Watawattana

Hitler gained, then lost, lots of land on the Democrats' watch too.

I'm struggling to make that leap. Seems just conjecture. Could have been Trump giving Putin dire warnings of extreme military action should he do this or that. I've no idea. Or telling Putin a bunch of the most brutal racist and sexist jokes in the history of the universe, or other brutal jokes like, "have you heard about the guy who became president after being convicted of a felony", or "have you heard about the guy who became president who got the highest ever score on the dementia scale"? 🤭

OMG. I have not seen or heard ANYONE use this term since my grandmother used it in the mid 1970s. Ludicrous. 😂😂😂😪

Yeah, you made a similar point to me, only the way you put it is better. In general, society still sees certain jobs being better suited to certain demographics, meaning society is in some cases missing out on large pools of potentially good candidates. Not heard this one before, made me laugh. Yeah. Sad indictment. Totally agree about your point on university, passes the cost of a lot of the training to the student, meaning a lot of potentially good nurses cannot afford to become a nurse.

I’m sure if you read all of the forum rules you’ll understand.

Apologies MicroB. Nothing I’ve written was meant to hit that nerve. My answers have all been looking at front line air traffic staff as that’s what many AN posters and the media have been blaming for this horrendous crash. My general points about ‘best person for the job’ still apply to cleaners and many other non-front line jobs. And, of course, a Down’s person, or someone with another special need, is totally capable of doing so many important roles in any workplace, and indeed can be the best person for that role. But, of course, not every role. I have my doubts about some other AN posters of course, their needs are too far along that ‘special’ spectrum. 😆 Again, apologies, for causing this upset.

Neither. Both are likely detrimental to the core aims of any given company or government (or anything else) if there is a person who could do a better job who is not hired. I’d also add ‘political appointees’ to the 2 you mentioned. There might be more.

Yes, maybe.

Is a good question. I reckon piloting had historically been seen as a man's job before, during and after WWII, and the education/family systems have not really addressed that since. It's generally the same in engineering. On the flip side, there are jobs seen as women's jobs and men don't normally do them unless they are considered to be gay. Some airlines are trying to target more women to be pilots. Like controllers it might get more applicants, but doesn't automatically mean more female pilots as there's a standard that needs to be met that airlines and regulators will not compromise on. I got a friend (female) who is a trainee pilot just now for a major asian airline. She absolutely had to pass all of her exams and tests to the same standard as the men on her course. No exceptions made. This airline targets female recruitment (no, not quotas), but it isn't working that well as the social 'feeling' still exists that piloting isn't a woman's job.

Totally agree.

I'm usually happy to get behind a female pilot. Doesn't necessarily have to be on an aircraft mind you... 🤭

Yeah. Trump 1.0 had a Secretary of Transportation who should have had their eye on that ball, should not all be blamed on Trump. Biden had one of these too; obviously worse than Trump 1.0's pick. But as I've just said elsewhere Trump 2.0 is now addressing it, fair play to him.

Yeah, it absolutely has to. This wokery is crazy. The "‘Bowing To Wokeness Since 2010’: Fmr Air Traffic Controller Says Short Staffing Is ‘Attributable To Obama Admin’ | The Daily Caller" reference is interesting insomuch as there's been a couple of presidents since Obama, and both failed to address that. Maybe as the FAA Directors didn't have the strength to cry foul? But, to be fair, Trump 2.0 is addressing it. Better late than heads continuing to be buried in the sand. A quick Google reveals "The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the agency of the United States Department of Transportation responsible for the regulation and oversight of civil aviation within the U.S., as well as operation and development of the National Airspace System. Its primary mission is to ensure safety of civil aviation." The FAA is very clearly failing in its duty and needs a massive shake up.

This is how it works in the USA, and every other normal country in the world. I've worked in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Asia; it's no different. The thing I don't really like is DEI folks getting priority over white folks due to quotas; that really has to stop, well done Trump for highlighting this. But if a demographic is not applying then I've no issue with someone investigating 'why', and maybe that group being targeted to attract more applicants. But the controller certification standard must never be reduced for anyone; too many lives depend on it. Especially relevant if the ANSP recruitment targets are not being comfortably met or more controllers are needed to handle airspace changes or to mitigate traffic bottlenecks.

Funny. I'm actually a Trump supporter. You're not a great character judge are you? Nor have you read my posts... 😆😂😴

So much politics, so little substance. Such a sad, deluded and uneducated person you are.

Doh! But appoint him they did. I respect your right to say this but for me that horse has bolted. He's here for 4 more years (give or take). And the Dems failed to put up someone capable of beating him, so I'd blame the Dems for Trump winning. That horse has bolted too of course.

I'm a horse. "Steady career growth and exciting love prospects await Horses." Sounds like more trips to Soi Cowboy are in order!! With the career growth needed to pay for that...

Possibly, yes. I'd like to know how much from the FAA budget was being spent on any initiatives or resources that do not improve the front line air traffic control service. Includes, but I'm sure not exclusively, DEI. A previous employer of mine spent a lot of money targeting a certain demographic as they were very under-represented in ATC. That demographic had the core skills to do the job but rarely applied. To me that was money well spent, to others it might be woke nonsense. There's a lot more to this than Trump's headline grabbing activities of course.

I'm sure there was a deputy...

There should be a standard that everyone has to pass. DEI or not DEI. No difference. Of course I'm not sat on the shoulder of every assessor to know if they set different standards for different people. I really very much doubt it as they know they'd be the one passing someone not up to grade, and the laser focus would come back to them if something went wrong. Edit: it's not a math exam where a percentage is easy to establish; it's down to the experience and judgement of the assessor on the controller's handling of the scenarios in front of them, be it on a training system or live. I don't fancy a controller getting 90%; that's one in 10 aircraft crashing😁. So there will be some interpretation and possibly some unintentional bias that exists in most human beings. And as most assessors are inherently conservative (they don't want a dud on their watch) it's likely the bias would be to fail someone who is close top passing rather than pass a potential dud. Operational controllers are regularly assessed too, at least once a year. The other thing is if there's an incident then that would be reviewed. If a controller has too many or has a really bad one then they can lose their licence to control at that airport. They can get deployed to a quieter airport or get fired. Again, if a manager decides to keep a controller who clearly isn't up to standard then that is on them (or the senior management culture that forces that manager to take no action), they'll get found out and they very well know that too. I'm pretty sure this incident will mean there's a deep look at the FAA's culture.

This is just noise. Utter rubbish. This would have no effect on a front line operational air traffic controller, like the one involved in this incident. If there are underlying issues that affected the controller or an incorrect level of resourcing that led to this crash then they started many years ago, and not under the Trump 2.0 administration.

Makes a change, albeit an unwelcome one of course, to terrorism being the sole purview of muslims.

I can't answer for thaibeachlovers. But I have over 30 years of direct experience in this stuff and can answer. Safety has to be first, last and at every point in between. It absolutely is normal practice to reduce the volume of traffic to maintain a safe level of service. I got some examples later of this being done well, and being done very, very badly. Keeping it basic, the safest air traffic service is one that has zero flights. Every air traffic movement added after that increases risk. Risks are mitigated through the use of systems, procedures and people. There comes a time when these 3 mitigations are insufficient. That is usually determined through modelling and the controller training, testing and regulatory monitoring process. This process is often held offline. On the training system scenarios can get designed to effectively test the controller towards breaking point (making mistakes, not mental breakdown), often well beyond the allowable sector capacity. So, when they pass their regulatory assessment 'live', they are at a comfortable and competent level, with capacity to keep things safe and to handle any situation that goes wrong (emergencies etc.). The training process 'should' weed out any controller not up to the job long before they talk to actual aircraft, and any live training should then further weed out anyone who is unable to jump from the training to the 'live' environment. This is why I believe the noise about DEI hires is bovine 💩. If DEI hires were allowed to control despite not being good enough then that should be a MASSIVE national scandal. No, a worldwide scandal. I cannot say what happened in the tower here, but the FAA acknowledged that staffing levels at the time were “not normal for the time of day and the volume of traffic.” I'm sure this will be a focus in the investigation, as will be the height of the helicopter, or why there doesn't appear to be a system available that gave the controller a very obvious and urgent warning of dangerous proximity. And many other things of course. Especially WHY traffic was not reduced to maintain a safe level of service, for example any arrogance that led the controller to think he'll be okay, any pressure on the controller to keep going so as not to upset the flying public or to keep the ATC revenue stream at full throttle or to break service level records. But, please note. This exact thing HAS HAPPENED BEFORE. Überlingen. https://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~johnson/Eurocontrol/Ueberlingen/Ueberlingen_Final_Report.PDF The controller was overloaded and it led to a mid-air crash. The controller got murdered by the parent of a child who died in that crash. But actually, the "why" the controller was overloaded was the key to this overload. The FAA will be very well aware of what happened over Überlingen, should have learnt those lessons and should have NEVER allowed a single controller to manage the workload that led to the crash over the Potomac. Going back to DEI. It might be that there was not enough air traffic controllers or the systems are not up to the most modern standards, I don't know. These 2 things cost money. Money doesn't grow on trees; the FAA has a budget. But if that budget is being spent on things that don't matter, e.g. DEI, then it isn't being spent on front line controllers, the best systems available and the training and procedures to make sure the whole ATC system purrs perfectly. I think the timing of Trump's comments was appalling, but the essence of what he was getting at has some potential to being a contributing factor in this. Now, back to the reduction the volume of traffic to maintain a safe level of service. This is extremely common in around the world, and it does happen in the USA, be it weather or peaks in traffic volume. But the most relevant item for my response is traffic reduction due to under-staffing. It has happened a lot. Recently at London's Gatwick Airport, the world's busiest single runway airport. https://travelweekly.co.uk/news/air/air-traffic-controller-staff-shortages-disrupt-gatwick-flights https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/gatwick-flight-cancellations-easyjet-air-traffic-control-b2609196.html The key quote from The Independent is "According to NATS, the air-traffic control provider that runs the tower, temporary air traffic restrictions are currently in place at the airport “in order to maintain safety”." NATS got a massive amount of 💩 for this but they put safety first, last and at every point in between. And nobody died. The main reason for NATS struggling on this was COVID, and that they couldn't train the required supply of new controllers to replace the normal attrition of older controllers (deaths and retirements). Hope this helps.

It's bean a while since I looked at such meatingless topic on AN. What nut wrote this? Does he have a pulse? I'll get my coat... 😆