per page in some instances. utter waste of resources, trees chould not die for this nonsense.
I have seen all the excuses and 'explanations' of why it all went pear shaped and why we must accept this pap that is dished up to us now - what utter tripe!!! If this is a really is better type of format then all our manuals should look like children's books, a few words and lots of big colourful but factually innacurrate graphics.
The requirement for technical style of writing and illustration is endemic to aviation, we want to stick with this theme, we understand it AND LIKE IT. At least I do and all those I talk to about this from time to time do as well.
I have only the anecdotal eveidence of every one who knew the old crash comic to go on, but I just cannot see the so-called safety benefit that this current garbage could possibly provide over the old crah comic, that I still have a pile of and that I still browse to this day.
Put ads in if you have to, though i can see conflict of interest rearing it's ugly head, but go back to a more traditional and improved format , writing and editing style my friends and we will once again have a wothwhile and useful safety product that will stay with pilots through their flying careers and beyond.
(Shakes head in complete disbelief that ANYONE could attempt to justify the current pathetic magazine as a 'safety' publication and slowly walks off, broken and dispirited by this obvious symbol of a CASA absolutely out of touch with reality)
Rant over - for now
HD
Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: Perth
Posts: 430
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Harley
Generally good points there Harley, but unfortunately the glitzy graphics are expected these days and any publication without them is now considered "amateurish" (not by me, I hasten to add).
Perhaps it's symptomatic of the modern tendency to favour form over function that is becoming more prevalent day by day.
I do believe that your point about "conflict of interest" re the advertising is worrisome and would welcome more discussion about that.
I don't believe that ANY publication can totally disassociate itself from the dictates of advertisers to whom the publication owes a part of its revenue.
Put ads in if you have to, though i can see conflict of interest rearing it's ugly head, but go back to a more traditional and improved format , writing and editing style my friends and we will once again have a wothwhile and useful safety product that will stay with pilots through their flying careers and beyond.
Perhaps it's symptomatic of the modern tendency to favour form over function that is becoming more prevalent day by day.
I do believe that your point about "conflict of interest" re the advertising is worrisome and would welcome more discussion about that.
I don't believe that ANY publication can totally disassociate itself from the dictates of advertisers to whom the publication owes a part of its revenue.
Join Date: Mar 2000
Location: australia
Posts: 121
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
As a 40 year recipient of these Digests I have to agree they are, of late, pathetically weak in informative , interesting & technical content . Something has to be done about the excessive amount of advertisements in them too.
It's about time the government realised the lack of appropriately qualified technical personnel to produce these periodicals. Instead of relying on the public to submit stories , how about some decent technical articles.......
It's about time the government realised the lack of appropriately qualified technical personnel to produce these periodicals. Instead of relying on the public to submit stories , how about some decent technical articles.......
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Adelaide
Age: 45
Posts: 18
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Very (very) new to aviation in general and was a bit surprised to be receiving free reading material in the mail. I was pretty happy to be reading anything aviation-related but, to be brutally honest, the magazine was a bit meh. The close calls are alright (the writing a bit amateurish) but the stories re-enforcing regs are just bollocks. Dispassionate, bureacrat-speak which, honestly, I would start to skim but then lose interest within seconds.
Can only surmise they're incuded for legal requirements but to be part of a magazine, y'know, something people will actually read, reckon they need to be a little more human about it. These sorts of 'REMINDER: REGULATION 8008L3SS.OU812/WTFBBQ' smack of school marm scolding. What functioning adult is going to respect or adhere to that? Being reminded to do something you probably were doing anyway generally doesn't work on people with a vaguely functioning cerebral cortex.
That said, I did a bit of searching for these 'crash comics' and found a couple of excerpts;
http://www.airwaysmuseum.com/Downloa...son-VH-AGE.pdf
http://www.airwaysmuseum.com/Downloa...5%20VH-CAO.pdf
Informative, specific, interesting and still relevant lessons abound. But, these sorts of things (minus some editorialising) are already covered in ATSB incident/crash reports available online, yeah?
The usual purpose of a digest of any sort, pre-internet, was to disseminate info like incident reports to practitioners. With reports up for easy search/download these days, that elimiinates the need to put it in a digest I'd have thought. So you take away what is probably a large chunk of the publication (please, correct me if I'm wrong as I've not seen one).
So, with the above sorts of articles removed, this probably means you're not left with much to work with. In light of the above, what do people think should be in FSA? Is it even relevant to have it at all any more? It seems a pretty light-weight publication to me and, I'm sure, to a professional pilot, would seem even less relevant. Is the professional pilot the target demographic any more? I wonder because mates who grab a copy and read it when visiting like it a lot.
Thing is, amany industry digests seem to be stuck in a bit of a web-access void where bits of them are available online but the uproar from the lack of relevence would probably pale in comparison to the scenario where the publication was stopped entirely. FSA would be better served as a web publication in its current form, I think.
Can only surmise they're incuded for legal requirements but to be part of a magazine, y'know, something people will actually read, reckon they need to be a little more human about it. These sorts of 'REMINDER: REGULATION 8008L3SS.OU812/WTFBBQ' smack of school marm scolding. What functioning adult is going to respect or adhere to that? Being reminded to do something you probably were doing anyway generally doesn't work on people with a vaguely functioning cerebral cortex.
That said, I did a bit of searching for these 'crash comics' and found a couple of excerpts;
http://www.airwaysmuseum.com/Downloa...son-VH-AGE.pdf
http://www.airwaysmuseum.com/Downloa...5%20VH-CAO.pdf
Informative, specific, interesting and still relevant lessons abound. But, these sorts of things (minus some editorialising) are already covered in ATSB incident/crash reports available online, yeah?
The usual purpose of a digest of any sort, pre-internet, was to disseminate info like incident reports to practitioners. With reports up for easy search/download these days, that elimiinates the need to put it in a digest I'd have thought. So you take away what is probably a large chunk of the publication (please, correct me if I'm wrong as I've not seen one).
So, with the above sorts of articles removed, this probably means you're not left with much to work with. In light of the above, what do people think should be in FSA? Is it even relevant to have it at all any more? It seems a pretty light-weight publication to me and, I'm sure, to a professional pilot, would seem even less relevant. Is the professional pilot the target demographic any more? I wonder because mates who grab a copy and read it when visiting like it a lot.
Thing is, amany industry digests seem to be stuck in a bit of a web-access void where bits of them are available online but the uproar from the lack of relevence would probably pale in comparison to the scenario where the publication was stopped entirely. FSA would be better served as a web publication in its current form, I think.
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: AUSTRALIA
Posts: 209
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Just checked my collection - July 1968 for the old Safety Digest and about every one since. Every one a relevent read even today.
Bit like FTDK, the latest offering lasts about 5 minutes, unless of course severe constipation sets in.
Bit like FTDK, the latest offering lasts about 5 minutes, unless of course severe constipation sets in.
But, these sorts of things (minus some editorialising) are already covered in ATSB incident/crash reports available online, yeah?
The ATSB reports are sanitised to the nth degree and are carefully vetted by the legal eagles. Lots of reference to "Significant factors" leaving the reader to assess for himself the cause of the accident. In marked contrast, Mac Job's ASD magazines were completely different in style and there was no beating about the bush. In other words, you could picture the scene because of Mac Job's fine way with words. There is simply no contest between the two magazines - Air Safety Digest was light years ahead of the current CASA flight safety mag.
Regretfully I can't see any changes happening in the near future, especially as the current mag is driven by advertising revenue.
Yeah, add me to the list too.
The rubbish graphics hurt my eyes!!
Kind of reminds me of a school kid's book report or something - "now class, you have to write an essay, and it's got to be [insert number] words long"...
So you do the minimum, and pad it out with bul**hi* (worked for me
)
Do they write those letters themselves? And what's with the error count?
The rubbish graphics hurt my eyes!!
Kind of reminds me of a school kid's book report or something - "now class, you have to write an essay, and it's got to be [insert number] words long"...
So you do the minimum, and pad it out with bul**hi* (worked for me
)Do they write those letters themselves? And what's with the error count?
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Brisbane Australia
Age: 81
Posts: 46
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Talk about "here's a wheel let's reinvent it"
When I had sorted out the parts that I understood, from the 10 Commandments for LAMEs, I realised that it was exactly what I had been doing for over 45 years.
The rest looked like something from one of KRUDD's scriptwriters so in the bin it went.
When I had sorted out the parts that I understood, from the 10 Commandments for LAMEs, I realised that it was exactly what I had been doing for over 45 years.
The rest looked like something from one of KRUDD's scriptwriters so in the bin it went.
