Night flying in the mountians in a cessna 150,

Montblack wrote:

("Mike Rapoport" wrote)

Pet peeve...its Sierra not Sierras, the word is already plural.



What's the singular? Siera?

Rocky Mountain
Rocky Mountains
Rockies

?????? Mountain
?????? Mountains
Sierras


Montblack



Sierra is Spanish for "Mountain Range."

The word Sierra is not plural, but it does refer to all the mountains in
the range. You would use Sierras to refer to multiple mountain ranges,
not multiple mountains.

HTH

Mike,
American Heritage Dictionary defines a sierra is "a rugged range of
mountains having an irregular or jagged profile".
I did a quick web search and found sierras being used quite often.
Here are some old sources:

Book: In the Heart of the Sierras by James M. Hutchings (1888)
Movies: Springtime in the Sierras (1947); King of the Sierras (1938)

So if there are more than one mountan ranges, it appears that the
plural term sierras is used such as Sierras de Cazorla, Segura and Las
Villas in Spain

http://www.andalucia.com/environment...ct/cazorla.htm

"Legrande Harris" wrote

The plane and engine have to be in perfect condition.

Perfect engines fail, too. Right?
--
Jim in NC

Nice web site.

Have you ever considered home brewing a fire protectin system for your
house? A pipe on the roof with holes drilled in it to keep the shingles
wet. Directional irrigation sprinklers keeping the walls wet. A high
volume irrigation pump, I'm thinking gas, so power outages will not be a
problem. Pump out of the swimming pool. If you don't have a pool, now you
have an excuse to get one!
--
Jim in NC

Morgans wrote:

Perfect engines fail, too. Right?

Yep. One that quit on takeoff at Kupper was a Mattituck overhaul with only a few
hours on it. That's about as perfect as you're gonna get in this world. The CFI
did a fantastic job of returning to the airport from about 600' AGL, refused the
offer of a drink, and went home (presumably to change).

George Patterson
I prefer Heaven for climate but Hell for company.

"Mike Rapoport" wrote in message news:wWqTd.5072

Pet peeve...its Sierra not Sierras, the word is already plural.


But we are talking about a proper noun. If my last name meant "many good
looking people" in Italian and you invited my family and I to your house you
wouldn't say "Damn we are lucky enough to have the Giacona coming over
tonight." You would say, "Damn we are lucky enough to have the Giaconas
coming over tonight. We better get more wine."

Gig 601XL Builder wrote:

But we are talking about a proper noun. If my last name meant "many good
looking people" in Italian and you invited my family and I to your house you
wouldn't say "Damn we are lucky enough to have the Giacona coming over
tonight." You would say, "Damn we are lucky enough to have the Giaconas
coming over tonight. We better get more wine."

But you would never say "the Appalachian ranges." For the same reason, you
should never say "the Sierras" when you're talking about the Sierra Nevada.

George Patterson
I prefer Heaven for climate but Hell for company.

"George Patterson" wrote in message
...
But you would never say "the Appalachian ranges." For the same reason, you
should never say "the Sierras" when you're talking about the Sierra
Nevada.

If we were speaking Spanish, and we were speaking only of some generic
"sierra", that would be correct. However, you cannot apply the original
rules to words borrowed from other languages and expect them to still make
sense in English (in this case...this isn't particular to English),
especially when the borrowed word becomes a proper noun. A borrowed word,
in the language that borrowed it, inherets brand new rules, completely
independent of the original language from whence it came.

I have about as many language pet peeves as anyone, but IMHO this is one
that the owner's of said pet peeve just need to get over already.

Pete

OK but when referring to the Sierra Nevada mountans the correct word is
Sierra.

Mike
MU-2


wrote in message
ups.com...
Mike,
American Heritage Dictionary defines a sierra is "a rugged range of
mountains having an irregular or jagged profile".
I did a quick web search and found sierras being used quite often.
Here are some old sources:

Book: In the Heart of the Sierras by James M. Hutchings (1888)
Movies: Springtime in the Sierras (1947); King of the Sierras (1938)

So if there are more than one mountan ranges, it appears that the
plural term sierras is used such as Sierras de Cazorla, Segura and Las
Villas in Spain

http://www.andalucia.com/environment...ct/cazorla.htm

Tell you an interesting story about professional pilots ...

I was bumming a ride in the jump seat of a Saab 340A - the reason I was
there was because I wasn't prepared to fly a light twin with a single-engine
service ceiling of around 4250 at night over terrain that requires a MSA of
around 8000 feet.

Without any suggestion from me, 2 seperate crews immediately came to the
same conclusion I did - and that is "if you were going to do that flight
then you would want to track around the coast" (ie at sea level).

In my opinion these crews both have a safety oriented attitude - on the
other hand many of the pilots I know would do that flight at night in a
single - their best attempt at "risk management" being "the aeroplane
doesn't know it's night"

I know which bunch I'd send my family flying with!


"Morgans" wrote in message
...

"Cockpit Colin" wrote

Unfortunately, too many
pilots continue to accept too high a level of risk - and as a result,
they
keep on dying horrible deaths.

I'm with you. Saying that you accept the risks, because you are a
professional pilot, is a cop-out of a reason. A true professional would
not
accept missions of undue risk, and wait for conditions more acceptable,
and
manageable.

What's that saying about old pilots, and bold pilots?
--
Jim in NC