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Captains Speaking: Episode 15 (Patreon)

Published:
2025-10-01 00:21:33
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

Hello everyone!

Here is your early access preview to the upcoming Captains Speaking episode. We hope you enjoy it, let us know what you think!

And if you prefer to watch on YouTube you can do so here: https://youtu.be/oGzQR8Tjqig

  • The Mentour Team

Comments

Meg

Super interesting video as usual!! Have you guys considered a guest? I’d love to hear a conversation between you and Kelsey from 74 Gear :)

Raj Venkat

I know the release isn't on the day, but happy birthday, Petter!

Lakshmi Kantha

Happy Birthday, Petter! You don't look a day over 30!

Mark

You can tell AI to write like Hemingway , and it will. Then what happens when you tell AI to write a story on its own.

Bob Whitcomb

Happy Birthday Petter May you have many more

Lakshmi Kantha

Fascinating episode! Enjoyed it quite a lot! One reason is that I am very familiar with vortices and wake turbulence and have done some research on wake turbulence and published a couple of papers on it. The interest in aircraft wake turbulence started when Boeing 747 Jumbo took to the skies in 1969 and I have retained an interest in the phenomenon since. At that time, there was a great interest in disrupting these trailing vortices by some means so they decay and disintegrate faster. I even did a wind tunnel test back in 1972 to see if blowing air into the vortex core would promote a faster decay. Turns out it is very hard to destabilize them and we have since learned to live with them through mandatory separation distances between aircraft, timing takeoffs behind heavy aircraft etc. Actually, these trailing vortices are a consequence of lift generation by wings with a finite span. We aerodynamicists imagine the wing can be replaced by what is known as a bound vortex. The air flowing over this bound vortex is what generates the lift force. Laws of aerodynamics say that this bound vortex can only terminate in trailing vortices and there you have it. The strength of these vortices, determined by what is known as circulation, is proportional to the lift generated. That is why heavier aircraft generate stronger trailing vortices. The circulation around each vortex of the vortex pair induces a downward flow on the other vortex of the pair and so both descend together and the descent velocity can be easily determined knowing the weight of the aircraft, the velocity of the aircraft and the distance between the two vortices. The effect of the bound vortex and trailing vortices is such that there is a downwash behind the wing between the vortices but an upwash outside the vortices and in front of the wing. It is the upward flow of air behind the wing and outside of the vortices that enable geese to fly in a vee formation and save energy on long flights. Aircraft can do the same and tests have shown that fuel saving of several percent is possible if two aircraft flew in formation like geese. Of course, station keeping and safety in close formation become issues. Behind aircraft landing and takeoff from airports, the trailing vortices not only descend toward the runway, but proximity to the ground forces the vortices to move laterally away from each other. If they happen to cross a nearby parallel runway, they could be a hazard to aircraft taking off or landing on that adjacent runway. So proper separation between adjacent runways and appropriate timing of operations on the two runways may be necessary. Fascinating, aren't they? These trailing vortices that give rise to wake "turbulence?' BTW thanks for a wonderful shot of trailing vortices made visible so well, which you sneaked in just before talking about wake turbulence. I would love to hear more about experiences of pilots about encounters with these trailing vortices either during flight or during takeoff and landing. Thanks again. Prof. K

Lakshmi Kantha

I also enjoyed your discussion of AI. There has been a lot of hype about AI and to a common person, AI looks mysterious and omnipotent with suggestions that AI may meet and surpass human intelligence one of these days. I agree with Petter that AI prospects are overblown. I played around with artificial neural networks (ANN) back in the 1990's. At that time, computing power available was enough for just a dozen layers, each consisting of perhaps a dozen neurons. The training of ANNs was also done with limited data, a few kilobytes at most and there were also problems with over-learning, saturation etc. But the enormous computing power available these days has enabled ANNs with thousands of layers with thousands of neurons, trained by literally billions of kilobytes of data possible, because they can be trained fast. Also improvements in algorithms have overcome many of the old problems related to training. But the fact remains: ANNs are just good interpolators, meaning they can recognize patterns in any new data fed to them, based on data that were used to train them to recognize such patterns. But they are lousy extrapolators. If a pattern that exists in data used for prediction, which is not among the patterns in training data, they fail miserably. Sure, more computing power means more patterns recognized, but accurate extrapolation a human brain can do based on its knowledge base, ANNs have hard time doing. Also, a human brain can look at a result and ask if it makes sense, but ANNs must be told which result looks right and which does not. Apparently, the dirty secret of AI is that a lot of human cheap labor is used to examine the outputs and then instruct AI to reject bad ones. I don't have any means of verifying this but it looks plausible. To sum up, I agree with Petter and I share his disappointment in LLMs. Companies, which have invested untold billions in data centers with latest and greatest NVIDIA chips have yet to realize benefits and people are slowly catching up to it. Besides, data centers consume a lot of electricity and water for chip cooling that is making electricity more and more expensive to ordinary consumer, even if we ignore their impact on environment. Sure, AI can help in replacing mundane human work such as how many widgets to produce next year based on past experiences of market demand, resource costs etc. but thinking like humans is a bit of a stretch IMHO. Remember AI, deep learning are just buzz words for ANNs, which are just interpolators. Also, the accuracy of such interpolation depends very heavily on the quality of training data. GIGO prevails without a lot of attention to how they are trained. Prof. K

Ian (Woolly) Wolstenholme

I love this thread every time it comes up, this is what I responded to a musician friend of mine who was fearful of AI invading his world. I am a technologist by trade and yet an AI cynic. The clue really is in the title. There are always changes that folk don't like, particularly in the music industry, y'know synthesized drums or Autotune etc. AI understands human feelings, yet can't feel. Understands human emotions, yet can't emote. It has no capacity for abstract reasoning, and thus cannot create. The Algorithm does not cry when hearing Karen Carpenter sing The Eagles' Desperado, the algorithm is 100% certain that Germfree Adolescents is a song about personal hygiene and not one of the most beautiful and esoteric songs ever written and performed. Aspirations of mediocrity will be the realm for AI, 'losin' all the highs and lows'. And then there are the elements beyond human control as AI consumes its own diluted output!!! It will not blow its own speakers like an amplifier stuffed with it's own regenerative feedback, more it will become meaningless as ever more dilute data is regurgitated, consumed and re-regurgitated. It's world will end not with a bang but a whimper.

Ian (Woolly) Wolstenholme
>>188918341

Meg, I agree guest contributors would be great, Petter has a video from back during Covid with Kelsey. I would like Hoover to provide compare and contrast military and civil aviation.

Maria Ruhtenberg

100% right on thumbnails. Never liked the olds ones. Seemed to cheapen it somehow

Brent Eades

Excellent Captains Speaking episode as always. I always really enjoy these. Petter and Ben are an excellent team. Petter's comments on driving without threat awareness caught my attention. Decades ago as a teenager I took driving lessons here in Canada from a guy who was like a Marine drill sergeant, and threat awareness was his key message. "So the car approaching you has his left turn signal on. What if he's confused and turns right instead?" Or "Red lights aren't force fields, they don't make cars stop. What happens if that guy keeps coming through the intersection?" And so on. He also used to repeatedly say, "Imagine the stupidest thing another driver could do and be ready to react to it." His name was George Smith and his teachings are still in my head all these decades later when I drive.

HEINZ WILLI

Thank you for your very interesting and at times even entertaining work—like the opening minutes of this publication. I also enjoy that you don’t limit the discussion to aviation but also explore other subjects such as AI, ...... It’s both engaging and easy to follow, particularly because two intelligent and structured thinkers are sharing their perspectives. I especially liked your comment of this publication “looking at threads continuously is not required while driving a car.” I agree with that in a European context. However, I have been living with my wife in Thailand for more than 20 years—a wonderful country, but driving here is quite a different experience. One often encounters vehicles coming from the wrong side of the road (even on motorways), unexpected swerving, or overloaded trucks and pickups dropping material onto the road. Here, it truly helps to remain continuously prepared for the unexpected.

Shan

I hope this doesn't go too far with things going up in prica and down in quality.

Thomas Charbonnel

FWIW re. AI, LLMs are only one type of AI, there’s also computer vision, GenAI... As a software engineer, I’m not sure how AI is going to evolve. On the one hand, AI algorithms have been around for decades and have grown mostly thanks to computing power and training data, and training data has limits that have been reached to a great extent. On the other hand, really smart people are getting paid large amounts of money to improve the existing algorithms, and i don’t want to disregard the potential of well-paid smart people.

JR

As a 65 year old working for the Norweigian Air Force for 7 years, and then for 40 years in the Norwegian ATC, and 6 years for Eurocontrol, being an absolute aviation nerd, flying small aircraft like the C-172/180 Pa28, Rallyes I love your "shows" I have been riding MC s since 1976 and driving cars since 1978. One thing I learned by flying was to always look for escape ways when driving a car. Or just think ahead. As an MC rider and car driver, it has saved me for lots of accidents. My family has always "mobbed" me for being a safety nerd, but in a good way. They have all of them fallen in to the same habits. I have so far never had an accident in a plane, MC or a car so far, driving all around the world. But I really think that taking a few flying lessons might open your eyes safety wise. I recommend that to everybody. Of course it has an impact for me working in Control TWRs and ACCs for many years as well. Keep up the nice Captains speaking. It's so much fun. Thank you.

philip collura

70 ! Did I hear you correctly? I wondered why you stopped flying flying at such a young age. You look no older than late '40's to me. h a youh

KELLY
>>189016424

Haven’t listened to this chat yet, but when you consider you are hurtling down a strip of pavement, in different weather, day or night, among vehicles of all types, with drivers possibly not in a condition to drive, you are really just dependent on your skills, the condition of all surrounding cars, etc. you are in a tin can traveling at speed, with only your defensive driving skills, and luck, to reach your destination. When you step back and have an objective view, arriving safely at your destination seems a bit of a miracle.

KELLY
>>188949922

Do you watch the channel called Wings of Pegasus? He breaks down pitch correction and auto tune, revealing how ‘ plastic’ music is these days. So many very wealthy musicians have been miming on tour, selling expensive tickets to what comes down to a not- live performance

Roy Giuntoli

Happy belated birthday Petter.