Keep it simple

Daily writing prompt
Create an emergency preparedness plan.
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Plans are great. Professionally, I spent years and years making plans of all different shapes and sizes. Some collected dust on shelves, some turned out to be wholly inadequate and others did the trick, at least in saving time, money and potential harm. The often quoted saying “no plan survives contact with the enemy” has a ring of truth to it but it’s a million times worse not to have a plan when faced situations that are likely to be harmful.

It seems obvious to say it. Making plans for other people and making plans for oneself are not the same. Training staff and having a detailed plan of what do in a flight emergency is essential. As a humble passenger, sitting in an assigned seat, I expect an aircraft to safely go where it’s supposed to go. So, am I properly prepared for the one in a million event?

If I can, I always book an aisle seat. Having people climb over you to get to the loo isn’t such a big deal. It’s the elbows of the 20-stone man in the middle seat that’s more annoying.

Listen to the safety briefing. Read the safety card. Count the rows of seat to the nearest exit. Yes, I do. I try not to be that– oh, I’ve heard or seen that a hundred times before type of bore.

Fortunately, I’ve never had to work through my private emergency plan. Closest I’ve come was a flight landing on one engine at Düsseldorf Airport. The heart raced a little when looking out of the aircraft window. I could see airport firefighting vehicles chasing us down the runway.

What?

What’s wrong with what? And you can’t say how I feel about “what”. In fact, what is one of my favorite words. It belongs to a family of six. All six are words I’d be happy to hear more people using. There’re words that people with inquiring minds use a lot and with good reason.

Forgive Mr Kipling for saying this only of men. He was a man of his times. Written as it is, his six serving men have served me well. What and Why and When and How and Where and Who.

I Keep Six Honest Serving Men – The Kipling Society

Daily writing prompt
What is a word you feel that too many people use?
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Summer Reminiscence

After a long winter of heaping straw on top of straw, the layer of bedding could be 3-feet high with ease. There was hardly a space where calves, or larger cattle hadn’t over wintered. That was the West Country farmyard where I grew up.

Roughly square in shape, with cow stalls along the northern side and the cart shed in the westerly corner. These traditional stone-built buildings were made for a different era. Opposite the farmhouse there was a modern steel framed building that my father put up.

A story of livestock farming is written in these buildings. That transition from the intensive use of human labour to a more machinery dependent system. Going from cramped timber and local stone buildings to sheeted large span open spaces. One long lived and of great character, often listed and the other solely utilitarian, making life simpler.

A pick and wheelbarrow. Cleaning out was one annual manual task. My brother and I would push endless wheelbarrows of dung out into the yard. There wasn’t the machinery to get into the tight spaces of the confined old buildings. Our job was to dig out the masses of compressed dung. Then it could be attacked by our Ford 4000 tractor[1] in the yard.

Now, such hard to access areas of a cattle shed are confronted by a skid-steer[2]. Days spent with a pick and wheelbarrow are exceptional. There’s no comparison with the 1970s.

Here, it’s not this monotonous labour that I’m wanting to write about. Rather more outdoor farm work. Work that was a bit more fun on a steaming hot day.

One of the other summer jobs I had as a boy was cleaning out water tanks. We had a couple of large concrete and brick cattle troughs that hosted a mass of algae and all sorts of accumulated debris. Summer was a time to clean them out. The sheds would be empty of cattle.

We didn’t have a swimming pool. I think you can guess where I’m going with this recollection. Having scrubbed a season’s worth of growth off the walls of the biggest tank, the smooth concrete walls were then revelled. We did a thorough job because this cleaning process didn’t get done all that often.

In the mists of the summer heat and with the yard empty of cattle, this tank was a place for a dip. Chilled water, straight out of the mains supply, as the tank refilled added to the fun. So, we became the fish in the cow trough. At least for a summer day.

[1] https://heritagemachines.com/guides/buying-guide/fantastic-ford-force-4000/

[2] https://www.bobcat.com/na/en

Listen

Daily writing prompt
What brings you peace?
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The mind can be a rambling and untamed animal that runs riot with anxieties and imagined troubles. Is it possible to have too much imagination? Inventing situations, dramatic and comedic, and letting them loose by the handful. All this spent energy bearing scant connection to reality. A blizzard like information overload in our digital age.

Peace is sending that cerebral chaos away. Floating in a harmonious relation with the real world that’s going on around, here and now. Being in the moment, as some people say. How to get there on a busy day? Easy. Take time out in a pleasant space. Just close your eyes and listen. Listen hard. Different bird songs unjumble themselves. Distant conversations, although mumbles, seem distinct. Wind through the leaves becomes audible. After a couple of minutes of concentration, past untamed hours vanish into lost memories.

Spectacular Sighting

There’s steep hills. Some more interesting than others, you might say. In my youth this one was known for the road that climbed the hill. That’s the B3081, if you want the detail. It’s an opportunity to journey through wonderful English countryside. The area being Cranborne Chase, a protected landscape.

Zigzag hill was great fun for us as children. Probably not so much fun for my parents as our jet black Wolseley16/60 strained to get around the corners and climb to the top. The car packed with the six of us. This was a route we’d take to get from home to Bournemouth, and the seaside.

On the way, I remember the finger post signs to Compton Abbas Airfield[1]. My thought being what an interesting place for an airfield, right up here high on the chalk hills. Looking down on the surrounding Dorset countryside and the town of Shaftsbury.

Normally, I have to go to flying displays to see historic aircraft fly. This Sunday afternoon, I travelled no further than my back door. Sitting outback in the steaming 30C-degree summer weather all I had to do was look-up. Not that I’d planned to look skyward.

That doesn’t happen every day. First there was a distant rumbling sound. Then it developed into the hum of multiple piston engines. It’s only when the distinctive sight of a Lancaster bomber appeared over the roof of my house did all become clear what was happening.

As soon as I fixed my eyes on the aircraft it was already off over the garden and out across the neighbouring field. This was Avro Lancaster PA474 passing right overhead[2]. It was heading off in a north easterly direction at a notably low altitude. Quote a spectacular sight.

I had to do a little research once the aircraft had disappeared over the horizon. Looking at what was happening on Sunday, I assume it was flying back from Compton Abbas Airshow[3] to its home in Lincolnshire. Given the high summer weather, this was a great day for flying.

This Second World War heavy bomber first flew in 1941. It’s part of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight (BBMF), based at RAF Coningsby. It’s the only Avro Lancaster that remains airworthy and flying in the UK. It’s only recently returned to the air after a tragic accident involving the BBMF.

Later in the day, off in the distance, looking north, three other historic aircraft trundled across the sky. After dark, with the heavens clear, I caught the Perseid meteor shower. So, for watchers of the skies, 11th August was a noteworthy day.

[1] https://www.comptonairfield.com/

[2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyg7e7x319o

[3] https://comptonabbasairshow.co.uk/participants/

Public servants

That is the public servants who uphold the best of the public service ethos. Part of that is to work for the public good without expecting great admiration or fame.  In the UK, the Seven Principles of Public Life (also known as the Nolan Principles) are a good start. Often mentioned when things go wrong, they are a distillation of what’s expected or, at least, hoped for when encountering a public servant.

I have known people who have demonstrated, in their every day working lives the best of these principles, and more. To balance this finding, I have known people for whom any of these seven would have been a struggle.

Prefect people, if such a term can be used, are not common place. Even they have off days, when they stray from the path that they have set themselves.

Having done a fair number of audits of organisations over the years, the message to take is that great public service is often not what’s done when someone is looking, it’s what’s done when no one is looking.

Daily writing prompt
What profession do you admire most and why?
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Free Speech or Unregulated Chaos?

Twitter grew to a global scale. It didn’t make money. It was a social media success but a commercial mess or, at least, that’s how a lot of people saw it. Its snappy short text became the playground for people pushing press releases and journalists seeking immediate printable lines. On top of the professional users were a mountain of commentators that ranged from the highly credible and reliable to the outlandish crazies promoting their every possible madness.

For whatever reason it caught the attention of Elon Musk. He has a numerous selection of descriptions ranging from wry businessman to futurist visionary. There’s no doubt he’s a risk taker who has an uncanny ability to come up smiling where others would likely have collapsed in bankruptcy or chaos.

Reports of “X”, as it is known now, are that Musk sees it as a platform for free speech. There’s an absolutism about this mandate. Although there’s legislative obligations in most countries that put some boundaries around what’s called “free speech” the platform X has become one that pushes at the boundaries.

Generally, moderate opinions don’t stir-up controversy. So called “mainstream” factual reporting can be boring and somewhat dry. What seems to trigger a lot of activity are opinions that are “extreme”. That is often extreme in the political sense from the left and the right. Tapping into the popularity of populism – if that makes any sense. Polarisation if it doesn’t.

As a platform for legitimate political views, however disagreeable, there’s not so much to complain about the openness of a lightly moderated space. Through history public spaces have been created for people to vent their views[1]. However, this is not done without regulation on conduct.

Where free spaces get extremely toxic is the riotous spread of misinformation. It’s one thing to have strong socialist or liberal views or hard conservative views but when views are presented as based on facts when they are not[2], and expressions are intended to create aggressive responses, there’s a line of unacceptability that has been crossed.

I am taking the view that today’s X is not a place for a reputable organisation or person. It’s not that social media platforms are intrinsically bad. No, it’s the way that they are managed. My observation is that there is a connection between the mindless riots of recent days in England and the lack of attention to civilised regulation of certain digital platforms. It’s a question of both written regulation and its consistent implementation.

This situation is recoverable. Putting digital social media back into a good shape for the public to conduct a dialogue about the issue of the day will require effort from its owners and governments across the globe. Is there a willingness to step up and act? Let’s see. Surely these subjects need urgent action. 

[1] https://www.royalparks.org.uk/visit/parks/hyde-park/speakers-corner

[2] https://www.vox.com/technology/2023/5/20/23730607/elon-musk-conspiracy-twitter-texas-shooting-bellingcat-taylor-lorenz-psyops

Tragic VoePass ATR72 Crash

2024 was going so well. Looking at the indicator of worldwide fatalities in commercial aviation for the first six-months of this year, and it is exceptionally low. The time between major fatal accidents across the globe is another indicator that my team once looked at on a regular basis. Aviation is an extremely safe mode of transport but when accidents happen, they can be devastating.

Yesterday, the situation changed in Brazil. A VoePass ATR72-500 aircraft[1], registration PS-VPB, flight number PTB2283 crashed in the Brazilian state of São Paulo. The twin-engine aircraft crashed in a residential location.

Yet unknown events resulted in a loss of control in-flight. On-line videos of the aircraft flying show a dive and then a spiralling decent to the ground. The aircraft was destroyed on impact, and it is reported that all lives were lost.

The publicly available flight data shows a sudden decent from a stable altitude[2]. The aircraft was about and hour and twenty minutes into its flight.

Looking at the video information it might appear that local weather may not have been a factor in the accident. However, there was known to be severe icing conditions at the altitude that the aircraft was flying.

It’s speculation on my part but unrecognised severe icing is one of the conditions that can bring about a catastrophic outcome for such an aircraft. It is sad to have to say that there is a record of a major accident to an ATR-72 that has some of the characteristics of this new accident.

In fact, it is one fatal accident that is etched on my mind given that it happened in late 1994, when I was still fresh in my job with the UK Civil Aviation Authority as an airworthiness surveyor. It’s known as much by its location as by the name of the aircraft, namely Roselawn[3]. The accident was extremely controversial at the time.

Crews are told that they may be operating in severe icing conditions but there is no specific regulatory requirement for on-board advisory or warning system on this generation of turboprop aircraft. An ice detection system can serve as a final warning to alert a crew that ice protection is needed.

Work to update the technical document; In-Flight Ice Detection System (FIDS) Minimum Operational Specification EUROCAE ED-103 is completed. Issued in April 2022, ED-103B – MOPS for In-Flight Icing Detection Systems is available[4].

In the case of the current accident, it is a matter for Brazil’s highly capable independent accident investigators to determine what happened. Anything I have written here is purely speculative.

POST 1: Reports of statements made by Agência Nacional de Aviação Civil (Anac) say that the aircraft was in good condition.

POST 2: Accident flight recorders have been recovered from the accident site. Flight recorders retrieved from crashed Voepass ATR 72-500 | Flight Global

[1] https://asn.flightsafety.org/wikibase/409335

[2] https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/PSVPB/history/20240809/1450Z/SBCA/SBGR/tracklog

[3] https://www.faa.gov/lessons_learned/transport_airplane/accidents/N401AM

[4] https://eshop.eurocae.net/eurocae-documents-and-reports/ed-103b/

Evolution of living

Building millions of new homes is crucial. In the UK, we’ve had years and years of pussy footing around the issue. Governments have consistently underachieved. Promises made and promises broken. Everyone knows that turning plans into reality is difficult. Sadly, it’s always easier to delay and delay. Building needs a strategic push. That much I agree with the new Labour government. Expecting some kind of magical thinking or organic solution to bubble up is a road to failure and disappointment.

A long time ago, I sat on a planning committee that wrestled with the pros and cons of allocating land for development. It was often a numbers game. A few hundred here, a few thousand there and lots of talk of “brownfield” sites that were often purely imaginary.

All the time knowing that major developers had already bought up land that they intended to sit on until policy swung their way. This could be low grade agricultural land, even flood plain land that they could get for a competitive price. None of the pressures that existed at that time[1] have gone away. If anything, those social, economic, and political pressures have intensified.

Despite what I’ve said, I can understand the caution that is being expressed by people who have strong interest in the subject. If we look at the post-war building boom in the UK, it’s obvious that horrendous mistakes were made. Idealism and a sense of mission drove development schemes that looked great on paper but turned out to be hellish as places to live and work.

Architects and town planners of the past may have identified transport as a vital feature for new estates. What they delivered was so worshipful of the private motor car that it transcended all common sense. Digging up tram lines and closing rail lines may have had a logical foundation from the 1950s to the 1970s but now such decisions seem completely mad.

One of the biggest factors that has changed, not only since the post-war building boom but in recent times is the change in employment patterns. We are an industrialised country. Often, we don’t like to acknowledge it. Remember the 2012 Olympics. It’s topical, given how the Paris Olympic opening ceremony portrayed France. Back in 2012, the UK reminded the world that the industrial revolution started here. England’s “green and pleasant land” was transformed by coal and steel. A land where every town and city had a major employer and a major craft.

That era has almost gone. Yes, there are places where major employers dominate the landscape. Now, there are less and less concentrations of employment tied to a specific location. There’s a greater diversity of economic dependency in our interconnected world.

That’s a massive challenge. How to build homes, that form communities, which will have a source of economic stability that lasts more than 50-years. Communications infrastructure becomes vital. Even that is assuming that high-speed digital communications will continue to dominate out lives beyond 2070. Will we be freer to live where we want, with a better lifestyle, happier communities, in a future of elevated levels of automation, intelligent systems and few if any boundaries?

[1] Surrey Country Council 1993-1997.

Sainsbury’s Sanctuary

As I left Reigate the temperature was up at 30C. It was oppressively hot. Sticky and brewing an immense storm. Not that I minded so much, since I seem to thrive in the heat. Dark shades on. Lightest tee-shirt I could find. Primative old iPhone 4S blasting out an upbeat medially.

Sitting in my black car, on black leather seats, with an air conditioning system that cessed to work about a year ago, was a special kind of heat treatment. Windows open. It was like being blown by a powerful hairdryer from two sides. Fortunately for me London’s M25 was moving. Going west. Maybe wiser people than me had made a choice to delay their journey, or not go anywhere at all. In between the eight wheeled trucks, the shafts of sunlight rained down like a Martian death ray.

Grassy embankments that had been lush green earlier in the year were now charred brown. Motorway roadworks that had been bogged down in slimy mud now dust bowls. Colourful heavy earth moving machinery working on its limits. Roadworkers looking as if they would rather be anywhere but where they were. Lucky ones sheltering in the shade.

My journey had not been without basic planning. I knew that the heaviest of storms was slowing making its way west to east across southern England. I got almost a quarter through my trip before the immense thunder clouds loomed off in the distance. The sunlight was slowly changing. Going from perfect clear blue skies, with a little haze, to a brooding caldron of shafts of bright light and rolling off-white clouds, towering up to the stratosphere.

Onto the M3 motorway going west. Through the roadworks. The perpetual roadworks, Where the nation’s highway planners are trying to correct mistakes that they made erecting “smart” motorways. Closing the running hard shoulder to erect new emergency stopping bays.

Still the temperature was shifting up and down around 30C. Would I get to my motorway exist before the downpour that now seemed inevitable? I slowed to let a heavy truck into the nearside lane. We were both keen to get off the gradually slowing motorway.

Almost as if I’d timed the weather and pressed a button for rain, it started on the slip road. Trickles at first. Dark grey skies and indications of what was to come. My car’s dashboard thermometer started to plummet. By the time the traffic lights turned green, and we passed over the M3, visibility was disappearing. In a mishmash of road traffic on that junction there was potential for every kind of accident.

Time to slow down. It doesn’t matter that the duel carriageway signs going north said 40 mph. It would have been foolish to speed beyond that limit. At that moment the monster storm was just getting going. The timing between lightning strikes and thunder was shortening. Still, I had a good 5-miles to go to a sanctuary.

Again, almost as if I’d timed the weather, I exited right to turn into a Sainsbury’s superstore as the dark monster above our heads did its worst. Great pools of water where splattered on the ground with rain falling like millions of tennis balls. It was time to sit out the storm and take a coffee. Already the temperature had dropped ten degrees.

My cosy coffee shop sanctuary was the number one best place to watch shoppers getting soaked as they trudged across the windswept car park. I certainly wasn’t going to be in that kind of hurry. I sat it out. Glad I did.