|
Post by BertL on May 28, 2007 13:32:37 GMT -4
Cool, you're the only pilot I know who would'nt panicin a severe emergecy. I wonder how many pilots you know ;D
|
|
|
Post by apollo13 on May 28, 2007 13:34:07 GMT -4
My uncle, me, dad.
|
|
Bob B.
Bob the Excel Guru?
Posts: 3,072
|
Post by Bob B. on May 28, 2007 14:31:56 GMT -4
Cool, you're the only pilot I know who would'nt panicin a severe emergecy. I tend to think coolness under pressure may be more commonplace then most of us think. I am not a pilot and I’ve never been in an aircraft emergency, but I have been in a couple instances when my automobile went wildly out of control – once when hitting a patch of ice and once when hitting debris in the road. In both cases there was no panic; I knew what I needed to do and I calmly went about it until I regained control of the car. I was a bit shaky afterward but very clear-headed and in control of my emotions while the emergency was taking place. I certainly don’t consider myself the brave test pilot type, but I was pleased with how I was able to react in both instances. I think most of us who have never been in an emergency situation think to ourselves “I would panic under those circumstances”, but I believe you might be surprised by your performance if and when it actually happens. The key is being properly trained in what to do or what steps to take to resolve the emergency. Of course some people are better at keeping their cool then others, which is why some people make good test pilots and others do not, but we all possess the ability to some degree.
|
|
|
Post by apollo13 on May 28, 2007 15:00:55 GMT -4
Nice info, Bob B.
|
|
reynoldbot
Jupiter
A paper-white mask of evil.
Posts: 790
|
Post by reynoldbot on May 28, 2007 16:17:26 GMT -4
Once I was driving down a cramped city street. There were parked cars lining both sides making it impossible for me to see if anybody was trying to pull out of a side street and impossible for anybody on a side street to tell if there were people driving on the main road. Anyways, I was driving along and a car pulled out right in front of my while I was going about 30mph. He couldn't have been any farther than 15 or 20 feet away when he pulled out, but somehow I was able to quickly swerve around him without hitting him. I swerved so hard I can't believe I didn't flip the car. Afterwards I stopped because I was a bit shaken up but during the incident I was calm and acted quickly. The other car didn't even seem to notice and just continued pulling out and drove on its way.
By the way apollo13, I started out believing that Apollo had been faked, but switched sides after looking at all of the evidence. Many of the hoax arguments sound convincing to regular people because we generally have no knowledge of the science or history behind apollo or spaceflight in general. But even a cursory understanding of it all (like I have) makes the hoax arguments seem unrealistic and flimsy. If you stick around, ask questions and keep and open mind you are sure to learn a lot here as I have.
|
|
|
Post by apollo13 on May 28, 2007 16:32:44 GMT -4
But is general space-flight a hoax?
|
|
|
Post by scooter on May 28, 2007 16:40:22 GMT -4
GPS uses spacecraft that dwell for much of their lives in the Van Allen radiation belts. Communications satellites, phone systems, weather satellites, the International Space Station and various nation's space programs, manned and otherwise.
No, they are not hoaxed. Modern civilization depends heavily on spacecraft, with the same technologies and sciences working for both manned and unmanned spacecraft.
|
|
|
Post by LunarOrbit on May 28, 2007 16:45:54 GMT -4
But is general space-flight a hoax? How could it be? Rocket launches are hard to keep quiet (no pun intended) and anything that is launched can be tracked by radar etc. by other nations (both friendly and unfriendly). When the Soviets launched Sputnik in 1957 it was visible to the naked eye as it orbited overhead even though it was the size of a beach ball, so I don't believe for a second that any spacecraft large enough to carry a crew could be hidden in orbit. And if it wasn't in orbit when it was supposed to be we would know that too.
|
|
|
Post by apollo13 on May 28, 2007 17:42:43 GMT -4
Thanks guy!
|
|
|
Post by PhantomWolf on May 28, 2007 18:22:14 GMT -4
I have to agree with Bob above, it is amazing how your mind and training work when you encounter an emergency. A few years back I had to suddenly stop on a wet road, and my car went into a skid, aquaplaning. Not good when you're heading towards stopped vehicles ahead of you at about 80km/h. However a few weeks previous I'd been watching a TV programme about driving, and one of the things they'd had on was about pumping the brakes when you are in a skid rather than putting your foot to the floor and locking them. So I did it, steered into the skid and pumped the brakes. The car stayed under control and come to a halt quickly and safely, leaving me shaken by not stirred. The thing is that it all happened so quickly that I literally didn't have time to consider panic, it was just do what had to be done and pray it worked. As to space flight in general. Try going to the Heavens Above site and if you know your location, it will tell you when you can next spot the ISS as it passes overhead. When a space shuttle is up, it'll have that as well, so you will be able to go outside, look up and see these manned vehicles with your own eyes.
|
|
|
Post by JayUtah on May 28, 2007 19:04:48 GMT -4
But is general space-flight a hoax?
Nope. If you consider unmanned space travel, it's a multibillion dollar a year industry involving huge numbers of companies, countries, and insurance. Conspiracy theorists want you to believe that NASA are the only ones who ever claimed to know anything about space travel, so no one would know if they were lying. In fact, most of the expertise in space flight is outside NASA, which is why -- except for certain specialized applications -- NASA relies on outside companies to actually get them to space.
|
|
|
Post by JayUtah on May 28, 2007 19:14:53 GMT -4
Each of us has a set of specialized skills and aptitudes that have been honed by much training and experience. For some that includes flying airplanes. For others it may include emergency medical treatment.
My personal finances often seem to me like the accounting equivalent of a three-engine flameout coupled with massive hydraulic failure, but my accountant is never surprised. Dealing with fragmentary and conflicting financial records is what he is accustomed to do, and he can do it without even breathing hard.
Sure, there's a startling instant when you first hear the engine make noises it's not supposed to make, but if you have training and experience your first reaction is usually not, "Oh my God we're going to die!" Instead you regard it as a glitch in an otherwise straightforward process. That's the awesome nature of expertise. There are people who fly high-performance aircraft as easily as you and I drive our cars.
That's why Apollo worked. If they had waited until the machinery was perfect, we'd still be waiting to go to the Moon. Instead they got the machinery to a certain state of reliability and then after that they relied upon the skills of expert pilots to compensate for any further failures. Every Apollo flight except maybe for Apollo 17 underwent some sort of failure that required the pilots to improvise in some way or another.
|
|
|
Post by Grand Lunar on May 28, 2007 19:53:29 GMT -4
But is general space-flight a hoax? Why would it be?
|
|
|
Post by Count Zero on May 28, 2007 21:02:31 GMT -4
There was a reason they had test pilots as astronauts. What we consider dangerous, they see as almost a routine. Armstrong was an old X-15 pilot, also a dangerous job. He quickly recognized the problem, realized he was no longer in control, and ejected...just part of the job, as difficult as that is to imagine for the rest of us. Read The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe. In the first chapter it graphically describes what it was like to be a test pilot in the 1950s. They had a 1 in 4 chance of getting killed during a tour of duty. Serving in Iraq is kindergarten, by comparison. It was from the ranks of these test pilots that the first astronauts were selected. They were accustom to risk, and were experienced and responding correctly when things went wrong (well, at least 3/4 of them were ) NASA could have improved the design, but it's not always wise to achieve better safety that way. Sometimes you don't have to change the machine in order to operate it safer; you just have to pay closer attention to certain details before you start it up. One of the main characters in The Right Stuff was Chuck Yeager, the first man to break the sound barrier. Many years later, this career test pilot was selected for the accident investigation board that studied the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger. The board found that the weather on that morning was so cold that a rubber o-ring in one of the solid rocket boosters got stiff, and could not seal properly. This allowed hot gasses to leak by, and burn through the side of the booster. Yeager's recommendation was practical, from a test pilot standpoint: "Don't fly the shuttle in cold weather." Instead, NASA grounded the shuttle fleet for more than two years while they spent billions redesigning the joint that failed. Yeager was disgusted.
|
|
|
Post by apollo13 on May 28, 2007 21:42:16 GMT -4
Thanks for that.
|
|