What we are doing now is compressing our data (digital visual and infrared images) using JPEG200 at 10:1, concatenating them in a file and, using Iridium at 2,400 bps, downloading to our ftp server. We hope that this is a stopgap measure but the antenna we could use isn't available yet for our aircraft and will cost around $250K! The antenna in the window requires that the aircraft be oriented normal to the satellite's azimuth. That antenna has not been approved by the FAA yet but probably will be. The approved version will probably be mounted externally. I expect it will cost over $20K.
Incidentally I get 500 minutes on Iridium at 30 cents a minute and all over that at 10 cents a minute. Not bad.
GPS is a passive device, it doesn't transmit to the satellite (in spite of a contrary assertion in a novel co-authored by Arthur C. Clarke) so that shouldn't be a problem. Of course your fix won't be very good since the device can't see many satellites and then they won't be in a favorable configuration. Unless you are in the cockpit and can place the antenna on the dash, that is.
I need a way to "beam" data to the ground and while looking for methods was told that the FAA rule on "wireless devices" is that they can only be turned on when an aircraft is on the tarmac and the door is open and only if local regulations allow it.
Over the years we have had a pilot who would use his cell phone from the cockpit, crew who used transceivers and NASA folks who mounted a flat panel satellite antenna in a window. (I've put a stop to all that!) Never has any of the navigation equipment been affected and that includes our two GPS receivers.
IMHO the devices should be turned of for landing and takeoff just in case. Now that wireless devices are becoming ubiquitous I expect that they may all be banned from being carried on since there is no practical way to check that they are turned on. Of course the backlash may be strong enough to force good studies to be made...
Wrong, CD players (in computers) are often used to load programs and data. I buy hundreds of CD blanks (and now DVD) to archive and distribute code and data. Why should I pay a copywrite tax on that?
I thought that the anchor needed to be on the equator and Perth is aoubt 36 degrees south. I would imagine that there would be really large lateral forces on the anchor and suspect that the cable would be curved.
Does anyone know how the taxes will be collected? That is, who pays them and how will that be enforced? It's reasonable that the state in which the delivery is made should get the sales tax but how is payment enforced? How does Arizona, for instance, know that something was shipped from a distribution center in California to an address in Arizona? What if the shipment is from another country? What's to prevent a company from collecting taxes and not distributing them? It looks like a nightmare of trouble to me.
The USS Mt. Hood (AE 11) blew up in November of 1944 with great loss of life to her crew (all aboard will killed) and the crew of surrounding ships. Eyewitness accounts describe a fireball that rose to 7,000 feet.
I served on an ammunition ship home ported at Port Chicago in 1962-63 and talked to two survivors of the explosion. One was in the wheelhouse of a ship in the channel and the other in a car driving away from the docks. Neither thought that it was a nuclear explosion and neither suffered radiation or thermal burns that might be expected.
In the complete absence of the fingerprints of a nuclear detonation such as residual radiation, really intense heat, and a really intense shockwave coupled with survivors who were only a few hundred meters away who didn't have radiation burns, etc. it's a no-brainer to conclude there is nothing to the book.
Also, if a device were being tested why would they deliberately confound the effects of the device with the other explosives present?
With your qualifications you might be able to negotiate a good position in the military that takes you overseas. You might be able to lock in a posting to an aircraft carrier, for instance.
USAID also wants folks with languages and they always travel.
I understand that Iraq and North Korea need technical skills, too.
This will all be moot if laptops and PDAs are banned from filghts by the FAA because of ultra wideband wireless interference with GPS and other avionics systems. Since the flight crew can't tell if a computer or PDA is using ultra wideband wireless all may be banned.
Re:Affordable flight exists, if you aren't greedy
on
The Coming Air Age
·
· Score: 1
Thanks for your response. I manage a aircraft used for research about wildfire and in the last two years have had ADs that required inspection within 30 to 50 hours. We just got a notice from Piper that requires maintenance and replacement of part of the elevator assembly - $5,000. I received one a few weeks ago that required engine replacement - but fortunately not for my engines' serial numbers. Aircraft are much more expensive to operate than boats and I thought they were bad!
My point is that there is a lot of detail and paperwork required in aircraft ownership and most people just are not up to it. You can't treat an aircraft like an automobile.
Re:Affordable personal flight is still just a drea
on
The Coming Air Age
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
You are absolutely correct but left out a few items.
1. The FAA also mandates inspections by FAA certified aircraft mechanics each year at the maximum or after so many hours of flight. If you miss an inspection the aircraft is forbidden to fly as it is not airworthy. The inspections can take some time and any defects found must be corrected before the craft can fly. A Piper Navajo inspection costs upwards of $2,500 and the aircraft may be out of service for some time. A side effect of this requirement, if there is to be a people's aircraft is that LOTS of certified aircraft mechanics would be required. 2. Detailed logs must be kept of each flight, each repair, and each add-on. If the logs are not correct, spanning the whole life of the aircraft, it is not airworthy. 3. The manufacturer and FAA provide notices of problems that sometimes require inspections, repairs, and replacement. The repairs must be complied with. You are not allowed to fly around with defects. 4. Avionics are expensive to purchase, install, and maintain. The last time I checked three or four years ago a collision avoidance system cost $25,000. This would tend to put the price of the aircraft out of reach of most folks. 5. It's hard to imagine a failsafe aircraft so I suppose some training including simulator training and certification will be required - probably with some sort of yearly medical inspection. If there is a problem and the aircraft needs to be auto-rotated it still has to be guided to a safe landing.
All in all, I think that the typical person is not well suited to this degree of complexity, care, and expense and it won't happen any time soon.
Conspicuously absent is a discussion about the source of hydrogen. It's true that hydrogen is a really common element but it's tied up in compounds such as water and it takes a lot of energy to split it off. The best way today is to use petroleum and it might be a more efficient use of petroleum than to convert it to gasoline and then burn it in our vehicles, maybe. And that still releases CO2 to the atmosphere. The same holds true for methanol, corn oil, etc.
Hydroelectric power could be used. After all there is always a source of water where there are hydroelectric generators but it would have to be excess power that is used and that's disappearing and there won't be many more hydroelectric plants built.
Solar power might be used but solar power is expensive and would require truly immense "farms".
Wind farms, too, could be used, but it would require a lot of them and the power is expensive.
What's left? Nuclear power plants. Good luck on that one.
In the future we might be able to collect power in space and beam it to earth but that's a long way off.
So where is the hydrogen for our new "hydrogen economy" coming from?
(Oh, yes, the hydrogen will have to have an odor to comply with current laws, and that compound will have to be removed before it poisons the fuel cell).
Pu 238 not likely to be used for a bomb since it won't fission, Pu 239 and U 235 are used for that. Might be usefull for tamping though but U 238 is lots cheaper.
The half life of Pu 239 is 25,000 years and I have heard that it is warm to the touch. Pu 238 would be still warmer yet.
The half life of U 235 is 730 million years.
If fissile isotopes had short half lives we wouldn't have bombs or reactors. The fissile material would decay away too fast.
If cell phones had distinct prefixes, such as 965, 935, etc. and the user had to pay any charges to call a cell phone, such as long distance, the problem would not be as great.
Some countries do this now and it puts the burden of calling on the caller. Voice spamers would have no excuse for calls to cell phones.
Sugar Grove, West Virginia, is not where my data go and, in any case, since it is governmnet data it's immaterial if it is intercepted by some other branch of the government.
Perhaps I wasn't clear. The system tries to compress all data but the ZIP file, already compressed, doesn't compress any more so the speed for the compressed and uncompressed is about the same.
You may be absolutely certain that the military and other government users don't pay nearly $1.50 a minute. In fact it's les expensive than the cellular costs that I am familiar with.
I tested the data service by using FTP to move some files this week and got a data throughput of about 4 seconds a kilobyte. The service compresses the data to get this rate. The rate was the same if I zipped the file and then sent it.
Iridium also provides secure encryption for the military and qualified governmnet users. A nice touch for those that need it.
As far as you being fingered by the facial recogniton programs from your data the failure rate of the software is really high. They will get hundreds if not hundreds of thousands of false matches from the software. If they are looking for 1 person in 10,000 in the population and there is a 10% failure rate they will have 1,000 false positives per 10,000. for for a database of 5 million they might have 500,000 false positives. If they tweak the application to only report the very most likely they then up the risk of missing the person they are looking for.
It makes it look as if they are doing something and provides moves public money to the companies that provide the equipment, databases, and software.
The Applied Digital Solutions chip sounds nearly identical to the one produced by a company in Corona, CA, for implantation in animals, especially pets, for identification. I think that the vets charge about $40 and there is not yearly database fee. The insertion process takes less than 5 minutes including registering the data.
I don't suppose that the chip costs more than a dollar so the markup from Applied Digital Solutions is really high so their stock should rise.
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What we are doing now is compressing our data (digital visual and infrared images) using JPEG200 at 10:1, concatenating them in a file and, using Iridium at 2,400 bps, downloading to our ftp server. We hope that this is a stopgap measure but the antenna we could use isn't available yet for our aircraft and will cost around $250K! The antenna in the window requires that the aircraft be oriented normal to the satellite's azimuth. That antenna has not been approved by the FAA yet but probably will be. The approved version will probably be mounted externally. I expect it will cost over $20K.
Incidentally I get 500 minutes on Iridium at 30 cents a minute and all over that at 10 cents a minute. Not bad.
GPS is a passive device, it doesn't transmit to the satellite (in spite of a contrary assertion in a novel co-authored by Arthur C. Clarke) so that shouldn't be a problem. Of course your fix won't be very good since the device can't see many satellites and then they won't be in a favorable configuration. Unless you are in the cockpit and can place the antenna on the dash, that is.
I need a way to "beam" data to the ground and while looking for methods was told that the FAA rule on "wireless devices" is that they can only be turned on when an aircraft is on the tarmac and the door is open and only if local regulations allow it.
Over the years we have had a pilot who would use his cell phone from the cockpit, crew who used transceivers and NASA folks who mounted a flat panel satellite antenna in a window. (I've put a stop to all that!) Never has any of the navigation equipment been affected and that includes our two GPS receivers.
IMHO the devices should be turned of for landing and takeoff just in case. Now that wireless devices are becoming ubiquitous I expect that they may all be banned from being carried on since there is no practical way to check that they are turned on. Of course the backlash may be strong enough to force good studies to be made...
Scenario
1. The router (or gateway or something) dies so no email. Ok, I'll use the phone. Whoops.
2. Have a fire that knocked out power, got to call the FD. Whoops.
I'll wait.
While the people saw a Meteor what it came from was a
Meteoroid and what fell were
Meteorites.
This is a silent film with Buster Keaton and probably his best. It's still seen on cable from time to time.
My G3 is a cool black, so add a point to make the score a tie.
Got to account for connectivity as well, the G2 has USB connectivity for downloading and for remote control, so:
G3 8, GBA 0
But this is offset by the price
G3 4, GBA 7
Looks to me as if the G3 wins by 5!
"yet CD players have only one."
Wrong, CD players (in computers) are often used to load programs and data. I buy hundreds of CD blanks (and now DVD) to archive and distribute code and data. Why should I pay a copywrite tax on that?
I thought that the anchor needed to be on the equator and Perth is aoubt 36 degrees south. I would imagine that there would be really large lateral forces on the anchor and suspect that the cable would be curved.
Does anyone know how the taxes will be collected? That is, who pays them and how will that be enforced? It's reasonable that the state in which the delivery is made should get the sales tax but how is payment enforced? How does Arizona, for instance, know that something was shipped from a distribution center in California to an address in Arizona? What if the shipment is from another country? What's to prevent a company from collecting taxes and not distributing them? It looks like a nightmare of trouble to me.
The USS Mt. Hood (AE 11) blew up in November of 1944 with great loss of life to her crew (all aboard will killed) and the crew of surrounding ships. Eyewitness accounts describe a fireball that rose to 7,000 feet.
I served on an ammunition ship home ported at Port Chicago in 1962-63 and talked to two survivors of the explosion. One was in the wheelhouse of a ship in the channel and the other in a car driving away from the docks. Neither thought that it was a nuclear explosion and neither suffered radiation or thermal burns that might be expected.
In the complete absence of the fingerprints of a nuclear detonation such as residual radiation, really intense heat, and a really intense shockwave coupled with survivors who were only a few hundred meters away who didn't have radiation burns, etc. it's a no-brainer to conclude there is nothing to the book.
Also, if a device were being tested why would they deliberately confound the effects of the device with the other explosives present?
With your qualifications you might be able to negotiate a good position in the military that takes you overseas. You might be able to lock in a posting to an aircraft carrier, for instance.
USAID also wants folks with languages and they always travel.
I understand that Iraq and North Korea need technical skills, too.
This will all be moot if laptops and PDAs are banned from filghts by the FAA because of ultra wideband wireless interference with GPS and other avionics systems. Since the flight crew can't tell if a computer or PDA is using ultra wideband wireless all may be banned.
Thanks for your response. I manage a aircraft used for research about wildfire and in the last two years have had ADs that required inspection within 30 to 50 hours. We just got a notice from Piper that requires maintenance and replacement of part of the elevator assembly - $5,000. I received one a few weeks ago that required engine replacement - but fortunately not for my engines' serial numbers. Aircraft are much more expensive to operate than boats and I thought they were bad!
My point is that there is a lot of detail and paperwork required in aircraft ownership and most people just are not up to it. You can't treat an aircraft like an automobile.
You are absolutely correct but left out a few items.
1. The FAA also mandates inspections by FAA certified aircraft mechanics each year at the maximum or after so many hours of flight. If you miss an inspection the aircraft is forbidden to fly as it is not airworthy. The inspections can take some time and any defects found must be corrected before the craft can fly. A Piper Navajo inspection costs upwards of $2,500 and the aircraft may be out of service for some time. A side effect of this requirement, if there is to be a people's aircraft is that LOTS of certified aircraft mechanics would be required.
2. Detailed logs must be kept of each flight, each repair, and each add-on. If the logs are not correct, spanning the whole life of the aircraft, it is not airworthy.
3. The manufacturer and FAA provide notices of problems that sometimes require inspections, repairs, and replacement. The repairs must be complied with. You are not allowed to fly around with defects.
4. Avionics are expensive to purchase, install, and maintain. The last time I checked three or four years ago a collision avoidance system cost $25,000. This would tend to put the price of the aircraft out of reach of most folks.
5. It's hard to imagine a failsafe aircraft so I suppose some training including simulator training and certification will be required - probably with some sort of yearly medical inspection. If there is a problem and the aircraft needs to be auto-rotated it still has to be guided to a safe landing.
All in all, I think that the typical person is not well suited to this degree of complexity, care, and expense and it won't happen any time soon.
Conspicuously absent is a discussion about the source of hydrogen. It's true that hydrogen is a really common element but it's tied up in compounds such as water and it takes a lot of energy to split it off. The best way today is to use petroleum and it might be a more efficient use of petroleum than to convert it to gasoline and then burn it in our vehicles, maybe. And that still releases CO2 to the atmosphere. The same holds true for methanol, corn oil, etc.
Hydroelectric power could be used. After all there is always a source of water where there are hydroelectric generators but it would have to be excess power that is used and that's disappearing and there won't be many more hydroelectric plants built.
Solar power might be used but solar power is expensive and would require truly immense "farms".
Wind farms, too, could be used, but it would require a lot of them and the power is expensive.
What's left? Nuclear power plants. Good luck on that one.
In the future we might be able to collect power in space and beam it to earth but that's a long way off.
So where is the hydrogen for our new "hydrogen economy" coming from?
(Oh, yes, the hydrogen will have to have an odor to comply with current laws, and that compound will have to be removed before it poisons the fuel cell).
>>>"fuck like homos!"
You mean to say "copulate like Homo spaiens", right?
Nothing in that letter says that the bonos engage in anal sex and, yes, you do need better sources.
Pu 238 not likely to be used for a bomb since it won't fission, Pu 239 and U 235 are used for that.
Might be usefull for tamping though but U 238 is lots cheaper.
The half life of Pu 239 is 25,000 years and I have heard that it is warm to the touch. Pu 238 would be still warmer yet.
The half life of U 235 is 730 million years.
If fissile isotopes had short half lives we wouldn't have bombs or reactors. The fissile material would decay away too fast.
If cell phones had distinct prefixes, such as 965, 935, etc. and the user had to pay any charges to call a cell phone, such as long distance, the problem would not be as great.
Some countries do this now and it puts the burden of calling on the caller. Voice spamers would have no excuse for calls to cell phones.
Sugar Grove, West Virginia, is not where my data go and, in any case, since it is governmnet data it's immaterial if it is intercepted by some other branch of the government.
Perhaps I wasn't clear. The system tries to compress all data but the ZIP file, already compressed, doesn't compress any more so the speed for the compressed and uncompressed is about the same.
You may be absolutely certain that the military and other government users don't pay nearly $1.50 a minute. In fact it's les expensive than the cellular costs that I am familiar with.
I tested the data service by using FTP to move some files this week and got a data throughput of about 4 seconds a kilobyte. The service compresses the data to get this rate. The rate was the same if I zipped the file and then sent it.
Iridium also provides secure encryption for the military and qualified governmnet users. A nice touch for those that need it.
This sounds really good but don't get excited until the science is peer reviewed. Remember the meteorite that 'proved' life existed on Mars?
NASA announcments are always constructed to enhance NASA and are written by PR types from data that is filtered by managers.
As far as you being fingered by the facial recogniton programs from your data the failure rate of the software is really high. They will get hundreds if not hundreds of thousands of false matches from the software. If they are looking for 1 person in 10,000 in the population and there is a 10% failure rate they will have 1,000 false positives per 10,000. for for a database of 5 million they might have 500,000 false positives. If they tweak the application to only report the very most likely they then up the risk of missing the person they are looking for.
It makes it look as if they are doing something and provides moves public money to the companies that provide the equipment, databases, and software.
Nate
The Applied Digital Solutions chip sounds nearly identical to the one produced by a company in Corona, CA, for implantation in animals, especially pets, for identification. I think that the vets charge about $40 and there is not yearly database fee. The insertion process takes less than 5 minutes including registering the data.
I don't suppose that the chip costs more than a dollar so the markup from Applied Digital Solutions is really high so their stock should rise.
Nate