Re: after the next accident...

in article d51kb2p5siplgbqa1f4pmr6gcfdsog1pdb@xxxxxxx, Fred J. McCall at
fmccall@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote on 7/16/06 2:20 AM:

George Evans <georgee3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

:in article mlc7b21n2gf1dljiuh49qmj8f6errt9v1b@xxxxxxx, Fred J. McCall at
:fmccall@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote on 7/11/06 7:21 AM:
:
:> George Evans <georgee3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
:
:> :Ask an engineer if a system failure means that the decision to fly was
:> :wrong. I'm guessing most would think the answer is obviously yes. But I
:> :don't think that's the best answer.
:>
:> Neither do I (and I don't need to ask an engineer). Getting a failure
:> doesn't mean that making the attempt was wrong. It may just mean that
:> the odds crapped on you that day. Now if you go back and do a root
:> cause analysis on the failure and find that the fault was one you
:> hadn't considered or it was one that you grossly misestimated the odds
:> of occurrence on then you arrive at "the decision to fly MAY have been
:> wrong".
:
:Why would the decision be wrong even then?

Because you made it based on bad information and one makes these
decisions based on a level of acceptable risk. If you underestimate
the risk in the course of making the decision, that decision may well
be 'wrong'.

:Is the role of test flying that
:unimportant?

I won't even hazard a guess as to what you think you're asking here.

I'm questioning your willingness to participate in the destructive process
of second guessing. At some point you have to put the pencil down and see
what happens. If you find out you misunderestimated something then the test
has netted you some information. You seen to be thinking that a perfect
engineer can predict perfectly, barring luck, which I don't think engineers
believe in; in which case test flights are unnecessary. We just need to find
perfect engineers.

Contrarily, I think the hypothetical decision to go fly was not wrong even
if you find out a failure was due to a faulty analysis as long as your
actions were in good faith, i.e. you didn't know the analysis was faulty
before flight.

George Evans

.

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