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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

#431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

Not ATC but here's a classic viral recording of a frazzled ground controller herding cats at JFK airport in NY: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BMDkwfkXv0

A visualization for those exchanges: https://youtu.be/GcFfVEstt4o

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

#432

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 mo…

Autothrottle is not made to deal with engine failures, we do that manually.

You don't want the autothrottle to add thrust in an asymmetric situation, that's far more dangerous than losing a couple of kt or temporarily accepting a small deviation below glideslope. Because with asymmetric thrust, any power change causes yaw that you need to counteract that with rudder. You want manual control over both to ensure they happen in coordination.

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

#433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely more detrimental on takeoff than on landing I would think.

The so-called V-speeds are calculated before takeoff; the 3 most prominent are V1 (the speed at which, during the takeoff roll, it is no longer safe to abort the takeoff, because you are going too fast. If anything goes wrong past this point, you continue the takeoff anyway), Vr (rotation, i.e. pulling the yoke/stick back, getting into the air), and V2 (the safe single-engine-failure climb-out speed). Immediately bef…

Autothrottle is not in speed mode for any transport category airplane on takeoff. You set a thrust demand and it maintains that.

The V2 speed is achieved by pitching for that specific airspeed, followed by an acceleration phase and flap retraction schedule if necessary.

Source: I'm a commercial pilot

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

#434
If we have come to the place where individuals can violate controlled airspace either in a flying suit or a drone and our reaction is to shut down transport, we've come to a very strange place. I say this because some responses here are exploring the catastrophic consequences. Catastrophic consequence in flights are a fact of life.

We've had these consequences for some time, in other ways which really aren't that different. You can buy materiel on the open market and devices like drones without gps lockouts, or I guess flying suits.

El-Al has been flying at a higher risk profile than others for some time. So has cargo in the "stans" and the middle east and Africa. I'm not saying "shoot him down" is the best choice but there surely exist a range of choices here up to and including defensive action?

Commercial ships can request rights to armed force on deck in the pirate zones. Lethal force. We lock the guns up otherwise but the reasons the Gatling guns are fitted (if that's what they are) are understood. Aircraft can have anti missile systems. We've had that for years.

I think the ways we will deal with this will be broadly similar - perimeter defences, on aircraft detection systems, IFF and boots on the ground.

We probably don't have a systemic risk profile change here beyond the breakdown in the social contract: its funny to play but things work better when grown-ups don't do some things. Maybe 2nd amendment rights to a flying suit as a weapon is a thing?

WINGMAN FUNNY NOT FUNNY

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

#435

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.…

Thank you for posting this. Everyone has their "where were you" story from that horrific day, but I never get tired of hearing them for some reason. Hard to believe it's nearly been two decades - I can still almost feel the chill in the air of that morning, it was an absolutely perfect fall day on the East Coast.

i've stopped thinking about it because I can't deal with the fact that it was nineteen years ago. Nineteen!

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

#436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The so-called V-speeds are calculated before takeoff; the 3 most prominent are V1 (the speed at which, during the takeoff roll, it is no longer safe to abort the takeoff, because you are going too fast. If anything goes wrong past this point, you continue the takeoff anyway), Vr (rotation, i.e. pulling the yoke/stick back, getting into the air), and V2 (the safe single-engine-failure climb-out speed). Immediately bef…

Autothrottle is not in speed mode for any transport category airplane on takeoff. You set a thrust demand and it maintains that. The V2 speed is achieved by pitching for that specific airspeed, followed by an acceleration phase and flap retraction schedule if necessary. Source: I'm a commercial pilot

Yes, that's depicted in the video I linked (THR REF is thrust mode). I didn't mean to imply that the autothrottle will only stay at V2 speed, but rather that the automation won't go below it.

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

#437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a 400N jet engine is now only 6000$. Building a wing with a TWR > 1.0 would only cost about 18 000$ in engines, which is really not that much.

You don't need a TWR anywhere near 1.0. You need that to take off vertically, but if you are willing to jump out of a helicopter you can probably get away with TWRs closer to 0.35 to maintain level flight.

But you have to have a helicopter pilot around who don’t know it’s not okay you do it, which basically has zero chance.

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

#438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. I studied aerospace engineering and know that small-scale jetpack flight is possible to do, and yet I cannot help but scan for weird lighting changes or lens incongruities whenever I see a video. It's so insane to see these things.

How does this not burn his legs off?

His titanium legs are the real story here

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

#440
post #439

Why didn't the FAA get the cops or military to scramble some jets to apprehend this individual? How is this not a national security threat?? Who knows if they were strapped with IED type device.

I feel like the above comment is the HN analogue of an old man yelling at skateboard kids from his porch.
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