{"id":545,"date":"2013-04-15T10:37:45","date_gmt":"2013-04-15T14:37:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/risacher.org\/jfdi\/?p=545"},"modified":"2013-04-16T22:38:29","modified_gmt":"2013-04-17T02:38:29","slug":"on-regulations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/risacher.org\/jfdi\/2013\/04\/on-regulations\/","title":{"rendered":"On regulations"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Intelink-U<\/a>]<\/em><\/p>\n

When I was in pilot training, I had a crusty, old, retired C-130 pilot as a ground instructor.\u00a0 He liked to tell us wet-behind-the-ears lieutenants that:<\/p>\n

Regulations are guidance to the wise,
\nand for the strict obedience of fools.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And he would go on to explain that<\/p>\n

A wise person understands why<\/strong> the regulation exists, and therefore when<\/strong> it applies.
\nMore importantly, the wise person understands when a rule does not<\/strong> apply.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But he wasn’t done yet:<\/p>\n

If you are a fool… and I know that some of you are…
\nyou will always follow the rules and regulations to the letter.
\nBy doing so, they will save your ass, time and time again,
\nuntil the day when they don’t apply.
\nOn that day, when you follow the rules
\nafter they stopped making sense,
\nif you are very, very lucky,
\nno one will die.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He then told a story of flying into Iceland with medical supplies, critical for saving the life of an injured serviceman. He had flown into that airport many, many times before.\u00a0 He knew where every tower and obstruction was in the area.\u00a0 There was no wind, but there was thick low-level fog, causing zero-zero visibility. He was flying the ILS approach, which is flown by relying almost entirely on instruments in the cockpit until reaching a pre-determined height, called the decision height (DH). At DH, the pilot looks outside the cockpit, and if he can see the runway environment, he lands. If he cannot see the runway environment, he goes around.\u00a0 According to the flight regulations, there is no discretion in this approach.<\/p>\n

Today, some aircraft can land in these conditions if they are equipped with the right equipment – it’s called a Category III<\/a> landing.\u00a0 This happened years ago before such things existed.<\/p>\n

He flew the approach, reached DH, looked out and couldn’t see the runway environment.\u00a0 Went around, tried again.\u00a0 No luck.\u00a0 After a few tries, he decided that the weather wasn’t going to get better.\u00a0 He knew his own skills, he knew his aircraft, he knew the weather conditions, and he knew his crew.\u00a0 He asked his crew for permission to fly it down to the ground.\u00a0 They knew his skills and trusted him.\u00a0 He flew it to the ground and landed, touching down without ever seeing the runway.<\/p>\n

Somewhere, an injured servicemember owes his life today to the philosophy that rules are\u00a0 guidance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Intelink-U] When I was in pilot training, I had a crusty, old, retired C-130 pilot as a ground instructor.\u00a0 He liked to tell us wet-behind-the-ears lieutenants that: Regulations are guidance to the wise, and for the strict obedience of fools. And he would go on to explain that<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-risk","category-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/risacher.org\/jfdi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/risacher.org\/jfdi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/risacher.org\/jfdi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risacher.org\/jfdi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risacher.org\/jfdi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=545"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/risacher.org\/jfdi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":567,"href":"https:\/\/risacher.org\/jfdi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545\/revisions\/567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/risacher.org\/jfdi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risacher.org\/jfdi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risacher.org\/jfdi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}