Message posted by Steve Douglass on January 18, 2004 at 19:12:26 PST:
My guess is AVWK posted my report is because I have had a long-standing excellent- reputation with the magazine for many years. They know I'm a good source of reliable information. They know I'm a good researcher and I provide evidence to back up my reporting. I showed Magoo's remarks to William Scott, the editor who approved the item. Bill states: "Nobody uses flight levels unless you're above 18,000 ft. anyway, so if the pilot said 60 instead of 600, then the pilot screwed up." As for this skeptic, who seems to think he knows a lot about flight testing, maybe he oughta know I am a grad of the USAF Test Pilot School and tested airplanes for 12 years, both in and out of the Air Force. I know damned well what is and isn't said over a test frequency--and I didn't see anything so unusual about this transmission/radio interchange." He went on to say: " Another possibility: The "pilot" was on the ground or on another aircraft was controlling a high-altitude UAV, not a manned bird. In that case, the ground operator may or may not have been a true "test pilot." hence the mistake. So there it is.. from AVWK itself. I'd like to point out that the article isn't flawed at all, but an honest transcript of what I intercepted. Like myself, Bill (and obviously the Albquerque Center controller because he didn't call the pilot in his altitude mistake) logically concluded the pilot didn't mean 6,000 feet! Duh! As for THUS being "shocked" AVWK would print such mistakes and unknown facts." .. what unknown facts? I don't understand this remark. Did you ever think that AVWK might have another "non-public" source on this article? I know for a fact they take great pains to corraborate everything that appears in print. "nuff said"
-Steve
In Reply to: I agree...... posted by Thud on January 18, 2004 at 13:47:51 PST:
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