Відео

Wow, great stuff!

Two-handed backhand is brutalist

Thanks - very informative

such a great squash!

Nice final - fun to watch!

hardball?

A few times I’ve heard “Jinro” Burns quote “Pepper” McCoy with “What makes the best aviators? BFM and Low Levels.” I’ve never heard Pepper say this myself though it sounds like something he’d say. BFM is Basic Fighter Maneuvers aka “dogfighting.” The saying makes sense as in these two activities, you truly maximize performance of your aircraft. If you can do these, you can do any other task to which you may be expected to fly. I think of this as I think about as a sometimes recurring move within the Training Commands to reduce Dive Bombing in the syllabus with ambition to delete Manual Dive Bombing completely. I find such moves rather short sighted. Yes, those seeking to do such are correct that Manual Dive Bombing is something we will never do again in real combat scenarios. But they mistake Flight Training as an Ordered activity. They think they can manufacture a plan to a set of goals for what the aviator should be and what skills should be had. Yet they fail to realize their planned syllabus is actually an evolution from preceding syllabi. They also fail to realize skills good for one task often develop during other tasks. Manual Dive Bombing is a dynamic environment which forces dynamic thinking. One must assess and adjust at pace. It is a multi-variable trade space with a time constraint. It also forces more inside outside scanning while working rapid trades in kinetic and potential energy while it also forces more lookout both in width of scan and in scan up and down as one looks for target as well as the other aircraft around the target. Simply put, Manual Dive Bombing makes for better flying of approaches and landings. This is especially true for those landing on boats. Complexity is at play. Yet those overseeing the training think it is ordered. A similar story arises with “Road Recce.” Speaking of Jinro, if you can find his piece regarding The Rendezvous, it is fantastic. As is his Tactical Formation primer.

I’ve an observation to share with you regarding Close Air Support (CAS). Close Air Support is an attack activity in which strike aircraft bomb in close proximity to friendly troops. As such it is fairly high risk for accidental “fratricide” and to help alleviate this, the attacking aircraft no longer owns its own weapons release. Instead a Forward Air Controller (FAC) working with the ground troops owns the release. The FAC has to verbally state over the radio “Cleared Hot” to the attacking aircraft for each release run. My observation is that in training, more complicated and more dynamic dive deliveries result in fewer inadvertent releases than do straight and level GPS or laser guided weapon releases. This is to say the more complicated and more dynamic events tend to have less violations of the most important safety rule in the CAS situation. For the Instrument Flyers, consider the discussion for non-precision approaches and Constant Descent Final Approach (CDFA) versus “Dive-and Drive.” They’ll argue constant descent is safer as it is stable. They’ll point to the resonantly though inaccurately named “dive-and-drive” as unsafe and unstable. They’ll convince you of this through Kahneman-esque System 1 understanding in which the argument sounds smooth hence never engages a more skeptical and questioning System 2. “Dive-and-Drive” sounds pleasing to the ear so we accept the name which in turn means we accept the image of Diving which we see as unstable.* Yet you don’t dive-and-drive, you Descent-and-Drive as you’re trimmed to an AOA (or airspeed in lieu of). A Dive, the opposite of Zoom, is trading Potential Energy for Kinetic Energy. A Descent is a reduction of Potential Energy while keeping Kinetic Energy constant. They’ll argue the CDFA requires less actions, that is true two instead of three flight path changes being descend from Final Approach Fix (FAF) and Missed Approach (MAP) missing the level off in between these two from a slightly steeper descent. Yet I’ve seen far more Minimum Descent Altitude busts with the LNAV+V and VOR+V aka CDFAs than I have Descend-and-Drive. The only way to avoid these is to add margin for the “Derived Decision Altitude” (DDA) in which one adds to the MDA to create a notional DA. Add thirty feet to your MDA to get your DDA in light general aviation (GA) airplanes. This means you may as well add a hundred feet and a half mile to the weather minimums for said approach as you’re not going to see the field at published minimums in a timely manner to land with the CDFA technique. It also means you’re adding the risk of doing an actual MAP while adding the risk of doing the “DRAFT” and flying to your alternate. Sure, there’s risk for being lower longer while on the Descend-and-Drive, but it is not as bad as you think as you know you’re above MDA cleared safe altitude. This is especially true for light aircraft, read low inertia, that have fast engine response times like GA pistons do (and possible future electrics will). If you’re in a heavy with long spool-up times, CDFA is probably for you. That does not mean such should be transferred to light and responsive aircraft as a one-size-fits all “best” safety practice. While you may have planned fuel for the alternate on your IFR event, imagine the situation when you are VFR with clear forecast throughout, hence your fuel reserve reflects such, yet that area fog is developing un-forecast. That fog probably also impacts your likely diverts. Aviators, best learn your Cynefin. Context matters. There often isn’t one best practice. Maybe CDFA is fine for your planned IFR to non-precision approach while maybe you want to Descend-and-Drive in the late IFR pickup. * I’ll bet you can’t find an attack pilot who views diving as unstable. They need stability in their dives for their attacks to be successful.

Are heuristics really used to pull back from the edge of Chaos? My understanding was that heuristics made for less rigid constraints meaning they’d work to help create small safe to fail experiments in the Complex as well as give impetus for an action any action in the Chaotic. I’ve generally viewed them more as a means to avoid Analysis Paralysis by giving something to do in the absence of indications as to what to do. Having a heuristic in the Clear domain as a pull-back away from the edge of Chaos sounds dangerous to me as said heuristic may get codified becoming rigid constraint which in turn can be bad with minor context changes.

While looking at the Narrative Collection to Analyze and Sense-Make to Design back to Narrative Collection, how is that different from an OODA loop? Dave Snowden has often criticized OODA as “good for its time but we’ve moved past it” and denigrated it as “linear,” so how is this other loop “not linear” if an OODA be linear?

I thought I may have been unique applying Cynefin to Aviation, see Daily Kos Fffflats The Contrarian Aviator Sometimes Turns Right (whole blog and its comments, the comments are educational). Yet here I find BALPA and Gary putting it all so much more elegantly. And see ICAO’s definitions in ICAO Document 10151. Then there’s the Society of Flight Test Engineer’s (SFTE’s) paper A Different Perspective Why Flight Test is Distinctively Complex.

thanks Gary!

Nice work Gary! Congrats Levey and Rick!

You'll be missed Ian.

There is no racket sport more fun than hardball doubles!

Great Jesterly game to watch. I wish we had some hard ball doubles courts here in the UK. Play up!

Congrats to Noah Deziel on being the youngest ever winner at 15. Still think that Andrew and Noah vs Morgan and Rip would have been a better match. Thanks for the video Gary!

Nice work Gary!

Merry Christmas : Squash Talent: Double Hand Player with Chinese Kungfu 双手壁球球员 中国功夫 ua-cam.com/video/tAHIkyEMjb4/v-deo.html Enjoy!