Anyone who posts to this story saying that this is no big deal or telling other people to stop whining should simply be banned from Slashdot for life. If you cannot be bothered to read the article and you cannot be bothered to understand just what a serious vulnerability this is but you insist on insulting those who do, why should you be allowed to continue to post your ignorant bleating?
Taiwan is obviously a de facto sovereign state. Beijing only exerts influence over Taiwain in the same way that they exert influence over any other country, i.e. by diplomacy, trade, and warfare. Thus the nutbars in the PRC government which insist that Taiwain is part of their country are just as deluded as anyone who claims that a border exists between Tibet and China.
How ironic, given that there really is no border. Tibet is not an occupied country, it was conquered and annexed. Thus, no border. Anyone who insists there is a border is the one suffering from a 1984-like denial of reality.
Why not? Plenty of "normal" aircraft, such as most models of the Cessna 172, are fully certified for spins. It's not a particularly difficult or stressful maneuver. It was taught as part of the basic private pilot cirriculum for decades until the FAA decided to switch to "spin awareness" instead of real spins as part of a misguided attempt at safety.
Of course, now you not only know better than me, you know better than the FAA.
Am I not entitled to have my own opinion? Yes, I think the FAA made a bad decision here. In fact I think most aspects of government get most things wrong most of the time.
I'd really like to know what you've read or done which causes you to have this opinion, because it doesn't square with reality at all.
Mostly documentation about spin recovery no longer being done as part of the PPL for safety reasons. Exactly what you've dismissed above.
Are you aware that stalls and spins aren't the same maneuver, and aren't even similar aside from the fact that you start a spin by doing a stall? Whether the typical course of training involves spins has no bearing on the safety or unusualness of stalls.
We were talking about visibility problems caused by the nose of the airplane, remember? You don't get hazy, foggy, or partially transparent aircraft noses. All this business about weather is totally off the subject and you're once again distorting my words.
We were talking about visibility. Your words were that you either can see something or you can't. You didn't qualify it in any way. Perhaps you had limited the discussion in order to exaggerate and attack what I was saying. I had not. I certainly didn't distort your words. You're the one adding words like 'completely' when I said that the nose could limit visibility. You didn't even bother trying to understand what I was saying. You were too busy attacking what you thought I'd said.
I can't help you if you can't follow the context.
"Obstacles"? As in fixed objects that sit on the ground? If you're constantly on the lookout for those while flying at altitude then you're just silly. A constant lookout for other traffic is of course necessary, and if you're flying nap-of-the-earth then watching for radio towers and such is e very good idea, but a distraction of a few seconds is extremely unlikely to make any difference on this.
That seems to be how you operate. Reductio ad absurdum. Is it too hard to actually counter what I'm saying instead of purposefully misinterpretting and then trying to make me sound ridiculous.
See the question marks up there? I didn't know what you were referring to, so I asked you. Odd that you chose to attack me rather than answer.
Thanks for the lesson. Now in the middle of this, close your eyes for three seconds. What happens? Approximately nothing. Now do the same thing on the highway. Decent odds you'll come out of it with at least a wrecked vehicle.
Is that why I've seen my cabbies holding a clipboard and flipping through it -not that I'm happy about it, but they've gone through a list of things or written down phone numbers while talking on the mobile or cab radio and while doing 100km/hr down the freeway. All without hitting a damn thing.
Whether you're in a car or a plane it depends entirely on the conditions at the time. Of course closing your eyes for 3 seconds with the autopilot on won't kill you in a plane at 6000ft with no traffic about. Try doing it on short final and you'll become a statistic. Same with driving on a freeway. Open road, little traffic, not as safe as at altitude but it can be done. If you're doing it for kicks or in peak hour you're an idiot. Close your eyes in dense traffic over an airport and likewise I'd call you an idiot, even with the greater separation.
Your cabbies are being exceedingly dangerous. They can still get away with it most of the time but they're increasing their risk subst
So what? I'm sure advanced driving courses teach steering. That doesn't mean that it's an advanced or difficult maneuver.
It certainly implies it's more intricate an area than could be dismissed as being simple. Advanced steering is about difficult conditions - snow/ice, loose surface, extreme speed, aqua-planing etc. I wouldn't want to take my car into such conditions on purpose without having had such training. I wouldn't want to be using the wrong kind of vehicle either. Likewise I wouldn't want to be doing spins in a non-aerobatic aircraft.
Why not? Plenty of "normal" aircraft, such as most models of the Cessna 172, are fully certified for spins. It's not a particularly difficult or stressful maneuver. It was taught as part of the basic private pilot cirriculum for decades until the FAA decided to switch to "spin awareness" instead of real spins as part of a misguided attempt at safety.
A simple stall might be easy to recover in most docile civilian aircraft - again I didn't deny that - however you have to have some respect for it and you don't stall intentionally or dismiss it as some kind of simple or trivial maneuver. I wouldn't be stalling the aircraft just for kicks or treating an unintentional stall as no big deal.
I'd really like to know what you've read or done which causes you to have this opinion, because it doesn't square with reality at all.
I first performed a stall on my second instructional flight. This was of course part of training, but it was completely intentional. I did many more during the course of my instruction.
Beyond that, the first thing I do when trying a new aircraft, after I take off and get to a safe altitude, is stall it. Why? Because every aircraft stalls differently, and I want to know how this model does it. Every aircraft gives you signs before it fully stalls and I want to know what they are so that I can recognize them when I do it inadvertently. Doing stalls is also a good practice maneuver to keep up proficiency.
Certainly I'm not going to be performing a stall at an unsafe altitude, and I always clear the area of traffic first, but it's a perfectly routine maneuver.
As for unintentional stalls, if you looked up the list of aircraft I've flown you'll notice that a lot of them are gliders. Gliders experience unintentional stalls quite often. Optimal thermalling technique requires flying just above stall speed, which can easily turn into a real stall due to a sudden gust, and thermals are almost always gusty. It's no big deal when it happens, you just recover and keep flying. When thermalling at low altitude over the ground, a safety margin is added by flying faster and sacrificing efficiency, but done at altitude an unintentional stall really is no big deal.
Either you can see where you're going or you can't. There's not really any room for partial obscuration.
Now this is one of the stupidest things a pilot could possibly say!!! There's an entire terminology for describing meteorological conditions and visibility. Ever heard of VFR vs IFR? There are rules as to how much visibility you need to have before you're allowed to fly VFR.
We were talking about visibility problems caused by the nose of the airplane, remember? You don't get hazy, foggy, or partially transparent aircraft noses. All this business about weather is totally off the subject and you're once again distorting my words.
Then why did you bring it up? My entire thesis revolves around the idea that flying is slower and more cerebral than driving. If terrain avoidance is a slow game of strategy rather than a rapid-fire tactical game like you find driving on a highway, then this only supports my point
Flying requires constant attention. The fact that you're less likely to hit anything at any given moment and that it can become boring makes it all the more potentially deadly. If you're not on constant lookout for obstacles, you're not a goo
I dunno, the Chinese government doesn't strike me as being particularly socially responsible. They may do their best to maintain order and stop various "vices", but their environmental record totally stinks. That they apparently couldn't give a rat's ass about Beijing's polluted air for so long, and then suddenly decided that It Must All Be Cleaned Up right when a horde of foreigners are about to descend upon the city doesn't speak well for them at all. For whatever reason, they seem to be more concerned with looking good than doing good.
Convincing the people that the government is the only thing standing between them and chaos is a classic tactic of totalitarian governments. (Now think about what the American government is currently doing....)
However, given China's recent history, I'm not even sure they're wrong. The country went through a lot of chaos before the Communists took things over and got the country settled down. I've talked to people old enough to have been around a fair bit before the Communists gained control and I've never heard anyone say that they wish things hadn't turned out the way they did.
Well, this is obviously not going well, but I still want to address your points.
I've come to the conclusion that you're not a pilot, you're a horses arse.
I said: Why then do they teach stall recovery and unusual attitudes in a specialized aerobatic course?
You countered with paragraphs about how they teach stall recovery as part of the PPL training. I never said that basic stall recovery wasn't taught as part of the PPL you jackass. You state that I said this though I never did. I said that stall recovery and unusual attitudes were taught in a specialized course. You know perfectly well that there are such specialized courses, and that they go way beyond PPL theory or prac takes you.
Lets see what I actually said vs what you say I said:
- Stall recovery is only taught in specialized aerobatic courses - Unusual attitude recovery is only taught in specialized aerobatic courses
No I said stall recovery and unsual attitudes is taught in specialized aerobatic courses. This is true. Those courses go much further than PPL training.
So what? I'm sure advanced driving courses teach steering. That doesn't mean that it's an advanced or difficult maneuver.
- Light aircraft land at the same speed as the maximum speed limit on a typical highway
I distinctly remember using the word comparable, and this is true for the most common aircraft. It is more usual for an aircraft to land around 60KIAS than it is around 30KIAS, yet you insist on bringing the less common aircraft into it.
I distinctly remember you talking about a C172, landing at 46MPH, and saying that this was somehow comparable to driving on the highway at 65MPH. I distinctly remember discussing how 65MPH gives you twice the kinetic energy and stopping distance, which doesn't make it remotely comparable.
- Typical takeoff angle of attack causes the nose of the aircraft to completely obscure the flight path
No I said that it can obstruct the aircraft's flight path and this is true. I made no mention of the word 'completely'.
Either you can see where you're going or you can't. There's not really any room for partial obscuration.
- Avoiding terrain, avoiding restricted airspace, and maintaining altitude requires constant, twitchy attention similar to avoiding maniac drivers on a highway
No, that's your own little straw man you're creating. I said no such thing. What I did say is that there is terrain to clear and that your implying that there's nothing to avoid most of the time while flying is not true.
Then why did you bring it up? My entire thesis revolves around the idea that flying is slower and more cerebral than driving. If terrain avoidance is a slow game of strategy rather than a rapid-fire tactical game like you find driving on a highway, then this only supports my point.
Then you have the gaul to lecture me about reading a comprehension and mock me about not being up to it. Fuck you and the horse you rode in on. I'm not wasting my time arguing with an arrogant idiot who thinks twisting other people's words and shooting down straw men amounts to proving them wrong. Go fly a kite.
You're the one who twisted my words to "show" that I'm equivalent to some guy whose poor judgement got a bunch of his passengers killed. That's a grave insult and I don't take kindly to that kind of thing. It pisses me off when people can't understand that I'm discussing a hypothetical situation and instead decide that I'm evil because of it.
If the very basic statement that I'm wrong about is that driving requires more raw physical reaction and short-term attention than flying, well I'm sorry but it's simply true. If you still don't believe me, maybe you'll remember this famous quote:
Maybe the way you fucking fly. You're suppose to be maintaining a scan of your primary instruments and you're suppose to be watching out for other traffic. If y
And if you stall it because your engine died on takeoff then you are incompetent, plain and simple. First thing they drill into your head for these things: airspeed, airspeed, airspeed. Keep your speed up. Push that nose down. Keep flying the airplane. An engine failure on takeoff will not cause a low-altitude stall unless you are truly asleep at the wheel.
Ah yes because we're only talking about competent pilots that never make mistakes here.
It's as automatic as steering away from an oncoming concrete abutment. Yes, people screw up and don't recover properly, just like people screw up and run into bridge supports.
And if you stall that 172 you will first have a very loud warning buzzer in your ear, then it will shudder and shake, and then it will stall. And even at this point, a power-on stall properly attended to will not result in much, if any, loss of altitude prior to recovery. This does not take exceptional skill either. It takes no more skill or fast reaction than pushing on your brakes when you see the car ahead of you push on his brakes.
Why then do they teach stall recovery and unusual attitudes in a specialized aerobatic course?
Before you spout off about what's reserved for a "specialized aerobatic course", give a read through the FAA Private Pilot Practical Test Standards. This is the defining document which says what every American private pilot must be capable of, and what maneuvers he is required to be proficient in and demonstrate to an examiner before he can pass his checkride.
On page 1-27 under the heading TASK: POWER-OFF STALLS you will notice that it talks about going through a stall and proper recovery to a stall, "with a minimum loss of altitude appropriate for the airplane". Page 1-28 goes through the same thing for power-on stalls. In other words, nobody in the US becomes a private pilot without knowing how to recover from power-on and power-off stalls in a competent manner and without demonstrating this to an FAA designated examiner.
On page 2-27 you will see a similar section discussing recovery from unusual attitudes, which also must be taught and demonstrated.
All this, and yet somehow you have the gall to call me clueless. Astounding!
So you know some facts about flying, but you don't know about flying. Do you know what it feels like when you accidentally stall an airplane? Have you recovered one after losing a minimum amount of altitude? No, you have not. You may be full of the facts but you don't have the experience to interpret them.
I prove you wrong on some very basic statements you made - these are things that any good pilot should not get wrong, and you come back to "I'm a pilot. I have experience. I know best.".
Please give me a list of very basic statements I made which you have proven wrong. I have not noticed any so far. Perhaps my attention has wandered, and I simply forgot about them.
I'll start out by providing a list in the other directions, of very basic statements you have made which are wrong:
- Stall recovery is only taught in specialized aerobatic courses - Unusual attitude recovery is only taught in specialized aerobatic courses - Light aircraft land at the same speed as the maximum speed limit on a typical highway - Typical takeoff angle of attack causes the nose of the aircraft to completely obscure the flight path - Avoiding terrain, avoiding restricted airspace, and maintaining altitude requires constant, twitchy attention similar to avoiding maniac drivers on a highway - "Anything occurring just below your line of sight is a danger" Well, it baffles me that an experienced pilot would insist that flying an aircraft does not require more care and skill than driving a car. More care? Yes. More skill? No. Flying is mostly mental. The physical skills involved are unrema
If you're really a pilot you should know much better.
A stall at a few thousand feet is trivial to deal with.
A stall at several thousand feet is not the problem. Most unintentional stalls don't happen at altitude, or there would be a lot less danger. When's the most likely time an engine will cut out on you? Just after takeoff.
And if you stall it because your engine died on takeoff then you are incompetent, plain and simple. First thing they drill into your head for these things: airspeed, airspeed, airspeed. Keep your speed up. Push that nose down. Keep flying the airplane. An engine failure on takeoff will not cause a low-altitude stall unless you are truly asleep at the wheel.
First, airspeed control is easy. Most planes cruise at twice their stall speed or more. It's very difficult to inadvertently let your speed drop by that far.
In level flight they cruise at twice their stall speed. Most of the more common passenger aircraft which aren't turbo-charged have Vx (maximum climb) not much greater than Vs1 (stall speed in non-landing config). In a Cessna 172 Vs1 is around 48 KIAS and Vx is just over 60KIAS
And if you stall that 172 you will first have a very loud warning buzzer in your ear, then it will shudder and shake, and then it will stall. And even at this point, a power-on stall properly attended to will not result in much, if any, loss of altitude prior to recovery. This does not take exceptional skill either. It takes no more skill or fast reaction than pushing on your brakes when you see the car ahead of you push on his brakes.
Funny, I could say the same thing about you. Between the two of us, I have an FAA issued pilot certificate as well as a US state government driver's license. How about you?
Stating you have a license and proving you have one are very different matters. I could lie and state that I'm an airline pilot, and you wouldn't know the difference.
So you know some facts about flying, but you don't know about flying. Do you know what it feels like when you accidentally stall an airplane? Have you recovered one after losing a minimum amount of altitude? No, you have not. You may be full of the facts but you don't have the experience to interpret them.
I'm not going to prove I'm a pilot simply because I choose to be anonymous here and I can't think of a good way to prove it without destroying that. But if you can think of something, I'll be happy to oblige.
I have no idea what this is supposed to refer to. By the time you raise the nose, you've had plenty of time to look down the runway. Once you raise the nose, you start to fly. At no point are you blind to your direction of travel.
You say you're a pilot yet your reasoning implies you think the direction you point the nose is where the aircraft is going to be in a few seconds. Your plane doesn't do that and you should know it. You're going to be travellng at some alpha on takeoff and that will continue as you climb out.
Again, you know the facts but you don't have the experience. Your angle of attack ("alpha") is going to be 10-20 degrees at takeoff. Most airfoils stall at around 18 degrees, so it's necessarily going to be less than that angle. In most planes the nose does not stick out so far as to block your vision 18 degrees down, so you can still see where you're going. The only time this isn't true is when flying certain taildraggers where they sit so far back while on the ground that the nose blocks forward vision. But as they take off, they raise the tail and the pilot can see where he's going.
I've done this many times. I've landed unpowered aircraft in winds gusting to 25 knots. It definitely takes some work, but this phase only lasts a couple of minutes. Compare this to driv
That's nonsensical. You use transportation to get somewhere. The distance to your destination is the same no matter what mode of transportation you use. (Minus things like having to follow rodes as opposed to being able to fly direct, but this doesn't make for a great change.) If a plane can go ten times faster than a car then you can spend ten times fewer hours inside the plane to accomplish the same travel, thus the proper measurement is per mile, not per time.
And the alcoholic supposedly has the ability to just stop drinking. And yet, for many alcoholics this is extremely difficult and takes a very long time to accomplish, if they ever manage to do it at all. So it is with democratic countries doing the right thing.
Of course this shouldn't apply just to democratic countries. In a totalitarian country, "all" the populace has to do is rise up as one and overthrow their tyrannous rulers.
There's a major difference between flying a plane and driving a car: a fast moving car is always one or two seconds away from utter disaster, whereas a plane nearly always gives its pilot much more time to react.
If you're suggesting that flying an aircraft is easier than driving a car, you know nothing about flying. Stall your plane and unless you're a few thousand feet high, good luck with that time to react theory.
Are you a pilot? I am. From what you've written it seems apparent that you are not, because you are clueless. But never fear, this can be remedied!
A stall at a few thousand feet is trivial to deal with. A stall results when you ask the plane for more lift than it can give at a certain speed. You deal with it by unloading the plane (asking for less lift) and by going faster. Both are done with the same maneuver, by pushing the nose down. Your stall breaks, you start flying again, and you recover. Easiest thing in the world. Any advanced student pilot should be able to recover a stalling aircraft with at most a few hundred feet of lost altitude. I've done numerous stalls in aircraft under my control, including some done accidentally, and none of them have ever been the least bit worrisome.
Think about driving on the highway. You're driving along at 75MPH at a minimal safe distance from the guy in front of you. He slams on his brakes. You have at best perhaps three or four seconds to slam on yours, and that's assuming that your minimal safe distance is larger than is typical and that your braking system is at least as powerful as his. There are many other situations when driving a car where you only have a second or two to react. A small twitch of the steering wheel can send your car straight into a concrete pillar.
Think about flying a plane. You're traveling much faster. If you allow your airspeed to stall, your plane falls out of the sky.
First, airspeed control is easy. Most planes cruise at twice their stall speed or more. It's very difficult to inadvertently let your speed drop by that far. Even when you're closer to the stall speed, speed control is just not that hard. And even if you do stall inadvertently, you don't "fall out of the sky", you start to sink. Then you recover.
Often you have to be careful if you want to have visibility in the direction you're travelling. Think about raising the nose during takeoff.
I have no idea what this is supposed to refer to. By the time you raise the nose, you've had plenty of time to look down the runway. Once you raise the nose, you start to fly. At no point are you blind to your direction of travel.
If you think that staying in your lane is hard, try lining up a plane with the runway and a crosswind blowing.
I've done this many times. I've landed unpowered aircraft in winds gusting to 25 knots. It definitely takes some work, but this phase only lasts a couple of minutes. Compare this to driving a car, where a twitch of your steering wheel can mean instant death at nearly any time.
If you're worried about collisions consider that unless you're doing exactly the right thing and both you and the flight controller are on the ball you won't have 4 seconds to react since the plane that hits you will have done so before you know what hit you.
Generally you'll either have ample time to react to a collision threat or you'll have insufficient time. A threat which is recognized in time for you to react but which gives you only seconds to execute the proper maneuver is exceedingly rare. Compare this to driving, where it happens constantly.
Flying, on the other hand, is much slower and more cerebral. There are very few events which require immediate reactions.
It is very VERY clear you don't know what you're talking about.
Funny, I could say the same thing about you. Between the two of us, I have an FAA issued pilot certificate as well as a US state government d
Can you seriously not see the connection between a classic piece of popular music from the year of NASA's greatest triumph and a documentary about NASA? Or are you deliberately ignoring it to make some kind of incomprehensible point?
There's a major difference between flying a plane and driving a car: a fast moving car is always one or two seconds away from utter disaster, whereas a plane nearly always gives its pilot much more time to react.
Think about driving on the highway. You're driving along at 75MPH at a minimal safe distance from the guy in front of you. He slams on his brakes. You have at best perhaps three or four seconds to slam on yours, and that's assuming that your minimal safe distance is larger than is typical and that your braking system is at least as powerful as his. There are many other situations when driving a car where you only have a second or two to react. A small twitch of the steering wheel can send your car straight into a concrete pillar.
Flying, on the other hand, is much slower and more cerebral. There are very few events which require immediate reactions. An engine failure on takeoff comes to mind, and other major mechanical failures, as well as suddenly spotting someone nearby on a collision course. But these are all extremely rare events. For most of the trip on most flights, nothing happens which the pilot can't stop and think about for ten seconds first. For the phases of the flight which are really critical in this respect, such as takeoff and landing, the FAA enforces a sterile cockpit rule which basically says that all non-essential communications should be avoided, precisely because of this problem.
Ultimately I don't think pilots deal with this particularly better than drivers do. It's just that if a pilot is distracted for five seconds it basically never matters, whereas a driver being distracted for five seconds is likely to kill a whole bunch of people.
One thing that pilots do better and are trained to do better is to actively eliminate distractions. If you ever fly in a small plane, try asking the pilot a bunch of inane questions during some important task, such as landing. If he's any good, he'll tell you to be quiet and ask him again on the ground. If this attitude carries over to driving then he will be a safer driver, not because he can deal with distractions but because he can prioritize and is willing to stop them when he's in a position where he can't deal with them.
And yes, I am a pilot. One of the things I love about flying is how it doesn't demand that twitchy reflexive on-top-of-my-game attitude that safe driving requires.
Hypocrisy is ugly, just like hate and small-mindedness and stupidity and inflated self importance and all the other flaws which every human has in spades. Hypocrisy doesn't necessarily mean that the person doesn't believe what he's saying. It can simply mean that he believes it but lacks the ability to carry it out. There's nothing bad about an alcoholic telling you about the evils of alcohol, or a compulsive gambler telling you to stay out of casinos and manage your money well. On the contrary, their advice is coming from deep, painful experience which makes it all the more worthwhile.
So let's examine our own flaws and the flaws of others, so that we may both greater understand the world and improve it.
But of course this doesn't mean that you have to combine them both in the same discussion, and it especially doesn't mean that you should shut down any discussion of other countries' flaws whenever your own country shares similar flaws.
Regardless of its actual merits, it has a reputation as being a meat used only for cost cutting when the buyer is not the person who will be eating it. Try shipping horse meat MREs to Iraq and watch yourself get washed away by a tide of ill will.
If that was his point then it was a poor one, because it has absolutely nothing to do with the story in question. It was not presented as, "Think of the troops, they're putting their lives on the line for you!" It was presented as "Here's about a million potential customers with a lot of time and money on their hands, all in the prime gaming demographic, who will not be purchasing your game if you follow through with this dumb-ass move. Not everybody has a 24x7 broadband internet connection, you know, and it just happens that a big chunk of the US Army doesn't."
When on the road there is only one thing that is important and that is safety. Bullshit. If safety is the only important thing, then everyone should be leaving their cars at home and walking. It'll take you forever to get where you're going, but you'll be a lot safer!
Yes, laptops. And it's not military issue hardware. Soldiers are allowed personal possessions. A lot of soldiers these days choose to bring their own computer to give them some entertainment in their off hours. In this respect they're little different than you or I, except that their housing is provided by their employer and often doesn't come with net access, or with extremely limited access.
Um, what? Nobody is comparing it to trench foot or freezing in the winter because you're stuck outdoors and people are shooting at you. However there is a large class of people who go without internet connections for long periods of time, and that class of people doesn't appreciate this kind of DRM scheme. It says nothing about other bad things they may experience.
Your argument could be used to justify almost any bad treatment.
"Sarge, this stew tastes like horse meat!"
"Shut up and eat your stew, Private. Just be glad you don't have trench foot!"
Or, what the hell, I guess I shouldn't ever complain about anything, because some of my ancestors had to live through famines.
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Anyone who posts to this story saying that this is no big deal or telling other people to stop whining should simply be banned from Slashdot for life. If you cannot be bothered to read the article and you cannot be bothered to understand just what a serious vulnerability this is but you insist on insulting those who do, why should you be allowed to continue to post your ignorant bleating?
Taiwan is obviously a de facto sovereign state. Beijing only exerts influence over Taiwain in the same way that they exert influence over any other country, i.e. by diplomacy, trade, and warfare. Thus the nutbars in the PRC government which insist that Taiwain is part of their country are just as deluded as anyone who claims that a border exists between Tibet and China.
How ironic, given that there really is no border. Tibet is not an occupied country, it was conquered and annexed. Thus, no border. Anyone who insists there is a border is the one suffering from a 1984-like denial of reality.
Why not? Plenty of "normal" aircraft, such as most models of the Cessna 172, are fully certified for spins. It's not a particularly difficult or stressful maneuver. It was taught as part of the basic private pilot cirriculum for decades until the FAA decided to switch to "spin awareness" instead of real spins as part of a misguided attempt at safety.
Of course, now you not only know better than me, you know better than the FAA.
Am I not entitled to have my own opinion? Yes, I think the FAA made a bad decision here. In fact I think most aspects of government get most things wrong most of the time.
I'd really like to know what you've read or done which causes you to have this opinion, because it doesn't square with reality at all.
Mostly documentation about spin recovery no longer being done as part of the PPL for safety reasons. Exactly what you've dismissed above.
Are you aware that stalls and spins aren't the same maneuver, and aren't even similar aside from the fact that you start a spin by doing a stall? Whether the typical course of training involves spins has no bearing on the safety or unusualness of stalls.
We were talking about visibility problems caused by the nose of the airplane, remember? You don't get hazy, foggy, or partially transparent aircraft noses. All this business about weather is totally off the subject and you're once again distorting my words.
We were talking about visibility. Your words were that you either can see something or you can't. You didn't qualify it in any way. Perhaps you had limited the discussion in order to exaggerate and attack what I was saying. I had not. I certainly didn't distort your words. You're the one adding words like 'completely' when I said that the nose could limit visibility. You didn't even bother trying to understand what I was saying. You were too busy attacking what you thought I'd said.
I can't help you if you can't follow the context.
"Obstacles"? As in fixed objects that sit on the ground? If you're constantly on the lookout for those while flying at altitude then you're just silly. A constant lookout for other traffic is of course necessary, and if you're flying nap-of-the-earth then watching for radio towers and such is e very good idea, but a distraction of a few seconds is extremely unlikely to make any difference on this.
That seems to be how you operate. Reductio ad absurdum. Is it too hard to actually counter what I'm saying instead of purposefully misinterpretting and then trying to make me sound ridiculous.
See the question marks up there? I didn't know what you were referring to, so I asked you. Odd that you chose to attack me rather than answer.
Thanks for the lesson. Now in the middle of this, close your eyes for three seconds. What happens? Approximately nothing. Now do the same thing on the highway. Decent odds you'll come out of it with at least a wrecked vehicle.
Is that why I've seen my cabbies holding a clipboard and flipping through it -not that I'm happy about it, but they've gone through a list of things or written down phone numbers while talking on the mobile or cab radio and while doing 100km/hr down the freeway. All without hitting a damn thing.
Whether you're in a car or a plane it depends entirely on the conditions at the time. Of course closing your eyes for 3 seconds with the autopilot on won't kill you in a plane at 6000ft with no traffic about. Try doing it on short final and you'll become a statistic. Same with driving on a freeway. Open road, little traffic, not as safe as at altitude but it can be done. If you're doing it for kicks or in peak hour you're an idiot. Close your eyes in dense traffic over an airport and likewise I'd call you an idiot, even with the greater separation.
Your cabbies are being exceedingly dangerous. They can still get away with it most of the time but they're increasing their risk subst
So what? I'm sure advanced driving courses teach steering. That doesn't mean that it's an advanced or difficult maneuver.
It certainly implies it's more intricate an area than could be dismissed as being simple. Advanced steering is about difficult conditions - snow/ice, loose surface, extreme speed, aqua-planing etc. I wouldn't want to take my car into such conditions on purpose without having had such training. I wouldn't want to be using the wrong kind of vehicle either. Likewise I wouldn't want to be doing spins in a non-aerobatic aircraft.
Why not? Plenty of "normal" aircraft, such as most models of the Cessna 172, are fully certified for spins. It's not a particularly difficult or stressful maneuver. It was taught as part of the basic private pilot cirriculum for decades until the FAA decided to switch to "spin awareness" instead of real spins as part of a misguided attempt at safety.
A simple stall might be easy to recover in most docile civilian aircraft - again I didn't deny that - however you have to have some respect for it and you don't stall intentionally or dismiss it as some kind of simple or trivial maneuver. I wouldn't be stalling the aircraft just for kicks or treating an unintentional stall as no big deal.
I'd really like to know what you've read or done which causes you to have this opinion, because it doesn't square with reality at all.
I first performed a stall on my second instructional flight. This was of course part of training, but it was completely intentional. I did many more during the course of my instruction.
Beyond that, the first thing I do when trying a new aircraft, after I take off and get to a safe altitude, is stall it. Why? Because every aircraft stalls differently, and I want to know how this model does it. Every aircraft gives you signs before it fully stalls and I want to know what they are so that I can recognize them when I do it inadvertently. Doing stalls is also a good practice maneuver to keep up proficiency.
Certainly I'm not going to be performing a stall at an unsafe altitude, and I always clear the area of traffic first, but it's a perfectly routine maneuver.
As for unintentional stalls, if you looked up the list of aircraft I've flown you'll notice that a lot of them are gliders. Gliders experience unintentional stalls quite often. Optimal thermalling technique requires flying just above stall speed, which can easily turn into a real stall due to a sudden gust, and thermals are almost always gusty. It's no big deal when it happens, you just recover and keep flying. When thermalling at low altitude over the ground, a safety margin is added by flying faster and sacrificing efficiency, but done at altitude an unintentional stall really is no big deal.
Either you can see where you're going or you can't. There's not really any room for partial obscuration.
Now this is one of the stupidest things a pilot could possibly say!!! There's an entire terminology for describing meteorological conditions and visibility. Ever heard of VFR vs IFR? There are rules as to how much visibility you need to have before you're allowed to fly VFR.
We were talking about visibility problems caused by the nose of the airplane, remember? You don't get hazy, foggy, or partially transparent aircraft noses. All this business about weather is totally off the subject and you're once again distorting my words.
Then why did you bring it up? My entire thesis revolves around the idea that flying is slower and more cerebral than driving. If terrain avoidance is a slow game of strategy rather than a rapid-fire tactical game like you find driving on a highway, then this only supports my point
Flying requires constant attention. The fact that you're less likely to hit anything at any given moment and that it can become boring makes it all the more potentially deadly. If you're not on constant lookout for obstacles, you're not a goo
I dunno, the Chinese government doesn't strike me as being particularly socially responsible. They may do their best to maintain order and stop various "vices", but their environmental record totally stinks. That they apparently couldn't give a rat's ass about Beijing's polluted air for so long, and then suddenly decided that It Must All Be Cleaned Up right when a horde of foreigners are about to descend upon the city doesn't speak well for them at all. For whatever reason, they seem to be more concerned with looking good than doing good.
Convincing the people that the government is the only thing standing between them and chaos is a classic tactic of totalitarian governments. (Now think about what the American government is currently doing....)
However, given China's recent history, I'm not even sure they're wrong. The country went through a lot of chaos before the Communists took things over and got the country settled down. I've talked to people old enough to have been around a fair bit before the Communists gained control and I've never heard anyone say that they wish things hadn't turned out the way they did.
I've come to the conclusion that you're not a pilot, you're a horses arse.
I said:
Why then do they teach stall recovery and unusual attitudes in a specialized aerobatic course?
You countered with paragraphs about how they teach stall recovery as part of the PPL training. I never said that basic stall recovery wasn't taught as part of the PPL you jackass. You state that I said this though I never did. I said that stall recovery and unusual attitudes were taught in a specialized course. You know perfectly well that there are such specialized courses, and that they go way beyond PPL theory or prac takes you.
Lets see what I actually said vs what you say I said:
- Stall recovery is only taught in specialized aerobatic courses
- Unusual attitude recovery is only taught in specialized aerobatic courses
No I said stall recovery and unsual attitudes is taught in specialized aerobatic courses. This is true. Those courses go much further than PPL training.
So what? I'm sure advanced driving courses teach steering. That doesn't mean that it's an advanced or difficult maneuver.
- Light aircraft land at the same speed as the maximum speed limit on a typical highway
I distinctly remember using the word comparable, and this is true for the most common aircraft. It is more usual for an aircraft to land around 60KIAS than it is around 30KIAS, yet you insist on bringing the less common aircraft into it.
I distinctly remember you talking about a C172, landing at 46MPH, and saying that this was somehow comparable to driving on the highway at 65MPH. I distinctly remember discussing how 65MPH gives you twice the kinetic energy and stopping distance, which doesn't make it remotely comparable.
- Typical takeoff angle of attack causes the nose of the aircraft to completely obscure the flight path
No I said that it can obstruct the aircraft's flight path and this is true. I made no mention of the word 'completely'.
Either you can see where you're going or you can't. There's not really any room for partial obscuration.
- Avoiding terrain, avoiding restricted airspace, and maintaining altitude requires constant, twitchy attention similar to avoiding maniac drivers on a highway
No, that's your own little straw man you're creating. I said no such thing. What I did say is that there is terrain to clear and that your implying that there's nothing to avoid most of the time while flying is not true.
Then why did you bring it up? My entire thesis revolves around the idea that flying is slower and more cerebral than driving. If terrain avoidance is a slow game of strategy rather than a rapid-fire tactical game like you find driving on a highway, then this only supports my point.
Then you have the gaul to lecture me about reading a comprehension and mock me about not being up to it. Fuck you and the horse you rode in on. I'm not wasting my time arguing with an arrogant idiot who thinks twisting other people's words and shooting down straw men amounts to proving them wrong. Go fly a kite.
You're the one who twisted my words to "show" that I'm equivalent to some guy whose poor judgement got a bunch of his passengers killed. That's a grave insult and I don't take kindly to that kind of thing. It pisses me off when people can't understand that I'm discussing a hypothetical situation and instead decide that I'm evil because of it.
If the very basic statement that I'm wrong about is that driving requires more raw physical reaction and short-term attention than flying, well I'm sorry but it's simply true. If you still don't believe me, maybe you'll remember this famous quote:
Maybe the way you fucking fly. You're suppose to be maintaining a scan of your primary instruments and you're suppose to be watching out for other traffic. If y
I dunno, the little girl hoisting the shotgun over her head and saying "This is my boomstick!" was pretty awesome.
And if you stall it because your engine died on takeoff then you are incompetent, plain and simple. First thing they drill into your head for these things: airspeed, airspeed, airspeed. Keep your speed up. Push that nose down. Keep flying the airplane. An engine failure on takeoff will not cause a low-altitude stall unless you are truly asleep at the wheel.
Ah yes because we're only talking about competent pilots that never make mistakes here.
It's as automatic as steering away from an oncoming concrete abutment. Yes, people screw up and don't recover properly, just like people screw up and run into bridge supports.
And if you stall that 172 you will first have a very loud warning buzzer in your ear, then it will shudder and shake, and then it will stall. And even at this point, a power-on stall properly attended to will not result in much, if any, loss of altitude prior to recovery. This does not take exceptional skill either. It takes no more skill or fast reaction than pushing on your brakes when you see the car ahead of you push on his brakes.
Why then do they teach stall recovery and unusual attitudes in a specialized aerobatic course?
Before you spout off about what's reserved for a "specialized aerobatic course", give a read through the FAA Private Pilot Practical Test Standards. This is the defining document which says what every American private pilot must be capable of, and what maneuvers he is required to be proficient in and demonstrate to an examiner before he can pass his checkride.
On page 1-27 under the heading TASK: POWER-OFF STALLS you will notice that it talks about going through a stall and proper recovery to a stall, "with a minimum loss of altitude appropriate for the airplane". Page 1-28 goes through the same thing for power-on stalls. In other words, nobody in the US becomes a private pilot without knowing how to recover from power-on and power-off stalls in a competent manner and without demonstrating this to an FAA designated examiner.
On page 2-27 you will see a similar section discussing recovery from unusual attitudes, which also must be taught and demonstrated.
All this, and yet somehow you have the gall to call me clueless. Astounding!
So you know some facts about flying, but you don't know about flying. Do you know what it feels like when you accidentally stall an airplane? Have you recovered one after losing a minimum amount of altitude? No, you have not. You may be full of the facts but you don't have the experience to interpret them.
I prove you wrong on some very basic statements you made - these are things that any good pilot should not get wrong, and you come back to "I'm a pilot. I have experience. I know best.".
Please give me a list of very basic statements I made which you have proven wrong. I have not noticed any so far. Perhaps my attention has wandered, and I simply forgot about them.
I'll start out by providing a list in the other directions, of very basic statements you have made which are wrong:
- Stall recovery is only taught in specialized aerobatic courses
- Unusual attitude recovery is only taught in specialized aerobatic courses
- Light aircraft land at the same speed as the maximum speed limit on a typical highway
- Typical takeoff angle of attack causes the nose of the aircraft to completely obscure the flight path
- Avoiding terrain, avoiding restricted airspace, and maintaining altitude requires constant, twitchy attention similar to avoiding maniac drivers on a highway
- "Anything occurring just below your line of sight is a danger" Well, it baffles me that an experienced pilot would insist that flying an aircraft does not require more care and skill than driving a car. More care? Yes. More skill? No. Flying is mostly mental. The physical skills involved are unrema
If you're really a pilot you should know much better.
A stall at a few thousand feet is trivial to deal with.
A stall at several thousand feet is not the problem. Most unintentional stalls don't happen at altitude, or there would be a lot less danger. When's the most likely time an engine will cut out on you? Just after takeoff.
And if you stall it because your engine died on takeoff then you are incompetent, plain and simple. First thing they drill into your head for these things: airspeed, airspeed, airspeed. Keep your speed up. Push that nose down. Keep flying the airplane. An engine failure on takeoff will not cause a low-altitude stall unless you are truly asleep at the wheel.
First, airspeed control is easy. Most planes cruise at twice their stall speed or more. It's very difficult to inadvertently let your speed drop by that far.
In level flight they cruise at twice their stall speed. Most of the more common passenger aircraft which aren't turbo-charged have Vx (maximum climb) not much greater than Vs1 (stall speed in non-landing config). In a Cessna 172 Vs1 is around 48 KIAS and Vx is just over 60KIAS
And if you stall that 172 you will first have a very loud warning buzzer in your ear, then it will shudder and shake, and then it will stall. And even at this point, a power-on stall properly attended to will not result in much, if any, loss of altitude prior to recovery. This does not take exceptional skill either. It takes no more skill or fast reaction than pushing on your brakes when you see the car ahead of you push on his brakes.
Funny, I could say the same thing about you. Between the two of us, I have an FAA issued pilot certificate as well as a US state government driver's license. How about you?
Stating you have a license and proving you have one are very different matters. I could lie and state that I'm an airline pilot, and you wouldn't know the difference.
Source:
http://www.westernshoreaviation.com/Cessna%20172%20Checkout.pdf
So you know some facts about flying, but you don't know about flying. Do you know what it feels like when you accidentally stall an airplane? Have you recovered one after losing a minimum amount of altitude? No, you have not. You may be full of the facts but you don't have the experience to interpret them.
I'm not going to prove I'm a pilot simply because I choose to be anonymous here and I can't think of a good way to prove it without destroying that. But if you can think of something, I'll be happy to oblige.
I have no idea what this is supposed to refer to. By the time you raise the nose, you've had plenty of time to look down the runway. Once you raise the nose, you start to fly. At no point are you blind to your direction of travel.
You say you're a pilot yet your reasoning implies you think the direction you point the nose is where the aircraft is going to be in a few seconds. Your plane doesn't do that and you should know it. You're going to be travellng at some alpha on takeoff and that will continue as you climb out.
Again, you know the facts but you don't have the experience. Your angle of attack ("alpha") is going to be 10-20 degrees at takeoff. Most airfoils stall at around 18 degrees, so it's necessarily going to be less than that angle. In most planes the nose does not stick out so far as to block your vision 18 degrees down, so you can still see where you're going. The only time this isn't true is when flying certain taildraggers where they sit so far back while on the ground that the nose blocks forward vision. But as they take off, they raise the tail and the pilot can see where he's going.
I've done this many times. I've landed unpowered aircraft in winds gusting to 25 knots. It definitely takes some work, but this phase only lasts a couple of minutes. Compare this to driv
That's nonsensical. You use transportation to get somewhere. The distance to your destination is the same no matter what mode of transportation you use. (Minus things like having to follow rodes as opposed to being able to fly direct, but this doesn't make for a great change.) If a plane can go ten times faster than a car then you can spend ten times fewer hours inside the plane to accomplish the same travel, thus the proper measurement is per mile, not per time.
And the alcoholic supposedly has the ability to just stop drinking. And yet, for many alcoholics this is extremely difficult and takes a very long time to accomplish, if they ever manage to do it at all. So it is with democratic countries doing the right thing.
Of course this shouldn't apply just to democratic countries. In a totalitarian country, "all" the populace has to do is rise up as one and overthrow their tyrannous rulers.
There's a major difference between flying a plane and driving a car: a fast moving car is always one or two seconds away from utter disaster, whereas a plane nearly always gives its pilot much more time to react.
If you're suggesting that flying an aircraft is easier than driving a car, you know nothing about flying. Stall your plane and unless you're a few thousand feet high, good luck with that time to react theory.
Are you a pilot? I am. From what you've written it seems apparent that you are not, because you are clueless. But never fear, this can be remedied!
A stall at a few thousand feet is trivial to deal with. A stall results when you ask the plane for more lift than it can give at a certain speed. You deal with it by unloading the plane (asking for less lift) and by going faster. Both are done with the same maneuver, by pushing the nose down. Your stall breaks, you start flying again, and you recover. Easiest thing in the world. Any advanced student pilot should be able to recover a stalling aircraft with at most a few hundred feet of lost altitude. I've done numerous stalls in aircraft under my control, including some done accidentally, and none of them have ever been the least bit worrisome.
Think about driving on the highway. You're driving along at 75MPH at a minimal safe distance from the guy in front of you. He slams on his brakes. You have at best perhaps three or four seconds to slam on yours, and that's assuming that your minimal safe distance is larger than is typical and that your braking system is at least as powerful as his. There are many other situations when driving a car where you only have a second or two to react. A small twitch of the steering wheel can send your car straight into a concrete pillar.
Think about flying a plane. You're traveling much faster. If you allow your airspeed to stall, your plane falls out of the sky.
First, airspeed control is easy. Most planes cruise at twice their stall speed or more. It's very difficult to inadvertently let your speed drop by that far. Even when you're closer to the stall speed, speed control is just not that hard. And even if you do stall inadvertently, you don't "fall out of the sky", you start to sink. Then you recover.
Often you have to be careful if you want to have visibility in the direction you're travelling. Think about raising the nose during takeoff.
I have no idea what this is supposed to refer to. By the time you raise the nose, you've had plenty of time to look down the runway. Once you raise the nose, you start to fly. At no point are you blind to your direction of travel.
If you think that staying in your lane is hard, try lining up a plane with the runway and a crosswind blowing.
I've done this many times. I've landed unpowered aircraft in winds gusting to 25 knots. It definitely takes some work, but this phase only lasts a couple of minutes. Compare this to driving a car, where a twitch of your steering wheel can mean instant death at nearly any time.
If you're worried about collisions consider that unless you're doing exactly the right thing and both you and the flight controller are on the ball you won't have 4 seconds to react since the plane that hits you will have done so before you know what hit you.
Generally you'll either have ample time to react to a collision threat or you'll have insufficient time. A threat which is recognized in time for you to react but which gives you only seconds to execute the proper maneuver is exceedingly rare. Compare this to driving, where it happens constantly.
Flying, on the other hand, is much slower and more cerebral. There are very few events which require immediate reactions.
It is very VERY clear you don't know what you're talking about.
Funny, I could say the same thing about you. Between the two of us, I have an FAA issued pilot certificate as well as a US state government d
Can you seriously not see the connection between a classic piece of popular music from the year of NASA's greatest triumph and a documentary about NASA? Or are you deliberately ignoring it to make some kind of incomprehensible point?
If you want intuitive, use the Grab application. Keyboard shortcuts are for power users, and are not meant to be intuitive.
There's a major difference between flying a plane and driving a car: a fast moving car is always one or two seconds away from utter disaster, whereas a plane nearly always gives its pilot much more time to react.
Think about driving on the highway. You're driving along at 75MPH at a minimal safe distance from the guy in front of you. He slams on his brakes. You have at best perhaps three or four seconds to slam on yours, and that's assuming that your minimal safe distance is larger than is typical and that your braking system is at least as powerful as his. There are many other situations when driving a car where you only have a second or two to react. A small twitch of the steering wheel can send your car straight into a concrete pillar.
Flying, on the other hand, is much slower and more cerebral. There are very few events which require immediate reactions. An engine failure on takeoff comes to mind, and other major mechanical failures, as well as suddenly spotting someone nearby on a collision course. But these are all extremely rare events. For most of the trip on most flights, nothing happens which the pilot can't stop and think about for ten seconds first. For the phases of the flight which are really critical in this respect, such as takeoff and landing, the FAA enforces a sterile cockpit rule which basically says that all non-essential communications should be avoided, precisely because of this problem.
Ultimately I don't think pilots deal with this particularly better than drivers do. It's just that if a pilot is distracted for five seconds it basically never matters, whereas a driver being distracted for five seconds is likely to kill a whole bunch of people.
One thing that pilots do better and are trained to do better is to actively eliminate distractions. If you ever fly in a small plane, try asking the pilot a bunch of inane questions during some important task, such as landing. If he's any good, he'll tell you to be quiet and ask him again on the ground. If this attitude carries over to driving then he will be a safer driver, not because he can deal with distractions but because he can prioritize and is willing to stop them when he's in a position where he can't deal with them.
And yes, I am a pilot. One of the things I love about flying is how it doesn't demand that twitchy reflexive on-top-of-my-game attitude that safe driving requires.
I'd rather do both.
Hypocrisy is ugly, just like hate and small-mindedness and stupidity and inflated self importance and all the other flaws which every human has in spades. Hypocrisy doesn't necessarily mean that the person doesn't believe what he's saying. It can simply mean that he believes it but lacks the ability to carry it out. There's nothing bad about an alcoholic telling you about the evils of alcohol, or a compulsive gambler telling you to stay out of casinos and manage your money well. On the contrary, their advice is coming from deep, painful experience which makes it all the more worthwhile.
So let's examine our own flaws and the flaws of others, so that we may both greater understand the world and improve it.
But of course this doesn't mean that you have to combine them both in the same discussion, and it especially doesn't mean that you should shut down any discussion of other countries' flaws whenever your own country shares similar flaws.
Regardless of its actual merits, it has a reputation as being a meat used only for cost cutting when the buyer is not the person who will be eating it. Try shipping horse meat MREs to Iraq and watch yourself get washed away by a tide of ill will.
If that was his point then it was a poor one, because it has absolutely nothing to do with the story in question. It was not presented as, "Think of the troops, they're putting their lives on the line for you!" It was presented as "Here's about a million potential customers with a lot of time and money on their hands, all in the prime gaming demographic, who will not be purchasing your game if you follow through with this dumb-ass move. Not everybody has a 24x7 broadband internet connection, you know, and it just happens that a big chunk of the US Army doesn't."
Yes, laptops. And it's not military issue hardware. Soldiers are allowed personal possessions. A lot of soldiers these days choose to bring their own computer to give them some entertainment in their off hours. In this respect they're little different than you or I, except that their housing is provided by their employer and often doesn't come with net access, or with extremely limited access.
Um, what? Nobody is comparing it to trench foot or freezing in the winter because you're stuck outdoors and people are shooting at you. However there is a large class of people who go without internet connections for long periods of time, and that class of people doesn't appreciate this kind of DRM scheme. It says nothing about other bad things they may experience.
Your argument could be used to justify almost any bad treatment.
"Sarge, this stew tastes like horse meat!"
"Shut up and eat your stew, Private. Just be glad you don't have trench foot!"
Or, what the hell, I guess I shouldn't ever complain about anything, because some of my ancestors had to live through famines.
What bullshit. A good programmer's ability to produce good code is directly proportional to the language's ability to free him from tedium.