21–30 of 286 posts
It does feel mad that we outsource so much of our national infrastructure maintenance to China. When/if they invade Taiwan, how are we going to do anything when they have that sort of leverage over us? It was bad enough with Russias gas
This is also why the US has such a large presence in the middle east.
> I know it sounds devastating, but you have to get used to the fact that a new era has begun. The pre-war era. It is madness that we're in a position where this can be baldly stated by a PM and there has been no "huh?" moment when people stop and assess how badly the broader West's military, economic and diplomatic efforts have failed over the last 30 odd years. Possibly longer. I wasn't expecting to see land wars i…
When I recently asked some air traffic controllers what would happen if GPS became unavailable, it was grumpy sounds all around. I understand a scramble to vector everything to land everything would result in a very busy day for them, because suddenly most planes would be unable to safely navigate, and thus effectively grounded. Cutting the budget for ground based navaids is nuts, in my opinion.
This article [1] introduces some of the scenarios where pilots rely on GPS only:
* GPS-based waypoints to optimize routing based on favorable winds and more direct routes even in the absence of VORs.
* RNAV departures and arrivals that rely "solely on GPS rather than radio-based [...] aids" with more precise spacing and hence higher capacity.
* GPS used as a substitute of ILS for some approaches e.g. in mountainous areas.
When I recently asked some air traffic controllers what would happen if GPS became unavailable, it was grumpy sounds all around. I understand a scramble to vector everything to land everything would result in a very busy day for them, because suddenly most planes would be unable to safely navigate, and thus effectively grounded. Cutting the budget for ground based navaids is nuts, in my opinion.
Unfortunately these are being used less and less and even deprecated in favour of GPS waypoints. Even when they are still around the pilots have less experience with them because they no longer use them every day.
> I know it sounds devastating, but you have to get used to the fact that a new era has begun. The pre-war era. It is madness that we're in a position where this can be baldly stated by a PM and there has been no "huh?" moment when people stop and assess how badly the broader West's military, economic and diplomatic efforts have failed over the last 30 odd years. Possibly longer. I wasn't expecting to see land wars i…
What kind of diplomacy would have prevented Russia from invading its neighbours?
These are the sort of thing I suspect Russia would see as escalatory. I certainly do. A better diplomatic policy would have been to encourage neutrality. The western powers weren't going out of their way to make sure that the situation stayed peaceful. We could have treated this as the Russian equivalent of the US invasion of Afghanistan or Iraq and let it go away.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlargement_of_NATO
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/10/23/ukraine-cia-...
[2] https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/77139/what-posi...
> I know it sounds devastating, but you have to get used to the fact that a new era has begun. The pre-war era. It is madness that we're in a position where this can be baldly stated by a PM and there has been no "huh?" moment when people stop and assess how badly the broader West's military, economic and diplomatic efforts have failed over the last 30 odd years. Possibly longer. I wasn't expecting to see land wars i…
Although yeah the whole propping up non-democracies because they have cheap labor or cheap materials for decades does seem to have been a poor decision in the long run.
> I know it sounds devastating, but you have to get used to the fact that a new era has begun. The pre-war era. It is madness that we're in a position where this can be baldly stated by a PM and there has been no "huh?" moment when people stop and assess how badly the broader West's military, economic and diplomatic efforts have failed over the last 30 odd years. Possibly longer. I wasn't expecting to see land wars i…
What kind of diplomacy would have prevented Russia from invading its neighbours?
Bert is a national treasure. We need more Bert in our lives!
When I recently asked some air traffic controllers what would happen if GPS became unavailable, it was grumpy sounds all around. I understand a scramble to vector everything to land everything would result in a very busy day for them, because suddenly most planes would be unable to safely navigate, and thus effectively grounded. Cutting the budget for ground based navaids is nuts, in my opinion.
I was under the impression that GPS was a non-critical asset for aviation, ie. any plane can safely stop using it at any given time and keep flying with VOR and other navigational aids. This article [1] introduces some of the scenarios where pilots rely on GPS only: * GPS-based waypoints to optimize routing based on favorable winds and more direct routes even in the absence of VORs. * RNAV departures and arrivals tha…
When I recently asked some air traffic controllers what would happen if GPS became unavailable, it was grumpy sounds all around. I understand a scramble to vector everything to land everything would result in a very busy day for them, because suddenly most planes would be unable to safely navigate, and thus effectively grounded. Cutting the budget for ground based navaids is nuts, in my opinion.