Ok, I double checked this in the main forum selection page:
"This forum is for non-technical general discussion which can include both Linux and non-Linux topics. Have fun! "

It seems like I have asked this before, but can't find it now. Maybe it wasn't here.

Anyway, I was once TDY to an air base in Italy. (TDY = Temporary Duty)
I was an ejection seat mechanic. I swapped a pair of sun glasses for an Italian safety poster that was in one of the hangers. I never actually got a translation for the poster.
Picture, if you will, a cartoonish looking drawing of a fighter jet with a guy ejecting into the ceiling of a hanger, keeping in mind that working on an ejection seat is always a two person process for safety reasons. (although we didn't always adhere to that. )
The caption along the left side of the poster says:

Non
scoprire
la Sicurezza
del Volo
solo dopo
un incidente

Can anybody tell me what that would say if it was in English?

Thanks...

Directly translated it reads: "Not to discover the Emergency of the Flight only after an incident" (at least that's what http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/tr says).

I guess it means something like "check everything - don't learn of a problem when you are in the air" I guess.

Mind me : I do NOT speak Italian.
I DO have a "knack" for deciphering languages , as far as the intention is concerned.

My take is , the text means something along the lines of:
"Don't pull the emergency-exit-handle by accident"

Again : This may only a crude , and not altogether accurate translation.

hey.. cool... So, it probably means, in a more colloquial Italian then, something like, It's too late to realize you screwed up when you are about to hit the ceiling. Or, basically, think ahead and be safe first. That sort of thing. An incident being anything you screwed up in the maintenance process.

The Martin Baker seats I worked on in the F4's Phantoms would kill you in less than a second if you screwed up. They had zero-zero capability. The seat could safely eject at zero velocity and zero altitude. There was an explosive to open the drogue chute, 3 charges in the telescoping tube to open the canopy and to get the seat out of the aircraft, and a rocket pack under the bucket to get you about 300ft in 3 seconds. I think the Italians at that base were flying F105's. Funny thing is, those ejection seats only worked at altitude, since the seat dropped out the bottom of the plane. But, no less dangerous in a hanger.

edit: Hmmm... I could be wrong. They might have had F104's with the redesigned upward shooting seat - after many incidents with the downward shooting seats. Man... that was nearly 30 years ago.

Well you all are right in meaning, the rest is just semantics. My Italian friend translates it as:

Don't find out about the flight security after a crash!

I use bablefish everyday. You just need to go back and retranslate to make sure it always makes sens.e Pretty reliable so for future reference, itsjustme, it's worth bookmarking.

I finally got a shot of the poster.

Not to only discover the Emergency of the Flight after an incident off google language tools

I understand that google and babelfish can do a basic word for word type translation, but that isn't how it would be worded on an English language poster.

If I saw "Not to only discover the Emergency of the Flight after an incident" on a safety poster I would be scratching my head and going "huh...?"

"Don't find out about the flight security after a crash!" This comes closer, but doesn't really capture the meaning for an ejection seat safety poster. It's not a crash that is depicted, but an incident in the hanger with the technician taking flight after the incident.

Hey, but thanks for all the input so far.

Edit: Get your Italian friends to take a look at the poster in Post #7 above and see what they say from that. Thanks!