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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

#401

Post by mrpopo »

ckocagil wrote: post #110
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…

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.

If you have ever cycled on a national road, you know that this "mutual trust" fades away rather quickly in favor of "I can save 1 min and probably will avoid killing this guy if I accelerate right now".

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

#402

Post by kaybe »

enneff wrote: post #320
hnlmorg wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of the conversation was about which is more stressful. Obviously having "more skin in the game" would directly increase the stress levels but yourself and others who posted like you completely miss the point that the ATCs are there to ensure safe travel and they very much are invested in that mission too. Comments like "well they're not going to die so why would they lose their cool" are just harsh and enti…

In addition to what you say here, most of the ATC job is about maintaining order and safety, while for a pilot there are many other factors (and accidents happen when pilots get distracted by those other factors). The ATC is constantly thinking about possible accidents, while the pilot has more opportunity to have their thoughts elsewhere.

The term I've heard is 'task saturation' and I absolutely love it (the term, not the situation). (The solution proposed is usually to pull some science staff from science into operation, which luckily didn't have to happen so far.)

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

#403

Post by trhway »

taneq wrote: post #386
amelius wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From another viewpoint: people fly turbine-powered model aircraft all the time. Why wouldn't you believe it?

Those turbine-powered models aren't carrying 100+ kg of payload?

These rc model turbines pull 20+ kg thrust. In the video he uses turbines noticeably larger, in 50-60kg class. Granted such small turbines have low efficiency - low compression - so they burn 0.2kg fuel per 10 kg thrust per minute. Thus 4kg per minute for 200kg total weight of which fuel is 60kg at best, thus 15 minutes hover at best.

Once it becomes more popular we'll get turbofans, and that will improve the efficiency.

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

#404

Post by Teelo »

lightlyused wrote: post #185
peeters wrote: post #69

Took me a while to find on LiveATC as this wasn't actually on the Tower frequency, but here is the full feed: http://archive-server.liveatc.net/klax/KLAX-Final-Aug-31-202... . At 5:23. Unfortunately their web player is not linkable, but this is the KLAX North/South Final Approach feed ( https://www.liveatc.net/archive.php?m=klax6 ) from Aug 31, 0130-0200 UTC.

That is a friend of mine's site. If you live near an airport and have a good internet connection volunteer to provide a live feed.

I live close to LAX. I'll send them a message.

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

#405

Post by coronadisaster »

sandworm101 wrote: post #21
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.

I wonder about this. If he was off the wing, could the pilots actually see him with their own eyes? Off the wing tip is actually rather far back on a modern airliner. Pilots wouldn't leave the cockpit to look during approach. I have to assume these were reports passed on by people in the cabin. If so, where are the pictures?

they don't have rear view cameras?

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

#406

Post by qtplatypus »

natcombs wrote: post #32
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?”

There are youtube videos of ATC recordings (with transcripts) of pilots losing their cool. You are right, I don't think any ATC lost their cool in any of the recordings I've listened to. This quote from the article made me smile: >> Another pilot chimed in: "Only in LA."

I am pretty sure that ATC is trained to sound calm. I’ve been listening to ATC recordings at the worse the emergency is the more calm the controller is. I think it is deliberate to help the pilot concentrate and not panic.

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

#407

Post by avhon1 »

chrischen wrote: post #381
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.

> Everyone with a driver's license is trusted with operating tons of steel that can move at enormous speeds. That's why you have to pay for insurance (in most places at least) so that you are pre-paying for your liability.

I mean, you're supposed to, and you'll get in trouble if you're caught driving without valid insurance. However, there isn't anything physically stopping people from driving irresponsibly.

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

#408

Post by schoen »

bhaile wrote: post #293
pmachinery wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great post. I was confused by "channel 9" since I thought there may be rules or regulations against receiving ATC on a plane, but for anyone else who didn't know exactly what it referred to, it is (was?) an inflight entertainment feature of United Airlines. https://www.pilotsofamerica.com/community/threads/united-air...

Yes. One of the greatest perks of United that they eventually phased out. You'd tune your headset to Channel 9 on most aircraft and list to ATC just between the tower and your plane. I'd listen to it many times just to understand when we'd get a delay, maintenance issue, airport slowness..etc.

It got me over my fear of flying because I got to learn what the pilots (and the Center) thought about the turbulence we were experiencing and how they were responding to it.

It also inspired me to write the original version of this Wikipedia article

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

I used to prefer flying United over other airlines because they had it; now that they don't, I don't. :-(

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