311–320 of 738 posts
I know that everyone crosses all altitudes during landing. But why don't ATC / FAA stratify aircraft type and use by altitude. Like all commercial traffic is put in even thousands altitudes. And the Military / EMS gets the odd thousands. Its crazy to have things colliding like this.
Helicopter flies at 200ft. Planes landing have to traverse through 200ft. Therefore vertical separation impossible.
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The Westminster tradition is for the public service to give "frank and fearless advice" [1] in the interests of the nation. It's still democratic, as a minister can choose to ignore this advice, at their own peril, and issue orders. As hinted at by their name, a public servant's first loyalty should to the public/nation rather than their Minister/Master. Maybe the US has a different system? Of course the above is the…
> As hinted at by their name, a public servant's first loyalty should to the public/nation rather than their Minister/Master. Maybe the US has a different system? Both systems rely on the people in charge being told okay with being told "no, this is a bad idea". The Ministers/Secretaries/Executive may think their plan(s) are a good idea and the civil service are being obstructionist. (Of course the civil service coul…
The public can decide to elect someone to shit can them. We have voted to liberate many of them from service. Obviously some wont like that, but they are servants to the people not peers.
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If everyone writing regulations were as rigorous as the FAA people wouldn’t be clamoring to reduce regulations.
You mean the same FAA people that allowed Boeing to self certify? The FAA is not spotless. I can only imagine how much worse air travel would be without them, but they are only run by humans trying to work in a political controlled environment.
Reputation lags reality.
Boeing used to be a product-first organization, and the FAA relied on that. However Boeing changed and put other priorities first and started cutting corners but their reputation was still good. After all, why would Boeing (unlike, say, tobacco) sell products that would kill their customers: it would be against Boeing's own interests.
In the 1980s and 1990s Boeing could be trusted to have less oversight, but since the 2000s that was no longer true, but no one noticed that. Now everyone recognizes that Boeing needs a babysitter.
It wasn't a police chopper, it was a military VH-60, also known as a "White Hawk" [1]. It's a VIP transport helicopter, the same type that is used to transport the president. ~The flight track of the helicopter [2] starts at a property in McLean, VA (edited to remove likely inaccurate info)~ The chopper was based out of Fort Belvoir, and based on similar past flight tracks, looks like it probably took off from there…
[2] shows the helicopter taking off 2 miles away from the old saudi embassy in McLean marked “permanently closed” on google maps. (The current embassy is in DC proper, directly across the river from DCA airport) I don’t think thats strong evidence that it took off from the old Saudi Embassy - thats pretty far away even given your caveat about accuracy. Edit: it looks to me like the black hawk was coming from somewher…
It's about a mile upriver, near the Watergate.
Radar replay: https://x.com/avgeekjake/status/1884823071611363833 UHF feed with comms from the military helicopter: https://archives.broadcastify.com/44114/20250129/20250129200... - 5:41 - AA5342 is given instructions for circling to 33 - 6:45 - PAT-25 reports Memorial - 7:06 - Tower gives PAT-25 traffic advisory, PAT-25 reports traffic in sight and requests visual separation - 8:08 - Tower asks PAT-25 if they have t…
aaand.. it's gone. archive of the radar replay: https://dpaste.com/3DUG9YWFB sha3-256: 539b49e57443109cb0aea06209ce142d44a5ccbee16e42e0c71026742fc56703
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DCA is open to the public. But it has lots of ways for Congressmen to avoid the inconveniences that you and I have to endure. The other airports in the area do not have those.
Please expand. I fly out of DCA and IAD frequently (and JFK and LGA). I’ve gone through the process next to politicians, though I’ve never recognized any highly ranked ones (e.g. Pelosi, McConnell, etc.). What’s the difference they experience?
https://punchbowl.news/article/senate/jim-justice-takes-priv...
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> more funding/staffing for ATC More funding? From an administration that is currently doing its best to get rid of as many federal employees as possible and has an extra "department" (led by you-know-who) dedicated to that? What they will probably do with ATC is privatize it (which is actually a reasonable thing to do - it's private in most of Europe, but if the intention behind it is to save money, it will probably…
I would not be surprised if ATC _at DCA_ gets some more funding given the complicated air traffic environment and its unique position as Congress’s second-favorite airport.
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Some regulations are written and blood but some regulations are written to cover someone's ass and the two should not be treated equally. We shouldn't give equal respect to the Federal Aviation Regulations and to OPM's Qualification Standards for Federal Jobs; doing so deligitamizes the importance of the former.
If everyone writing regulations were as rigorous as the FAA people wouldn’t be clamoring to reduce regulations.
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(Next thing is how would we ever falsify a wild theory like that to the satisfaction of all speculators, given we only have the ATC recording, not the audio from the helicopter (assuming the Black Hawk didn't have a black box, as seems to be the case from what I've read so far)).