Declaring an Anomaly

Chapter 6 of the AIM covers emergency procedures, including the difference between distress – like fire, mechanical failure, oil on the windscreen, or structural damage – and urgency – like being lost, low on gas, encountering dangerous weather, or...

These Go To Eleven

Good news! They’re making Spinal Tap 2, with plans to release it in 2024 – 40 years after the first one. Of all the great quotable lines in ST1, it’s hard to top “these go to eleven”. Sometimes we get a set of screwy engine data that...

Warning Signs

A lot of analysis requests begin with “Something bad just happened and we had to divert and land. Is there something in the data that would’ve told us this was about to happen?” Our first reaction is usually relief – that the pilot got on the ground...

The Cycle

Baseball has the cycle – single, double, triple and home run. What would that be for an analyst working a shift? Clogged injector is probably the single. Bad spark plug is probably the double. Let’s say the triple is a stuck valve. And the homer is a...

The 80/20 Rule

Apparently the 80/20 rule is also known as the Pareto Principle. Broadly applied, it means that 20% of your activities will account for 80% of your outcomes. In my previous careers in advertising and education, I would contend that 80% of stuff I spent my time on were...