LOU wrote on May 26^th, 2013 at 2:45pm:

Mark, I'm not so sure that the "ground" people really are aware or well trained enough to know that.  :o It would hardly ever come up in their normal day to day operation. In the old days, only mechanics would move aircraft. But mechanics cost more than ramp folks, so airlines switched to rampies to do the tasks that mechanics used to do. For the most part there is no problem, but in this case it really showed how complicated modern planes are and how important good training is to the operation. Lou

Exactly right Lou. I work as a rampie at YUL and besides going to aircraft mechanic school, we received no training regarding aircraft systems. Basically, if a plane has to be moved (other then those for Jazz), a mechanic as to brake ride while we tow.

Just finished an instruments course this semester and we went into great detail on the "generations" and operation of INS. It's a very reliable system, well it must be if has been used for 40 years, right?

Also, as Coolp said, I think IRS was a Honeywell/Boeing term for INS...