Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

thedrive.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

361–370 of 486 posts

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

#361

Post by jimktrains2 »

alfalfasprout wrote: post #251
jimktrains2 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I mean, it's rather moot at that point right?

A pilots job is to "aviate, navigate, and communicate", in that order. It's improper for ATC, especially in an emergency, to be asking them for irrelevant details as it's forcing the pilot to consider the question, which takes mental energy away from aviating and navigating.

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

#362

Post by jki275 »

danlugo92 wrote: post #301
vanderZwan wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

During my Interaction Design master I had to read a paper about the interface design for tools aiding people in these kinds of jobs. The designers spent a lot of time observing them at work and concluded that one specific feature of this work environment was that it doesn't have a "normal" situation and "emergency" situation, it's a non-stop juggling of emergencies all the time . Which I guess is part of why they sta…

Glassdoor says they earn $30k - $64k yet lots of us earn more in our comfy office jobs typing code into a text editor, kinda puts things into perspective.

I think glassdoor is full of shit.

https://123atc.com/salary

More like 70-180, and then the potential for significant overtime as well.

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

#363

Post by coolspot »

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #318
throwaway373438 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I searched this on many places. Only valid reason I can find is the extreme temperatures on the out of the plane. Also, from what I can find airplanes generally have camera near landing gear to aid taxiing.

Besides technical reasons, there is a legal angle...

> Pilot unions and other groups have long opposed cockpit video cameras, arguing that images or footage may be misused by accident investigators, prosecutors or news media.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/time.com/3845234/cockpit-video-...

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

#364

Post by bluescrn »

sandworm101 wrote: post #27
imglorp wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if it's not Rossi, whose design has been years in the making, I think a copycat is most likely here. Rossi's wing operates at 4000+ feet and 189mph, which is comparable to jets slowing down on long final. Those hobby jet engines are very expensive but off the shelf, and anyone can build a wing in their garage. The FAA would classify it as an aircraft (already has), and would like to talk to this operator. I thin…

It is also odd that they said "in a jetpack" rather than wearing or riding on/under a jetpack. Might this also be a very small but conventional aircraft? Might it be a mannequin mounted inside a smaller drone? Size gets distorted in these situations. (FYI those hobby jets are one option, but there are considerably more capable small jets available, mostly used for cruise missiles and heavy drones.)

There’s at least one video out there of a ‘flying inflatable doll’ attached to a drone. Could be something like that...

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

#365

Post by OJFord »

dpifke wrote: post #266
Waterluvian wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“I’ve got a phone number for you to write down. Are you ready to record it?” “Uh...no?” I imagine a jet pack forces some interesting takes on related technology that pilots are used to having access to when in a cockpit.

For the non-pilots: if ATC gives you a phone number to call after you land, it means you really screwed up. (It's the number for the supervisor, who is thinking about filing a "pilot deviation report" with the FAA.)

This thread spurred me to listen to some clips, and I just happened across an 'I'll give you the number when you're ready to copy' example:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=mUSUXnr4dSo

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

#366

Post by kbenson »

sandworm101 wrote: post #6

>> They are also very high-profile in nature and require a mothership to launch from, such as a helicopter, or at least a very high point to leap from. No. Yves "Jetman" Rossi's design can now launch from a standing position on the ground. It is able to launch, hover, transition to forward flight and zoom-climb to several thousand feet. Other than the landing, which is currently still via parachute ... ironman.

The full paragraph shows they aren't necessarily referring to Rossi's design not being able to launch from a standing position, but the newer generation of jetpacks in general. It's not very clearly written though, and does make it easy to assume they are referring to Rossi's jetpack along with the others they are lumping together.

There are a number of new jetpack-like designs that are remarkably capable, but all have very limited range and most have only very low-altitude flight envelopes. Yves "Jetman" Rossi's winged jetpack is definitely capable of such a feat, but his flights have always occurred under highly controlled and well-coordinated circumstances and in sanitized airspace. They are also very high-profile in nature and require a mothership to launch from, such as a helicopter, or at least a very high point to leap from.

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

#367

Post by consumer451 »

bluescrn wrote: post #364
sandworm101 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is also odd that they said "in a jetpack" rather than wearing or riding on/under a jetpack. Might this also be a very small but conventional aircraft? Might it be a mannequin mounted inside a smaller drone? Size gets distorted in these situations. (FYI those hobby jets are one option, but there are considerably more capable small jets available, mostly used for cruise missiles and heavy drones.)

There’s at least one video out there of a ‘flying inflatable doll’ attached to a drone. Could be something like that...

At this point, this feels like the most correct speculation.

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

#368

Post by [deleted] »

sudosysgen wrote: post #188
CobrastanJorji wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, you need to defend the entire length of the track at all times from an enemy who can destroy any small part of it at any time and then just leave the scene to try again later. Yes, it takes much more effort than a driver just deciding to go on a rampage, but against a determined adversary the train is at a huge disadvantage.

Derailing a train is an ordeal, though, and it's fairly easy to surveil against it. I'm fairly certain just blowing up the locomotive is less effort against modern networked rails.

[deleted]

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

#369

Post by jki275 »

kitteh wrote: post #189
OJFord wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The upthread-linked Reddit debunk [0] is A) SR71 would've been on a different frequency to both other planes; B) ATC computers at the time were capped at 990 knots; C) SR71s' speeds were classified, no way the crew would've asked or ATC responded with it. Unfortunately. https://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/8x5ndw/til_wh...

Correct, people keep repeating this story - it's false. I know controllers who have actually controlled the U2 and SR71 and they've explained why it's not true (they don't use the same freq, etc.). Also Brian Shul (the originator of this anecdote) and his RSO were the only SR71 crew removed from the program. There is a reason for that.

The SR-71's top speed is still classified to this day, partly because they probably still don't know what it was, because nobody ever got one there. Shul's plane was cruising probably far below max speed (the number wasn't 1942, I don't remember exactly what he said it was).

As to "not using the same freq", military aircraft have radios with knobs that turn. They can certainly monitor and talk on civilian frequencies if they see fit to do so, and they fly in and out of civilian airports regularly on ferry flights (not the SR-71 obviously, but I know for a fact F-18s do all the time, because I used to stand duty at a command that owned a bunch of them and we had to file reports on what airport they were at). If they can't talk on civilian frequencies, how would that work? And they fly through civilian ATC owned airspace, they absolutely have to talk to civilian ATC.

As to Shul being removed from the program, have never heard that -- I'm not likely to take the word of some random on the internet about it.

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

#370

Post by jki275 »

dkersten wrote: post #290
OJFord wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The upthread-linked Reddit debunk [0] is A) SR71 would've been on a different frequency to both other planes; B) ATC computers at the time were capped at 990 knots; C) SR71s' speeds were classified, no way the crew would've asked or ATC responded with it. Unfortunately. https://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/8x5ndw/til_wh...

> SR71s' speeds were classified Even after the transatlantic world record "fastest air-breathing manned aircraft" flights in 1976? Especially if they were flying below the record speeds (depends on the exact numbers, going by wikipedia, the record was for approx. 1905 knots, which of course is lower than the figure in the story)? (But, yeah, I've heard plenty of people, including other SR71 pilots in interviews, ques…

The SR-71's "speeds" are not classified. You can even download the long ago declassified manual that says what the max mach number it can display is.

The actual top speed might still be, if it is, it's probably because they don't actually know what it really is. There have been multiple pilots who have said they could pretty much keep giving it gas and it would keep going faster.

Post reply on HN