assy, arranged for our renting of a flat • for both my soulmate and I as well as our Afghan Hound, and secure parking for our VW411 LE Estate • which was situated in the Boulevard de la Cambre, just around the corner from where the Gestapo Headquarters were situated in WWII.
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Boeing 747 land at Heathrow after I had guided it onto approach from London Radar, which was situated then on the north side of the airport.
Whether or not the delayed take-off of the return flight, due to mechanical failure, was a harbinger of things to come it was this exact same plane that was lost in the horrific accident at Los Rodeos Airport, Tenerife, which resulted in -
the worst air crash ever, when a KLM 747 smashed into this self same PanAm 747 on the runway in March 1977.
It was during the time between these two events that Linnie & I were both happy for me to be seconded to the Eurocontrol upper airspace agency in the early 1970s prior to the UK becoming a member of the EEC - because of our commitment to the idea of a union of the peoples of Europe - but we soon, even then, became very aware of the burgeoning bureaucracy of that system and the corruptive payments that the EEC were making to the likes of bargees travelling to and fro across borders to claim "subsidies" several times over - without a shed of cargo on board. As an Air Traffic Radar Controller with the specific task of keeping aircraft at least 5miles and 1000ft apart it was certainly a wake up call to realise that each of the nationalities in Eurocontrol had a different common-sense attitude towards the task in hand - despite the fact English was the only language of communication for air traffic movements. The next 3 years or so of living with the peoples of Europe could not have been bettered but it was eventually the dissolution of those very people with the European Project, themselves, that influenced our decision to return to the UK - and we have never regretted that decision despite many subsequent trips to places throughout Europe and return visits to the friends that we made.
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oncur with the sentiment of midenglander in his posted comment to the Daily Telegraph article entitled -
Spain's sovereign thunderclap and the end of Merkel's Europe -
" Perhaps at last, nations are awakening from their intellectual slumber and are realising that closer European cooperation actually means domination by Germany. The French are an important German ally as they were through the Vichy Government in WW2. The European Union is led by a Germany, that in its whole history has yet to achieve a full hundred years of democracy. Like Russia, Germany's inclination is always dictatorial and authoritarian.
There are many perceived forms of "democracy".
The EU's and Merkel's vision is one to be avoided at all costs."…
GCE 'A' Levels in Maths Pure and Maths Applied as well as Physics and ART • and I well remember his explanation of the IDEA of a MEMEX, which would take the form of an electronically computerised version of a rolodex device; and so [IT] was that having considered the idea of joining a BOAC pilot training programme, it transpired that I was invited to be one of the first cadets, straight from Grammar School, to be trained as Ministry of Aviation Air Traffic Controllers • and so [IT] was that I began my training, by way of learning the concept of systems analysis on an IBM 64K Mainframe Computer, that then transmogrified into a familiarisation with Digital Equipment Corporation PD11s and my subsequent IDEA of utilising the AFTN for the purpose of an enhanced radar-handover capability, between Air Traffic Control Centres, during my secondment to Eurocontrol, and subsequent return to the CAA at West Drayton.
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Added by Michael Grove at 10:02 on November 28, 2021
ake-off Always Late In Arrival
Marseille air traffic alert
The disarming detail that both pilots may have fallen asleep on the job might have never been revealed had it not been for the quick work of alert by Marseille air traffic controllers.
The plane had regularly declared its position upon arriving into French airspace at Brest, but then, as the plane passed from Bordeaux air traffic control to Marseille, pilots failed to respond to Marseille air traffic controllers. They had tried in vain several times to contact the pilots about their position.
Alarmed about a potential terrorist incident, French air authorities contacted their roman counterparts at 5.21 am.
They in turn contacted the ITA Airways central command, who tried to contact the pilots via their satellite cell phones.
French authorities alerted two fighter jets to prepare to fly near the passenger plane to surveil the pilot’s cabin. Meanwhile ITA’s command centre began sending messages to the pilots via ACARS, a digital data link system for transmission of short messages between aircraft and ground stations via satellite.
Despite the fact that ACARS messages are displayed on the pilot’s monitors, there was still radio silence. More than 10 minutes after repeated attempts to reach them had failed, the pilots eventually responded and went on to land in Rome 20 minutes before their scheduled arrival time.…