Planes and I are friends.  I take full advantage of the convenience of flying when I can; however, I’m always wary of the risks associated with flight.  I’m not scared of flying, but my body and mind warn me of the dangers every time the pilot guns it down the runway and the plane rockets off the end of the airstrip gaining altitude faster than I can legally drive.  I classify the whole experience as a really well engineered “Hail Mary” pass.  The pilot’s the QB, I’m the ball and the receiver is a thin strip of rock a few thousand miles away decorated in Christmas lights.

There are really only two things that give me comfort when flying.  Not my seat belt…and definitely not my oxygen mask.   The first is the beer and pretzels served by a friendly flight crew.   But most comforting is a second engine strapped to our heavier than air wings.   I’m sure with a good pilot we could glide down to earth with no engine power and land in a farmer’s field, the middle of the ocean or the oh-so-beautiful Rocky Mountains.  However, if you are thinking what I’m thinking, arriving a little behind schedule on that second engine sounds a whole lot better than putting your head between your legs while the pilot tells you to brace yourself.  I’d sure be thanking the engineer who thought “Two engines are better than one”.   Double the performance, more efficient, cheaper flights and you’ve always got a backup when disaster strikes.

Interesting Thought:  I wonder how often two engined planes lose an engine and the passengers never know it?

Computers are just like planes, except they crash a lot more.  Does your disaster recovery have two engines or one?

Tags: Disaster, Engines, Planes

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 16th, 2008 at 10:45 pm and is filed under Business Continuity, Data Backup, Disaster Recovery. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.