Use of the word "RETARD" in commercial aviation

[Berkeley Brett]

I hope you're all well & in good spirits.

Lately, I've been enjoying some videos of commercial aircraft landings from the pilots' perspectives -- from within the cockpit.

In many of these videos, just as the plane is approaching the runway you'll hear an automated elevation countdown, and it will go something like this:

100 ... 50 ... 40 ... 30 ... 20 ... RETARD, RETARD, RETARD ...

You can hear this (with the '40' missing) in this excellent video of the nighttime landing of a British Airways Airbus 320 ILS at London Heathrow:

https://youtu.be/jY2dcKvKWmI?t=5m40s

Here's a daytime landing of a Lufthansa Airbus A380-800 at San Francisco International Airport in which you'll hear the same usage:

https://youtu.be/AfHl87p7X5o?t=5m22s

Commercial pilot "Captain Joe" explains that the meaning of "retard" in these videos is a reminder to "retard your thrust levers to the idle power". Apparently, this will be done automatically in many cases, but in the event of a failure of the automatic system, this would be a critical reminder:

https://youtu.be/sikGj2flLB8?t=4m40s

In at least one case of which I am aware, failure to "retard" the throttle resulted in a "hard landing" which did some damage to the aircraft:

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/inquiry-a321-landed-hard-after-uncomfortable-pilot-forgot-to-retard-throttle-322272/

Hopefully, this utterly trivial bit of trivia will clear up any question about the meaning of the word "retard" when addressed to a commercial pilot... :)

--
Brett (in Berkeley, California, USA)
On Twitter at:
http://twitter.com/BerkeleyBrett
(You don't have to be a Twitter user to view this stream of ideas)

[Tony Cooper]

It seems you have cleared up a question that no one has asked and no
one is expected to ask.



--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida

[musika]

My Grandfather invented a cure for which there was no known disease...
Unfortunately, he caught the cure and died.


--
Ray
UK

[Whiskers]

Early petrol-engined vehicles had an advance/retard control for the
ignition timing. Mechanics still have to attend to such things when
setting up the engine, but in normal use the control is now automatic in
most vehicles.

--
-- ^^^^^^^^^^
-- Whiskers
-- ~~~~~~~~~~

[Snidely]

Friday, Whiskers quipped:

Volkswagen Beetles had a vacuum line to the distributor to "automate"
the advance/retard adjustment. ISTR that the line attached to a
"pancake", and flexing of the "pancake" (a sort of bellows with only 1
fold) pulled on a spring. No doubt I will later to have an itch to
look this up, but I'm asymptomatic at the moment.

/dps

--
There's nothing inherently wrong with Big Data. What matters, as it
does for Arnold Lund in California or Richard Rothman in Baltimore, are
the questions -- old and new, good and bad -- this newest tool lets us
ask. (R. Lerhman, CSMonitor.com)

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

When I was at school the physics teacher insisted that we couldn't say
"deceleration" and had to use "retardation" as the opposite of
"acceleration". I don't know if this was his personal peeve or whether
other physics teachers felt the same way.


--
athel

[RH Draney]

On 3/25/2017 2:18 AM, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
>
> When I was at school the physics teacher insisted that we couldn't say
> "deceleration" and had to use "retardation" as the opposite of
> "acceleration". I don't know if this was his personal peeve or whether
> other physics teachers felt the same way.

Probably got it from the music teacher....r

[Richard Heathfield]

On 25/03/17 09:18, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
<snip>

> When I was at school the physics teacher insisted that we couldn't say
> "deceleration" and had to use "retardation" as the opposite of
> "acceleration". I don't know if this was his personal peeve or whether
> other physics teachers felt the same way.

My physics teacher insisted that it was still called "acceleration" (and
he was quite correct).

--
Richard Heathfield
Email: rjh at cpax dot org dot uk
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
Sig line 4 vacant - apply within

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

On Fri, 24 Mar 2017 11:18:33 -0700 (PDT), Berkeley Brett
<roya...@gmail.com> wrote:

The lurking problem is that today many people are aware only of the noun
"retard":
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/retard

offensive, informal

A person who has a mental disability (often used as a general term
of abuse).

Which derives from

verb

Delay or hold back in terms of progress or development.

"retard" and "retarder" are terms in science and engineering.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retarder_(mechanical_engineering)

A retarder is a device used to augment or replace some of the
functions of primary friction-based braking systems, usually on
heavy vehicles. Retarders serve to slow vehicles, or maintain a
steady speed while traveling down a hill, and help prevent the
vehicle from "running away" by accelerating down the hill.

https://www.mercedes-benz.co.uk/content/unitedkingdom/mpc/mpc_unitedkingdom_website/en/home_mpc/truck/home/new_trucks/model_range/new_actros/New_Actros/facts/Technology/braking_systems/braking_systems.0003.html
or
http://tinyurl.com/m9xgkby

Mercedes-Benz
Available as an option, the secondary water retarder is a wear and
maintenance-free auxiliary brake that can be used to perform up to
85% of all braking operations. The retarder uses the water of the
engine cooling circuit, which means that there is no need for an
additional oil circuit with oil cooler. The heat produced by the
system is dissipated via the engine cooling system, whereby the
cooling temperature is permanently monitored.

http://www.halliburton.com/en-US/ps/cementing/materials-chemicals-additives/retarders/default.page?node-id=hfqelagf

Retarders

Cement setting times can be adjusted with retarders. Cement
retarders control the time when a slurry will set hard, keeping the
slurry viscous and pumpable in expected wellbore temperatures and
for the amount of time required to place the slurry.

Retarders decrease the rate of cement hydration, acting in a manner
opposite to that of accelerators.

--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)

[Whiskers]

That was the usual arrangement before electronic and then computer
systems took over. There would probably have been a 'centrifugal'
advance device too, operating alongside the 'vacuum' device, to optimise
the spark timing. Wikipedia, of course, has something to say
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributor>. I can remember standing in
the wind and rain trying to de-grease and de-moisturise the distributor
cap, and adjust the contact-breaker, to get my old 1954 Standard 10 to
start. It's amazing those old cars ever ran at all.

[Whiskers]

On 2017-03-25, RH Draney <dado...@cox.net> wrote:
> On 3/25/2017 2:18 AM, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
>>
>> When I was at school the physics teacher insisted that we couldn't say
>> "deceleration" and had to use "retardation" as the opposite of
>> "acceleration". I don't know if this was his personal peeve or whether
>> other physics teachers felt the same way.

I was taught that to make a moving thing go slower, one applied an
acceleration in the opposite direction to its movement. But I don't
think there's anything wrong with 'decelerate'.

> Probably got it from the music teacher....r

Rallentando.

[Peter Moylan]

On 2017-Mar-25 20:18, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
>
> When I was at school the physics teacher insisted that we couldn't say
> "deceleration" and had to use "retardation" as the opposite of
> "acceleration". I don't know if this was his personal peeve or whether
> other physics teachers felt the same way.

From the Online Etymology Dictionary:
Verily "deceleration" is a word which could only be coined by the Great
Western. ["Engineering," Feb. 2, 1894]

IIRC my physics teachers would have said that "acceleration" does not
have an opposite. An acceleration of -2 m/s^2 is no different in
principle from an acceleration of +2 m/s^2.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW, Australia

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

That is fine in physics and engineering. In the everyday world we
distinguish between slowing down, going slower, and speeding up, going
faster. We don't describe slowing down as a negative form of speeding
up.

"He slowed down and eventually came to a standstill"
rather than
"He changed his speed negatively and eventually came to a standstill"

[RH Draney]

On 3/25/2017 7:58 PM, Peter Moylan wrote:
>
> IIRC my physics teachers would have said that "acceleration" does not
> have an opposite. An acceleration of -2 m/s^2 is no different in
> principle from an acceleration of +2 m/s^2.

Sure, but try getting your insurance agent to buy that....r

[Whiskers]

Strictly speaking, one should match velocity with whatever it is one
wishes to 'come to a standstill' with reference to. But in practice,
demanding that the car-park heave to and prepare to be boarded probably
won't work.

[Jerry Friedman]

And either may indicate that the object is speeding up, depending on
what its current velocity is.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Jerry Friedman]

You can't just demand. You have to do the right things with the brakes
and steering wheel. I often end up putting the parking space a little
crooked.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

Warning! That gets worse as you get older! I'm not yet at the stage
where my wife decides that I can't drive any more, but it'll come. I
often need several attempts to get the parking space correctly
positioned. (Curiously, French driving licences don't expire. If I were
still in the UK I'd need to be tested at 70 years old, and every three
years after.)


--
athel

[Katy Jennison]

Would you? They haven't been testing me. Perhaps the parking spaces
haven't complained yet.

--
Katy Jennison

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

Maybe they've changed the rules. The UK licence I surrendered in
exchange for my French licence had an expiry date of my 70th birthday.


--
athel

[Katy Jennison]

I seem to remember that they sent me a form, which I duly completed and
sent back to them.

--
Katy Jennison

[Whiskers]

Bollards. Tricky.

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

Yes. The licence expires on the 70th birthday. It then has to be renewed
every three years. The renewal application form has a series of
questions about specific aspects of physical and mental health. If the
answer to any one is "No" the licence office may

* contact your doctor or consultant
* arrange for you to be examined
* ask you to take a driving assessment, or an eyesight or driving test

That is just the same as if you tell the licence office about a
notifiable condition at any time when you have a valid licence.

[spuorg...@gowanhill.com]

On Sunday, 26 March 2017 18:49:35 UTC+1, Whiskers Catwheezel wrote:
> Bollards.

Language.

Owain

[Sam Plusnet]

At 70 I will end up with one of those new-fangled Photo Licences.
I have been quite happy with my rather scruffy paper version.

--
Sam Plusnet

[HVS]

On Sun, 26 Mar 2017 22:26:14 +0100, Sam Plusnet <n...@home.com> wrote:
> On 26/03/2017 18:38, Katy Jennison wrote:
> > On 26/03/2017 18:29, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
> >> On 2017-03-26 17:21:17 +0000, Katy Jennison said:
> >>> On 26/03/2017 18:06, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:

-snip -

> >>>> If I were
> >>>> still in the UK I'd need to be tested at 70 years old, and
every three
> >>>> years after.)

> >>> Would you? They haven't been testing me. Perhaps the parking
spaces
> >>> haven't complained yet.

> >> Maybe they've changed the rules. The UK licence I surrendered in
> >> exchange for my French licence had an expiry date of my 70th
birthday.

> > I seem to remember that they sent me a form, which I duly
completed and
> > sent back to them.

> At 70 I will end up with one of those new-fangled Photo Licences.
> I have been quite happy with my rather scruffy paper version.

I got one of those with my "medically limited" licence after my
Parkinson's diagnosis (which is a notifiable condition) .

They have, however, recently loosened the restrictions. My first
medically-limited licence was for 3 years, which was the longest
available at the time.. I renewed it twice, but on the third renewal
was given a five-year licence, as the powers that be decided that if
the neurologist felt you were stable, that was OK. (I'm legally
required to report any relevant change in my condition, and rely on
my wife to let me know if there's a concern.)

There was no test, though - it was all self-certification and
confirmation from the neurologist, and I suspect the 70+ procedure is
similar.

--
Cheers, Harvey
CanE (30 years) & BrE (34 years),
indiscriminately mixed

[LFS]

On 26/03/2017 18:38, Katy Jennison wrote:

A UK driving licence expires when you reach 70 and you have to renew it
if you want to continue to drive but you are not required to retake a test.

--
Laura (emulate St George for email)

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

On Mon, 27 Mar 2017 09:19:06 +0100, LFS <lauraDRA...@gmail.com>
wrote:

Yes. I'm 80, so I've renewed my driving licence 4 times. No driving
tests needed.

[Peter Moylan]

Which is sad. It suggests that there is a gulf between the
scientifically educated and the rest, and that never the twain shall meet.

There is a similar gap between the intelligent and the climate change
deniers, and Bog knows when that gap will be bridged.

[Peter Moylan]

Yes, but now you're allowing for negative velocities.

This is the point at which I wonder about CP Snow's concept of the two
cultures. At this point I cannot avoid quoting his point:

<quote>
I now believe that if I had asked an even simpler question — such as,
What do you mean by mass, or acceleration, which is the scientific
equivalent of saying, Can you read? — not more than one in ten of the
highly educated would have felt that I was speaking the same language.
So the great edifice of modern physics goes up, and the majority of the
cleverest people in the western world have about as much insight into it
as their neolithic ancestors would have had.
</quote>

The comparison with "can you read?" cannot be ignored. The implication
is that 90% of our so-called educated people are profoundly ignorant.
Can people who do not understand elementary mathematics or elementary
physics be considered intelligent? Yes, but only in a pre-human society.

[Mark Brader]

Peter Duncanson (reference numbers added):

>> That is fine in physics and engineering. In the everyday world we
>> distinguish between slowing down, going slower, and speeding up, going
>> faster. We don't describe slowing down as a negative form of speeding
>> up.
>>

>> "He slowed down and eventually came to a standstill" [1]
>> rather than
>> "He changed his speed negatively and eventually came to a standstill" [2]

Peter Moylan:

> Which is sad. It suggests that there is a gulf between the
> scientifically educated and the rest, and that never the twain shall meet.

Only if you believe that scientifically educated people always use
sentence 2 and never 1, to which I say twaddle. All it suggests that
(there exist topics where) there is a gulf between scientific jargon
and normal English. And if you insist that *you'd* use sentence 2
when (say) describing an incident to a police officer as an eyewitness,
then I say *that's* sad.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto "I may be ranting, but I'm right!"
m...@vex.net -- Wojeck: Out of the Fire

My text in this article is in the public domain.

[Peter Moylan]

On 2017-Mar-28 21:22, Mark Brader wrote:
> Peter Duncanson (reference numbers added):
>>> That is fine in physics and engineering. In the everyday world we
>>> distinguish between slowing down, going slower, and speeding up, going
>>> faster. We don't describe slowing down as a negative form of speeding
>>> up.
>>>
>>> "He slowed down and eventually came to a standstill" [1]
>>> rather than
>>> "He changed his speed negatively and eventually came to a standstill" [2]
>
> Peter Moylan:
>> Which is sad. It suggests that there is a gulf between the
>> scientifically educated and the rest, and that never the twain shall meet.
>
> Only if you believe that scientifically educated people always use
> sentence 2 and never 1, to which I say twaddle. All it suggests that
> (there exist topics where) there is a gulf between scientific jargon
> and normal English. And if you insist that *you'd* use sentence 2
> when (say) describing an incident to a police officer as an eyewitness,
> then I say *that's* sad.

No, that's not what I meant. I think we all use sentence 1, and regard 2
as artificial.

What I find sad is that there are ways of thinking of certain concepts
-- acceleration, in this case -- which are entirely foreign to a large
part of the population. That's understandable in the case of advanced
topics, but speed and acceleration are right at the elementary end of
physics.

[Steve Hayes]

On Fri, 24 Mar 2017 11:18:33 -0700, Berkeley Brett wrote:

> Commercial pilot "Captain Joe" explains that the meaning of "retard" in
> these videos is a reminder to "retard your thrust levers to the idle
> power". Apparently, this will be done automatically in many cases, but
> in the event of a failure of the automatic system, this would be a
> critical reminder:
>
> https://youtu.be/sikGj2flLB8?t=4m40s
>
> In at least one case of which I am aware, failure to "retard" the
> throttle resulted in a "hard landing" which did some damage to the
> aircraft:
>
> https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/inquiry-a321-landed-hard-
after-uncomfortable-pilot-forgot-to-retard-throttle-322272/
>
> Hopefully, this utterly trivial bit of trivia will clear up any question
> about the meaning of the word "retard" when addressed to a commercial
> pilot... :)

Well I didn't know they used it before reading this, but I suppose when
you want to get the message across quickly it is easier to say "RETARD
RETARD RETARD" than "THROTTLE BACK THROTTLE BACK THROTTLE BACK"

Of course it is possible that if I had heard it before your kind and
helpful explanation I might have wondered why they were using it on jet
planes that don't have magnetos.

The explanation, however, would almost immediately have occurred to me
that jet planes don't, strictly speaking, have throttles either, but the
term might have stuck around, just as one still dials numbers on
telephones that don't have dials.

And perhaps they call the throttle levers thrust levers anyway.


--
Steve Hayes http://khanya.wordpress.com

[Mark Brader]

Steve Hayes:

> The explanation, however, would almost immediately have occurred to me

> that jet planes don't, strictly speaking, have throttles either...

Sure they do. "Throttle" defined:

AHD: (1) A valve that regulates the flow of a fluid, such as the
valve in an internal-combustion engine that controls the amount
of air-fuel mixture entering the cylinders. (2) A lever or
pedal controlling such a valve.

M-W: (2a) a valve for regulating the supply of a fluid (such as
steam) to an engine; especially: the valve controlling the
volume of vaporized fuel charge delivered to the cylinders of an
internal combustion engine (2b) the lever controlling this valve.

Collins: The throttle of a motor vehicle or aircraft is the device,
lever, or pedal that controls the quantity of fuel entering
the engine and is used to control the vehicle's speed.

Oxford: A device controlling the flow of fuel or power to an engine.

> And perhaps they call the throttle levers thrust levers anyway.

Well, this Boeing page

http://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/aero_02/sy/sy01/story.html

uses the term "thrust lever", but describes the system it controls as the
"autothrottle". So I'd say you can take your pick.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | "...what kind of mind has a steel trap got anyway?"
m...@vex.net | --Lawrence Block, "The Burglar in the Library"

[Dingbat]

On Friday, March 24, 2017 at 11:48:43 PM UTC+5:30, Berkeley Brett wrote:
> I hope you're all well & in good spirits.
>
> Lately, I've been enjoying some videos of commercial aircraft landings from the pilots' perspectives -- from within the cockpit.
>
> In many of these videos, just as the plane is approaching the runway you'll hear an automated elevation countdown, and it will go something like this:
>
> 100 ... 50 ... 40 ... 30 ... 20 ... RETARD, RETARD, RETARD ...
>
> You can hear this (with the '40' missing) in this excellent video of the nighttime landing of a British Airways Airbus 320 ILS at London Heathrow:
>
> https://youtu.be/jY2dcKvKWmI?t=5m40s
>
> Here's a daytime landing of a Lufthansa Airbus A380-800 at San Francisco International Airport in which you'll hear the same usage:
>
> https://youtu.be/AfHl87p7X5o?t=5m22s
>

> Commercial pilot "Captain Joe" explains that the meaning of "retard" in these videos is a reminder to "retard your thrust levers to the idle power". Apparently, this will be done automatically in many cases, but in the event of a failure of the automatic system, this would be a critical reminder:
>
> https://youtu.be/sikGj2flLB8?t=4m40s
>
> In at least one case of which I am aware, failure to "retard" the throttle resulted in a "hard landing" which did some damage to the aircraft:
>
> https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/inquiry-a321-landed-hard-after-uncomfortable-pilot-forgot-to-retard-throttle-322272/
>
> Hopefully, this utterly trivial bit of trivia will clear up any question about the meaning of the word "retard" when addressed to a commercial pilot... :)
>

> --
> Brett (in Berkeley, California, USA)


Here's to hoping your captain is a good retard:-)