On It Goes...

An USA Today article published Friday September 13, 2013 titled Remarriage in an age of cohabitation, discussed at length the current trends demonstrating the erosion of any Christian understanding of what marriage is.

“Cohabitation has opened up options for people that weren’t there 20 years ago.  It affords the benefits of marriage without the legal constraints.”  (Susan Brown, Sociologist and lead author of an analysis of federal data by the National Center for Family and Marriage Research at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, as quoted by Sharon Jayson, USA Today)

A generation ago, cohabitation was often called ‘living in sin,” but that taboo has faded.  Unmarried couples of all ages are moving in together – 7.8 million, according to 2012 Census data… Between 1990 and 2012, the percentage of unmarried couples living together more than doubled, from 5.1% to 11.3% (Sharon Jayson, USA Today)

This is not progress and it is not good news.  What, exactly, are the “legal constraints” that it seems good to avoid; the promise of fidelity, the promise of support no matter what life throws out, the promise to help raise the children?  This attitude demonstrates the game changing effects of universal acceptance for contraception.  Would all of these couples, especially the women, be so cavalier if they knew that a significant part of the matrix would be children?  No!  They are calculating their future happiness on the premise that contraception will keep children, and the attendant responsibilities, at bay.

Even more grave is their failure to discern their responsibility to the natural law.  More specifically, they no longer believe in accountability to God’s authority; to the fact that while we do not call it “living in sin” anymore, it still is just that, living in sin and obstinate sin brings death.

I know that most people in the western world no longer believe in hell and damnation anymore, but that doesn't make it go away.  Truth doesn't change with the times and popular belief.  God gave us His teachings in Christ.  Christ declared what sexual morality required.  If we are to find happiness in this world and, more importantly, the next, we need to follow those teachings to the letter because they comply with the two greatest commandments, to love God with our whole heart, our whole soul and our whole mind; and to love our neighbor as our self.

Panzerlied

One comment said it best, "There is something so German about a tank."

While war is the result of a complete breakdown of society, one must admire those who fight it so bravely.  If we get another war it is imperative that each one of us understands our duty to God first then country.

Contracepting Society and Life

The public perception of marriage today is so severely mutated from the truth of what it is; we cannot imagine the graces that a man and woman receive when they live a marriage in the manner God intended.  We cannot understand how drastically such a fundamental building block of the civil order has been altered and how that has produced such disastrous conditions in our society.

Firstly – in its basic and proper form, marriage is only between one man and one woman, for the natural life of the first to pass away, with no contraception of children for any reason, with each person loving the other without reservation or of the requirement of reciprocity.  There is no such thing as divorce.  This is indeed the basic building block of any rational and peaceful society.  This provides for the continuation of the human race and provides for the consistency of laws, skills and social responsibility over the ribbon of time.  Most importantly, this accords with the will of God.

While that is the standard of excellence, the standard set by our Lord Jesus Christ, we have strayed away from that.  It is likely that the most common error embraced by married people today is contraception.  Practicing contraception, by anyone, for any reason was universally prohibited by every Christian tradition, established church in the world until 1930.  The first organized church to crack open that door was the Anglican Church of England.  At their Lambeth Conference of 1930 their bishops ever so reluctantly, ever so restrictively prescribed very narrow conditions wherein a married couple could, for the gravest of reasons, contracept:

Resolutions from 1930

Resolution 15

The Life and Witness of the Christian Community - Marriage and Sex

Where there is clearly felt moral obligation to limit or avoid parenthood, the method must be decided on Christian principles. The primary and obvious method is complete abstinence from intercourse (as far as may be necessary) in a life of discipline and self-control lived in the power of the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless in those cases where there is such a clearly felt moral obligation to limit or avoid parenthood, and where there is a morally sound reason for avoiding complete abstinence, the Conference agrees that other methods may be used, provided that this is done in the light of the same Christian principles. The Conference records its strong condemnation of the use of any methods of conception control from motives of selfishness, luxury, or mere convenience.

Voting: For 193; Against 67. Lambeth Conference 1930

This resolution is flawed from the start due to the salient fact that you cannot commit any grave evil on “Christian principles”.  Notice how they condemn contraception for “motives of selfishness, luxury, or mere convenience”.  That describes perfectly the motives of everyone contracepting today.  Once this resolution was adopted, by the Anglicans it was a short run to acceptance by every “Christian” denomination except the Holy Roman Catholic Church.  While the entire world expected the Catholic Church to come along on this, in 1968 she issued the papal encyclical Humanae Vitae in which she correctly labels contraception a grave evil and declares to the entire world that no one may commit such an act for any reason.  Unfortunately, by that time, the cat was out of the bag and the vast majority of the peoples of the western world believed the lies and regarded the Catholic declaration to be irrelevant.

The great lie was, that allowing contraception, within marriages, would strengthen those marriages due to a lower “burden” of children.  In reality, contraception diminished the sacred and self-pledging bond that husbands and wives held and reduced them to a weird social contract which could be broken at will.  Reducing the marital embrace to recreation reduced the mutual esteem required to sustain marriage in this hard world.  Divorce rose drastically in the years following 1930.

Sex without consequences soon became the normal attitude.  Infidelity in marriage and singles “hooking up” is now expected.  Today there are more couples living together outside of marriage than within.  Now, many of the nations of the western world have reduced their birth rates to levels which cannot sustain their current populations.  But wait…there’s more.

Once the wives had fewer children they were not allowed to sit around and enjoy their more leisurely lives, they were sent to work.  The effect of that was to reduce the family wages by half so that today both spouses must work to support a family.  Rather than fulfilling her nature as a nurturing wife and mother the “liberated” woman of today is a field mule by day and a concubine by night.  Working mothers bring the need for the day care industry, which reduces the take home wages significantly, and shifts the training and nurturing of our children to strangers who have little interest in the outcome.

It gets worse.  Since sex is now simply a recreational activity, then women are treated with less respect than ever.  We have a huge abortion industry to support the “no consequences” philosophy and we run these poor used women through it every day to take care of “their” biological problem, with devastating damage to their psychological balance.

It goes on.  Same sex marriage makes sense if the real thing is no longer sacred or permanent.  Germany has petting zoos wherein visitors are allowed to go “all the way” with the animals.  Down, down, down we drive the boundaries of decency and morality.

Sex always has consequences.  Within a lawful, church sanctioned marriage, without contraception, the consequences are love, peace, children and stable societies.  Outside of such a marriage, the consequences are all of the above noted maladies with the worst consequence of all to come – you do not get to heaven, you do not feel the love of God, you suffer in hell.

We must fight this terrible lie.  Tell anyone who talks of “girlfriends” or “boyfriends” or expresses support for any of these gravely wrong sins, the truth.  Fight for these lost souls because you love them as Christ loves us all.

Truth!

Catholic Fr. Dawid Kwiatkowski wrote the following bulletin for his parish.  He is right on target and is that too rare voice of truth and frankness that this world craves.  WCH

“"Human life is sacred—all men must recognize that fact. Therefore, we base our words on the first principles of a human and Christian doctrine of marriage when we are obliged once more to declare that the direct interruption of the generative process has already begun and, above all, all direct abortion, even for therapeutic reasons, is to be absolutely excluded as lawful means of regulating the number of children. Equally to be condemned, as the magisterium of the Church has affirmed on many occasions, is direct sterilization, whether of the man or of the woman, whether permanent or temporary. Similarly excluded is any action which either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically intended to prevent procreation—whether as an end or as a means.
Consequently, it is a serious error to think that a whole married life of otherwise normal relations can justify sexual intercourse, which is deliberately contraceptive, and so intrinsically wrong.”

Just a little over a week ago the Encyclical Humane Vitae (Human Life) celebrated its
forty-fifth Birthday; therefore, I decided to bring back its very powerful message filled with trust and faith in the goodness of God’s teachings. The teaching was largely rejected by the Western world and, as some theologians say, the rejection was a sign of their disobedience to the commandment of God to love your neighbor, resulting in a weakened
family life. Marriage, as a divinely instituted entity and chastity, is our way of respecting the image of God we carry from the moment of our conception. After the teaching of the church was criticized, the Pope said:“It does not surprise the Church that she becomes, like her divine Founder, a ‘sign of contradiction’; yet she does not, because of this, cease to proclaim with humble firmness the entire moral law, both the natural law and the law
of the Gospel.” The teaching was reaffirmed by all Popes who succeeded Paul VI, including Pope John Paul II in Gaudium et Spes and Pope Benedict XVI who said:” The teaching expressed by Humanae Vitae is not easy, yet it conforms with the fundamental structure through which life has always been transmitted since the world's creation.''

Once again, I remind you that your membership in the Catholic Church is a privilege, and the only price we pay for it is our Love for God, which is expressed by trusting Him and being obedient to His Will. If you live in a
contraceptive marriage please stop receiving Communion. If you are confused and would like advice, please contact one of our priests. If you have been using contraception but would like to receive communion, 
come to the Sacrament of Confession. Jesus did not die so we could be “cafeteria Catholics” picking and choosing what we please, or what pleases us. The Lord is full of mercy and love, but to those who are
willing to change.

May the Lord who said:” "He who seeks his life will lose it, he who loses his life for my sake will find it" (Lk 9.24) help you to see His love for you.

Fr. Dawid

Automation vs. Pilots

Airspeed!

Aviation is a young human activity.  The speed at which we progressed from open cockpit bi-planes to our current jetliners does make one marvel at human ingenuity.  Sometimes though I wonder if we are moving so fast that we are forgetting hard lessons learned along the way.  Specifically for this paper I wish to reemphasize the need of pilots to understand the relationship of aircraft control to Angle of Attack and how AoA is affected by pitch attitude and thrust.  Airspeed is an indirect indicator of AoA quality while in normal pitch attitude ranges.  As merely an indirect indicator, there should be no reason for loss of aircraft control and all souls due to pitot-static system failure.

Birgenair Flight 301 (February 6, 1996)

Birgenair Flight 301 was a Boeing 757 who crashed shortly after a night take-off.  This accident was caused by blockage of the number one pitot tube.  The captain’s lack of understanding of how airspeed indication is affected by such a blockage caused numerous decision errors and resulted in total loss of control.  He noticed his airspeed indication was still zero when the first officer called “80 knots” on take-off.  Failing to abort the take-off he then noticed, as they climbed, his ASI was registering again and made the assumption that all was normal and he engaged the auto-pilot to his side of the flight control system.  One of the old lessons hard learned in the days of “steam-gauges” instrumentation was that a typical pitot tube block issue would cause the airspeed indication to increase with altitude increases and to decrease with altitude loss.  This poor lost captain simply engaged his auto-pilot to an airspeed indicator which would keep increasing with the climb until the aircraft reached a dangerously high angle of attack.  This crew noticed the pitch attitude / airspeed discrepancy and discussed it at length, but never saw the core problem.  It is notable that even while the captain was aware of their increasing peril he was reluctant to disengage the auto-flight system.  It seems that he trusted the automation more than himself even while that same automation was obviously malfunctioning.  Adding to the confusion were numerous warnings and alert messages being generated by the ever widening airspeed indication error.  They crashed into the ocean shortly after entering the wing stall regime.

Air France Flight 447 (June 1, 2009)

Air France flight 447 was an Airbus 300 which encountered clouds while cruising in level flight.  This cloud encounter caused some pitot tube ice crystal blockage in one or more of the pitot tubes.  The First Officer, the pilot flying, as the Birgenair captain before him, was confronted with many warnings and alert messages which induced confusion and an unnecessary urge for action, especially since the airspeed error caused the autopilot to disengage.  Unfortunately, his action was to grab the side control stick and sharply pitch up causing a dangerously high angle of attack.  This hapless pilot simply had no idea what he was trying to do.  Rather than simply holding the proper cruise pitch attitude he pulled up into a deep wing stall, which was held the entire three minutes it took to fall to the ocean below.  I have read many articles on this accident wherein writers and industry experts cite the “difficulty” in sorting through all the conflicting signals, warnings, and messages so as to understand this problem and they all make me sick.  How hard is it to see that the pitch attitude is high as hell, thrust is high as hell…aircraft is falling?!  How hard is that?  This is aviation 101.

Northwest Airlines Flight 6231, a Boeing 727, crashed shortly after departing the John F. Kennedy airport on December 1st, 1974.  The National Transportation Safety Board determined that the crew failed to turn on the pitot tube heaters which became blocked by ice crystals causing both airspeed indicators to show erroneous indications.  Almost twenty-two years prior to Birginair 301, this crew misunderstood the "increasing" airspeed indications as they climbed and pitched up into a stall.
   

The Age of EFIS

Our current generation of airline cockpits almost universally has the Electronic Flight Instrument Systems. (EFIS)   These systems integrate and share the raw instrument data so as to provide aircraft status information not only to the visual “instruments” but to other aircraft systems such as engine control computers (Full Authority Digital Engine Control - FADECs), aircraft pressurization systems, autopilots and ground proximity systems, to name just a few.   They also have Flight Directors, which are designed to simplify a pilot’s instrument scan in determining pitch and bank requirements. Rather than interpreting several basic instruments and mentally processing the data so as to determine the required pitch and bank for performance goals, the pilot simply places the aircraft into the attitude displayed by the Flight Director.  The advantage is a simpler scan and a lower mental effort level. Better yet, engage the autopilot to the Flight Director and the airplane does it all!  This is the normal operating mode which the Federal Aviation Agency and virtually every airline have stressed.  Full automation 99% of the time with the pilot hand flying and using basic instruments kept to a barest minimum.  Here is how my airline phrased this concept in our Standard Operating Procedures manual:

Where immediate, decisive, and correct control of aircraft path is required, the lowest level of automation (hand flying without flight director guidance) may be necessary. Such instances would include escape or avoidance maneuvers (except aircraft with flight director windshear guidance) and recovery from upset or unusual attitudes. With the exception of visual approaches and deliberate decisions to maintain flying proficiency, this is essentially a non-normal operation for flight guidance on FMS-generation aircraft. It should be considered a transitory mode used when the pilot perceives the aircraft is not responding to urgent aircraft demands. The pilot can establish a higher level of automation as soon as conditions permit.

Emphasis mine

However, here lies the problem.  The full automation condition is the lowest level of pilot mental engagement and now is prescribed to be the condition wherein our pilots will spend the vast majority of our time.  When the chips fall badly and decisive, correct control inputs are required the pilot is expected to suddenly ramp up his mental and stick & rudder skills to levels of which he has not practiced for a very long time.  Like our poor Birgenair, Northwest and Air France pilots they will find themselves confused and way out of their comfort zones.  They will wish to escape back into the warm and fuzzy world of automation.  I have personally encouraged my First Officers to revert to the basic instrument scan and hand flying for “deliberate decisions to maintain flying proficiency” only to find them very uncomfortable and greatly relieved when they reengaged the autopilot.  Others have hand flown the airplane, albeit with the aid of the Flight Director, for longer than usual following take-off, knowing my reputation of encouraging such behavior.  When they feel they have gone long enough, they engage the autopilot and sit back with a satisfied sigh as if they just completed a long and fruitful workout.  The sad part is those “long” workouts average about seven minutes on take-off and forty-five seconds on landing.

Back in the “steam gauge” days a pitot tube blockage would only effect the airspeed indicator to which it was routed.  However in our new days of automation and systems integration such a blockage causes many warnings in systems areas not typically associated with airspeed.  I believe it this plethora of warnings which are distracting these pilots from the basic task of maintaining aircraft control.  Rather than flying the pitch and thrust first and sorting out the rest, they react to remove the warnings first and forget about basic aircraft operation.

Trans World Express Flight 7604 (December 11, 2000)

Trans World Express Flight 7604 was en route to Greenville, SC on a night flight from St. Louis, MO in an Embraer-145 aircraft.  While climbing to a newly assigned altitude the crew alert system suddenly lit up with numerous messages and warnings.  There were messages announcing failure of all four FADECs.  There were several red messages, many amber messages and some blue ones as well.  There were so many messages on the panel that there was a number presented on the bottom of the screen to let the crew know that they could scroll down to read the extras.  Add to that bells and red lights and you get the idea of how disorienting such an event can be.  The First Officer immediately noticed the FADEC failure messages and said something about losing both engines.  The captain however noted that regardless of all the warnings, the airplane was still flying.  While maintaining a constant pitch attitude and thrust setting it only took him a few seconds to notice that the airspeed indicator on his side was increasing with the climb. With the conclusion that the number one pitot tube was blocked with ice he obtained a clearance from the traffic controller to level off at their present altitude so as to stop the increasing error and to prevent additional warnings from an imminent false over-speed indication.  The First Officer excitedly asked which of the Quick Reference emergency checklists he wanted run, since there were so many to choose from.  The answer to that was not to run any of them because the airplane was flying perfectly and the QRH wouldn’t solve the problem of a blocked pitot tube.  They obtained a descent clearance and the captain noted with satisfaction that the erroneous airspeed indication began decreasing with lower altitudes thus confirming his reasoning.  Soon the ice blockage cleared and all the warning messages disappeared as well.  This flight landed uneventfully.

It Really Is Bi-plane Simple

The new electronic instrumentation and flight control systems are a marvel and they do greatly aid pilots in situational awareness and aircraft control.  However, the downside has been a loss of the basic skills and knowledge which the technology has bridged over.  When the technology fails rather than landing on firm foundational footing, we are finding ourselves falling into a crevasse.  Do not let the startle factor override your basic aircraft control instincts.  Pitch and thrust make the airplane fly, not “airspeed” or quiet alert systems.  Continue to review the basic lessons learned over those past remarkable one hundred years.  Practice basic flying skills, everyday!  Fly safely.

Captain William C. Howe

Trans States Airlines

August 1, 2013

As The Wise Become Fools...

Germany, one of several formerly Christian nations of the European Union who have surrendered their Christian wisdom and have followed the Russians into socialist insanity, has added another, third, box to check on forms when declaring ones gender.

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/generation-x-germany-to-allow-third-blank-gender-for-birth-certificates

May our good Lord forgive us our willful arrogance.

Constitution!?