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Airline pilots landing at LAX report “a guy in jetpack” flying alongside them

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Re: Airline pilots landing at LAX report “a guy in jetpack” flying alongside them

#111

Post by detritus »

egfx wrote: post #53
bufferoverflow wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jetpacks have been around for years, tons of youtube videos of people flying them. You can even buy one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nj-Iwv5NJKg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBe9bucYPcY

Is there a reason why the flights are all over water? LAX doesn’t have a body of water surrounding it other then the Pacific Ocean. Is that a requirement for the jet pack?

I could've sworn I remember reading that Hoverboard pioneer Franky Zapata was only allowed to test over bodies of water when practising in his native France, but I'll be damned if I can conjur the right keywords to googlefu a specific answer, so now I'm [as often] wondering whether I just made it up...

- minor ed: addition

Re: Airline pilots landing at LAX report “a guy in jetpack” flying alongside them

#112

Post by WorkLobster »

inopinatus wrote: post #93
abnry wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is quite admirable. I respect someone able to communicate effectively in a high stakes situation.

I recommend listening to the flight director loops from the Apollo missions. There are thousands of recorded hours available (various places, but try lunarmodule5’s playlists on Youtube, or https://apolloinrealtime.org/ for a museum exhibit style) - including practically the entirety of missions 8 to 13, and most especially try the notorious manual burn of 13 during which everyone sounds like they’re discussing where…

"Ok, let's keep the chatter down".

I've always loved Kranz'(?) comment even more than the moment of first contact itself. As if to say "Stop cashing out on one historic achievement and work with us to make many more".

Re: Airline pilots landing at LAX report “a guy in jetpack” flying alongside them

#113

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

fortran77 wrote: post #86
bdamm wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flame proof pants have been around for years too, in automotive racing.

I need a pair of flame-proof pants when I make a comment on Hacker News!

Nah, it's pretty mild, around these parts.

I cut my teeth in the old UseNet days. I have made a commitment to never go back to the way I was, back then.

Re: Airline pilots landing at LAX report “a guy in jetpack” flying alongside them

#114

Post by Rochus »

elteto wrote: post #17

ATCs have a reputation for never losing their cool and that really shines through here: “Tower, there’s a guy in a jetpack flying outside.” “Copy. To your left or your right?”

This has less to do with coolness than with the fact that the controller will most likely not be able to see the guy on the ASR, and I would assume that the guy has no transponder either. You can only control the airspace if you can see who/what is around.

Re: Airline pilots landing at LAX report “a guy in jetpack” flying alongside them

#116

Post by thaumaturgy »

princekolt wrote: post #18

I don't think there's any question the pilots would describe it as "a guy in a jetpack" if they weren't sure that's what they were looking at. Spotting traffic around the plane is part of pilot training. With that being said, if it zipped by the plane very quickly, there's the possibility it was maybe a very large RC plane shaped like a guy in a jetpack, which I think could be a bit more plausible.

1:1 scale human-shaped RC flying things have been around for a while (one example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgACwfl6FBI). That would be my guess too.

Re: Airline pilots landing at LAX report “a guy in jetpack” flying alongside them

#117

Post by aaronmdjones »

Johnny555 wrote: post #91

As amusing as this is, it highlights how fragile air travel is -- someone managed to fly a 200 lb payload within a couple hundred feet of an airliner on final approach. And apparently did so anonymously since there was no mention of who or exactly what it was. It wouldn't be hard to maneuver it right in front of the airliner and cause a collision. While the aircraft would likely survive an engine strike, at only a fe…

A few /thousand/ feet AGL is more than enough time for the autothrottle to recover without the autopilot (or the PF) needing to sacrifice speed to maintain the glideslope (assuming no other systems on the plane were damaged, of course). At even 1000 feet, you're still more than a minute from touchdown, which is enough time for the PNF to recognise the problem and run the engine shutdown checklist.

It would be much more severe if it occurred at, say, 300 feet. Not enough time to fully react, but still far enough from touchdown that sacrificing speed could lead you to a stall before you get it on the ground, or before the autothrottle can respond (on the other engine(s)).

Re: Airline pilots landing at LAX report “a guy in jetpack” flying alongside them

#119

Post by throwaway373438 »

mdorazio wrote: post #8

I'm surprised that there's not a single picture of this from any of the passengers on the landing flight and that ATC didn't seem to confirm it via radar, either.

It seems crazy we don't have cameras recording at all times on airplanes. Even cars have dashcams.
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