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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1994-08-24, Page 5Arthur Black THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 24, 1994. PAGE 5. The draggy side effect of being Canadian Americans with highest glee Applaud the climber of the tree Englishmen have half a mind The tree is not the proper kind Canadians with liny frown Take an axe and chop it down. Robin Skelton O Canada. It’s true you know - this country does drag a huge psychic sea anchor behind it, slowing down its passage through the International shipping lanes. Canadians are diffident, cautious - second-guessers by nature. Americans say "Hell, let's go for it!" Canadians say "But what will the neighbours think?" Canadianism has its good side. We don't run roughshod over other national sensibilities. It will be a long time before Canadian troops invade Grenada, subvert the government of Chile or bomb Iran. It's not our style. But there's a down side too. There's a draggy side effect to being Canadian. Don't By Raymond Canon Ti'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'iii'iTi'iiihhbi't iiu'i'i't i'iTi i iTi iHH 1 ‘ <Ti f nii'ii* i111111 'i111*****! ’''1111 11 ■ ■ - -1111 ■ • i - ■ • r • ■ - ■ i • i •. ■ ■ -! ■ i • i ■ i ■ - ■ • ■ ■ ■ ■' i ~' i ■ ..... Air safety I have long ago lost track of the number of hours that I have spent flying from Point A to Point B, either as a passenger or at the controls of an aircraft myself. I really don't worry too much about crashing although I will admit that I still make sure I know where all the exits are when I get in a plane. I got to thinking about all this again when I found myself crossing the Atlantic in a Boeing 676, a twin-engined plane. Time was when such an aircraft would not have tfeen allowed to fly the Atlantic with a load of passengers. Now, due mainly to the increased safety records of the engines, such a thing in the industry is routine. In spite of such advances the airline industry is becoming more concerned about crashes. Boeing, the world's largest builder of commercial aircraft, recently predicted that, unless safety could be improved even more, by the year 2010 jet airliners would be crashing on the average of al least once a week. This docs not take into consideration such countries as Russia and China where safely is something of a bad joke. It was not loo long ago that Aeroflot, the Russian airline, had one of its modern Airbus jets crash in Siberia; it turned out that the 15-year-old son of the pilot was at the controls at the time. The plane was reportedly on automatic pilot and the teenager accidentally switched it off and the crew was unable to get the plane under control before it crashed. The main reason for the Boeing prediction is that flying is not going to become more dangerous; it is becoming considerably more frequent, growing at about the rale of five per cent a year. In I960, considerably fewer people took to the skies, but those who did were 20 times as likely to be killed in a crash take my word for it. Ask the Kinsmans. Bob and Rita Kinsman own a very successful motcl/rcstaurant complex in Cottage Country - the Muskoka district of Ontario. The Blue Heron Restaurant and Motel has seven rental units, 23-scai restaurant, a lakeside dock and a one- bedroom apartment. A success story - with just one liny black fly in the ointment. The Kinsmans were approaching retirement age. They wanted to get out of the grind and enjoy themselves. And they hit on a novel way to do that. Bob and Rita Kinsman announced that they were sponsoring a competition. Contestants had to first pony up $100 each. Then they had to write a 200 word essay explaining why they would like to take over the Blue Heron Restaurant and Motel. After all the entries were in, judges supplied by the South Muskoka Literacy Society would go over the essays and choose the grand prize winner. In other words for a hundred bucks and a couple of cents worth of ballpoint ink, somebody was going to win a flourishing resort business, worth close to half a million bucks. The Kinsmans arc an adventurous couple but they're not flat out crazy. They reserved the right to cancel the contest and refund the money if they got less than 4,000 entries. It became a media sensation. The newspaper wire service picked up the story. than anyone who flics today. Crashes back in the 1960s tended to be caused mainly by technical problems, such as metal fatigue in the airframe or engine. Today it is more likely to be pilot error. Boeing's study, which I mentioned above, considers that 60 per cent of all accidents in the last 10 years could have been averted if the crew had done their job properly. I can relate to that in my experience as a pilot. Every time that I got into the plane, it was with the best of intentions. I never had an accident, but the two limes I came closest were due to errors on my part. I was flying for a crop-spraying company at the time and took someone up for a familiarization flight. We took off into the wind and set out to take a look at some of the strips into which the pilot might be flying. That passed without incident but, when we returned, we proceeded to land in the same direction as we had taken off. I emphasized the importance of getting down in the first few feet of the runway but it become obvious that I was not going to come close to that. We went off the end of the runway and only the long grass and some quick action on my part prevented us from going into a drainage ditch of considerable size. I look a quick look at what passed for a wind sock and realized that, in the time we were up the wind had shifted and had actually blown us down the runway instead of helping us to land. Both I of us learned an important lesson from that oversight. At any rale the industry has now formed a task force to look into the ways to eliminate one particular type of crash called "controlled flight into terrain." This is what takes place when the crew has everything under control and everything is working normally, yet the aircraft flies into the ground. This kind of crash caused over half of all the deaths during the past six years. There is no one reason for the crashes and for this reason the taskforce is looking for a number of ways in which the crew can work TV crews showed up to film the Kinsmans and shoot a little footage of the sun going down from the Blue Heron dock. The story got so much airplay that even the bureaucrats in Ottawa got wind of it. And they proceeded to do what bureaucrats do best: they killed it stone dead. Ottawa announced that because of the minimum entry requirement the contest was illegal. "The police said we could appeal" noted Rita Kinsman ruefully, "but it would have to be to the Supreme Court of Canada and that could easily cost $100,000." So the contest is dead. The 300 entrants who have written their essays and paid their $100 entry fee will gel their money back and the Kinsmans will try to sell their business the conventional, Canadian way: through a real estate agent on the open market. Pity. A pity that a little grassroots initiative gets stomped to death by the beancounters in Ottawa. Reminds me of the story Derek Bumcy, Canada's ambassador to the U.S., used to tell about the Newfound­ land fisherman carrying a pail of lobsters up from the wharf. A passerby warned him that the lobsters could get away because there was no lid on the pail. "Not to worry, boy" said the fisherman. "These arc Canadian lobsters. Soon as one makes it to the top, the others will drag him down." even more efficiently than it does now. One of the most interesting revelations comes from a study of the crashes in various regions. It turns out that accidents are more frequent in Asia and Latin America. One cause of this is the deference of co-pilots in those regions. There is nothing wrong with their flying ability; they arc just less likely to point out to the boss pilot that what he is doing is about to have the plane fly into a mountain. As one commentator has put it, this is a high price to pay for deference. If better training could result in the chances of a mistake being cut in half on the flight-deck, the number of accidents due to such causes would be cut from one in two million flights to one in 10 million which would be a five-fold improvement. If such improvements do lake place, we will not have to worry about Boeing's prediction for 2010 coming true. Parent states hearty approval Continued from page 4 for its growth and change. When questioned on the idea of antipathy, hostility and rebelliousness in the cast my son could think of nothing in reality that this comment could be based on. I think that the reason the young people seemed oblivious to these intense ideas is that they didn't exist, not as the article intimated, that they were loo naive to recognize them. This would be an insult to their intelligence and sensitivity. Perhaps the reporter has misinterpreted the natural exuberance and innovativeness of youth which is a gift to us all. I would like to stale again my hearty approval of the play and the process that created it. Beth Fulton RR 1, Belgrave. The Short of it By Bonnie Gropp When it was a game As every ball fan is only loo well aware, the baseball strike is still on and for those whom the boys of summer arc what the season's about, there's something missing. Fortunately, for parents of children who play baseball, it's not the only game going. There is always an alternative to the major leaguers, one that it might do the guys in the bigs, a world of good to come out and watch. This past weekend my youngest child's team participated in its playoff tournament. They went into the first game confident after finishing the regular play in second place. However, with a little help from some of the worst umpiring I've ever seen, they came away from the tournament with two losses to end what had been a good season. With not even a win to show for a summer's accumulation of cuts and bruises, for the extra practices or the miles logged, a bit of a dejected manner from our players could have been forgiven. Amazingly, as they gathered for their little celebration afterwards, there was no whining to be heard, just recognition for their accomplishments. Watching them play that day, I couldn't help thinking that this is baseball (with the exception of the rules and adult interference that seems to go hand in hand with organized sport). Though winning would certainly have been a nice touch, these kids still had a good time. They just went out and did what they could, and, like the guys who played back when it was a game and not a business, just for the love of it, Granted, major leaguers have it lough. A salary cap would mean they couldn't make $5 million a year. Free agency, they say, infringes on their rights to sell their talents to the highest bidder. Imagine having to play for a team that could only pay you $1 million. Wouldn't that just take the fun out of baseball? The veteran players will try to tell us that they arc doing this for the younger guys, but rookies like Toronto's Rob Butler would maybe appreciate the opportunity al this point to play every day. In a job where experience counts, being sidelined isn't a good thing. For a young player, who wants to contribute on a daily basis, how much moolah he may make after a few years of regular playing under his bell, is the least of his worries. Arc pitchers like Jimmy Key and David Cone, who were on track for the Cy Young Award, really more interested in the almighty dollar? They can argue it all they want, but to my - way of thinking the players and owners are taking the fun out of basball. When the strike is over, I'm sure, that like all the other fans, I’ll still be watching, but it will be with more of a cynical eye. Even Joe Carter came down a notch in my book, when he said the strike wasn't about gelling more money. If you’re going to be greedy al least be honest about it. There's a line in the movie Major League 2, that I thought said it all, when the rookie catcher points out to his disgruntled teammates that there are a lol of people who would like to be paid to play ball every day. So true. And there's probably a lol of young players who would step into their shoes and do ii for almost nothing. As a matter of fact, 1'11 bet there arc some who would probably pay for the chance.