The Engineer Who Stopped Airplanes From Flying Into Mountains

New submitter gmrobbins writes "The Seattle Times profiles avionics engineer Don Bateman, whose Honeywell lab in Redmond, Washington has for decades pioneered ground proximity warning systems. Bateman's innovations have nearly eliminated controlled flight into terrain by commercial aircraft, the most common cause of fatal airplane accidents."

Comments

And yet somehow

[Anonymous Coward]

a low-tier banking executive makes more money than this man.

Re:And yet somehow

[Anonymous Coward]

doesn't sound like he's really into it for the money

that man is lucky -- he has a very long engineering career with a meaningful benefit to society

Re:And yet somehow

[Anonymous Coward]

There are larger rewards in life than money

Re:And yet somehow

[Anonymous Coward]

Only bad engineers get offshored. The good ones get kept on to die a slow, painful death by managing the offshored employees.

FTFY.

Re:And yet somehow

[X.25]

a low-tier banking executive makes more money than this man.

Well, look at the "Forbes 400 list" of richest Americans, and see how many of 20 richest actually produce a physical product.

And that's why system is about to collapse.

Re:And yet somehow

[geogob]

I'm an engineer working in the field of aerospace instrumentation. I'm passionate about my job. For me, it's like playing a game and I can barely wait for the weekend to end to go back to work. In my team here, we're having a lot of fun and everyday gives us new challenges. Solving these challenges is quite exhilarating, probably just as it was for this engineer fight through the challenge of solving CFITs.

But, in the end, we're still all in it for the money. We were just lucky enough to find a career and a job that we really happened to enjoy.

I'm totally biased when I say this, but engineers are one of the profession that's grossly underpaid and under-regarded. Some investment make millions just by moving some virtual values - usually worthless - left and right on a computer screens, while engineers responsible for the success of projects worth in the multi-billion "real dollars" range, or indirectly responsible for countless lives, struggle to get decent salaries and usually don't even come close to 6 digit figures. What's even worse is that engineers carry a true responsibility for the success of their project. A personal responsibility. Bankers, when they fail because of their own greed, carry little responsibility as far as I know. Worse that could happen, is that they lose their job when the company goes down. That's nothing compared to what engineers have to face personally when they fail like that.

Re:And yet somehow

[The Evil Atheist]

That's what rich people tell themselves to allow themselves to sleep at night, and tell you to keep you where you belong. Libertarians talk about how the market will solve everything, but the market shows time and time again that it does not value the correct jobs. Don may not be in it for the money, but by all rights he should get more money as a matter of principle.

Re:And yet somehow

[jholyhead]

No, you've made those assumptions on my behalf (thanks). No reasonable person could make those inferences from my comment.

If someone else can do my job cheaper than I can, to the same standard or better than I can - I deserve to lose my job - that's the free market people are always raving about, isn't it.

Fortunately, the Chinese haven't worked out how to transfer years of specialist domain experience into the heads of their worker drones yet. I'm good for another decade or so, in which time I'll have moved on.

Re:And yet somehow

[Runaway1956]

Just to be clear - what we have today is not "free trade" by any definition. NAFTA was a weapon, which was designed to pit Mexican workmen against United States workers. CAFTA is more of the same. And, China's "most favored trade partner" status was too.

The corporate world is using us, all of us, as tools to destroy each other's livelihoods. Corporations in Mexico, South America, China, Africa, and the rest of the world are pushing family farmers out of business, so that those families have no choice but to emigrate, or turn to a life of crime to survive.

All that cheap labor becomes available to undermine the economies of the first world nations.

What we have today amounts to class warfare, with that infamous 1% stealing everything that belonged to the middle classes, lower classes, and even the subsistence level dirt poor of the world.

Free trade, my ass. Who was it that made all these "free trade" agreements? Damned near no one in the 99% voted for any of it. Al Gore's constituents made it quite clear to him that they did NOT want anything to do with NAFTA, and his reply amounted to, "I'm sorry, but I know better, so I'm overriding your wishes."

If this is "free trade", then I'm ready to try some socialism.

Re:And yet somehow

[ZeroExistenZ]

A man with such an accomplishment on his CV will always find a job.

You must be a youngling.

I have an impressive CV. Each job or client they allow me to do more difficult and complex things.

In your carreer, if you give your maximum you won't come into a comfortable zone: each other job I need to give maximum (to maintain what I have on my record) PLUS the extra edge expected "for someone with such a CV".

There are moments you cannot keep it up though, and your energy levels and determination can't keep up with your CV. After 10 years carreer in misc fields (advertizing, finance, mobile, retail, ...) I burned out. I haven't cashed in my CV and will need to perform at the same level to embody my CV.

If you want to take a step back (my exgf worked 10 years in finance, wanting to get out) you'll hear "You are overqualified for this job".

Re:And yet somehow

[garrettg84]

If someone else can do my job cheaper than I can, to the same standard or better than I can - I deserve to lose my job - that's the free market people are always raving about, isn't it.

You have entirely failed to recognize the stupidity of our MBAs that are often in control of these jobs. The qualification for offshoring jobs is not 'cheaper, same/better standard or faster'. It is simply CHEAPER. These MBA types run companies into the ground regularly going for the cheapest alternative with no quality control or time requirements.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't assume those jobs offshore are always terrible either. They very well may be able to deliver on time, above/on spec, and much cheaper than American labor. From what I have seen - it is a crap shoot. Similar things can be said about American contractors as well though, but in America - you have the legal system and can sue the contractor out of existence if they screw you!

Re:And yet somehow

[GameboyRMH]

Yes what would we ever do without swarms of HFT servers sucking the value out of the market within milliseconds, before humans could ever react.

Re:And yet somehow

[TheLink]

One of the arguments against "basic income" is it may reduce the incentive to work. But that's assuming that everyone has to work.

If robots and other automation can do the jobs, why should a few take everything and become ultra-rich, assuming the resulting increased productivity can actually provide basic income for everyone?

If you're in the IT line, you're taking part in the process of replacing more and more humans with automation.

You might be one of those who objects if some/much of the resulting productivity or $$$ gets transferred to providing basic income for everyone, but are you really happier with the current situation where some/much of the resulting $$$ gets transferred to making a few people filthy rich? I'd personally prefer the basic income thing. Just seems more civilized. And you could still have filthy rich people...

Perhaps if you still need to encourage people to contribute, make it so that if you want to vote, you need to have worked a certain number of hours within 5 years. But a rich person or great contributor still only gets one vote.

If you want to have say, you have to contribute,
otherwise you are a (hopefully well-treated) _pet_ of Advanced Human Civilization, with no votes.

Might not be a good idea to disenfranchise people like that, but it's just a suggestion :).

And the geek shall inherit the earth...

[jholyhead]

It's nice to see real Engineers getting a bit of recognition for a change.

Scary fact of the day from the CFIT wiki article - as of 2007, 5% of commercial airlines still weren't running a Terrain awareness and warning system.

Re:And the geek shall inherit the earth...

[93 Escort Wagon]

surely a more scary fact is that we have people flying planes who can't tell the difference between the land and the sky?

If, like Don Bateman, you'd ever lived in the Pacific Northwest - you'd realize there are times you can't tell the land from the sky even when you're standing on the land.

Another perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

Engineers are one of the highest paid professions in our society. Other than actuary you won't find a profession that pays higher with a 4 year. Starting salaries? What profession tops the list everytime? Engineering. If you want to come out of a 4 year program making the most money, it's engineering. And it's been that way for decades.

The trouble is that everyone here is comparing their salaires to Wall Street types - who are outliers when it comes to compensation. I have met a local investment banker here in Atlanta (at Suntrust) who shakes his head about Wall Street bankers - he says they're another "World".

Re:I look forward to the day

[jpapon]

hahaha, Ron Paul would just make it so much worse. He truly believes that free trade is the solution to all our problems. Deregulation won't solve anything; you still won't have a job, you just also won't have potable ground water.

Different does not necessarily mean better.

Re:Flight 901 November 1978

[Registered Coward v2]

Air New Zealand DC10 was equipped with a terrain warning system, on the black box voice recorder you could hear the "woop woop pull up a few seconds before it hit Mt Erebus. So I duess it depends on how steep the mountain is.

The reason the plane flew straight into the mountain was the navigation system had been programmed wrong. An the visibilty was compromised by the cluds and reflections from the snow and ice.

One of the main problems is decision making is hard when your mental model of what is happening differs from what instruments and other sensors are telling you. Not trusting your mental model (often developed from years of training and experience) does not come easy; add in a situation where even a slight delay has serious impact and you can see why stuff still happens.,/P>

As someone much older, wiser, and experienced once told me if you get into a situation where your not sure what is going on, return to the last safe setup and sort things out; as he put it "Remember - you can always back the ship down because you know the water behind you is deep enough to avoid running aground."

It's winner take all in some sectors

[PeterM from Berkeley]

Sir,

    Our economy is increasingly winner-take-all.
Entertainment: mass media raises a few stars as superstars, most of the profession starves. Once upon a time, local entertainment could provide a living. Now all those local entertainers have to compete with superstars on TV. They can't.

Big company management: with fewer, bigger, companies, very few people ever get a chance to be a CEO-type. A few winner superstars, and then everyone else.

Sports: same story as entertainment.

Bankers: apparently concentrated in Wall Street!

What used to be distributed markets supporting many are now global markets supporting a few superstars, opportunity for most has dried up.

This is big shift in our economy and society, and I don't think we've really adapted well. Unless we want a society of 99% losers and 1% superstars, we're going to have to do SOMETHING. We could do something about it ourselves: just shun mass entertainment and the superstars and support the locals instead. Don't buy in big-box stores. Try not to buy stuff from SuperCorps. But all that may not be enough, and we'll have a bald choice between Government income-levelling or serfdom for most.

-PeterM

"Free Trade" is a marketing slogan

[bityz]

Yes, it it "free trade". "Free", doesn't means free for everyone, or equal for everyone. "Free trade" just means "no rules trade" or "self-regulating trade".

Oh boy, are you ever wrong. At the time of the free trade talks, I obtained a copy of the agreement. It is a fairly hefty book.

"Free Trade" is a marketing slogan to sell a trade agreement to liberty loving people. In reality, it is a set of rules that groups try to influence to their advantage.

Your post only points out how effective that marketing has been.