C-172 down at HPN - 2 fatalities

Ever tried shrimp as a pizza topping? Delicious.

I have not, but shrimp is great with pasta and tomato based sauces, so
should go well with pizza. I did have a seafood pizza that was less
than impressive though.

Jose
--
Get high on gasoline: fly an airplane.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

On 4/27/05 8:51 PM, in article , "Gary
Drescher" spewed:

"Wizard of Draws" wrote in
message news:BE933281.64DF1%jeffbTAKEOUTALLCAPS@TOEMAILwiz ardofdraws.com...
Even when we did a story on the flight school I trained at, and I pointed
out a number of glaring errors long before deadline, they were not fixed.
Among other things, it "sounded better" to say "license to fly" when the
student had only soloed.

Sorry, I don't see what's inaccurate there. A solo endorsement *is* a
license to fly (but not with passengers). Why not refer to it as such?

--Gary


The article was written as if his training was over and he had been given
his certificate. I won't get into a semantic argument about license v.
certificate, but the article taken as a whole was entirely misleading and
inaccurate. Keeping in mind that newspapers become historical documents, if
a reporter can't get a story right, it shouldn't be written.

In light of the fact that I am a pilot and everyone in the office knows it,
I don't think it would have been too much to expect a reporter to just cross
the room and have me proofread it (or even get a bit of background on the
training syllabus from someone who's been through it) before going to press.
But apparently it was.
--
Jeff 'The Wizard of Draws' Bucchino

Cartoons with a Touch of Magic�
http://www.wizardofdraws.com

More Cartoons with a Touch of Magic�
http://www.cartoonclipart.com

It doesn't take all that much training to recognize when a reporter is
willing to compromise his integrity by attempting to slant his article
toward an agenda.

Unfortunately, these days, it is rare to see an unslanted report,
regardless of the topic.

It's a shame it doesn't require more training to become a reporter.


RomeoMike wrote in
:

When I read posts critical of the knowledge of reporters I think one
of two scenarios: One, the poster has forgotten how much training it
took for him to get so "smart" and thereby figures the reporter and
anyone else should know as much as he does.

snip

Judah wrote:
It doesn't take all that much training to recognize when a reporter is
willing to compromise his integrity by attempting to slant his article
toward an agenda.

Yes, you only need to know how to read...


Matt

"A.Coleman" wrote in
:

The damned ceiling couldn't have been more than 500 feet.
Temp/dewpoint spread was zero. Says something about American Flyers
that it's taking a primary student up shooting instrument approaches
in low IMC .


When they left ALB, the METAR reported Vertical Visibility 200' and 1/8
mi visibility in fog that had been sitting at the airport all day. Plus
earlier that day the Approach Lights were reported out of service
(though I don't know if it was still inop at the time of the report I am
referring to).

1/8 mi is below ILS 16 minimum @HPN. And VV002 is exactly minimum. But
without a rabbit you lose a fair amount of latitude with an approach
into below minimums. (ie: You can see the rabbit a few hundred feet
ahead of the threshold, and once you see it you can go down another
100'. It's a big safety feature.)

I know experienced Instrument Rated pilots who would cancel a flight in
those conditions. By 3pm, the METAR reported VV002 and 1/2mi Visibility
in Fog, so it was exactly at minimums.

My guess is that the instructor felt that he could take the student up
and take over at some point when the student was clearly out of his
league. Still, I don't know enough about the instructor to know A) how
far he would let the student go before he decided it was time to take
over, B) if he had enough experience teaching THIS particular student to
read through potentially confused signals to recognize when it was time
to take over, and C) if he would be able to take over a potentially
panicked approach in IMC, recover, and safely navigate the plane onto
the ground from the right seat.

None of us will ever know... But we can sure guess at it based on the
unfortunate and dire result...

The reports that I heard indicated that he received and acknowledged an
altitude alert at 800 feet, just before the accident. Was that not from
Tower?


Andrew Gideon wrote in
online.com:

snip

Or he never completed the hand-off. TRACON might have switched him at
5 miles, but the aircraft never contacted the tower. I don't know.

Frankly, there's a lot about this that confuses me. No warnings about
being too low from ATC? I once has a TRACON controller contact me
almost breathlessly about my altitude (which was, fortunately, a
transponder problem). And this was in VMC.


snip


This does trigger a memory, though. During my primary training, my
CFI wanted to go up into a snowstorm. Not knowing any better, I
questioned it but didn't refuse. We were at the hold line just about
to get onto the runway when the tower talked some sense into the CFI
(and the controllers tone helped me push the matter).

What if that hadn't occurred? I don't recall the CFI carrying any
extra (ie. IFR) charts. And those weren't planes I'd take into IMC
myself (from my current perspective) anyway.

Scary.




Indeed.

Who pays the salaries of the Press?

Do you think your piddly 50-cents is covering the cost of the crappy
newsprint your paper is printed on, much less the costs of the equipment
and labor required to paginate, platemake, press, package, distribute
and deliver a newspaper?

I believe it costs the newspapers something like $3 per newspaper to do
that. And the carrier takes half of the 50-cents that you pay for it...

Advertising pays the bills, and the newspaper's first allegiance is to
the advertiser. It's been that way pretty much from the very beginning.
Journalistic Integrity is only a priority if it doesn't conflict with
revenue generation.

How much do you pay to watch a News Report on a network TV channel? How
much of your $50 cable bill do you think goes to CNN? The priorities in
TV media are no different.

The CUSTOMER in the media is the ADVERTISER, not the reader. The reader
is just a means to support the customer.

For a long time, the media talked about journalistic integrity because
they thought it was necessary to be taken seriously and increase
circulation (which subsequently allows them to charge more to
advertisers), especially as compared to the tabloids. Most papers were
family owned and operated, and the publishers looked at the tabs as junk
and embarrasing, and it inflated their egos to know their paper was
"above that."

However, over the years, and especially since the success of CNN during
the Gulf War in 1990, it has become apparent to the newspapers that
sensationalism works, and the junk tabs have circulations higher than
theirs... That, in combination with the growing number of corporate
buyouts from companies like Gannett, Tribune, NYT Co, Knight Ridder,
Newhouse, CNHI, and others have nearly eliminated family-owned
newspapers that were driven by the ego of a person who has "run this
paper with integrity for generations" in favor of papers that are driven
by corporate agendas and wall-street reporting requirements.

And so, as newspaper publishers recognize that junk is more profitable
than integrity, and get pressure from their corporate executives to show
better numbers, they forget about enforcing integrity and accuracy, and
focus on generating revenue, selling advertising, and cutting costs.
Some papers today barely have stories in them anymore - they've become
advertising rags. As the quality of the product goes down, and the
readers become more cynical, the circulation continues dropping (WSJ
reported a 1.9% decline in circulation this year), and the whole thing
backfires.

Over time, there will be a backlash, and at some point newspapers will
get back to basics - reporting local stories with integrity to provide a
product that their readers cannot get anywhere else - not on Major Metro
TV networks or mass-market Internet Web sites. And perhaps the
circulation will tick up again. But make no mistake - the newspapers are
feeling the crunch, and don't seem to understand that journalistic
integrity, which is now low on thier list, is a significant player in
their recovery.

It will be interesting transition to watch.

"Gig 601XL Builder" wr.giacona@coxDOTnet wrote in
news:Vfube.24313$up2.19288@okepread01:


wrote in message
...
On Tue, 26 Apr 2005 04:35:27 GMT, "H.P." wrote:

They're stupid AND lazy. I was in P.R. for about 10 years and
reporters just
ate out of my hand. I basically did the work for them on the facts
and my clients paid for it. My biggest successes were stories that I
wrote but were
printed whole cloth by the paper. I once was duped by a client. I
sent out
press releases, press kits and got the nets, locals, cable and radio
to cover an event based upon a wrong premise. I got ink, video and
radio for my
client like there was no tomorrow. Not one of them fact-checked.


Let's see if I understand this...

YOU were duped, and the newspaper reporters were the ones at fault
for not fact-checking?

No he was given false info by his client who paid him to get it out in
the press. He had no responsibility to prove everything that he gave
the press was true. If PR people had to do that they would all be out
of business in a week. Their job is to spin information to put their
client in the best light.

On the other hand the press has a responsibility to check facts.
ESPECIALLY when it comes from a PR firm.

On Mon, 30 May 2005 17:43:14 GMT, Judah wrote:

Who pays the salaries of the Press?


The CUSTOMER in the media is the ADVERTISER, not the reader. The reader
is just a means to support the customer.

Yeahbut.

The commodity the medium is selling to the advertiser is eyeballs.
Eyeballs of particular ages, genders and income levels.

Advertisers want to base their buying decisions on circulation,
zipcodes and ratings.

To that extent, the reader/viewer could influence what runs in the
media.

Except when every medium is controlled by one entity, at which point
the reader/viewer *and* the advertiser both have hobson's choice.

Don

Don Tuite wrote in
:

On Mon, 30 May 2005 17:43:14 GMT, Judah wrote:

Who pays the salaries of the Press?


The CUSTOMER in the media is the ADVERTISER, not the reader. The
reader is just a means to support the customer.

Yeahbut.

The commodity the medium is selling to the advertiser is eyeballs.
Eyeballs of particular ages, genders and income levels.

Most newspapers currently do a poor job of segmenting their markets and
selling advertising based on demographics. They don't believe they can
effectively distribute inserts to specific households accurately, even
though the equipment has been capable of doing it for a decade. They
think it is asking too much of a carrier to make sure that the paper
with the address on it actually gets to that address, and as they all
switch to Distribution Centers are concerned about their ability to
control the carrier through the DC...

Advertisers want to base their buying decisions on circulation,
zipcodes and ratings.

To that extent, the reader/viewer could influence what runs in the
media.

Only when the influence is En Masse. A few hundred eyeballs won't make a
difference one way or the other, even to a small local paper. Only when
enough of the general public start to react will an influence be
noticed, much less be enacted. It's starting to happen - that's why
circulation numbers are going down.

Except when every medium is controlled by one entity, at which point
the reader/viewer *and* the advertiser both have hobson's choice.

Don

The Metars that day were as follows

KHPN 232056Z 19014G20KT 1/4SM FG OVC002 13/13 A2947
KHPN 232018Z 19012G20KT 160V220 1/2SM -RA FG OVC002 13/13 A2948
KHPN 231956Z COR 18012G20KT 3/4SM -RA BR OVC002 13/13 A2948 RMK
AIRCRAFT MISHAP
KHPN 231856Z 19012G16KT 1/2SM FG OVC002 12/12 A2951
KHPN 231756Z 18013G19KT 1/8SM FG OVC002 12/12 A2952
KHPN 231743Z 17016G22KT 1/8SM FG OVC002 12/12 A2951 RMK AO2
KHPN 231656Z 19013KT 1/2SM FG VV002 13/13 A2952
KHPN 231556Z 18006KT 1/4SM -RA FG VV002 12/12 A2954

turns out that POU had 800 foot ceilings and 7 mile visability and DXR
had 300 and 2 mile vis.....

The most charitable thing we can say is that praciticing IFR approaches
in those conditions with a PPL student was less than optimal judgement.