They might not be able to get to the cockpit, but they sure have a good chance cutting through to / accessing the connecting / locking mechanism in between the aircraft and the pod...
The largest today are 380,000 - 400,000 DWT.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valemax
The (sad) joke in all this was that Vale (massive mining and trading company) ordered and built these ships when the iron ore market was at its peak in 2008 and they had contracts to supply China with gazillions of tonnes for gazillions of dollars. They then ordered the ships to be built in China (and a few in S. Korea) and the Chinese happily built them to order for their "good friends and trading partners" Vale.
Finally the iron ore market tanked really badly and the Chinese did not want these massive shipments coming in any more. Vale turned around and said "but we have a contract". The Chinese government turned around and said "yes, but your ships are too large to safely enter any port in China so you are banned from trading here". Vale got pwned. Now they have had to build a massive offshore transshipment facility in Singapore to keep being able to use the ships and sell the ore to the Chinese for a minute fraction of what they were gambling on.
Regardless of ANY of the logistics involved and increased transit time it is always more efficient and economical to transport cargo by sea. It boils down to a simple calculation of moving X tonnes of cargo over X kilometres.
If you look at the fact that a "handysize" vessel ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handymax ) can carry ~40,000MT of cargo 300-400 miles per day while only consuming 20MT of fuel to do so then the math becomes apparent. It becomes even more apparent with larger vessels. Also the above discussions refer to moving containers which have the least efficient tonne/kilometres ratio, the math is even more apparent when looking at moving bulk cargoes like alumina, ore, sugar, wheat etc.
A truck carries ~30MT on average and a rail car ~30-50MT on average, how many of those would you need and, more importantly, how much fuel would they consume and how much GHG / SoX etc would they emit to move the same quantity of cargo from NY to LA / vice versa?
Despite the fact that ship owners are faced with a bad market, the PCA (Panama Canal Administration) keeps needlessly inflating the costs to transit at least once or twice per year. Our larger vessels can easily cost ~USD$200,000.00 and more to transit.
Regardless of how much they inflate the cost, if it costs less than a trip around South America, it's still a good deal.
The industry has long been awaiting some competition to mitigate these over-inflated costs and it is high time it materialised.
That's what makes me wonder how viable this really is. I suspect the financial viability reports just used the Panama's current transit rates to estimate the potential financial payoff from this. It may very well end up being built, but then taking over 100 years to pay for itself due to Panama and Nicaragua underbidding each other to try to attract more traffic.
My hunch is the bigger payoff will be global shipping transitioning to larger-than-Panamax cargo ships. And that Panama and Nicaragua won't see as much benefit (Panama has had multiple plans to add more locks. If you look at their geography, it'd be a helluva lot cheaper for them to do it than Nicaragua too. They just haven't had much incentive to do it quickly since there's no competition.)
Most definitely it is cheaper to transit via the Canal rather than via South America. The point is that the PCA and the majority of port and facility operators in BOTH North and South America are over-inflating their prices making it more and more non-viable to operate vessels at a profit. The freight rates chargeable no longer reflect the reality of the costs of fuel and operations.
In regards to global shipping transitioning to "larger-than-Panamax" vessels, see here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capesize
and here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valemax
The ship owners and other interests that invested heavily in these vessels are now suffering mightily at the hands of depressed commodity prices, over-inflated fuel prices and once again, over-inflated port and transit costs. Operating "smaller" vessels, (30,000 - 100,000 DWT) is often more feasible as it is easier for a commodity trader to buy and sell cargo quantities in those ranges rather than in the much larger quantities those over-sized vessels are designed to carry.
The ultimate point is that the PCA and all port operators in general should take a lesson from the Canadian and US Seaway authorities that operate the waterways transiting to the US Great Lakes. They have a monopoly as well and they made it __ridiculously__ expensive for ship owners to trade the area and now..... we hardly do. So their business is dead and their people are out of work.....
I work for a ship owner and order my vessels to transit via Panama quite often. To transit one of our smaller vessels (~30,000 DWT) it costs ~USD$90,000.00 and is one of the major costs calculated on our voyages, especially on a bad economic market. Despite the fact that ship owners are faced with a bad market, the PCA (Panama Canal Administration) keeps needlessly inflating the costs to transit at least once or twice per year.
Our larger vessels can easily cost ~USD$200,000.00 and more to transit. The industry has long been awaiting some competition to mitigate these over-inflated costs and it is high time it materialised.
The answer is as follows:
1) It is pointless to justify / not justify owning a 30 round clip and completely irrelevant to the question at hand.
2) Prohibiting the sale of them in the US is pointless, all that would do is create a black market for those who want them for criminal purposes and enthusiasts that want them for perfectly legitimate purposes (i.e. target practice) will just fabricate them at home.
3) The answer is stricter policing and enforcement of HOW weapons are handled at home, WHO has the right to legally own them, and mandatory SAFETY LESSONS for every weapon owner AND their families.... The answer is changing the way your society works and is educated.
You can't seriously be relying on your politicians to actually bring forward a solution through prohibition. You see how well the war on drugs has gone don't you? For and even older example look at the prohibition of alcohol decades ago, that worked out GREAT didn't it?????
Most fuel consumed by airliners is done while rolling around the airport on the ground. A jet engine burns almost the same amount of fuel at idle as it does while in cruise. To start, older planes should be retrofitted with electric landing gear and engine start should happen at the hold short line when they're #1 for takeoff.
Imagine how much $8.00/gallon jet fuel is burned on the tarmac.
What the hell is electric landing gear? The wheels on the plan are unpowered and spin freely. All of the propulsion for moving around is provided by the engines. You can't keep the engines off until you're on the runway unless you're being towed. Also the engines need to be started using an external device so you'd need to drag that along so that it could spin up the engine and then start it.
I think that is his/her point exactly, electrically powered wheels to propel the aircraft around while on the tarmac.
Also, what modern jet engine that is commonly in use needs to be started by an external device please? The jet engines that I see in use on a regular basis are started on their own.....
Why on earth should I inconvenience myself and leave my means of communication for work and personal requirements at home because I am afraid of the government tracking me? I really don't care if they want to do that and I only feel sorry for the loss of time and resources spent tracking others for no reason and with no benefit whatsoever to national security. Blatant abuse of these capabilities by the authorities might change my opinion but for the moment, it is a non-issue and more like a nagging annoyance than anything else.
It's like terrorism, the terrorists only win when YOU are terrorised and inconvenienced.
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Normally do not comment on or make fun of grammar mistakes but "Escape Goats"?? LOL. Thanks, you made my afternoon.
They might not be able to get to the cockpit, but they sure have a good chance cutting through to / accessing the connecting / locking mechanism in between the aircraft and the pod...
The largest today are 380,000 - 400,000 DWT. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valemax The (sad) joke in all this was that Vale (massive mining and trading company) ordered and built these ships when the iron ore market was at its peak in 2008 and they had contracts to supply China with gazillions of tonnes for gazillions of dollars. They then ordered the ships to be built in China (and a few in S. Korea) and the Chinese happily built them to order for their "good friends and trading partners" Vale. Finally the iron ore market tanked really badly and the Chinese did not want these massive shipments coming in any more. Vale turned around and said "but we have a contract". The Chinese government turned around and said "yes, but your ships are too large to safely enter any port in China so you are banned from trading here". Vale got pwned. Now they have had to build a massive offshore transshipment facility in Singapore to keep being able to use the ships and sell the ore to the Chinese for a minute fraction of what they were gambling on.
Regardless of ANY of the logistics involved and increased transit time it is always more efficient and economical to transport cargo by sea. It boils down to a simple calculation of moving X tonnes of cargo over X kilometres. If you look at the fact that a "handysize" vessel ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handymax ) can carry ~40,000MT of cargo 300-400 miles per day while only consuming 20MT of fuel to do so then the math becomes apparent. It becomes even more apparent with larger vessels. Also the above discussions refer to moving containers which have the least efficient tonne/kilometres ratio, the math is even more apparent when looking at moving bulk cargoes like alumina, ore, sugar, wheat etc. A truck carries ~30MT on average and a rail car ~30-50MT on average, how many of those would you need and, more importantly, how much fuel would they consume and how much GHG / SoX etc would they emit to move the same quantity of cargo from NY to LA / vice versa?
Regardless of how much they inflate the cost, if it costs less than a trip around South America, it's still a good deal.
That's what makes me wonder how viable this really is. I suspect the financial viability reports just used the Panama's current transit rates to estimate the potential financial payoff from this. It may very well end up being built, but then taking over 100 years to pay for itself due to Panama and Nicaragua underbidding each other to try to attract more traffic. My hunch is the bigger payoff will be global shipping transitioning to larger-than-Panamax cargo ships. And that Panama and Nicaragua won't see as much benefit (Panama has had multiple plans to add more locks. If you look at their geography, it'd be a helluva lot cheaper for them to do it than Nicaragua too. They just haven't had much incentive to do it quickly since there's no competition.)
Most definitely it is cheaper to transit via the Canal rather than via South America. The point is that the PCA and the majority of port and facility operators in BOTH North and South America are over-inflating their prices making it more and more non-viable to operate vessels at a profit. The freight rates chargeable no longer reflect the reality of the costs of fuel and operations. In regards to global shipping transitioning to "larger-than-Panamax" vessels, see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capesize and here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valemax The ship owners and other interests that invested heavily in these vessels are now suffering mightily at the hands of depressed commodity prices, over-inflated fuel prices and once again, over-inflated port and transit costs. Operating "smaller" vessels, (30,000 - 100,000 DWT) is often more feasible as it is easier for a commodity trader to buy and sell cargo quantities in those ranges rather than in the much larger quantities those over-sized vessels are designed to carry. The ultimate point is that the PCA and all port operators in general should take a lesson from the Canadian and US Seaway authorities that operate the waterways transiting to the US Great Lakes. They have a monopoly as well and they made it __ridiculously__ expensive for ship owners to trade the area and now..... we hardly do. So their business is dead and their people are out of work.....
I work for a ship owner and order my vessels to transit via Panama quite often. To transit one of our smaller vessels (~30,000 DWT) it costs ~USD$90,000.00 and is one of the major costs calculated on our voyages, especially on a bad economic market. Despite the fact that ship owners are faced with a bad market, the PCA (Panama Canal Administration) keeps needlessly inflating the costs to transit at least once or twice per year. Our larger vessels can easily cost ~USD$200,000.00 and more to transit. The industry has long been awaiting some competition to mitigate these over-inflated costs and it is high time it materialised.
The answer is as follows: 1) It is pointless to justify / not justify owning a 30 round clip and completely irrelevant to the question at hand. 2) Prohibiting the sale of them in the US is pointless, all that would do is create a black market for those who want them for criminal purposes and enthusiasts that want them for perfectly legitimate purposes (i.e. target practice) will just fabricate them at home. 3) The answer is stricter policing and enforcement of HOW weapons are handled at home, WHO has the right to legally own them, and mandatory SAFETY LESSONS for every weapon owner AND their families.... The answer is changing the way your society works and is educated. You can't seriously be relying on your politicians to actually bring forward a solution through prohibition. You see how well the war on drugs has gone don't you? For and even older example look at the prohibition of alcohol decades ago, that worked out GREAT didn't it?????
Most fuel consumed by airliners is done while rolling around the airport on the ground. A jet engine burns almost the same amount of fuel at idle as it does while in cruise. To start, older planes should be retrofitted with electric landing gear and engine start should happen at the hold short line when they're #1 for takeoff.
Imagine how much $8.00/gallon jet fuel is burned on the tarmac.
What the hell is electric landing gear? The wheels on the plan are unpowered and spin freely. All of the propulsion for moving around is provided by the engines. You can't keep the engines off until you're on the runway unless you're being towed. Also the engines need to be started using an external device so you'd need to drag that along so that it could spin up the engine and then start it.
I think that is his/her point exactly, electrically powered wheels to propel the aircraft around while on the tarmac. Also, what modern jet engine that is commonly in use needs to be started by an external device please? The jet engines that I see in use on a regular basis are started on their own.....
Why on earth should I inconvenience myself and leave my means of communication for work and personal requirements at home because I am afraid of the government tracking me? I really don't care if they want to do that and I only feel sorry for the loss of time and resources spent tracking others for no reason and with no benefit whatsoever to national security. Blatant abuse of these capabilities by the authorities might change my opinion but for the moment, it is a non-issue and more like a nagging annoyance than anything else. It's like terrorism, the terrorists only win when YOU are terrorised and inconvenienced.