July 2007
Metric
Conversions
Three young
boys, 11, 13 and 14 year olds, raced
their bicycles down the decommissioned
runway, burning off their energy.
All day excitement was building, fuelled
by the events, sounds and smells of the
Winnipeg Sports Car Clubs family
day. By evening, things were winding
down, some people had already headed for
home. Still, many campers, trailers,
vehicles and people occupied the north
end of the 6000 ft. runway at Gimli,
Manitoba that pleasant evening in July,
1983.
The 13 year old saw
it first That guys
crazy, he shouted to his friends.
They skidded their bikes to a stop and
stood staring in disbelief. A giant,
silver airplane was descending toward
them, silently, in an odd forward slip
configuration, dropping at over 2000 feet
per minute, and closing rapidly from the
south. Not able to fully comprehend
the situation, but sensing the pending
disaster, the boys bolted back toward
their families. Pedalling a fast as
their legs would go, they screamed at
their parents to run. Others saw the
jet, a Boeing 767, barrelling toward
them, now less than a mile back. As
people scattered in all directions, the
jet hit the runway 1000 feet from the
threshold. Two explosions as tires
blew out were the first sounds they
heard. Then one engine was dragging
on the ground. As the front of the
aircraft settled, its nose gear
collapsed. Speeding down the runway
at almost 180 miles per hour, now a giant
shower of sparks blazed out behind as the
gear leg tore a huge trench into the
concrete.
The crippled
airliner, over 130 tons, hurtled closer
and closer to the trailers and people,
grinding up the pavement with bent metal,
trashed wheels, shredded tires, spitting
sparks and smoke. Finally only 100
feet from the first line of vehicles, it
stopped. The Gimli Glider had
arrived. It was an Air Canada flight
that had run out of fuel.
Photo courtesy of Winnipeg Free Press,. July 1983.
Reprinted with permission.
Much has been
written, even a movie made about the near
disaster. Miraculously, no one was
killed. Part of the reason for the
fuel exhaustion was blamed on the
conversion to the metric system of
weights and volumes Canada was
instituting. Following the failure
of the fuel measuring system in that
aircraft, the flight crew gave
instructions for an amount they had
calculated using the imperial weights and
volumes. The result was only about
half the fuel required for their flight
to Edmonton was loaded. They
carefully re-checked their calculations,
but were not trained to use the new
metric numbers.
The Canadian
government began the gradual conversion
to the metric system in the 1970s.
In 1975, rain and snowfall amounts were
measured in millimetres and
centimetres. In 77, all new
vehicles had speedometers showing
kilometres per hour. Road signs were
posted with metric
measurements. Most of us recall the
confusion at the grocery store, buying
meat and corn by the kilogram, milk
by the litre and coffee by the
gram. To its credit, the
government allowed merchants to advertise
the old measurements along with the new
ones so we could at least see that the
prices hadnt really changed.
My flying days were
not yet underway at that point in
time. I was in the middle of a
career in broadcasting, hosting a morning
show on AM radio. This part of the story
has nothing to do with aviation, but it
shows there was a lighter side to the
metric conversion exercise. April
1st, 1975, was the day we were obliged to
begin reporting temperatures in degrees
Celsius. To avoid such a big shock
to our listeners who had gone to bed the
night before with 70 degrees now waking
up to only 20 (C), I reported the
temperature in BOTH measurements
throughout the morning. Good
morning, its 20 Celsius/70
Fahrenheit outside. Most
people by then knew it was
coming. The government had some
pretty expensive ad campaigns going on
ahead of time.
We had decided only
the night before to have some fun with
this whole metric system
conversion. Since it was April
Fools day anyway, why not institute our
own CLOCK with METRIC time?! The
whole scheme was quickly put
together. I even fashioned a
metric clock so that I could
keep track through the confusion we knew
it would create. Metric time was
based on two 10-hour halves in the day,
20 hours instead of 24. Listeners
were greeted with two time readings every
few minutes. Good morning,
its 8:25 Standard time, 6:38 Metric
time. And so on ....
Combined with the two temperature
readings, it was a great day indeed for
sleepy listeners and commuters who
wondered what to wear and if they would
get to work on time.
There was fallout,
lots of it. A nursing supervisor at
our hospital was on the phone demanding
to know how to schedule her staff.
The payroll supervisor at a local mill
had no idea how he was going to change
the hourly pay rates for his
workers. The school board
couldnt believe they hadnt
been notified. And everyone wanted
to know where to buy these new
metric clocks. A
hardware store manager was angry with our
sales staff for not being informed.
Seemed hed just received a shipment
of the old standard time
clocks. What was he going to do with
them?!
I didnt lose
my job. Life went on. Some people
laughed. Some were
embarrassed. But the government
never contacted us for information on how
they could make the time conversion a
legitimate and workable procedure. The
scheme was so ridiculous I often wondered
why the bureaucrats passed up that one.
Somehow, we still
manage to fly our airplanes. Some
pilots measure fuel in litres, some in
U.S. gallons, some using Imperial
gallons. Its all the same gas
though. Degrees Celsius seems to
make sense to me now, a full 30 years
later. I suppose if we had actually
converted to a 10 hour clock, that would
make sense now too. But converting
the entire world to our time system
isnt going to happen. Next
time someone starts telling you about
changing clocks, check the
calendar.
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