London bus strike

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.guardian.c...-london?newsfeed=true

Although today's London bus strike will be most disruptive for travellers, and I presume will not attract much public support, have the bus drivers got a point?

The Tube drivers and the overhead Train drivers have received a massive bonus for the Olympic period, is it not also fair that the bus drivers should also receive a bonus?

[gina32]

im sure there will be plenty of overtime when the olympics are on and plenty of drivers to do it, its just greed

[anotheoldgit]

New Judge

/// There are many more. Also, see how much skill is needed to land a 747 in high crosswinds and driving rain. Contrary to popular belief they do not land themselves. ///

Are you certain about that Judge?

Since the 60s/70s, landing by itself has been a part of airliner capabilities. In fact, in bad weather conditions, most airlines REQUIRE their pilots to use this capability, known as "autoland".

Pilots still mostly prefer to hand fly the big bird to the ground though, for the pleasure of it if nothing else.

I am sure you can find a thousand descriptions of how this works, but in very rough terms it involves two directional radio signals, one vertical (the localizer) and one horizontal (the glideslope). Instruments on the aircraft pick up how far the aircraft is laterally from the localizer and vertically from the glideslope. Based on this the pilots or the autoland system can bring the aircraft down without external visual cues. This is done with the autopilot(s) controlling the flight surfaces and with the autothrottle(s) controlling the engines.

Auto-takeoff is also possible, although used less often. The precision required is less, since you tend to know where the runway is when you are rolling down it.

[emmie]

there weren't that many problems that i could see yesterday. All the buses i use were running normally.

[excelsior-1]

i agree with those that think that bonuses are wrong - just because the may have to work a little harder.

also - and i've said this before - strikes are self defeating ..
a company loses financially when workers strike. then, when they go back to work there is even less money in the pot with which to settle the dispute.

not to mention inconveniencing and alienating customers and the general public.

[emmie]

totally agree ^^^^

[excelsior-1]

thank you .. em10

[anotheoldgit]

Didn't seem to be any mention of it on the TV news, unless I missed it.

[New Judge]

We digress a little, AOG, but I think you’ll find the various “autoland” systems are designed primarily to cope with situations of reduced visibility but are not used in high wind conditions. In particular they cannot cope well with tail winds (though of course aircraft should not be landing with the wind behind them) and I’m fairly sure they’re not too good at keeping the aircraft straight on the runway when it has landed. No doubt clanad could assist, but, as I said, we digress somewhat so I’ll not investigate further.

[albemarle]

Why should the games sponsors - Macdonalds, Coca Cola ec - be the only ones to profit from London holding the Olympics.
Good luck to the bus drivers - driving a bus around London is a pretty horrendous job at the best of times, during the Olympics it will be a total nightmare. Most of their critics wouldn't dream of doing their job whatever the money.

[emmie]

ablemarle, maybe not, but they can decide to strike and leave us all in the lurch, whether it's at the Olympics or not. If one is reliant on public transport, and there is no other method one can get to the destination then they have us by the short and curlies. Pay them and hope that the next big event that rolls around doesn't cause the same problem. As an aside I find most of them horrendous, a law unto themselves, park way off from the kerb, which is bad for anyone but especially for those who are disabled.
The attitude is poor, and ask a driver for any kind of help and it's unlikely you will get it. I have no choice but to use the buses, as the tube is horrible and i suffer from claustrophobia, so it's buses or walk, and that isn't an option.