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Easter egg in flight path of last 747 delivery flight

flightradar24.com

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Re: Easter egg in flight path of last 747 delivery flight

#331

Post by pmontra »

newaccount74 wrote: post #300
fragmede wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This particular level and visibility of sky writing is new, but "drawing things in the sky" dates back to the 1920s or so. That sort of skywriting uses oil to cause the airplane to leave a trail of white smoke, visible against the blue background of the sky. The precision we see in this route is fairly new, but, especially on proving flights for new aircraft, which needed hours and hours of flight time and would take…

I'd say this is a very different type of drawing, because you only see it on a tracker. Someone watching in real live from the ground wouldn't see the pattern, because I don't think jet trails stay in the air for two hours. This seems more like people using run/cycle trackers to make drawings on a map. (Strava Art)

Jet trails stay in the sky all the day long with the right meteo conditions. They just become wider and look like long clouds. Check the picture at https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/learn-about/weather/typ...

Also this paper https://www.mdpi.com/2226-4310/7/12/169

Re: Easter egg in flight path of last 747 delivery flight

#332

Post by bigiain »

xp84 wrote: post #250
waynecochran wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it highly unlikely that any manager would have anything to do with easter eggs.

i highly doubt an IC could make something like this happen without approval from somebody. It would be a huge risk. Also relating to easter eggs, anecdotally I think there are far fewer of them in software these days for just that reason: when a developer puts in an easter egg, it's hard to prove categorically that its addition wouldn't have some unintended effect, and possibly very embarrassing to the company if a m…

> i highly doubt an IC could make something like this happen without approval from somebody. It would be a huge risk.

I'd bet at least beer money that this was some "IC" career 747 guy (or bunch of guys) who organised, planned, and authorised this without actual authority, because he was "a 747 guy" and he tendered his retirement 3 months ago and today was his last day. And a delivery pilot who was either in on it or was prepared to claim plausible deniability and that he was just following the autopilots pre-planned route, which he assumed was fully authorised.

What's the huge risk? They're gonna fire him???

Re: Easter egg in flight path of last 747 delivery flight

#333

Post by bigiain »

eddsh1994 wrote: post #293
waynecochran wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it highly unlikely that any manager would have anything to do with easter eggs.

You think a pilot took an unnecessarily longer route in a clients purchased plane without senior manager buy-in?

The pilot just took off in Seattle, engaged autopilot, and sat back watching for warning lights until it was time to land.

I'll bet he knew exactly what was going on, because the perpetrator clued them in, and made sure they had suitable ass covering paperwork to show they were just flying the flight as per the delivered flight plan.

There may have been, maybe even probably was, a middling-senior manager involved here, but he was a "747 guy" as well, and today was his last day before retirement as well. And I'd guess all the "747 guys" have been there long enough to know exactly how to bury this paper trail, and possibly one guy who's prepared to "take the fall" if a board member or the customer bursts a coronary artery and demands a full forensic blame storm investigation - "Oh yeah, Bob signed off on that. He's got cancer, probably only a few weeks left, he was so happy to see the last one ever built fly, he started on the tools building them in the 80s. Last I heard he'd just sold up everything and spent his entire life savings paying off all his kids and grandkids houses and college loans. What a guy, huh?"

(I aspire to be Bob.)

Re: Easter egg in flight path of last 747 delivery flight

#334

Post by bigiain »

crazygringo wrote: post #144
supernova87a wrote: post #46

I find it just really endearing that at companies, regardless of how many other issues they have or the dysfunctions and bland corporate culture, there are people who keep the pride of purpose and "olden days / traditions" in their memory and do things like this. Or are able to call on institutional memory of something bygone, that reappears once in a while. (whether it's a big gesture like this or small cultural day…

Why do you think top management isn't part of this? Many times it's top management itself that makes sure these traditions continue. Maintaining company culture is something incredibly important to a lot of executives, at certain companies at least. And judging from the press, this was a highly coordinated event including thousands of spectators and John Travolta. [1] Top management can love having fun and maintainin…

> Why do you think top management isn't part of this? Many times it's top management itself that makes sure these traditions continue. Maintaining company culture is something incredibly important to a lot of executives, at certain companies at least.

It sure as hell wasn't the "out source the 737 Max 8 avionics software to some low cost of living $8/hr contractors" beancounter management.

Nor the "lets make the secondary angle of attack sensor part of the 'premium package' and blame the cheapskate customers when their planes crash" MBA bro management.

And it definitely wasn't the "Lets put 'undue pressure' on our ODA-certified staff and make them lie to the FAA about the MAX8 program" assholes either.

But maybe you're right, maybe it's not an entire barrel of bad apples yet...

Re: Easter egg in flight path of last 747 delivery flight

#335

Post by bigiain »

Aeolun wrote: post #218
blantonl wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's cool is that aviation can be so stifling at times with training, rules, regulations, etc, that it seems that certain very cool traditions are either set in stone, or born and survive relatively intact. ADSB reporting, which powers these flight tracking sites that are available to the public, is (relatively speaking) a very new thing to aviation and the general public. And the fact that these maneuvers are abso…

You don’t think this is an autopilot course?

It is 100% an auto pilot flown course.

(The only real alternative option is that it's spoofed ADS-B transmissions, which is way way more likely to mean jail time for whoever was involved than a few extra tons of jetfuel and an un-management-authorised mission plan uploaded to the nav hardware would result in...)

(It shows on other ADS-B tracking sites, so it isn't just some FlightRadar dude having fun or getting a kickback.)

(Actually, there's a _very small_ possibility it was a large enough group of pissed of ADSBExchange feeders who all collaborated to use their gear to send spoofed data to the various flight tracking services? When some guy sells out an "open community" for $20mil, trolling the entire industry isn't a super surprising result...)

Re: Easter egg in flight path of last 747 delivery flight

#336

Post by snuxoll »

mulmen wrote: post #277
usrusr wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drawing stuff on a map with a GPS track is a rather beaten path in the world of Strava and similar [0]. Not being bound to the road network graph just makes it easier. I don't want to think about the fuel burned for this stunt, but if I were in some position that is required to sign off that flight path I'd sure congratulate whoever came up with this. Wouldn't even be all surprised if tomorrow some Airbus ferry fligh…

I don't think this uses GPS, at least not directly. This data comes from ADS-B and radar. ADS-B involves the plane itself broadcasting where it (thinks it) is. That may come from GPS onboard but is probably more sophisticated than that in a modern 747.

The ADS-B out data is fed from the aircraft’s ADIRU (air data inertial reference unit), which, yes, just uses GPS unless that fails for some reason. There’s a fallback based on accelerometers and laser gyros to provide shockingly accurate positioning should such a failure occur, but it does lose some accuracy (enough that you can still fly autopilot on it for an approach at max range, but it’ll be drifting by some number of meters) over long flights before it needs to be reset from GPS data on the ground.

Re: Easter egg in flight path of last 747 delivery flight

#337

Post by snuxoll »

bigiain wrote: post #335
Aeolun wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t think this is an autopilot course?

It is 100% an auto pilot flown course. (The only real alternative option is that it's spoofed ADS-B transmissions, which is way way more likely to mean jail time for whoever was involved than a few extra tons of jetfuel and an un-management-authorised mission plan uploaded to the nav hardware would result in...) (It shows on other ADS-B tracking sites, so it isn't just some FlightRadar dude having fun or getting a ki…

With there being no obvious deviations from the pattern there’s no doubt it was done on autopilot. That said, a skilled pilot who wanted to deal with the nuisance of hand flying that would get pretty close just by following the flight director (But at that point you’re just manually moving the yoke on behalf of the autopilot, given the FD is essentially just showing you what the autopilot wants to do).

Re: Easter egg in flight path of last 747 delivery flight

#338

Post by dspillett »

varenc wrote: post #284
chrismorgan wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trouble is that popups like this don’t even comply with the relevant legislation. (Which is the ePrivacy Directive after the 2009 amendment, though people largely ignored this part of it until the advent of the GDPR which came into force in 2018. Simplified, ePD says “most cookies must be opt-in”.) If anything, putting such wildly non-compliant popups should make you more liable to punishment, because it undermin…

I suspect if you access the site from an EU IP address you’ll see an option besides “Accept All”. The layout [0] even seems to leave room for where this other button might be. edit: looking at the code I even see references to a “Reject All” button as well as an XHR request to a geolocation endpoint. edit2: I set a breakpoint in their code and changed by country to "FR" and sure enough, I now see a "Reject All" butto…

I walked away from the site on first visit due to "accept all" being the only option. Nipped back just to check after seeing your post while checking replies to my earlier comment, and wondering if the site is deliberately treating the UK differently. It turns out only-accept-all is the default and if the geolocation lookup fails (apparently that service is blocked by my pihole, it works if on mobile without home VPN) no reject option is present.

A bit of bad design there, not failing safe, if there intention is to be compliant with stricter laws, because a failure in an external dependency makes the site less compliant.

Re: Easter egg in flight path of last 747 delivery flight

#339

Post by smcl »

t-writescode wrote: post #325
varenc wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What’s even the point of the popup then? If you're in the EU you'll see a "Reject All" option. To confirm this, set a breakpoint in their JS, change your country to an EU one, and the option to "Reject All" cookies appears: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/09wcuy4yh3qqoaw/reject_a... Here's a screenshot of where I set the breakpoint and changed my country to France: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/ju41dpj14p…

They chose to spend developer time on that rather than treat their users well. Wow.

This is bad but I’ve seen worse. One of the bigger networks has a ~20second “processing” stage when you opt out of these, as a punishment for not clicking “accept” (which works instantly)

Re: Easter egg in flight path of last 747 delivery flight

#340

Post by ZephyrBlu »

gorgoiler wrote: post #309
TurkTurkleton wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personal satisfaction, like exposure, is not legal tender.

While this is obviously true, the long term effects of a positive, growth mindset are more likely to have an effect on your net worth than if you cannot or will not take pride in working hard and doing the best job you possibly can.

This is not correct for a lot of jobs. For people with white-collar 'careers', maybe. But not for many other people.
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