Credentials?

Several asked, re the last post, how do YOU qualify to comment on this topic?

Fair enough.

Amateur status, what is it they say--citizen science?

Actually, aviation and aviation 'incidents' have been an interest for most of my life.  Unable to fly when I enlisted for the Navy because of eyesight, the pilot idea went begging.  My brother Tom did join the Navy, and one tour on a carrier convinced him to shift to the submarine service due to the high number of missing planes that year.

Our neighbor when I was in high school was the VP of engineering for North American Aviation; he stimulated my college choice greatly (Caltech because of JPL).  My uncle was VP of Mfg for Northrup, his oldest son (my first cousin) worked years as a designer for Bill Lear, and then Boeing.  He was cited admiringly by the Boeing VP of Quality at his funeral as 'the man' who blew the whistle on the flawed composite wing structure for the Dreamliner.

My son and my daughter-in-law work for Boeing today.

My ergonomics team at HP was called in to 'help' Boeing when they repeated the idiotic cockpit design on the 757 that had once plagued the 727--putting the afterburner switch next to the engine switch.  The first one cost one plane from LAX to Denver, falling in the ocean in 1969, killing all aboard.  Fifteen years later, a near repeat on the 'new fly-by-wire' plane, the pilot fortunately able to restart the engines less than 1,000 feet above the ocean.  HP and Boeing had interlocking Boards of Directors for years--ergo, our team got the invite to help.

And Bill Hewlett personally got involved with microburst measurements when we had an incident with one of our corporate jets while I was HP's Corporate Engineering director.

I've co-chaired major ACM conferences with Boeing's only Computer Science Fellow, who is one of few industry ACM Fellows as well.  And we're close to Boeing's long-time Safety officer, as well as to NASA folk.

Our god-daughter's grandfather was Jim Nissen, the 5th recipient of celebrated Crystal Eagle award from the Northern Calif Aero Club.  The four who preceded him were Jimmy Doolittle, Chuck Yeager, Stan Hillis, and Bill Lear.  Pretty good company, huh?   Every American astronaut (and me) through 1990 has flown in Jim's restored "Jenny" which is now in the Air Force museum in Utah.

But the most impactful for me was the opportunity to chair the ALPA (AirLine Pilots Association) inquiry after the 9-11 tragedies.  This semi-secret committee included lots of high-level military folk, an Air Force One captain, several spook shop folk (the kind who go by only a first name like George, but at home they're known as Bill), and several security and cyber-security folk.  This led to locked cockpit doors, green light laser regulations, extensive simulator time to learn to fly an airliner with destroyed engines from SAMs (Surface-to-Air Missiles).  This latter worked for Sully Sullenberger; it failed in Ukraine (if the plane blows up, pretty hard for the best pilot to save it).

Oh, yes, and our Cub Scout den mother was Wrong Way Corrigan's sister.

So, the net is that we've been fortunate to be close to a few of the stories, and that is what fashioned the presentation.  Still, just an avocational interest.