politics » Taylor Empire Airways

Tag-Archive for » politics «

Passengers behaving badly: Hon. Helena Guergis, PC, MP

Mar
2010

Helen Guergis (right), Minister of state for Status of Women, stands beside Lisa Raitt, Minister of Natural Resources, as they take part in a Walk For The Cure event on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Sept. 17, 2009. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)

On February 19th, junior minister Helena Guergis lost her cool after she arrived late for her flight, and was directed through the usual gamut of security screenings. She proceeded to throw a tantrum, treating security screeners and airline personnel in an abrasive manner that would have had her barred from the flight, if she were anything other than a Minister of the Crown. The details were unveiled in an anonymous fax sent to Prince Edward Island MP Wayne Easter (Liberal-Malpeque).

(I apologise in advance for quoting its entirety, but the letter ought to be read to be fully grasped. No media account I have seen thus far manages to convey all of the details as soberly as the original author does.)

On February 19th at the Charlottetown Airport, Air Canada Jazz staff was informed via telephone that a certain “V.I.P.” would be late arriving for Air Canada Flight #7677 to Montreal. The flight was scheduled to be in the air at 1725hrs with a flight load of thirty two passengers.

At 1720 hrs thirty of the thirty two passengers had already boarded the plane. The two remaining passengers, Conservative MP and Minister of State for the Status of Women Hon. Helena Guergis and her aide Emily Goucher were at the Air Canada counter being so difficult and rude to Air Canada representative Alan Bagley that he almost refused to allow them to board to spite their “V.I.P.” status. They berated him loudly and treated him in a most condescending manner after he told them some of their excessive bags were too large to be carry-on and should be checked. At one point the Hon. Helena Guergis told Mr. Bagley that she “….knew Ron McKinley”. Apparently she wasn’t aware that as Minister of Transportation Mr. McKinley was not in charge of carry-on baggage, more’s the pity.

At 1720 hrs. inside the preboard screening area, five minutes before the time when the flight was scheduled to be in the air, Air Canada representative Sonja MacMillan paged both Hon. Helena Guergis and Ms. Goucher over the P.A. and after having waited considerably for them already, proceeded to the aircraft with her paperwork.

At 1725 hrs., flight time, Hon. Helena Guergis and Ms. Goucher started into the preboard area to be screened by the security staff. When asked to remove her overcoat she compiled, but refused to remove her blazer, and when informed that her footwear might set off the walk through metal detector, she refused to remove them as well. After proceeding through the metal detector, she alarmed it and was screened by Screening Officer Melissa Murnaghan. She was asked to sit down and remove her footwear at this point due to the fact that they had caused the alarm. At this point the Hon. Helena Guergis took a seat and huffily started to remove her footwear, upon their removal she slammed her boots into the bin provided by Ms. Murnaghan and then the Minister of State for the Status of Women said to Ms. Murnaghan, a single mother working to support herself and her son, “Happy Fucking Birthday to me! I guess I’m stuck on this hell hole!” Ms. Murnaghan, in a credit to her professionalism, did not reply to this comment, nor did the other screening staff on duty; Donald Wood, John Birt, Andrew MacEwan, Wanda Chinery, or Andrew Williams. Ms. Murnaghan then put the footwear through the X-ray machine.

As the footwear cleared the X-ray conveyor, Hon. Helena Guergis then shouted at her aide Ms. Goucher to “Get those for me! I’m not walking around here in sock feet!.”

Having then cleared mandatory security screening without further incident, and having been handed her boots by her personal servant Ms. Goucher, Hon. Helena Guergis then attempted to force open the locked door that separates the preboard seating area from the apron, upon which Air Canada flight #7677 continued to wait. Screening Officer MacEwan, closest to her, informed her that the door was indeed locked and that she would have to wait for the Air Canada representative (Sonja MacMillan) to return. Hon. Helena Guergis then shouted across preboard to Mr. MacEwan “Well, can’t you call her or something!?” Mr. MacEwan replied that no, he had no way of contacting the Air Canada representative while she was airside and that she would have to wait. He also told her that passengers were normally requested to be at the airport at least two hours before flight time. The Hon. Helena Guergis then shouted back across preboard to Mr. MacEwan “I don’t need to be lectured about flight time by you! I’ve been down here working my ass off for you people.” Taken aback by this unnecessarily venomous response, Mr. MacEwan decided to end the conversation on his part.

Hon. Helena Guergis and her aide Ms. Goucher then decided that the best course of action would be to go to the eastern end of the preboard screening area and attempt to get Ms. MacMillan’s attention by screaming and hammering on the sound proof tinted glass that separates preboard from airside.

At this point, Sonja MacMillan returned from the plane, and being unaware of the commotion caused by the Hon. Helena Guergis and her aide Ms. Goucher, she processed them without further incident and allowed them to board Air Canada Flight #7677 to Montreal. As they were being processed and allowed to board, Air Canada representative Alan Bagley entered preboard to see what the yelling he had heard way out at the counter was about. Screening Officer Andrew Williams, during a security sweep of preboard, discovered two passports and tickets belonging to Ms. Goucher and Hon. Helena Guergis and gave them to Mr. Bagley who then returned them to Ms. Goucher and the Hon. Helena Guergis as they were finally headed towards their flight.

It is most unlikely anyone involved in this incident will be able to give statements or interviews “on the record”.

Due to the likely termination of current employment; Anonymous

– Anonymous letter to MP Wayne Easter. Attached to report by O’Malley, Kady. “Helena Guergis’s Adventures on Prince Edward Island.” CBC News, 25 February 2010.

Mrs. Guergis has since realised what poison this is for her reputation, and apologised to Air Canada staff in particular and the people of PEI in general. Take note that in her apology and public statements, she has not contested the details of the account. Opposition MPs and assorted outraged citizens are calling upon Mrs. Guergis to resign, while the Prime Minister has said that he is satisfied with her apology, and that ends the matter. Knowing the Prime Minister, however, I am sure the matter is not ended; he remembers it when people fail spectacularly—hello, Maxime Bernier! No doubt the PM will recall this incident at the next Cabinet shuffle, and out will go Mrs. Guergis.

I’m not particularly upset over her behaviour unbecoming a minister, as it is a role with almost no substance whatsoever. Before being granted the “Minister” nomenclature, it was known as Secretary of State (Status of Women), and the office-holder was in essence a glorified Parliamentary Secretary—neither sitting in Cabinet nor being a member of the Cabinet’s real centre of gravity, the far more influential Treasury Board. This so-called “junior minister” portfolio carries with it the whopping bureaucracy of three staff, and no executive authority beyond that of a normal MP. And as we have seen, it doesn’t even exempt one from having to go through the same meaningless security theatre as the plebs.

I understand that people will lose their cool every now and then; this is human nature. But neither do I condone an absence of consequences. If the Hon. Helena Guergis were an ordinary citizen, she would have been bounced from her flight, possibly detained by airport security, and (if they had any sense at all) informed by Air Canada that her business was no longer welcome, and they would be refusing any subsequent bookings by her. Alas, the time for the first has passed, although there may still be time to file petty charges and have the airline declare her persona non grata.

If I were the Prime Minister, however, I would make it clear that Mrs. Guergis would indeed keep her job, but since she could not be relied upon to conduct herself appropriately at an airport, she must be relieved of the burden of going through airport security screening. For the remainder of the government’s term of office, therefore, she would be placed on Transport Canada’s Specified Persons List and prohibited from setting foot aboard any kind of aircraft, civil or military. In order to travel to her engagements, Mrs. Guergis could enjoy the leisurely pace of the railroad or—to go where the rails do not—Greyhound bus.

I’m sure my approval rating would skyrocket overnight.

But alas, I cannot think of any Prime Minister of the Dominion who would ever have the guts to do it.

Slow down and think it through

by Chris Taylor

Mar
2010

Former vice-presidential hopeful Sarah Palin is being pilloried for an admission that her family crossed the border to obtain Canadian health care—a system she previously said should be dismantled.

“My first five years of life we spent in Skagway, Alaska, right there by Whitehorse,” Palin said during a speech in Calgary on Saturday. “Believe it or not — this was in the ‘60s — we used to hustle on over the border for health care that we would receive in Whitehorse. I remember my brother, he burned his ankle in some little kid accident thing and my parents had to put him on a train and rush him over to Whitehorse and I think, isn’t that kind of ironic now. Zooming over the border, getting health care from Canada.”

– Canwest News Service (with files from Jason Markusoff). “Sarah Palin’s Canadian health care link has critics sick.” Calgary Herald, 8 March 2010. [Emphasis mine]

Some excitable journalists and commentators are trying to insinuate the stink of hypocrisy and covering the story like it’s a giant contradiction, but what it really tells us is that they have no deductive reasoning capability whatsoever. I am no Palin apologist (my impression is that she is an earnest but incompetent politican, like Stephane Dion or John Tory), but surely the woman can not be called a hypocrite for an act she could not have influenced in any way, shape or form.

Let the record show that Sarah Louise Palin (née Heath) was born in 1964. At the end of the 1960s she would be five years old. Hands up, everyone who had the authority to select a sibling’s trauma treatment facility (in lieu of their parents doing so) at the age of five. If you are guessing that Mom or Dad Heath was responsible for sending her brother to Whitehorse for treatment, you’re correct. Now, hands up everyone whose parents made a decision in your formative years that you now, as an adult, find disagreeable.

Canada’s publicly-funded health care system was initiated by some provinces in 1961, but key federal legislation (the Canada Assistance Plan, 1966, and the Medical Care Act, 1966) did not come into force until 1968 (see timeline). Yukon Territory set up a hospital insurance plan with federal cost sharing in 1961, and a more general medical insurance plan with federal cost-sharing in 1972.

It will not surprise you to learn that in that time, non-Canadians were not eligible for our publicly-funded health insurance, so the American Heath family would have paid for any medical services that were provided.

Palin’s father said his family probably boarded the train for the Whitehorse hospital only twice — once when a daughter had rheumatic fever, and once when his son, also named Chuck, severely burned his leg and an infection set in.

“We much preferred to use our facilities because my insurance didn’t cover anything in Whitehorse. And even though they have socialized medicine, I still had to pay the bill, being an American citizen,” Heath said.

Heath worked part-time for the White Pass & Yukon Railroad and had a pass allowing him and his family to ride for free.

– Markusoff, Jason. “Sarah Palin heads north. Er, south. Er, to Calgary.” Calgary Herald, 7 March 2010.

If you want to drag Mrs. Palin over the coals about why the details of this story are eerily similar to another one told previously (where her brother burned his foot and went to Juneau, Alaska for treatment), you may have firmer ground to stand on. It’s okay to dislike a pandering politician; I dislike lots of them. But hypocrisy? Please. Palin was a five-year-old girl, at best, not the parent who decided where their children got treatment. If there’s a contradiction here, it’s why a non-story is garnering so much breathless media attention.

Eastern Health for thee, but not for me

by Chris Taylor

Feb
2010

Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams has administered a self-inflicted wound by jetting to the US for heart surgery and offering no explanation as to why the procedure couldn’t be done by cardiac surgeons in his own jurisdiction.

Giving the premier the benefit of the doubt, perhaps there is some procedure available down south that surgeons in Newfoundland and Labrador can’t yet offer. If that were the case, the smart thing to do would be to have offered up such an explanation immediately, well in advance of departure. It would disarm the critics before they had a chance to reach the high dudgeon setting.

Otherwise, one could posit—as the nurses in this 2008 article did, presciently—that the premier has chosen one health care system for himself, and another slightly less capable health care system for the residents of his province.

No politician of Mr. Williams’ experience could possibly want to send that message, and the shame of it is that it could have been so easily avoided.

Recent climate change in perspective

by Chris Taylor

Dec
2009

Much as people who advocate multiculturalism do so because they neither know anything about nor care to learn anything about cultural difference, the people who are most strident about anthropogenic climate change neither know nothing about nor care to learn anything about climate science. “Caring” they can manage; the work of learning, not so much.

– “Settled science.” Ghost of a Flea, 14 December 2009.

The Flea’s post links to another site’s video, which is itself a compilation of graphs by Anthony Watt (of Watts Up With That?), created from Greenland ice core data collected by NOAA in 2000. Here is an animated GIF showing the crux of the matter.

Click on the image to see a higher-resolution version of the GIF, if desired.

This is why climate science needs more hard science, and less agenda-tinged argumentation from authority.

The value of Canadian citizenship

by Chris Taylor

Aug
2009

The tale of Suaad Hagi Mohamud is an astonishing one. The 31-year-old Canadian, originally from Somalia, was arrested at the airport in Nairobi, Kenya as she attempted to board a flight home on May 21st. Security officials at the airport, however, insisted that her lips did not match those of her 3-year-old passport photo. Suprisingly the Canadian High Commission to Kenya agreed, declaring her an impostor. The government voided her passport, and then sent it to Kenyan law enforcement officials so that they could prosecute her for her crime.

But as the results of last week’s DNA tests now indicate, she is who she claims to be. And we must now ask ourselves how is it that an ordinary Canadian citizen can be defrauded of her citizenship on the word of a foreign official; disavowed by her government, who ought to have come to her aid; and left to rot in a foreign city. There is nothing exceptional about Suaad Hagi Mohamud’s case that would preclude it from happening to you or I or any other Canadian citizen. All it takes is a picky airport screener and an unmotivated Canadian consulate.

Kateland at The Last Exile has an excellent post on the subject, and summarises what ought to be the next steps admirably:

It is long past the time to bring her home and commence a through house cleaning of the Canadian High Commission in Kenya as well as at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. An investigation must be immediately launched to determine whether Canadian consulate staff actively collaborated with the Kenyan authorities to shakedown and defraud a Canadian citizen of her citizenship.

Regardless of the outcome the investigation, the Canadian Kenyan ambassador should be immediately recalled and summarily fired for failing to adequately supervise the staff as well as carrying out what should be the first duty of any representative of the Canadian government – protecting the welfare of her citizens – all her citizens. Blame multiculturalism all you want, but from where I sit, the biggest devaluation of Canadian citizenship lies in the failure of the Canadian government to value and honour Canadian citizenship.

Exactly right.

UPDATE: Looks like Mohamud was caught in a shakedown racket. This is why the High Commission needs to be aired out.

In a telephone interview from Nairobi yesterday, Mohamud gave further details of the event that started her ordeal when she tried to board a KLM flight home on May 21 after a three-week visit to Kenya.

A Kenyan KLM employee stopped her. “He told me he could make me miss my flight,” she said of the KLM worker, who suggested Mohamud didn’t look like her passport photo.

He seemed to be soliciting a bribe, she said, an experience Somali-born Torontonians say is commonplace for them at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.

When she didn’t pay, a Kenyan immigration official arrested her. Canadian consular officials went along, returning Mohamud to the Kenyans, who threw her in jail on charges of entering Kenya illegally on a passport not her own.

– Marlow, Iain, Allan Woods and John Goddard. ”Harper says ‘first priority’ to get Mohamud home.” Toronto Star, 13 August 2009.

The Conservative Progressive Party

by Chris Taylor

Aug
2009

Whose policies remain the same as they were 48 years ago.

The National Post’s Kelly McParland offers five very reasonable steps to save the NDP. Unfortunately they will all be ignored, because Mr. McParland forgets that for the membership, these are not mere party policies. They are a philosophy; a way of viewing the world. If the membership actually believed in the things McParland recommends, they would already have joined the Liberals or Conservatives two or three decades ago. So the retooling of the party will amount to a name change and not much else.

The NDP lobbies for former union boss Perley Holmes, convicted of drug trafficking in the United States in 2007, to serve the remainder of his sentence at home. They conveniently leave out the organised crime connection which put Mr. Holmes in a position to move 136 pounds of coccaine at a time. Wife, children and elderly mom back in B.C. cry brave tears and claim it’s hard having Dad so far away. No kidding. Perhaps he should have considered the possibility of going to jail in a foreign country before he tried to export drugs from it. Maybe it’s also worth considering what 100 pounds of coke would do to your neighbourhood before getting all verklempt for this fella.

Policy by other means

by Chris Taylor

May
2009

Generally speaking I don't have a whole lot of confidence in the United States Congress. When its senators and representatives raise their heads out of the trough from time to time, it is often to procure ever more dollars and pork for their particular districts, and not at all about the welfare of the country or the surety of those sworn to defend it. I feel the members could use a little discipline in the form of term
limits, and no small amount of solemn reflection on the needs of the country before
ladling out dollars.

So I am pleasantly surprised that various members of the House Armed Servcies Committee (Air-Land Forces subcommittee) are waking up to the fact that the various budget assumptions and constraints of 2010 are, in fact, going to force major policy revisions onto the United States. Simply because it will no longer be able to do all of the things it is used to doing, and in some cases, will not have sufficient density of assets to continue doing.

Frustration Central: It's become clear that lawmakers are becoming increasingly irate that Defense Secretary Robert Gates has issued a budget proposal with striking force structure changes across the board, but particularly for the Air Force, without providing evidence of studied analysis and review. At one point last week at the House Armed Services air-land forces panel hearing on Air Force modernization, chairman Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) declared that the 2010 defense budget has "serious policy implications" for future force structure and yet the "request did not include any information or data regarding plans, programs, or budgets for Fiscal Year 2011 and beyond." Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.), ranking member of the panel, suggested, "It appears to me that in many cases, funding limitations in the FY 2010 budget topline were the sole driver in major policy decisions." Abercrombie noted the "significant changes" to Air Force modernization programs. He and other lawmakers expressed concern about decisions that arbitrarily ends F-22 production, that bank much of the nation's tactical air capability on an unproven F-35, that shed some 250 legacy fighters earlier than anticipated and without Congressional consultation, that cancel the combat search and rescue helicopter replacement program, and that undercuts the Joint Cargo Aircraft program. Bartlett asserted: "We can't see the strategy. We can't see the assumptions. We can't see the plan for the out years." Rep. Eric Massa (D-N.Y.) went further, describing that hearing and others as "a series of testimonies that can only lightly be described as incredible Pentagon double talk."

"Daily Report", Air Force magazine, May 26th, 2009.

Particularly heartening is the fact that all of the quoted criticisms are from Democrat committee members; indicative of a seriousness that some would call lacking in their executive branch counterparts.

Perhaps the members of the Congress are good for something other than funnelling pork to their districts, after all.

Pelosi and the Air Force

by Chris Taylor

May
2009

When I first read a Judicial Watch post about Speaker Pelosi's extravagant use of government aircraft, I thought "oh boy, this ought to be good." Overbooking aircraft, incurring extra costs through last-minute cancellations, trying to include family members on CODEL (congressional delegation) travel in war zones, petulant staff expressing outrage that a preferred aircraft was not available, demanding a military escort on flights home…

"Taken together, these documents show that Speaker Pelosi treats the Air Force like her personal airline," said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. "Not only does Speaker Pelosi issue unreasonable requests for military travel, but her office seems unconcerned about wasting taxpayer money with last minute cancellations and other demands."

Except that she doesn't. Like so many media stories, when you peel back the layers and look at the actual documents, the truth is far less outrageous than the headline. Her staff's emails are never threatening or pouty, just polite and professional. When their assumptions are incorrect, they are cheerfully corrected by OSD LA's military assistant. All very ordinary and above-board.

Pelosi's use of Air Force aircraft for travel to her home district is also comparable to that of Republican former Speaker Dennis Hastert. If you look at the dates of travel, Hastert used to return home to Aurora, Illinois once or twice a month (accompanied, according to protocol, by a military escort), and Pelosi's usage is about the same frequency. So she's not exactly burning up airframe hours in the fleet.

As for griping about the non-availability of a specific aircraft, that is covered by an e-mail revelation (on page 13 of 137) from the OSD LA military assistant to Pelosi's former national security advisor, Mike Sheehy:

Mike, the typical flight time to San Francisco is 5+45 this time of year [January 2007]. Given the varying aircraft capabilities and conditions, the following refueling guidelines would come into play:

-The C-32 (Boeing 757) has a max itinerary time of 8+00 and can make it non-stop both ways.
-The C-40B (Boeing 737) has a max itinerary time of 10+30 and can make it non-stop both ways.
-The C-37 (Gulfstream V) has a max itinerary time of 11+30 and can make it non-stop both ways.
-The C-20 (Gulfstream III) has a max itinerary time of 5+30 (so this would need to stop for fuel heading west — depending on the winds). Travelling east, it should be able to make it back without fuel.
-The Guard C-30 [actually C-38] (Westwind Astra) has a max itinerary time of 4+30 (so this would have to stop for fuel).

For this weekend, the forecast is that winds heading to the west coast are very strong, thus likely forcing the C20B to stop for fuel tomorrow (generally, in the winter, the winds may prevent the C20B from making it nonstop to the west).

The mission planners will always provide you the best guidance on how to execute a specific trip.

[emphasis and links are mine, not included in original e-mail]

Those of you familiar with the various ranges and endurance of the civilian models of these aircraft will no doubt be shaking your heads. Even the Air Force's own Fact Sheets clearly indicate that the C-20B has an range of 3,698nm, and San Francisco is a mere 2131nm, or 4+16 flight time, at its maximum speed of 500kts. That should leave 1+14 flight time, might be enough to make up for strong headwinds.

Yes, if you were going to fly the aircraft to the absolute limit of its range and ignore all of the flight safety fuel planning requirements and regulations.

The reality is that these manufacturer-provided figures are a pipe dream to help sell the aircraft to potential buyers. They estimate the aircraft's best range under the most ideal conditions, which rarely—if ever—occur in the real world. For example, the manufacturer-derived Wikipedia specs for the CF-18 state its maximum ceiling as 50,000 feet, and that its climb rate is an astounding 50,000 feet per minute. I guarantee you no CF-18 has ever flown from sea level to 50,000 feet in 60 seconds. The world-record-setting Streak Eagle (an F-15A stripped of radar, weapons and even paint) made it to 40,000ft in just 55 seconds, back in 1975. And the F-15 has a much better thrust-to-weight ratio than the CF-18, despite being 5,000 pounds heavier. So there is no chance at all that the manufacturer's CF-18 climb specs are pragmatically close to real-world performance, and that is generally true of the max range figures for all aircraft. The next time you read some, remember that those figures are followed by a mental "bullshit", and then continue reading.

Also, contrary to everything Hollywood has ever shown us, the military version of any commercial jet is going to have lesser unrefueled range and endurance than the commercial model. The reason is simple. Military aircraft are going to have a higher empty weight (zero fuel weight or ZFW), which reduces the amount of fuel that they can carry, because the aircraft's maximum takeoff weight (MTOW) will not change. It cannot change, unless you also change the amount of lift generated by the wings, sometimes via increasing the thrust produced by the powerplants—either case would require reinforcing the structural elements, which (surprise, surprise) increases weight again. This is something that frequently eludes Hollywood screenwriters, but the laws of physics are not so easily bamboozled.

Why will military aircraft weigh more than their civil counterparts? That's easy. They will carry more sensors and secure communications gear. Their avionics and critical systems may have have to be hardened against ECM or EMP effects. They may carry countermeasures like chaff and flare dispensers, or (more recently) DIRCM. All of that gear takes up valuable payload weight that could otherwise be devoted to fuel, pax or cargo. Then there's the fuel planning itself.

Fuel planning for any trip should take into account, at bare minimum, the following:

Taxi Fuel: The amount of fuel needed for startup, taxiing to and possible holding at the runway. This fuel is also used for the ground operations when on the ramp (APU, air conditioning, etc). Taxi fuel differs per field (obviously) and is based on statistics collected by the operator.

Trip Fuel: The amount of fuel needed for take-off; flying the standard instrument departure (SID); climbing to the TOC (top of climb), including any step climbs if required; cruising from TOC to TOD (top of descent), from TOD to the IAF (initial approach fix), usually via a standard terminal arrival (STAR); and the flight segment from the IAF up to and including the landing. Trip fuel is usually based on calculations and tables provided by the manufacturer, supplemented by additional weather estimates and calculations made by base ops.

Contingency Reserve: Contingency being an unexpected event during the flight, such as more headwind, slight deviation to avoid weather, delaying vectors from ATC, etc. Contingency fuel is calculated one of several ways, but most often as 5% of the trip fuel; or where an enroute alternate is available, 3% of trip fuel.

Alternate Reserve: The amount of fuel required to fly a missed approach at the Destination; and then fly to the Alternate (including all climb, cruise, descent, approach and landing). Alternate fuel calculations are the same as for Trip Fuel, but are not included when calculating Contingency Fuel.

Final Reserve: The amount of fuel required for a jet/turboprop to hold for 30 minutes, or for a piston-engined aircraft to hold for 45 minutes, at 1500 fet AGL under normal meteorological conditions. The inclusion of this fuel reserve is a mandatory requirement for all flights. In the unlikely event that you burn through all of your contingency fuel, have to fly a missed approach at destination, and head off to your alternate, and find delays at your alternate, the Final Reserve will ensure that your flight does not end in a fuel starvation disaster shown on the 11 o'clock news. If you do find yourself dipping into Final Reserve, you should be notifying ATC via the handy "Mayday" phrase, and declaring a fuel emergency.

Additional Fuel: There are two cases where Contingency, Alternate and Final Reserves are not enough. First, if there is no alternate—as may be the case if your destination is a tiny island thousands of miles from land. Second, if there is no enroute alternate and for whatever reason you need to decrease altitude (engine failure, cabin pressurisation failure). Decreased altitude means increased fuel flow, naturally. Additional fuel should permit you to hold for 15 minutes at 1500 AGL.

So for example if you have a Gulfstream III with a manufacturer's estimated endurance of about 7+0 flight time, you will likely end up losing an hour and change just to contingency, alternate and final reserve fuel. And then you will lose more due to weather (headwinds), plus the heavier ZFW of a militarised commercial design. That makes 5+30 seem pretty reasonable.

When you combine all of these factors—the manufacturer's "ideal conditions" range being somewhat out of whack; a militarised commercial jet having heavier ZFW than its civil counterparts, reducing range and endurance; the further reduction in range and endurance required by safe and responsible fuel planning; and the aircraft's MTOW (whether that weight is avionics, pax, baggage, fuel, or whatever) being a fixed, non-negotiable figure—it's not hard to see why the C-20Bs can't always fly transcontinental nonstop. And why the Speaker's staff might, rather sensibly, desire to see a longer-ranged C-37 be used instead.

So at the end of the day, what we are left with is a bunch of memos that purport to tell lurid tales of the overbearing Speaker and her put-upon Air Force charioteers, but ultimately fail to satisfy the allegations.

Oh well.

I suppose hoping for a smidgen of aviation knowledge from a site called "Judicial Watch" was misguided at best. One hopes they are much more accurate when it comes to matters of law.

All the Canadian news that’s fit to mock

by Chris Taylor

May
2009

Some thoughts for the long weekend:

The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney says there's nothing 'sinister' about accepting cash-stuffed envelopes. In hotel rooms. Three times. Fine. There's nothing particularly above-board and transparent about it, either. Next time, insist on cheques delivered via ordinary courier. When I was a young lad in the late '80s I bought a 500MB SCSI drive from a friend on a bulletin board system (BBS, the precursor to today's online communities). At that time, drives of that size (and in that bus type) cost about $1,500. The seller wanted cash. So I went to the bank downtown, withdrew 1500 bucks in cash, and then took the subway to someplace west. I met the seller at the subway station, and we traded the envelope of cash for a bag with the expensive hardware. We parted with few words and boarded our respective trains back to points of origin. It was all perfectly legit, but it felt like a drug deal. Mainly because the exchange method would have been the same. Sometimes optics count.

The Toronto media savaged Dancap Productions' latest effort, Anne of Green Gables: The Musical. I don't think I have ever been prouder to be a Torontonian. Maybe the problem isn't so much the particular cast, staging or direction, but the fact that Anne Shirley never really goes away. She is kind of like Godzilla to Tokyo, but a Godzilla that refuses to go back into the sea after her rampages. She just kind of hangs around in one form or another (stage, television or screen) and keeps doing the same schtick over and over again. If you passed Godzilla on the Gardiner Expressway every morning, pretty soon he'd stop being an unsual and terrifying presence, and would become just another thing to hang ad billboards and condos off of. Give us something new, then. Anne Shirley in The Canadian Caper. Or Anne vs. Predator vs. Alien. Anne joins the Navy and goes to the Gulf of Aden to cave in pirate heads. Anne flies CF-18s and intercepts Russian bombers over Nunavut. Why can't she be like Tintin and go all around the world and have unlikely but hilarious adventures. Get off the island once in a while. If we had a real culture industry we would find new ways to interpret traditional stories and heroes. I'm tired of getting the same crap shovelled at us year after year.

The CRTC has delayed the "one for one" rule, which would require Canadian broadcaster to bore us to death even more quickly than they do now. Does anyone else find it hilarious that in the 21st century, with the worldwide media at our fingertips, our regulatory bodies are getting more and more desperate to force us to watch stuff we stay away from in droves? It reminds me of how commercials used to be broadcast at the same volume as the program they were aired in, but then broadcasters realised people were tuning them out, so they cranked up the volume. Geezus. If you watch television in Australia, New Zealand and other English-speaking places, you will find that they are not overrun by American content. Probably because they actually have a distinct culture that drives enough local demand without an enormous, burdensome regulatory bureaucracy. And they aren't doing it with billions of dollars to match American production values. The problem for Canada isn't that there's an enormous glut of cheap American stuff ready-made next door. It's that Canadian content generally doesn't tell interesting stories Canadian audiences want to see. If you talk to people in the industry, they behave as if it is the audience's fault for not tuning in. News flash: if an audience finds a performance boring, it's not the fault of the audience. The audience already has a job, that's how they pay to see the performers. The performer's job, on the other hand, is generating and keeping an audience. If they can't do that, maybe they should start thinking about a fallback career.

Deconstructing influence

by Chris Taylor

May
2009

Two things I have been wondering about lately.

First, New Zealand's role in ANZUS. Back in 1985, the NZ Labour Party barred nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed vessels from making ports of call, effectively shutting out the US Navy. In 2001, another NZ Labour government disbanded the RZNAF's air-to-air and strike squadrons, leaving it without any effective airborne defence. Now that Australia's Labour government has pragmatically planned for a future with powerful Chinese neighbours and a much-diminished US military presence, one wonders whether New Zealand will similarly re-evaluate its defence requirements.

Second, a witty line from Instapundit: "If Obama were trying to wreck America as a superpower, what would he be doing differently?"

I think it's fair to pin the US's erratic diplomacy and slipshod treatment of natural allies on the President and his administration. As well as defunding of various nuclear modernisation efforts that are supported by the SecDef. But Gates (and his predecessors) have long been the architects of a slow bleeding of conventional US forces, whether by act or omission. That would likely be the case even if John McCain had won the election. It's certainly not something that is unique to this admnistration.

Taylor Empire Airways

Tag-Archive for » politics «

Passengers behaving badly: Hon. Helena Guergis, PC, MP

See also:

Slow down and think it through

See also:

Eastern Health for thee, but not for me

See also:

Recent climate change in perspective

See also:

The value of Canadian citizenship

See also:

The Conservative Progressive Party

See also:

Policy by other means

See also:

Pelosi and the Air Force

See also:

All the Canadian news that’s fit to mock

See also:

Deconstructing influence

See also:

Recent Dispatches

Passenger Remarks

Categories

Tag cloud

Your Crew

Radio Telegraphy

Weather YYZ malton apt

Weather YTZ pt. george vi

Ground Stations

Available Streams 10

T&C Images (Flickr)