--------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 196 AVIATION Ref: F1U00012 Date: 01/23/98 From: JIM SANDERS Time: 12:35pm \/To: ALL (Read 0 times) Subj: Born before 1945 For All Those Born Before 1945 WE ARE SURVIVORS! Consider the changes we have witnessed... We were born before television, before polio shots, frozen foods, Xerox, plastic, contact lenses, Frisbees and The Pill. We were born before radar, credit cards, split atoms, laser beams and ballpoint pens; before pantyhose, dishwashers, clothes dryers, electric blankets, air conditioners, drip~ry clothes and before man walked on the moon. We got married first and then lived together. How quaint can you be? In our time, closets were for clothes, not for "coming out" of. Bunnies were small rabbits and rabbits were not Volkswagens. Designer jeans were scheming girls named Jean or Jeanne, and having a meaningful relationship meant getting along well with your cousins. We thought fast food was what you ate during Lent, and outer space was the back of the Riviera Theater. We were born before house husbands, gay rights, computer dating, dual careers and commuter marriages. We were born before day care centers, group therapy and nursing homes. We never heard of FM radio, tape decks, electric typewriters, artificial hearts, word processors, yogurt and guys wearing earrings. For us, time- sharing meant togetherness, not computers or condominiums. A "chip" was a piece of wood, hardware meant hardware, and soflware wasn't even a word! In 1940, MADE IN JAPAN meant junk and the term "making out" referred to how you did on your exam. Pizzas, McDonald's and instant coffee were unheard of. We hit the scene when there were 5-and-10-cent stores where you bought things for 5 and 10 cents. Sanders or Wilson's sold ice cream cones for a nickel or a dime. For one nickel you could ride a streetcar, make a phone call, buy a Pepsi or enough stamps to mail one letter and two postcards. You could buy a Chevy Coupe for $600, but who could afford one? A pity, too, because gas was 11 cents a gallon. In our day, cigarette smoking was fashionable, grass was mowed, coke was a cold drink, and pot was something you cooked in. Rock music was a grandma's lullaby, and AIDS were helpers in the principal's office. We were certainly not born before the difference between the sexes was discovered, but surely before the sex change. We made do with what we had, and we were the last generation that was so dumb as to think you needed to have a husband to have a baby! No wonder we are so confused, and there is such a generation gap today! BUT WE SURVIVED! What beffer reason to celebrate? - BOMBARDIERS' REUNION, TUCSON, ARIZONA SUBMITTED BY JOHN FEDONCHUK The Raven - January 1998 === --- DB 1.39/004487 * Origin: Volunteer BBS (423) 694-0791 V34+/VFC (1:218/1001.1) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 196 AVIATION Ref: F1U00013 Date: 01/24/98 From: JIM SANDERS Time: 06:49am \/To: ALL (Read 0 times) Subj: News-990 Boeing's workhorse 737 set to move into the 21st century as one of the world's most popular aircraft Jan 21, 1998 2:17 p.m. EDT - The Boeing 737 - under inspections ordered by the Federal Aviation Administration -- is one of the most popular planes in the sky. Since its debut in 1967, the short-to- mid-range 737 has become a predominant member of most airline fleets. One of 3,000 active 737s takes off every six seconds somewhere in the world. "The plane, as they say, is the workhorse of the industry," says Holly Hegeman of Plane Business. "It performs well. It's a very reliable aircraft." But the 737-300 series is the subject of inspections ordered by the FAA earlier this month -- prompted by the investigation of a crash in Indonesia in December that found loose bolts in the plane's tail section. Boeing says it has received no reports of any other faulty fasteners. Most of the U.S. carriers that fly that particular model had already started inspecting most of their planes before the directive was issued. Accommodating 128 to 149 passengers, the 300 series is one of the smaller of Boeing's seven 737 models in production. It's just over 109 feet (33 meters) long from nose to tail (the largest -- the upcoming 900 series -- is just over 138 feet (42 m) and seats 177 to 189 passengers). The 300's range is 2,610 miles (4,200 kilometers), while the larger 900 has a maximum range of 3,140 miles (5,050 km). The 737-300 series was launched in 1981 -- Southwest Airlines took the first of the new jets in 1984. The first 737, the 100 series, was flown by Lufthansa beginning in 1967. The "next genera- tion" 737s, says Boeing, will fly faster, higher and farther than the current crop. How can you tell if your flight is on a 737? On the outside, some say the 300-series plane looks like a flying cigar -- short and fat with an engine under each wing. Inside -- as with all members of the 737 family -- there are three seats on each side of the aisle in coach. If you want to know if you'll be on a 737 on your next trip, head to the Internet -- many travel sites list the plane model with flight information. And travel agents can tell you the type of plane you'll be flying when you book a reservation. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Job Goes to General Who Ordered Shoot-down of KAL 007 Yeltsin Picks New Air Chief Moscow, Jan. 23 - The newly appointed head of the Russian air force has revealed that he was the commander who ordered the shooting down of a South Korean airliner in 1983. General Anatoly Kornukov, appointed by President Boris Yeltsin on Tuesday, told NTV television the memory was "unpleasant" but he still had no doubt that the decision, which cost the lives of 269 civilians, was the right one. "I will always be sure that the order was given correctly," Kornukov, 55, said in an interview on the channel's "Hero of the Day" program. On September 1, 1983, he was in charge of a division of the Soviet fighter command in the Far East when Korean Airlines flight KAL 007 bound for Seoul from New York was hit by a missile fired by a lone Sukhoi Su-15 jet over Sakhalin Island. All aboard were killed. Still Convinced Jet Was Hostile "The memory gives me some unpleasant feelings," Kornukov said. But he remained convinced the Boeing 747 jumbo jet, which strayed far from its course and flew over sensitive Soviet military instal- lations, had been part of an unspecified hostile mission. "I am absolutely certain now that this action was planned and with quite definite goals," Kornukov said. Asked how he felt about the victims, he replied: "Sometimes in operations at the front, they sacrificed battalions to save an army." His only regret, he said, was that he had not been able to meet relatives of the victims earlier. Saying he had met relatives in Moscow - it was not clear when - he said an earlier encounter would have cleared up much of the controversy. Government Investigation Absolved Itself The incident, which seriously heightened Cold War tensions be- tween the pre-perestroika Soviet Union and the United States under President Ronald Reagan, remains shrouded in mystery. It was presented in the West at the time as a callous act of brutality by a nation Reagan called the "evil empire." An official Russian investigation published for the 10th anniversary of the shooting in 1993 concluded that a series of errors on both sides had led to the tragedy and absolved the Soviet hierarchy of blame. The report concluded that the Soviet military, responding to a genuine incursion by a U.S. spy plane, mistook the airliner, which was at least 600 km (350 miles) off course, for a hostile intruder and had been unaware it was a civilian aircraft. The fighter pilot, Gennady Osipovich, said he fired warning shots at the jet but lacked any illuminating tracer ammunition and had tried but failed to raise KAL 007 by radio. === --- DB 1.39/004487 * Origin: Volunteer BBS (423) 694-0791 V34+/VFC (1:218/1001.1) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 196 AVIATION Ref: F1U00014 Date: 01/24/98 From: JIM SANDERS Time: 06:50am \/To: ALL (Read 0 times) Subj: Thunderbird schedule AFTERBURNER - JANUARY 1998 Aerial Squadron releases 1998 Thunderbirds schedule The Department ofDefense recently released the U.S. Air Force Air Demonstration Squadron "Thunderbirds" schedule for 1998. The squadron will perform 62 demonstrations at 35 sites in the United States and one demonstration in Canada. Below is the 1998 schedule: March --28-29, Punta Gorda, Fla. April --4, Luke Air Force Base, Ariz. 11 - 12, Easter break 18-19, MacDill AFB, Fla. 25-26, Point Mugu Naval Air Weapons Station, Calif. May--2-3, Knoxsville, Tenn. 9-10, San Angelo, Texas 16-17, Fairchild AFB, Wash. 27, U.S. Air Force Academy, Cob. 30, Elmendorf AFB, Alaska 31, Eielson AFB, Alaska June --6-7, North Kingstown, R.I. 13-14, Hillsboro, Ore. 20-21, Santa Fe, N.M. 27-28, Davenport, Iowa July --3-4, Battle Creek, Mich. 11-12, Plattsburgh AFB, N.Y. 18-19, Naval Air Station, Whidbey Island, Wash. 22, Cheyenne, Wyo. 27-28, Selftidge Air National Guard Base, Mich. August -- 1-2, Vandenberg AFB, Calif. 8-9, Abbotsford. British Columbia 15-16, Big Flat, N.Y. 17-24, mid-season break: 29, Minot AFB, N.D. 30, Grand Forks AFB, N.D. September -- 5-7, Cleveland, Ohio 12-13, Westover Air Reserve Base, Mass. 19-20, Durango, Col. 26-27, Salinas, Calif. October-- 3-4, Sioux City, Iowa 10-11, El Paso, Texas 17-18, Muskogee, OkIa. 24, Columbus AFB, Miss. 31-1, Victorville, Calif. November--1, Victorville, Calif. 7-8, Lake Charles, La. 14-15, Lake City, Fla. Since it's a long season and the schedule is subject to change. those interested in attending an event should check with the public affairs office at the installation where the team is per- forming before making what could be a long trip. When the demonstration site is not a base, check with the Chamber of Commerce of the host city. (I suggest you make a copy and save it. Jim) === --- DB 1.39/004487 * Origin: Volunteer BBS (423) 694-0791 V34+/VFC (1:218/1001.1) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 196 AVIATION Ref: F1V00000 Date: 01/24/98 From: RICHARD BRICE Time: 08:03pm \/To: ALL (Read 0 times) Subj: NTSB PART VI NTSB PART VI (I type till I'm called away for something else. When this happens I do not have time to go back and edit or correct spelling.) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- How Thorough Is the NTSB? Recently, we've observed the "heroic" efforts of the NTSB and the unprecedented involvement of the FBI to solve the TWA riddle. The current Board and its investigators are the best we've had in years. (??) However, the Government does not use comparable money and manpower in every major air crash investigation and frequently not in every PART 135 and general avviation accident. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Note: Publicity ---------------------------------------------------------------- Air Crash Litigation often involves millions of dollars of exposure. The insurance companies who pay for the defense of almost every major air crash case in the United States often have a real incentive to prove that somebody else's insured bears substantial responsibility for the crash. Indemnity laws require that all culprits pay their proportionate share of multimillion dollar settlements for plane loads of deceased business travelers and multimillion dollar hulls. The insured value pay out, for the hull loss alone, of an MD-11 cargo plane, which crashed in New Jersey a few years ago, was $115 Million dollars. Example Of A Poorly Handled NTSB Investigation (this is only one, many of us can cite many more) This true story reveals the NTSB's failure to always uncover the exact cause of a major air crash disaster. A number of years ago, the author supervised the liability defense of the aiar carrier which had a take off crash, in which 70 people died and one survived. The NTSB conducted a "Go Team" investigation and held public hearings. A suspsected cause of the crash was that an external "door" or "hatch" was left open before take off, which resulted in terrible vibration (heard on the CVR) and aerodynamic abnormalities recorded on the FDR. The pilot is believed to have misinterpreted the cause of the vibration, perhaps fearing a structural failure. He did not apply sufficient power anfter lift off to sustain flight. The aircraft crashed into a trailer park stocked with liquid propane tanks. The pilot was the first to pay for his error with his life, and of course, unavailable to explain why he inexplicably failed to maintain flying speed. The suspect external hatch was not guarded by a "door open" warning light and was the type designed to be closed by ground service personnel. (Raise any Questions?) The Board's Probable Cause was pure pilot error -- failure to maintain flying speed! --------------------------------------------------------------------- Note: Many transport category aircraft were designed to have the warning lights for the door being OPEN to be extinguished by the door handle being put back into the receptacle which stream lined it for flight. Most all Flight Crew Members for years thought the door lights were extinguished by the locking mechanizam being in the proper locked position. Not so, the door could be only ajar with the handle secured and the lights in the cockpit would be out. ------------------ Note: The destruction of evidence by the NTSB before they release it. They hide behind the provision of "testing to destruction". This may be alright in their view but in the search for the truth may be lost for ever by those of us who are concerned about Safety of Flight in the future and not about litigation.