Sometimes when I see something odd in real-time engine data during a flight, I can almost hear the voice of Vic Perrin saying “There is nothing wrong with your TV set. We are controlling transmission. We will control the numbers you see. You are about to...
The Farmer’s Almanac says that the phrase Dog Days wasn’t originally about canines panting in the heat, it was about the appearance of Sirius the Dog Star and its reminder to ancient Egyptians about the annual flooding of the Nile. I like the dog days...
When guitar strings break there’s no lingering doubt. When an old-style incandescent light bulb fails you might get a bright flash before the darkness, or maybe just the darkness. Either way, no doubt. These are instant, unconditional failures. Then there...
Okay I’ll admit it. The first time someone showed me the selective attention video – the one where the gorilla walks through the teams passing basketballs – the setup was that there was a really nice prize if you could count the exact number of...
Last October I mentioned Eastern Airlines flight 401, which crashed into the Everglades in 1972 because all three crew members were fixated on a failed landing light. I first read about the importance of that flight, and so many others, by reading books and columns by...
In this video, we break down why fixed TBOs are based on assumptions that don’t match real-world data, and why, counterintuitively, overhauling at TBO can actually increase engine failure risk rather than reduce it.
