PPRUNE makes the New York Times
 

The Sept 27 New York Times Circuits Section lists several sites for those seeking more information on terrorism, airline security, and foreign affairs. Among the five sites listed are: www.janes.com www.spaceimaging.com
and pprune.org.

The Pprune text:

"Pilots' Buzz
What are airline pilots, cabin crew members and security personnel talking about after the hijackings? Peer into www.pprune.org (the
Professional Pilots Rumor Network). The 70 forums at this discussion site provide an insider's view of the airline industry.
Much of it is too arcane to be useful to neophytes. But seek out the threads, or discussions, about cockpit doors and armed marshals and you will find that not even crew members seem to agree on what measures will work best.

The Web site usually draws 35,000 visitors per day. That number has doubled since the attacks. The site is based in Britain and has
an international audience, but its founder, Danny Fyne, a pilot, said that the increase in visitors from the United States had been
striking.

In one unnerving thread, pilots mostly agreed that passengers should be instructed before takeoff to "aggressively defend the
airplane."

As to the last sentence, I don't see how the reporter can say "pilots mostly agreed," since the reporter does not know who is or is not a pilot on this board.

[ 28 September 2001: Message edited by: Eboy ]

Shouldn't Rumours & News postings be limited to holders of pilots or ATC licences anyway?
It would then hopefully read better and reflect the name "Professional Pilots". Many colleagues have given up with this site completely. The members list is swollen with timewasters.

As a 'timewaster' I actually agree that non airline staff shold be the only ones allowed to post on Rumours and news.

I have an interest in the topics from an outsider point of view, to see whats going on

Maybe let everyone read the posts but only those qualified are allowed to post?

Please take the blinkers off groundfine. I would suggest that external influences on the lot of today's airline pilot are greater than ever at this moment of time.

Groundfine-what would be your criteria for allowing or not someone to post? A PPL-are they qualified to discuss airliner matters? Any CPL (ie, like myself, non-airline) or just airline pilots etc.
Everyone has a right to a point of view and some of the airline crew on this site post incrediably niave or outragious statements and some people who have never flown make some very valid points.
(P.S. I'm not having a go, mate, just stating my opinion, and sorry for going off topic everyone)

groundfine,

I cant believe someone like you is wasting space on this on-going arguement again. Whats the problem, in fact whats youre problem. This topic has been done to death. Now Im not a pilot!! No not at all, blame the Aer Lingus instructor who came to my school many years ago and said I was too tall, and would never get accepted!

Any different story! Should I not be allowed buy a copy of Flight Internationl, Airliner World, Airways, all simply becasue Im not a pilot. No-ones forcing you to come on to PPrune, if you dont like it Fark off!! go somewhere else and stop this drivle about keep PPrune professional! Its getting a bit boring now!

erm, quite.

Captain James, I suggested pilot's licence (or ATC)i.e. including PPLs of course. And of course everyone is welcome to free opinion in the free world even if enthusiasm leads them to being inarticulate or damn rude. The point is that with the necessary anonymity and posting access to all, even The New York Times will believe that much that is written is done so by pilots and so postings assume an insider interest that is not warranted. Sorry if this has already been done to death as I don't often visit these days for the above reasons. But if this is a recurring and thorny subject it suggests it is a valid one.
SLF thanks for your comment. Did you mean airline staff (and I agree with your idea of that wider circle of postees) rather than non-airline?

groundfine

How would you suggest policing the forum to keep out those of us who don't meet your high standards?

Groundfine
I agree with you.
Given the name of the site, it's not surprising that people who don't know the reality think that the views are expressed by people in the industry.
The difficulty would be in regulating membership. Other than giving a licence number or some other ID, I can't see how it could be done. That would mean giving up anonymity, at least to the administrators. Some might not like that.
I would favour that because the status/category of the contributor could then be clear next to his/her username.

I quite see the point that anyone posting here could be taken by the media or the general public to be an 'expert' or inside opinion. But the news is full of so called experts (who often have a tenious link to whatevers just acured) At least on this forum anyone posting rubbish is jumped upon, so outsiders can see this isn't the general opinion of those in the industry, tahts if they bother to read past the first line, or don't choose to ignore the overall poinion in favour of the interesting one.

Airbourne,

There is a big difference to this forum and flight.

All you will be able to do is read Flight whereas you are free to post what you like on this site.

If it matters, it's my opinion that the non pilots should be welcome to post or read here. If someone is truly interested in aviation, then their opinion is valid too!

Anyone worried about the media getting the right "scoop", needn't!

They will ALWAYS mess up a story, and put whatever spin on it that the author feels is necessary to prove his point........

Who cares if they got their story from Pprune. Anyone that would put ANY credence (for the purpose of a newspaper article) in an anonymous forum can't be relied on for the truth!


Just my $.02!

[ 02 October 2001: Message edited by: Tripower455 ]

groundfine - I understand where you're coming from about people that are not pilots being allowed to post or not. There have been many instances of people posting views, comments, statements, etc. that have not had the credibility to support this. However, it will also prevent people such as myself asking questions that can be answered by pilots...

Who should be allowed to post? Its Danny's site, so anyone else's opinions count for nothing. :rolleyes:

**********************************
Through difficulties to the cinema

Er - back to the topic.

If PPRuNe keeps getting this sort of publicity, The Blessed Danny had better think big on the next server upgrade. Of course demand was always going to be exceptional after September 11th, but the medium term looks like being seriously busy. Good luck Captain.

We're working away on that subject UR.

New server, backplane and backup specced up and quotes being received at the moment. Some eye watering numbers - Danny's gone for a bit of a lie down on a beach somewhere while he gets over it.

For the techies out there we used 190 gigabytes of bandwidth last month which really is some going for what is an essentially text based site.

Good news for PPRuNers and loans sharks in the reasonably near future I hope/dread.

Rob

[ 03 October 2001: Message edited by: PPRuNe Towers ]

[ 03 October 2001: Message edited by: PPRuNe Towers ]

It'll all calm down again in a few months time. People not in the aviation industry are right now clamouring for any snippits of info, and who can blame them. But normal service will return when everyone gets bored with the current general obsession with airlines. That's my 2p worth.

One advantage long term is this may have expanded the 'global' nature of the posters, and so may be good for pprune.

A PPRuNe only for qualified pilots, would simply just not be PPRuNe anymore.