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#11
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Ha! And in the real world, storytellers like you make a nice living
with their fiction! On Sun, 19 Dec 2004 22:05:30 GMT, "Howard Nelson" wrote: "LGHarlan" wrote in message ... In the real world, Stanley would have lost all his private label customers as soon as I filed a motion-under any of half a dozen pretexts-that allowed me to deposition his customers' employees. Once he (and more importantly, they) learned that the customers of any enterprise vaguely related to his previous business were going to have their employees subjected to interrogatories and depositions, he'd have to go to work at McDonalds. Judges really, really, really hate being ignored. In the real world you wouldn't file a motion since the likelihood of recovery from Stanley isn't high enough. In the real world you might soon have to learn how to file motions in Bangalore or Shanghai. In the real world your grandchildren probably will work in a "service" industry (hospitality, medicine. law, financial or government) to purchase hard goods from Asia and Latin America. In the real world the next generation of lawyers won't be flying airplanes because either effective tort reform will happen or the only Americans left with enough assets remaining to be targets of suits will be other lawyers. Howard C182 "The best is the enemy of the good" --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.818 / Virus Database: 556 - Release Date: 12/17/2004 |
#12
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LG, your post is a veritable primer on ATLA....
Denny |
#13
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Sad, I suppose...but so are the companies who
sell split rim truck wheels, or for that matter, light twins that won't climb out at full legal gross from Denver to people (with families) they know are not Chuck Yeager. Are we any worse? Yes. You're much worse. I don't know anything about split rim truck wheels, but I know rather a lot about light twins that won't climb out at full legal gross from Denver (which is most of them). I have hundreds of hours in several of them. Do you? The light twin that won't climb out on one engine at full gross from Denver will cheerfully hold altitude 4000 ft above the hills of Arkansas (and 500 ft above a cloud deck) after one engine takes a dump in cruise - and you don't need to be Chuck Yeager to make it do it. In fact, it was doing it while being flown by a very lightly coached student pilot. If I had to have a twin that WOULD climb out from Denver at full gross on one engine, I couldn't afford it and would be flying a single. That would have made my life really interesting when the engine failed 500 ft above a solid cloud deck over the hills of Arkansas. Or, to put it in general terms - you would take away from me the capability to keep flying 95% of the time, in order to what? To keep me from needing to make a decision no to try it the other 5% of the time? When it's obvious from reading the flight manual that it won't work anyway? The company that made this light twin did something very useful - it provided an airplane for me and people like me that would often (but not always) give us options not available in a single engine airplane - and you would fault them for not building the airplane so that it would ALWAYS give those options - at a price and operating cost we can't afford. That's nuts. They produced a valuable product, and it would be a shame if some lawyer shut them down - which, unfortunately, is in large part what happened. Michael |
#14
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I used to sell split rims in the '70s. They were no more dangerous
than one-piece rims if they were used properly, and there was the catch: they weren't idiot-proof. There are many non-interchangeable styles of side and lock rings, and stupid people would mix them up and blow themselves to bits when the thing came apart. A 10.00-22 wheel/tire at 110 psi has enough energy to send a 160-pound man 600 feet into the air. Theoretically. In reality, his body parts are spread over a similar area. So the wheel companies had to get away from those things and tires are now much harder to change without the expensive equipment. But what can you do with people who insist on wrecking perfectly good airplanes using bad judgement and then blaming, $ucce$$fully, the manufacturer, and making flying so unnecessarily expensive for the rest of us? Stop building airplanes? Dan |
#15
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The problem with split rim truck wheels was that when they failed, usually
innocent pedestrians or motorists were the ones killed. Had the wheel makers Murphy-proofed their products or made them universally interchangeable, and if truck tire personnel were required to be a grade above the epsilon minuses usually in that position, the problem would not have existed. But it did, because that's the customer base they sold to. The courts made the manufacture of split rim wheels economically untenable and one piece wheels became the standard. Of course, since there is no way for the five to ten people every year who would have been killed if the use of split rims continued to be identified, the courts and trial lawyers can't claim credit very easily. Wichita made an airplane-in the case of the heavy singles and light twins that racked up most of the judgments and settlements-that the customer base-people with money and usually dismally trained-were not capable of handling. It had characteristics that were suitable for day VFR use but which made IFR and night VFR operations by minimally trained owners, most of whom did not fly enough hours to remain current, a marginal proposition. Research in the 1960s proved single pilot IFR operations required a major workload reduction from the WWII-era instrumented and configured aircraft. Single lever power control, the drum-pointer altimeter, an alternate attitude and heading indicator (no 'needle ball and alcohol': that's for black and white war movies) and avionics easily operable without looking down on approach were indicated. The military in fact revised both the cockpit layout and its approach procedures after spates of Sabre and T-33 crashes in the 1950s. Wichita ignored all this. Its only response when we started suing them was to 'shoot, shovel,and shut up' and buy more liability insurance coverage. Looking back, although it made my family a lot of money, product liability insurance is like heroin. It doesn't fix the problem, it just numbs the user to it. Outlawing liability insurance might be a good idea, even though it would make me change careers. Harley-Davidson motorcycles are more dangerous than any airplane, and they are still made in America by a profitable company that is the antithesis of judgment-proof. With the exception of the federal statute of limitations , the liability laws are the same for H-D as Cessna, Piper, and Beech. The real reason recip-engine singles are no longer produced is not product liability, in any case. It's the great profitability of corporate jet manufacture, which uses the same floor space and workforce to make a product with unequalled profit margins once the certification and tooling costs are paid for. The high cost of type certification and widespread abuse of Experimental/Amateur-Built provisions are what deters interest in new personal aircraft startups. |
#16
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LGHarlan wrote:
Wichita made an airplane-in the case of the heavy singles and light twins that racked up most of the judgments and settlements-that the customer base-people with money and usually dismally trained-were not capable of handling. Yes, that was the basic problem. Of course making the planes docile enough to handle - and paying the certification costs of same - would have made the planes totally unaffordable. Therein lies the inherent problem. On the one hand, the tort system demands you make the planes to modern standards of user-friendliness. On the other hand, the FAA will not allow you to use modern technology without prohibitively expensive certification. Note that I meant what I said. Certification itself is not inherently expensive. The people who designed the Husky spent less than $400K on the entire design - including certification. Of course if you were to fly your Husky through a time machine and land in 1955, you could take it to any mechanic to fix. Not only would he be able to get all the parts (and chemicals, for the fabric) he needed, but he wouldn't even notice anything odd about the airplane other than the avionics. It's easy (and cheap) to certify a design with nothing but WWII technology, because that's what the FAA engineers understand. Try it with modern technology, and you will be paying for their education - or adding rivets to composite structures. The fault is pretty much equally split between the evil and stupid FAA bureaucrats who make modern technology impossibly expensive for GA and the evil and greedy lawyers who will punish the manufacturers who have no choice but to build with obsolete technology. It had characteristics that were suitable for day VFR use but which made IFR and night VFR operations by minimally trained owners, most of whom did not fly enough hours to remain current, a marginal proposition. BTW - how come we're not blaming the owners here for going cheap on the training (in those expensive airplanes) and not staying current? Research in the 1960s proved single pilot IFR operations required a major workload reduction from the WWII-era instrumented and configured aircraft. Required? So why are hundreds of us still flying WWI-era standard? I don't think we're all Chuck Yeager. Could it be that we're simply people who decided not to cheap out on the training and fly enough to stay current? Single lever power control, the drum-pointer altimeter, an alternate attitude and heading indicator (no 'needle ball and alcohol': that's for black and white war movies) and avionics easily operable without looking down on approach were indicated. The military in fact revised both the cockpit layout and its approach procedures after spates of Sabre and T-33 crashes in the 1950s. Yes, they didn't have to worry about costs or FAA certifications. Wichita ignored all this. Its only response when we started suing them was to 'shoot, shovel,and shut up' and buy more liability insurance coverage. And given the costs of certification, what choice did they have? Why aren't you suing the FAA bureaucrats who cause the problem? Could it be because it's not about fault after all, but just about the money? Harley-Davidson motorcycles are more dangerous than any airplane, and they are still made in America by a profitable company that is the antithesis of judgment-proof. With the exception of the federal statute of limitations , the liability laws are the same for H-D as Cessna, Piper, and Beech. First, it's not true. Airplanes are no safer than motorcycles - much proof to that effect exists. Second, the certification laws are not at all the same, and neither are the product volumes. And third, enough people know about motorcycles that it's pretty hard to get a judgment against the manufacturer when it's obvious that the fault lay with the rider and/or a driver. The high cost of type certification and widespread abuse of Experimental/Amateur-Built provisions are what deters interest in new personal aircraft startups. I won't argue the cost of type certification - it's probably a bigger problem than product liability - but if you think amateur-built is a serious competitor to factory built, you're kidding yourself. Homebuilts are only a tiny segment of the market, and if you're looking for something that is competitive with those light twins and larger singles - you'll just keep on looking. If I could find a homebuilt with the cabin room, speed, range, and redundancy of my 1965 Wichita (actually Lock Haven) special, I would have already bought it. Michael |
#17
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On 21 Dec 2004 17:19:12 -0800, "Michael"
wrote: LGHarlan wrote: Wichita made an airplane-in the case of the heavy singles and light twins that racked up most of the judgments and settlements-that the customer base-people with money and usually dismally trained-were not capable of handling. Yes, that was the basic problem. Of course making the planes docile enough to handle - and paying the certification costs of same - would have made the planes totally unaffordable. Therein lies the inherent problem. On the one hand, the tort system demands you make the planes to modern standards of user-friendliness. On the other hand, the FAA will not allow you to use modern technology without prohibitively expensive certification. Note that I meant what I said. Certification itself is not inherently expensive. The people who designed the Husky spent less than $400K on the entire design - including certification. Of course if you were to fly your Husky through a time machine and land in 1955, you could take it to any mechanic to fix. Not only would he be able to get all the parts (and chemicals, for the fabric) he needed, but he wouldn't even notice anything odd about the airplane other than the avionics. It's easy (and cheap) to certify a design with nothing but WWII technology, because that's what the FAA engineers understand. Try it with modern technology, and you will be paying for their education - or adding rivets to composite structures. The fault is pretty much equally split between the evil and stupid FAA bureaucrats who make modern technology impossibly expensive for GA and the evil and greedy lawyers who will punish the manufacturers who have no choice but to build with obsolete technology. It had characteristics that were suitable for day VFR use but which made IFR and night VFR operations by minimally trained owners, most of whom did not fly enough hours to remain current, a marginal proposition. BTW - how come we're not blaming the owners here for going cheap on the training (in those expensive airplanes) and not staying current? Research in the 1960s proved single pilot IFR operations required a major workload reduction from the WWII-era instrumented and configured aircraft. Required? So why are hundreds of us still flying WWI-era standard? I don't think we're all Chuck Yeager. Could it be that we're simply people who decided not to cheap out on the training and fly enough to stay current? Single lever power control, the drum-pointer altimeter, an alternate attitude and heading indicator (no 'needle ball and alcohol': that's for black and white war movies) and avionics easily operable without looking down on approach were indicated. The military in fact revised both the cockpit layout and its approach procedures after spates of Sabre and T-33 crashes in the 1950s. Yes, they didn't have to worry about costs or FAA certifications. Wichita ignored all this. Its only response when we started suing them was to 'shoot, shovel,and shut up' and buy more liability insurance coverage. And given the costs of certification, what choice did they have? Why aren't you suing the FAA bureaucrats who cause the problem? Could it be because it's not about fault after all, but just about the money? Harley-Davidson motorcycles are more dangerous than any airplane, and they are still made in America by a profitable company that is the antithesis of judgment-proof. With the exception of the federal statute of limitations , the liability laws are the same for H-D as Cessna, Piper, and Beech. First, it's not true. Airplanes are no safer than motorcycles - much proof to that effect exists. Second, the certification laws are not at all the same, and neither are the product volumes. And third, enough people know about motorcycles that it's pretty hard to get a judgment against the manufacturer when it's obvious that the fault lay with the rider and/or a driver. The high cost of type certification and widespread abuse of Experimental/Amateur-Built provisions are what deters interest in new personal aircraft startups. I won't argue the cost of type certification - it's probably a bigger problem than product liability - but if you think amateur-built is a serious competitor to factory built, you're kidding yourself. Homebuilts are only a tiny segment of the market, and if you're looking for something that is competitive with those light twins and larger singles - you'll just keep on looking. If I could find a homebuilt with the cabin room, speed, range, and redundancy of my 1965 Wichita (actually Lock Haven) special, I would have already bought it. Michael I think there's a lot more homebuilts registered each year than factory built planes. If you can't find a homebuilt that outpreforms your spam can you're not looking very hard. post your requirments and I think you'll be amazed at the choices |
#18
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Another one for Snopes.com although not quite as well-concocted or
believable ************************************************** ********************* Interesting how the real world is never neat and perfect, eh... Cheers ... Denny |
#19
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Drew Dalgleish wrote:
I think there's a lot more homebuilts registered each year than factory built planes. How many homebuilts out there with more than 1000 hours on them? If you can't find a homebuilt that outpreforms your spam can you're not looking very hard. post your requirments and I think you'll be amazed at the choices I think you're the one who is going to be amazed. Here are my requirements (which are actually less that what I currently have): Twin engine, with a single engine absolute ceiling at gross not less than 5000 ft (not negotiable - not interested in singles) 150 kts cruise at low altitudes (less than 8000 ft) at less than 65% power (don't like running the engines hard) and less than 18 gph (don't like spending money either). Must be able to burn either Avgas or Jet-A (no special fueling issues). Note that this is a bare minimum - my spam can does better in every respect. 5 hours endurance at 150 kts (including climb fuel and VFR reserves). Enough useful load to carry the fuel required for that endurance and an additional 600 lbs of pax/cargo as well as a full redundant IFR panel (dual nav-coms, dual AI's, GPS and LORAN, stormscope, autopilot, ADF, DME, etc). Again, these are bare minima. Cabin room for full size adults (think Bonanza and up - not Mooney). Not interested in building - will only buy one that is already built and flying. No one-offs - only want a design with enough track record to be insurable for hull (I will take whatever training and meet whatever experience requirements they want). I'm looking forward to your suggestions. Michael |
#20
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Just buy a King Air or Citation. In fact, I think people with your
mindset should only fly as part of a two man crew, which means a Lear, Gulfstream or MD-80 is probably a better choice. The weakest link in aviation isn't the engines, it's the pilot. A two man crew operating as such is the safest way to fly. If you thought about it you would have figured that two is a bad number of engines for an airplane anyway, because each engine has to be fully able to fly the airplane, in effect, for transport category minima to be reachable. If they are not reached a jury would probably take that as evidence you could have built a safer airplane and didn't, you mean company, so have a ten million dollar judgment. Three is much better. (I see some good deals on 727's and you can always talk your A&P into the FE seat...) If a person with your way of thinking can't write a check for a G-III or MD80 or 737-100 or -200 you are probably too busy playing with yourself and need to put more attention into your business. You do own one don't you?? _________________________________ Of course the above is what the BAD Captain Kirk would say, if you remember that episode. naturally neither myself nor any other poster here would be that rude. |
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