That's only one piece of anecdotal evidence. There are good & bad cases. Some people spend 20 years in the military taking it easy. Many people join the military and get killed fighting for people who could care less about them, even protesting against them, half way around the world.
However, everyone that takes the oath entering military service does so with the full knowledge they may be ordered to lay down their life. It's just that many don't think much about it, or believe it will ever happen to them.
The Stealth F-117A "Wobblin' Goblin" was well known for its erratic flight, and its believed that there have been several more stealth bomber/fighter crashes than the government lets on.
All the pilots I've read about or talked to say that is an incredible misnomer. They never called it that, but simply the Black Jet. Journalists & pundits gave it the wobbly name due to how they thought it would fly, based on its design.
It probably has no control if its engine is out, like fighter craft and unlike passenger craft.
It's not whether the engine's running if they have control, but if they still have electrical power. Besides, it's not true about fighters in general, only the F-16 (& possibly the F-117, B-2, F-22, & F-35, but I'm not sure). Most fighters have redundant control systems that make it possible to fly without power.
However, the F-16 isn't humanly flyable without its flight computer. Losing the engine wouldn't automatically cause it to also lose electrical power though. As long as its airspeed is high enough (& the engine can still be freely rotated) for the air to turn the front compressor blades, the generator will still produce electrical power. If that stops, the Emergency Power Unit can provide electrical power for a short time.
the B-52 could fly over 600 mph and had a range of over 6,000 miles, which meant the B-52 could hit most targets in the Soviet Union from US bases with just one air-to-air refuelling.
Actually, they can hit any target in the former USSR without any aerial refueling, but they do need it to get back home.
Well, my uncle is a retired Air France flight engineer; he was on 747s but he has a few stories about the A320, including one when he flew-as a passenger-in the cockpit.
I know a lot of pilots, and have heard similar stories. One was transitioning from the DC-9 to the A-320. He showed me the relative size of their manuals: the A-320's are about 6 times larger! Many of the added pages are how to deal with various computer malfunctions. He had highlighted different sections whether it required a reboot, couldn't be rebooted in flight, just ignored, etc. He likes flying it, but the studying required to be checked out was much more than any aircraft he'd flown before (former Navy fighter pilot).
It's difficult to imagine anybody flying in this thing. For one thing, the passengers are intended to be kept in compartments close to the center of the aircraft, so no window seats.
Try flying in the passenger compartment of a C-5. It has no windows and the seats all face backwards. Kind of a wierd feeling at first.
Fly-by-wire is already present in new passenger aircraft and has been used to control inherently unstable airframes in military aircraft for over a decade.
Even longer really. The F-16 first flew in 1976 & entered active duty with the US Air Force in 1979. However, F-16s crash all the time, because they aren't humanly flyable without the flight computer. Personally, I think they work great for the Thunderbirds, but would never trust one to fly in combat.
Luckily, they learned their lesson with newer fly-by-wire aircraft, like the F/A-18 & F-15E. I'm not sure whether the F-117, B-2, F-22, or F-35 are flyable without their flight computers though. But they're probably sufficiently advanced over the F-16 to be more reliable.
The parent poster was correct, the F-16 was the 1st production fly-by-wire aircraft. The original F-15s (A-D models) aren't fly-by-wire, but the newer F-15E Strike Eagle is.
Yes, most modern fighter aircraft are designed to be inherently unstable, it makes them much more maneuverable.
However, the F-18 is controllable without its flight computer (as is the F-15E). They learned their lesson with the F-16, which was nicknamed the Electric Jet, because of its sophisticated flight control systems. Without electrical power, the F-16 is not capable of human control or even sustained flight: the pilot has about 2 seconds to eject or get the Emergency Power Unit started. Its EPU is actually a hydrazine powered rocket engine in the wing root, very nasty stuff. So the next fly-by-wire aircraft designs factored this into their designs.
This is almost not worth replying to. The link in the parent post has a photo of the X-29 flying. It is just a T-38 fuselage with a different wing configuration. I've personally seen one in a hangar at Edwards AFB, CA.
Also, the X-29 was strictly meant as a NASA research project. The F-111 is much older. It & the F-22 were military designs that have nothing to do with NASA, and were (or currently are in the F-22's case) in actual production.
Same goes for the F-117 (nickname: the wobbly goblin).
Actually, none of its pilots ever used that nickname. They simply called it the black jet. Journalists gave it that name because they thought it would be wobbly in flight due to its irregular surface.
Despite all the arm twisting with pricing, backwards incompatibility (genuine or not) and big advertising campaigns, you still have loads of consumers running moss-covered versions of Windows that are not up to "XP".(3.1, 95, 98, 98Se, ME)
If MS has a hard time convincing consumers to upgrade their hardware given all the resources at their disposal (like getting OEMs to preload the new OS), you can bet Linux will have an even harder time.
I think this can work to our advantage. When people want to upgrade their ancient computers, they'll have to buy MS's latest software & spend a fortune on the latest & greatest hardware to run it at anything greater than a snail's pace. Or, use their existing computer, upgrade some components & run Linux & OpenOffice at a reasonable speed. If only somebody would release a distro that clueless newbies could use.
Every month they compile various statistics. Just below the below the top queries on the left side is a pie chart showing OS used to access Google. I think they're a big enough site, well visited by the entire spectrum of internet users, so their sample is probably close to represenative.
For May 2002:
46% - Windows 98
18% - Windows 2000
14% - Windows XP
7% - Windows NT
5% - Windows 95
4% - Mac
1% - Linux
5% - Other
Win98 is by far the largest segment of users. WinNT is about the same age, yet has a very small percentage. My interpretation: businesses have upgraded at a far higher rate than home users, accounting for most of the Win2K. The Mac & Linux shares are pretty stable from month to month.
My local Oldies-Rock station plays them several times a week that I know of, and probably more often that that!
What station, and where? I've been part of the Mule's radio request program, the Gov't Mule United Airplay Movement, sending letters to several Minneapolis-St Paul area radio stations. Unfortunately, I have yet to hear them on the radio. The problem is that 3 of the biggest radio stations are owned by ABC (Disney) and most of the rest by either Clear Channel or Infinity Broadcasting.
Gov't Mule has a pretty solid fanbase here too. They've played here at least once a year for the last 6 years or so. I've seen them 4 times, in fact I'll be at the Allman Brothers Band & Phil Lesh & Friends concert this Thursday (with Warren Haynes).
The name Longhorn is appropriate. Bill Gates is finally admitting that he sold his soul long ago, and Microsoft is in the service of Satan.
Equipped with Longhorn, your PC will keep track of how you work, whom you talk to, what sites you look at, how you make documents and whom you share them with, which data on the network are yours--making all those things easier.
Sending all this to Microsoft, which will use it to blackmail everyone.
There's a quote in the 2nd Salon article that disturbs me:
Without blanket radio airplay it's almost impossible to launch a hit single, or sustain a career, in the music business today.(emphasis added)
So even Salon has bought into this RIAA lie. There are literally thousands of musicians making a living touring & playing to local audiences, without any airplay.
My current favorite band, Gov't Mule, can hardly buy airplay, yet they've been pretty successful. It helps that they let people record their shows & trade the recordings online.
Here in Minneapolis, there's a thriving local music scene. The only airplay most of the local acts get is on a few weekly, hour long shows on some stations that showcase local music.
This is called regular service on your vehicle. If you do not realize it, but if your car is not regularly serviced then the warrenty is null and void.
This was a few years ago. At the time, nobody offered a 60,000 mi warranty (only a few offer them now). Besides, I'm not against regular maintenance, just being forced to use a single maintainer.
Regular servicing is a good thing to do on your car. Keeps it running well.
I just want a choice where I take it for maintenance. If I own a car, I should be able to take it anywhere, even if it voids the warranty.
or maybe buy a car from all those car companies who willingly make their codes available for anybody?
Yeah, buy American! The article mentions that GM is the best, when it comes to sharing the codes. A previous poster said he works as a mechanic and codes from the big 3 (GM, Ford, & Chrysler) were readily available.
If the 3 of the largest auto makers in the world release the codes, why can't the others? It obviously isn't helping their business grow.
This is interesting. As a co-owner of a small independant garage that primarily works on GM, Ford, and Chrysler, I never had difficuly in obtaining error codes and how to pull them. Not only do the manufacturers provided manuals, but so do the aftermarket companies.
The article mentions that European manufacturers aren't as open with their proprietary codes, with the specific example of an air-bag light on a BMW. The owner brought it in to a local garage to get it fixed, but was refered to a dealer as the codes aren't available. He had to drive 70 miles to the nearest BMW dealership.
My friend had a similar problem: the idiot light (service engine) was on, so he went to a mechanic to have a look at it, who found nothing wrong. He then talked to a dealer that said it automatically comes on at 60,000 miles, and for $60 they would give it a tune-up & the light would go out. Instead, my friend just put black electrical tape over the light & ignored it.
I can't help but feel that the programming contest was just a way for Google to get some coding done on the cheap; you can be sure that the Google engineers have an excellent sense of what can and should be done.
Except that outside talent can come up with ideas the people at Google would never have dreamed of.
What would be interesting, though, would be some sort of feature within Google that stored and presented comments from/. and other forums, taking into consideration how that particular comment was peer-ranked within it's forum. For instance, a highly ranked/. comment on a given subject, particularly the ones deemed "informative", tend to be a good way of finding links to a bunch of relevant resources all in one go. Perhaps Google could create an optional side panel that would throw up such comments, harvested from established forums and the Google Groups archive.
That's a pretty tall order, but possible. It might have been a good entry for the Google programming contest. Also, one could use Google's API to hack something like this.
The difficult part would be writing modules to deal with the plethora of rating systems on different sites. Advogato, kuro5hin,/. & lots of other sites each have their own system.
One thing that I wonder about is Slashdot's searchability, how it's rated by Google and other search engines. I've never once been directed to a Slashdot thread as a result of a search which is a pity because there's such excellent information and insight here at times. I wonder if Slashdot have taken steps to improve the searchability/URL indexing of Slashcode-based sites.
That's just because of Google's ranking algorithms. It ranks sites based on how many other pages link to them. I've seen links to the main/. page everywhere, but not many links to individual stories.
When mainstream journalists have picked up stories that first appeared on/. or other independent sites they rarely, if ever, attribute where they got the lead. I'm not saying they plagiarize, just that they get story ideas from/. and elsewhere and do their own research into the story.
If you do a Google search with your/. handle, it comes up with some of your older comments. So Google does index/. but they just rank too low to see if you use overly general wording in your search.
All of the stealth planes disperse their output through large areas, generally directed upwards (I'd guess that the F-22 does the worst job of this, but that's just a WAG). The sound is similarly baffled, with efforts made toward minimizing disruptive air flow and contrails.
Actually, the F-22 has large, wide, thrust vectoring nozzles that should do a pretty good job of dispersing the exhaust heat. Besides, it's 3rd generation Low Observability (LO, technical term for stealth) technology, and they didn't make any effort to protect the 1st gen LO technology when the F-117A crashed in Serbia. I was surprised they didn't send in a few Tomawhawks to turn the wreckage into little, unrecognizable pieces. Aviation & Space Technology had an article about how it ended up being studied in Russia. Since the DOD wasn't too worried about it, the newer LO technology must be a lot better.
The B-1B does have baffles in the air intakes, so radar doesn't get a return from the compressor blades, but otherwise it just uses 4 standard (for fighters at least) low-bypass, afterburning turbofan engines. If you've ever been near one taking off, it's probably the loudest aircraft you'll ever hear. Also, they didn't make much effort to disperse the exhaust heat: its engines are mounted underneath the aircraft and its exhaust nozzles are similar to most fighters, albeit much larger.
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That's only one piece of anecdotal evidence. There are good & bad cases. Some people spend 20 years in the military taking it easy. Many people join the military and get killed fighting for people who could care less about them, even protesting against them, half way around the world.
However, everyone that takes the oath entering military service does so with the full knowledge they may be ordered to lay down their life. It's just that many don't think much about it, or believe it will ever happen to them.
It's not whether the engine's running if they have control, but if they still have electrical power. Besides, it's not true about fighters in general, only the F-16 (& possibly the F-117, B-2, F-22, & F-35, but I'm not sure). Most fighters have redundant control systems that make it possible to fly without power.
However, the F-16 isn't humanly flyable without its flight computer. Losing the engine wouldn't automatically cause it to also lose electrical power though. As long as its airspeed is high enough (& the engine can still be freely rotated) for the air to turn the front compressor blades, the generator will still produce electrical power. If that stops, the Emergency Power Unit can provide electrical power for a short time.
Luckily, they learned their lesson with newer fly-by-wire aircraft, like the F/A-18 & F-15E. I'm not sure whether the F-117, B-2, F-22, or F-35 are flyable without their flight computers though. But they're probably sufficiently advanced over the F-16 to be more reliable.
The parent poster was correct, the F-16 was the 1st production fly-by-wire aircraft. The original F-15s (A-D models) aren't fly-by-wire, but the newer F-15E Strike Eagle is.
Yes, most modern fighter aircraft are designed to be inherently unstable, it makes them much more maneuverable.
However, the F-18 is controllable without its flight computer (as is the F-15E). They learned their lesson with the F-16, which was nicknamed the Electric Jet, because of its sophisticated flight control systems. Without electrical power, the F-16 is not capable of human control or even sustained flight: the pilot has about 2 seconds to eject or get the Emergency Power Unit started. Its EPU is actually a hydrazine powered rocket engine in the wing root, very nasty stuff. So the next fly-by-wire aircraft designs factored this into their designs.
This is almost not worth replying to. The link in the parent post has a photo of the X-29 flying. It is just a T-38 fuselage with a different wing configuration. I've personally seen one in a hangar at Edwards AFB, CA.
Also, the X-29 was strictly meant as a NASA research project. The F-111 is much older. It & the F-22 were military designs that have nothing to do with NASA, and were (or currently are in the F-22's case) in actual production.
Every month they compile various statistics. Just below the below the top queries on the left side is a pie chart showing OS used to access Google. I think they're a big enough site, well visited by the entire spectrum of internet users, so their sample is probably close to represenative.
For May 2002:
46% - Windows 98
18% - Windows 2000
14% - Windows XP
7% - Windows NT
5% - Windows 95
4% - Mac
1% - Linux
5% - Other
Win98 is by far the largest segment of users. WinNT is about the same age, yet has a very small percentage. My interpretation: businesses have upgraded at a far higher rate than home users, accounting for most of the Win2K. The Mac & Linux shares are pretty stable from month to month.
Gov't Mule has a pretty solid fanbase here too. They've played here at least once a year for the last 6 years or so. I've seen them 4 times, in fact I'll be at the Allman Brothers Band & Phil Lesh & Friends concert this Thursday (with Warren Haynes).
Wow! Someone sure doesn't have a sense of humor & modded me down. Maybe they're just dense and couldn't figure out this comment was meant to be humor.
The name Longhorn is appropriate. Bill Gates is finally admitting that he sold his soul long ago, and Microsoft is in the service of Satan.
Sending all this to Microsoft, which will use it to blackmail everyone.
My current favorite band, Gov't Mule, can hardly buy airplay, yet they've been pretty successful. It helps that they let people record their shows & trade the recordings online.
Here in Minneapolis, there's a thriving local music scene. The only airplay most of the local acts get is on a few weekly, hour long shows on some stations that showcase local music.
I just want a choice where I take it for maintenance. If I own a car, I should be able to take it anywhere, even if it voids the warranty.
If the 3 of the largest auto makers in the world release the codes, why can't the others? It obviously isn't helping their business grow.
My friend had a similar problem: the idiot light (service engine) was on, so he went to a mechanic to have a look at it, who found nothing wrong. He then talked to a dealer that said it automatically comes on at 60,000 miles, and for $60 they would give it a tune-up & the light would go out. Instead, my friend just put black electrical tape over the light & ignored it.
The difficult part would be writing modules to deal with the plethora of rating systems on different sites. Advogato, kuro5hin,
When mainstream journalists have picked up stories that first appeared on
If you do a Google search with your
The B-1B does have baffles in the air intakes, so radar doesn't get a return from the compressor blades, but otherwise it just uses 4 standard (for fighters at least) low-bypass, afterburning turbofan engines. If you've ever been near one taking off, it's probably the loudest aircraft you'll ever hear. Also, they didn't make much effort to disperse the exhaust heat: its engines are mounted underneath the aircraft and its exhaust nozzles are similar to most fighters, albeit much larger.