On Fri, 2008-03-21 at 10:23 -0700, Rick Stevens wrote:
Tim wrote:
On Fri, 2008-03-21 at 11:24 -0500, Steven Stern wrote:
OK, take away my license to operate linux...
While digging through the pile of cables today looking for the volume control for my Monsoon speaker system, I found that the mute button was pressed. Yet another misdiagnosed hardware problem!
Even the manuals for $60,000 BetaCAMs have a diagnosis section with "is it plugged in?" and "it it turned on?" types of steps. It seems that nobody's immune from making those sort of mistakes.
I wonder what the flight manuals are like for jumbo jets? "Thank you for purchasing your new Boeing 707, before flying ensure that you have closed the doors and fastened your safety belt..."
Not to pick nits, but a 707 isn't considered a jumbo jet and they've been out of production for over 30 years so you can't get a new one anyway. :-)
However, the 747, 757 and 767 manuals all have preflight inspection steps including "remove all covering material from the pitot tubes" and "remove wheel chocks before attempting to taxi".
Chuck Yeager had two great lines:
"You know you've landed gear-up when it takes full power to taxi." "The only time you can have too much gas is when you're on fire."
And yes, I'm a pilot. Only little planes, though, with big, spinny things on the nose called, uhm, "propellers".
And Story Musgrave said "Control-alt-delete is not an option when you are on final approach in the shuttle!"
Regards, Les H