Seen on the street in Kyiv.

Words of Advice:

"If Something Seems To Be Too Good To Be True, It's Best To Shoot It, Just In Case." -- Fiona Glenanne

“The Mob takes the Fifth. If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?” -- The TOFF *

"Foreign Relations Boil Down to Two Things: Talking With People or Killing Them." -- Unknown

“Speed is a poor substitute for accuracy.” -- Real, no-shit, fortune from a fortune cookie

"If you believe that you are talking to G-d, you can justify anything.” — my Dad

"Colt .45s; putting bad guys in the ground since 1873." -- Unknown

"Stay Strapped or Get Clapped." -- probably not Mr. Rogers

"The Dildo of Karma rarely comes lubed." -- Unknown

"Eck!" -- George the Cat

* "TOFF" = Treasonous Orange Fat Fuck, A/K/A Dolt-45,
A/K/A Commandante (or Cadet) Bone Spurs,
A/K/A El Caudillo de Mar-a-Lago, A/K/A the Asset., A/K/A P01135809

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

When It Comes to Aviation, "Reporter" Is a Synonym for "Moron".

This one was just too much:
An Air Force passenger jet carrying Michelle Obama to Andrews Air Force Base early Monday evening had to abort its landing and circle the field because it was following too closely on the tail of a giant military cargo plane arriving ahead of it, the Federal Aviation Administration said on Tuesday.
The FAA has to be run by morons, clowns and cowards if they regard this as anything other than routine.

Shit like this happens all the time. A given airplane may take longer to clear the runway than the controller anticipated. The following airplane may be a few knots faster or might have shaved the corner of a turn. S-turns and going around are routine maneuvers. But no, some goddamn pressmonkey who knows jack shit about flying an airplane freaked out and now this is some big-ass story that the FAA is going into full-blown "cover our asses" mode, rather than push back and tell the truth that go-arounds are not unusual (which at least the NY Times acknowledged, but MSNBC didn't).

Back before 9-11, when I had to pick someone up at an airport, I would take a portable aircraft radio with me. I'd listen in to approach and the tower; when the flight I was waiting for was cleared to land, I'd mosey out of the coffee shop, through security and go meet my party.

So one day, I was listening to the tower at Cleveland and a Continental 737 was told to go around. It did, it was sequenced back into the approach stream and, once more, it had to go around. The pilot said: "CO XXX, ya gotta be kidding me, going around."

Going around is not an emergency. It is not a safety concern. This is a motherfucking non-story.

The reporter who first wrote the story and the editor who approved it (if any) should be taken to an airport, where pilots should be permitted to throw cups of coffee and Jepp books at them. FAA management should be flogged with microphone cables.

6 comments:

Nangleator said...

I don't want to read the story, but I imagine it might have a line about "the ground controller" telling them to "abort" the approach.

Cirze said...

Thanks for clearing that up, sweetie.

I wondered WTF when I read it myself as I couldn't figure out how close it had to have been not to have just been SOP.

S

Anonymous said...

Slow news day, perhaps?

montag said...

Without FLOTUS it is a non story, with FLOTUS it is ZOMG!! Celebrity makes all the difference for our news.

Sarah said...

The worst part was the conflation of this non-story with ATC's sleepy controller problem.

I have had it with these motherfucking non-stories on these motherfucking planes!

( The latest suspension: Cleveland center controller broadcast a few minutes of a Samuel L Jackson movie with a stuck mike. )

kilwer said...

John Mica of the Confederate Party has had a major hard on for NATCA, the controller's union, for years. I have thought since all this began that he asked someone to dig up some dirt on NATCA, because as you've said, this shit has been going on for years. Well whaddayaknow?

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/22/us-usa-air-controllers-idUSTRE73L3LZ20110422