Re: Time Variance Regarding Helicopter

On May 15, 3:42 pm, ddl@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 (Dan Lanciani) wrote:
> In article <MPG.229630017908c4d298a...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
buffhun...@[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.
>
The cheat sheet actually says "40 miles N @[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 305 (degree symbol)" and
below that line "7 K EAST". So it is a little more complicated than a
single heading.

You are right, how can Sayid hold to that exact heading in a raft? Yet
in our last glimpse of Sayid he was quite confidently sailed rapidly
toward the island.
-yngver