Timeline for Why was the B727 flight engineer referred to as the third crewman
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
19 events
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| Feb 17 at 12:04 | comment | added | Pekka | Thank you. Got the reference and also have an explanation why the founding fathers would be referenced in an FOB! I see this is from 1991 in a Pan Am publication - it is possible that by then the controversy was over as production had ended and there was no longer any need to influence perceptions. I was mostly curious to understand why such a clumsy attempt at redirection by the manufacturer had been seen necessary. Your diligence in scanning bitmaps is impressive. Thanks for the efforts and I think I will leave this as unanswered as a sociological oddity noted by @MichaelHall. | |
| Feb 16 at 18:10 | comment | added | Steve Pemberton | Pekka - the actual page numbers in the document are a bit convoluted that's why I was referring to PDF page number 28, i.e. 28 of 470. What I was quoting is at the bottom of the second page of the 2-page "Flight Operations Bulletin" dated Jun 21, 1991. Probably you already saw it since you said you saw similar references, that's the one that I was referring to. | |
| Feb 16 at 14:41 | comment | added | Pekka | I went through the Pan Am operating manual you referenced, but may have located a different version. It is composed of tens of small documents and the only page 28 I located had no reference to flight engineer. I did see references to flight engineer and now feel more that the third crewman wording was outlier and not continued further. | |
| Feb 16 at 14:36 | history | edited | Pekka | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Added sample page from referenced document
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| Feb 15 at 17:22 | comment | added | Steve Pemberton | Since the paper doesn't seem to be that easily accessible it might help if you quote a few sentences using that term so that the context is better understood. Same for the operating manual. I briefly glanced at PAA_727_Vol1, at the bottom of PDF page 28 it says "but first officer and flight engineer have Puritan masks and goggles". If you have found other places in the document that use different terminology it would help to provide the location and preferably a quote of the entire sentence. | |
| Feb 15 at 16:22 | comment | added | Michael Hall | Consumer reluctance of what? What "tension"? I'm just not sure what you are getting at here other than modern PC standards of gender neutral wording. Is that what you are asking? Ending words with "...man" was just a lot more common in times past. (Foreman, workman, brakeman, etc.) "Political Correctness" wasn't even a term in 1978. I severely doubt anybody here can answer why the authors chose the particular word they did. Some choices are stylistic, or simply personal preference without any agenda. Downvoting for inferring something that isn't explained. (Or maybe this is the answer?!) | |
| Feb 15 at 8:16 | history | edited | Pekka | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Added clarification
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| Feb 15 at 7:53 | comment | added | Pekka | Neither, my question is about the deliberate non-use of the commonly accepted term. I was also not commenting on the gendered reference as I understood this to be typical at the time. Was Boeing's avoidance of the term FE somehow intended to avoid customer reluctance at a time when the post was being deprecated? | |
| Feb 14 at 16:26 | comment | added | Steve Pemberton | Is your question specifically about the numeric ranking, or just the fact that the FE is considered part of the flight crew? Even if you are having trouble finding examples of the terminology I would think there would generally be no dispute at the time that a FE was part of an aircraft's flight crew, since they are directly involved in the operation of the flight. Even though they don't have direct input on the controls, other than occasionally the throttles for fine-tuning the thrust. They also sometimes provided additional eyes and ears during takeoff and landing operations. | |
| Feb 14 at 15:51 | comment | added | Michael Hall | Anyway, this is more a sociological or 4 decades old PC english usage question that has only a tangential relationship to aviation. And likely answers would rely on opinion. Have you tried contacting the authors? | |
| Feb 14 at 15:31 | comment | added | Michael Hall | But what "tension" are you referring to? Were there any female flight engineers on 727s at the time? Because if not, the term would be accurate. | |
| Feb 14 at 10:42 | history | edited | Pekka | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Added additional reference to Boeing 720
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| Feb 14 at 10:38 | comment | added | Pekka | I would be interested in knowledgeable hypotheses from the late 1970s that might explain the tension for not using an industry term still common so deliberately. | |
| Feb 13 at 4:06 | answer | added | John K | timeline score: 3 | |
| Feb 13 at 1:37 | comment | added | Michael Hall | The specific reason for the terminology chosen by the authors may only be known to them. I'm not sure this is answerable as it is currently written... | |
| Feb 12 at 2:05 | answer | added | Chris | timeline score: 2 | |
| Feb 11 at 23:58 | history | edited | Pekka | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Added link to additional reference
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| S Feb 11 at 23:51 | review | First questions | |||
| Feb 12 at 3:06 | |||||
| S Feb 11 at 23:51 | history | asked | Pekka | CC BY-SA 4.0 |