Dubai to build world's biggest ferris wheel

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Dubai to build world's biggest ferris wheel

Heads up folks. If you are planning to go to any of these countries, for example a winter vacation in Dubai, please understand that these are all still third world countries with a very thin first-world veneer. Such things as building codes, public safety standards, emergency fire response, ambulance services, and so forth are not equivalent to what we are accustomed to in North America or western Europe. There are high levels of corruption and other factors that also contribute to this situation.

Flying on Emirates or Gulf Air may not be quite as exciting as flying on Asiana Airlines, but it is NOT the same as flying on Lufthansa, British Airways or United...even though the airplanes may appear quite luxurious, you are taking a somewhat greater risk, and you need to understand that when you make your choices if you live or travel in these regions. If you find there are no smoke detectors in your hotel, even though it is packed with every modern convenience known to man, don't be surprised. It's also best to assume the sprinkler system doesn't have enough water supply or pressure to put out a cigar (unless the hotel is managed by one of the reputable western firms like Four Seasons, Fairmont or Intercontinental).

All the time I lived overseas I was constantly amazed at how naive and sometime utterly foolish many people can be. The Gulf is filled with expatriates and travelers who seem surprised that things aren't just like back home in Des Moines or Orillia, especially when they are completely unprepared for the periodic violence (Gulf War 2, Arab Spring) that erupts in that ever volatile region.

The world is an extraordinarily interesting place, and by no means should one avoid experiencing as much of its diversity as you can fit into your life, but understand the comparative risks of your choices. Leaving your kids in a mall daycare, or any other public venue in a third world country is not the same as leaving them in a similar facility in the USA, Canada, Australia, NZ, etc.

On my most recent trip thru Dubai a couple months back I did a fair bit of walking and driving around with friends.

It's hard not to comment on the schizophrenic architectural spectacle of the place...it never ceases to amaze.

Some of it, as you know, is visually horrific....some of it is kinda neat.....like that "twisty" building that had me thinking about construction and internals like elevators.

While walking around I noticed a high rise with the top cooked off from a recent fire.

I tried a Google image search of the distinctive building to see if I could link the building fire here.

Unfortunately, I saw a LOT of Dubai building fires, but still haven't found the one I saw yet.....eeek!

When it comes to TV I tend to stick to obscure movies and oddball/edgy sense of humor stuff(like Trailer Park Boys).

There's an adult oriented cartoon called Venture Brothers I've seen that is pretty good with the dark humour. Like Johnny Quest gone bad.

I read an interview online with the creator who described the show's premise as "beautiful, sublime failure".

Which is EXACTLY how I would describe Dubai.

Scratch too far beneath the surface and it might catch on fire and/or implode.

You've now got me nervous about Emirates.......my favorite airline in terms of passenger experience.

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In having said that, I have to admit that in all my times passing thru Dubai I've generally been anti-Dubai based on:

*How the locals treated me(excellent) compared to everyone else on the plane(very poorly...Dubai's newest English speaking fast food workers a tier down from Filipinos) flying in from Nairobi.

*Seeing the white painted American school buses chocker full of Bangladeshi/Pakistani construction workers(indentured servants) on their way out to the desert work camps at the end of the day, while my wife and I were driven by Lexus to the Burj Al Arab Skyview Bar for dinner and drinks.

*The distinct feeling of simply being the top tier foreign mercenary/servant.

*Most ominously for me, was seeing folks from progressive western countries clearly picking up some of the negative behavior towards the "indentured servants".

My views have been largely(and highly) negative.

BUT, in having said that........spending my last night walking quite a few K's with friends the place really seemed to come alive after dark in a family friendly way.

At first it was a bit weird seeing young children up so late, but the environment dictates it.

It reminded me a little of Singapore.

I told my wife I'd never want our children growing up in an environment like Dubai, but I think I could take them all there for a few months max for the experience, both positive and negative...albeit with a plan to scoot into Oman if things got weird fast.

My favorite part of Dubai is a ritual of going to a Johnny Rockets for a burger and a shake located at the very end of a top floor back corner labyrinth of Mall of Emirates.

I've been there about a dozen times and have sat in the same booth every time, which is easy because only twice have I ever seen another patron.

I stopped wondering how the place works in the micro/macro sense a long time ago.

I just eat my burger and have a chat with the friendly Filipino staff about life in Dubai

[bungee]

Re: Dubai to build world's biggest ferris wheel

Flying on Emirates or Gulf Air may not be quite as exciting as flying on Asiana Airlines, but it is NOT the same as flying on Lufthansa, British Airways or United...even though the airplanes may appear quite luxurious, you are taking a somewhat greater risk, and you need to understand that when you make your choices if you live or travel in these regions.

This is just not true - there are equally bad western airlines. 2012 airline safety rankings, (based on the last 30 years of flights / accidents) lower = better

4 Emirates
10 British Airways
11 Lufthansa
31 United
32 Ryanair
46 Asiana

or from www.airlineratings.com a score rather than a ranking, higher = better

7 British Airways
7 Emirates
7 Lufthansa
7 United
6 Asiana
5 Gulf Air
5 Ryanair - european budget airline

[jpatter666]

Re: Dubai to build world's biggest ferris wheel

You've now got me nervous about Emirates.......my favorite airline in terms of passenger experience.

Maybe GRG55 can confirm, but my understanding flying overseas has been -- if the airline is flying from or to a 1st world country then it must meet the safety regulations for that country. You're probably OK regardless of airline.

Flying internally or from third world/third world -- be much more aware of the airline reputation.

All this said, even for internal flights, we often felt safer than taking the local buses. White-knuckle rides.....

[Polish_Silver]

Re: Dubai to build world's biggest ferris wheel

Heads up folks. If you are planning to go to any of these countries, for example a winter vacation in Dubai, please understand that these are all still third world countries with a very thin first-world veneer. Such things as building codes, public safety standards, emergency fire response, ambulance services, and so forth are not equivalent to what we are accustomed to in North America or western Europe. There are high levels of corruption and other factors that also contribute to this situation.

.

Very informative. I have not travelled in Petro States at all. What you are saying makes me think better of Latin America. I think the fire sprinklers would work there. But it would be interesting to get data on that.

[GRG55]

Re: Dubai to build world's biggest ferris wheel

Maybe GRG55 can confirm, but my understanding flying overseas has been -- if the airline is flying from or to a 1st world country then it must meet the safety regulations for that country. You're probably OK regardless of airline...

This is correct. Crew training standards and aircraft maintenance standards must meet certain criteria. These major airlines, including Emirates, Gulf Air and the others, are all running reasonably modern equipment, the maintenance follows all the requirements, the crew training curriculum is as good as any other...among other things Boeing and Airbus each have a significant participation with all of their customers to help achieve that.

But that's not the issue, or what concerns me and factors into my personal decisions. See below.

This is just not true - there are equally bad western airlines. 2012 airline safety rankings, (based on the last 30 years of flights / accidents) lower = better

4 Emirates
10 British Airways
11 Lufthansa
31 United
32 Ryanair
46 Asiana

or from www.airlineratings.com a score rather than a ranking, higher = better

7 British Airways
7 Emirates
7 Lufthansa
7 United
6 Asiana
5 Gulf Air
5 Ryanair - european budget airline

Unfortunately it is true. To begin, Emirates Airlines didn't even exist 30 years ago, so the first comparison is hardly apples to apples, is it? And yes there are equally bad western airlines. And I don't get on their airplanes either.

Regardless, these sorts of rankings don't factor very heavily into my personal decisions. I do a lot of long distance commercial flights all over the world on business. When I get asked "How was your flight?" I usually answer quite truthfully "Uneventful. Which is exactly how I prefer it".

99.999% of the time nothing significantly untoward will happen on a commercial flight. In all my years of commercial flying I have only had one aborted takeoff and two go-arounds on landing approach (both the latter at the same Central Asian airport, and both for the same reason, which tells me something about the way the air traffic control is handled there).

But shzt happens. And it's the attitude towards doing everything to avoid setting up for something untoward happening in the first place, and the critical thinking skills and crew resource management (CRM) capabilities when something does go wrong, that count most. My decisions are a judgement call, made from the synthesis of a variety of information. Let me try to illustrate with examples:

US Airways will be chalked up in the statistics as having had a hull loss when Flight 1549 splashed into the Hudson River when both engines failed after ingesting geese. I would still rather be flying an airline with crew of the quality of Sullenberger and Skiles, who dead-sticked the airplane on to the water intact with no loss of life (Sullenberger has since retired and Skiles has left US Air to take a position with EAA in Oshkosh, WI.).

Likewise, British Airways suffered the first ever hull loss of a Boeing 777 when Flight 38 from Beijing had reduced thrust from both engines on short final into London Heathrow. Both engines failed to generate sufficient thrust because of ice crystals from water in the fuel clogging the fuel/oil heat exchangers. The crew did everything right including a partial retraction of the flaps (a very delicate thing to do close to the ground, and I suspect not an approved procedure), to reduce the drag on the airplane to get it over the A30 highway and across the airport perimeter fence, putting the airplane down intact about 1000 ft short of the runway threshold with no loss of life.

Contrast that with the recent Asiana Boeing 777 accident at San Francisco. It is appropriate to limit rampant speculation pending the release of the accident investigation reports. However, it is known that there were three pilots in the cockpit at the time (reminiscent of Eastern 401) and somehow they appear to have collectively allowed a state-of-the-art aircraft to fall below both the minimum target approach speed and the glide path altitude, with disastrous consequences. This is admittedly pure speculation on my part, but I will not be surprised if a lack of sufficient CRM is cited as one of the contributors to this accident when the final report comes out...my educated guess is there was uncertainty and confusion over who had control of the airplane, the pilot in training in the left seat or the experienced instructor/check pilot in the right seat; each deferring to the presumed higher authority of the other, and therefore neither taking prompt corrective action. Think about how the Asian value of respect for authority (and therefore avoidance of questioning it) has the potential to play into that dynamic.

Read the accident report for Gulf Air Flight 072. At the time Gulf Air made scheduled flights into many European destinations including the UK, Germany and France. Outwardly it apparently met the minimum maintenance and crew standards to keep doing that legally. Yet a fundamentally unqualified pilot, who obviously was given a pass on his check rides, flew a perfectly good airplane (an Airbus A320) into the waters of the Persian Gulf on an absolutely clear August night. Read the accident report. Read my first post on this string. Then think about how the cultural norms I just barely touched on in that post factored heavily into creating the situation for this accident. Consider the context within which there was a complete breakdown of CRM, and an Arab First Officer did not call out any of the numerous deviations from standard flight parameters to his Captain. Referencing the third paragraph of my first post above, think about the difficulty and consequences of repeatedly failing a substandard Arab pilot, flying for his own national carrier, on the check rides. It took an unprecedented two years before the accident report was allowed to be released publicly...the reason is related to what I wrote in that paragraph.

An excerpt from the accident report:

"A review of about three years preceding the accident indicated that despite intensive efforts, the DGCAM as a regulatory authority could not make the operator comply with some critical regulatory requirements."

The DGCAM is the civil aviation regulatory authority of Bahrain and over a three year period it was unable to secure the cooperation of the national carrier to carry out corrective actions to rectify non-compliance with the Standard Operating Procedures and other important regulatory requirements. Think about the embedded and endemic corruption and the tolerated societal power structure that allowed the management of Gulf Air to blatantly ignore the regulator (sounds somewhat like the US banking system, eh?) for years on end. The FAA, Transport Canada and the UK Civil Aviation Authority have their faults, but its unimaginable they would knowingly allow something this blatant to carry on for so long without grounding the carrier.

I do not want to appear as though I am picking on Arabs. I am not. A read through the Air France Flight 447 accident report will dispel any thoughts that CRM breakdown or pilot competency in thinking critically is solely an Asian or Arab issue. It is not. In the case of AF447, after successfully resolving a pitot tube problem earlier in the flight the crew managed to splash the Airbus A330 into the Atlantic when only one single instrument in the airplane, the airspeed indication, had failed.

Coming back to the Middle East, the region has lots of really competent Arab petroleum engineers. It also has lots of incredibly inefficient and extraordinarily corrupt national oil companies. The Middle East has lots of really competent Arab (and expatriate) pilots too. Feel free to draw your own conclusions about their rapidly expanding national air carriers.

As I said above, it's a judgement call...

[Polish_Silver]

Why it's called the "cockpit"

. ...

Think about how the Asian value of respect for authority (and therefore avoidance of questioning it) has the potential to play into that dynamic.


As I said above, it's a judgement call...

My family had a friendship with a major airline co-pilot. I asked once why he was never a full pilot. This was his story: He got into the cockpit with the pilot and navigator, both of whom were smokers. He smelled something and insisted the plane had a leak (I always thought it was fuel, but maybe it was hydraulic fluid). The pilot and navigator could not smell anything, and wanted to do the flight. He refused to go along, so there was a big delay until another plane could be substituted. All of this went into the log.

The plane got into maintenance, and sure enough, the mechanics found a leak, vindicating the "no go" decision.

The co-pilot thought the captain nursed a vendetta against him, and that's why he never got promoted.

It fit's fairly well with GRG's discussion of how "respect for authority" and critical thinking (or lack of it) can make a difference. Part of the reason for having multiple men in the cockpit is "two heads are better than one". But if the the lesser heads are afraid to question the greater, then are the extras really helping?

[GRG55]

Re: Why it's called the "cockpit"

My family had a friendship with a major airline co-pilot. I asked once why he was never a full pilot. This was his story: He got into the cockpit with the pilot and navigator, both of whom were smokers. He smelled something and insisted the plane had a leak (I always thought it was fuel, but maybe it was hydraulic fluid). The pilot and navigator could not smell anything, and wanted to do the flight. He refused to go along, so there was a big delay until another plane could be substituted. All of this went into the log.

The plane got into maintenance, and sure enough, the mechanics found a leak, vindicating the "no go" decision.

The co-pilot thought the captain nursed a vendetta against him, and that's why he never got promoted.

It fit's fairly well with GRG's discussion of how "respect for authority" and critical thinking (or lack of it) can make a difference. Part of the reason for having multiple men in the cockpit is "two heads are better than one". But if the the lesser heads are afraid to question the greater, then are the extras really helping?

I should clarify that in an airplane cockpit it is NEVER a matter of "unbridled questioning of authority". There is ALWAYS a clear hierarchy of authority and at any given moment there is always (supposed to be) one member of the flight crew, and only one, in control of and ultimately responsible for flying the airplane. This is taught from the very first flight lesson of a new pilot by the instructor. The lack of this was one of the contributors to the AF447 accident. The senior flight crew member, the captain, was out of the cockpit when the chain of events started, and the First Officer and the cruise pilot were confused about who was really in control of the airplane when the autopilot handed control back to them to hand fly the airplane after it went out of limits due to the airspeed indication failure. There is no doubt that both of the pilots in the cockpit at the time were well trained and able to hand fly an Airbus A330 to a high standard of technical proficiency, including under various unusual conditions. But they still crashed a flyable airplane.

CRM is about effective use of all the resources in the cockpit all of the time. From Wiki:

CRM training encompasses a wide range of knowledge, skills and attitudes including communications, situational awareness, problem solving, decision making, and teamwork; together with all the attendant sub-disciplines which each of these areas entails.

CRM can be defined as a management system which makes optimum use of all available resources - equipment, procedures and people - to promote safety and enhance the efficiency of operations. CRM although first established in the civil aviation industry as cockpit resource management has been adopted and adapted by many other industries, some of which are the commercial maritime shipping industry using a form called "Maritime Resource Management (MRM)".

CRM is concerned with the cognitive and interpersonal skills needed to manage resources within an organized system, not so much with the technical knowledge and skills required to operate equipment. In this context, cognitive skills are defined as the mental processes used for gaining and maintaining situational awareness, for solving problems and for making decisions.

Interpersonal skills are regarded as communications and a range of behavioral activities associated with teamwork. In many operational systems as in other walks of life, skill areas often overlap with each other, and they also overlap with the required technical skills...

...CRM training for crew has been introduced and developed by aviation organizations including major airlines and military aviation worldwide. CRM training is now a mandated requirement for commercial pilots working under most regulatory bodies worldwide, including the FAA (U.S.) and JAA (Europe). Following the lead of the commercial airline industry, the U.S. Department of Defense began formally training its air crews in CRM in the early 1990s. Presently, the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy require all air crew members to receive annual CRM training, in an effort to reduce to human-error caused mishaps...

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Why it's called the "cockpit"

I should clarify that in an airplane cockpit it is NEVER a matter of "unbridled questioning of authority". There is ALWAYS a clear hierarchy of authority and at any given moment there is always (supposed to be) one member of the flight crew, and only one, in control of and ultimately responsible for flying the airplane. This is taught from the very first flight lesson of a new pilot by the instructor. The lack of this was one of the contributors to the AF447 accident. The senior flight crew member, the captain, was out of the cockpit when the chain of events started, and the First Officer and the cruise pilot were confused about who was really in control of the airplane when the autopilot handed control back to them to hand fly the airplane after it went out of limits due to the airspeed indication failure. There is no doubt that both of the pilots in the cockpit at the time were well trained and able to hand fly an Airbus A330 to a high standard of technical proficiency, including under various unusual conditions. But they still crashed a flyable airplane.

CRM is about effective use of all the resources in the cockpit all of the time. From Wiki:

CRM training encompasses a wide range of knowledge, skills and attitudes including communications, situational awareness, problem solving, decision making, and teamwork; together with all the attendant sub-disciplines which each of these areas entails.

CRM can be defined as a management system which makes optimum use of all available resources - equipment, procedures and people - to promote safety and enhance the efficiency of operations. CRM although first established in the civil aviation industry as cockpit resource management has been adopted and adapted by many other industries, some of which are the commercial maritime shipping industry using a form called "Maritime Resource Management (MRM)".

CRM is concerned with the cognitive and interpersonal skills needed to manage resources within an organized system, not so much with the technical knowledge and skills required to operate equipment. In this context, cognitive skills are defined as the mental processes used for gaining and maintaining situational awareness, for solving problems and for making decisions.

Interpersonal skills are regarded as communications and a range of behavioral activities associated with teamwork. In many operational systems as in other walks of life, skill areas often overlap with each other, and they also overlap with the required technical skills...

...CRM training for crew has been introduced and developed by aviation organizations including major airlines and military aviation worldwide. CRM training is now a mandated requirement for commercial pilots working under most regulatory bodies worldwide, including the FAA (U.S.) and JAA (Europe). Following the lead of the commercial airline industry, the U.S. Department of Defense began formally training its air crews in CRM in the early 1990s. Presently, the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy require all air crew members to receive annual CRM training, in an effort to reduce to human-error caused mishaps...

I wonder if KAL 801 is relevant in a cultural(albeit different) sense?

http://askakorean.blogspot.co.nz/201...-airplane.html

[GRG55]

Re: Why it's called the "cockpit"

I wonder if KAL 801 is relevant in a cultural(albeit different) sense?

http://askakorean.blogspot.co.nz/201...-airplane.html

The author of the article you linked makes some good points. A couple of examples:

...As Gladwell puts it, "in the crash investigation, it was determined that if [the first officer] had seized control of the plane in that moment [six seconds before the crash], there would have been enough time to pull the nose and clear Nimitz Hill."

The non-flying pilot is never going to "seize control of the airplane". Can you imagine the problems in aircraft cockpits if that was to happen...the non-flying pilot unilaterally "seizing control". That would be a highly dangerous precedent and has absolutely nothing to do with culture, Korean or otherwise.

...Then Gladwell ticks off six more crashes between 1978 and 1997. Here, Gladwell completely neglects to mention that two of the crashes were caused by either military engagement or terrorism...

Correct again. When a plane gets shot down or bombed, it's a tad difficult for the pilots to do anything about it no matter what cultural background they have.

As for the Korean Air crash in Guam, Controlled Flight Into Terrain (CFIT) is unlikely to have anything much to do with culture, and everything to do with the ENTIRE cockpit crew losing situational awareness. If you want to see another classic example of this, here's a link to access the accident report for American Airlines Flight 965, a Boeing 757 that flew into terrain on approach to the Cali, Colombia airport in 1995 after the cockpit crew lost awareness of their position in relation to the airport and surrounding terrain, and made fatal navigation errors.

But, not surprisingly, I do not agree with the author's implication that "culture" never plays any role in these situations. It is more nuanced than that.

Another excerpt from your link above:

"...Another relevant factoid? Both the first officer and the flight engineer graduated from Korea's Air Force Academy, while the captain learned to fly by undergoing officer training during his mandatory military service. As graduates from a volunteer academy that has rigorous admission requirements, Korean pilots from the Air Force Academy command decidedly more respect than the NCOs who eventually become pilots...

The subtle implication that Korean Air Force trained pilots are "better" than civilian trained pilots may or may not be true. A professional pilot friend of mine spent two years in the 1990s working for Airbus in Vietnam training Vietnamese pilots to operate the new Airbus A320s that their national carrier was then buying. He said the ex-military pilots generally had the most difficult time making the transition, and in one case it took 9 months of continuous simulator training before one very experienced former military pilot could meet the minimum flight standard requirements (once again the culture is that "nobody fails").

There's a certain mystique around the capabilities and skills of military trained pilots. Much of that is well deserved, but I don't think it's exclusive. Might help to remember that one of the most skilled pilots in the space program was Neil Armstrong, NASA's first civilian pilot to fly in space. He proved that both during the rotation problems with Gemini 8 and again with his hair-raising hand flying across the boulder field in the final seconds before Apollo 11 landed on the moon (I had the privilege of being at Oshkosh last Tuesday evening and was in the audience as Apollo 16 Lunar Module Pilot Charles Duke recounted the details of that landing - he was one of the CAPCOMs for Apollo 11 and was on shift during the landing).

BTW, professional airline and corporate pilots I know, including my brother who flew McDonnell Douglas F18 Hornets in the military and now flies trans-oceanic flights for a major North American carrier, are one of my best sources of good information. Their network is so good that they almost always know exactly what happened and in what sequence, within hours or days after a major incident. iTuliper BiscayneSunrise is a Boeing 777 pilot and iTuliper skidder is a Boeing 757/747 pilot; here's an iTulip thread link to some discussions on AF447 and related from a few years back.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Why it's called the "cockpit"

The author of the article you linked makes some good points. A couple of examples:

...As Gladwell puts it, "in the crash investigation, it was determined that if [the first officer] had seized control of the plane in that moment [six seconds before the crash], there would have been enough time to pull the nose and clear Nimitz Hill."

The non-flying pilot is never going to "seize control of the airplane". Can you imagine the problems in aircraft cockpits if that was to happen...the non-flying pilot unilaterally "seizing control". That would be a highly dangerous precedent and has absolutely nothing to do with culture, Korean or otherwise.

...Then Gladwell ticks off six more crashes between 1978 and 1997. Here, Gladwell completely neglects to mention that two of the crashes were caused by either military engagement or terrorism...

Correct again. When a plane gets shot down or bombed, it's a tad difficult for the pilots to do anything about it no matter what cultural background they have.

As for the Korean Air crash in Guam, Controlled Flight Into Terrain (CFIT) is unlikely to have anything much to do with culture, and everything to do with the ENTIRE cockpit crew losing situational awareness. If you want to see another classic example of this, here's a link to access the accident report for American Airlines Flight 965, a Boeing 757 that flew into terrain on approach to the Cali, Colombia airport in 1995 after the cockpit crew lost awareness of their position in relation to the airport and surrounding terrain, and made fatal navigation errors.

But, not surprisingly, I do not agree with the author's implication that "culture" never plays any role in these situations. It is more nuanced than that.

Another excerpt from your link above:

"...Another relevant factoid? Both the first officer and the flight engineer graduated from Korea's Air Force Academy, while the captain learned to fly by undergoing officer training during his mandatory military service. As graduates from a volunteer academy that has rigorous admission requirements, Korean pilots from the Air Force Academy command decidedly more respect than the NCOs who eventually become pilots...

The subtle implication that Korean Air Force trained pilots are "better" than civilian trained pilots may or may not be true. A professional pilot friend of mine spent two years in the 1990s working for Airbus in Vietnam training Vietnamese pilots to operate the new Airbus A320s that their national carrier was then buying. He said the ex-military pilots generally had the most difficult time making the transition, and in one case it took 9 months of continuous simulator training before one very experienced former military pilot could meet the minimum flight standard requirements (once again the culture is that "nobody fails").

There's a certain mystique around the capabilities and skills of military trained pilots. Much of that is well deserved, but I don't think it's exclusive. Might help to remember that one of the most skilled pilots in the space program was Neil Armstrong, NASA's first civilian pilot to fly in space. He proved that both during the rotation problems with Gemini 8 and again with his hair-raising hand flying across the boulder field in the final seconds before Apollo 11 landed on the moon (I had the privilege of being at Oshkosh last Tuesday evening and was in the audience as Apollo 16 Lunar Module Pilot Charles Duke recounted the details of that landing - he was one of the CAPCOMs for Apollo 11 and was on shift during the landing).

BTW, professional airline and corporate pilots I know, including my brother who flew McDonnell Douglas F18 Hornets in the military and now flies trans-oceanic flights for a major North American carrier, are one of my best sources of good information. Their network is so good that they almost always know exactly what happened and in what sequence, within hours or days after a major incident. iTuliper BiscayneSunrise is a Boeing 777 pilot and iTuliper skidder is a Boeing 757/747 pilot; here's an iTulip thread link to some discussions on AF447 and related from a few years back.

I reckon we're lucky to have Biscayne and yourself on here for some in depth aviation stuff.

Admittedly, my knowledge ends with a keen interest in all forms of aviation and having a couple of commercial pilots as customers...one of whom flies for Air NZ and was able to give me a better understanding of the AF447 tragedy when I referenced the discussion here...as well as mirrored Biscayne's commentary on Boeing/Airbus from a professional pilot's perspective.

Having flown as a passenger in a lot of carriers and aircraft types big and small across a few continents, and onboard a good few military aircraft from a number of nations, I've found my comfort level is highest while flown by western/english speaking air crew(assumptions made) in aircraft models with good track records(assumptions made).

Back around 2009 I flew Kenya Airways a few times on what seemed like brand new aircraft. The choice was them or a Libyan carrier due to flight cancellation.

The choice seemed easy, but what were/are Kenya Airways flight training and maintenance reputation? I didn't have a clue, and I had limited choice.

More recently, on short notice requirements had me flying commercial with limited options using Safi Air. Old 757s......BUT western crews and Lufthansa maintenance contract.

I'll leave out the recent adventures in Antonovs and Mi17s

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I also have a lot of faith in western military trained pilots based on some interesting experiences.

ONE reason why I trust them is that they are probably far less likely to be buried in debt and in need of food stamps like some of their private funded training peers trying to work their way up the ranks like impoverished AAA baseball players fighting for a slot in the big leagues.

Seeing those cr@ppy campervans, reportedly the short term homes of transient commercial pilots trying to stretch a buck, on the edge of LAX is a BIT disconcerting to think the aircrew may be financially stressed and distracted.

Much like how in developing world carriers the cabin crew jobs are often highly competitive compared to western carrier McJob perceptions of cabin crews......I wonder if the very strange situation of impoverished privately trained and funded commercial pilots might have some risk associated with it as well?

I have noticed the developing world seems to have a fair few South African, Pakistani, and Indian accented English speaking flight crews.

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I do remember some offline discussion about KAL having a significant core of former SKAF pilots as aircrew and considerable/rigid cultural/organizational hierarchy.

I reckon hierarchy can be a very good thing....better than an alternative of consensus driven chaos when decisiveness is demanded.

My only personal experience with KAL is seeing their aircrew moving through customs/immigration.

Visually they looked like a throwback to the 60's(female cabin crew), but the reason why I recall seeing KAL crews is the look, bearing, and movement of the flight crew. They screamed formal and regimental. Just an anecdote of course.