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Almost 1 in 3 pilots in Pakistan have fake licenses, aviation minister says

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Re: Almost 1 in 3 pilots in Pakistan have fake licenses, aviation minister says

#321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh? The UI was giving them plenty of warnings and alerts. They have supposedly been trained thoroughly on all of this.

Flying didn’t become as safe as it is today by relying on the pilots to be perfect

The UI is preventing the pilots from extending the landing gear and causing it to be structurally damaged. In short, the UI is trying to prevent a mistake from having consequences.

Re: Almost 1 in 3 pilots in Pakistan have fake licenses, aviation minister says

#322
post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ignorant of ... lowering the landing gears to land? It's just astonishing.

It gets really easy to miss something like that. I've not missed the landing gear - but something goes a bit sideways and you are out of practice - things get skipped. I've, for example, left the carb heat on when I had to go around. The hot summer air, combined with a C152 at max load, made for a hair raising takeoff. At 500' or so, the instructor casually asked if I was going to turn off the carb heat, which improv…

There is different between that an hearing an audible warning annoying the shit out of you saying “Too low. Gear. Too low. Gear.”

Re: Almost 1 in 3 pilots in Pakistan have fake licenses, aviation minister says

#323

"PIA has grounded all its pilots who hold fake licenses, effective immediately." I would have thought anyone with a fake license was already grounded. It sounds like they knew this was an issue and just looked the other way.

It is a power issue. Everyone was aware, but the remaining pilots refused to let the authorities do anything. The only reason this is happening is because of Covid-19. No flights, so pilots can't threaten to boycott flying. Let's see if the authorities have enough political capital to follow through with firing them all.

I've heard that Garuda ended up replacing lots of their Indonesian pilots with foreigners. Maybe this will play out the same way: there won't be a lot of flying for Pakistani pilots to boycott, because the rest of the world will ban them.

Re: Almost 1 in 3 pilots in Pakistan have fake licenses, aviation minister says

#324
post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In software circles, this is called "security by obscurity" and is frowned upon. And if it's a bad idea with software, I'd argue it's also a bad idea with nuclear weapons.

People constantly misuse that quote to claim that "obscurity" should never be used. This is false; denying your opponent information is a critical component of a well-designed security process. It should not be the only mechanism employed. (I have no clue what, if any, other measures Pakistan employed.)

As an end user I use obscurity as my means to deny information - for instance at ATM when asked for a pin I would purposely touch a few more keys to break the sequence on the ATM machine.

Re: Almost 1 in 3 pilots in Pakistan have fake licenses, aviation minister says

#325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"in Asian culture" why are you using Korean anecdotes to explain a Pakistani problem?

Last I checked, Pakistan was in Asia....?

Asia stretches from Turkey to Japan has 59% of the worlds population. The idea that there is a single unified Asian culture is absurd. A salary man drinking with his workmates in Shinjuku has very little in common with a devout sober Muslim in the hills of Tajikistan.

Hell the cultural values of mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan have diverged and they share a common history.

Re: Almost 1 in 3 pilots in Pakistan have fake licenses, aviation minister says

#326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last I checked, Pakistan was in Asia....?

I think the point is, that Pakistan and Korea are culturally very different. Different languages, different religions, different traditions, different histories, etc. So claiming they both share "Asian culture" is rather dubious since it isn't very clear what is this "Asian culture" which they allegedly both share. Some Asian countries do have some common cultural heritage. Japan and Korea were both heavily influence…

> I think the point is, that Pakistan and Korea are culturally very different.

No, we're talking about aviation, and the point is this.

Both have a large percentage of ex-military pilots in civil aviation. The military is hierarchical, same as Asian culture in general.

Both SK and likely Pakistan would fire a contract US CFI for busting a pilot on a sim ride, and then have a local massage the results into a pass.

Re: Almost 1 in 3 pilots in Pakistan have fake licenses, aviation minister says

#327
post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There may be substantial non-visible security assets nearby. The USSS has minigun-equipped SUVs, for example; you wouldn't necessarily know they're there until the six barrel gun pops out of the sunroof and opens fire. There's something to be said for subtlety. The US President travels around in a giant motorcade; the UK PM travels in an unmarked Jag with a couple motorcycle escorts.

Meanwhile the Finnish President heads outside for a beer after the massive Trump and Putin motorcades have driven off (shutting down half the city in the process). https://www.hs.fi/politiikka/art-2000005762136.html

That is more of a lack of power than anything else. Trump and Putin have the ability to end modern civilization in a matter of hours. The Finnish President has nowhere near that kind of power.

Re: Almost 1 in 3 pilots in Pakistan have fake licenses, aviation minister says

#328
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were distracted. Why on earth would you object to the idea of better feedback? If the lever is locked until the plane is willing to engage the landing gear, it's more safe than the current UI.

Shouldn't it be more like you get rumble feedback and the stick pushes back against you, hard, if there's an overspeed warning? But if the stick is pushed again, all the way, requiring considerable manual force, then landing gear extension is attempted? Why do I say this? Well then the pilot has autonomy, if the overspeed warning is an error, or you have a problem reducing speed you can still attempt to fly the aircr…

A stick shaker for over speed on the landing gear lever (much like the stick shaker for stalls) seems a good idea.

Re: Almost 1 in 3 pilots in Pakistan have fake licenses, aviation minister says

#329
post #146

Older article, but apparently Pakistan carts its nuclear weapons around in regular delivery vans: https://www.wired.com/2011/11/pakistan-nukes-delivery-vans/ I personally think this is a bad idea.

US nuke transports don't look that impressive either: https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-nuclear-couriers-201703... (of course it is entirely possible that Pakistan doesn't have much in the way of hidden security around those, but flying under the radar seems to be a common theme for this business)

[deleted]

Re: Almost 1 in 3 pilots in Pakistan have fake licenses, aviation minister says

#330
post #38

From the preliminary report: 'At 500 ft, the FDR indicates: landing gear retracted, slat/flap configuration 3, airspeed 220 knots IAS, descent rate 2000 ft/min. According to the FDR and CVR recordings several warnings and alerts such as over-speed, landing gear not down and ground proximity alerts were disregarded. The landing was undertaken with landing gears retracted. The aircraft touched the runway surface on its…

The fact that they where around 80 knots faster than they should have been probably helped a lot. That's a heck of a lot of excess energy.

Pilot here, for anyone confused about the comment... some aircraft reach a speed where it is near a stall and cannot create a positive climb gradient when it touches down. Generally increasing angle of attack (angle the wings are with respect to the airflow) produces more lift. This works until a point is reached where the aircraft stalls (slow speed or high AOA, there is a curve). Many aircraft land near this airspeed, it produces a nice landing. But if you are faster than this airspeed, you can still pull up and create more angle of attack, create more lift, and take back off. So if you are landing fast you can easily pull up. This is exaggerated in fighter aircraft where we land at speeds that are faster than the stall threshold and a drastic pull up at landing can almost always cause a climb.
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