Alfredo,

A interesting story in it's own right.   A part of the article
you didn't quote reads:
   "There was a bunch of hydraulic hoses that was just
sticking out of the wing," says Bill Lightfoot, an aircraft
salesman who was taking the flight on June 14, 1979, to the
Paris Airshow. "There was a ton of fluid coming out. It turns
out it was fuel. It was a plume of fuel just spewing out. It
was an absolute fluke that it didn't light up."

Well, I'm no marketing expert but from my seat I see a bunch
of hoses coming out of the wing spewing out the lifeblood of
our platform.    Some may consider Mr. Lightfoot a hero, but I
suspect that he, like we, was just trying to save his
backside.    I just wonder how loud we have to pound on the
door to get a member of the flight crew to come back and take
a look at the carnage outside our window?

Maybe we all need to take off a shoe and start pounding on the
table?

Your man the "ground pounder" - Cortlandt


-----Original Message-----
From: F. Alfredo Rego [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, August 03, 2000 2:47 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Cc: Cortlandt Wilson
Subject: Re: [HP3000-L] A Question from a RUG President?


Cortlandt Wilson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Given the current HP marketing strategy - don't acknowledge
the '3000
>as a HP platform because it just confuses people - the answer
is
>never.
>
><crystal ball on>  Some day I expect to see MBA case studies
of HP's
>marketing failures.   One section will be called  "Giving
away the
>'crown jewels' ".   Maybe they will even quote your letter as
an
>example of how the marketing 'experts' ignored the warnings
from the
>user community.


USA Today carried an article on August 1 (page 3A, U.S.A.
edition),
"Investigators look at Concorde tire incidents" (1979 flight
bears
similarities to last week's crash).

Among the passengers was Bill Lightfoot, an aircraft salesman
who
was taking the flight on June 14, 1979, to the Paris Airshow.
The article includes these paragraphs, which echo Cortlandt's
ideas:

______________________________________________________________
___

While on the 1979 flight, Lightfoot saw a metallic object fly
in
front of his window. He craned his head enough to be able to
see
the surface of the wing out of the small window at his seat.

He immediately attempted to notify flight attendants but was
told that there was no problem. His repeated efforts to warn
the
crew fell on deaf ears as the minutes ticked by and the speed
increased toward Mach 1. "It was like a bad dream," he
recalls.

Finally, after [Lightfoot's] threatening to bash in the
cockpit door,
the copilot came to the rear of the jet. Lightfoot says he
shoved
the doubting pilot toward his window. "He says, 'Mon dieu.'
The guy
just turned ashen. ... He turned around and he zipped up the
aisle.
The instant he got to the cockpit, you could feel them jerk
the
throttles back."

The damaged jet landed at Dulles about 20 minutes after
takeoff.
No one was injured.
______________________________________________________________
___


The article is at http://www.usatoday.com/news/ndsmon11.htm



Mon dieu,

  _______________
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|            r  |  Alfredo
[log in to unmask]
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http://www.adager.com
|        g      |  F. Alfredo Rego                       +1
208 726-9100
|      a        |  Manager, R & D Labs               Fax +1
208 726-2822
|    d          |  Adager Corporation
|  A            |  Sun Valley, Idaho 83353-3000
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