Piano Tuning and Aviaiton

[Joel Rappaport]

Well, Bob, I certainly see your point and thank you for thinking about
this question.  I _did_ mention in my original post that the situations
were not completely comparable (but I thought that strengthened the
comparison) and you do make good points.  But my outlook centers more
around the word "competency" which I submit is very much comparable in
both instances.  I am trying to invesitgate standards for "competency,"
not necessarily how much backup hardware we may have.  You are correct
in that there are many more options for a tuner than a pilot (were you
imagining yourself with low fuel going into a sky obscured, fog and
drizzle, 1/8 mile vis situation?).  My view is that no matter how many
other possibilites there may be for that tuner you portray, I still
question whether a person can be called a piano tuner without being able
to tune a piano with basic tools. Would you be suggesting that an
electronic tuning device (EDT) is a basic tool?  What do others think?
Maybe I'm not expressing myself well, so keep those ideas coming.

Bob, when you go to take your long x-country IFR flight, come on down to
Texas (that's certainly long enough!), land at GTU and come visit us.

List, I asked the group "What do you think?"  I have a good idea what
you might think about my example of a Boeing 736 (slip of the finger -
should have been a 737, of course) and mentioning an "actural airplane"
instead of actual airplane.  Sometimes our minds get way too far ahead
of our fingers, I guess.....

----Joel

Bob Scott wrote:

> I found this comment interesting because I am now about 75% of the
> way into my instrument training in aviation.  However, I must disagree
> on the analogy.  The situations are not comparable.  The reason that
> a pilot must show competency without the aid of the autopilot is that
> when the autopilot fails in flight, there is no choice but to fly
> the plane without it.  But in piano tuning there are lots more options.
> If you are out on a job and your SAT breaks, you could have one
> or more backup ETD's.  You could try to postpone the work until you
> get your SAT fixed.  You could call one of you piano tuner friends
> to help you out.  Or if all you luck runs out at once, you could
> just loose a customer.  As I said, there are lots of options.
>
>