201–210 of 358 posts
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Reminds me of this anecdote from Guatemala. They are boarding the plane and the women notices that the pilot is very young. She asks, "Are you sure you're old enough to be flying this plane?" He replies: "Don't worry ma'am, I come from a long line of pilots. My grandfather was a pilot and my father was a pilot too."
Took a while :)
I don't think most people appreciate the level of regulation that ensures safety and quality of life in Western countries. Go to many countries outside of that spectrum and you may still see beautiful architecture and more. Now did the team that worked on that project have the necessary experience to drive a safe and long lasting solution? Does the concrete and steel used follow good standards? This means that it may…
Rich societies can afford to spend resources to make things safe. If the mechanism is government regulations, a strict liability legal system, and/or a civic minded population is secondary.
The fact that the landing gear lever was pushed down into the extended position, and then the plane decided not to deploy the landing gear because of the overspeed issue is a horrible UI. The lever should refuse to budge unless moving it will in fact deploy the landing gear. These pilots are horrible, but that doesn't mean we can't improve the controls still.
I get your point, and I'm sure that was an area of discussion during the system design. From my perspective, though, it introduces a potential failure point that may not be worthwhile. If you want the lever to not move when the landing gear controller will ignore the command, then you need to lock the lever in place. If that locking mechanism fails during a normal approach, you have an airplane landing with gear up.…
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Commercial pilot license is required for any pilot looking to fly for a business operating aircraft for a profit.
This gets frequently abused in the US. Some of the abuse seems trivial on the surface - for example a friend can't legally pay you to fly him to a meeting far enough away to make driving undesirable on a clear pleasant day, even though you both frequently fly together personally on the weekends. However, there's no legal surprises on the FAA regulations and no excuse that a pilot can make that it seemed ok, as the re…
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I like the stereotyping of the entire "East" as one incompetent shit hole. The last I checked infrastructure in the US is crumbling. Each new thing also costs an insane bloated amount leading to a refusal to build new infrastructure altogether. Being in the west doesn't guarantee many things and being in the east doesn't either.
It's crumbling because it hasn't been maintained since the 50s-70s, not because it's shittily built. To be fair.
From the preliminary report: 'At 500 ft, the FDR indicates: landing gear retracted, slat/flap configuration 3, airspeed 220 knots IAS, descent rate 2000 ft/min. According to the FDR and CVR recordings several warnings and alerts such as over-speed, landing gear not down and ground proximity alerts were disregarded. The landing was undertaken with landing gears retracted. The aircraft touched the runway surface on its…
The pilot was reportedly well seasoned. I have my doubts about the quality of the report given the incredible mishandling of the situation. "Imran Narejo, an official of the PIA Pilots Association, said Gul was a seasoned pilot with 18,000 hours of experience including over 4,000 hours in the A320." https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2020/05/9616e4079ce1-at-l...
Older article, but apparently Pakistan carts its nuclear weapons around in regular delivery vans: https://www.wired.com/2011/11/pakistan-nukes-delivery-vans/ I personally think this is a bad idea.
It's not a completely illogical approach. An armored convoy stands out like a sore thumb in Rawalpindi. An ordinary slightly beat up, 6-8 year old Suzuki Bolan does not. Maybe send out a few decoy high security vehicles with uniformed crews going in a few different directions, and then send out the Bolan going elsewhere. Bolan: https://www.google.com/search?q=suzuki+bolan&client=ubuntu&h...
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Apparently there's chatter in recent days on China's internet regarding the Three Gorges Dam, and how it's setting / warping due to reservoir backpressure (pictures in link): https://www.theepochtimes.com/experts-warn-of-chinas-three-g... Apparently there's heavy rainfall this year. 300-400 million people live below the dam. I'm unfamiliar with domestic travel restrictions within China, but I can't imagine it's gotte…
Yeah, that’s just a crummy image that looks like it’s been projected onto terrain. You see the same wavy effect on stuff all over google earth, which that appears to be from.
Here's an extreme shot from the edge of the dam. Obviously it didn't deform that much and stay standing.