You don't know how many times that I've been told that I'm too black and white and that everything is shades of grey. You can get in line behind all those others.

Here's an example: I used to work for Allison Gas Turbine Division of GMC (now Rolls-Royce Corporation). Through my poking around and generally curious approach to things, I uncovered four separate issues that were in direct violation of FAA rules and company policy over a two year period. Parts, for machines that fly straight up, were being sold out the door that did not meet drawing requirements and did not have appropriate Material Review Board disposition to see if they were useable. My analysis showed that they were flight safety risks. All four resulted in multimillion dollar field campaigns to purge the bad stock from the field. On two of the issues, my analyses were initially ignored and parts were sold, both as spares and in full engine assemblies.

Those later came back to bite the company badly. In one case, a weekend call came in during late summer or early fall 1997. A brand new Bell 407 with newly developed and released Allison Model 250-C47B engine was sitting on an oil rig (those dirty things that we need to keep our modern economy floorishing) in the Gulf of Mexico with a chip detector light. The debris on the detector when it was inspected was beyond the Operation and Maintenance Manual limits for serviceability. This meant that the ship couldn't leave the pad on the drill rig until the engine was replaced. Consequently, no supplies or personnel could be flown to or from the rig, because its only pad was occupied by a grounded helicopter. To remain in service, the oil rig crew had to ferry supplies by boat from a nearby rig with open pad. This went on for more than a week.

Allison had to ship a new, replacement engine down to the gulf. However, since the pad was small, there was no room for a hoist to lift the engine from the bay. To facilitate the exchange, the old engine had to be disassembled into modules while in the airframe and removed one module at a time. The new engine had to be disassembled into modules and installed in the airframe one module at a time. Needless to say, the company that owned the helicopter was not pleased with Allison.

I arrived at work one morning to find a box full of parts on my desk that included the three main power train gears from the engine gearbox. I immediately checked my files and cross referenced the serial numbers of the returned parts with those that I had on file from my earlier investiagation (dating back to February - March of 1997). Guess what... The parts on my desk from the AOG (aircraft on ground) incident matched with ones that I said shouldn't be sold in the first place. It's funny, they told me in March that I was looking too close and being too black and white. I needed to see things in shades of grey.

You know, Mark, there is absolute right and wrong based on an immutable standard. Most things are black or white, right or wrong. Those of us with the clarity of vision to see this are threatening to those who don't or won't see it. We cause too much introspection and examination of beliefs and most don't like what they see. Instead of fixing the belief system, most folks lash out at us. In most cases, seeing things in shades of grey stems from an unwillingness to take a stand for what's right resulting in a compromise of principles. The anger and personal attacks then flow from the latent guilt associated with that compromise.

In the world of politics, the tenets of liberalism and conservatism are mutually exclusive. They cannot both be right. I happen to know that conservatism is right as displayed by decades of failed liberal policies.

I can't wait to see what kind of names you call me over this. OBTW, you don't have me figured out. You have no idea. (Again, more personal attacks.)