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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

#131

Post by sandworm101 »

shadowgovt wrote: post #125
Rochus wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I imagine the radar signature of a wingsuiter is pretty small, even if they have an exhaust-belching rocket strapped on the thing. How well do those show up on radar?

On a civilian radar, they don't. Without a transponder the tower won't see you on their screens.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_radar

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_surveillance_radar

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

#132

Post by masklinn »

achow wrote: post #124
ckocagil wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All sorts of transportation are very fragile. Everyone with a driver's license is trusted with operating tons of steel that can move at enormous speeds. Society's based on some amount of mutual trust. We can't lock everything down and treat every person as a potential criminal. That leads to an inefficient and dystopian country.

Well at the risk of sounding pedantic, things on rails - railways, metro/subway etc. are not in same category.

OTOH the fragility of the original comment was about wilfully disrupting transports.

It's pretty easy to significantly distrust rail transportation. There are hundreds of rail suicides every year, and each and every time the line shuts down until everything's cleaned up. And of course you could destructively interfere with the train or railway, a rather common sabotage operation during WWII.

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

#133

Post by smachiz »

jimktrains2 wrote: post #89
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?”

Listening to the atc recording of Southwest 1380 incident, the pilot goes "we have an engine failure and I'm told a passenger has been sucked out" there's a pause and ATC goes, with some shock in his voice, "what?" Before the pilot responds, he quickly recovers and goes "it's not important, which runway would you like" and carries on as normal.

Amazing professionalism - and the whole thing is worth a listen to, but there wasn't any shock - he didn't even mention it, just presumably updated the medical team he was sending to the runway.

https://youtu.be/FkVTdvcghHc?t=377

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

#134

Post by gambiting »

tzs wrote: post #126
gambiting wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't downvoted it personally, because I would really really really love it to be true - but it's been "debunked"(if you can call it that). I suspect some of it is true - but not exactly as told. https://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/8x5ndw/til_wh...

> I used to be a controller at Los Angeles Center in the 90's, and worked Aspen SR-71's (and later under the NASA callsign when they flew them out of Edwards AFB). They could hear ATC but not other aircraft, because civilian aircraft are on VHF frequencies, military on UHF, and anybody above 60,000 feet (like the SR-71's) were on a separate, center-wide UHF frequency so they wouldn't have to switch frequencies consta…

I imagine they have multiple receivers and can listen to any number of frequencies at once, but as a pilot you won't be listening to civilian frequencies....because why would you? It's just noise that's getting in the way of the mission.

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

#135

Post by mark-r »

hnlmorg wrote: post #105
mark-r wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ATCs rarely have to worry about dying in the accident.

You don't need to be physically sat on the plane to emphasise with the severity of the situation. It's not like ATCs are willing pilots to die. And sometimes not being able to physically control the actions of the pilots can add to the stress.

I wasn't claiming that ATC isn't one of the most stressful jobs on the planet. Merely agreeing with GP that the pilot has more skin in the game.

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

#137

Post by mrlala »

ohples wrote: post #123

How is it 2020 and no one got a video of this. Hopefully some airport security camera got it, and they will release the video at some point.

Surprised there are not cameras recording what the pilots can see outside? Even if it's overwriting itself every few hours or something.. just to keep a record in case of something weird like this.

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

#138

Post by ibejoeb »

paranoidrobot wrote: post #22
IgorPartola wrote: post #5

You know it’s true because it’s 2020. Remember that whole alien thing back in April? Me neither because about 10 years worth of events has happened in the past four and a half months.

On this, a Youtube creator Julie Nolke had a fairly popular couple of videos on "Explaining the Pandemic to my past self"[1] in April and a part 2 in June[2]. The first one was hilarious, and I struggle to believe that was only in April. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ms7capx4Cb8 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdyDpP2s-og

"You're gonna wanna pull all your investments..."

Markets are rockin'

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

#140

Post by sneak »

bityard wrote: post #79
BurningFrog wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stakes are higher when you're on the plane...

Negative. Pilots only ever have to worry about one plane. ATCs have to worry about all of them.

Pilots are solely responsible for the safety of the plane and the passengers, not ATC. ATC is an aid for the pilot in this responsibility.
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