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scapegrace74-blog · 3 years

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New Ways of Turning into Stone, Chapter 3

A/N As promised, Jamie returns in this chapter. He has an appointment to keep, after all. Because I can’t think of anything more creative, this chapter is entitled “Second Appointment”. For previous chapters, your best bet is to check out the story on my AO3 page.

The week both crept and flew past, like one of those dreams in which she ran until her lungs burned, but never managed to get anywhere. Kinetic motion trapped in amber. Claire never did tell Geillis about her excursion to Corstorphine Hill over the weekend, embarrassed by how it had ended.

And now it was Thursday. She’d opted for a protein smoothie for lunch, a meal with no chance of leaving leafy residue between her teeth. It was likely wasted vanity. As two o’clock drew near, she bargained with herself to abandon any hope she may be harbouring. Jamie Fraser had shown no interest in participating in the psychiatric process during his first appointment. Fraternal obligation had brought him to her office once, but he didn’t strike her as a man who yielded the reins of his life easily. It wasn’t likely he would return.

When it came his distinctive knock, crisp and insistent, caught her unawares, even though she’d just been staring at his name in her planner. She hastily pushed the items on her desk to one side, patted uselessly at her curls, and called out for him to enter.

“Good afternoon, Doctor Beauchamp,” he greeted cautiously. “Miss Duncan told me tae come straight in.”

There was something different about him today. His clothing, certainly. Instead of casual wear, he wore trousers and a button down, wet splotches over the shoulders attesting to the fact that it had begun raining again. And while he still took up an inordinate amount of space in her small office, he seemed... diminished, somehow. A paler echo of the fireworks display of his first visit.

“Of course. Please have a seat, Mister Fraser.”

“Jamie, if you will,” he corrected as he settled gingerly into the armchair. “Mister Fraser was my Da.”

Something about his tone and the fact his laser blue eyes wouldn’t meet her own as he spoke the words caused her to lean into his statement.

“Did your father pass away recently, Jamie?”

A moment, an indrawn breath of panic, and then it was cleverly masked with a wry glance.

“Aye, last year. An’ yer no’ very subtle, doctor.”

“I didn’t realize subtlety was called for,” she parried. “You made another appointment, and I specialize in grief counselling. Why else would you be here?”

Despite the fact that it wasn’t productive from a psychiatric point of view, she enjoyed his reluctance to hastily expose his inner demons. Too often, her practice required her to work carefully in order to avoid shaping the pliable emotions of her patients. While obviously hurting, Jamie had an unflinching, unalterable quality that she admired. Not to mention that the intellectual game of cat and mouse they were playing was wildly stimulating.

“I suppose I enjoyed our conversation,” Jamie teased. “An’ Miss Duncan’s shortbread.”

With an awkward squint that she imagined was meant to be a wink, her patient rose to investigate the current offerings on her tea table.

“Och, petit fours!” he exclaimed with childlike glee and perfect French pronunciation. “There was a café none too far from my flat in Paris tha’ made these. I’d often grab some on my way tae the office.”

He returned to the desk with a small plate of the pastries, pushing it towards her as he settled into his seat.

“No, thank you. I’ve just eaten.”

Like a searchlight, his bright eyes didn’t miss much. He glanced significantly at the half-empty plastic smoothie container to one side of her desk. Rather than chide her for her austerity, as Geillis frequently did, he instead made a show of biting into each of the four little squares until there was nothing left but crumbs. Her stomach muttered in complaint.

“What did you do in Paris?” she asked as he finished his snack with a contented sigh.

“Oh, a wee bit of this and that,” he demurred. In response to her exasperated look, he continued, “I started out at the Bourse. Futures, options, arbitrage, that sort of thing. I have a good ear fer languages, sae from there I went into foreign exchange. Import export, and the like.”

“You’re a financier?” she asked, somewhat more incredulous than she ought to be. She wasn’t certain what she had pictured James Fraser doing for a living, but greasing the wheels of capitalism definitely wasn’t it.

“Was,” he corrected. “I quit an’ came home tae Scotland last year.”

“When your father died,” she guessed.

“Aye.”

She once again had the sense of standing in front of a locked door that Jamie had no intention of opening. Rather than hammer uselessly on its stubborn surface, she nimbly diverted the conversation sideways.

“What do you do for work now?”

A slow blink followed by a dawning smile indicated he was aware of her stratagem.

“I’m a carpenter.”

It was rare for Claire to be truly surprised by people. She made a living reading their unspoken cues. Twice in the same conversation was unheard of.

“A carpenter?” she repeated as though she hadn’t heard him perfectly well the first time.

“Aye. Like Jesus, ye ken?”

With a quicksilver grin, Jamie launched into a description of his current occupation, which involved the making of reproduction antiques and custom pieces for clients around Scotland. She realized with a start that she’d read an article about his business in a popular local magazine.

International financier. Self-made entrepreneur. Tall drink of water. James Fraser had a lot of things going for him. And yet here he sat, paying her by the hour to listen to him avoid talking about whatever hardship had befallen him.

She mentally composed a list of the topics he was deftly avoiding with his charming anecdotes. His father’s recent death. The reason behind a radical change in career. Living in the city on account of unspoken ‘family obligations’, even though his verbal reminiscence of the Highlands was so poetic it damn near made her cry. There was something raw just below the surface of his nonchalance, and her innate curiosity cried out to find out what it was.

“You told me last week that your sister, Jenny, insisted you attend counselling. But you said that you’re handling matters fine on your own. Can you tell me why your sister believes otherwise?”

It might have been amusing to see such a large man squirm in different circumstances. His left hand furrowed through his hair, setting the autumn waves on end. His mouth, so recently relaxed and mobile as he eagerly shared the details of his craft, froze in a pained frown. She considered whether she had pushed too hard too soon.

“I gave a lot of thought tae what ye said when we parted last week,” Jamie began at last. “Tae be honest, it haunted me. Jen kens me better than anyone, an’ while I like tae complain tha’ she meddles where she doesna belong, the truth is she’s truly scared fer me. An’ even if I dinna agree tha’ my lifestyle is cause fer concern, I owe it tae her tae try tae sort myself out. I owe her far more than that,” he finished with a rueful shake of his head.

“What kind of lifestyle has your sister so worried?” she probed.

“Whisky, women and song,” he quipped, before adding, “Weel, I canna carry a tune, but twa out of three isna half bad.”

He tried to smile away the awkward tension that descended on the office, the air ripe with unspoken words. Claire felt disappointment whirlpool in her gut. Just another charming rake, after all. It really shouldn’t matter, and yet somehow it did. More than she dared to admit.

“Yes, well, the road of excess leads to the palace of consequences, ” she sniffed at last, angry at herself for sounding like a schoolmarm. What a bore she must seem to him, with her regimented behaviour and rigid morals.

Jamie rose abruptly, and for a half-second she imagined he might lunge at her, or storm from the room. Instead, he spun around to face the door. Without a word, he untucked his shirt and began to expose his lower back.

Claire was momentarily stunned silent. Just as she managed to draw a deep enough breath to censure Jamie for his highly inappropriate strip tease, the golden velour of his lower back transformed without warning into a furrowed landscape of scar tissue, ripples and craters left by some massive trauma. The air left her lungs on a questioning sigh.

“I ken all about consequences, Doctor Beauchamp,” he stated. “I live with them every moment of my life.”

Her fingers found the knotted skin, surprisingly warm and mobile beneath her touch. A shiver shimmered over the unmarred muscle of his flanks.

Before she could find any appropriate words of apology, the office door opened and Geillis stuck her head in. She barked a cough upon seeing Jamie’s state of undress and Claire’s position, leaning across her desk. Doctor and patient jumped apart like opposing magnets.

“Sae sorry for the interruption, but yer three o’clock is here. Should I tell her ye’ve been... delayed?”

Jamie muttered an obscenity under his breath which Claire whole-heartedly seconded. There was no way Geillis wasn’t going to be utterly insufferable about this.

“Mister Fraser was just leaving, Geillis.”

With a lewd wink and a nod, the door closed.

“Look, Jamie...” she began just as he apologized. “I’m sae sorry, lass.”

They both laughed nervously. Jamie finished tucking his shirt into his pants and turned to face the desk.

“I hope this willna cause ye any difficulties with Miss Duncan,” he began, eyes wide with concern.

“No more so than usual,” she sighed. “Geillis is a good friend. She just... doesn’t know when to quit, sometimes,” she explained.

“Sounds jus’ like my sister. Perhaps we should introduce them.”

She smiled, struggling to find something else to say to move past the moment. She could hear Geillis and her next patient conversing just outside the door. There was no time left for subtlety.

“Will I see you again next week, Jamie?” she asked, giving up on finding a more oblique way of phrasing the question that was reverberating through her mind.

Jamie’s bashful smile dipped towards the floor, causing his hair to fall in front of his eyes.

“Aye. I’ll even keep my clothes on, if ye ask nicely.”

It was that smile, that hair, those eyes, that carried her through the rest of her week, aloft on the anticipation of something utterly forbidden.

#my writing #outlander

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batfam-big-bang · 4 years

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Zara and Lucy: what are some tips you can give for spreading c h a o s?

Popping this under a read more because we wrote a lot (and swore a lot, and at one point- you’ll see).

2. Spamming chats with inside jokes

3. Catcatcat

4 Be gay, do crime. Always.

5. S c r e a m

6. S w e a r

7. Argue with everyone whether or not you think they're right

8. Anyone who is older than you is a boomer and you cannot let them forget that.

9. Anyone who is younger than you is a kiddo and you cannot let them forget that

10. Authority? What authority?

11. D r a m a

12. Make inside jokes when you run out of spammed ones.

13. Catcatcat

14. TWAS A FUCKING CAT.

15. TWAS A GODS DAM FUCKING CAT

16. Act like you're the oldest. Always.

17. But if you’re the youngest, take advantage of that.

18. Make sure everyone knows how pretty they are.

19. Dirty minds

20. Nicknames for days

20. Insults and compliments for days.

^^a good mix of both people need to know how much they suck and also how amazing they are

21. Impersonation

22. Be respectful(ish) so you can cause more chaos later.

23. On the other hand never let them know you respect them

24. Take care of yourself - you can’t cause chaos when you‘re comatose (this is a call out zara)

25. Here's an example of swearing (go fuck yourself loons)

26. Here‘s another one (go eat a fucking sandwich first z)

27. Here's a third-

28. Zara.

29. Murdermurdershrimpgumbo

30. Act like the whole world revolves around you

31. Also act like the world is out to get you

32. Bring up possibly concerning anecdotes randomly.

33. Definitely do not rp as a couple

34. Rp is random

35. Be crime, do gay

36.. Hey loons you're gay can i-

37. Finish your sentences Zara :)

38. You know what I was saying ;)

39. Zara this is going on the Internet, shut up.

40. Like other stuff hasn't gone on the internet loons

41. Yeah and it shouldn’t have

42. Don’t ask us for tips on how to spread chaos, we go off track very easily.

43. Winky faces everywhere ;)

44. Creativity is key.

45. Some people should be protected at all costs, like Raxie-Liselle

46. Always act like you've murdered someone (of course, we don't have to act, but for you mortals..)

47. Call everyone mortal

48. Simultaneously call everyone a gift from the gods

49. Demon smiles ::)

50. Make up weird ass exaggerations about shit

51. Everyone must be kept in the dark about your true intentions

52. Even you

53. Even you.

54. Even you

55. Even. You.

56. No chaos after bedtime kiddos.

57. Haha I have no bedtime

58. Neither do I, which means chaos is forever.

59. Please remind Zara to go to sleep and eat.

60. I am vengeance, I do not sleep

61. You are so cute, omg

62. I AM NOT

63. Don’t argue with me about this one, everyone knows I’m right.

64. Random song lyrics in the middle of the night

65. Random song lyrics in the middle of the day.

66. Timezones are your bitch.

67. Be smooth af

68. I’f I’m cute, then you’re a literal goddess of Olympus

69. Follow 67 as much as possible

70. Zara is cute, and you have to remind her of this daily

71. Lucy is the sun, without her no one on this planet could function

And that, boomers, zoomers, and anyone who considers themselves in between, is how you spread chaos!

Le bow

We hope this short list will help you in your chaos making!

Zara, I got you flowers for your stunning performance. They’re almost as beautiful as you.

And remember, everyone is a bitch except for you when it suits you. Lucy, my stunning performance would be nothing without the goddess that is you on my side.

I wouldn’t have been able to hold it together without your constant beauty reminding me why I live. Cuteness levels through the roof.

I haven’t been able to hold it together, I was staring at your drop dead beauty the whole time.

(We spammed our chat while making this list see how chaotic we are)

Edit: WE FUCKING FORGOT PUNS LOONS HOW COULD WE

I DON’T KNOW, BUT THEY’RE SO PUNDERFUL AND YOU SHOULD ALWAYS USE THEM.

#mod lucy #bbb ama #Anonymous #mod z

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cutepresea · 4 years

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4-8 A Light That Pierces the Clouds: Miku’s Battle

Again, sorry for the spam. This will be it for now. Parts 9-15 will come later.

If you want to blacklist these, you can use either the tag #a light that pierces the clouds for just this event, or #xdu event scripts or #xdu scripts

Reminder that these are copied straight from XD Unlimited itself, so any grammatical weirdness, mistranslations, and/or mischaracterizations are not my doing.

Miku Kohinata: (Hibiki...)

Hibiki Tachibana (flashback): "Psh! Get out of the way!"

Miku Kohinata (flashback): "Huh? Ahh!"

Miku Kohinata: (She must have been protecting me.)

Miku Kohinata: "I knew Hibiki hasn't changed. I want to talk to her more. No, I have to..."

Genjuro Kazanari: "Thank you for all for gathering. Let's start discussing some countermeasures for the Karma Noise." [1]

Tsubasa Kazanari: "Where's Kohinata?"

Maria: "She has some business to tend to. Something very important."

Chris Yukine: "That's right."

Tsubasa Kazanari: "Is that so?"

Genjuro Kazanari: "First off, I want to parse what we know about the Karma Noise. Tell us what you know again."

Maria: "Sure. That Karma Noise is--"

Genjuro Kazanari: "I see. This may be a bit more difficult than I'd imagined."

Maria: "There isn't much we can do here. The most we wielders can do are combo attacks or win through attrition."

Tsubasa Kazanari: "Wait, when you say here... Do you mean that there are other methods?"

Chris Yukine: "Something like that. We also have S2CA and Ignite."

Tsubasa Kazanari: "What are those? Why can't they be used?"

Chris Yukine: "S2CA combines Superb Songs while Ignite utilizes the berserk state."

Maria: "To use S2CA, you'll need a certain girl who specializes in joining hands together."

Tsubasa Kazanari: "So that means we need the Hibiki Tachibana from your world?"

Maria: "That's right. And currently, she's in no condition to fight."

Chris Yukine: "It'd be nice if the idiot here could do it, but it's impossible to pull off without some practice."

Maria: "Right. And she may be fundamentally different from our Hibiki. That's why this method can't be used."

Tsubasa Kazanari: "What about Ignite? Though I must say, that "berserk state" sounds pretty ominous."

Chris Yukine: "Our Gears have this thing called an Ignite Module."

Genjuro Kazanari: "An Ignite Module, you say?"

Maria: "With the magic blade Dáinsleif as a core, it triggers an artificial berserk state, converting it into power."

Maria: "But against the Karma Noise's curse, it'll cause the wielder to go truly berserk. It's a double-edged sword."

Genjuro Kazanari: "So you're saying that teamwork is the only effective method?"

Tsubasa Kazanari: "In that case, we will just have to join forces. With us three plus Kohinata, that's four wielders who can--"

Chris Yukine: "We already saw that that wasn't enough last time."

Maria: "Yeah. We can make up for it a little through teamwork, but it'll be difficult without Hibiki's help."

Chris Yukine: "We'd be better off having over wielders, that's for sure."

Genjuro Kazanari: "Sure, it would be beneficial if we could get her to work with us, but..."

Tsubasa Kazanari: "But we can't know whether she'll cooperate or not. I don't think this is a good idea."

Genjuro Kazanari: "Tsubasa..."

Tsubasa Kazanari: "If better teamwork defeats the Karma Noise, I'll do everything in my power to improve. Will you help me?"

Chris Yukine: "Of course we will."

Maria: "Well, it's all we can do right now."

Maria: "I think things are starting to take shape."

Chris Yukine: "It's not a bad idea, is it? Though then again, we're two people short."

Tsubasa Kazanari: "......"

Maria: "What's the matter, Tsubasa?"

Tsubasa Kazanari: "Is it really possible to work together with Hibiki Tachibana? I'm still a bit hesitant..."

Maria: "What makes you say that?"

Tsubasa Kazanari: "We've crossed paths in the battlefield numerous times. I've tried to convince her to join Section 2 before."

Tsubasa Kazanari: "She just always says she doesn't care. All she does is appear when there's Noise and do her own thing."

Tsubasa Kazanari: "I don't know what she's thinking, and I highly doubt we can work together toward a common goal."

Tsubasa Kazanari: "And to think someone like that is wielding Gungnir. I mean..."

Chris Yukine: "She's just upfront, that's all. And a dumbass."

Maria: "Yeah. I think that's just who she is."

Tsubasa Kazanari: "But that's Hibiki Tachibana in your world. It doesn't necessarily mean she's the same as the one here."

Maria: "I'm not so sure. Gjallarhorn links to branches of a bigger river, but it doesn't affect that river's flow."

Maria: "That's why there shouldn't be major differences in their personalities and preferences. At least for now."

Chris Yukine: "There're loads of small differences in every world. Some have Gears, some don't. Sometimes people are gone."

Maria: "I was surprised seeing how different she is from the Hibiki I know, but maybe they are essentially the same."

Maria: "I was saved by how upfront she is."

Chris Yukine: "...Me too."

Tsubasa Kazanari: "I hope that's the case... But how do you plan on convincing her to work with us?"

Maria: "We'll let the expert deal with that."

Chris Yukine: "Yeah. She's the perfect one to deal with that idiot."

Tsubasa Kazanari: "Expert?"

Maria: "Yes. Her best friend is hard at work as we speak."

Hibiki Tachibana: "Hmph! Hah!"

Hibiki Tachibana: "...What? What do you want?"

Miku Kohinata: "I'm sorry. Is this a bad time?"

Hibiki Tachibana: "You're just like the others. Why do you keep showing up? Who do you think you are to me?"

Miku Kohinata: "Oh, right. I haven't explained yet."

Miku Kohinata: (I think parallel worlds and Gjallarhorn are top secret, but... No, if I lied, she wouldn't trust me" [2]

Miku Kohinata: "Um, we're--"

Hibiki Tachibana: "A different me from a different world..."

Miku Kohinata: "Yeah. I know it must be hard to take in..."

Hibiki Tachibana: "...Whatever."

Hibiki Tachibana: "If you've got nothing else to say, go away. You're distracting."

Miku Kohinata: "Um, Hibiki, I was hoping we could talk some more."

Hibiki Tachibana: "I have nothing to say to you."

Miku Kohinata: "Please don't say that. During that fight the other day, you protected me, right?"

Hibiki Tachibana: "Me? Protect you?"

Miku Kohinata: "Yeah, you did. That's why I want to thank you."

Hibiki Tachibana: "That wasn't my intention. Don't get the wrong idea."

Miku Kohinata: "No, you did protect me."

Hibiki Tachibana: "Don't assume things. I twas just a coincidence. No need to thank me for that."

Miku Kohinata: "Even so, nothing changes the fact that you helped me Hibiki, so... Thank you."

Hibiki Tachibana: "...Whatever."

Miku Kohinata: "Huh? Hibiki, where are you going?"

Hibiki Tachibana: "I'm going home. Don't follow me."

Hibiki Tachibana: "What the hell's up with her?"

Miku Kohinata (flashback): "Even so, nothing changes the fact that you helped me Hibiki, so... Thank you."

Hibiki Tachibana: (Me... Help her? That's impossible. I don't help people.)

Hibiki Tachibana: "Helping... Psh, as if I'd do that."

Hibiki Tachibana: (No one's ever helped me, so why would I help anyone else? I never have and never will.)

Hibiki Tachibana: (What is this feeling... My chest feels weird...)

Hibiki Tachibana: "No, it doesn't hurt, though. Something as stupid as this could never make my heart ache."

Hibiki Tachibana: (I don't need anyone else because I'll end up alone anyway. I should've been alone from the start.)

Hibiki Tachibana: "It's the Noise... I have to stop them!"

Maria: "There were only regular Noise this time."

Chris Yukine: "I just wish that stupid Noise would come straight to us so we could just be done with it."

Maria: "...Do you think she'll cooperate?"

Chris Yukine: "Considering how the last fight went, not yet."

Miku Kohinata: "Hey, umm... Can I ask you something?"

Chris Yukine: "What's up?"

Miku Kohinata: "When we fought that Karma Noise, I thought Hibiki protected me."

Chris Yukine: "You think so?"

Miku Kohinata: "Yeah... It looked like she was leading the Noise so that their attacks didn't damage the city."

Maria: "She was doing that?"

Miku Kohinata: "That's why I think Hibiki's still Hibiki. Maybe it's all subconscious, but she tried to protect everyone."

Miku Kohinata: "That's what I thought at least... But what do you think?"

Chris Yukine: "You're overthinking it, aren't you? I understand how you feel about her protecting you..."

Miku Kohinata: "But if that was the Hibiki I know..."

Maria: "Perhaps. But we still can't say for sure yet."

Miku Kohinata: "...I guess, you're right."

Maria: "But it goes without saying that you know her the best and share the strongest bond."

Maria: "That's why I'm going to respect your judgement."

Miku Kohinata: "Maria-san..."

Chris Yukine: "I will, too. You do know that idiot the best."

Miku Kohinata: "Chris... Thank you both."

Genjuro Kazanari: "I took the data from the Karma Noise you fought to adjust the simulator. Give it a whirl."

Tsubasa Kazanari: "Thank you so much, Commander Kazanari."

Genjuro Kazanari: "Don't mention it. This is the least I could do."

Chris Yukine: "...W-Wait! You did the adjustments?!"

Genjuro Kazanari: "I did... Why the surprise?"

Miku Kohinata: "I didn't know you could do that..."

Maria: "Wait. The Commander Kazanari we know is actually quite adept at fighting..."

Tsubasa Kazanari: "He's a fighter, you say?"

Genjuro Kazanari: "I do know some basic self defense, but I have no other martial arts knowledge."

Genjuro Kazanari: "This might not make up for it, but when it comes to handling machinery, I'm your man."

Genjuro Kazanari: "I watch a lot of sci-fi movies to gain inspiration for all kinds of inventions. I also own lots of patents."

Chris Yukine: "Y-You do?! You're kidding me!"

Miku Kohinata: "I guess there ARE lots of differences between worlds..."

Maria: "Sci-fi movies?"

Maria: (In our world, the Commander likes to watch action movies.)

Maria: (In the world with Kanade Amo, I heard Commander Kazanari was big into mystery... Wait!)

Maria: "No, that can't be right... It can't be... right?"

Chris Yukine: "What's wrong?"

Maria: "It's nothing..."

Tsubasa Kazanari: "The simulator's been updated for us. How about we hop in for some training?"

Miku Kohinata: "Yeah, let's do that."

Genjuro Kazanari: "Looks like it needs a little tuning."

Maria: "Yeah. I think the real thing was much stronger."

Chris Yukine: "I feel we're lacking something big. I thought our teamwork was on point, though..."

Miku Kohinata: "I'm sorry. If only I was stronger..."

Tsubasa Kazanari: "It's not your fault, Kohinata. None of us are strong enough."

Miku Kohinata: "But I'm the most inexperienced amongst the wielders."

Tsubasa Kazanari: "If you're going to say that, then I have the smallest output..."

Maria: "Enough trying to one up each other in weaknesses. None of us are strong enough. We need more firepower."

Chris Yukine: "Looks like we're going to have to get her to cooperate after all."

Maria: "I think you're right."

Tsubasa Kazanari: "Hey, how about we carry on training some more? I think there's still more we can do."

Miku Kohinata: "Oh... I'm sorry. I..."

Maria: "It's fine. Go ahead. There's a job only you can do."

Chris Yukine: "Good luck in convincing that idiot."

Tsubasa Kazanari: "I'm sorry I couldn't help more."

Miku Kohinata: "That's not true. Now I'd better get going."

Genjuro Kazanari: "Miku-kun's gone, so I'll take this lull to analyze the data and make some more improvements."

Genjuro Kazanari: "If you need it, you're free to use this simulator as much as you wish."

Chris Yukine: "It's just the three of us now. What do you want to do? I wouldn't mind continuing."

Maria: "I think we should work on our teamwork."

Tsubasa Kazanari: "In that case... I have a favor to ask."

Chris Yukine: "What?"

Tsubasa Kazanari: "I want to know more about the power of your Ignite Module, since it's apparently able to beat Karma Noise."

Maria: "I don't mind telling you about it, but Ignite isn't really the ideal way to counter the Karma Noise."

Tsubasa Kazanari: "That doesn't matter. It pains me to say, but I don't feel like I'm using my Gear to its full potential."

Tsubasa Kazanari: "I want to know what potential, what power, Ame no Habakiri has so that I can become stronger."

Maria: "Ignite uses another relic as its core, so strictly speaking, it's not only your Gear's potential."

Chris Yukine: "But the Gear itself outputs the berserk power, so it's still relevant. Let me show you!"

Maria: "Hey! Are you seriously just going to use it like that?"

Chris Yukine: "Those simulated Noise battles weren't doing it for me, anyhow. Let's show off what we can really do!"

Tsubasa Kazanari: "Thank you, I really appreciate it!"

Chris Yukine: "Ignite Module! Drawn Blade!"

Maria: "Oh well... Ignite Module! Drawn Blade!"

Tsubasa Kazanari: "That output was amazing! So that's the power of going berserk..."

Maria: "Yeah. This is one of the Symphogear's functions. It's a controlled state of berserk power."

Tsubasa Kazanari: "You said that it's a double-edged sword, but why? Is it something to do with the Karma Noise's curse?"

Maria: "The Ignite Module uses a fragment of the magic sword Dáinsleif."

Maria: "Dáinsleif's curse and the Karma Noise's curse both amplify a person's destructive impulses."

Maria: "And when the two curses overlap, it creates an uncontrollable destructive impulse that drowns out your will."

Chris Yukine: "In other words, using it in front of the Karma Noise will make you go truly berserk, so we can't use it."

Tsubasa Kazanari: "That's unfortunate... You have this power, yet you can't use it."

Chris Yukine: "Yep. If we could use it freely, the Karma Noise would be nothing!"

Tsubasa Kazanari: "Is that true?"

Maria: "I wouldn't go that far, but they would be easier to fight, that's for sure."

Tsubasa Kazanari: "......"

Chris Yukine: "What's wrong? Why'd you go all quiet all of a sudden?"

Tsubasa Kazanari: "I want you to use that power to spar with me."

Maria: "Are you serious? This may be training, but you could get hurt... Or worse."

Tsubasa Kazanari: "I don't mind. As the guardian and sword of this world, I must become stronger."

Maria: "Very well then. Let's do this."

Tsubasa Kazanari: "Thank you. You too, Yukine."

Chris Yukine: "Are you sure? A two vs one fight is kinda..."

Tsubasa Kazanari: "I'd rather it be tough. The higher the hurdle, the more effort I'll have to put in."

Tsubasa Kazanari: "As the sole wielder of Section 2, and as the blade of this world, I will become stronger!"

Chris Yukine: "You better not blame me for whatever happens!"

Miku Kohinata: "So you're here again..."

Hibiki Tachibana: "......"

Miku Kohinata: "Do you like the forest?"

Hibiki Tachibana: "......"

Miku Kohinata: "There's something I want to ask of you, Hibiki."

Hibiki Tachibana: "Huh?"

Miku Kohinata: "I want to fight alongside you, Hibiki, so that we can take on that Karma Noise."

HIbiki Tachibana: "...We're already fighting them."

Miku Kohinata: "That's not it. We're doing separate things. I want us to work together."

Miku Kohinata: "We can't defeat that Karma Noise by ourselves. We need your help, Hibiki."

Hibiki Tachibana: "Help? From me?"

Miku Kohinata: "Yeah. If we all joined together, I'm sure--"

Hibiki Tachibana: "In that case, how about you make me?"

Miku Kohinata: "...Huh? Hibiki?"

Hibiki Tachibana: "Balwisyall nescell gungnir tron."

Hibiki Tachibana: "I'm not cooperating with anyone. If you want me to, then you'll have to do it by force."

Notes:

[1] There's an extra "for" in this line. "Thank you all for gathering."

[2] They switched between parentheses and quotation marks in this line

#senki zesshou symphogear xd unlimited #symphogear xd unlimited #senki zesshou symphogear #symphogear #a light that pierces the clouds #xdu event scripts #xdu scripts

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jacewilliams1 · 4 years

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On automation and airmanship

“I believe any good pilot has a certain skepticism. If he or she isn’t a skeptic, they are headed for trouble. This seems especially true with the computer—and when I say computer I include FMS, autopilot and all. Being skeptical means a pilot refers to raw data to be certain the FMS etc., is doing its thing correctly. This is not always easy because as the computer develops it makes raw data more difficult to see, find and use.” – Captain Robert Buck, TWA

I have been known, on occasion, to talk to the autopilot. “Why on earth are you closing the throttles now?” or “What? Who told you to fly at 210 knots?” It’s possible that this could be a little unnerving to an unsuspecting first officer, but there are occasions when it is necessary to question the autopilot’s intentions or even its situational awareness. Sometimes I have to intervene: ”No, no, let’s not do it that way… here, let’s try this mode…” And every so often, “Oh for goodness’ sake, stop making this harder than it is…” a comment usually associated with disconnecting the thing.

Some of that comes from the early days of my career, the first five thousand hours of which involved Convairs and Metroliners with no autopilots and no flight directors. We hand flew all day, er, night, every day and night. This was a pattern only gradually altered by flying the 727, whose autopilot was equipped with an input control that we commonly referred to as the “lurch lever” because the spring tensions were not well calibrated to the G tolerances of the typical passenger’s posterior. On legs under an hour, many of us never engaged the autopilot at all, nor did we activate the flight directors unless we were flying an instrument approach. We simply flew pitch and power like we always had.

It might sound crazy, but airline pilots once flew trips without ever engaging the autopilot.

But most of it comes from a strategy to manage two parallel and integrated situational awarenesses: the old, original one (where are we, where are we going and at what angle of attack), along with a new one (where does the autoflight system think we are, where does it think we want to go, how is it going to get us there and, perhaps of separate but equal importance, where are we within one or more flight envelopes that it is designed to protect us from departing?). Both situational awarenesses are vital to safety. But with the advent of the second awareness, the automation awareness, it has become common for the authorities, manufacturers and various other august bodies of expertise to start describing pilots as “systems operators” or “system managers.”

This is not really a new idea. In 1953, Guy Murchie, writing in his book Song of the Sky, rather presciently predicted “a maplike screen on which will be projected pips of light representing not only his own position but those of other craft, enabling him to monitor the traffic situation continuously and check navigation by eyesight in the densest cloud.” This is a curiously accurate description of an FMS-driven Navigation Display with TCAS superimposed. By 1959, General Pete Quesada, the first FAA Administrator, observed that, with respect to military pilots, “The day of the throttle jockey is past. He is becoming a true professional, a manager of complex weapons systems.”

But back in 1939, writing in his masterpiece, Wind Sand and Stars, the French airmail pilot Antoine de Saint-Exupery anticipated how we might lose control of this evolution. He wrote that,

In the enthusiasm of our rapid mechanical conquests we have overlooked some things. We have perhaps driven men into the service of the machine, instead of building machinery for the service of man.

It is easy to intuit how the concept of a manager of systems veers toward a man in the service of the machine. With the acceleration of automation in the cockpit, and the mishaps and accidents that have resulted, it seems to me that we have never truly resolved Saint-Exupery’s point. On the one hand, the pilot in command remains the final authority as to the operation of the aircraft. On the other, the pilot is an operator of complex systems that he is no longer expected to understand.

A few years ago, David Blair and Nick Helms published a thoughtful paper entitled “The Swarm, the Cloud, and the Importance of Getting There First,” a treatise on remotely piloted aircraft operated by the US Air Force. They concisely and carefully captured Saint-Exupery’s dichotomy in more contemporary terms:

The first truth of special operations holds that humans are more important than hardware. In other words, technology exists to enable people to fulfill the mission. This is the capabilities view of technology: machines are amplifiers of human will, better enabling them to make something of their world. By exercising dominion through technology, people gain greater command over their environment. The alternative is that humans are important to operate the hardware—that people are subsystems within larger socio-mechanical constructs. This view, cybernetics, encloses people within closed control loops that regulate systemic variables within set parameters. Rather than human versus machine, the true discussion about the future of RPAs addresses capabilities versus cybernetics.

The original intent of contemporary cockpit automation arose from the capabilities view of technology, in particular the capability to optimize aerodynamic efficiency while also optimizing airspace utilization. This was, and still is, clearly a machine in the service of man. The intent of automation began to migrate toward the cybernetics view with the notion that we could automate human error out of the equation. In my experience, this migration happened about the same time we transitioned from experienced instructors hand-drawing schematics on whiteboards to well-meaning but very inexperienced people flipping Powerpoint slides salted with schematics from the maintenance manual.

Is this technology in service of man or vice versa?

Cockpit automation is today widely discussed and trained from the cybernetics view of technology. This has been powerfully reinforced by the extensive understanding of human factors as a deterministic, predictable discipline, indeed, by the fundamental understanding of behavior from the deterministic view of neuroscience.

In their 2014 report entitled “A Practical Guide for Improving Flight Path Monitoring”, the Flight Safety Foundation noted that,

Multiple studies have shown that many pilots poorly understand aspects of autoflight modes, in part because training emphasizes correct “button pushing” over developing accurate mental models. Simply stated, it is impossible to monitor a complex system if a pilot isn’t sure how to correctly operate that system or what type of aircraft performance can be expected from each autoflight mode. A pilot who has an accurate mental model of the autoflight system can then learn how to use each mode and will be able to accurately predict what the aircraft will do next in a given mode in each specific situation.

A short trip through Mr. Peabody’s Wayback Machine will place us in a new-hire flight engineer classroom. The instructor is a retired chief master sergeant, and he is diagramming by hand the disassembly, piece by piece, of an air conditioning pack. By the time he is done, the new pilots will thoroughly understand how a pack works, and therefore have a solid grasp of what they are looking at on the pack temp gauge… at least that was the plan in those days.

In order to get rid of the flight engineer, we had to get rid of the pack temperature gauge. The thinking was that by automating the systems and improving the system status annunciations, we could make the task of monitoring systems much simpler. As we automated, we also watered down the ground school; there was no longer any reason to truly understand the system at a component level, since the automation would tell you all you needed to know. This is precisely the trajectory that Murchie had in mind when, continuing his 1953 description of a future cockpit, he said that,

Elimination of everything unessential is a big load off the crew’s brains. When the flight engineer wants to check whether his battery generators are working he used to have to read a dial needle pointing to numbers of amperes of charge or discharge. In the future he will only see a green or red light indicating “yes” or “no.” With fifty such indicators shorn of their wool, the crew will be spared much of the dangerous excess of information from which they have long had to select, abstract, interpolate, extrapolate, derive, and ignore—sometimes literally to the point of death. The airplane will enter a new phase of progress.

But along the way, I believe a very subtle paradigm shift occurred. Back in the day, we had a vague idea of approximately where we were in space. Between the A-N ranges, ADF pointers and LORAN systems, we were generally sure of which hemisphere we were flying in, and with some skill we could place the airplane over a runway threshold safely and reliably, albeit with little surety of exactly where we had been in the process of getting there. Whilst sorting out the bearings, radials and tones, it was essential to keep all one hundred and twelve cylinders lubricated, firing properly and not consuming more gasoline than was absolutely necessary. Monitoring had a great deal to do with aircraft systems, and less to do with the flight path. The flight path was more a matter of technique as long as one avoided an unintended stall.

But at the same time we were automating away little dials pointing at numbers indicating amperes, we were increasing airspace occupancy exponentially. Frequency, frequency, frequency. More flights, more options, more consumer choice, more tailored load factors, more capacity and then more capacity management… all while still operating approximately the same number of outer markers as we have for over sixty years. Capacity is choked; this leads immediately to tightening the longitudinal and vertical spacing between aircraft, as well as such things as Performance Based Navigation (PBN), Reduced Vertical Separation Minimums (RVSM), RNAV departures and arrivals, and the like. All of this is basically intended to obtain the maximum arrival rate possible for each runway at each terminal.

About the only way to fly an RNAV arrival to a busy airport is with lots of automation.

So the importance of flight path management has become supreme, and highly automated. In this manner, the airspace infrastructure has evolved into the kind of larger socio-mechanical construct that Blair and Helms described, in which people are subsystems. Along the way, the shift in paradigm, as well as a culture mesmerized with automation and digitization, slowly and unwittingly displaced procedural knowledge with declarative knowledge.

Simon Hall, of Cranfield University, has described declarative knowledge as, “the knowledge that the system works in a certain way,” and contrasted this with procedural knowledge, which he describes as, “ knowing how to use the system in context.” He explains that

The basic skills associated with “manually flying” an aircraft are predominantly based on procedural knowledge, i.e. how to achieve the task. However, the use of automation to control the flight path of an aircraft is taught as declarative knowledge. Pilots are required to manage systems based on a knowledge that the autoflight system works in a particular fashion. So, the pilot is faced with the same operational task of controlling the flight path but employs two different strategies of cognitive behaviour depending upon whether the task is manually or automatically executed.

It is important to stop for a minute and put this concept under a microscope. In the days of the flight engineer, declarative knowledge and procedural knowledge were more or less balanced, and they were integrated. Declarative knowledge supported procedural knowledge, and we were taught both. If you wanted to get the generator on line, you were going to have to synch the generator frequency to the bus frequency; you had to understand how this worked, and you had to be able to make it work, because it wasn’t going to do it by itself.

But right there, at that inflection point, is where the problems of automation gain a foothold, precisely because automated systems will do it by themselves. It is no longer a matter of procedurally operating a system; it is a matter of watching the system procedurally operate itself. When the Flight Safety Foundation describes an “accurate mental model which will enable the pilot to predict what the airplane will do next in a given mode for each specific situation,” they are referring entirely to declarative knowledge, a knowledge of how the system works, with the expectation that the pilot’s speed of cognition will exceed the system’s own procedural operation.

In the old days, the pilot’s speed of cognition controlled the procedural operation. Nothing would happen until you were ready for it to happen, because you had to make it happen. You could get behind the airplane moving in space, and you could get behind the situation in time, but it was pretty hard to get behind the systems. Today, you’d better be on your toes, because the automated system is going, with or without you. Indeed, the very phrase “predict what the airplane will do next,” as if this were a matter of conjecture, implies that the airplane has a mind of its own.

Yet the premise behind watered-down training is that the modern, sophisticated, fly-by-wire airplane is too complicated for the pilot to fully understand, and thus he or she has no need for extensive knowledge of the aircraft design and architecture. This is entirely in line with Murchie’s 1953 prediction that the crew “be spared much of the dangerous excess of information from which they have long had to select, abstract, interpolate, extrapolate, derive, and ignore.” Sixty years later, in the 2013 report Operational Use of Flight Management Systems, the Performance Based Operations Aviation Rulemaking Committee said that:

Pilot knowledge of the basic airplane systems is not as detailed as in the past. The WG recognizes that in the past, information was trained that was not needed or beneficial. The concern is that depth of systems knowledge may now be insufficient, and this may be operator dependent.

And so we arrive at the rather matter-of-fact condescension expressed in a pivotal statement following the 737 Max debacle:

A high-ranking Boeing official told the Wall Street Journal that “the company had decided against disclosing more details to cockpit crews due to concerns about inundating average pilots with too much information—and significantly more technical data—than they needed or could digest.”

Saint-Ex would have disagreed with some of Boeing’s philosophy.

St.-Exupery would have disagreed with this view. He wrote, also in Wind, Sand and Stars, that

The machine which at first blush seems a means of isolating man from the great problems of nature, actually plunges him more deeply into them. As for the peasant so for the pilot, dawn and twilight become events of consequence. His essential problems are set him by the mountain, the sea, the wind. Alone before the vast tribunal of the tempestuous sky, the pilot defends his mails and debates on terms of equality with those three elemental divinities.

In today’s terms, the cybernetic view of technology may, at first blush, seem a means of isolating the pilot from the essential problems of flight; it is easy to interpret envelope protection features this way. But at the same time, the capability view of technology amplifies human will, better enabling us to make something of our world. By exercising dominion through technology, we gain greater command over our environment… and thus we are plunged more deeply into those essential problems.

The deeper plunge into the essential problems of flight brings us, inevitably, to the problem of airmanship in an automated cockpit. When Staint-Exupery refers to the terms of equality on which we debate those three elemental divinities, he is referring specifically to the airmanship of his day. He began his approach to this question with an understanding of the mountains, the seas and the winds… the things which influence the sky, the great problems of nature into which the airman will shortly be plunged. He was interested in “all that happened in the sky,” things which signaled “the oncoming snow, the threat of fog, or the peace of a blessed night.”

We are still very interested in the threat of fog or oncoming snow. We are also very interested in windshear, convective available potential energy, lifted indexes, microbursts, outflow boundaries, ice crystal icing, collision coalescence freezing drizzle formation, and certainly turbulence, including mountain waves—pretty much anything that can ruin the peace of a blessed night.

To this we must add an understanding of the machine, an intuitive sense of its balance, its harmony, and its energy, a feel for how the machine leverages its precipitous position in the sky to resolve the problems of nature. To Saint-Exupery, the machine was the engine and flight controls all connected by stringers and spars and cables; today, we must include the complement of automation as part of the machine. For example, we must be constantly aware of pitch, power and vertical speed, while we also scrutinize Actual Navigation Performance (ANP) exactly as Saint-Exupery scrutinized the howl of the wind in the wires of his Breguet 14.

But in Saint-Exupery’s day, the idea of the pilot as a systems manager was unheard of, as was the contemporary suite of management school lexicon used to describe the systems manager. Terms such as discipline, professionalism, team skills, self-improvement, and skill acquisition were barely yet in anyone’s vocabulary. Nor were the now-classical superlatives, such as uncompromising, optimal, systematic and exceptional. Recent definitions of airmanship tend to include some or all of these terms; yet, in my opinion, all of them really beg the question. So what is airmanship really, and how does it work in an automated cockpit?

Let’s leave the management school semantics and centuries-old conceptual structures about discipline, obedience, and compliance behind for a while. All of these are tools we use to achieve the goal; they are not the goal. Rather, let’s begin by revisiting the words of FAR 91.1065(d):

For the purpose of this subpart, competent performance of a procedure or maneuver by a person to be used as a pilot requires that the pilot be the obvious master of the aircraft, with the successful outcome of the maneuver never in doubt.

Airmanship starts with the person in the left seat, no matter what the airplane.

The pilot, as the obvious master of the aircraft, forms the anchor of a definition of airmanship. This clearly refers to Saint-Exupery’s idea of the machine in the service of man. It also focuses responsibility and authority for the operation of the aircraft solely with the pilot, while placing distinct emphasis on knowledge and expertise. And yet, we have to be careful of the subsequent language, because the phrase “never in doubt” suggests the elimination of uncertainty, and that is a dangerous premise.

Looking back through early revisions and amendments to this regulatory language, it seems likely that the elimination of uncertainty was never really the intent; the language is always qualified with the words, “The applicant’s performance will be evaluated on the basis of judgment, knowledge, smoothness, and accuracy.” Indeed, the presence of the word judgment belies certainty; however, the problem is that an implicit expectation of certainty can create barriers to effective airmanship. For example, the successful outcome of a landing is always in doubt; this is the point of a no-fault go-around policy, which leverages the judgment and knowledge parts cited above.

Sadly, the expectation of certainty has a long history of coloring the understanding of mishaps. From the 1930s through the 1950s, the Civil Aeronautics Authority was so certain it understood what caused accidents that it published this axiom: “The capable and competent pilot will never allow an airplane to crack up.” Simple as that.

The paradox is that while we must have some degree of certainty that the flight will be successful—if it we didn’t, we would never fly—flight itself is inherently uncertain. While we cannot accept unmitigated specific risk (an unsafe condition with a probability of one), we have to be prepared to accept, and manage, the uncertainty associated with probabilistic risk (an unsafe condition based upon the averaged estimated probabilities of all unknown events). The interface between our own actions and the operating environment is the critical focal point. We can get into trouble if we assume that our own actions will assure the certainty of a successful maneuver.

The French philosopher Edgar Morin describes this paradox in what he calls the “ecology of action:”

As soon as a person begins any action whatsoever, the action starts to escape from his intentions. It enters into a sphere of interactions and is finally grasped by the environment in a way that may be contrary to the initial intention. So we have to follow the action and try to correct it if it is not too late, or sometimes shoot it down, like NASA exploding a rocket that has veered off course.

Ecology of action means taking into account the complexity it posits, meaning random incidents, chance, initiative, decision, the unexpected, the unforeseen, and awareness of deviations and transformations.

From this perspective, airmanship may be less about managing systems and quite a bit more about managing uncertainty. To some extent, this permeates our early flight training; we are warned by our mentors to “always have an out,” and we spent a lot of time looking for good fields to use in the event of a forced landing. As young pilots, we are impressionable and can easily envision a myriad of things going wrong, and as we strive to blend into the level of competence that we believe surrounds us, we prepare as thoroughly as we can. But as we develop an experience base, certainty seems more accessible. Indeed, one of the significant problems of modern aviation is that serious failures occur extremely rarely, and the uncertainty of our early flying days is replaced with an almost inevitable, and comfortable, complacence.

Morin goes on to discuss the use of strategy to manage uncertainty. He says that,

Strategy should prevail over program. A program sets up a sequence of actions to be executed without variation in a stable environment, but as soon as the outside conditions are modified, the program gets stuck. Whereas strategy elaborates a scenario of action based on an appraisal of the certainties and uncertainties, the probabilities and improbabilities of the situation. The scenario may and must be modified according to information gathered along the way and hazards, mishaps or good fortune encountered. We can use short term program sequences within our strategies. But for things done in an unstable, uncertain environment, strategy imposes.

A stabilized approach is not a program, it’s a strategy.

Probably the best definition of strategy that I have seen describes it as a “high level plan to achieve one or more goals under conditions of uncertainty,” a definition coined by Miryam Barad. This definition fits well with Morin’s concept. So what is an example of a strategy in the cockpit? The most compact example might be the stabilized approach concept. This can be achieved with or without automation, with or without a glass cockpit, and can be arrived at from a wide variety of descent profiles and lateral entries to the approach procedure. It can be achieved with or without a normal landing configuration, for example, in the case of a flap or slat failure. Nor does it necessarily lead to a smooth landing! Rather, it represents a high level plan to achieve a landing within the touchdown zone, on centerline and aligned with the runway, under conditions of some uncertainty, such as wind, braking action, pilot technique, even nominal fatigue.

A program, on the other hand, is manifested in profiles, litanies, callouts, checklists, and automated sequences. These have critical value as short term program sequences. But they themselves will not resolve instability or manage uncertainty.

Note that Morin is quite clear about the need to modify the scenario of action “according to information gathered.” The pilot must know exactly what he or she wants to do with the airplane, how the environment is likely to influence the plan, how the plan is evolving with the changing situation, and then how to utilize the all of the tools, including the short term program sequences inherent in the automation, to execute the plan.

With the strategy established, the application of Morin’s idea of the ecology of action is best considered through a short exploration of two concepts: prudence and mindfulness. These are common terms, and most of us assume that we know what they mean. In fact, both have very specific definitions, and in the case of prudence, a very long history.

In the fifth century, St. Augustine described prudence as “the knowledge of what to seek and what to avoid.” More specifically, in the seventh century, Isidore of Seville said that, “A prudent man is one who sees as it were from afar, for his sight is keen, and he foresees the event of uncertainties.”

But oddly enough, and at the risk of freewheeling completely off the rails of technical discussion, the best description of prudence that I have found was offered by St. Thomas Aquinas in his historically pivotal tome, the Summa Theologica, which he compiled during the thirteenth century. The word prudence derives from the Latin “providentia,” which means foresight. Thomas strengthened Isidore’s idea when he said that foresight “implies the notion of something distant, to which that which occurs in the present has to be directed.” He said that prudence is “right reason (what today we might call observed truth) applied to action.”

It turns out that St. Thomas’s ideas on prudence more or less make up the original foundation of what we consider as crew resource management. He describes three core elements:

Taking counsel, an act of inquiry, often seeking the opinion of others… first officers, flight attendants, dispatchers, mechanics, flight instructors, FSS briefers… lest something be overlooked. Thomas was quite clear on the assertion that a single person is often unable to capture all that matters to a given situation. Today, this speaks to the limits of human cognition within a dynamic environment.

Judging of what you have learned, an act of consideration, speculation, and for us, forming the opinions required by FAR Part 121, followed by an act of decision. Thomas splits this into two capacities: docility, the willingness to learn from others and decide accordingly, and shrewdness, the ability to draw accurate, “just-in-time” conclusions when there simply is no opportunity for extensive counsel or contemplation.

Executing command, the act of authority, in other words fulfilling the obligation bestowed on the pilot-in-command by FAR 91.3.

Thomas Aquinas, the first man to define CRM?

These three elements form the structure within which “that which occurs in the present” is directed toward “something distant.” If we listen carefully, we will hear these elements in the FAA’s explanation of FAR 91.1065, when they state that “The applicant’s performance will be evaluated on the basis of judgment, knowledge, smoothness, and accuracy (taking counsel, judging of what was learned, and executing command).” Remarkably, in the summer of 1901, Wilbur Wright reached back to these early discussions and penned what was probably the first description of prudence applied to air safety:

All who are practically concerned with aerial navigation agree that the safety of the operator is more important to successful experimentation than any other point. The history of past investigation demonstrates that greater prudence is needed rather than greater skill.

This brings us to an exploration of the more contemporary idea of mindfulness, “a rich awareness of discriminatory detail,” in the words of Karl Weick and Kathryn Sutcliffe. They elaborate on this by saying that being mindful means paying attention in a different way; it is to see more clearly, not to think harder and longer. You stop concentrating on those things that “confirm your hunches, are pleasant, feel certain, seem factual, are explicit, and that others agree on.” You start concentrating on things that “disconfirm, are unpleasant, feel uncertain, seem possible, are implicit, and are contested.” Mindfulness acknowledges the very same uncertainties which Isidore claimed a prudent man would foresee. This is the debate with Saint-Exupery’s elemental divinities.

Airmanship, in this context, can then be salted with more of Weick and Sutcliffe’s organizational ideas. First and foremost, the airman is preoccupied with failure, meaning what has already failed, what is failing at the moment, and what is likely to fail. The periodic twitch of a torquemeter, an unusual imbalance in generator load, a steady divergence between actual fuel burned and planned fuel burned, an unexpected collapse of the visibility, an unexpectedly long—or short—touchdown, an omitted checklist step, or certainly any number of unexpected automation behaviors… all of these things preoccupy the airman. What went wrong? Why did it go wrong? What does a particular failure mean? Is it a precursor?

Secondly, he or she is reluctant to simplify, despite seductive pressure to “eliminate everything unnecessary,” because simplification “obscures unwanted, unanticipated, unexplainable details and in doing so, increases the likelihood of unreliable performance.” This is certainly applicable to autoflight system function, but really to almost everything we do. There is no way to simplify the effects of airframe ice accretion, microbursts, or runway braking action, nor is there any simplification applicable to human behavior and error. Simplification invokes certainty, which flies straight into the face of the uncertainty which Isidore claimed prudence would anticipate. We cannot afford to obscure unwanted, unanticipated or unexplainable details.

Thirdly, the airman is sensitive to operations, a “watchfulness for moment-to-moment changes in conditions.” In this way, the airman “slows down the speed with which we call something ‘the same.’” The airman recognizes that today is not the same as yesterday, that the situation is ever changing, evolving, and uncertain. The same flight, in the same airplane, from the same gate is not the same today as it was yesterday. There are small differences which can have disproportional effects.

Lastly, the airman builds and maintains resilience, the quality of “recalibrating expectations, making sense of evolving uncertainties, and learning in real time.” To borrow from Weick’s writing on this, with some adaptation, a resilient cockpit works to keep errors small, improvises workarounds that preserve adherence to the strategy, and absorbs change while updating the strategy.

With the ideas of prudence and mindfulness front and center, let me turn to what I believe is the most important strategy implicit in good airmanship: the protection of the margins. Whether it be a forty five minute fuel reserve, 1.3 Vso, a 0.8% margin over net climb gradient, or a twenty mile berth around the downwind side of a thunderstorm, a core strategy of airmanship is the protection of the margins. The margins anticipate and buffer uncertainty. They provide space and time for any subordinate strategy to be modified. We cannot allow things of which we are already certain to erode the margins, lest the buffer against further uncertainty be lost.

Checklists and SOPs maintain safety margins and catch errors.

To that end, we land on the centerline for a reason: to preserve a seventy five foot margin of pavement on either side, to accommodate at least some of the threats that are “infinite in number, [and] cannot be grasped by reason,” like some combinations of hydroplaning and wind gusts, main gear trunnion fractures, airport snowplows wandering aimlessly around runways… in other words, the average estimated probabilities of all unknown events.

Further, we use standard operating procedures to track the centerline of the safe operating space, and to ensure that the procedural margins, and the error traps integrated within those margins, are available to function in the background. Standard operating procedures are themselves a strategy, a subset of the idea of protecting the margins; they are not a litany. They are intended to manage the ecology of action, and to track an action as it begins to deviate from our intention. This, too, is another way of looking at envelope protection, seen through the lens of the capability view; we gain greater control of our environment by using automation to ensure that critical aerodynamic margins are protected when hours and hours of sheer boredom lead to distraction or inattention, or are occasionally interrupted by brief moments of stark terror followed by a startle response.

These ideas largely inform both the old situational awareness, the aeronautical one, and the new situational awareness, the one aimed at automation. The thread that ties all of these ideas together is the acceptance of uncertainty. When Saint-Exupery uses terms like a debate with elemental divinities, or a tempestuous sky, he is describing uncertainty.

At this point, we can perhaps suggest a general definition of airmanship:

Airmanship is the application of both prudence and mindfulness so as to always remain the obvious master of the aircraft, and to construct, modify and execute the necessary strategies to ensure that the safe outcome of the flight is never manifestly in doubt, while always protecting the margins in anticipation of uncertainty.

If we see the operating environment only as a socio-mechanical construct, such as the National Airspace System, and thus teach only the cybernetic view of technology, we create a systems operator who is unprepared to debate on terms of equality with the mountain, the sea, and the wind, or, for that matter, with the central processing unit of the flight control computer. His terms have been dictated by the set parameters within a closed control loop, designed to trigger Morin’s “sequence of actions to be executed without variation in a stable environment.” The foresight is pre-programmed, trapped within the closed control loops, and limited to a narrow set of anticipated threats, or specific risks. This is antithetical to airmanship, because those parameters will eventually fall out of equality with the vast tribunal of a tempestuous sky.

The fundamental flaw in attempts to adapt the cybernetic view of technology to the problems of flight lies in the belief that we have expanded our knowledge to a point at which we have absolute, predictable, and repeatable control within a tempestuous sky. We don’t, and likely never will. An analog world will simply swat away a digital mindset.

If, on the other hand, we interpret automation through the capability view of technology, automation will always be subordinate to strategy, a machine in the service of man. Further, if we approach automation as capability, we are prepared for the degradation of that capability. Such degradation merely leads to modification of the strategy. Eventually, if need be, we will fly the approach by hand, using basic or even standby instruments, still remaining within the strategy of a stable approach.

Airmanship thus begins with strategy. Prudence facilitates an expectation that the action we have taken will begin to escape our intentions. A continuous loop of taking counsel, judging of what we have learned, and executing command, modifying the scenario “according to information gathered along the way and hazards, mishaps or good fortune encountered,” tracks the action and corrects its evolution, as it is grasped by the environment, so that the strategy is preserved, or, if necessary, modified, such as when we abandon the approach and go around. In this way, we remain the obvious master of the aircraft.

But human will cannot be amplified in ignorance. We need to recalibrate our automation training paradigm. We must begin with a discussion not of how the automation works, but of how we want to fly the airplane, what the essential problems of flight are, and then augment this broad discussion of strategy with the greater capabilities afforded through automation. Likewise, in all cases, we must emphasize how degraded automation impacts that capability within the original, overarching strategy. Finally, we must remain aware of uncertainty, and reference the training curriculum to the management of uncertainty. Memorizing “the litany” in isolation just won’t cut it, because the litany is a short term program, a closed control loop.

In the end, we can only preserve mastery of the aircraft if we understand airmanship as the management of uncertainty, not simply the management of systems. We must know how the airplane is constructed to achieve the design capabilities, and match this with a strategy for how we want the airplane to be flown to utilize those capabilities, and then insist that the autoflight systems fly our plan. When those systems don’t fly our plan, we need to step in and do some of that pilot stuff. The automation can never be allowed to become the master of the airplane, obvious or otherwise; in no case can it be allowed to place the successful outcome of any maneuver in any doubt whatsoever.

That is the essential nature of the conversation that I have with the autopilot.

The post On automation and airmanship appeared first on Air Facts Journal.

from Engineering Blog https://airfactsjournal.com/2020/08/on-automation-and-airmanship/

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scapegrace74-blog · 4 years

Text

Ceremonies

A/N I’ve been very busy with work, life, etc. and haven’t found much time or energy to write. Add to that the fact that I left Metric Jamie and Claire in a very happy place, wrapped up in each other under the eaves at Lallybroch. But I found myself wondering how their return to normalcy might unfold, and this little glimpse is what I came up with.

There’s no song to go along with this fic, because finding accompanying music is time consuming!

All other parts of the Metric Universe are available on my AO3 page. One of these days I’ll get around to re-ordering them chronologically.

September 1, 2018, Spitalfields, London, England

The door to their flat was tight in its frame, still swollen with damp from the aftermath of the fire. Jamie rested his duffel bag on the hallway floor and gave it a strong nudge with his shoulder. The wood acquiesced with a squeak. Her erstwhile roommate and putative boyfriend ushered her into their home with a polite gesture.

Polite. Since returning from Scotland the previous Monday, politeness had underscored every one of their interactions. Jamie had accompanied her from Euston Station back to her temporary lodging at Joe and Gayle’s before wishing her good luck for the beginning of her second year lectures and kissing her farewell. Politely. His nightly texts were warm and punctual. Yesterday’s phone conversation to make plans to pick up their keys, brief and business-like. It wasn’t that Jamie was typically uncourteous. Quite the opposite. But there had been nothing polite about the way their bodies came together under the canopy of the laird’s bed at Lallybroch, and it was the juxtaposition that was unsettling.

Jamie re-appeared from his bedroom to find her standing in the middle of the barren living space, arms hanging loosely at her sides.

“I... uhh... I’ll leave ye tae settle in, Sassenach. I’ll just jog down tae Tesco an’ grab us some basics. We can do a big shop t’morrow. If ye wish, that is,” he added hastily.

She dug through her purse to find Jamie some money to cover her half of the groceries. When she turned to hand it to him, he had already left.

She wished there was a ceremony for what they were experiencing. Working in healthcare, she had often been struck by the seemingly universal human need to ritualize times of transition. Pregnancy to infancy. Childhood to adulthood. Single to couple. Living to dead. A ceremony delineated the transformation, helping those involved cast aside what was and replace it with what was to be. Sadly, there was no such tradition for the metamorphosis from roommates to lovers. They were just going to have to make it up as they went.

Surprisingly, their flat didn’t reek of smoke. Instead, there was an odour of fresh paint and floor wax, but nothing remained of the whiffs of burnt toast, vetiver and damp running shoes that she first learned to associate with Jamie at home. With a pleasant jolt, she realized that from now on, the apartment would smell of the life they made together.

Unpacking her small travel kit, Claire decided to take a shower. Dripping wet and wrapped in only a towel, she retreated to her former bedroom while Jamie banged away in the kitchen, singing along exuberantly (though tunelessly) to Biffy Clyro as he made his lunch.

As the signatory of their former lease, Jamie had been the sole recipient of the tenant’s insurance settlement. It was a paltry sum that he insisted on sharing equally with her. Her bed furniture had survived intact, and she’d used up most of the money to pay for a new mattress and linens. Standing beside them now, she considered whether replacements for her water-logged textbooks might not have been a better investment. Would she even be sleeping in this room, or would she be sharing Jamie’s king-sized bed every night? Despite the deliberate nature of their courtship, it was another detail they’d yet to address.

“Do ye want mustard on yer sand....” Jamie’s voice tapered off into breath as he entered the room and took in her state of near-nakedness. She watched in amusement as the tops of his ears grew red.

“I’m sorry, Sassenach. I shouldha knocked and no’ barged in.”

“It’s alright. My door wasn’t closed.”

Approaching slowly, he traced the path of a bead of moisture as it escaped her unbound hair. Her skin shivered to life beneath his touch.

“It feels strange tae be allowed tae see ye like this. Tae touch ye like this.”

Her mind was bounding ahead of the scene. Were they going to have sex? Did she want to have sex? She’d just emerged from the shower. But then, sex with Jamie was worth a secondary wash. Living together as they did, if they had sex every time one of them felt the urge, she’d have a UTI in no time. During their brief introduction at Lallybroch, Jamie’s libido had proven to be near indefatigable.

“Good strange or bad strange?” she asked the far wall as her thoughts raced, hesitant to meet his gaze.

“The verra best strange ye can imagine,” he whispered in reply before stepping away deliberately.

“Once ye’re dressed, there’s a sandwich wi’ yer name on it in the kitchen.”

Dressing hastily, Claire joined him at the tiny circular dining table, stealing shy glances between bites.

“Thank you for lunch,” she smiled after her last mouthful.

Unlike her own limited talents, years of bachelorhood had turned Jamie into a decent cook. Twice a month he laboured over a giant pot of beef stew, adjusting the blend of vegetables and spices with near-scientific focus, before lugging it along with copious quantities of dinner rolls to the fire station, where it was devoured by dozens of appreciative co-workers.

“Och, twas nothin’,” he insisted.

“You’ve got a little smear... no, the other side... just there...”

Leaning across the table, she wiped a splotch of mayonnaise from his coppery stubble. Eyes flaring, he grabbed her wrist before she could lean away and deliberately pulled her thumb into his mouth, sucking it clean before releasing his hold. The air between them pulsed with possibilities.

Once again, it was Jamie who broke the impasse, looking around the sun-filled space.

“This room is sae empty it echoes,” he remarked.

Claire glanced over her shoulder and had to agree. Besides the two chairs and table they were currently occupying, the only other furniture that survived the fire and subsequent dousing of water and flame retardant was Jamie’s metal shelving unit, her ergonomic desk chair and the wall bracket that once held a wide-screen TV. It would take them a long time to rebuild.

“We can stream Netflix tae our computers for now, but I reckon we need a sofa, so we’re no’ forced tae sit on the floor when we do so.”

“We could always watch in your bed,” she suggested before thinking it through.

Once again, Jamie’s aqua eyes burned. She could feel herself flushing, but managed to not look away.

“Aye. We could. Tho’ I doubt we’d see sae much as the opening credits. Dinna tempt me, Sassenach.”

He was almost pleading, and his intent suddenly became clear. Whether by instinct or design, Jamie was trying to define a new normality for their lives together. Grocery and furniture shopping were a shared endeavour, but there was still space for privacy and quiet. Two sandwiches instead of one, but they both could decide whether to eat them together.

Their ceremonies would be modest, and gain significance by their sheer number. A dozen funerals for their solitude, and a thousand baptisms of love.

She reached across the table and clasped his hand.

“I saw the perfect sofa in a shop window the other day. I’ll rinse these dishes, and then let’s walk over and see it.”

#my writing #outlander

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