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The MD-82 flight deck is still relatively low-tech, though more high-teck than a 1960's DC-9.

http://cdn-www.airliners.net/aviation-photos/photos/4/0/9/1750904.jpg

The MD-88 flight deck is more of a modern glass cockpit:

http://cdn-www.airliners.net/aviation-photos/photos/8/5/2/0911258.jpg

However, windshear computers and TCAS, if I'm not mistaken, were installed on nearly all modern aircraft some time ago, regardless of the status of that particular upgrade. Just because MDD didn't add those things as part of the MD-80 Advanced (which incidentally would have been delivered after this aircraft anyway, so would have had no bearing unless it were upgraded) doesn't mean they weren't since added.

The MD-82 flight deck is still relatively low-tech, though more high-teck than a 1960's DC-9.

http://cdn-www.airliners.net/aviation-photos/photos/4/0/9/1750904.jpg

The MD-88 flight deck is more of a modern glass cockpit:

http://cdn-www.airliners.net/aviation-photos/photos/8/5/2/0911258.jpg

However, windshear computers and TCAS, if I'm not mistaken, were installed on nearly all modern aircraft some time ago, regardless of the status of that particular upgrade. Just because MDD didn't add those things as part of the MD-80 Advanced (which incidentally would have been delivered after this aircraft anyway, so would have had no bearing unless it were upgraded) doesn't mean they weren't since added.

Yes, live TV on an airplane (as opposed to pre-recorded content) is via satellite. The satellite receiver is a round unit mounted on the top of the fuselage, as seen here: http://www.airliners.net/photo/Frontier-Airlines/Airbus-A319-111/1686613/L/

They already fly slower. A 737-NG was designed to fly at Mach 0.72 to 0.78 (some will argue 0.82, but they are usually grumpy old guys). Currently many of the airlines prefer to use cost index (IE CI20). see: http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/tech_ops/read.main/45399/ Most passengers don't notice it, but in crowded airspace (IE New York TRACON) the controllers hate it.

There actually was one shuttle abort, STS-51F---one of Challenger's last missions. Also, STS-93 ended up in a lower orbit due to a fuel leak in one of the main engines. They didn't classify it as an ATO because they just plain ran out of oxidizer; no human explicitly hit an abort button. That same flight also had a major electrical short causing multiple main engine controller failures on that flight. Had the backup controllers also failed, you would doubtless have seen an ATLS on that flight.

And of course, there have only been two in-flight catastrophes, neither of which was detected in time to prevent it using an abort. The final Challenger and Columbia missions did not result in aborts because nobody hit the abort button, not because an abort wouldn't have been possible, given an early enough determination of the seriousness of the underlying failure event.

Either way, probably the biggest reason we don't see lots of shuttle disasters is that there are so many redundant systems and electronic safety checks on the shuttle. And it's a good thing, too, given the rate of failures. Most failures, statistically speaking, happen and are detected before the bird gets into the air. The number of launchpad aborts for the shuttle is significant. By my count, pad aborts occurred in almost one in ten launches (14 aborts out of 145 launch attempts). And that's not counting scrubbed launches due to weather or other non-mechanical causes. That's just the actual equipment failures occurring prior to SRB ignition....

As an aside, if airplanes had even one tenth the engine failure rate that the shuttles have seen, we'd see an airplane flight cancelled once per minute in the U.S. alone. Food for thought next time you start pondering whether the government should be in the business of designing payload launch systems without adult supervision.

I remember a story from almost 10 years back that you could buy a Mig-21 for $14k

Here are some fighter jet stories from 2006: Buying A Fighter Jet? and another from Wired: Building Your Own Air Force, One Mig at a Time [2005]

Vernor Vinge first mentions the Technological Singularity in the January 1983 issue in the First Word. I've got that one in a closet along with all the first 3 years except the first issue.

Would you like my copy of the first issue? It's the only issue *I* have. It's nearly complete, but I have to confess that in my pure teenage geekiness, I cut out and used the Enterprise iron-on page ("A spaceship has landed on Earth--it came from Rockwell").

"On November 22nd 1968, Japan Air flight #2 was nearing the end of a routine flight from Tokyo to San Francisco."

http://www.airliners.net/aviation-articles/read.main?id=1

According to a story I tend to credit, there was a full power test that morning in Fremont of an EMP simulator. From such sketchy detail as I was told (decades after the event) it was a BIG Marx generator that terminated in a 2 meter horn antenna filled with Freon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_pulse.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx_generator

It was pointed out over the bay--incidentally the main landing pattern for SFO.

". . . because of problems with his pressure altimeter, he was relying on the more accurate radio altimeter for verification of altitude. Capt. Asoh set the radio altimeter to give a light at a decision height of 211 ft (63.3 m). When the light blinked on, Capt. Asoh looked up expecting to be at about 200 ft (60 m) and heading for 28L.

"Instead, he was nearly in the waters of San Francisco Bay. He applied power, which raised the nose somewhat, and then the right main landing gear hit the water, followed by the left, and then the aircraft slewed to the left. Capt. Asoh cut power the aircraft settled into the shallow waters of San Francisco Bay."

Fortunately nobody was killed (or even hurt) in the crash, though the captain committed suicide sometime later.

A few hours after the crash, the people who worked the EMP simulator were abruptly told to tear the equipment down. It was moved out of the area to New Mexico within a few days. I don't know that a radio altimeter would have been damaged by testing the EMP simulator, but it seems plausible.

Boeing pulled out the 787 after scrapping the Sonic Cruiser. It had nothing to do with the A380. Boeing had already been down the VLA route before Airbus had and decided there was no market.

You could say the A380 was a reaction to Boeing's "challenge" offered by the 747-700X, which was first offered in 1996. Boeing received no interest from airlines, leading them to explore smaller airplanes. The A380 had nothing to do with it.

The 747-8 could be considered a reaction to the A380, although it is obviously smaller than both the A380 and the proposed 747-700X. But that was Boeing saying "ok, look, you guys said you didn't want this in 1996, but if you've all now changed your mind about wanting a bigger plane with a better cost per seat mile, here it is."

Actually there are plenty of Russian commercial airliners (some photos) but the GP point about simplicity and reliability may or may not apply to them. They tend to be operated by more or less the same countries who buy Russian military hardware. In recent years they also tended to crash more often than Boeing or Airbus ones but I'm not sure how much of it is related to human error and poor maintenance and how much to airplane design.

Russian planes fly with airlines worldwide. Just two examples:

Tu-154 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-154 "The aircraft has been exported and operated by about 17 non-Russian airlines, as well as a number of non-Russian airforces. It remains the standard airliner for domestic routes across Russia and other states of the former Soviet Union (CIS). The Tu-154 is one of the fastest civilian planes in operation (975 km/h) and has a range of 5280 km. Designed to handle unpaved and gravel airfields, it often operates in extreme Arctic conditions of Russia's northern territories."

(I've flown on it. Nice plane.) pics at airliners.net

The older Tu-134 "has seen long-term service with some 42 countries, with some European airlines having made very intense use of the 134 (as many as 12 takeoffs & landings per plane daily)." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-134

If i RTFA and followed this link:

http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/tech_ops/read.main/242973/

about "direct law" in Airbus planes, i might have had less to say in my spiel above...

That is so far from being newsworthy, it's almost funny.

    It's pretty much a given that any facility that a world leader will spend a lot of time in, will have a safe room (bunker, if you will). I'd be fairly confident that the Whitehouse has one. The Pentagon is one. :) Camp David has a back entrance to Site-R/Raven Rock Mountain Complex. There's a ring of underground facilities in a 300 mile radius of DC (except for under the water, I assume) that may or may not be connected by a series of tunnels. It's not hard to find information on quite a few of them.

    They aren't new. But, they're likely new to people who are surprised by the possibility of a safe room under the VP's residence.

    And no, it's not a evil government conspiracy. It's good security. With a whole variety of safe locations to put the people you're suppose to protect, an aggressive attempt by a foreign power would be dramatically spread out to take every possible bunker location. Even with inside information, unless it's someone in the immediate proximity of the President, it would be very difficult for an aggressor to find him.

      For example, say I was a secret service agent assigned to the POTUS. I know that there is an aggressive assault on known locations. I also know that someone inside is providing location details to the aggressor. I call in that he is now being transferred by limo to a site Northwest of DC. We send a driver in the limo by himself (with escort following) and then we take a rather plain looking suburban Southwest to another site. Ok, so the President is missing, but he's safe.

    Would the aggressor know until the limo stops? Possibly. So instead of one or two known sites, it's almost anywhere in America. Once they can get on a VC-25, E-4B, C-32, or C-40 it becomes anywhere in the world. As far as that goes, he could end up on any sufficiently supplied aircraft (armor, flight range, etc). If they stay up long enough, it'd be a matter of maybe following refueling planes, unless they stop at random large airports for refueling. It may be a foreign government nervous if Air Force One lands at an arbitrary international airport with two fighters circling. :) It would be virtually impossible for a foreign aggressor to monitor every airport capable of taking large aircraft.

    The large aircraft requirement gets interesting. In looking for the requirements of those planes, it appears 6k feet can get one down and back up safely. In that thread, someone mentions a C-5 landing a MKC (7k foot runway), and another person mentions a 747 landing at QRA. If it's not loaded down with baggage and passengers, and fuel is kept reasonable, they can get up and down on pretty short runways. It may not be quite as comfortable for the passenger, but I'm sure POTUS will understand in an emergency condition. :)

As a Swedish pirate with a fast cheap Internet connection all I can say is:

Future Gripen upgrade is imminent, take that Norway! :D

Welcome to the future.

"Not so much in modern combat. By the time you got close enough to make a visual ID, you'd be dead already. IFF takes care of identifying friendlies and most non-hostiles, and if you're in a hostile area everything else is fair game."

Except when the powers that be dictate that you must get a visual confirmation that it's an enemy combatant (to avoid accidentally shooting down the wrong aircraft, etc). Politics and "delicate situations" can dictate 100% confirmation before weapons release, so BVR engagements are not always possible.

Remember how the F14 had that TV camera unit installed under the nose looking forward - extreme visual magnification and image processing to allow positive visual ID on targets while still at missile range.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-14_Tomcat

http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/military/read.main/88635/

Of course, great stealth tech (like the F22) stomps on everything else as combatants don't even know it's there until it's too late (http://www.ausairpower.net/air-superiority-2.html)
 

But think of how well you could fly a kite! I can see it now...

Billy, have you tied your brick to the chain yet? Make sure to tie it on strong this time, you remember what happened to your last kite?

On a more serious note though, even here on earth, the wind speeds up top are generally much much faster than on the ground. While uncommon, 250knot (That's almost 500km/h) have been picked up by passenger airliners and they don't generally go that high - and the higher up you go, the faster winds get.

So, perhaps on the surface of said whacky planet, it might not be picnic weather, but a big thick atmosphere might mean that the surface is a whole lot less violent than might be expected at first glance. Next time we catch up, let's duck down to the surface, have a drink in a bar and look outside to see what the weather is like? :)

http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/1882971/

Basically, airplanes can land just fine by themselves. It is vital that they are able to do so in no visibility situations.

Specifically for a Boeing 777-300ER:

Gallons/Mile: 6.077
Gallons/Passenger Mile: .01665
MPG per passenger: 60.06
(from http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/2628781/)

Amtrak reports 2005 energy use of 2,935 BTU per passenger-mile[33], or 39 passenger-miles per gallon (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_efficiency_in_transportation#Trains)

Passenger airplanes averaged 4.8 L/100 km per passenger (49 passenger-miles per gallon) in 1998. (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_efficiency_in_transportation#Aircraft)

Also, their thrust numbers for the 767 are completely wrong. Each engine can produce > 60,000 lb of thrust for the smaller engine on the 767-200ER. Not sure where they got 30,000 lb of thrust, but that's half of what each engine will produce. When you recalculate based off just those numbers, the 767-200ER has a MUCH higher thrust to weight ratio (~.31 compared to .21). Refute that if you will.

Though, in this discussion, a thrust to weight ratio will not play into the max speed that the plane will hit the building at. The higher thrust of the 767 is for efficiency reasons to allow the cruising speed to be close to the vmax. Also, these planes weren't cruising, they were in a dive, and most likely were in an overspeed condition during the dive. So cruising speed really doesn't play a huge role. It would be more for a CFIT (controlled flight into terrain) condition where the plane is flying low and "runs into" a building. These were definitely not that type of condition, but were a "dive bomb" to hit a building on purpose. The maximum velocity is not an airframe rating, but instead is the maximum speed the engines can push the plane in straight and level flight. Those planes can go much faster before breaking apart.

I'm not going to buy into a site (or series of sites parroting the same information) that is incorrectly stating widely available technical data for the purpose of furthering their point of view. I find it alarming that you would subscribe to theories based on incorrect data.

Also, their thrust numbers for the 767 are completely wrong. Each engine can produce > 60,000 lb of thrust for the smaller engine on the 767-200ER. Not sure where they got 30,000 lb of thrust, but that's half of what each engine will produce. When you recalculate based off just those numbers, the 767-200ER has a MUCH higher thrust to weight ratio (~.31 compared to .21). Refute that if you will.

Though, in this discussion, a thrust to weight ratio will not play into the max speed that the plane will hit the building at. The higher thrust of the 767 is for efficiency reasons to allow the cruising speed to be close to the vmax. Also, these planes weren't cruising, they were in a dive, and most likely were in an overspeed condition during the dive. So cruising speed really doesn't play a huge role. It would be more for a CFIT (controlled flight into terrain) condition where the plane is flying low and "runs into" a building. These were definitely not that type of condition, but were a "dive bomb" to hit a building on purpose. The maximum velocity is not an airframe rating, but instead is the maximum speed the engines can push the plane in straight and level flight. Those planes can go much faster before breaking apart.

I'm not going to buy into a site (or series of sites parroting the same information) that is incorrectly stating widely available technical data for the purpose of furthering their point of view. I find it alarming that you would subscribe to theories based on incorrect data.

Taken from a web forum, but I've seen similar stuff before:

http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/military/read.main/54404/

Soyuz (1967-Present)
Flights: 95
Failures: 4 (2 non-fatal)
Failure Rate: 4.21%

Cosmonauts Flown: 228
Fatalities: 4
Fatality Rate: 1.75%

Shuttle (1981-Present)
Flights: 116
Failures: 3 (1 non-fatal)
Failure Rate: 2.59%

Astronauts Flown: 692
Fatalities: 14
Fatality Rate: 2.02%

This is a statistical dead heat. There is simply not a big enough sample size to distinguish between a 1.75% and a 2.02% fatality rate. And the "who had an accident more recently" does not establish it either.

Both are good systems, each has respective advantages (simplicity and low-cost vs. a lot of on-orbit assembly and payload capability). It's good the world has both, and we may never know which would be safer with infinite flights.

Southwest has never had 767's. Those are widebodies. SW has used 737's exclusively for many years (you can find a few old pix of a SW 727 that they leased for a short period in the late 70's/early 80's time-frame).

Not sure what you are meaning when you say a "loud, pulsing engine noise" means a "lousy plane", either? The older 737-200's were pretty loud, but they have all been retired now.

Denny

I wonder what forces the pilots could withstand if they piloted in a prone position, though I can't imagine that being very comfortable.

That Is Brilliant
Please post this at every /. article on aviation.

That Is Brilliant
Please post this at every /. article on aviation.

Yes, but using your same analogy... a plane is just a little bit bigger than a car. A Boeing 747 has a wingspan of 211 feet. Cars vary but 6 - 7 feet is a reasonable average in America. Now, 10' is about 5% of the width of a 747 but 10" is about 14% of the width of a car. If you use 5% for the car, then 5% of 6 feet would be 3.6". That's good enough to keep you going down the highway. I doubt your average driver can guess the position of their vehicle any better than that.

They are still transport aircraft (AC-130 gunship excepted), and civil versions (L-100, etc) have been in use for many years. C-130s are comparable in size and features to many other civil aircraft, so a MANPAD system that can bag them (BTW, 130s are tough airframes) can certainly take out other transports.

http://www.airliners.net/search/photo.search?aircraftsearch=Lockheed%20L-100-30%20Hercules%20(L-382G)&distinct_entry=true

Actualy when the Mria (An225) launched the customer was there. The Russian space program, Buran, the military complex, you name it. All of these were mothballed or frozen 15 years ago and not entirely unexpectedly so did the Mria. For the last 15 years its little brother - the An124 did the heavy hawling. Now the market for ultraheavy loads is opening again so it was once again taken to the skies: http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1296054/L/. Compared to it the A380 is a dwarf.

IMO while awesome it is not that much of a technological achievement. It may be big, but it ain't revolutionary in any sense.

Now this http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1295104/M/ is something out of a different league. It may not take a large load, but its take-off and landing requirements (a field only slightly bigger than a football pitch) are in the realm of the insane.

Same for some of the specs for this one: http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1262070/M/.

Both of these are so far ahead of anything in their class it is not even funny.

Actualy when the Mria (An225) launched the customer was there. The Russian space program, Buran, the military complex, you name it. All of these were mothballed or frozen 15 years ago and not entirely unexpectedly so did the Mria. For the last 15 years its little brother - the An124 did the heavy hawling. Now the market for ultraheavy loads is opening again so it was once again taken to the skies: http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1296054/L/. Compared to it the A380 is a dwarf.

IMO while awesome it is not that much of a technological achievement. It may be big, but it ain't revolutionary in any sense.

Now this http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1295104/M/ is something out of a different league. It may not take a large load, but its take-off and landing requirements (a field only slightly bigger than a football pitch) are in the realm of the insane.

Same for some of the specs for this one: http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1262070/M/.

Both of these are so far ahead of anything in their class it is not even funny.

Actualy when the Mria (An225) launched the customer was there. The Russian space program, Buran, the military complex, you name it. All of these were mothballed or frozen 15 years ago and not entirely unexpectedly so did the Mria. For the last 15 years its little brother - the An124 did the heavy hawling. Now the market for ultraheavy loads is opening again so it was once again taken to the skies: http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1296054/L/. Compared to it the A380 is a dwarf.

IMO while awesome it is not that much of a technological achievement. It may be big, but it ain't revolutionary in any sense.

Now this http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1295104/M/ is something out of a different league. It may not take a large load, but its take-off and landing requirements (a field only slightly bigger than a football pitch) are in the realm of the insane.

Same for some of the specs for this one: http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1262070/M/.

Both of these are so far ahead of anything in their class it is not even funny.

It's surprisingly easy to think planes are much closer together than they are. Here are some prime examples (and some nice photos to boot):
747 & 757
747 & A340
747 & Gulfstream II

It's surprisingly easy to think planes are much closer together than they are. Here are some prime examples (and some nice photos to boot):
747 & 757
747 & A340
747 & Gulfstream II

It's surprisingly easy to think planes are much closer together than they are. Here are some prime examples (and some nice photos to boot):
747 & 757
747 & A340
747 & Gulfstream II

United Airlines N666UA on Airliners.net.

I bet your car can't carry 290 people though.

http://www.airliners.net/info/stats.main?id=103

In all fairness though, I bet their jet rarely carries more than 10-20 people.

For such a technologically advanced company as Google - can they not apply technology to meetings and avoid world travel (i.e. teleconferencing, whatever) rather than using a jet?

Agreed. Unfortunately, they don't see it that way. Instead of making the ads more subtle and bearable (and less likely to be blocked), they start committing atrocities like inserting them into the content.

Take airliners.net. They just got bought out, and the new crowd immediately slapped those damned IntelliTXT ads into the forum content.

All hell broke loose, in part because it was handled so spectacularly badly. Nearly 300 replies later, there are still members threatening to sue because their content's been "modified without permission".

But the management were forced into removing the abominations for logged-in users.

The thread's an interesting insight into how users feel about these ads - not to mention a very amusing lesson into how not to do PR.

Agreed. Unfortunately, they don't see it that way. Instead of making the ads more subtle and bearable (and less likely to be blocked), they start committing atrocities like inserting them into the content.

Take airliners.net. They just got bought out, and the new crowd immediately slapped those damned IntelliTXT ads into the forum content.

All hell broke loose, in part because it was handled so spectacularly badly. Nearly 300 replies later, there are still members threatening to sue because their content's been "modified without permission".

But the management were forced into removing the abominations for logged-in users.

The thread's an interesting insight into how users feel about these ads - not to mention a very amusing lesson into how not to do PR.

That's what they own. They lease a bunch more, for a total of 600 planes. In terms of fleet size, they're behind American, Northwest and Southwest (and FedEx - those packages don't fly themselves, you know...). They're just ahead of United. If you regularly fly with one of the majors, it's not unlikely you'll meet the same planes repeatedly. Counting just major domestic carriers, you come out at ~3500 planes. But this excludes the foreign carriers you'll see at US airports (most of whom will be tending toward the 747/767/777 end of things and away from the CRJs), excludes freight and perhaps most importantly, excludes the code-share partners you see flying regional jets from small airports to major hubs. These latter are usually flying with the livery of the associated major, but don't have much more to do with them. They're external and just flying those routes under contract.

A plane's registration number is unique. You can generally see it somewhere around the rearmost door of the plane. You might find airliners.net interesting.

On the fuselage near the tail. There is an entire forum over at http://www.airliners.net/discussions/trip_reports/ filled with geeks that record these numbers in little log books for the purpose of wanting to fly every plane in the air.

They carry around cameras and binoculars viewing planes, taking pictures, and writing down little things on paper, all the while arousing suspicion amongst their cabin mates. Once they get bored with all that, they ask the stewardess if they can visit the cockpit. A fun hobby it sounds like.

Here are new photos of the first 787 before paint.

787 Photos

Airplane wings flex quite a bit more than you'd expect. Airliners.net has a great head-on shot of a 747 taking off that shows the wingtips flexed up higher than the fuselage. Kinda freaky looking.

No wonder you're posting as AC :P

If you tried that, I'd quickly ask if you think this is an acceptable way to treat an A330, and if you replied in the affirmative I'd slaughter you before you could hug me.

The best thing is, I'd only have to wipe blood off half of the monitor! The other half would serve as a warning to my new cube-mate. *twitch*

With all those computers and technology, you'd think you could tweak everything on the screen ? Well, you can, but that's not what people like. Look at MIDI controllers - the better (and the pricier) it is, the more knobss/sliders/buttons it has. Because really, no on-screen control gives the same feel and power as a single knob. If you never tried those, just look at the volume knobs - they are KNOBS, not on screen thingies, because normally you'd like them better. The on-screen displays prevail for two reasons: 1)they occupy less volume 2)they let you maximize screen area 3)simpler mass production 4)there's "hype" about them. They are not there because they're efficient. Look at Boeing 747 cabin (http://www.airliners.net/)t's full of knobs and buttons, not OCD's. PS: It seems like a certain MP3 player became very popular because, among other reasons, it had a tactile control wheel (and competition didn't).

Meanwhile, Boeing has conceded that the very large aircraft (VLA) market is minimal and not worth investing tons of money into. It has spent a nominal sum to upgrade the 747 with the 747-8. The result? Airbus has about 144 orders for the A380 in 7 years, and Boeing has over 80 in less than 2.

I believe the concession was not so much that there was no market for the A380, but that there wasn't room for two companies building a similar configuration. There is certainly a market for this type of plane, generally for long haul flights, but it is not huge. If Boeing decided to target that market once Airbus had gone for it, then they would have both failed.

It makes more sense for Boeing to concentrate on aeroplanes, such as the 777 where there is chance of succeeding, even with competition. Current aeroplanes need improvement in cost effectiveness when it comes to fuel efficiency. The 777 being a majority composite body and taking advantage of advances of engine design fits this market nicely.

The one market that Boeing definitely has avoided at this point is the supersonic aircraft. The problem here, is that it is not cost effective with current technology and it is difficult to make fit the environmental requirements being applied by so many countries.

I should mention that the failures of the A380 have not been design related, but in adjusting their production facilities to build the plane. There is a thread here discussing the 'problems':

http://www.airliners.net/discussions/general_aviat ion/read.main/2422535/

Airports that are wanting to welcome the A380 are doing renovations to handle the aeroplane. The USA is generally lagging behind in its readiness, but accommodating the A380 is in many airports interests. Currently the A380 is flying to various destinations, so airports can check that are capable of handling the aeroplane, as well a general marketing tour. Just last week the A380 made visit to JFK. A few links on airport readiness:

  - http://www.airliners.net/discussions/general_aviat ion/read.main/1493607/
  - http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05333/614282.stm
  - http://www.airport-technology.com/features/feature 653/
  - http://www.atwonline.com/channels/aircraftEquipmen t/article.html?articleID=1187
  - http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0CWU/is _2002_March_6/ai_83557785

The extra problem that the aeroplane poses, on top of the plane itself, is dealing with the number of people arriving in the airport at any one time. Think gate waiting lounges and customs clearance.

You don't know much about this stuff, do you? This is what a problem landing looks like:

http://www.airliners.net/search/photo.search?id=22 3249,223248,223247,223246

Does anyone happen to know what the pressure would be like on the low pressure side of a good airfoil? :)

A Boeing 777-300 has a maximum takeoff weight of 300000kg and a wing area of 428m^2, giving a wing loading of 700kgf/m^2 (at 1g - the wing must be moving at or faster than stall speed to support this load). Units says "1 atmosphere" = "10332 kgf/m^2". 10332-700=9632. 9632/10332=.932. .932*15psi = 13.9psi.

Note that a 777-300 wing is still VERY BIG and even at stall speed is moving VERY FAST. For most general aviation aircraft you can use a figure like 100kgf/m^2, which gives you more like a 0.15 psi pressure drop.

Now, to figure how much wind energy it'll take to create that kind of pressure drop over that much air, look up the fuel consumption of a 777-300. :)

You put it that way and it sounds peachy, only two items in the list named people, so the rest must apply to cans of pepsi or something. They all affect people, you and me whether Slate names them or not.

"Only for Extraordinary Rendition can even one actual instance be named. For the rest, we are to take the fact that despite the extraordinary scrutiny this government's every move seems to come under"

So you believe there is only 1? Even Bush admits 14 people. Now if only we could explain how 1400 rendition flights of medium sized passenger jets were used to fly a mere 14 people around we'd be laughing. Remember we know how many flights from the flight logs. We're talking thousands of people and potentially lots of Americans too. What you think Padilla is the only one?

Says 14 rendition people transferred:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1947647,00. html

The aircraft involved:
http://www.airliners.net/search/photo.search?regse arch=N368CE&distinct_entry=true

Can you name the 14? No? That's the secrecy for you, no names, no nationalities, no details, no lawyers, no trials. If you can't name them how can Slate? What about the rest? We haven't even got a real number yet.

As Bush put it:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/12/20 061229-15.html

"Today, Saddam Hussein was executed after receiving a fair trial -- the kind of justice he denied the victims of his brutal regime...Fair trials were unimaginable under Saddam Hussein's tyrannical rule."

Wow hypocritical or what? He's a slimeball, the worst US leader ever, and if it turns out he's locked up a bunch of Americans and tortured them, then he and the people who worked for him should hang too. No different from that slimeball Sadam.

Geez, maybe Nielsen failed to notice that the remote control was special-purpose designed and had to fit into a cell phone.

The F-117 *has* *been* retired, as quietly as it entered service.

No, 2008.
From your first link at af.mil:
10/28/2006 "After 25 years of storied service, the F-117 Nighthawk, the Air Force's first stealth fighter, is about to retire. "

"U.S. Senators Pete Domenici and Jeff Bingaman today expressed their disappointment in the Pentagon's plans to retire F-117 stealth fighters based at Holloman Air Force Base in Alamogordo by FY2008."