And another thing……. The tone of the Chairman’s utterances suggests very, very strongly that internal combustion, piston engined GA and RA forms of aviation are about to be branded “Legacy technology”.
Branding something technology as “legacy” is an old tactic by oily mouthed “change management” snakes in nice suits.
Labelling a technology as “legacy” is code for:
- ignoring the appeals for change by the now labelled legatees. After all, piston engined traditional GA is yesterdays technology. There is no point in investing time and money in it.
- Consigning experts in the legacy technology to the retirement bin.
- pushing your young, best and brightest staff and all your investment time and money into the shiny new technology. You may not yet know if it is viable, profitable, scaleable, safe or practical but hey! It’s fun! No one can be held accountable because the technology is too new! There are new conferences to attend!
- archiving all your dirty laundry because your faults are in the past and don’t matter in this bright new hydrogen based, internet hub enabled, great new world!
How do I know this? Been through it in the IT industry.
I watched thirty programmers being told by our Directors that because they were experts in COBOL, a “legacy” computer language, there was no place for them in our company’s future. Object Oriented Computer languages were to take over. They were then told that they were too old to be retrained in this exciting new technology - that was only for young (good looking) people who had the necessary flexibility of mind. There would be no further promotions or training for the legacy people who would not be replaced if they left. They were on the human scrap heap declared our Directors.
The room full of fifty somethings accepted all this without a murmur, they had heard it before.
The company adopted Object oriented programming which was very new, sexy and full of promise They also decided to use Digital Equipments new computers with the new alpha CPU. It was all new, fun and very expensive. The divested themselves of COBOL and Unix talent.
The new OOP languages and new computers proved to be slow, difficult to modify, not scaleable and definitely not of the required industrial strength quality for real time processing. Digital equipment went belly up so their hardware became obsolete. They couldn’t deliver to their customers and the company was sold.
The “legacy” COBOL programmers? They all became freelance consultants and made fortunes out of ensuring all those legacy COBOL programs - the ones that drive the banks, retail and reservation systems were year 2000 compliant. I know some who bought vineyards and yachts thanks to the “legacy” label.
It’s a safe bet that “legacy” aviation is going to be around for a long time to come.
Branding something technology as “legacy” is an old tactic by oily mouthed “change management” snakes in nice suits.
Labelling a technology as “legacy” is code for:
- ignoring the appeals for change by the now labelled legatees. After all, piston engined traditional GA is yesterdays technology. There is no point in investing time and money in it.
- Consigning experts in the legacy technology to the retirement bin.
- pushing your young, best and brightest staff and all your investment time and money into the shiny new technology. You may not yet know if it is viable, profitable, scaleable, safe or practical but hey! It’s fun! No one can be held accountable because the technology is too new! There are new conferences to attend!
- archiving all your dirty laundry because your faults are in the past and don’t matter in this bright new hydrogen based, internet hub enabled, great new world!
How do I know this? Been through it in the IT industry.
I watched thirty programmers being told by our Directors that because they were experts in COBOL, a “legacy” computer language, there was no place for them in our company’s future. Object Oriented Computer languages were to take over. They were then told that they were too old to be retrained in this exciting new technology - that was only for young (good looking) people who had the necessary flexibility of mind. There would be no further promotions or training for the legacy people who would not be replaced if they left. They were on the human scrap heap declared our Directors.
The room full of fifty somethings accepted all this without a murmur, they had heard it before.
The company adopted Object oriented programming which was very new, sexy and full of promise They also decided to use Digital Equipments new computers with the new alpha CPU. It was all new, fun and very expensive. The divested themselves of COBOL and Unix talent.
The new OOP languages and new computers proved to be slow, difficult to modify, not scaleable and definitely not of the required industrial strength quality for real time processing. Digital equipment went belly up so their hardware became obsolete. They couldn’t deliver to their customers and the company was sold.
The “legacy” COBOL programmers? They all became freelance consultants and made fortunes out of ensuring all those legacy COBOL programs - the ones that drive the banks, retail and reservation systems were year 2000 compliant. I know some who bought vineyards and yachts thanks to the “legacy” label.
It’s a safe bet that “legacy” aviation is going to be around for a long time to come.