Earlier quoted context omitted.
It refers to exactly what they describe: A blank, open-ended ticket you can fill in by hand.
I didn't know wax was used as a medium anywhere today. Isn't it heavy and hard to write on?
There is no wax. It was a typo.
American Airlines mechanic Azriel “Al” Blackman has died
141–150 of 175 posts
Re: American Airlines mechanic Azriel “Al” Blackman has died
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
I work in a mid sized engineering organization, and the older engineers (and engineer-adjacent people like me) mentor the younger ones all the time. One thing that can't be codified in procedures is what I call "situational awareness" for lack of a better term. I don't think you can learn how to work in a machine shop safely from a book. Or recognize when a complex design is heading towards being unworkable. In my or…
It’s because miles driven decreases with age not because old people drive safer.
After accounting for miles driven, fatal crash rates start increasing around age 70, peaking at 85+ near a level equal to the rate of 16-19 year old drivers, based on a preliminary skimming of the data I could find.
Based on anecdotal evidence and experience, I absolutely believe that. Just a few weeks ago near me an elderly driver caused a crash that killed herself and a passenger in another car when she failed to follow a curve and drove head-on into opposing traffic on a road with a 40MPH speed limit.
Re: American Airlines mechanic Azriel “Al” Blackman has died
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks for asking for my credentials, even though you don’t seem to disagree that lots of aircraft are dispatched with imperfections, so many in fact that there’s a defined process and CFRs to cover it. Because you asked, I’ve been flying, owning, and overseeing the maintenance of our aircraft for 27 years, including understanding my freedoms and obligations as a pilot and as an operator with regards to the legality…
Okay, but did you win the Putnam?
Just the once... (kidding, of course)
Re: American Airlines mechanic Azriel “Al” Blackman has died
#144OT, but Azriel/Azrael translates to the Grim Reaper/Angel of Death [0].
Re: American Airlines mechanic Azriel “Al” Blackman has died
#145Re: American Airlines mechanic Azriel “Al” Blackman has died
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well ... It takes four years of education before becoming a taxi driver in London: https://thetaxi.academy/ It takes also many years of study before they will let you touch any living person with your scalpel, and then many years of apprenticeship with actual surgeons when you do touch people with your tools. I can imagine maintaining a big jumbo jet also requires some specialized practical knowledge you cannot acqui…
> It takes four years of education before becoming a taxi driver in London That doesn't apply to private hire vehicle drivers afaik.
... who are obviously not taxi drivers, so ... your point?
Re: American Airlines mechanic Azriel “Al” Blackman has died
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Even if stuff is written down you have to know where to look. That's one of the things I love about AI: It's excellent at figuring out where to look, because it can digest so many documents so much faster than a person.
Yeah it’s great to point an AI at a very detailed and specific engineering manual and have it distilled down into bullet points. There’s certainly no room for information loss in that plan! /s
I hate AI as much as anybody, but claiming that it's not useful for "distilling volumes of data into a short list of places to look first" is silly.
Re: American Airlines mechanic Azriel “Al” Blackman has died
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some people do a lot as least. Forrest Addy has a massive library of posts that are still the top results on Google for just about any machining problem imaginable.
Huh. I was actually thinking about him a few days ago. Is he still among the living? I remember posting on PM about 15 years ago asking how to fix a mistake I kept making and he gently smacked me on the head and basically said just learn to do it right in the first place. Which was really the only good answer!
No, he died 2 years ago. The immense knowledge and skill that he shared with everyone remains an incredibly valuable archive and hopefully remains searchable for the indefinite future.
Re: American Airlines mechanic Azriel “Al” Blackman has died
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
The joke about software developers refusing to enter an airplane running their own code dates back at least 30 years. Software engineering is unique in STEM in that it has nearly zero regulations. Nobody keeps anybody accountable for quality and there are never any legal consequences. No other STEM jobs is like that, usually there are thousand hoops to jump through to do anything non-standard, but in software there's…
That's not a valid comparison. A Jira log is not part of a Quality Management System (QMS). An aircraft maintenance log is. If you fake data in the QMS, software or not, for a regulated industry, I can assure you that it won't be taken lightly by the regulators. Try forging the software validation test records for that airplane's flight control system and see what happens.
Hopefully something happens a lot quicker than with volkswagon!
Re: American Airlines mechanic Azriel “Al” Blackman has died
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
Plus everything important is always written down. It’s more true in aviation than anywhere else (except maybe space flight), but still.
And if it's written down, it's accurate. 100. Percent. Accurate. /s
You know, if I had to make that bet, I would choose airline maintenance manuals as the test case.