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Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport

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Re: Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport

#441

Post by alistairSH »

ghaff wrote: post #438
alistairSH wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TSA pre-check is a pre-screening program that air travelers can use to bypass the normal security line. It's not a huge time-saver (any more, used to be more) but gets you out of a few annoyances like removing shoes, unpacking toiletries, and a few other things. And the lines are usually a bit shorter and the ratio of regular traveller to new traveller is a bit better (less likely to get caught behind somebody who do…

And they don't put you through the nudie scanner (or whatever it's called) which is important to some people. I have pre-check automatically through global entry (that basically lets you bypass immigration coming back into the US). Just got ETA for the UK and you also have e-entry (which usually works) from the US and a number of other countries as well.

Usually true, though I don't believe that's guaranteed.

And all the lines at IAD have the new, high-powered luggage scanners (for carry-on, so still less powerful than the ones used for checked bags). So for those of that fly with film camera gear, we need a hand check with or without pre-check.

Re: Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport

#442

Post by allemagne »

smitty1110 wrote: post #22
ghc wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In addition, the White House has put a hiring freeze in place, prohibiting the replacement of open government positions or the creation of new ones while the administration evaluates reductions in the workforce. The White House plans to release a memorandum with further guidance within 90 days. This has drawn criticism from lawmakers as the FAA has been ramping up controller hiring. https://www.ainonline.com/aviati…

To quote the order itself: > This order does not apply to military personnel of the armed forces or to positions related to immigration enforcement, national security, or public safety. ATC surely falls under public safety. Additionally, the ATC issues stretch well back into the Biden term, and you can find plenty of articles discussing the controversy elsewhere.

"Surely"? This is only a few days after a change of administration along with sweeping government changes. Don't you think it's worth asking questions a little more deeply than this?

Re: Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport

#443

Post by tristor »

throwaway36482 wrote: post #379
NaOH wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hiring controllers is not easy. A friend's daughter just went through the hiring process. She graduated from college with an appropriate degree right as COVID hit. Her FAA application wasn't accepted for four years. This past summer she did the four-week interactive online courses. Applicants must pass this and may not re-enter the program if they do not. After that she did the six-week courses in Oklahoma City. Agai…

Their candidate success rate would probably be higher if they weren’t rejecting the vast majority of their most-qualified applicants for reasons that are clearly pretextual: https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/the-faas-hiring-scandal-...

That's shocking and disturbing, and is pretty much a textbook example of exactly the type of thing opponents to DEI have been referring to for how DEI and Affirmative Action result in a lowering of the bar. They explicitly structured things so that ATC hiring was pre-restricted for non-cognitive (e.g. merit) reasons, and failed out candidates that scored a perfect score on the cognitive test on the basis of their demographics (they weren't minorities).

Re: Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport

#444

Post by TheGRS »

davidw wrote: post #439
r00fus wrote: post #428

I wonder if this administration's firing of many FAA civil positions and the federal worker "buyouts" are responsible.

The intelligent response would be "probably not, but we'll see what the investigation says". But imagine if the tables were turned politically. Fox News would be going off 24/7 about "DEI" or some such for weeks on end. That strategy seems to be successful, so I would expect the other side to start employing it more as well. Having a bunch of harried, overworked people stressed about their jobs and the future certain…

Yea I had the same thought, its a ticky-tacky thing to say right now, but I wouldn't expect any more from the other side either.

Re: Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport

#445

Post by amazingamazing »

brendoelfrendo wrote: post #419
richwater wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when they tried to assert their rights That's an interesting way of phrasing going on an illegal strike which they agreed not to do as part of their employment contract.

The fact that a strike can be illegal is, in and of itself, an erosion of worker rights.

unpopular opinion - but public workers should not be able to go on strike, and in fact shouldn't even be allowed to unionize. it's antithetical to democracy. they should simply run for office and change things, not hold taxpayers' services hostage.

unions make sense for private organizations because private organizations are effectively authoritarian entities, not democracies. there is no mechanism in which you could actually "vote" anyone out or establish a leadership position by virtue of popular support, and most importantly there's no constituency to air grievances to

Re: Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport

#447

Post by ghaff »

alistairSH wrote: post #441
ghaff wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they don't put you through the nudie scanner (or whatever it's called) which is important to some people. I have pre-check automatically through global entry (that basically lets you bypass immigration coming back into the US). Just got ETA for the UK and you also have e-entry (which usually works) from the US and a number of other countries as well.

Usually true, though I don't believe that's guaranteed. And all the lines at IAD have the new, high-powered luggage scanners (for carry-on, so still less powerful than the ones used for checked bags). So for those of that fly with film camera gear, we need a hand check with or without pre-check.

Right--though pretty rare in my experience. Though you can always(?) ask for a hand check rather than going through the more invasive scanner.

Haven't used film for a while :-) Back in the film days, at least latterly I traveled with my film in a lead-lined bag.

Re: Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport

#448

Post by ghaff »

atlasunshrugged wrote: post #318
jonstewart wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What is Congress' favorite airport?

Presumably Dulles because international and probably long-haul generally flights. (Though I imagine more fly in and out of Reagan/National on a regular basis.)

Re: Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport

#449

Post by beedeebeedee »

naasking wrote: post #426
beedeebeedee wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live far away from DC, but my friends in two different federal agencies (stationed outside of DC) are partly bemused and partly shocked at how unprofessional the emails and new directives they are receiving from this new administration are. All of their colleagues are expressing the same sentiment (and my friends usually do not fraternize after work with their colleagues, but they have all been doing that after wor…

[flagged]

> I have no stake here

I don't want to sound flippant, but if you have no familiarity with a system and what it does, then you won't be able to make any useful judgments about it. This new administration has made it clear that they do not know the function of these agencies but have decided to destroy their structures. As a concerned bystander who has some knowledge and stake in them continuing to function, it is deeply painful to witness

Re: Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport

#450

Post by mrguyorama »

amelius wrote: post #384
nemomarx wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

once you know to look at those two specific flights it probably gets easier, yeah. if you were looking at everything in the air at the time I think less so?

I mean, you can get the data from an API, probably. Then you just write a python script to keep an eye on colliding trajectories.

I'm sorry, do you HONESTLY think ATC doesn't do that? ATC was literally mid conversation with the helicopter to deconflict it's path when the collision happened.

What is it with people insisting that the smart people literally tasked with their job somehow have no idea how to do it?

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