David Beaty (1)Critiques

England, flybasen North Luddenham, ca 1950
Indeholder "Prolog", "Bussen til Bibury", "Mellemspil", "Det camouflerede skib", "Mellemspil", "Gengældelse", "Mellemspil", "Ekko langs en øde startbane", "Epilog".
Group Captain Gavin Gallagher, har gjort karriere indenfor luftvåbnet og er blevet chef for raketbasen, hvor atombevæbnede Zeus-raketter er opstillet. En aften tager han fra basen og hjem til sin kone. De bor meget tæt på basen, men han kommer aldrig frem. Wing Commander Henderson er auditør og netop ankommet og får til opgave at finde ud af om det er en ulykke, en kidnapning eller om Gallagher er gået over til fjenden. En anden Wing Commander ved navn Bunting er ankommet på samme tid og har gået på samme college i Oxford som Gallagher. Henderson tænker at nøglen til Gallaghers forsvinden må ligge i hans fortid. Gallaghers overordnede, Air Marshal Sir John Ingleby, er chef for raketstyrkerne og er også blevet tilkaldt.

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This book is an interesting look into human errors in airline aviation (it does NOT look at GA). There are good things about this book, and there are some very bad things about this book.

The good things: the author has a very prescient look at important topics. The paperback copy of the book I read was published in 1995. The topics he discusses are relevant to many incidents that occurred after publication, which I'll include in parenthesis. He discusses how airline safety is not being taken seriously in light of terror attacks (9/11), how fatigue is an issue (Colgan Air Flight 3407), how aviation safety administrations are in the pocket of airlines (737-MAX8), improper maintenance (TWA Flight 800), and how the oligopoly of airlines after deregulation led to low costs but not better safety (Allegiant Airlines). Thankfully a lot of those issues have now gotten attention, but only after lives were lost. The oligopoly problem was bad in 1995 and worse now. I appreciated that the author mentions that "pilot error" is real, but that the pilot is usually only the last and most direct link in a chain of many errors that are usually not adequately addressed in safety reports.

The very bad things: extremely sexist and dated material. The author uses the male pronoun and the term Man exclusively. The author calls "stewardesses" girls on more than one occasion. Literally the entire basis of the author's discussion is how "Man's" primeval ape-brain is not suited toward flying. Evo-psych arguments do not curry any favor with me.

This book is aimed mainly for people working in airline industry or (like me) interested in how people make decisions (and errors). We get to know various reasons why so many incidents happen during last 60 years. Author points that what we at the end see often as pilot error is just iceberg tip of all small errors and mistakes made hours, days or events weeks before. While describing how complex it all can be, David Beaty also tries to analyze each step with great details. He backs up his claims by a lot of actual incidents and research from air engineering, design and psychology.

this book is a good read for all aspiring pilots and people involved in aviation industry. it gives a good insight into various accident investigations and examples of how one person or situation screw up the flight.
suggested reads similar to this: Controlling Pilot Error series of books

The Atlantic had proved a graveyard for many ships, and when the first butterfly craft began to fly it after the First World War, all the omens warned that it would swallow up planes as well. Nonetheless, the pioneers - Read, Alcock and Brown, Lindbergh, as well as many who gambled and lost - continued to pit themselves against the odds. David Beaty involves us not only in the drama of man against the elements but in the increasingly vehement struggle of man against man: the race to be first, the race to beat the ships, the race to run a commercial airline, the race to be fastest. Opening with a passenger in the mid-70's who is taking off in a jumbo jet, he unfolds the tapestry of what went before: the vision and blindness, the guesses, mistakes and waste, the political interference and technical advances, the personalities, the tragedies, the commitment and the successes.

Beaty flew bombers in WW II and this background comes out clearly in his descriptions of piloting a Blenheim Bomber, life on a WW II RAF base and war time conditions in England. The mixture of flying bombing missions and ghosts of airmen from WW I seemed to me a bit odd. One moment we are immersed in the war and then people are seeing and hearing strange dogs and airplanes that do not appear to exist. For me it was not a comfortable mix but then that could just me me.

The description of a pilot landing safely in a fog because a WW I DH4 led him in reminded me of C. S. Foresters short story, The Shepard.

As the subtitle indicates, this is a history of the development of flying over the Atlantic Ocean. While he covers the usual big names such as Alcock and Brown, Lindbergh, Earhart, Corrigan and Johnson, Beaty, a former WW II bomber pilot and a peacetime BOAC airline pilot, seems to name every individual who made or tried to make a. flight over the Atlantic Ocean. He has created a goldmine of information about flying the Atlantic in the early days up to chapters on how the airlines took passengers from the ocean liners and cargo from the ships.
He describes what it was like to ferry Hudsons and other military aircraft to England during the War. Expecting to lose up to 25% of the planes, the first flight of seven all arrive in England as did most of the flights which continued until 1945. This paved the way for the huge expansion of civilian flights after the War.
In the final chapter he describes the flight of Jumbo to New York in 1975 and how the navigation systems have changed over the years. Beaty is an expert in airline safety and pilot error and the author of The Human Factor in Aircraft Accidents.