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Airline pilots landing at LAX report “a guy in jetpack” flying alongside them

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Re: Airline pilots landing at LAX report “a guy in jetpack” flying alongside them

#391

Post by dimator »

supernova87a wrote: post #199
sharkweek wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I listened to the audio book of “The Only Plane in the Sky” (do recommend), and they played real recordings of ATCs on 9/11 as the planes were hitting buildings. It was surreal listening to them talk about the catastrophe but all while maintaining a total sense of calm.

Speaking of, and coming up on the anniversary in September, here is a description of what a passenger experienced in a plane on that day: "On 9/11, I was listening to Ch. 9. I was on a flight out of ORD to AZ (757) seated in 5F. We had just taken off and where climbing to cruise. A flight out of Rockford, IL was squeezing between us and the UA in front of us. I watched as he lined up to get on the highway westbound.…

What a story. It's hard to believe that actually happened. It's also sad to see the changes in the world since that awful time.

Re: Airline pilots landing at LAX report “a guy in jetpack” flying alongside them

#393

Post by IgorPartola »

mstade wrote: post #310
cglace wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You often confuse motorcycles for cars?

At night, sure. Many times I've met a car with a broken headlight, only realizing it's not a motorcycle as we're passing. I don't know if this happened at night, but visibility can be reduced for other reasons as well.

This one is scary to me, as a motorcycle rider. The other one that’s not fun: some motorcycles have two separate headlights on the front (low and high beams) and can be wired so that both can be on at once. What are you looking at? A car that’s really far away or a motorcycle that’s really close?

Please watch out for motorcyclists. The blindness people have for us is astonishing. And terrifying.

Re: Airline pilots landing at LAX report “a guy in jetpack” flying alongside them

#394

Post by obmelvin »

yellow_mixer wrote: post #378
quacked wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. I studied aerospace engineering and know that small-scale jetpack flight is possible to do, and yet I cannot help but scan for weird lighting changes or lens incongruities whenever I see a video. It's so insane to see these things.

How does this not burn his legs off?

Would love if someone could answer this or knows of a video that explains jetpacks well

Re: Airline pilots landing at LAX report “a guy in jetpack” flying alongside them

#396

Post by Retric »

mark-r wrote: post #350
enneff wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d rather die than kill hundreds of people in error.

That may be true, but your brain reacts at a more primitive level in the moment.

That really depends on the person and situation. Some people get really emotional, but it’s also common for people in highly stressful life or death situations to emotionally shut down and end up going through rote responses. This is dangerous because you effectively lose creativity and can easily get stuck in a loop repeatedly doing the same things.

One example is WWII commanders would sometimes continue to bring ammunition to machine gun nests even when just adding it to large piles. It may have been the best option when they start, but they never revisit that choice. The same thing happens to pilots where people investigate a crash and find pilots keep doing the exact same thing that’s not working for several minutes without considering that perhaps some assumption they have is wrong.

Finally, some people don’t seem to react much at all to such personal risks.

Re: Airline pilots landing at LAX report “a guy in jetpack” flying alongside them

#397

Post by Rochus »

teleforce wrote: post #358
shadowgovt wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine the radar signature of a wingsuiter is pretty small, even if they have an exhaust-belching rocket strapped on the thing. How well do those show up on radar?

All of the conventional radar systems installed at airports are blind to this small human jetpack due to their limited resolution. The newer type of radar for detecting debris exist at some airports but because of their main purpose is to monitor debris on the runaway it is only for short distance and not pointed to the sky.

The main purpose of the PSR is to detect potentially dangerous flying objects which have no transponders. The PSR we tested were able to also detect e.g. parachutes and paragliders. I would assume that the radar cross section of the winged jetpack is large enough for detection by current PSR.

Re: Airline pilots landing at LAX report “a guy in jetpack” flying alongside them

#398

Post by jf »

lightlyused wrote: post #185
peeters wrote: post #69

Took me a while to find on LiveATC as this wasn't actually on the Tower frequency, but here is the full feed: http://archive-server.liveatc.net/klax/KLAX-Final-Aug-31-202... . At 5:23. Unfortunately their web player is not linkable, but this is the KLAX North/South Final Approach feed ( https://www.liveatc.net/archive.php?m=klax6 ) from Aug 31, 0130-0200 UTC.

That is a friend of mine's site. If you live near an airport and have a good internet connection volunteer to provide a live feed.

I just used the contact form on the site because of this comment :)

Re: Airline pilots landing at LAX report “a guy in jetpack” flying alongside them

#399

Post by [deleted] »

bewaretheirs wrote: post #142
natcombs wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are youtube videos of ATC recordings (with transcripts) of pilots losing their cool. You are right, I don't think any ATC lost their cool in any of the recordings I've listened to. This quote from the article made me smile: >> Another pilot chimed in: "Only in LA."

Not ATC but here's a classic viral recording of a frazzled ground controller herding cats at JFK airport in NY: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BMDkwfkXv0

[deleted]

Re: Airline pilots landing at LAX report “a guy in jetpack” flying alongside them

#400

Post by protomyth »

kitteh wrote: post #377
bewaretheirs wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not ATC but here's a classic viral recording of a frazzled ground controller herding cats at JFK airport in NY: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BMDkwfkXv0

Kennedy Steve is pretty famous (now retired). There's an interview with him on YouTube that's neat.

I'm pretty sure that particular video is not Kennedy Steve. Here is a Kennedy Steve collection https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_ei74pHoe4qfmuVrmQYP...
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