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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

#411

Post by denkmoon »

mrpopo wrote: post #401
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.

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".

Mutually assured destruction, more than mutual trust.

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

#412

Post by Johnythree »

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…

Few aircraft have "receive only" radios, most have full Transceivers.

For redundancy they have multiple Transceivers, and most military radios cover both VHF and UHF.

For safety and redundancy the pilots can receive and transmit on any of their multiple radios just by (selecting the appropriate frequency) and pressing the appropriate Receive/Transmit selector buttons.

Many military aircraft also have secure (spread-spectrum) transceivers as separate units.

Many aircraft that fly over water also have VHF Marine radios fitted.

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

#413

Post by taneq »

trhway wrote: post #403
taneq wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 efficie…

That lines up pretty well with the demonstrated performance of these setups, I think they all have ~15min flying time.

Can't wait for the turbofan versions! :D

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

#414

Post by Johnythree »

bronson wrote: post #245
tzs wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's covered in the original story. This was a training mission, to get the crew up to the number of hours needed to be cleared to go on real missions. The reconnaissance systems officer (RSO) was the one listening to all the radios, not the pilot. This seems a perfectly sensible thing for the RSO to do on a training mission, since on a real mission he might need to monitor multiple frequencies: > I was beginning t…

Maybe, if they're that bored. But their transmissions won't be heard by the bug smashers down below.

They will if the pilot presses the appropriate TX selector button.

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

#415

Post by peter303 »

A hoverboard with fuel container on back looks like a jetpack. One guy crossed the English Channel on one in two hops. He had to refuel midway. Thats more distance in a flying device than I had heard before.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/4/20753648/jet-powered-hover...

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

#416

Post by johncalvinyoung »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #337
supernova87a wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking of, and coming up on the anniversary in September, here is a description of what a passenger experienced in a plane on that day: "On 9/11, I was listening to Ch. 9. I was on a flight out of ORD to AZ (757) seated in 5F. We had just taken off and where climbing to cruise. A flight out of Rockford, IL was squeezing between us and the UA in front of us. I watched as he lined up to get on the highway westbound.…

A friend of mine had just been married in Europe, and was in the air over the Atlantic on the way to his honeymoon in Hawaii when this happened. His plane was diverted to somewhere in Canada (New Foundland?), and he got to spend his honeymoon in a school gym on cots.

US closed the border and airspace, and all sorts of international flights had to find somewhere to touch down. The huge Cold-War-era airport at Gander is now mostly one of the two major ATC zones for the North Atlantic flyways, and usually gets a few diverted flights a day. That morning, they got 38 planes, including a lot of widebodies. 7,000 passengers and crew, with an indefinite stay (ended up being like 3 days) in a town with 10,000 residents. The town of Gander (and surrounding hamlets) put everyone up. It's a sweet story from a tragic time. Gander's the only place outside of the US with a monument from WTC steel. There's a catchy Broadway soundtrack (haven't seen the play) about story called 'Come From Away'.

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

#417

Post by jimktrains2 »

sudosysgen wrote: post #256
solarkraft wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdote time: I was in a train that hit a bunch of concrete slabs at medium speed (60 km/h?) and all I noticed was that it rapidly stopped. But that was a relatively undetermined attack. What if someone welds something directly on to the rails or cuts something out? It may get noticed in tens of minutes, but is that really fast enough? Similarly it seems like it wouldn't be insanely hard to poison water supplies, do…

Cutting out the rail is unlikely to cause huge damage, and welding something directly to the rail would take quite some time and be noticeable. Just putting a few sensors every few meters and networking them then stopping the train would work. But I am also surprised how well it works. I think people just don't suck as much as one would expect.

Cutting the rail would also break the track circuit and force signals to red.

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

#418

Post by kaybe »

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.

Certification is a b*tch..

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

#419

Post by toomanyrichies »

avhon1 wrote: post #407
chrischen wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> there isn't anything physically stopping people from driving irresponsibly.

Having recently driven on South Florida freeways, I can vouch for this statement.

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

#420

Post by rkagerer »

mehrdadn wrote: post #311
tim333 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow - so he can - here's a video https://youtu.be/lK75XLUIKUk?t=8

You might like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nj-Iwv5NJKg

Took me a few goes to realize that psychedelic alien ribbon sidescrolling at the end is in fact a river https://i.imgur.com/ln61VPZ.mp4
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