just checking for a pulse

[mobile_bob]

i think it has been around 4 months since i deacitivated my facebook account, at the time, and frankly many months leading up to doing so, all it seemed to be was a place to spread lies, half truths and other worthless crap, and yes i found it to be somewhat addictive in that it eats up way to much time,  much like texting, which i do very little of.

i don't have a smart phone, because of the texting issue.

what i have found in the last 4 odd months, is that i really don't miss facebook!  and i really enjoy having my life back!

much rather spend my time, learning something new and  useful, failing that new and entertaining.

as for control systems, (don't get me wrong i am all for control systems) provided that they don't dumb down the user to where he cannot function without the control system.

we see airplanes fall out of the sky because pilots have come to depend too much on control systems, and have all but forgotten how to turn off the control and fly that damn thing through the problem.

i recall perhaps 15 years ago, on a familiar wind power site, having proposed what later would be called mppt for wind power, basically a switchmode rectifier, or controlled rectifier to better match blade speed to the load, sort of an electronic transmission.  what i wasn't fully aware of at the time, but late read about was NASA and those folks like Rob had been working with this sort of scheme for decades.  i recall at the time, being ballyhooed for bringing up such an idea! i knew just enough about electronics to know it was possible, just lacked the knowledge of practical application of the theory. it was so fun to read some 5 years later, white papers dating from the 60's that described exactly what i was proposing, and actual application of such being used elsewhere. just because it hadn't funneled down to the diy'er wind power builder didn't mean it couldn't be done.

all that is old is new again, and on the shoulders of giants we work.

bob g

[glort]

i think it has been around 4 months since i deacitivated my facebook account, at the time, and frankly many months leading up to doing so, all it seemed to be was a place to spread lies, half truths and other worthless crap, and yes i found it to be somewhat addictive in that it eats up way to much time,  much like texting, which i do very little of.

Couldn't agree with that more if I tried.
When I do look at what is on face book it drives me insane! So many of these social PC agendas and " causes".  Like a recent world wide crock everyone has been going on about and has been rabid on social media platforms.  Took exactly 2 Minutes on google to find the real numbers and the whole thing was based on lies, misinformation and was a complete and utter fabrication to suck in the gullible and those with a need to virtue signal no matter how flawed the cause or position.

I do Use Instagram Daily as a work/ Promotional medium and that's bad enough!  It has been helpful lately in ELIMINATING  clients that fall for this social flag waving BS. If they are that damn stupid, it they want to carry on about things that are lies and make accusations about others that aren't as stupid as the puppet masters they follow want them to be, then I want NOTHING to do with them.  I don't need their money and I sure as hell don't need the aggro. Me being me the mention of it would be something I could not bite my tongue on and I'd tell them exactly what I thought and then I'd probably be crucified by the rest of the brainwashed morons. Or I'd just tell them to Fk off and leave them by the side of the road somewhere.
I have a client I worked with last year that is into this social virtue signalling and her SM is full of it being an inner city trendy type. She has been at me for months to work with her again but luckily i have had the excuse of the chinahhh flue to put her off.  Seems these days the younger crowd take in more from these SM platforms than they do school.

what i have found in the last 4 odd months, is that i really don't miss facebook!  and i really enjoy having my life back!

I thought it was stupid and ridicilous from the start!  Yes, I use it a few times a year maybe as a communications medium but as to posting your life on there and seeing endless memes and  Whatever you call those phrases and never ending pieces of softcock wisdom.... Oh geez, spare me!

I got into MANY arguments and disagreements about it as a business tool. People at one stage thought it was the be all and end all and put hours a day into getting " Likes" as if they were getting dollars.  I argued 100 times, a business with 100K likes or whatever was in fact worth no more than a similar business that wasn't even on there.  People argued but of course no one could ever prove me wrong because it wasn't.  Businesses have NEVER been valued in the real world by their social media likes! It's always been Turnover, profit and assets and always will be.
My argument was if you had 2 Businesses with the same Turnover, profit and assets and one had 100K likes on FB and the other one had none, which business would be worth more?
Got a lot of tip toing and excuses but not even the the facewaste deciples ever said the one with all the likes.
Thing was the amount of time, effort and over all cost they put into getting those likes was admitted by many to be a real drain physically and in what it took them away from other things they could be doing to get a lot MORE work in the door.

The other point which was also borne out and quicker than i expected was Facewaste was breaking a lot of rules of promotion and advertising by people putting all their eggs in one basket.
I laughed dozens of times when people would say " Facewaste is the only advertising I do". I said that's because it's the only advertising you know HOW to do and and you are ignorant to what you are even doing or your actual objective then. Unlike traditional advertising and marketing which does add value to a businesses worth by it's market presence, SM is worth nothing.  I also espoused that once all the fad had ended and people went to the next shinyonline trinket to take their attention, all that effort would be worth nothing.  That happened in part but the real factor that killed face waste as a promotional medium was face waste itself with their  never ending changes to algorithms and charging for posts to be seen etc which made anyone with a brain cell give it up as a bad joke within a year.

Of course the fact it was initially free and easy to put something up on also made it completely oversaturated in nearly every market sector and lead to price shopping like hadn't been seen since the days of  " Let your fingers do the walking" In yellow pages phone directories where every competitor was listed as a price shoppers Bible.
Everyone was the best or the cheapest but in line with the ignorance of advertising and promotion, no one stood out and no one asked the customer what they wanted or targeted any Niche market other than price.  Laughable if it wasn't such a sad reflection of peoples lack of business skills and people were putting their very livelihoods on this.
Face waste created a torrent of new businesses in my game and created a tidal wave of businesses that crashed because they knew no other way of finding new prospects and promoting themselves. .

Of course even though I was endlessly accused of being a Dinosaur and not moving with the times, those traditional advertising methods I used are still working for me and never stopped.  Yeah, I supplement it a bit with insta but that is only another Column supporting the overall marketing mix as it should be. If that disappeared tomorrow it would barely be a blip in my prospecting not bring the whole enterprise to a screeching end. It soo is over saturated for the same reasons as face waste and similarly, there are people trying to support their businesses through that marketing medium only.  I'm hearing about new platforms coming out and once the fad goes to them, again these businesses witll have to rebuild on the new platform along with all their competitors.  Great for me, I expect a lot of them to fall away again.

The only surprise I ever got with FB was how accurate my predictions were and how much faster they happened  than I thought.
Even the ones I argued the most with and were the greatest fans of Facewaste now are advising others it's a complete and utter waste of time and effort.  That's quite something for the SM addicted and brainwashed crowd to ever admit they were wrong.

much rather spend my time, learning something new and  useful, failing that new and entertaining.

This describes my relationship with Television.  The only time I watch it is when I go visit my my father and sit and watch it with him.  Even then I have my laptop in front of me and more than not that is learning something for HIS benifit.
He always gave me a hard time about it till recently about my " Head stuck in that thing" while ironically, his was in the TV at the same time.
I have been spending more time with him of late and doing a LOT of work and odd jobs around the place fixing things.  There has been a lot where he was going to call people in and I fixed things for him no problem.  Some recent ones were fixing his RTV gearchange, the Lawn mower that a mechanic had a crack and and could fix ( made worse in fact) and fixing the garage doors.

In the case of the RTV the service guy had been called and hadn't shown in 6 weeks due to China flu and being busy.  I looked the thing up, found what the common problem was, made the adjustments and it was all good.  Wouldn't credit it, next day  service guy turns up at 6:50 am!!.  Unlock everything take him up the back, Tell him what I did, he checks it out and announces to Dad, " I couldn't get it any better than that".  I tell him I adjusted the unloader valve and he has a freak saying how precise they have to be, checks it and announces it is spot on.

Fixed the mower, doors and the chainsaw as well all in one day.  That night when talking Dad asks how the hell I knew how to fix all those things particularly the mower which took literaly 2 Min and I went straight to the problem when the other mechanic dicked around for hours and still made it worse?
I turned the laptop around and said same place I have learned most of what I know in the last 25 years. This thing I have my head stuck in all the time while you have yours stuck in the idiot box that I can learn from and improve what I am able to do especially for you when I'm here. I said I'm not smart enough to know all these things but I'm just smart enough to know where to find the people that do and learn from them so I can do it too.

Since then I'm asked to " Get my computer out and see if I can bang up something about......." 
And the other thing is Ebay shopping.  Bought him things online for a fraction of the price they wanted in the country town he lives in, if he could get them at all or had to pay a fortune for and then freight on top.  He rings me all the time now telling me what he wants or needs and I just buy it for him and have it sent to him direct. He decided that there was too much to remember in what I had got for him when settling up and wasn't comfortable with the fact I wasn't concerned about it anyway so now I have been given his credit card info so I can buy it direct.

Hes asked about me showing him how to do it and setting him up an account but I have told him when he can remember how to print an email after the 30 times I have shown him and several times written it down, then I'll trust him with online shopping. :0)
As it is I vet his emails anyway. I don't open them all or have to but when I see a scam I just delete it before he even gets to see it. I have told him I have access to his email but then he says I can't look at it very much because none of them are ever opened. I try to explain but it's a bit over his head.  :0)

we see airplanes fall out of the sky because pilots have come to depend too much on control systems, and have all but forgotten how to turn off the control and fly that damn thing through the problem.

I read with those new planes that crashed and have been grounded that the pilots could NOT over ride them and fly them manually.  When the computers went nuts the pilots were unable to take over which lead to hundreds being killed when the situation was not at all difficult for the pilots to make a non event.
Bloody sad.

Similar to all this fuss about autonomous driving.  that's a load of hooey except in very specific and non demanding circumstances.  That is many years off now and by the time cars are fully autonomous, the flying cars touted for the last 50 years will be around as well.

I like SOME automation. For instance I have just built a new design draft oil burner.  Everyone wants to do gravity feed because it's simple but it's also fought with dangers and limitations. You can't set a flow rate, it changes with the level of oil in the tank, the temprature, type of oil etc.  With the addition of a simple time and a fuel pump and battery, I can set the heat output I want and walk away from the thing with no problems what so ever. I did a 9 hour burn yesterday where I lit the thing and walked away and didn't touch the thing till I went back out and turned it off.  Try doing that with a drip gravity feed!

I plan to use this for house heating and with a couple more little cheap boards I'll have it thermostatically controlled and have an idle and a heat setting.
I just set up some battery chargers for dads tractor, RTV, mower and Chippers etc.  Solar panels on the shed roofs, little control board for each battery worth $8 ea  and that's it.
Instead now of having to take the battery out of his little wood carrying wagon with the crook alternator that is a nightmare to get to, he just plugs the connector to I put in the middle of the Bonnet where he can't miss it ( and set it up as a breakaway as well for when he does and drive off ) and the battery is charged.

Have my hot water on a controller so it only kicks in when the solar is producing plenty of power to feed it. Cheap, simple, been reliable for 2 years I have had it and cost $30 and has saved me many hundreds on what I was paying before.
this may be all laughable kindergarten stuff to space engineering BUT it does offer a lot of benifits a Lot of DIY'ers seem to resist and argue against.  Seems many of them must still be driving cars with points ignition and carburettors arguing  Fuel injection and computers are unreliable.

i recall at the time, being ballyhooed for bringing up such an idea! i knew just enough about electronics to know it was possible, just lacked the knowledge of practical application of the theory. it was so fun to read some 5 years later, white papers dating from the 60's that described exactly what i was proposing, and actual application of such being used elsewhere. just because it hadn't funneled down to the diy'er wind power builder didn't mean it couldn't be done.

I had a LOT of similar things when I was into the veg oil game.
I proposed a lot of things outside the box of current thinking and questioned a LOT of the then current and approved practices.
Got lambasted and ridiculed endlessly especially by those that had been touting the procedures and methods of the time.  Slowly some people saw sense in what I had not only said but been doing myself and also tried it and related how well it worked.  Fast forward some time and I see the ones that were ridiculing me the most are now advising exactly what I said ( water injection being a notable one) and even in 2 cases, claiming THEY came up with the idea and it's all their baby! Unbelievable but not at all surprising given their demonstrated Character.

Seeing it now with the work I have done with oil burners as well.  Just starting to see some of the same with solar.  A VERY clever guy with electronics has been working with me on a concept I likewise thought of but had not the smarts to execute and we have made a controller board that allows connection of solar panels to Mains heating elements. Not new in itself but the simplicity and method we have used certainly is.  Had a LOT of people tell me it wouldn't work and couldn't be done till this guy said I see no reason it couldn't be and the next thing he had a circuit built and then got circuit board printed we are testing them now. I have even gone simpler ( sort of) still by modifying common pre built boards and they seem within a percent or 2 as good as the other design in efficiency.  Definitely more clunky and far less elegant but for those that are more electrically rather than electronic capable like myself, it's something they could build where the board straight forward as it is with only 16 Components, 4 of them being connectors, may be more off-putting.

Unlike the current commercial offerings, our designs offer virtually unlimited power handling well beyond what any normal application could need and cost low tens of dollars rather than several hundred to over a thousand. Also ours are very understressed where as the others we have studied look like they are going to have a very limited life cycle which won't repay their initial cost. this has been borne out by several people we have read of that have had them and suffered rather short failures.

I wish I was far more capeable with this stuff but with the plethora of prebuilt boards available so cheap these days and the capability of arduino's and raspberry etc, there is a whole load of things people can do for themselves these days that even a short time ago would have required an expert to do and still been very expensive.

[sailawayrb]

Well, it sounds like there is fair amount of agreement with my perspective... 

I also suspect that there are not many folks like us anymore either and this trend may be going well toward zero, at least in our Country.  Kids these days grow up playing video games and I doubt many are curious enough or motivated enough to take things apart at an early age so as to understand how they work.  And it's not like you can take a video game apart or a smartphone apart and see how it works either.  It's this early curiosity that leads people to continue learning and becoming DIYers, engineers, scientists and such.  So with this reality and trend, and with the relative obscurity of the microcogen subject, I am actually pleasantly surprised that we have as much participation as we do.  But I bet if you took a poll, there wouldn't be many of our participants under 40 years old.  So yes, we may very well be like dinosaurs...

With regard to the Boeing 737MAX debacle, Glort is correct that the system could not be easily deactivated and certainly not in the short amount of time that would be required to save the airplane.  Boeing was once a great engineering company, but those days are long behind it.  There are way more competent and competitive companies on the near horizon that will leave Boeing in the dust, e.g., SpaceX and the Chinese/Russian and Japanese emerging commercial airplane industries.  You can find my personal Boeing perspective here along with a list of articles that will walk you through the 25 year transformation that got Boeing to the likely end of their road:

https://www.borstengineeringconstruction.com/The_End.pdf

And this cancer isn't unique to Boeing either.  It really took hold in the 1980s, largely as a direct result of policies created by Ronald Reagan's Laissez Faire economics:

https://www.businessinsider.com/what-happened-to-american-jobs-in-the-80s-2017-7

Japan ate our lunch long before China...and as well they should and will.  The real root cause of the problem is 100% internal and is related to the requirement of having to appease Wall Street in order to obtain high company stock value which is how company leadership is largely compensated these days and hence what motivates them to behave as they do.

[mobile_bob]

i wasn't so much referring to the pilots in ability to take control of his plane, than i was the problem of pilots being so complacent with the technology that some have forgotten or never
learned to fly the plane they are tasked to pilot.

on cable tv, there is the Smithsonian channel, on which there is a program called "air disasters"  i would say perhaps 20-25% of the air crashes profiled over the last 30 years or so relate to
pilots relying so heavily on the control systems, that they have forgotten or become rusty at actually flying or taking control of the plane.

it is amazing how the human will lock up and just sit there screaming "what the hell is going on" all the while they are flying into the side of a mountain, not getting airborne after takeoff, landing short of the runway, becoming a mega ton lawn dart, etc.  when all they needed to do was flip the automation off and grab the stick and fly out of the problem.

what it illustrates all to often is man has become so dependent and complacent with automation which at times is at his and others peril.

stepping away from airplanes.

i am the city water and  waste water operator for our small town (contract basis, part time, long story)
the water processing system is fully automated, and the only human intervention is when the machine asks for it.

so what you have is a system that when it is working correctly is just fine and produces safe water at stable disinfection levels, all is good!

this can go on for days, weeks, and sometimes months, and in this plants case, years, before something bad happens,  the problem being the operator
has forgotten, maybe never learned in the first place, what actually is happening at each stage, and more importantly what and how each stage interacts with others.

so enter mobile_bob

i find a system that has 6 of 12 ruptured microfiltration units, 3 of 12 in the sister plant, error codes that the operator doesn't understand, and simply has cleared time and time again
"hey i hit this button and it restarts again and all is just fine"

only problem is the fact that while turbidity can be quite high, and out of compliance with state and federal standards, it might not kill anyone, but it eats up copious amounts of chlorine.  a bad thing, for a number of reasons.

the main issue is two particularly bad parasites, chryptosporidium and giardia, both of which are chlorine tolerant, and must therefore be filtered out of the raw water source.

while automation is a good thing, it can be a very bad thing if you don't understand fully the operation of what is under control and be qualified to jump in and take the reigns.

bob g

[sailawayrb]

That's very true, mixing automation and human control is a dangerous game for sure.  Flying commercial transport airplanes is mostly long boring periods marked with an occasional short period of sheer terror where you need to do the right thing very fast.  We have had 747 flight crews fall asleep while the autopilot slowly rolled the airplane upside down on dark night flights over the Atlantic.  It can be a challenge to recover from that situation when the stars and reflection of the stars on water appear similar.

With regard to the 737MAX debacle, Boeing never told the flight crew community that the MCAS even existed, much less how to identify the failure and deactivate it in time.  Boeing assumed they would just treat it like a runaway stabilizer, turn stabilizer trim OFF and then manually trim the airplane back to level flight by using manual stab trim motors or by physically hand cranking the stab trim wheel.  However, they also removed the switch that existed on past models which would have allowed them to quickly turn stabilizer trim OFF and the MCAS also had so much control authority that it quickly generated so much stabilizer force that manually using the stab trim motors or physically hand cranking the stab trim wheel couldn't overcome this force to allow trimming the stabilizer.  So those pilots never had any chance of saving those airplanes.

I am sure Boeing will fix the 737MAX issue that resulted in the MCAS overpowering the flight crew via design changes and flight crew training.  But the real root cause issue that led to the MCAS being developed is that the engines are not located where they should be to have a statically stable airplane.  The 737MAX is very prone to stalling whenever full engine thrust is required, i.e., Takeoff and Landing Go-Arounds.  But to accomplish this, the MCAS needs to always work and needs to always apply the proper correction.   So I am not convinced that the MCAS will actually prevent a low altitude stall event if the flight crew is under a high workload for some other reason, e.g., smoke in the cabin.  To me, MCAS was a cheap band aide fix in lieu of properly designing the airplane.

I feel the same way about the 777X.  Using folding wing tips sounds great, but how do you absolutely ensure they won't unfold in flight?  How do you ensure that manufacturing tolerances or as an airplane ages won't cause the structural stiffness to change so as to cause an in-flight flutter event?  It's true the Naval fighters have folding wings, but everyone onboard these airplanes has an ejection seat and a parachute.  Hey, but what do I know...but time will tell.

[glort]

Kids these days grow up playing video games and I doubt many are curious enough or motivated enough to take things apart at an early age so as to understand how they work.  And it's not like you can take a video game apart or a smartphone apart and see how it works either. 

I don't blame the kids as much as I do our generation.
I live on acerage. Not far from me they are turning paddocks into housing estates. We are right on the edge of Sydney but they are throwing up ( an accurate description)  these  garbage houses on these Tinly little blocks as fast as they can and as far as the eye can see.  Many of these slums and social problems in the making have 12Ft or less to the back fence, the same or even less to the front ( usualy no fence) and the sides are barely wide enough to walk down. The standard house is 4Br and what do you do with a cheap house that has 4 Bedrooms, You fill it with kids of course.

What else are these Kids going to be able to do OTHER than placy Video/ computer games?  It's not like when I grew up, the standard block size here was about 1200Sqm  or quarter acre.
It then went down to 600 Sqm and now down the road from me they are getting to 200 SqM!!  It's fking insane and shouldn't be allowed. Money talks of course and that's what it is about.
These kids are barely going to have room for a push bike and the parks around the areas are small, Boring and antiseptic and wouldn't bore the shit out of anyone.

In my day we made a lot of our toys. Not that we didn't have any store bought ones but we made things like Bow and arrows, slingshots, got old bikes and lawnmowers  when we went to the tip with dad and bought them home and pulled them apart and learnt. These kids in these estates or even worse, Flats as are going up at a hideous rate here, can't do that, they don't have the space to live let alone take on anything non essential.

In years to come some smart arse University seat polisher will be paid a shitload to determine these kids have a bunch of problems because they have only played Video games and lack social, communication, fine motor and other skills and will put the blame on something totally unrelated than the engineered environment they were brought up in. It's as plain as the nose on your face what will and has already happened but the mistakes keep being repeated and perpetuated because people are getting rich off this travesty of social manipulation and problem creation.

I don't blame the kids at all. It's way beyond their control or even understanding. I would go so far as to say it's a passive form of abuse by omission of life experience and skills.

That said......
It's not all bad.
My father lives in the country and his house keeper looks after a young bloke of 13 Yo and often brings him out to Dads wrecking yard where he loves it.  We give him jobs stripping down engines  and doing whatever else.  I have taught him to drive the forklift which he dows well, he drives his dads tractor and grandfathers farm machinery and has started himself a little business cutting and splitting firewood.  He was very excited to have a go on the Big battery chainsaw the other day and for a little bloke handles it well.

He wants to be a diesel Mechanic and the young fella is a great kids. Polite, courteous, quick thinking,  about as far from lazy as you could possibly get,  sharp as a tack with great problem solving skills and a knack to think things through with out of the box suggestions that are impressively Brilliant.  He's a Bloody great kid to have around and a kid you enjoy talking to and spending time with.  My father say he has a job in the future with anyone that knows him now.

His environment is totally different to that of the majority of city kids and so id the outcome and disposition.

I always told my son who wanted to be a carpenter the tradesman of his generation  if they apply themselves to business will be the very well off, upper middle class and beyond of the future as well.  All these pencil Pushing academics may earn good money but the people that THEY need and rely on and have to pay to do pretty much everything for them are the ones that are really going to cash in.

Pretty much all his Friends have gone into trades ( one Doctor, one Lawyer) and they are doing well. They are branching out into their own businesses and I help a few of them with business promotion and advertising and  developing their businesses  with the longer term goal of them workong ON their Businesses not IN their Businesses.  One guy who is like my 2nd son took over his Uncles/ grandfathers tiling business.  We have people working for him now and he just goes out and does the quoting, talking to builders and suppliers etc and keeps his hands clean.  The other guys do the grunt work and he overseas and inspects.  It's taken a bit to get him into this phase of a manager not a worker but he's doing well.  He's also available when needed if someone is crook or they are under the pump so he is keeping his hand in as well.

I do fear for a lot of kids out there in how lacking in self sufficiency they will be, but plenty out there like that now and it creates opportunities for the few that are hands on to get a long way ahead.

There are way more competent and competitive companies on the near horizon that will leave Boeing in the dust, e.g., SpaceX and the Chinese/Russian and Japanese emerging commercial airplane industries.

You will understand if I have reservations about Chinese made airplanes.
Lets face it, Bow  wing, McDonell Douglas, Airbus and other western manufacturers have their fair share of Screwups and problems and their mentality and culture is nothing like the tight arse cost cutting and straight out corruption of the chinese.
You can put any specs and standards you like on something but at the end of the day, Only takes one guy to try and save or pocket a but, save some time or want to kee something from their boss or just keep them happy to cause a disaster.
I find that scenario a lot more likley with the Chinese than western manufacturing.

As for the Russians,  Antinov's for everyone!

Having owned some Russian made tools and equipment, I'd left wondering if they weld their aircraft together out of steel plate?
It's the mindset they have with everything else!
I remember a Russian Tractor my father had for short time.  When everyone else was making the mudgaurds out of stamped light gauge sheet metal or plastic, this thing had gaurds made from cast steel! You could smack the things with a hammer except the hammer would likely bounce back and hit you in the head!.

[sailawayrb]

Just to be clear, I am not blaming the kids for anything.  I don't even blame their parents either, who are likely each working multiple jobs just to survive.  My point was that the environment that kids experience these days is not very condusive to them going into engineering or science fields.  In this country, very few kids choose engineering or science fields these days.  The vast majority go into service fields, anything from serving people at restaurants, to being bankers, lawyers or brain surgeons.  So there aren't as many young adults interested in DIY or forums like this as there once was in the past.  And you are not likely to win a war if all the majority of your population only knows how to do is to service people's needs.

Back when I was a kid, Japan only made cheap crappy plastic toys.  Now the products that they make are often considered the highest quality available anywhere. The same will be true for China and is already true for some of their products and their manufacturing capability already vastly exceeds the rest of the world.  If you actually worked for Boeing and also had products manufactured in China like I have, you wouldn't say that Chinese cost cutting or corruption is worse.  The only reason Boeing has survived in recent years is because of their cost cutting, reputation and size and because Airbus is nearly as incompetent.  Their reputation will wither away first and then their size...just like many once dominant US industries have done before them.  If you knew what I know, you would have more reservations flying on any Boeing airplane designed and manufactured within the last 15 years.

[mobile_bob]

i have a younger brother that is up in the ranks of a leading jet airliner manufacture, as an engineer tasked with non destructive testing

he and i had some serious talks about 10 plus years ago, when it came to the new "plastic" planes  (plastic is my reference, not his)

i recall one conversation, relating to the big bolts that secure the wings to the fuselage,  i don't recall the size but from memory something on the order of 1.5" diameter?

the holes were bored through the shell of the fuselage to bolt the wings on, which his concern was "now you have cut through the continuous thread that the thing is wound with?
and when they were torquing up the bolts, there was no spec! his concern was crushing the wound fiber shell of the fuselage,  that was in prototyping, so i would hope they worked out that little issue.

i recall he had lots of concerns over that project, and prayed heavily that once they were put into service, none fell out of the sky.

[Henry W]

Kids these days grow up playing video games and I doubt many are curious enough or motivated enough to take things apart at an early age so as to understand how they work.  And it's not like you can take a video game apart or a smartphone apart and see how it works either. 

I don't blame the kids as much as I do our generation.
I live on acerage. Not far from me they are turning paddocks into housing estates. We are right on the edge of Sydney but they are throwing up ( an accurate description)  these  garbage houses on these Tinly little blocks as fast as they can and as far as the eye can see.  Many of these slums and social problems in the making have 12Ft or less to the back fence, the same or even less to the front ( usualy no fence) and the sides are barely wide enough to walk down. The standard house is 4Br and what do you do with a cheap house that has 4 Bedrooms, You fill it with kids of course.

What else are these Kids going to be able to do OTHER than placy Video/ computer games?  It's not like when I grew up, the standard block size here was about 1200Sqm  or quarter acre.
It then went down to 600 Sqm and now down the road from me they are getting to 200 SqM!!  It's fking insane and shouldn't be allowed. Money talks of course and that's what it is about.
These kids are barely going to have room for a push bike and the parks around the areas are small, Boring and antiseptic and wouldn't bore the shit out of anyone.

In my day we made a lot of our toys. Not that we didn't have any store bought ones but we made things like Bow and arrows, slingshots, got old bikes and lawnmowers  when we went to the tip with dad and bought them home and pulled them apart and learnt. These kids in these estates or even worse, Flats as are going up at a hideous rate here, can't do that, they don't have the space to live let alone take on anything non essential.

In years to come some smart arse University seat polisher will be paid a shitload to determine these kids have a bunch of problems because they have only played Video games and lack social, communication, fine motor and other skills and will put the blame on something totally unrelated than the engineered environment they were brought up in. It's as plain as the nose on your face what will and has already happened but the mistakes keep being repeated and perpetuated because people are getting rich off this travesty of social manipulation and problem creation.

I don't blame the kids at all. It's way beyond their control or even understanding. I would go so far as to say it's a passive form of abuse by omission of life experience and skills.

That said......
It's not all bad.
My father lives in the country and his house keeper looks after a young bloke of 13 Yo and often brings him out to Dads wrecking yard where he loves it.  We give him jobs stripping down engines  and doing whatever else.  I have taught him to drive the forklift which he dows well, he drives his dads tractor and grandfathers farm machinery and has started himself a little business cutting and splitting firewood.  He was very excited to have a go on the Big battery chainsaw the other day and for a little bloke handles it well.

He wants to be a diesel Mechanic and the young fella is a great kids. Polite, courteous, quick thinking,  about as far from lazy as you could possibly get,  sharp as a tack with great problem solving skills and a knack to think things through with out of the box suggestions that are impressively Brilliant.  He's a Bloody great kid to have around and a kid you enjoy talking to and spending time with.  My father say he has a job in the future with anyone that knows him now.

His environment is totally different to that of the majority of city kids and so id the outcome and disposition.

I always told my son who wanted to be a carpenter the tradesman of his generation  if they apply themselves to business will be the very well off, upper middle class and beyond of the future as well.  All these pencil Pushing academics may earn good money but the people that THEY need and rely on and have to pay to do pretty much everything for them are the ones that are really going to cash in.

Pretty much all his Friends have gone into trades ( one Doctor, one Lawyer) and they are doing well. They are branching out into their own businesses and I help a few of them with business promotion and advertising and  developing their businesses  with the longer term goal of them workong ON their Businesses not IN their Businesses.  One guy who is like my 2nd son took over his Uncles/ grandfathers tiling business.  We have people working for him now and he just goes out and does the quoting, talking to builders and suppliers etc and keeps his hands clean.  The other guys do the grunt work and he overseas and inspects.  It's taken a bit to get him into this phase of a manager not a worker but he's doing well.  He's also available when needed if someone is crook or they are under the pump so he is keeping his hand in as well.

I do fear for a lot of kids out there in how lacking in self sufficiency they will be, but plenty out there like that now and it creates opportunities for the few that are hands on to get a long way ahead.

I agree, back in the early 60's there was lots to do where I was brought up. It was just another day where all of us would take our go carts out during the weekend and have a great day. Our family got into snow skiing in 1967. We were fortunate to have a good amount of land so my father and I built a rope tow to pull us up the hill. It's amazing how simple it is to build a rope tow. The power source was a Wisconsin AEN gas engine with a Crosley  transmission and rearend narrowed and the differential pinion gears welded. What drove the rope was two Crosley tires and rims put together like a dual wheel setup. What great times we had. Not just our family, the whole neighborhood. It was a common site seeing neighbors helping each other building an addition on a home, re-roofing a home or what ever needed to be done.
Now days you see very little happening. Today, most family's are stressed and forced to work more hours and in turn takes away from quality time with the kids. Our parents and neighbors always had something going on for the kids. I remember one of our neighbors had a 1960 ford falcon that he did not need. He made it available for grown up kids to drive it in his fields. We had a neighbor that had a 300 yard shooting range. We had archery. Pretty much the parents and neighbors kept the kids busy.

Now days it seems like the children are left to try to figure out what to do. And this is just one of the problems. Schools in most states in the US got rid of shop. They got rid of building trade programs. I always felt these program's were so vital in development of good skills to handle a situation if a need arises. It is pitiful how things are today. Children need mentors to teach them what we call fundamentals of life. How many kids know how to use a lawn mower these days? How many spent time building a radio, electric motor, an electric magnet, a down hill go cart ect... Today kids need a mentor to teach them. Kids need to find a hobby. It gives them a sense of accomplishment. It gives them self worth.

Look what the kids have now. Computer games! Too me it's such a waste. Instead of all this online junk why not take a kid fishing, camping, boating Build something with them. My daughter was out today helping me drill holes on the engine pad for the RV generator. The thing is they need to do something more than computer games. My daughter ask me when we can go out boating. I wanted to go out today but with a 120 degrees real feel I'm staying indoors. Lots of times kids are afraid to try new things because they don't know anything about them. Us parents and adults that are able to mentor have to try to get involved with the kids.

Henry W

[sailawayrb]

Sadly Bob, your concerns are not without merit.  Airbus lost a couple airplanes from latent composite structural failures when they first started using them...with the result being inflight breakup and uncontrolled flight into terrain...as we say.  There are so many variables at play here that must be accomplished precisely during the manufacture of composite structures that the potential for latent defects is well removed from zero.  It also isn't easy, and in some cases it is impossible, to detect these defects or their resulting degradations in advance before structural failure occurs.  And then as you alluded to, defects can also be created during the assembly process.  So I would not at all be surprised see more airplane inflight composite structural breakups as some of these airplanes age.  

They should probably be continuously testing some of these composite structures for every batch manufactured, but they typically only test them during the airplane certification process and then henceforth they rely on the integrity of the manufacturing process to ensure product conformity and safety.  And I am sure you have read all the issues regarding the integrity of this manufacturing process in recent years.

I fully agree with you Henry.  I was a Boy Scoutmaster for many years and both our son's became Eagle Scouts.  We spent a lot of time with them doing school science projects and teaching them shop and home construction skills too.  And while they turned out great and have high paying jobs, neither one of them went into engineering or science fields...and they certainly wouldn't have any interest in these forums...