Information you are given, fact or fiction!

[Guest watto]

We all seek advice from time to time from various sources and then sometimes go about using that information in making our own decisions and also pass it onto others as advice.

 

So how do we best ensure what we are passing on or using ourselves is factual and or relevent?

 

We first need to assess the information and categorise it, and it generally falls under one of the following categories:

 

1)Fact

 

2)Fantasy

 

3)Folk law

 

4) Fiction

 

5)opinion

 

6) misinterpretation

 

Some times it can be difficult to categorise information because some things may sound factual and may come from what we think is a reputable source but we still need to confirm the validity before we put certain things into practice and I guess that may mean delaying plans until you have done this, in certain instances the outcome if you fail to do so could put you, your family and or friends at risk of injury or breaking the law if you proceed unconfirmed.

 

We also need to make sure that advice we give is identified as something we really know to be true os something we heard and have not yet confirmed or other category

 

What sort of advice have you been given which has turned out to be other than what it was depicted to be?

 

How has this impacted on your activity? (it may be as simple as being told you can access an area and later finding out you actually should not have been there!)

 

:thumb_up:thumb_down

 

 

[Guest Decca]

Good question Watto.

 

Sorting out fact from fiction (and the other reasons you list) could be averted by anyone offering answers supplying their reference source. E.g. Taits or RAAus ground school etc. Then you have the option of confirming whether it's fact or not.

 

Another reason you could add to the list above is 6) Misinterpretation.

 

A well intended and quite correct answer or piece of advice can be interpreted by another the wrong way.

 

Decca.

 

 

[Guest watto]

Good thinking Decca, I have added that on and well it may have been misinterpreted by the person telling you or by you or infact somewhere way back in the information chain! which would then maybe make it folk law.

 

 

[Guest Maj Millard]

Yes interesting Questions, I guess it depends on the nature of the info, is it going to be critical if you believe it or not. Could it kill you, or just cost a heap of bucks if it is BS. It's always a good idea to run it by a second source. Ultimatly you have to run it through your own brain and make a command decision.....or you can always post it on this site for more input......................................................................................:spam:.

 

 

[Guest watto]

Maj I guess its more of a general question because I know we have all had advice on one subject or another or had a person start a story with ,"I heard about a bloke who!" and well you know straight away it's gonna be a 50/50 truth and fact deal but occasionally you get that information that sounds real but turns out to be unconfirmed and not factual and being humans I know from time to time when you get the answer you are looking for you do not ask any further and that is when judgement can get a bit clouded as to the lgitimacy of what you have been told and what you choose to believe that can cause strife.

 

I have had people misinform me unintentionally and I believe that they truly thought what they were telling me was a fact, but in reality it was just something they had heard.

 

I was a prison officer and Supervisor for many years and you learn very quicky how to say things in plain english so there can be no misunderstanding or manipulation of what has been stated and you tend to expect the same, but for various reasons you do not always get that, those reasons vary from confidence, respect, culture and many others but when you seek information from people you need to confirm where the advice has originated without interrogating the other person or offending them and then seek another confirming source for critical things.

 

 

[flying dog]

Yeah, it is difficult.

 

This is further complicated by how the truth is defined.

 

If you are told something by someone and suspect it, then ask someone else for their view/opinion: They too could be incorrect.

 

So:

 

You are told something and it says (for instance) Person 1 says: a = b

 

You ask person 2 who says a <> b

 

Although they both can't be right, it doesn't tell you know is right or wrong.

 

So it could make things worse for you.

 

I have no magic answer.

 

I could throw in a proverb, but can't remember it.

 

 

[Guest Decca]

7) Grain of salt

 

 

[Guest Maj Millard]

At the risk of sounding like your shrink.........Do you have some specific info that you'r not sure about at the moment ?

 

:rilla:

 

 

[Tomo]

Something to think about....... "If I told you I was a lier, would you believe me?"

 

:DJ:

 

 

[Guest Maj Millard]

I thought I was wrong once, but I was actually mistaken !!.......................

 

 

[Guest watto]

No nothing specific, just playing devils advocate.

 

Help, the paranoids are chasing me!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

[Guest watto]

A good example is that I have an old massey Ferguson tractor and I wanted to do an oil change and as the major town is 85km away I asked my mate whom was staying at our house if he could get me 5 litres of heavy duty motor oil for a PETROL powered tractor and I specifically said,"make sure it is not deisel engine oil" as the high detergent oil will destroy an old petrol engine.

 

When my mate got home he had a container of deisel engine oil and he said had said it was a petrol tractor and the guy insisted this would do the job, I had been caught many years ago with the same thing and destroyed a 4wd engine so had to then get back in the car and do the 170km round trip to return the oil and the guy at the place was at first refusing to refund the money but after I squeezed his throat a little tighter he decided to change his mind, in reality he should have listenned to what my mate asked for and he insists he ditinctly said not deisel oil.

 

This is where people who did not know it can do a lot of damage and in fact you will have a very smokey engine very quickly and be up for a rebuild to fix what would have been ok for many years with the appropriate oil.

 

 

[Guest Cloudsuck]

Good post Watto. In flying, I find most of the hangar talk that goes on falls under

 

2)Fantasy (If you can fly a Drifter you can fly anything as they are hard to fly)

 

3)Folk law (All Drifter trained pilots can fly with skills over and above any other pilot), and

 

5)opinion (All Jabiru engines will suffer valve train failure).

 

At work I have a saying, "There are three sides to every story, yours, mine and the truth".

 

 

[BLA82]

5)opinion (All Jabiru engines will suffer valve train failure).

".

:peepwall: now who would say that ;)

 

 

[Skyhog]

A good example is that I have an old massey Ferguson tractor and I wanted to do an oil change and as the major town is 85km away I asked my mate whom was staying at our house if he could get me 5 litres of heavy duty motor oil for a PETROL powered tractor and I specifically said,"make sure it is not deisel engine oil" as the high detergent oil will destroy an old petrol engine.When my mate got home he had a container of deisel engine oil and he said had said it was a petrol tractor and the guy insisted this would do the job, I had been caught many years ago with the same thing and destroyed a 4wd engine so had to then get back in the car and do the 170km round trip to return the oil and the guy at the place was at first refusing to refund the money but after I squeezed his throat a little tighter he decided to change his mind, in reality he should have listenned to what my mate asked for and he insists he ditinctly said not deisel oil.

 

This is where people who did not know it can do a lot of damage and in fact you will have a very smokey engine very quickly and be up for a rebuild to fix what would have been ok for many years with the appropriate oil.

Make a phone call Watto! If I need oil,spray chemicals,fuel,spare parts,or anything else,it's pretty easy to ring up & get a price and correct details before pickup.It costs next to nothing to enquire.If you deal with any sort of reasonable machinery dealer they will have a good spares bloke.You should use the oil in the Jab...Same technology:wasnt me:

 

 

[Guest watto]

Unfortunately the main town here is Gladstone which heavily services the surrounding mines and refineries so unless you really go in and get it yourself you will end up with the wrong item as the mines etc never send anything back so everyone gets the same treatment, I now try to get most of my stuff out of Bundaberg, better service and prices and you generally get what you ask for.

 

 

[turboplanner]

Does this involve someone's life being put at risk Watto?

 

 

[Guest watto]

Not nessessarily, it may simply be something that has turned out to be an inconvenience or to have damaged and engine or caused rework and of course sometimes the advice may also consume your time as a result of rework or maybe contadictory to what you had been told previous so really needs to be checked before proceeding.

 

The types of imformation are endless when you think of it on a day to day task by task basis.

 

 

[Guest watto]

This is a ripper, my wifes car a small 4wd was getting up around 100,000km and as the maker no longer sell cars in Australia we have started to do most servicing myself and farm out the major stuff, I looked at the service book and it stated that at 100,000km the timing belt must be changed!

 

So I organised a mechanic and he had a look and said," ahh these jap cars the belt is buried deep in the engine it will take hours to do' you get the belt and I will do it" so I went to Repco in Gladstone and asked for the belt gave model number, manufacter date, engine size and type and one was ordered and arrived ( I should have been suss when they could not track the number down at first) , went back and picked it up so that is 170km round trip and then took the car to the mechanic who pulled the crap off the top of the engine and then the rocket cover to discover it it had a timing CHAIN!!!!!!!!

 

All advice, service book, mechanic, part supplied by repco said it was a belt and needed to be done, I even prior to getting my mechanic spoke to Toyota service dept whom now service these cars and nobody advised it was a chain.

 

Cost time, money, and for a dead end.

 

 

[turboplanner]

Turbo's tuppence:

 

1. As someone said earlier, ask the person what his references were. That usually at least takes you back to a published document.

 

2. Always start with the Manufacturer's specification - the designer will have a specfic reason for using a certain part, clearance or lubricant. I'm designing B Doubles at the moment which in 26,000 mm OAL scrape in by 1 mm, provided the rear fuel tanks are moved to a certain position. Someone looking at it wouldn't see the reason, may decide its stupid moving two tanks a couple of hundred millimetres on a 68 tonne truck.

 

3. Always ask the manufacturer's service department for an update on Service Bulletins. This is where the designer's mistakes are corrected.

 

Example, one popular 4WD where the limited slip diff sounded like a machine gun going round corners, and there was only one solution - a special synthetic oil imported from overseas.

 

Transposing the above to aviation - the person who originated the issue usually knows most about it.

 

4. Don't listen to what the person says, look for a pattern of his actions. Someone full of BS and bravado will soon give the game away.

 

5. Google, google, google using forums only as a starting point to look for reference material.

 

6. Where there is a risk to life, a "calculated risk" is not acceptable, it's either go or no go regardless of the emotional pressure.

 

Example: years ago we had a basic race car class which allowed young guys to go racing for very little money. The cars were completely gutted of any flammable material, and the fuel tank was moved away from the rear, made of heavy steel and securely fastened. There was very little chance of a fire, so we had about a thousand young drivers pressurising for a relaxation of regulations to allow their class to run without $500.00 Fire Suits.

 

A number of other specification restrictions meant that crash severity was also reduced, so I relented.

 

Before we could get the new regulations into force there was an accident in another state and one of these cars caught fire and went up like a roman candle.

 

There was no debate at our next meeting and the decision was unanimous.

 

Cost us a lot of new members and potential income, but we still haven't killed a single driver in around 45 years.

 

 

[turboplanner]

Cost time, money, and for a dead end.

You were probably the victim of a "Break Point Change"

 

Because of computer technology, these days its possible to re-engineer, re-plan, re-source in live time, so when a production fault or adverse customer reaction emerges, it's possible to update the vehicle rather than riding it out to thje end of the model run as they used to.

 

This is a positive for the customer, but as you found out a new-age drama.

 

Today the best move is to take your VIN Number along to the parts department. Most of them can punch it in and get the exact version of the part required.

 

It's certainly no longer safe to ask for a part to suit a 98 Commodore etc.

 

 

[Guest watto]

I think I was a victim of Daihatsu pulling out of Australia and failing to really fully set up parts distribution before leaving, and as it was pointed out by a very clever computer wiz who found a problem on the car for us later, even though it was 5 years old he said the computer technology was cutting edge in it and had programs that managed the engine and transmission to the extreme and what had appeared to be a transmission issue had infact been a bad earth connection.

 

But these types of issues when you think about it in todays age of computer technology should be few and far between! but are in fact very common.

 

This is obviuosly why we have our LSA very simple and basic with redundancy and free of computer based techonology apart from design and manufacture process of course.

 

 

[turboplanner]

Sorry Watto, I've got bad news for you - the days of repairing your own vehicle are probably over. I recently did some training on a truck which had 22 computers, all able to talk to each other.

 

There is a TAC safety Ad in Victoria urging people to drop 5 km/hr in speed because it takes 51 metres to stop from 65 km/hr in the average car.

 

One of these new computer equipped trucks stops in 42 Metres....from 100 km/hr......at 3.5 tonnes weight.

 

And by about 2010 the computer systems will allow trucks to run so clean that they will be cleaning the ambient air in many of our cities.

 

The present generation of motor vehicles has given us a learning curve - with earthing problems, and also our favourite pastime - adding extra gadgets, lights etc because the wiring C Bus systems read resistance in the circuit, and when you change that, the communications hierarchy gives all the wrong messages.

 

Also, at present the diagnosis is based on bringing your vehicle to the authorised outlet where their reader can diagnose your problem and produce a series of code responses not unlike our acronym weather reports.

 

The good news is safety and reliability are rapidly imporving, fuel consumption is rapidly going down, and hopefully the computer capacity will soon allow self diagnosis where the screen will say "Tighten up that screw just behind the battery, old Son, the engine's about to cut out"

 

 

[Guest watto]

Yep thats why they paint yellow the things under the hood you can touch, usually only the dipstick, water bottle and trans fluid these days and everything else needs a degree in computer technology haha

 

 

[Guest watto]

I remember as a kid growing up without a father helping my mother when she changed a head gasket on our old Humber all by herself (good effort I reckon and she would have asked advice prior to doing the job) and been pointed in the right direction as the car went well afterwards.