Wilko

It took me a while. Looking though a box of horded records. They’re the sort of thing that seemed important at the time and some how got preserved. Really daft stuff like timesheets, the names of people and places that have long since gone. The Plessey Company no longer exists. The former Plessey Marine site at Uppark Drive, Ilford, now that’s the site of a B&Q store. GEC/Siemens launched a hostile takeover of The Plessey Company[1]. By 1990, the company name had all but disappeared and over time its parts had been sold off. It’s sad to read the fate of some great British companies.

Rifling through stashed personal papers is a Christmas break sort of thing to do. It has a reassuring feeling to it. Memories are fragments and some bits and pieces of paper help tie together roughly connected moments.

From January to May in 1981, I undertook an undergraduate training programme in Ilford, Essex. This was quite an excursion, or at least an opportunity to explore somewhere quite different from my student life in Coventry and nothing like my home life in Somerset.

My digging up a record of the past was for a reason. The BBC have done a review of 2022[2]. As you might expect part of that was a review of some of the people, we have lost in 2022. Quite a number of these personalities had their heyday in the 1980s. Ten minutes into this annual review is a clip of Wilko Johnson. He’s playing as part of the British R&B band Dr Feelgood. If there’s one album, I’d advise anyone to play, anyone who loves raw live music, then it’s “Stupidity[3]”.

Now, my recall may be fuzzy, but I remember seeing Wilko play live on stage in early 1981. Initially, I thought that was as part of Dr Feelgood, but a small amount of research shows that he’d left the band by that time. His stage act is seared on my memory. That electric stare he had and the robotic side to side run across the stage was just mad. Genius all the same.

I’m sure that I saw him at London’s Marquee club. However, it may be an oversight, but he’s not listed in the records of early 1981. I strongly agree with this site that the Marquee Club[4] is a real reminder of the days when club / pub music was alive in its richest shape.

When I write this, I’m thinking how dam lucky I was just to be there on one night. More than 40 years ago. It doesn’t matter it’s still live to me.

POST: BBC Radio 4 – Mastertapes, Series 2, Wilko Johnson (the A-side)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessey

[2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001gfn6/review-2022-3-we-remember

[3] https://www.discogs.com/master/105937-Dr-Feelgood-Stupidity

[4] http://themarqueeclub.net/

Spirit

Tis the season of goodwill. Here’s wishing you a Merry Christmas. May there be peace in the world. It’s time to capture the spirit of Christmas and spread it far and wide. We do it every year but it’s no less important every time we do it. It’s a great big manifestation of hope. A way to end the year in a mood of good humour, joy, and optimism. 

In this case talking about double entendre is way short of the mark. The word “sprit” has a whole host of contemporary meanings. It’s an extensive list. Here, I’m trying to capture some essence of what has been passed down for generations. It’s how we cheer ourselves up knowing that the hardships of winter are a passing phase. Christmas may have its origins in seasonal habits that run through the whole of human history.

Like it or not, the Christmas we know has come down from Roman times. Although, it might be better to say that a recognisable celebration is traceable back to the ninth century in England. That reason for festivities unites all Europeans. It’s part of our common heritage and social fabric.

However, as I drive west, down the A303 and pass Stonehenge it’s not Christian Christmas I might think of as much as the Winter Solstice[1]. That is as we move from seeing less of the Sun day-by-day to a gradual lengthening of the days. Ironically, this is known as the first day of winter in the northern hemisphere.

The coming 31 days of January maybe the least loved of the months of the year, but the prospect is that winter will be finite. We can honour its passing before it has passed. Lengthening hours of sunlight will change our mood and slowly raise our spirits.

Isn’t hope wonderful? What shame human affairs don’t have such a seasonal clockwork mechanism at their core. Or maybe they do, in the way that Christmas and the calendar synchronises us with the rhythm and routine of the heavens.

For me the next celestial marker is the Vernal Equinox as it ushers in Spring. I don’t know if having a birthday just before the onset of Spring symbolises any mystical significance, but I like it. So, celebrate and enjoy the seasonal spirit. Christmas comes but once a year. Let’s hope this one brings some good cheer.

[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/winter-solstice-2022-celebration-shortest-day-facts-b2249667.html

Snobbery

It hadn’t occurred to me at all. We’ll not as far as this person’s abilities to communicate a topic that clearly fascinates her. Yes, I know that part of that work is to promote a book just before Christmas.

I enjoyed Dr Lucy Worsley exploration of the life of the author Agatha Christie[1][2]. She looked, not just at the chronological facts but tried to piece together Christie’s motivations and the forces that were acting on her at different stages of her life. A well-crafted story was presented that was far more interesting than may have been commonly understood.

Now, I’m told that the reaction of some people is as “marmite”, that is you either love it or hate it, with little room in-between. It seems Worsley’s dramatisation of the incidents of Christie’s life are considered frivolous and superficial by some pedantry types.

As a presenter, Worsley loves to dress up and is not shy of debunking long-standing historical myths. It’s a style that leads viewers and listeners into the feeling that things were not as simple as our school textbooks had us think. That there’s a twist and tail in every story of the past.

The snobbery that can be directed towards those who step outside the box and challenge, even with great care, embedded assumptions, and folklore is not nice to see. It’s not limited to academic historians who have a fondness for telling stories. There is a little too much of this trend in the aviation world too. Ten minutes on Twitter and you’ll be convinced.

I remember one of Quino’s cartoons[3] showing a university professor sitting in the middle of a room. In true cartoon abstract his head was a big arrow that pointed towards the roof. Sitting around him was a group of smiling acolytes. Their heads were extended too. They each wrapped around the professor’s head like a vine. The message being that it’s all too easy to give up independent thinking and follow a classical or standard line. An illustration of “group-think”. That tendency for people to cling to an ideology regardless of its sensibility.

Here’s a Christmas message. If tempted to be a pedant or a snob, even with the best intentions in mind, count to ten before launching reactions to the creative and more demanding thoughts of others. Especially, when thoughts and ideas step on your own cherished field of expertise.

It’s worth a try.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001g91r

[2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0d9cd6n

[3] https://www.quino.com.ar/homequino

Strikes

Impossible to listen to the burbling of UK Minister Stephen Barclay. After a while the listener sinks into an overwhelming feeling of despondency. His words are strung together as if he was on a brain teasing quiz show run by Victoria Coren Mitchell. Barclay exudes a fear of making sense.

For one, please, please, please will he not keep saying the same thing about rigidly adhering to the results of a pay review body. Results which are widely known to be out-of-date. Afterall, if Ministers have any purpose at all, it goes way beyond rubber stamping the work of others.

Given his previous party-political roles it’s astonishing to see him in a serious government job like Health Secretary. A job where playing party-politics can cost lives. I think we all know that the crisis of the moment is not just about pay. However, to pretend that staffing levels and pay are not so important is beyond the understanding of most normal people.

This suited grey-haired man in his early 50s would be better employed on the London stage. I can see him as Marley’s ghost in a Westminster adaptation of A Christmas Carol[1]. Recounting the day when he had the opportunity to fix the problems of Health and Social Care but looked the other way and played for time.

The many strikes that are hitting Britain are avoidable. British politicians are failing to engage with the problem. What’s disheartening about this situation is that everyone knows there will be a settlement at some time. Recognising that fact, it’s about time the groups involved got together and talked long and hard. That is talking with no subject taken off the table.

The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has a leadership role. It’s time for him, not to excuse the government at every media opportunity, but to engage, roll up his sleeves and meet the unions. Playing party-politics and courting right-wing public opinion was fine as he did in his Brexit job but now Barclay has a real job with real responsibility. It’s winter. This is tragic.

He needs to step up or ship out.

POST: Making a bad situation worse International nurses considering leaving UK if pay does not improve | Nursing Times

[1] https://youtu.be/ReprQS03ZM4

R.I.P. Terry Hall

Term started in September 1978. My first resting place in Coventry was in Priory Hall[1], overlooking the tarmac and the infamous ring road. We were up on an elevated 4th floor. That was the part of the building that spanned the road that led to the Cathedral. It was slabs of grey concrete arranged as Lego blocks in the 1960s. As student accommodation it was bashed and battered but cheap and warm. Sitting at the heart of the city compensated for the fumes that wafted up from the bus station. It was a good way to start my undergraduate life in an industrial Midlands city.

Little remained of medieval Coventry, except paintings. The bombing of WWII reshaped everything in the city centre. Post-war rebuilding embraced the modern with architecture we now find brutal. Strangely for me, 26 years later I moved to a German city that suffered the same fate; Cologne.

I’m writing this to remember sitting on the floor in Lanchester Polytechnic Students Union, beer in hand, listening to the bands that stamped their identity on the city and far beyond. Despite the economic depression, or because of it, there was an unending stream of bands trying get noticed. The Union was a venue where there was always an audience to be found.

Amongst them was The Specials. Although, for me the band that sticks in my mind at that venue was the early version of UB40[2]. “One in Ten” captured so much of what was happening outside the doors the Union building. The mood of the song resonates now as much as it ever did.

My engineering sandwich course meant that I came and went from Coventry between 1978 and 1982. I couldn’t have chosen a better time for live music. Yes, the city was suffering a devastating economic downturn. The Government of the time appeared happy to let great British industrial names to go to the wall. Pubs and clubs were buzzing and Two Tone[3] was invented.

So, thank you Terry Hall. His performances captured what The Specials were about. At the time, I had no idea that what was happening in the Student Union Hall would be enduring but that’s the way it turned out. The brilliant music and lyrics sum up so much that they will last for ever.

We lived in a concrete jungle. The song “Ghost Town[4]” by The Specials is beyond iconic. It’s a lament about the passing of good times. It’s about the wreckage left by an uncaring Government. It’s about a lost sense of direction. It’s a song for today too. We see this pent-up frustration coming back. “The people getting angry”. It’s not the scourge of unemployment this time. It’s the trap of low paid employment without hope.

[1] https://manchesterhistory.net/architecture/1960/prioryhall.html

[2] https://youtu.be/usYgf8cVfvU

[3] https://www.thespecials.com/gallery

[4] https://youtu.be/RZ2oXzrnti4

SPO 3

Now, there’s an activity with two humans in the loop. Given the physics involved the goalkeeper should be beaten every time. Well, I’m saying that assuming a high level of expected performance on the part of the footballer taking the penalty. I guess that’s why we are often critical when they miss. In the last few weeks there have been more than a few examples to watch.

What we know is that football penalties are much more than mechanical actions and reactions. However, there’s a degree of mythology about the inevitability of human factors taking control of the outcome: goal or no goal. I’d like to think that there’s an ever-shifting blend of what physics does to the ball and what the human does. Is it always possible to predict the slipperiness of a spinning ball traveling at speed that is then touched by the fingertip of a goalkeeper?

What if the footballer taking the penalty, was an “intelligent” machine. That is a machine with a sensor array and computational capability that far exceeded normal human performance. Such advance automation could calculate the most probable reaction of a goalkeeper based on history and the immediate movements they make right up to the last millisecond before the ball is struck.

Assuming the machine was limited in term of the force it can apply to the ball, it could still adjust its actions as soon as any new information was available. I’m not saying the outcome will always be better for the machine football striker. However, it could reduce the scope for error and randomness to dictate what finally happens.

So, with that argument, in aviation, I’m saying it’s not right to say that Single Pilot Operation will always be worse than two crew operations. Don’t get me wrong, those people aggressively advancing the idea that the intelligent machine will always be better than a human are missing something too.

One thing that highly capable automation could have to bring to the party is not only early detection and diagnosis of problems but a massive library of stored experience. How we embed and constantly update that flight experience is an almighty challenge.

Afterall, the dread in aviation is knowledge with hindsight. It takes the form: “You should have known. Why did you let this incident happen?”

I’m now tempted to think of a Star Trek analogy. Every second an aircraft of a type is flying, experience of its operation is being accumulated. If there are hundreds of a type flying at any moment across the globe, that’s a lot of data to collect and absorb and think about before acting. 

The fictional and scarry Borg are cybernetic creatures linked by a hive mind and they know a thing or two about assimilation. Granted that’s farfetched as analogies go but my point is that I believe we are generations away from that kind of capability. Not only that, just as humans fail so any such “intelligence” designed by humans will fail to.

Windy Days

At a young age, I had learnt how to harness the power of the wind. One of my childhood constructions was based on a chunky 4-wheelled trolley that was used to move milk churns around our farm. It may have been redundant at the time when my boys own “land yacht” was created. What made it fun was that the front wheals were steerable. With a slight slope on the concrete farmyard and a windy day, it’s amazing how much fun could be had despite a crash now and then. My poor parents must have spent a lot of time patching up me and my brothers’ grazes, bumps, bruises and hurt pride.

In the 1960s, dad and mum were still milking cows, but milk churns had been replaced by a polished stainless steel bulk milk tank installed in the dairy at the back of the farmhouse. It wasn’t so much a dedicated dairy farm, as we had pigs and chickens and cattle, but the cheque from the Milk Marketing Board[1] probably kept the family finances in the black.

To create working sails there was plenty of discarded black plastic sheeting. This was used a lot to cover hay ricks so they would survive the winter without rotting. Nicely, this tough sheeting could easily be cut to any size and shape even if the discarded bits had rips and holes.

My first experiments with flight were unique. In so far as I know. More accurately the term “controlled falling” describes what we got up to when parents were not looking. Built on the fun had with my milk trolley yard yacht it seemed natural to experiment. Being in the Southwest windy days filled a sizeable number of days of the year.

Out the back, in a field behind the cow stalls was a standard Dutch barn. Quite a big one with a lean-to that faced roughly north. That painted red lead[2] barn was filled to the brim with hay. It was a sturdy construction that wasn’t going anywhere. A steel roof strong enough to hold an 11-year-old without any problem. I’m sure we were told off many times for getting up on that barn roof.

The black plastic rick covering material didn’t make good kites. It was too thick and heavy. What it did make was crude parachute constructions. I tried these as a substitute for a kite. Seeing a strange boy running with a string attached to an inflated plastic parachute must have been quite perplexing.

Having gained some feel for the power of the wind by playing, it was time to see if these experiments could be taken to the next level. Jumping off a hay barn roof may sound reckless and downright dangerous. However, I never was one disregard my own safety, even as a mischievous young boy. Having springy hay bales to land on or a soggy field where wellington boots sank deeply into the mud, lowered any physical risk considerably.

Parachuting off the hay barn roof proved to be a short-lived project. It almost worked. The wind did slow the inevitable plunge but not enough to make it enough fun to do it too many times. The baler twine parachute attachments got twisted and broke loose far too often. In so far as I remember no injuries were sustained in this boyhood madness. Well, a couple of bumps.

[1] https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C179

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead-based_paint_in_the_United_Kingdom

Christmas past

My interest in machinery goes back to an age of 9 or thereabouts. It’s not easy to be accurate about times past. Memories are moments in time that can get mixed up in a chain of events.

Christmas presents for me, and my brothers were a mix of new and second-hand. Someone the second-hand ones were more valued than the new ones. If I close my eyes, I can still see the auction sale room[1] in Gillingham, Dorset where a mysterious collection of toys and bric-a-brac where exhibited every December. A white painted outhouse building that was never warmer than a fridge. Full to the brim with cast-off items and curiosities.

In the afternoon, surveying the goods before the sale was an exciting moment for me. It was a time to say, “can we have that?” The answer would depend on how much my dad was prepared to bid. That was a good life lesson. Knowing that wants were not always going to be met.

That’s where my Meccano[2] came from. Not just the metal variety but there was a larger plastic type too. It was a junior range. More cherished was the classic metal version. Green strips of metal and boxes of nuts and bolts arranged in neat plastic compartments. Unlike current versions, these kits gave only the merest hint as to what to build and how to do it. So much was left to the imagination.

Cranes and bridges were one of the more basic designs, I liked to build. The cranes had strings and pulleys to lift and lower things for the fun of it. Bridge builds could be tested to see if they were strong enough to carry weight.

Inevitably, the more I played the more the small Meccano nuts and bolts went missing. The noise an upright Hover vacuum cleaner makes picking up those nuts and bolts was so distinct. It was like many large hail stones hitting a tin roof. Rummaging through the vacuum cleaner bag with a magnet ensured all the neat plastic compartments remained full.

Those long gone dusty sale rooms in Gillingham were also the source of more than one chemistry set. That’s when a boy’s chemistry set paid only scant attention to personal safety. As much as to say I had an experimental childhood with a degree of freedom that was wonderful. The more I reflect, the more I can see that was the case. Luckly, I learnt a lot and got through it relatively unscathed.

[1] Chapman Moore & Mugford

[2] https://www.meccano.com/en_gb

SPO 2

An instant reaction to Single Pilot Operations (SPO) is like the instant reaction to completely autonomous flight. “I’m not getting on an aircraft without a pilot!” Then to justify that reaction fatal accidents of the past are cited. Typically, this is to remind everyone of the tragic Germanwings accident[1]. It was 24 March 2015, that an Airbus A320 was crashed deliberately killing all onboard.  

However, it’s wise to remember that the likelihood of incapacitation[2] is much greater than that of the malicious behaviour of the pilot in command. Cases of malicious behaviour leading to a catastrophic outcome are truly shocking but extremely rare.

One fatal accident, that is still disputed is EgyptAir Flight 990[3] that killed 217 people in 1999. The possibility of inflight pilot suicide is unnerving, since on the face of it there is little any of the aircraft’s cabin crew or passengers can do to stop it.

This could be a future opportunity to use automation to prevent these scenarios occurring. Afterall the aircraft knows where it is and that a sustained high-speed dive towards the ground is not normally intended. A safety system exists to do this[4], but its outputs are not connected to the aircraft’s flight controls.

Humans being adaptable, extremely creative and capable of highly irrational actions, it’s unlikely that malicious behaviour resulting in aviation accidents will ever be reduced to zero. This is said regardless of the procedures or technology involved. The fate of flight MH 370 remains a mystery.

Thus, the prominent safety issue in respect of SPO is pilot incapacitation. Where the pilot in command is no longer able to perform as expected. That is, if the aircraft flown is not capable of safely landing itself. The objective always being safe continued flight and landing.

I’ve had the “1% Rule” rule explained to me by a notable aviation doctor, but I must admit I didn’t fully take it in. So far, the rule has stood the test of time. When the pilot in command of a Czech Airlines aircraft collapsed and died on route from Warsaw to Prague in 2012, the co-pilot took over and everyone got home safely.

Any automated co-pilot must be at least as capable as a human co-pilot in all aspects of operation of an aircraft. The key word here being “all”. It’s not enough to have the functions necessary to undertake safe continued flight and landing. Task such as communicating with the cabin crew and passengers must also be considered. Including preparation for an emergency landing.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-32072218

[2] http://www.avmed.in/2012/02/pilot-incapacitation-debate-on-assessment-1-rule-etc/

[3] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/mar/16/duncancampbell

[4] https://skybrary.aero/articles/terrain-avoidance-and-warning-system-taws

Single Pilot Operations

Single Pilot Operations is not new. What’s new is considering this way of working for everyday public transport operations of large aircraft

Research is of fundamental importance. It seems obvious to say so given the benefits it has given us. When proposals come forward to exploit new technologies there needs to be that moment when everyone steps back and takes a long hard look at the implications of its use.

In basic technical research it’s not the most important consideration is to focus on the drivers for change. They can be multifarious: economic, environmental, social, safety, security, political, and maybe just a matter of preference. Policy directions are taken by the industry and governments not constrained by what is happening now as much as what might happen tomorrow.

Research has delivered incredible safety improvements in aviation. This is not only in the basic design and construction of aircraft but all aspects of their operation. So, to see that the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) sponsoring research to study the implications of aircraft Single Pilot Operations[1] is a wholly good measure.

My history goes back to the early days of fly-by-wire aircraft systems. This is where the mechanical and physical connection between an aircraft pilot’s actions and the control surfaces that determine flight are replaced by digital computers. Back in the 1980s, a great deal of research and experimental flying proved the technology to make fly-by-wire work. It first found favour with the military. One reason being that an aircraft’s capability could be extended well beyond what was formerly reached. This change was introduced with caution, analysis, testing and much detailed risk assessment.

At the time, there was a significant body of professional pessimists who predicted a diminishment of aviation safety. Today, four decades on, studies show that even as air traffic has increased so civil aviation safety has improved. A momentous achievement. An achievement that has, in part, been because of the well-regulated adoption of advanced technologies. 

It is important to look at potential changes with an open mind. It’s easy to come to an instant opinion and dismiss proposals before a detailed study has been conducted. The detailed technical research can then be part of the challenge and response that is necessary to before approval of any major change. First difficult questions need to be tabled and thoroughly investigated.

[1] https://www.easa.europa.eu/en/research-projects/emco-sipo-extended-minimum-crew-operations-single-pilot-operations-safety-risk