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I Fell 15,000 Feet and Lived (2009)

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Re: I Fell 15,000 Feet and Lived (2009)

#181

Post by [deleted] »

robswc wrote: post #134
merely-unlikely wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“To the mouse and any smaller animal gravity presents practically no dangers. You can drop a mouse down a thousand-yard mine shaft; and, on arriving at the bottom it gets a slight shock and walks away, provided that the ground is fairly soft. A rat is killed, a man is broken, a horse splashes. For the resistance presented to movement by the air is proportional to the surface of the moving object. Divide an animal’s l…

Exactly! Still blows my mind to this day. Maybe because "falling" is such a simple thing and experienced by almost all land animals... and just changing a few properties can mean the difference of life or death. After learning about it as a kid, I thought "if I ever get in a plane crash, I just need to grab stuff to fall less fast and maybe I'll survive." (which is not realistic at all but you know, lol)

[deleted]

Re: I Fell 15,000 Feet and Lived (2009)

#182

Post by merely-unlikely »

codefoster wrote: post #170
merely-unlikely wrote: post #136

It amazes the quantity of resources that will sometimes be deployed to rescue a sole man (or a handful) lost at sea. Not to say this is a bad thing; I would certainly appreciate it if I were lost at sea. But it might be questionable to a pure utilitarian. I counted at least one plane, two ships, and a helicopter all being diverted for the rescue. That's a great deal of expense in terms of fuel, I assume hundreds of c…

It's foolish for the pure utilitarian to leave the human factor out of the equation. Or perhaps his error is to consider dollars to be the ultimate commodity. Really, we as humans work for a much more valuable commodity than money. The fighting of the war in the first place is a human attempt at creating a good story (of a country that actually realizes peace and prosperity). The saving of one man (whether soldier or…

Everyone in this thread has made good points and I don't disagree with any of them. Nor would I advocate to change policies here. My comment was really a surface level reaction to the number of resources deployed that I wouldn't expect to see living in the city for example. I almost deleted the comment right after posting but it was already generating discussion so I thought I'd leave it.

> Or perhaps his error is to consider dollars to be the ultimate commodity.

I was thinking (from a utilitarian perspective) about where those dollars could have been deployed to have a larger human benefit. Ie if the operation cost $500k (I really don't have good numbers on this but two military ships + the aircraft are not cheap) how else could you use that $500k to help people in need.

Re: I Fell 15,000 Feet and Lived (2009)

#183

Post by merely-unlikely »

tevon wrote: post #164
merely-unlikely wrote: post #136

It amazes the quantity of resources that will sometimes be deployed to rescue a sole man (or a handful) lost at sea. Not to say this is a bad thing; I would certainly appreciate it if I were lost at sea. But it might be questionable to a pure utilitarian. I counted at least one plane, two ships, and a helicopter all being diverted for the rescue. That's a great deal of expense in terms of fuel, I assume hundreds of c…

From a utilitarian standpoint my guess is that the payoff is confidence. Every sailor on those ships watched them send everything they had to rescue the pilot. Every one of them repeats this story. And every kid/new recruit hears it. My guess is that it instills a sense of safety where there isn't any. I certainly feel safer traveling abroad knowing the lengths America generally goes to rescue its own.

> From a utilitarian standpoint my guess is that the payoff is confidence.

That's definitely part of the rational behind the more general duty to provide assistance at sea:

"A master or individual in charge of a vessel shall render assistance to any individual found at sea in danger of being lost, so far as the master or individual in charge can do so without serious danger to the master’s or individual’s vessel or individuals on board."

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/46/2304

Re: I Fell 15,000 Feet and Lived (2009)

#185

Post by bobthepanda »

10000truths wrote: post #143
bobthepanda wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The military doesn’t optimize for fuel burn though, which limits practicality in the cutthroat commercial sector.

Commercial supersonic flight has been done before with the Concorde and the Tu-144. While it might not be as big a money maker as standard commercial flights, I’m sure there are people willing to shell out big bucks to reduce their 15-hour flight to 3 hours.

Because of the fuel burn, they also don’t go that far. Military supersonic planes regularly do aerial refueling to make up for it.

At the kind of range that Concorde and the Tu-144 operated at, you can either spend three hours in a plush but narrow seat, or you can leave at night in a lie-flat business seat and wake up refreshed after a 6-8 hour sleep.

Re: I Fell 15,000 Feet and Lived (2009)

#186

Post by 10000truths »

tedunangst wrote: post #162
10000truths wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Commercial supersonic flight has been done before with the Concorde and the Tu-144. While it might not be as big a money maker as standard commercial flights, I’m sure there are people willing to shell out big bucks to reduce their 15-hour flight to 3 hours.

Nobody is building passenger jets that go Mach 5.

Yeah, the numbers I wrote are rather exaggerated. But even just the Mach 2 that the Concorde could achieve would halve long-distance travel times.

Re: I Fell 15,000 Feet and Lived (2009)

#187

Post by ghoward »

otikik wrote: post #156
Forgeties79 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>and soon afterwards got medically grounded — which meant he lost flight pay, with four school-aged kids while stationed in the Washington DC area; my mother had to go back to work as an RN (registered nurse) to make ends meet. That’s so, so wrong.

Not only it’s inhumane, it’s also stupid: it incentivizes pilots who have problems like that to hide them, instead of coming forward.

Yes, absolutely.

I have a pilot acquaintance that would refuse to go to the doctor when he was younger.

I also tried to become a pilot, but because of a documented history of taking anti-depressants, the FAA grounded me for life, despite being years removed from needing them. [1] I wish that history was not documented.

[1]: https://gavinhoward.com/2022/09/grounded-for-life-losing-the...

Re: I Fell 15,000 Feet and Lived (2009)

#188

Post by quickthrower2 »

Guest9081239812 wrote: post #115
cdelsolar wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i didn't understand something. he said impact with the plane tail will usually kill someone during a manual eject, but why? the plane and the person are going at the same speed at first?

Imagine pushing a balloon out of your car window while driving on the highway and taking your foot off the accelerator. It doesn't float outside the window beside you, but it comes to a stop almost in an instant.

Go into neutral would be better comparison but the same thing would happen.

Re: I Fell 15,000 Feet and Lived (2009)

#189

Post by dctoedt »

Diesel555 wrote: post #144
michael_fine wrote: post #22

In a story of insane luck (and unluck!), the craziest part is definitely this " He said that if I had had a spleen, it almost certainly would have ruptured when I hit the water, and I would have bled to death. Of the 25 pilots in our squadron, I am the only one without a spleen. It gives me something to think about. Maybe it does you as well."

I thought the craziest part was where in this sequence of events does the pilot say > “This is very serious,” I thought. It's just after > "The main, 24-foot parachute was just flapping in the breeze and was tangled in its own shroud lines. It hadn’t opened! I could see the white folds neatly arranged, fluttering feebly in the air. So... after the flame-out, after the fire, after the lack of radios, after the failed…

>> “This is very serious,” I thought.

That's typical of military pilots — their ethos is to present a calm, unruffled mien to the world. Phrases such as, "I was a bit concerned" would translate as "I was this close to sh*tting my pants from terror" in normal human-speak.

(Source: Dad and sister were military pilots, plus my own service aboard an aircraft carrier.)

There's a great and probably-apocryphal story in Tom Wolfe's book The Right Stuff where a rookie Navy fighter pilot is part of a dog fight with North Korean (probably Russian-piloted) MIGs; the rookie is shouting excitedly into the radio, "He's on my six! He's on my six!" Another American Navy pilot responds, "Shut up and die like an aviator" — as in, naval aviator.

Re: I Fell 15,000 Feet and Lived (2009)

#190

Post by dr_dshiv »

merely-unlikely wrote: post #136

It amazes the quantity of resources that will sometimes be deployed to rescue a sole man (or a handful) lost at sea. Not to say this is a bad thing; I would certainly appreciate it if I were lost at sea. But it might be questionable to a pure utilitarian. I counted at least one plane, two ships, and a helicopter all being diverted for the rescue. That's a great deal of expense in terms of fuel, I assume hundreds of c…

What else would those resources have been doing anyway?
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