[ILUG] [way OT] Word 2003 problems...

[Niall O Broin]

On 12 Jul 2005, at 19:03, Paul Jakma wrote:

> With no training, maybe. But even the control aspects of landing you 
> can learn relatively quickly (maybe not /well/). Certainly learning 
> enough to land badly (maybe damaging aeroplane) but with a pretty good 
> chance of walking away can be achieved very quickly.

Yes, but you agree that SOME training is needed. I had a spin in a 
light plane recently, for the first time ever. I am familiar with the 
principles, and I used fly hanggliders, so the instructor was quite 
happy to let me take off. You may be damn sure that he landed though.

> Remember, pilots in WWII sometimes only got as little as twenty hours 
> of flight training (sometimes less) before being assigned to active 
> duty.

Hmm - I wonder how much that contributed to the horrendous early death 
rates?

> According to a programme recently on Discovery, the japanese were at 
> one stage assigning pilots to active duty after only 8 hours of flight 
> training (admittedly, Kamikaze pilots... but they'd still have learnt 
> how to land a plane.)

Eh - no - why would Kamikaze pilots have learnt to land?  :-)

> But the very benefit of computer automation is precisely that the 
> machine *can* automate complex tasks, relieving the user of having to 
> learn these details.

Yes - but the user does need to know what the blooming tasks are, at 
least.

> With not much training any one of us here could fly a modern airliner 
> from airport to airport, just by punching buttons. (we couldn't do 
> safely obviously, we wouldn't be able to cope with any kind of 
> emergency or unusual situation, but still).

Yeah - what would we do if field codes appeared on the screen? Crash 
the plane? Or post to ILUG in a panic?



Niall