the windshield wipers in my car change their speed based on a UX showing an in increasingingly long bar. i can never tell if it represents time or 1/time until i futz with it.
Huh? The lowest setting (the one closest to off or auto) is the one for the least rain, and it goes up to handle more rain, i.e. the further you are from off/auto the faster the windshield wipers wipe.
Yeah that's one thing European cars do wrong. They have two separate controls: one for on off the other one for interval.
American cars in contrast have just one control: it starts with off, then does intervals, finally the shortest interval, then low speed and then high speed.
Welcome to downvote hell with me. God damn, sanctimonius know-it-all HN jerkoffs do piss me off (yeah, go ahead reader, downvote me).
But your classification of European/American cars isn't accurate either. I drive an Italian car (well, but surprise, it's Fiat Chrysler) and the wiper controls makes sense, like what you refer as "American cars". Search for Mercedes Benz wiper controls on Youtube, that also makes sense. BMW's one is strange, the Ford one looks confusing but I didn't bother to look for a video.
When inspection frequency gets too low, airplanes fail, leading to more frequent inspections.
When inspection frequency gets too high, airlines and authorities decide to save money, leading to less frequent inspections.
So the inspection schedules (somewhat) satisfy Hook's Law, and thus we should expect wavelike oscillations.
[Edit: The system also requires momentum. That's provided by labor unions agreements, maintenance contracts, and the time needed to change regulations.]
>> When inspection frequency gets too high, airlines and authorities decide to save money, leading to less frequent inspections.
More often such aircraft are just retired. One defining difference between upstart airlines and "legacy" airlines is that the upstarts generally have new aircraft with lower inspection requirements. An interesting paper would address the inevitable evolution of new airlines as as their airframes age. When do they first try to transition to higher-profit services? When do they hit their first period of labor unrest? I theorize it is a function of aircraft age.
At least a few airlines don't ever buy aircraft. Instead they lease them with the intention of returning them moment they require more frequent inspections.
This whole business is so capital-intensive the decisions often follow non-obvious patterns. There are advantages in keeping a fleet uniform, even if a newer plane lease is cheaper than another model you already have a bunch of just because of the costs of training ground and air crews. Some leases may end up cheaper for you - and only for you - because of some tax break you got from one government that, for now, wasn't questioned by the WTO (and, since it's the manufacturer who'll pay the fines, it's not a concern).