Climate Change report - another potential call to action

[THRAWN]

Maybe not using the climate change angle (stepping into the middle of a political sword fight probably isn't the best thing for the organization...), but hard selling the DR capabilities and training them up would benefit the ES mission greatly. We can do fullbore DR work. Our SAR work is limited to SA and even that is spotty at best. As an organization, we need to look for nontraditional missions that are needed and sell the decision makers on them.

[Майор Хаткевич]

Maybe not using the climate change angle (stepping into the middle of a political sword fight probably isn't the best thing for the organization...), but hard selling the DR capabilities and training them up would benefit the ES mission greatly. We can do fullbore DR work. Our SAR work is limited to SA and even that is spotty at best. As an organization, we need to look for nontraditional missions that are needed and sell the decision makers on them.

Which is...exactly what the OP said...is it not? Are we reading the same OP?

[a2capt]

The Gulf of Mexico is about 75yards from my front door, however I live in a 3rd floor condo.  A diving board on my balcony would be a great entertainment piece.

Heh, like the Jeffersons.. Moving on -up- .. you went from a secluded dead-end spread .. to a condo overlooking the hurricane arena.

[arajca]

We used to do full bore DR work. Heck as a cadet, I went on a few tornado responses/clean-up missions in IL. It seems that since then (early 80's) we've thrown the ground aspect away.

[THRAWN]

Maybe not using the climate change angle (stepping into the middle of a political sword fight probably isn't the best thing for the organization...), but hard selling the DR capabilities and training them up would benefit the ES mission greatly. We can do fullbore DR work. Our SAR work is limited to SA and even that is spotty at best. As an organization, we need to look for nontraditional missions that are needed and sell the decision makers on them.

Which is...exactly what the OP said...is it not? Are we reading the same OP?

Apparently not.

[Flying Pig]

The Gulf of Mexico is about 75yards from my front door, however I live in a 3rd floor condo.  A diving board on my balcony would be a great entertainment piece.

Heh, like the Jeffersons.. Moving on -up- .. you went from a secluded dead-end spread .. to a condo overlooking the hurricane arena.

Yeah this helicopter business is pretty interesting.... I could just about pick any place in the country and move there with a job.  Sorta like being a long haul trucker...... without the beer belly. 

[Майор Хаткевич]

The Gulf of Mexico is about 75yards from my front door, however I live in a 3rd floor condo.  A diving board on my balcony would be a great entertainment piece.

Heh, like the Jeffersons.. Moving on -up- .. you went from a secluded dead-end spread .. to a condo overlooking the hurricane arena.

Yeah this helicopter business is pretty interesting.... I could just about pick any place in the country and move there with a job.  Sorta like being a long haul trucker...... without the beer belly.

Since you're in the business...I heard about 10 years ago the great fear over the "retiring" Vietnam era pilots. Is that now in full swing/over with, and is the pilot shortage as pronounced as predicted then?

[Flying Pig]

That is a myth perpetuated by flight schools.  In reality..... the majority of Vietnam era pilots did not continue to fly after the war.  10 years ago the average Vietnam era pilot would have been in his mid-60s.  The relatively small percentage of guys who went on to fly in the civilian world would have been retired or unable to pass a medical.  Whats funny is that flight schools are STILL running ads talking about the pilot shortage because of the Vietnam era pilots retiring.   Most Vietnam vets who would have been pilots are now into their late 60s or early 70s.

The issue with the helicopter industry is not the lack of pilots... its the lack of qualified pilots.  Short of 2000hrs with a minimum of a few hundred turbine hours, you arent going to get much in the way of a job you can make a living on.  The typical route is get your CFII certs, instruct until you have 1200-1500hrs then head to Vegas and fly tours or head to the Gulf and fly oil platforms. Do that for a couple years until you reach 800-1000 turbine which puts you at 3000hrs total.  Then jobs like EMS, utility, Fire contractors, etc will start to return your phone calls and emails.  The "void" is not being created by Vietnam pilots retiring.  The void is being created by an increase in helicopter operations nationwide, the EXPLOSION of Helicopter EMS operators across the country and the unbelievable expense of getting your certs to the tune of about $75-$80K if you got a deal.

I would say the number of pilots in the last 10 years who were Vietnam era military trained was probably a pretty small percentage.  When places use the Vietnam justification, the spin it like 1968 was the last time a pilot was trained to fly.   Thousands of military and civilian trained pilots have been entering the arena of RW aviation daily for the past 40 years.  One of the big issues with military pilots getting out now-a-days is that most don't have the total time to land a civilian job.  Minimum of 1500hours is what you will need.  I know 900-1100hrs UH60 pilots who have been told by entry level turbine operators to go get a couple hundred hours more in an R22 and then re-apply.  Insurance companies drive helicopter requirements, not the employers.  With the wars scaling down dramatically, you will start seeing the days of military pilots getting out with 600-800hrs after a 6 or 8 year hitch.  What does that mean?  That means the day they take of their uniform will probable be the last day they fly professionally unless they are willing to work at the local R22 flight school for a couple years making $15 an hour to get their time up. 

How does this relate to climate change?  Helicopters will be what picks you off your roof Katrina style.  There... .now its not a hijack of a thread 

[AirAux]

Talk about ethnocentrism, I don't think it can get any better than this: "If anything, we can blame Christianity for the so called dark ages in Europe that for CENTURIES persecuted "scientists" who said something the church felt was against what was compiled by them as the "word of G-d". While Europeans were burning each other at the stake, those "savage" Muslims were working Math,"  Have you been brainwashed?  Until you study a little more about the Muslims, I wouldn't be making claims that the Muslims weren't savage...  Just who do you think started the Crusades?  It had a little something to do with the Muslims taking the Holy lands in a most "savage" manner..  I guess that's why I am not too worried about the weather, people with no knowledge accepting the spouting of those with an agenda.  Carry on.   

[Flying Pig]

Darnit... I guess we are done talking about helicopters saving people when the glaciers melt 

[Майор Хаткевич]

Talk about ethnocentrism, I don't think it can get any better than this: "If anything, we can blame Christianity for the so called dark ages in Europe that for CENTURIES persecuted "scientists" who said something the church felt was against what was compiled by them as the "word of G-d". While Europeans were burning each other at the stake, those "savage" Muslims were working Math,"  Have you been brainwashed?  Until you study a little more about the Muslims, I wouldn't be making claims that the Muslims weren't savage...  Just who do you think started the Crusades?  It had a little something to do with the Muslims taking the Holy lands in a most "savage" manner..  I guess that's why I am not too worried about the weather, people with no knowledge accepting the spouting of those with an agenda.  Carry on.   

I didn't say they were perfect, but it framed your nonsense "flat earth" belief quite well. As to spouting agenda...I guess if you consider science an agenda (which it is), and a bad one at that, then why do you even bother engaging in this thread? People who lack knowledge but listen to SMEs are sheep, but your totally unknowing self is the smart one for saying the SMEs are wrong is the correct perception? Alrighty. Got. It.

[AirAux]

The agenda, The Times, today:

Research which heaped doubt on the rate of global warming was deliberately suppressed by scientists because it was "less than helpful" to their cause, it was claimed last night.

In an echo of the infamous "Climategate" scandal at the University of East Anglia, one of the world's top academic journals rejected the work of five experts after a reviewer privately denounced it as "harmful".

Yes, pure science at it's best, no one ever said.

[JeffDG]

Basically, as a comment on the link stated, this is Pascal's Wager - climate style. But in terms of CAP, whether "proven" or "real" or "nothing we can do about it", CAP can still help with the consequences that are getting more frequent.

Such as?

Tornado frequency is near an all-time-low.  The time between landfalls of Cat3+ hurricanes is at a record level and climbing.

[Eclipse]

^ And it's snowing in Chicago on May 16th as I write this...

[Майор Хаткевич]

^ And it's snowing in Chicago on May 16th as I write this...

Don't play into their local, one off incident agenda either. "Oh wow! -40f in December! So much for global warming".

Weather patterns change, a one day to the opposite of " warming" does not make it legitimate proof of wrong.

[JeffDG]

^ And it's snowing in Chicago on May 16th as I write this...

Don't play into their local, one off incident agenda either. "Oh wow! -40f in December! So much for global warming".

Weather patterns change, a one day to the opposite of " warming" does not make it legitimate proof of wrong.

How about 17 years of no warming?

[Eclipse]

^ No point in asking for a cite, I'll simple provide the data that disagrees.

Quoth the wiki:
Global warming refers to an unequivocal and continuing rise in the average temperature of Earth's climate system.[2] Since 1971, 90% of the warming has occurred in the oceans.[3] Despite the oceans' dominant role in energy storage, the term "global warming" is also used to refer to increases in average temperature of the air and sea at Earth's surface.[4] Since the early 20th century, the global air and sea surface temperature has increased about 0.8 °C (1.4 °F), with about two-thirds of the increase occurring since 1980.[5] Each of the last three decades has been successively warmer at the Earth's surface than any preceding decade since 1850.[6]



The term used last night on Colbert by Thomas Friedman author of "Years of Living Dangerously"
is "Global Weirding", which is probably more appropriate - weather is changing, and while you
can point to "less of this" and "less of that" the trend of the last century is indisputable, and
the intensity of individual events is increasing.

There are also other factors which are not weather caused, but weather-related which may well
exacerbate the situation, and certainly make like "interesting".  Mr. Friedman makes an interestingly
correlation between the mass exodus of Syrian farmers to the urban centers because of massive drought
to the civil wart there because you had a million some disgruntled people with few life options.

So again, even if you accept this is cyclical and "normal", things that take 100+ years to ramp up, don't ramp
down slowly, either.

Meanwhile, there are fire tornadoes in California.

[Eclipse]

The other issue to the point of tornado frequency and weather comparisons in general is that there is considerable
debate in the meteorological community as to whether we are seeing changes in weather, or
statistical anomalies in the reporting and detection of weather itself.

Better and more immediate communication means we are more aware of storms and patterns then we had the
capability of even detecting 100 years ago, and the US uses a different scale (since 1971) for tornadoes
then it did previously, so the data doesn't necessarily correlate in a simple manner.

[JeffDG]

Here ya go, multiple datasets, 17 years and counting of  (essentially) no warming

[JeffDG]

Better and more immediate communication means we are more aware of storms and patterns then we had the
capability of even detecting 100 years ago, and the US uses a different scale (since 1971) for tornadoes
then it did previously, so the data doesn't necessarily correlate in a simple manner.

Better detection + declining trend = bigger decline.