Re: Time Variance Regarding Helicopter

In article <MPG.229630017908c4d298a0e3@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
buffhunter@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 (Hunter) writes:

| Frank did say "...Hey, Faraday told me as long as I stayed on the
vector...=
| " but he=20
| is mistaken, he didn't. He believes so because he probably thinks he
went o=
| ff course=20
| by only 5 degrees and only a few seconds but it was enough to scramble
Desm=
| ond's=20
| brain. He didn't think it was *THAT* im****tant but it was. Faraday as a
sci=
| entist is=20
| just more percise than Frank the Airline/chopper pilot. Sure pilots are
per=
| cise too,=20
| but to them a five degree variation in course for only a few seconds
isn't =
| that big a=20
| deal. To faraday it was. It was a misunderstanding between "cultures"
"Scie=
| nce geek"=20
| and "pilot jock". To a science geek if you are off by an inch you got to
do=
|  the=20
| experiment over again. That is what Frank didn't get.

(Not disagreeing that going off course caused the problem, but...)

If Faraday were a real scientist he would have specified the allowable
variance from the heading either as a percentage or as an absolute number
of degrees.  He would also explain whether there is a time-compounding
effect
of being off course.  Telling Frank to stay "exactly" on a particular
heading
is meaningless since the mechanical realities of the helicopter and the
available resolution of the indicator will always make this impossible.  I
expect Sayid is going to have even more trouble with the raft.

Two other things bothered me.  Was the course on Faraday's "cheat sheet"
more complicated than a single heading?  I didn't get a good look at it;
can someone check?  It's very convenient that the ****p is stuck in a
position
that allows the required heading for going to and from the island to
actually
take you... to and from the island.  I assume they had positioned
themselves
there before Michael sabotaged the engines.  Had he sabotaged the engines
a
bit earlier he might have better accomplished his goal.  In particular, if
you are close enough to the island that the magic heading is already
required
to avoid side effects but you are not on a line along that heading
relative
to the island you might be in trouble.

				Dan Lanciani
				ddl@[EMAIL PROTECTED]