Tag: History

Cities Shaped by War

War is failure. Humans being quick to aggression, possessive and slow to reconciliation, it’s plagued every corner of history. Reason to go to war can be imperial, territorial, moral or ethical. In a democratic society, defeating an evil becomes an overwhelming imperative. That was certainly the case in the six years of the second world war. This week, it’s time to look back. To recollect the impact of the world war. To remember the sacrifice and suffering. To be thankful for the last 80-years years of relative peace in Europe.

For me these recollections take me to the experience of living in two cities. Cities on different sides of past conflicts. Severely damaged by the conflict. Targets because of their civic and industrial strength. Both cathedral cities with an ancient heritage.

My student life was spent in Coventry[1]. A decade of my working life was spent in Cologne[2].

Arriving as a fresh-faced student in the heart of the industrial Midlands, the architecture of Coventry city centre was so striking. It was that post-war vision of rebirth at a time when economic decline had set in. With an inner ring-road that was like a go-cart track, 50s style concrete avenues, windblown and neglected, there was little of the Medieval splendour of the pre-war city remaining. Standing proud in the middle of it was, and is, the skeleton of the old cathedral and the new one that ascended like a phoenix from the flames of war. Well worth a visit, the cathedral built in the 60s is a wonderful modern design. It plays with light and space to elevate emotions. A sign that we have a great capacity for reconciliation and regeneration.

Moving on just over 20-years, my encounter with Germany’s fourth largest city was full of hope and optimism. Based in Cologne, I experienced a city with even deeper roots than Coventry. Ironically, it was the destruction of the war that uncovered much of the Roman remains on display. At Cologne’s heart is a magnificent gothic cathedral that is more dominating of the landscape than perhaps ever it has been. Here the citizens of the city took a different approach to post-war rebuilding. Not so much embracing everything that was new, although there’s quite a bit of that approach, but reconstructing the old city in its original style. The culture of the city survives in the traditions of the annual carnival.

These two European cities have taken different paths. All the same, there are threads of common experience. Both have seen industrial decline and a search for a better future to thrive and grow. Both are distinctive and culturally colourful. Both carry the baggage of a brutalist architecture that was fashionable on the drawing boards of the late 1950s.

Visting the past in museums and walking the streets the marks of the last war are there to be seen by everyone. Passed by every day. Yet, mostly ignored in the humdrum of commuting and the busy obsession we have of staring at a “mobile” or call it a “handy”. Now and then it’s as well to look up. To look and see the bullet marks on stone structures, the nicely arranged medieval or Roman stones and cobbles, or the conserved streets that contain the ghosts of past generations. For good or ill, war has shaped the world we inhabit.

Peace is a far far better condition. I think of the “Coventry Cross of Nails[3]” as a symbol of reconciliation and peace. Let’s not forget.

[1] https://www.coventry.ac.uk/

[2] https://www.koelner-dom.de/en

[3] https://www.coventrycathedral.org.uk/reconciliation/community-of-the-cross-of-nails

Safety Analysis

In discussions about safety one model is often called up. Its simplicity has given it longevity. It also nicely relates to common human experience. The model is not one of those abstract ideas that take a while to understand. If you have been on a safety training course, a lecturer will give it couple of minutes and then use it to draw conclusions as to why we collect and value safety data.

On illustration, and it’s a good one for sticking in the memory, is a picture of a big iceberg. Most of an iceberg is underwater. One the surface we only see a fraction of what is there. This is the Heinrich pyramid. Or Heinrich’s Law[1] but it’s not really a law in the sense of a complete mathematical law.

The logic goes like this. In discissions about industrial major accidents, there are generally a lot more minor accidents that precede the major ones. Although this was drawn up in the 1930s the model has been used ever since. And we extend its useful applicability to transport operations as much as workplace accidents.

Intuitively the model seems to fit everyday events. Just imagine an electrical cable carelessly extended over the floor of a hanger. It’s a trip hazard. Most of the time the trips that occur will be minor, annoying events, but every so often someone will trip and incur a major injury.

What we can argue about is the number of precursor events that may occur and their severity. It wouldn’t be a simple universal ratio, either. Heinrich said there were generally about 30 accidents that cause minor injuries but 300 accidents with no injuries. A ten to one ratio.

Forget the numbers. The general idea is that of the iceberg illustration. Underlying that example of the pyramid is the notion that there are a lot more low severity events that occur before the big event happens. Also, that those low severity events may not be seen or counted.

It’s by attempting to see and count those lesser events that we may have the opportunity to learn. By learning it then becomes possible to put measures in place to avoid the occurrence of the most destructive events.

In British aviation I will reference the 1972 Staines air accident[2]. A Brussels-bound aircraft took off from London Heathrow. It crashed moments later killing those onboard. One of the findings from this fatal aircraft accident was that opportunities to learn from previous lesser events were not taken. Events not seen or counted.

Thus, Mandatory Occurrence Reporting[3] was born. Collecting data on lesser events became a way of, at least having a chance of, anticipating what could happen next. Looking at the parts of the iceberg sitting under the water.

How many fatal accidents have been prevented because of the safety analysis of data collected under MOR schemes? If only it was possible to say.

[1] https://skybrary.aero/articles/heinrich-pyramid

[2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-61822837

[3] https://www.caa.co.uk/our-work/make-a-report-or-complaint/report-something/mor/occurrence-reporting/

1985 to 2025 Trends

On reading J. C. Chaplin’s paper on the first 100-years of aviation safety regulation in the UK[1], it struck me that the journey from the 1910s to the 2010s was one of constant change. That change has not slowed down. In fact, the last 40-years of my aviation career have seen dramatic technological changes that have demanded ever new regulatory methods and practices.  

Overwhelmingly aviation history writings obsess about the early days of flying or the start of the jet age. It’s as if those periods were so dominated by great pioneers that nothing worthy has happened since. I exaggerate for effect, but I think you get the meaning of my comment.

So, what of the race from the 1985 to the 2025? I think that is useful period to look at. One of the reasons is that those years are mark the transition from an analogue era to a digital one.

The early 1980s saw experimentation with the potential for digital technologies, most particularly fly-by-wire systems. Quickly the military understood the increase in aircraft performance that could be gained by use of such technologies. Groundbreaking was Concorde in that it demonstrated that critical electronic control systems could safely go into everyday operation. That project drove the development of new regulatory methods and practices. 

A turning point occurred in the mid-1980s. That silicon revolution that impacted so much of life was dramatically put to use in civil aviation. Computing power had so miniaturised and become affordable so that past theoretical possibilities could now be practically realised.

The Airbus A320 aircraft first flew in 1987. It was a shaky start. Not everyone was convinced that safety critical systems were indeed safe. The not so obvious discovery that the human factor was even more important for a computerised aircraft. Learning to adapt and adjust ways of operating didn’t happen overnight.

The lesson is that learning lessons must be part of the process. Through applying continuous improvement, the Airbus A320 family has grown ever since.

Maybe there needs to be a short paper to cover civil aviation safety regulation from 1985 to 2025. It’s needed now. It’s needed because the next 40-years are going to see equally dramatic changes. In the time to come the main driver will be the environment.

[1] https://www.aerosociety.com/media/4858/safety-regulation-the-first-100-years.pdf

Hovercraft Travel

Inventions full of promise. In the 1950s a British inventor seemed to have a solution to a lot of transport problems. How to travel at speed over a variety of surfaces. Christopher Cockerell, like so many inventors of the past, had difficulty in convincing people of the usefulness of his invention. He persisted and the commercial Hovercraft was born.

It’s not that traveling on a cushion of air had never been considered before. It’s more a question of the fact that it took until the 20th century for all the components (engines and materials) to become available to make a practical vehicle.

It’s not a boat. It’s not a plane. It’s an air-cushion vehicle. Underlying this is the question of who takes responsibility for these vehicles? I know this with reference to those who I have worked with over the years. In the 1990s, it was the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) that issued a Certificate of Airworthiness for these craft. Today, they are addressed under marine regulation.

The backward and forward of the arguments as to what a “Hovercraft” is defined as, surprisingly goes on at length. It’s flexibility in being able to rapidly traverse water and land without alteration is an asset but a minefield for lawyers[1].  

Yesterday, I took the passenger Hovercraft service between Southsea (Portsmouth) and the town of Ryde on the Isle of Wight. It’s the fastest way to get from the mainland to the island. 10 minutes across the water.

This for me was to revisit a trip that I often made in the 1990s. I’d drive down from London Gatwick early in the morning. Try to fit a breakfast in before taking an early Hovercraft across to the Isle of Wight. Memories of arriving at a desolate car park in the cold and wet stuck. There I’d be picked up and ferried to Britten-Norman[2] for the day. The Britten-Norman aircraft company had its headquarters in Bembridge.

Although the Islander is a small aircraft its owners liked to equip it with an array of different modifications. My job was the approval of modifications. All done, at the time, under British Civil Airworthiness Requirements (BCARs).  It was one overseas mission I enjoyed a lot.

[1] https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1968/may/16/hovercraft-bill

[2] https://www.theengineer.co.uk/content/news/islander-aircraft-production-restarts-on-isle-of-wight/

The Impact of the English Civil War

Yesterday afternoon, I met King Charles. No, not the one who lives in Buckingham Place. No, not the one who hide up a tree. No, it was Charles I. Or at least a man dressed as Charles I.

Reasonably you might say, didn’t that King have his head cut off a long time ago? A lot depends on any recollection of English history you may have. It’s not a part of history that is taught in the national curriculum. Which is odd when considering how important it is.

Shaw House[1] is a beautiful Elizabethan building that has seen a great deal of history. In the 17th Century an English Civil War battle was fought there, and in the surrounding area.

In Newbury, 1644 was a turbulent time. As I understand it, the civil war that was raging all around could have been brought to a swift halt. King Charles and his forces, the Royalists, facing defeat, fled in the dark of night and made their way to Oxford. Thus, the Parliamentarian forces were left with a pyrrhic victory.

Eventually, the Parliamentarian forces succeeded. Charles I was tried, convicted, and executed for high treason in January 1649. The bloody execution of the war left a scar on English society. Brother fought brother. Families were torn apart. Nowhere was left untouched by the conflict.

The events in Newbury led to the formation of the New Model Army in 1645. Parliamentarian success may be traced to that decisive reorganisation.

The Earl Rivers Regiment Muster (Members of The Sealed Knot[2]) is a group of reenactors who bring the 17th Century back to life in the 21st Century. So, my day out at Shaw House was an immersion in times long past. People dressed up, showing off swords, muskets and pikes is entertaining and, without doubt, an important reminder of why today’s society is the way it is.

This was the time in English history when Parliament gained its supremacy. No more would the divine rights of Kings rule the English people. It’s true that the English republic didn’t last long but the supremacy of Parliament stuck.

Along with the re-enactments of battles there’s an exploration of how life once was. Exhibits of tradesmen and women the civilians who accompanied the armies. Reliving history by staging events beings alive the country’s past struggles. It’s a good reminder that conflict is ever with us.

By the way, if I had to choose a side, I surely would have been a Roundhead. The Royalist may have been said to be romantic, but they were on the wrong side of inevitable change.

POST: For more of the story BBC Four – Charles I: Downfall of a King

[1] https://www.westberkshireheritage.org/shaw-house

[2] https://www.thesealedknot.org.uk/

Understanding Aviation Safety

The recent dramatic events in Toronto brought to mind the equally dramatic event of Air France Flight 358 back at the latter half of 2005. Then a large aircraft was destroyed but the crew and passengers got away without fatalities. The combination of bad weather and poor decision-making led to a catastrophic runway excursion.

I remember that the year 2005 shook the aviation community. There was a whole succession of fatal aircraft accidents across the globe. In Europe, Helios Airways Flight 522 was particularly tragic. Errors led to the crew suffering hypoxia and as a result the aircraft and everyone onboard was lost. In Italy, lives were lost as an ATR72 aircraft ran out of fuel and plunged into the Mediterranean Sea near Palermo.

West Caribbean Airways Flight 708 fell from the sky killing all on-board. Kam Air Flight 904 hit a mountain killing all on-board. In Indonesian, Mandala Airlines Flight 091 crashed. A few passengers survived but many people were killed on the ground.

I sincerely hope that 2025 is not going to turn into another 2005. However, I do take the view that there is a cyclic element to the occurrence of fatal accidents. We are often proud to be able to say that the time (number of years) between one cluster of aviation accidents and another grows as overall safety improves but we are a long way from zero-accidents.

The global aviation industry is an incredibly safe industry when considering how many passengers are carried every year. However, zero-accidents remain an illusion however it might be touted as the ultimate goal.

As safety practitioners try to be ever more pro-active in our safety regimes there’s inevitably a reactive element to aviation safety. The aftermath of the 2005 experiences led to ICAO holding its first high-level safety conference in 2010 in Montréal. There have been two more such conferences since. One in 2015 and one in 2011.

The results have been to push the aviation industry towards a more pro-active management of safety. It’s not just the industry. In cases, the regulatory weaknesses that exist in individual States has needed to be given attention.

Add all this up over the last 20-years and you would expect everyone to be pro-actively managing aviation safety. Sadly, that’s not the case as some States and organisations are still managing the transition to a more pro-active approach. Some are so resource constrained that they are more inclined to talk about aviation safety than to act upon it.

Regulatory weaknesses exist in some unlikely places. Additionally, with the fashion of the time being to cut “red tape” at every opportunity, more troubles might be just over the horizon.

I’d like to see a break between the association of what is regulatory and what is considered bureaucracy. The two are not necessarily the same. Regulation and standards are synonymous. And what we know is that there is no successful complex industry without standards.

Please let’s not wait for the next accident report to tell us what to do.

The Swiss Cheese Model in Aviation Safety

Models in safety thinking take different shapes and forms. A conversation might start – what’s a model? Why are they useful?

Here’s a go at an answer. It’s always risky to explain why something works. It can be like a dry analysis of the particulars of a good joke. That kills the essence. As the words attributed to Albert Einstein say: if you can’t explain it simply then you don’t understand it well enough. Even if that’s not literally a quote it sums-up the need for simplicity.

Aviation is a highly complex, interconnected, socio-technical system with a legacy that coexists with rapid advancement. There are few parts of the globe that are not touched by aviation in some way or another. Getting to and from Arctic wastes, commuting between vast cities or traversing the widest oceans. Aviation touches all of them every day.

There is no piece of paper big enough to write a detailed description of every part of the worldwide aviation system. Even the most extensive computer simulations just take on a small part of the whole. I often use this phrase – “it’s more than a head full”. What I mean is that however smart we might think we are, the normal person can only comprehend a slice of what’s happening. A slice frozen in time.

We get over our limitations in perception and understanding but approximating. That is to carve out a “model” of what’s happening and how parts of a complex system interact. That sounds easy enough to construct. It’s a lot harder than first might be thought.

For one, a model needs to be sufficiently universal to capture an underlying reality or theme.

Next, a model needs to be useful. It has utility. It’s proven to work. To produce useful outcomes.

Thirdly, a model needs to communicate a message across cultures, beliefs and disciplines.

A model that meets all the needs described above can be as big an advancement as any hard technology. I guess it’s not surprising that a professor of psychology comes up with one that has been used and reused successfully over decades.

This week has seen the passing of Professor James T. Reason. He’s left us with a legacy that’s almost incomparable. His Swiss cheese model[1] has become a basic part of every aviation safety professional’s training.

I’ve debated and discussed accident causation a lot. The Swiss cheese model[2] is not the only way of thinking about how accidents happen, but it is an extremely good one. It promotes a way of thinking about how to defend against accidents. That’s powerful.

Like all models it’s a simplification of a highly complex system. Its great strength is that this model allows us to see through the mist. To see part of what is obscured by complexity. That is immensely valuable.

Thank you, Professor Reason. 

NOTE: An IFA Video with Professor Reason Every Day – 20 min film – International Federation of Airworthiness.

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

[2] https://www.eurocontrol.int/sites/default/files/library/017_Swiss_Cheese_Model.pdf

Turn the clock back

Daily writing prompt
If you could un-invent something, what would it be?
View all responses

Innovation is much of a byword. Climate crisis, feeding the world, ending wars, curing disease, creating endless energy, conquering space – they can all be done if someone, somewhere, just invents something smart right now. We are greater believers in the power of “invention” than we have ever been. Doesn’t matter if sitting on the right or left of politics.

Invention and discovery are not the same. Discovery is to uncover something we had not known or understood before. However, that something was always there waiting to be discovered.

Invention is for makers and dreamers. A contraption, a connection, a way of doing business, a machine or a crazy idea. Invention has a huge spectrum. I’ve never been to the Heath Robinson Museum[1]. Now, I mean to go.

To un-invent presupposes that it can be done. It has been done in the past. The classical world benefited from inventions that were lost in the dark ages. Later to be rediscovered.

Genuinely to uninvent is hard. Human imagination, with so many people on the planet, mitigates against it. Uninventing may be a short-lived move.

My view is that it would be best to try to un-invent a damaging idea or process. For example, let’s uninvent slavery or subjugation.

[1] https://www.heathrobinsonmuseum.org/

John Gray’s Critique

If a dose of despondency is your Sunday morning tipple, I recommend BBC Radio 4’s “A Point of View[1]”. I often catch it as an alternative to listening to the driving rain bashing against the window as I wake-up on a Sunday morning.

What I dislike the most about John Gray’s analysis is that it dismisses all the hard-working people who daily strive to make the world a better place. I know, you are asking who John Gray is and what does he know? Well, he’s a British philosopher and author of a pile of serious books. He dabbles in political thinking and doom mongering.

On Sundays in the past, I relied heavily on Will Self creating an air of depressed inevitability that all the bad things about humans will eventually overcome us. A dower British journalist and political commentator who always seems to see the dark cloud instead of the silver lining.

Despite the grim tales of these speakers, they often have, lost in their rhetoric, a smidgen of wisdom. This morning John Gray argues that we need a new response to the growth of the right-wing charlatans who are rapidly climbing the greasy pole of national political life.

Naturally, a lot of us thought that’s what the UK General Election last July was all about. A reoccupation of the centre ground of British politics by the Labour Party. A renewed liberal democratic political consensus would emerge and save us all. Strangely, it doesn’t seem to be working out that way. Although, it might be a bit harsh to judge after only a few months.

Last night, I watched the second episode of the BBC’s period drama Wolf Hall[2]. My God, it’s good entertainment. A little heavy in places. Sharp and brilliantly executed. That last word being the key one. Tudor history is a reminder of how vicious political manoeuvring can be. Having a master, a King, who is determined to make the world turn around him and no one else.

So, should I agree with the likes of John Gray? That a darkness slithers around in human hearts. That we’d better be prepared, shake-off the status-quo and look for new ways to head-off the marketing men’s populist politics. Voiced by bombastic demigods and radical twerps.

He’s right in the sense that today’s politics is behind the curve. British political parties were forged in a different age. Largely, baring the virtues they espouse, they are outdated. Sure, fairness, liberty, and equality have not fallen out of fashion. But maybe the language surrounding them belongs in the 19th and 20th centuries.

One thing is for sure, Willo the Wisps, like Kemi Badenoch offer nothing new. Reform is just a cover for the populist worst of human nature. Yes, we do need someone to break new ground in British politics.

Oh, for a more cheerful Sunday morning.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00254hz

[2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m002473m/wolf-hall

Choice

Desperate British Prime Minister (PM) comes out with the line that the future will be troubled and fast paced change will outstrip past progress. Ok, so what’s new? Hasn’t that been the path of the world since the invention of the computer? Acceleration of change is now locked into humanities destiny.

The audacity of the man is astonishing. Having been intimately associated with calamitous failures of the past decade he espouses his unique abilities to keep us safe and secure.

Hell, I thought former PM Boris Johnson had a big ego. Monday’s speech goes beyond ridiculous[1]. When he says: “People are abusing our liberal democratic values” what comes to my mind is the right-wing government he leads.

We all know, it’s reported continuously, how dangerous the world has become. Noone in any major political party would dismiss that reality. That is bar the eccentric, downright crazy and maybe the fringes of the Greens party.

Interestingly, as far as I know, PM Rishi Sunak isn’t a climate change denier, but he doesn’t have much to say on this monumental global issue. When he says: “And in this world of greater conflict and danger, 100 million people are now displaced globally.” It should occur to him that competition for resources in a world where the climate is changing is at the root of this movement. By the way, there are 8 billion people in the world[2]. So, let’s get our reality in proportion. True, the 0.1 billion people now displaced globally is a figure likely to grow in the next decade. But they are not the enemy.

I had to laugh when I came to the mention in the speech of “robust plans”. The thing that has been characteristic of this Conservative period of government is the distinct lack of planning.

The country’s whole relationship with its neighbours was changed without any plan (Brexit). The ups and downs of the COVID epidemic were endured without a plan, other than that which was made up day-to-day. Year-on-year cuts in defence spending have only been reversed in the wake of global events not a plan of any kind. Surely the Conservatives can only offer a – make it up as we go along – way of governing? It’s what they’ve always done. Hence, the slow decline that has afflicted the country.

The PM lapses into a lazy “needs must” argument that sprinkled with Brexit bull****. Shakespeare would have approved. One example, in All’s Well That Ends Well:

Countess: Tell me thy reason why thou wilt marry.

Clown: My poor body, madam, requires it: I am driven on by the flesh; and he must needs go that the devil drives.

Nothing wrong with being positive about the future. As a country we can do great things. What the PM claims is to have a plan. What he hasn’t got is a plan. And if he did have a plan the likelihood of his own side following that plan is absolutely minimal. He only goes where the devil drives. 

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-speech-on-security-13-may-2024

[2] https://www.census.gov/popclock/world