Quotulatiousness

March 29, 2011

RAF has only 69 qualified pilots for Typhoon fighters?

Filed under: Africa, Britain, Military — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 11:44

I’m not sure how an organization which recently performed brilliantly in their bureaucratic and political struggle against their arch-enemies in the Royal Navy can also be this stupid:

Since the conflict began, a squadron of 18 RAF Typhoon pilots has enforced the Libya no-fly zone from an air base in southern Italy. However, a shortage of qualified fighter pilots means the RAF may not have enough to replace all of them when the squadron has to rotate in a few weeks.

The situation is so serious that the RAF has halted the teaching of trainee Typhoon pilots so instructors can be drafted on to the front line, according to air force sources. The handful of pilots used for air shows will also be withdrawn from displays this summer.

The RAF put in a merciless performance in the recent defence review negotiations, eliminating three two aircraft carriers and downing all of the remaining Harrier jets. Perhaps their emphasis on bureaucratic and political in-fighting meant they had no time or energy to train pilots for their shiny new aircraft?

The Government’s decision to decommission HMS Ark Royal, Harrier jump jets and the Nimrod reconnaissance aircraft — all of which could have played a role in the Libya conflict — has exacerbated the problem. Serving RAF pilots contacted The Daily Telegraph to warn of the risks to the Libya operation. “We have a declining pool of pilots,” one said. “There’s less people to do twice as much work. If we are not training any more we are going to run out of personnel very soon.”

[. . .]

Out of 69 qualified RAF Typhoon pilots, including instructors, 18 are in southern Italy flying missions over Libya. Of the rest, 24 are committed to the Quick Reaction Alert protecting Britain’s air space and six are in the Falklands in a similar role. A further six are being used to train Saudi Arabian air force pilots. That leaves only 15 to replace those currently based in Italy.

Because of the intensity of flying on operations, pilots deploy for a maximum of two months at a time and the replacements for those currently enforcing the no-fly zone in Libya will be expected to deploy at the end of next month.

Green technology breakthroughs

Filed under: Economics, Humour, Technology — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:09

Dilbert.com

The evolution of news to sensational entertainment is complete

Filed under: Health, Media, Technology — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:27

Andrew Orlowski gives the media a damn good whacking over their deliberate panic-mongering:

Sensationalism has always been part of the popular media — but Fukushima is a telling and troubling sign of how much the media has changed in fifty years: from an era of scientific optimism to one where it inhabits a world of fantasy — creating a real-time Hollywood disaster movie with a moralising, chivvying message.

Not so long ago, the professionals showed all the deferential, forelock-tugging paternalism of the dept of “Keep Calm And Carry On”. That era lasted into the 1960s. Now the driving force is the notion that “We’re all DOOMED — and it’s ALL OUR FAULT” that marks almost every news bulletin. Health and environment correspondents will rarely be found debunking the claims they receive in press releases from lobby groups — the drama of catastrophe is too alluring. Fukushima has been the big one.

The Fukushima situation has yet to cause any measurable radiological health effects, and workers at the site were far less hard hit by the quake, tsunami and related events than just about anyone in the disaster zone, but nonetheless the nuclear story rapidly eclipsed the tens of thousands killed directly by the quake. TV’s reaction to the crisis shows how at odds it is with a more rational audience, those who know something about radiation, its consequences, and the human body’s capacity to absorb it and recover from it. The crisis for the media is that thanks to the internet, we can now all bypass these conduits for superstition and stupidity.

Thousands of people died in the earthquake and tsunami (28,000 at last report), yet the media coverage has been unrelentingly focused on Fukushima (where there have been no radiation-linked deaths so far). Surely things like this are scary enough to get equal coverage:

H/T to wormme for the link.

Update: Brendan O’Neill finds a perfect example of journalism:

In a post on the Channel 4 News website, Jon Snow, newsreader, Twitterer, cyclist and “pinko liberal” (his words), unwittingly captures the narcissism and ignorance that are fuelling Western fears over the Fukushima nuclear plant. Never mind the 20,000 who have died and the 200,000 who have been made homeless as a result of the tsunami — what Snow wants to know is what will become of the “dumping of radioactive material in sea water off Japan”.

“When will it pitch up off Cornwall?,” he asks. “Never? Do we know? Will it cause cancers? Will it kill eventually?” Perhaps he has a holiday home in Cornwall, in which case he might possibly be forgiven for thinking that the burning issue of Japan’s monumental tragedy is what impact it will have in St Ives.

Snow’s attempt to justify his navel-gazing obsession with the troubles at Fukushima (apparently he can’t get it out of his mind) is telling. Media coverage of the damaged nuclear plant has understandably “overwhelmed the continuing awfulness of the consequences of the natural disaster itself”, he says, because the natural disaster is “somehow more determinable than the unseen, unknown quantity of danger residing in the reactors, or outside them, in Fukushima”. In short, the natural disaster is too much of a done deal, a proven fact, whereas something far more tantalising lurks within Fukushima: dark, mysterious dangers, uncertainties, swirling unknowns that could unleash their fury at any moment against the unsuspecting Japanese and even us Brits.

Amazon’s “Cloud Drive” announcement

Filed under: Media, Technology — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 08:17

Tired of moving your music from machine to machine? Feel constricted in your choices? Amazon.com thinks they’ve got an offering you won’t turn down:

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) today announced the launch of Amazon Cloud Drive (www.amazon.com/clouddrive), Amazon Cloud Player for Web (www.amazon.com/cloudplayer) and Amazon Cloud Player for Android (www.amazon.com/cloudplayerandroid). Together, these services enable customers to securely store music in the cloudand play it on any Android phone, Android tablet, Mac or PC, wherever they are. Customers can easily upload their music library to Amazon Cloud Drive and can save any new Amazon MP3 purchases directly to their Amazon Cloud Drive for free.

“We’re excited to take this leap forward in the digital experience,” said Bill Carr, vice president of Movies and Music at Amazon. “The launch of Cloud Drive, Cloud Player for Web and Cloud Player for Android eliminates the need for constant software updates as well as the use of thumb drives and cables to move and manage music.”

“Our customers have told us they don’t want to download music to their work computers or phones because they find it hard to move music around to different devices,” Carr said. “Now, whether at work, home, or on the go, customers can buy music from Amazon MP3, store it in the cloud and play it anywhere.”

Don’t get too excited, fellow Canadians: this is the .com company, not the .ca flavour. Since amazon.ca still can’t sell you MP3 tracks, I doubt that the Amazon Cloud will be available north of the border any time soon.

“Steampunk” industrial machinery

Filed under: History, Railways, Randomness, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:06

This is a set of Hulett ore unloaders in Cleveland in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s shortly before they were finally retired. You can readily see how the Victorian imagination could lend itself to monstrous walking engines, given the huge mechanical marvels to be seen working along the dockside.

H/T to Robert Netzlof for the link.

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