Tag: History

Relationship with the EU

Monday, Monday[1]. It’s a wonderful 60s song. Harmonies and mood are perfect. I wonder if the harmonies and mood will be perfect for the Prime Minister (PM) on Monday. Already the Sunday Press are setting the stage for Monday’s performance.

Reset, recalibration, reheat, rekindle, re-whatever. It’s a moment when relations between the UK and the European Union (EU) can make realistic progress[2]. In world full of uncertainty (could be a song in that one), for once the direction of travel is a constructive and positive.

I think the word “deal” is getting overplayed. Indications are that there’s no fundamental shift from Brexit meaning Brexit, as one former PM liked to say. In fact, the current PM is being highly cautious in the light of his Party’s reading of the latest opinion polls. For no sane reason I can think of, the swivel-eyed loons of the far-right are making hay.

It’s astonishing me how dim-witted the Conservative Party is in objecting to something when they don’t even know, for sure, what it is. Mind-blowing. And the rum cult of Reform Party doing the same with extra bile. What a load of prehistoric fruit loops.

Brexit supporters are spreading misinformation, again. Saying that UK has no influence. It’s true, the UK doesn’t have votes in the European Council or Parliament, but significant influence can be exercised on standards, and regulatory guidance, nevertheless. A better “deal” can bring much greater influence. Absolutely vital in the digital world, and for the UK, a country with a services-based economy.

Brexit has cost the UK dearly. The UK Treasury would have billions more in its coffers if the 2016 referendum had never taken place. The standard of living of every person in the UK is lower because of Brexit bungling. Ideally, that great mistake is an event to be written up for the history books and then forgotten.

On top of the above, uncharacteristic moves in the US, with Trump tariffs there’s nasty hit at the UK’s future prosperity. There couldn’t be a better time to repair relationships with the UK’s nearest neighbours. The countries with which we share most of our long history.

Even for those on the political right, practically, the EU is never going away, so until the day the UK rejoins the block, it’s wise to have the best possible relationship in all matters. Goods, services and people need to connect as a case of mutual benefit.

It’s time for hope. An optimistic tone should be set. A smile. Let’s hope we are singing Monday, Monday so good to me, Monday morning was all I hoped it would be. Naturally, that there be no crying, come Monday evening.

[1] https://genius.com/The-mamas-and-the-papas-monday-monday-lyrics

[2] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-uk-eu-reset-trade-deal-starmer-b2752285.html

Action Shapes Outcomes

There’s a foolishness that comes with great power. It gets played out every day over the News media. It’s when notable person x or y says words to the effect; nothing will happen unless I do it. This common notion gets projected to us through mass reporting and commentary.

Every second is a pivotal moment. A last chance to move, or a last chance to act. As if time stops when we know it branches into countless possibilities. Fine, pivotal life or death moments do exist. It’s only that they are less numerous than we might be led to think. Drama takes its place in the theatre of the everyday[1].

There’s an ancient lesson to learn. It goes like this, in a simple demonstration. Place any finger into a glass of clear water. Now, remove the finger and observer the hole.

It’s a lesson Archimedes would appreciate. Although he’s famous for displacement being an indicator of what’s doing the displacement. Between the two it’s the water that’s the constant. The ebbing and flowing of time. At least as we humans perceive it.

It’s not that an individual can’t make a difference. Far from it. Individual action can make a dramatic difference. Doing the right thing at the right time, if the opportunity arises, can be the difference between catastrophe and nothing much in particular, as an outcome. In the world of major accidents, designers and operators desperately try to avoid the possibility that a single act or failure that leads to catastrophe, but it does, on rare occasions happen.

The point in discussion is the matter of what is indispensable. How often do we get to choose what is indispensable? After an event, it’s easier to answer the question. Looking back, it can be said that the factor that made the most difference was this one or that one. Before an event, we are in the land of probabilities and shiny crystal balls. Mathematics and mysticism.

The Cuban Missile Crisis[2] offers a lesson. It was only in retrospect that people learned of the action of a Soviet Naval officer who prevented a submarine from launching a nuclear torpedo.

History tells how the pivotal moment arrived. That said, there was no way the man concerned knew before time that his role would be indispensable. History would be written dramatically differently if a nuclear engagement had happened.

In the end it comes down to doing the right thing at the right time when the opportunity arose. Sometime swimming against the tide of events. Not magic exuded by a powerful individual strolling the stage.

POST: A better one. All The World’s A Stage By William Shakespeare · Jim Broadbent https://youtu.be/gUJBEy-tbo0?si=NMkIRpIr8H0wdTgv

[1] https://youtu.be/caaPlIX6AkM

[2] https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/jfk-in-history/cuban-missile-crisis

Exploring a Riverside

Riverside walks can be pleasant ways of spending a sunny spring evening. That’s what I did on Friday. Sun shining with a cool breeze sweeping through the trees. Underfoot even the unmade-up paths were dry, which is testament to the rainless weather of recent weeks. Even so, the riverbank showed signs of the flooding of the winter.

Reading is a town[1]. It’s England’s largest town. Now, I didn’t know that until I looked it up. The largest English town that I’ve been familiar with over the years is Crawley in Sussex. I think of that as a large town but it’s less than half the size of Reading. It’s the railway that makes Reading. Reading railway station was the last stop on the Great Western Railway (GWR)[2] when it was first opened in 1840. After that the railway forged west to be what we know now as the main thoroughfare across southern England.

Reading town has a long history. That’s no surprise given its position on the river Thames. It’s where the river Kennet, the canal and the river Thames meet. An obvious place for trading since Roman times. It’s a commercial town. Glass sided office blocks and Victorian brick work. For all that it doesn’t stand out as an architectural masterpiece.

Another surprise for me was leaning that town twinning is alive and well. That Reading in twined with Düsseldorf in Germany. A city more than twice the size of Reading. In fact, until this last year, I’ve been more familiar with Düsseldorf.

Our walk ended at The Fishermans Cottage[3]. I’m happy to recommend this small riverside pub.

From there, on the walk back to the railway station I did see the one of the more notable sites in Reading. That’s the Banksy’s Great Escape artwork[4] on Reading prison wall. Oscar Wilde spent time in that jail. The artwork has got a Perspex cover to keep the pigeons off. And anyone else who might think of spraying it.

That reminds me. It’s not unusual to have a phobia about dogs. Although dog owners mostly have a difficulty in getting their heads around the fact. On my riverside walk dogs were not the problem. Amongst our small group of walkers had a different phobia.

As we got to the confluence of the Thames and the Kennet, we discovered the phobia of one of our walkers. Alfred Hitchcock would approve. The Kennet’s tow path attracts Swans. These Swans are attracted by people with food. With no inclination to get out of the gently flowing river these lazy Swans wait for passers-by to pay attention to their needs. That’s no problem.

It’s called Ornithophobia. A fear of birds. Birds flock when free food is on offer. The worst of these can be thought of as flying rats. I talk of pigeons. That how I think of pigeons. Tom Lehrer[5] had the right idea about these annoying birdies. Frightening them away, at least for a moment, cleared our pathway. Like a flash they returned as we strolled into the pub.

[1] https://www.reading.gov.uk/

[2] https://www.gwr.com/stations-and-destinations/travel-inspiration/blogs/history-of-the-railways

[3] https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurant_Review-g186363-d7363678-Reviews-The_Fishermans_Cottage-Reading_Berkshire_England.html

[4] https://banksyexplained.com/create-escape-march-2021/

[5] https://youtu.be/yhuMLpdnOjY

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