REFLECTOR: Gear warning horn

Jim Sower canarder at frontiernet.net
Fri Sep 10 13:55:08 CDT 2004


<... When the shit hits the fan people put their blinders on, and can 
and do ignore just about anything ... going through the checklists come 
hell or high water that is going to get you on the ground in one piece ...>
This strikes me as something of a contradiction.  Unless you fancy 
yourself "more highly evolved" or otherwise "different from" ... people 
... and thus will never don the blinders yourself.  The very definition 
of "shit hits the fan" involves a situation where you're so busy trying 
to survive that if you stop to go through a checklist, you'll die for sure.

I also take issue with your assertion that "... a hundred guys a year 
land gear up with the horn blaring away ..." is a complete statement.  
Your statement conveniently  ignores the thousands who do NOT land gear 
up BECAUSE the horn blared.  When the shit hits the fan, and "people put 
their blinders on" (read "get busy and distracted", the FIRST thing they 
get blinded to is the checklist, the LAST thing that gets ignored is the 
"horn".

You're right.  We'll have to agree to disagree ... Jim S.



Scott Derrick wrote:

> I guess we will have to agree to disagree Jim.
>
> Like I said a hundred guys a year land gear up with the gear up horn 
> blaring away.   Temporary deafness?  Probably, brought on by an 
> overload of distractions.
>
> The problem with the gear horn or any emergency warning is that they 
> generally do not work in the stress full situations.  Known fact. When 
> the shit hits the fan people put their blinders on, and can and do 
> ignore just about anything.   Ever read the narrative about the L1011 
> that crashed in Florida?  3 guys in the cockpit ignoring a "Terrain 
> Alert" alarm...
>
> When all is right and calm, that's when you know you will hear the horn.
>
> I'm not saying not to put a gear horn in the plane.  I'm just saying 
> no matter how fancy your doodads are and how many you can cram into 
> the cockpit, when it comes down to it, its the doodad between the 
> ears, going through the checklists come hell or high water that is 
> going to get you on the ground in one piece.
>
> Scott
>
> At 10:12 PM 9/9/2004, you wrote:
>
>> <...The only thing that will keep you from doing a non-intentional 
>> gear ups following your checklist(s) every time ...>
>>
>> Now that has a nice ring to it, but in real life it CANNOT happen.  
>> In my life from tactical jets to GA to whatever, I've NEVER met 
>> ANYONE who was able to actually DO that, so it seems to me a pretty 
>> irrelevant statement.  The most checklisted cockpits in the WORLD are 
>> airliners, and they have two or three guys to remind each other about 
>> them, and they miss stuff with alarming regularity.  Checklists are 
>> great until you get into a distracting situation.  We all have 
>> different tolerances to distraction, but NOBODY is immune.  Sooner or 
>> later (and over and over again) we all drop stuff out that's on the 
>> checklist.  That's why they call us human beings.  But we have the 
>> capacity to design automatic horns and whistles and bells and sweet 
>> voices.  These things DON'T get distracted.  Sometimes they don't 
>> work just right (design defects, hardware failures, etc.), but on a 
>> BAD day, a gear warning horn or light is more reliable than I am on a 
>> GOOD day.
>>
>> Anyone thinks he can stick to the checklist ALL the time hasn't been 
>> flying long, and hasn't had anything much untoward happen to him.  
>> It's really REALLY well documented that AI is more reliable in these 
>> matters than any of us (much less all of us).
>>
>> Give me the horn every time.
>>
>>
>>
>> Douglas Holub wrote:
>



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