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> why [Dutch Roll] wasn't bigger news I think the name is a serious problem. Something like “uncontrolled aircraft orientation” is more descriptive. “Dutch Rol
by adolph 2y ago
> why [Dutch Roll] wasn't bigger news
I think the name is a serious problem. Something like “uncontrolled aircraft orientation” is more descriptive. “Dutch Roll” brings to mind thoughts of “is it better than Swiss Cake Roll?” and “is this news-spam for Hostess brand emerging from bankruptcy?”
- FabHK 2y agoThere are terms of art, jargon, in many fields that mean something different than the “obvious” reading of the term. I had a discussion with someone on Hacker News recently that just could not understand that “dynamic programming” was a very specific solution technique for a broad range of problems with a special structure, rather than any sort of programming with a dynamic aspect to it.
- adolph 2y agoAgreed. To the question at hand: “why 737-max’s ‘Dutch Roll’ wasn’t bigger news,” my conjecture is the term of art obscures the severity of the problem. As a point of jargon, “Dutch Roll” is poor because the word roll within aeronautics could refer to an orientation movement or an acrobatic maneuver (and probably other things I don’t know about). The use of an ethnic/national identity as an adjective doesn’t help. Is “Dutch” associated at all with oscillations in two dimensions that are not intended by the pilot?