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Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders ID'd in WA plane crash

fox13seattle.com

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Re: Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders ID'd in WA plane crash

#161

Post by gcanyon »

krisoft wrote: post #139
jandrewrogers wrote: post #118

An absolute legend going out like a total badass. I know people will disagree but there is much to be said for living your life on your own terms and accepting the potential consequences without reservation. He was clearly one of those guys. He probably did not expect to die that day, but he knew he would die some day and he wasn’t going to nerf his life to buy a few more years.

My grandad at a ripe old age had a stroke and the doctors told him and the family that he won’t ever be able to walk. So he got a wheelchair and was eventually sent home to recuperate. A few days later my mom visited him and found him wheeling around in the wineyard. It seemed that my grandad (her dad), ever the engineer, pimped his ride to make it more off-road worthy and was in the process of figuring out how he ca…

"A ship in a harbor is safe but that is not what ships are built for"

Re: Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders ID'd in WA plane crash

#162

Post by mycologos »

nvarsj wrote: post #156
INTPenis wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The guy was a legend - flew fighter jets, was a test pilot, and then an astronaut. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt - I'm sure he knew exactly what he was doing.

I mean, he certainly would have known exactly what he was doing at some point in his life, but skills and judgement do degrade with age.

Re: Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders ID'd in WA plane crash

#163

Post by lannisterstark »

lukan wrote: post #151
krisoft wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What would be a fitting way to go for a cook or an athlete then? Whatever they liked doing? Being an astronaut at that time implied that he was an aviator. Keeping his licence to fly into the old age of 90 means he most likely loved flying. That is why it is a “fitting way to die”. I don’t know the cook you mention. Maybe they loved cooking for loved ones. In that case a fitting way to die would be while they are d…

"Dying in an accident doing something you always hated is worse than dying in an accident doing something you loved." Dead is dead, though. I do not think the final moments matter as much as all the years before them. So even if I will one day die on the toilet being old, that would be way better, than me dying soon in an climbing accident, even though that sounds more dramatic and I am way more into climbing than to…

He was 90. You're reading too much into it. It's like when people get angry about a "Bless you."

Re: Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders ID'd in WA plane crash

#165

Post by mannykannot »

filleduchaos wrote: post #127
subhro wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Flying is a specialized skill, but once you learn it it’s not especially difficult and requires less sustained focus, reflexes and reaction time than driving. Respectfully disagree (as a 40-something year old aerobatic pilot) with the less sustained focus part, not the specialized skill part.

I'm not a pilot, but I have a bit of a morbid fascination with aviation incidents, and I think I agree with both of you somewhat? The average flight deck is a hell of a lot more complicated than the average driver's seat in terms of things the operator needs to pay attention to, so I'd definitely say that flying requires more sustained focus. However, during routine flight (not counting taking off and landing, becaus…

Aviation contains a number of scenarios where pilots can (and do, not all that infrequently) slip from being in a safe situation to being in immediate danger without noticing the transition. Things like spatial disorientation and losing situational awareness (particularly in IMC), not taking into account a changing weather situation, not tracking fuel consumption, navigational errors...

Technology is increasingly mitigating these risks, but as of now, they contribute to general aviation being significantly more risky, statistically, to its participants than driving, even when taking into account the prevalence of bad driving. On the other hand, it is considerably less dangerous to non-participants than driving is.

Re: Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders ID'd in WA plane crash

#167

Post by bradleykingz »

tzfld wrote: post #110
bicx wrote: post #5

I saw the headline earlier, and my first thought was "I hope he was the pilot, because that would be a fitting way to go for a legend." Not only was he the pilot, but he was flying solo at 90 years old.

I hate this reasoning. Why is this a fitting way to die? What would be a fitting way to go for a cook or an athlete then?

[dead]

Re: Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders ID'd in WA plane crash

#168

Post by mannykannot »

rconti wrote: post #117
TMWNN wrote: post #2

I learned about this from Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/1daolaw/rip_bill_and... >. Title edited by me from "WA" to "Washington State". Besides making history as the first human expedition to the Moon, Apollo 8 produced not one, but two future CEOs of Fortune 500 companies: Anders (General Dynamics) and Frank Borman (Eastern Airlines). Jim Lovell "merely" survived Apollo 13.

As a WA native: happy for the edit of the ambiguous and US-centric acronym WA -> Washington. Also as a WA native: screw those DC assholes, why are we the only state that have to append "state" to our name?

New York calling... Disambiguation is sometimes necessary and, a bit more often, just a good idea.

Re: Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders ID'd in WA plane crash

#169

Post by lukan »

lannisterstark wrote: post #163
lukan wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Dying in an accident doing something you always hated is worse than dying in an accident doing something you loved." Dead is dead, though. I do not think the final moments matter as much as all the years before them. So even if I will one day die on the toilet being old, that would be way better, than me dying soon in an climbing accident, even though that sounds more dramatic and I am way more into climbing than to…

He was 90. You're reading too much into it. It's like when people get angry about a "Bless you."

Did I sound angry? I was just adressing the point that some people seem to value the circumstances of their death more, then the years before that. Wiliam Anders did what he wanted, fine by me, unless he actually was not fit to fly anymore (as this endangers other people), but no one had the guts to tell him that, being a national hero.

Re: Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders ID'd in WA plane crash

#170

Post by dh-g »

AmVess wrote: post #38
rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: post #11

Was he doing loops/flips intentionally, or did he lose control of the plane? Either way, what an absolute legend to be flying solo at his age.

Intentional loop. He entered it too fast and too low. On the descent, he was going too fast for his aircraft to have any type of control authority and he was a passenger at that point. The aircraft basically stalled out in a dive, and with no cohesive airflow over the control surfaces, the aircraft continued to stall to the point of impact.

I don't believe the wing was in a stall in this situation. There would have been an abundance of airspeed over the wings. While performing a Split S the issue is that you are pulling too many G's and you and the sooner you level out the more you are pulling.
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