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Buch "Warum sie oben bleiben"
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Original-title: Warum sie oben bleiben
(Vorwort,
deutschsprachig --
bitte hier
entlang)
Foreword
Consider a simple piece of mechanical design, a table
fork. It
would not break, or even bend, if it was used to pick up a piece of
meat far to big to put in the mouth. But, if an aeroplane was as
overdesigned as a fork it could not even taxi to the runway, much
less take off and fly. Perhaps a better comparison would be to a
delicate champagne glass; use it with its design limits and it will
function well.
Now, I am a dedicated technologist, but this does not prevent me
from having an emotional feeling for this huge, yet sensitive
structure. I have worked for many years as a flightengineer on jumbo
jets which are so big that the passengers are at a greater altitude
during taxi-ing than the Wright brothers were during their early
flights; and even though I have a thorough technical understanding
of the principles that explain lift, I still retain doubts about
whether this giant will really be able to take off. It never fails
to fill me with wonder every time the big bird gets airborne. It is
probably as well that I do not think of it as a cylinder 71m long
holding 400 people, 30t of freight and 200,000l of fuel, but rather,
for take-off, as a collection of switching elements that serve its
systems, otherwise I would be unable to do my job properly.
Over the years I have met many passengers on the flightdeck and the
range of their questions showed their interest in various aspects of
aviation. This triggered the thought of writing about it, using the
sort of language the visitor to the flightdeck will understand,
concentrating on essentials with a minimum of graphics, using basic
concepts when explaining complex systems, comparing the terms of
high technology with those of simple engineering, and steadfastly
resisting the impulse to use specialist terminology in the interests
of ensuring understanding.
So, in this book I invite you to accompany me on two flights. In the
first, the short flight from Frankfurt to Brussels, I will describe
it from the passengers`point of view. From the time of entering the
terminal building until the touch-down of the aeroplane I will
detail all the visible and invisible things that take place in the
course of the flight. On the second, longer, trip from Atlanta to
Frankfurt you will accompany me as a flightengineer in the cockpit.
In this way, you will, I hope, learn enough to remove the element of
the miraculous from your feelings about flying. And perhaps this
introduction to the transportation device called an aeroplane will
serve to eliminate some of the causes of the fear of flying. After
all, in aviation, we also cook with water, just at a different
temperature!
(translated by Dr. Ian Smyth)
Jürgen Heermann
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