Acronyms

[Cat Driver]

Communication is one of the key issues of SMS, And as a regulator, Transport Canada (which is not even their real name) should demonstrate leadership by recognizing that people outside their world, but in the industry are not tossing around shortisms every day.
When it comes to broader communications media like the safety letter, the writers should be writing clear and consisely to communicate with the industry. To fail to do this is a failure to recognize a problem, and a reference section is a slap in the face. They are not writing essays for college or internal memos.

By being direct and non P.C. about this subject I knew it would get expressed in a more tender fashion.

And if they have not ditched it...get rid of the maggotfly, or blackthing cartoon. It is offensive to us who take SMS seriously that someone would try to communicate with us as pre-schoolers. It is not cute. It is offensive. But that is just my opinion.

You are not alone in feeling this way about that cartoon series, I always felt I was being treated as if I were a moron just by reading it.

Who the fu.k approves of this stuff in Transport Canada Civil Aviation?

Do they really think most of us are mentally challenged?

[Shiny Side Up]

Do they really think most of us are mentally challenged?

Yes. Or at least that's what I gathered from the last safety seminar I went to.

[Beefitarian]

tl;dr

[ASL Editor]

Thks for the feedback. Too academic, too dumbed down, I guess there must be a happy middle somewhere - it's a wide audience to please. In any event this audience will shrink, as the ASL will be on the Web only as of 1/2012 (not my decision), so no more paper or plastic wrapping to throw away doc!

PM

[just curious]

Well, that's feedback from the source. Thank, Paul. As it happens, I understand the acronyms.

I find that the technical articles generally have some meaning for me. The entry-level PPL,and float stuff has less, but I can remember it having an impact when I was there. Looking back over the last 35 years, a few of my friends would have benefited by paying a bit more attention to pubs like yours.

It is rare to see any venue where someone lower than the minister can say anything to a member of the aviation community directly. While some of the message is gonna be governed by TC policies, it is the only time I hear much from TC except from my POI over a beer.

It would be nice if you had the publishing budget of Flight Comment, but I wanted to be taller when I grew up. And that didn't happen either.

Keep up the good fight.

JC

[Big Pistons Forever]

Personally I find it a hard time getting worked up about acronyms. They are ubiquitous in aviation because they are convenient, hell Cat Driver I could not help noticing your thread on instruments for your Cub had EFIS, AOA, FTU, and PIC in your posts

The broader issue you raise about the quality of the ASL er excuse me "Aviation Safety Letter" however has considerable merit. I think it is a shame that Transport Canada just mindlessly copies every other regulators safety letter format and simply reports accident causes and facile safety nostrums.

Maybe a clue as to how silly this is could be found by looking at old ASL's and noting that "hey the same types of accidents we are reporting keep re-occuring"

My 02 cents is cancel the ASL and go back to the first principal of communicating, "why am I saying this ".

[Prairie Chicken]

Hey Kule, have your coffee. You're right. TC often don't--how shall I say this--get out enough? And when the inspectors do, and hear good info from the industry, they then have to struggle to get that info to someone who (a) cares; and (b) can do something useful with it. I agree with you completely that TC staff have a language all their own and yes, they should refrain from using it with someone who doesn't 'speak the language'. I can easily recognize government-speak and even TC lingo when I hear it--even on here.

Still, you & I use acronyms all the time and I prefer that. I think you're be rather annoyed if TC dumbed down their material & assumed you weren't capable of knowing common acronyms. And what is wrong with using an acronym after having spelled out it's meaning after the first usage? I'm not referring to a glossary or different section, just spelling out a frequently-used term the first time it is used. And yes, that is the government policy when using acronyms.

As far as the Blackfly thing--I fully agree it is not cute, and I think it is offensive because it seems condescending. There you go.

I hope you enjoyed your coffee.

[trey kule]

How can I enjoy my coffee when there is little to argue about here , and quite frankly, some of the things I read, got me to rethinking the whole issue.....might as well slurp down the old prune juice and take the arguments right out of me.

Morons? Considering we are all in, and remaining in aviaition, that seems like a fair assumption.

After thinking about JC's comments, I came to realize that over the years what appeals to me has changed. Despite my criticisms, I still read the whole thing , cover to cover. And I do find some good stuff in there.. But that does not mean it cannot be improved, and the argument that some people say this and others say the opposite , so no need to change how we do things, simply does not hold water. My comments were based on articles that read like academic essays, or that I have to struggle through because of the continuing use of the word safety or acronyms known only to those inside TC. Or that stupid cartoon that I found to be condesending. And I wont let that go until it is eliminated, I receive an apology in writing from the editor, the illustrator and creator are put to death, and I get financial compensation. Well maybe not the financial compensation, as that may be expecting a bit to much. And I only suggested the creator and illustrator be put to death because I felt that was easier than expecting them to be fired from a government job.

I guess, as always, the good folks will simply go back and say the sheep are bleating, but if they only knew what we know, they would understand there is no need to change anything. To bad really.

[Beefitarian]

After thinking about JC's comments, I came to realize that over the years what appeals to me has changed. Despite my criticisms, I still read the whole thing , cover to cover. And I do find some good stuff in there.. But that does not mean it cannot be improved, and the argument that some people say this and others say the opposite , so no need to change how we do things, simply does not hold water.

I guess, as always, the good folks will simply go back and say the sheep are bleating, but if they only knew what we know, they would understand there is no need to change anything. To bad really.

QFT

[gustind]

I'll throw myself in here just saying that I actually enjoyed the 3 page read on night flying stuff. Otherwise, yea that article with all the TLAs reallllllyyyy threw me off.

[Cat Driver]

The forum always gets slow this time of year, so I thought I would post something that would kick start some points of view.

Makes for interesting reading, not to mention it is interesting to see who comes out of the weeds so to speak when these discussions focus on the two different universes in aviation.

We took the Husky up the coast today looking at property for our new venture and I'm damned if we did not find what may turn out to be the ideal piece of property.

Win, lose or draw....thirteen acronyms in one paragraph is a real accomplishment even for a highly paid bureaucrat.

[Heliian]

D.I.L.L.I.G.A.F.

[TG]

Just to add that we are past Telex time for acronyms to be useful.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telex

Now, its usage makes me think of some sort of an elaborate LOL speak!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolcat


D.I.L.L.I.G.A.F. indeed!