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R&D Spending versus cost of pilots by sjbe · 2018-10-08 02:11 · Score: 1 · on Boeing CEO: First Operational Self-Flying Cars Are Less Than 5 Years Out (geekwire.com)

Hmm I wonder if Boeing even thought about these costs before they decided to spend billions of dollars on research down this road.

Please cite a document showing Boeing spent "billions" on this specific research. They do spend billions on R&D ($3.1 billion in 2017) but most of it is for other projects. For example they spent $29 billion on R&D for the 787 program alone. I've seen no evidence that this is anything other than PR puffery.

I guess it's just something an army of engineers don't think about when they are designing a new product to sell in the marketplace?

Unwad your panties. There is a financial reason to develop technology to fly vehicles autonomously - just not the ones cited in the article - that "justification" is pure marketing BS. Flying cars are not a thing and probably never will be. Flying taxis are already a thing and there might be some marginal benefit to autonomous piloting but it isn't going to be a game changer economically - most of the costs are unrelated to piloting. Safety is important and airlines will be happy to cut costs anywhere they can if there are savings to be had. Furthermore Boeing makes both civilian and military aircraft and there are obvious military applications for this sort of tech. Autonomous piloting has some obvious advantages if done properly but pilot salaries are reportedly somewhere around 4%-8% of the cost of operating an aircraft.

Re:New control by MobyDisk · 2017-08-19 03:31 · Score: 2 · on Waymo Patent Shows Plans To Replace Steering Wheel, Pedals With Push Button (driverless.id)

Jet Airliners and Jet Fighters...Neither of them take off or land by themselves.

Actually, then do:

Jet Airliners:
Every major Jet Airliner must have an automatic land feature.

Jet fighters:
The F/A-18 Hornet and the EA-6 Prowler have it. Looks like it is used for carrier landings since they are so difficult. Ooh, so does the F-35. The experimented with it on the F-16

Re: Sonic Boom by Anonymous Coward · 2016-11-16 10:22 · Score: 0 · on Richard Branson Reveals Prototype For Supersonic Passenger Aircraft (theguardian.com)

This article claims it was 110db at take off. Loud yes. But that has nothing to do with the volume at ground level while the plane flies at Mach 2.2 at 55k feet.

Can anyone dig up a reference for an actual sound reading taken while Concorde over-flies at max speed and max elevation?

There is also this, which starts out very promising and I got excited that it may actually answer the damn question. But it doesn't. The guy claims that the sonic boom is equivalent to a loud trumpet at 0.5m, which may be true, but makes no correction for the fact the concord is 55k feet away.

Some more info here, but still nothing definitive.

The problem is all the reference points don't apply, since the main comments are from those observing the space shuttle (Mach 25 vs Mach 2.2) and military jets at much lower altitude, i.e. performing maneuvers. What we really need is a sea captain's report from the middle of the Atlantic.

birds are dangerous by e70838 · 2016-03-15 21:06 · Score: 1 · on Study: Drones Present Minimal Threat To Aircraft (cio.com)

http://www.airliners.net/aviat...

Re:Concorde 2.0 by clickclickdrone · 2015-07-14 04:00 · Score: 1 · on Supersonic Jet Could Fly NYC To London In 3 Hours

Concorde was profitable http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/tech_ops/read.main/70307/

Re:Sure ... by NicBenjamin · 2015-06-30 08:30 · Score: 1 · on University Students Made a Working Model Hyperloop

So you're arguing that it's not going Mach 1 because it's designed to only go Mach .99868593955. Apparently you don't believe in rounding to significant digits. As for typical Jet Speeds, those are below Mach .9, and typically in the Mach 0.8 range. Mach 0.15-0.2 is a pretty significant difference.

Moreover you are talking about a different G-Force measurement then either me or the standard Musk has designed. When taking turns the relevant measure is the lateral G-Force measure, and Coasters don't go too high on that because if they did 6 Gs laterally a 200 lb dude would be exerting 1200 pounds of pressure on the side of their roller-coaster, and it probably can't handle that. They top out at 0.5 Gs lateral. Aircraft don't do a lot of lateral Gs either, partly because they have to go straight really fast or fall from the sky, partly because they have even less structural strength to resist extra pressure on the fuselage, but mostly because people start throwing the fuck up once you break 0.2 lateral. They try to stay below 0.15 laterally unless something has gone horribly wrong.

The whole plan is vintage Musk -- equal parts brilliant engineering, pooh-poohing the standards literally everyone else uses (0.2 Gs laterally is what everything in transportation, except Hyperloop, does), unwarranted financial optimism (his $700 Million tunneling budget won't get him all the way through a single mountain, and Cali has a couple ranges of the damn things), and excellent spin (for example, his planned route technically does not go from LA to San Fran, it goes from 30 miles from LA to the San Francisco Bay, which reduces his costs by roughly 75%, but nobody calls him on it). Given some development the engineering could be very interesting, but you really need a lot of that development.

Re: I'm skeptical of the 5% claim by AK+Marc · 2015-06-29 15:38 · Score: 1 · on Airplane Coatings Help Recoup Fuel Efficiency Lost To Bug Splatter

it's long, straight, and round. What level of lift does it provide? http://www.airliners.net/aviat... and other sources indicate it's trivial.

Re:track record by ganjadude · 2015-01-29 09:44 · Score: 3, Informative · on US Air Force Selects Boeing 747-8 To Replace Air Force One

and of course i misread the article when trying to hurry up and post, that was about someone only losing one. Here is a forum of people discussing the issue however. mod my previous post down if you must http://www.airliners.net/aviat...

Re:Big Goverment no backup by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-26 13:39 · Score: 0 · on Nearly 2,000 Chicago Flights Canceled After Worker Sets Fire At Radar Center

And what's going to happen when the contractor next door cuts the cable to Joe Traffic Controller's home, and he drops an entire sector full of planes, with no notice or warning?

Pretty much the same thing that happened 7 years ago when the Memphis center lost use of all of their radio frequencies http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/3627623/?threadid=3627623&searchid=3628627&s=wukka

Some more info: by Zanadou · 2014-07-17 04:39 · Score: 2 · on Malaysian Passenger Plane Reportedly Shot Down Over Ukraine

Recorded flight path: http://flightaware.com/live/fl...

Bubble and froth: http://www.airliners.net/aviat...

Re:Boobies by Drethon · 2014-07-16 23:57 · Score: 1 · on Sexual Harassment Is Common In Scientific Fieldwork

In avionics sexual harassment is part of business terminology (well not really). At one point I had like a half a dozen different examples like this: http://www.airliners.net/aviat... (avionics fast erection).

Re:It wasn't the engines sending data by Above · 2014-03-14 03:20 · Score: 4, Informative · on Engine Data Reveals That Flight 370 Flew On For Hours After It "Disappeared"

OP has it right, but we can add more information. I've been following the discussion over at www.airliners.net where some people know more about this plane's electronics.

First some back story. The SATCOM system is sort of like your cable modem, or more accurately a cell data stick for a laptop. It's a sort of modem that knows how to connect to the satellites. Like a unprovisioned cell phone it still reaches out and says "can I have service", and then gets no answer. ACARS is an application that runs on another computer in the plane. It's sort of like a "twitter feed" for a plane. Short messages can be placed on it and routed off to other places. Boeing offers a service where the plane reports its health back to boeing using this application. Rolls Royce offers a service where the engines report back to them using this service. Pilots can even send short text messages over the service back to their HQ. The GPS system can send a message with its position. ACARS knows how to transmit over HF, VHF, and SATCOM. It also goes through a cleaning house (think twitter again) who routes the individual messages to the right party.

Mayalsia Airlines apparently bought the "limited" package of monitoring. As such ACARS was programmed to send no information to Boeing, and only limited information to Rolls Royce. Compare with the Air France crash in the Atlantic where they subscribed to the "full" suite of monitoring and 29 messages were generated. Further, Mayalsia apparently didn't pay for SATCOM airtime, instead letting it report over HF and VHF. If it was far enough out over water these methods would not be within reach of the radios.

However, the plane still had a SATCOM system on it (comes standard), and it was still like an unprovisioned cell phone saying "can I have service", apparently once per hour. Further the satellites in orbit have directional antennas that cover a particular section of the ground. It appears in this case ACARS was disabled (either intentionally, a small switch in the cockpit) or via failure (fire, or whatever).

The key detail is that while ACARS and many other functions can be turned off from the cockpit, the only circuit breaker for the SATCOM systems are NOT in the cockpit according to experts. It would require going to the electronics room on the plane which is not easy to reach in flight, and more importantly would not be possible to reach if a individual had taken over the plane.

So the stories line up. Boeing received no messages as the plane was not programmed to send them any. Rolls Royce received two during the normal part of flight, and then nothing as the system was turned off or disabled. However that SATCOM modem apparently continued, once per hour, to look for service. I guess the US authorities were able to talk to the satellite provider and get logs of it making those requests, and perhaps even narrowing it down to a specific antenna on the satellite.

On power; the experts say the plane has ~30 minutes of battery in the case of total electrical failure. In flight it also has a ram air turbine (think mini-windmill) that can generate enough power. If it did a "miracle on the hudson" style landing in water and it somehow stayed afloat (being under water even 1' makes the sat signal too week) batteries would only last ~30 minutes.

One of the most bizarre incidents ever recorded. The outcome of this is going to be very interesting.

Re:Misunderstanding of risk by mrbene · 2014-03-11 11:45 · Score: 1 · on The $100,000 Device That Could Have Solved Missing Plane Mystery

I came here to harp on the same things as many other posters have already said. DriedClexler says it best so far.

There are at minimum 20k planes, but possibly up to 100k. Let's estimate that half of 20k planes have this installed, at an expenditure of one trillion dollars.

This would result in this particular flight having a 50% chance of having a bit of extra information about where it crashed.

Sounds like a pretty expensive method for retrieving dead bodies. But then, I've always wanted to be buried at sea.

Re:Looks okay by aaarrrgggh · 2014-02-06 15:54 · Score: 1 · on Slashdot Tries Something New; Audience Responds!

I'll give the contrarian viewpoint then.

Beta is not usable on my laptop. It is not useable on my 27" desktop. It is not useable on my tablet. It is not useable on my phone. The problems you see on mobile still happen on a 27" monitor with a fullscreen browser.

The images are what many of us here consider "dumbing down" the site. It is tricky, but things eventually turn into sites like sfgate.com, where all the news is suddenly a slideshow without any actual content. Being able to integrate photos into the summary makes some sense for a few of the stories. I remember trying to find an old story about the Corel Netwinder (wow... was that really 15 years ago?!) and wanted to see a picture of the thing. (Couldn't remember the name of the product at the time.) But, 99% of what people are reading are text comments, so how important is it really?

For an example of what some of this crap leads to, take a look at airliners.net. A very miserable experience in a discussion forum, which a few very simple things keep /. from becoming. A few of us in the "audience" do actually care about that stuff.

I'll offer a few of my thoughts for Timothy and Soulskill:
-Content first. Information density. No video!
-Quality and relevance gives value to content. Relevance in deep nested threads is still relevance; the existing system today does a great job there.
-Information portability. Ease of access, be it via search engine of a different device... or read outloud by a robot overlord.

Good luck; seems like you have your work cut out for you!

Re:Authenticity by MiG82au · 2013-08-01 15:29 · Score: 4, Informative · on Man Builds Fully-Functional Boeing 737 Flight Simulator In His Son's Bedroom

Completely. Go to airliners.net and search for 737 cockpit. You'll see sheep skin covers on all.
e.g. http://www.airliners.net/photo/Copa-Airlines-Colombia/Boeing-737-7V3/2288558/&sid=501f1a8b3c010f0b25433bb222ebff2b

Re:I have no sympathy by microTodd · 2013-07-30 01:33 · Score: 4, Informative · on Apple Retailer Facing Class Action Suit Over Employee Bag Checks

Not sure how reliable these citations are but I found these which contradict your assertion. Sounds like most pilots are paid for "flight time", and in fact are NOT compensated for when they are sitting at the gate.

http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/tech_ops/read.main/278808/

http://thetruthabouttheprofession.weebly.com/professional-pilot-salaries.html

http://www.pilotcareer.info/Airline_Pay___Life.html

Re:Flying abobe clouds by Archtech · 2013-04-08 21:49 · Score: 5, Informative · on "Dark Lightning" Could Expose Airline Passengers To Radiation

Don't most planes fly above the storms?

Not necessarily. Airliners in which I have flown commonly go no higher than 36,000 feet - occasionally perhaps 40,000 feet. The tops of thunderstorms often reach 55,000 feet and can be even higher. One extreme case reached about 70,000 feet. Moreover, it is necessary to fly well above the tops of the visible clouds, as bad things can happen up to a mile higher. Check out, for instance, http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/tech_ops/read.main/152684/

So pilots almost always opt to fly around storms instead.

Re:No way! by Alex+Zepeda · 2013-04-06 17:57 · Score: 1 · on Boeing's 787 Dreamliner Has Taken Its Battery Certification Flight

Ah, Air France. Flight 447? An Etihad Airways pilot with 520 hours of experience flying planes was able to handle a very similar situation with no loss of life. But hey, the west is best

http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/5722038/

Freeze!! Don't think about penguins!! by girlinatrainingbra · 2013-04-04 08:08 · Score: 1 · on TSA Log Shows Passengers Say the Darndest Things

Stress can make people laugh or giggle, even if they don't want to. If people are walking around thinking to themselves "oh my, I better not make any bomb jokes or even accidentally say a word like 'bomb'", it's just like an admonishment that requests "Don't think about penguins!".
.
The admonishment alone inserts thought about penguins into your head. So consciously thinking "don't say anything stupid" could make your brain ask itself "stupid things such as what?" and then your brain cooks up examples and a genuinely nervous person innocently blurts out "so, what do you think, that i have a bomb in there?"
.
And then the excitement begins. This is ridiculous thought-porn torture, people, as part of security theater. And we buy tickets for that security theater every time we purchase a seat on an airliner. We pay to be subjected to this humiliation and useless piece of proof of our obeisance to group-think. It's like the idiotic "Freeze!" tactic exercises being performed at various airports: TSA Freeze Drill links
http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2012/09/tsa_freeze_drill_videod_at_sky.php
http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/5103484/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/28/tsa-all-stop-drill_n_1923683.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Km0awE1Q2HA

Re:It is standard for Boeing by icebike · 2013-01-17 10:25 · Score: 0 · on Boeing 787 Dreamliner Grounded In US and EU

You are totally full of crap.

Just about every modern large commercial aircraft uses outward opening doors.

Airbus A320 does. Watch it on youtube. Don't believe me? Just ask Cpt Sullenberger. (If the rear door had opened inward, probably everyone aft of first class would have drowned because they would not have been able to close it against the water pressure).

New Airbus 380 does.

There hasn't been a single report of a cabin door failure in flight on any modern passenger jet.

Re:I say good! by alexo · 2012-12-14 03:50 · Score: 1 · on Google Loses Santa To Bing

If there is no corporate tax then a lot of money will stay within the corporation, to be spent on "corporate" perks.
Did you think that the high-up executables pay for their private jets with their own money?

Re:Why did they change the requirements? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-14 02:19 · Score: 0 · on Airlines Face Acute Pilot Shortage

The pilot who can fly efficiently is worth his weight in gold.
A 737-300 can burn 916 gph in cruise (5500 lb/hr).
That's as much as $7,328 per hour in fuel.

If you manage to save 5% in fuel burn and work 2000 hours/year, then you've saved the airline over $732,000.
$200k/year is warranted for a skilled pilot.

Navigating the most efficient routes through the weather is worth millions.
Since air resistance scales with the cube of the velocity, maybe the planes should fly at 500 mph instead of 550?

Don't modern plans almost fly themselves? by zippo01 · 2012-11-13 17:38 · Score: 0 · on Airlines Face Acute Pilot Shortage

Why do you need more training when you have planes that almost fly themselves? http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/tech_ops/read.main/81570/

Re:Size. by Solandri · 2012-10-30 09:05 · Score: 5, Informative · on Ask Slashdot: What Stands In the Way of a Truly Solar-Powered Airliner?

Dunno why it would be unbelievable. Solar-powered aircraft have been made. They're ultralight, are covered in solar panels, have practically no payload, and fly at about 20 mph. But if you insist...

Passenger plane fuel consumption is on the order of 5-7 gallons per mile. Call it 6 gal/mi.
Airspeed is about 550 mph, or 0.153 miles per second.
Fuel consumption is thus (6 gal/mi) * (0.153 mi/s) = 0.918 gal/s.

Jet fuel has about 35 MJ/L of energy, or 132.5 MJ/gal.
At 0.918 gal/s, that's 121.6 MJ/s or 121.6 megawatts.

Solar constant in space is about 1361 Watts/m^2. On Earth it's about 750 Watts/m^2.
Air pressure at 35,000 ft is about 25% that of sea level.
So figure with only 25% of the atmosphere intercepting sunlight, you get 1208 Watts/m^2 at cruising altitude.

To generate 121.6 MW with 100% efficient panels producing 1208 Watts/m^2, you need 100,660 m^2, or about a tenth of a square km. A roughly 320x320 meter patch, or about 5-10 city blocks. I suppose a really small town could fit in that area.

You could quibble about gas turbines only being 40%-50% efficient, but then real-world commercial solar panels are only 15%-20% efficient. And we're ignoring clouds, night, and angle to the sun (all the above assumes the sun is directly overhead). So more realistically you're probably looking anywhere from a quarter of square km to over 1 square km of solar panels needed to propel a passenger plane.

Re:Don't panic by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-08 00:05 · Score: 5, Interesting · on US Congress Rules Huawei a 'Security Threat'

China practically invented the category of Gov't spyware in electronics

Whereas the USA is content with bugging the Chinese premier's aeroplane...

Perhaps China should have placed Boeing, Dee Howard and Rockwell-Collins on their "security threat" list.

Re:Yes there is by tibman · 2012-06-11 02:04 · Score: 1 · on No Tech Panacea For Tech-Distracted Driving

I've read that it is a legal requirement to have the autopilot land the plane X many times a month. Got it from here: http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/1882971/

Re:Want a great example? by tkrotchko · 2012-03-25 21:41 · Score: 1 · on NHTSA Suggestion Would Cripple In-Car GPS Displays

...and of course it shows a small plane.

Here's a modern plane, the airbus a380:
http://www.airliners.net/photo/0957790/

Here's a picture of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner:
http://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft/detail.asp?aircraft_id=764

There isn't an analog gauge in sight.

Guys, this argument was over 20 years ago.

Not The First Time... by DieByWire · 2012-01-31 03:50 · Score: 1 · on Mechanic's Mistake Trashes $244 Million Aircraft

Tennessee Air National Guard totalled a C141, but at least it was on the ground when the wing ruptured.

http://www.airliners.net/photo/209303/

Re:Isn't that kind of the point? by Solandri · 2011-12-04 21:31 · Score: 1 · on Iran's Military Claims To Have Downed US Surveillance Drone

The point is that sending aircraft into someone else' airspace without permission is an aggressive act forbidden by international law and treaties that the US is a party to.

It's something that happens all the time. Usually all that comes from it is the intruding flight gets intercepted and escorted out, then the country later files a diplomatic protest.

Hostilities arising from such intrusions are the exception, not the norm, and almost always happen after visual confirmation of the target by a pilot in a chase plane. A shoot first, ask questions later policy leads to terrible incidents like Iran Air 655 and Korean Air 007. Given the size of the RQ-170 (wingspan estimated at 60-90 feet), it could easily have been a small commercial airliner or a civilian business jet.

Re:Let's see the issues. by LWATCDR · 2011-06-20 05:16 · Score: 1 · on SpaceX Sues Valador For Defamation

I am pretty sure that TitanIIIc was actually man rated or was in the process to be. http://www.airliners.net/uf/44100/phpX0sCIF.jpeg
Is a picture of it flying the one and only Gemini/MOLE test fight. Since it was supposed to be manned I would say it was manned rated or well on the way to be.
The Falcon9 was built to be man rated from the start has it passed yet? I am not sure about that but that is the intention.

Re:No, you're not fucked by smalltux · 2011-05-29 07:03 · Score: 1 · on Flight 447 'Black Box' Decoded

Assuming the engine can be configured properly, you can get out of a stall in a number of ways. Angle of attack (the angle between where the nose points and the aircraft moves, in case anyone wonders) would be one of them, but keeping track of your nose pitch (and weight) will also work relatively well. zeke has a good example (post 65). I wouldn't necessarily recommend that forum as an overview though unless you intend to read all ~1300 posts. ;-) As you could imagine there is a certain number of posters in there that got a little carried away with their ideas. Possibly another thread might help.

Re:No, you're not fucked by smalltux · 2011-05-29 07:03 · Score: 1 · on Flight 447 'Black Box' Decoded

Assuming the engine can be configured properly, you can get out of a stall in a number of ways. Angle of attack (the angle between where the nose points and the aircraft moves, in case anyone wonders) would be one of them, but keeping track of your nose pitch (and weight) will also work relatively well. zeke has a good example (post 65). I wouldn't necessarily recommend that forum as an overview though unless you intend to read all ~1300 posts. ;-) As you could imagine there is a certain number of posters in there that got a little carried away with their ideas. Possibly another thread might help.

Re:Good thread with an Airbus pilot and some exper by rasmusbr · 2011-05-28 00:56 · Score: 1 · on Flight 447 'Black Box' Decoded

You should also read the latest thread at Airliners.net. There are several Airbus and Boeing pilots who post regularly.

Re:Because by ryanov · 2011-04-29 12:13 · Score: 3, Informative · on Mystery Air Crash Black Box Found Sans Memory Part

This post provides some interesting information:
http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/5129859/1/#2

Re:pitot probe failure most likely cause. by bongey · 2011-03-31 15:18 · Score: 1 · on Robots Dive Deep To Solve Airliner Crash Mystery

The had some weird designs in the cockpit that makes it so you can easily not to apply throttle correctly. I guess it is designed so you can't just bump the throttle, and end up like this plane http://www.airliners.net/photo/1293784/L/ , but it is weird it is newer plane.

Re:Repeating history by TubeSteak · 2011-01-17 17:14 · Score: 2 · on GE Venture Will Share Jet Technology With China

We're not talking about microprocessors here -- the technology doesn't change that fast. The 747 is from 1969. That's the year we first landed on the moon.

Ummm.... RTFS again.
"Boeing's new state-of-the-art 787 Dreamliner"

G.E.'s new joint venture in Shanghai will focus on avionics -- the electronics for communications, navigation, cockpit displays and controls. G.E. will be contributing its leading-edge avionics technology -- a high-performance core computer system that operates as the avionics brain of Boeing's new 787 Dreamliner.

P.S. The 747 has had numerous refreshes of its cockpit avionics over the last 41 years.
2010: http://www.airliners.net/photo/Delta-Air-Lines/Boeing-747-451/1843286/L/

Not rare at all by Urban+Garlic · 2011-01-06 07:48 · Score: 5, Informative · on Magnetic Pole Shift Affects Tampa Airport

Changing magnetic deviation due to movement of the magnetic pole goes on all the time. Runways are numbered according to their magnetic heading, plus or minus five degrees, and they have to keep them up to date, is all.

Two seconds of googling found this comment thread discussing a different runway-renumbering from July of 2009.

Obviously not enough airplane geeks around here...

Re:Last time I looked by Flying+Weezel · 2010-10-09 04:00 · Score: 1 · on FAA Reports Heat In Cargo Holds Can Ignite Laptop Batteries

as Nidi says, it can get really hot on the ramp. i know when its hot out and we've shut down the APU, the empty airplane goes from a comfortable 75 to almost 90 in about 15 minutes. that's with the doors open. if they load the cargo early & close the door, there is no airflow whatsoever in there until we turn on the packs.

here's what i fly: http://www.airliners.net/photo/Delta-Connection-(Shuttle/Embraer-ERJ-170-200LR-175LR/1783452/M/

i would guess that its possible to get a thermal runaway in a defective battery started when its hot on the ground and buried in the middle of the pile of luggage, then have it continue after takeoff once the plane has cooled down.

Re:Deja vu all over again... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-09-20 13:25 · Score: 0 · on Airbus Planning Transparent Planes