I'm going to somewhat disagree with the "just have fun and don't worry about anything" sentiment. That's not to say don't have any fun, but you can't be completely carefree.
1. No employer is going to care what you did the summer before you went to UG
They might. I got a co-op position primarily due to my post-high school summer activities; I spent the summer finishing a pilot's license and finishing a homebuilt aircraft with my dad. That company then hired me after I graduated college. In OP's case, he/she should find some kind of project (open source or otherwise) so they have something to show for while working on the next item below.
3. School is just school. Just do it, enjoy it while you're there, get good grades, and get a job after you're done (or go on to advanced studies, whatever).
OP, this applies more to after you're in college, but get an internship/co-op/something field-related while you're still in school. It may delay your graduation a bit, but you'll earn money in the process (less debt after graduation), get more experience on living out on your own, make contacts in the field, and avoid the "I can do school really well, but have no practial experience" trap. Also, internships and co-ops are often guaranteed job placement opportunities.
As for this summer, my suggestions:
Learn to cook. I'm not talking "bake a frozen pizza", but actual cooking, from raw ingredients. This will help reduce your cost-of-living in college, and you will likely eat healthier, too. It will also impress future romantic interests.
Get a regular exercise routine going, and stick with it once you get to school. It'll be much easier to get into this habit while you have more free time than to try and do it later, when you've put on 60lb from crappy cafeteria food, late-night takeout, and beer, and you're 5-10 years older. Trust me on this.
Good health is hard to get, and easy to lose. You'll thank yourself in ten years when lots of your peers are fat and get winded just walking to their mailboxes.
My employer uses a computer to screen all incoming resumes. Unless your resume hits every single keyword in the job description, you're kicked out and never get seen by a human being.
And the company as a whole wonders why it's so hard to fill most positions...
I use the time-honored solution of "get both". My collection of purchased music is the stuff I really like and don't get tired of; it is on my phone, both computers, and my home server. I listen to the stuff on the phone when I'm at work (poor data reception in the building, and streaming on company network/hardware is prohibited), in the car, or while running.
If I'm in the mood to find new things, or just get variety, I'll stream something in the car or at home. If I find something through streaming that I like, I will investigate further, and possibly purchase.
My wife and I still have unlimited data on our phones (I'm running a Charge, she has an iTurd). I don't want to lose that unlimited data, should I ever need it.
Then again, I just don't see how people manage to use gigs of data every month. Even with what for me is heavy usage (streaming some music, occasional Netflix videos at the gym, navigation and random browsing, etc) I've never topped 400MB. What the hell are you people doing that uses so much?
I've been cold-called by several recruiters via Linkedin, but none from any other site, or by any other means. A couple of them were good offers at well-known companies, but they required that I move further north and/or west than I care to (anywhere it snows more than once every few years is out, as is anywhere west of Texas due to family location). If only there were more jobs in my field in warm, sunny Florida...
I'd say there are three reasons for the increases in tuition costs.
1. Increased demand - There's been a decades-long push of "everone deserves to go to college" and "this job requires a degree" (even when it doesn't) that has led to more people wanting to go. And as every economics class teaches, when demand goes up without a corresponding increase in supply, the price goes up.
2. Extravagence - As tuition went up, competition among schools to get the better students (i.e., the ones most likely to stay in and keep paying tuition till graduation, instead of dropping out) went up as well. A lot of that competition came in the form of new fancy academic buildings for the front-runner majors, condo-like apartment housing instead of the traditional dorms, full-service athletic and recreational centers for students, and so on. All of that stuff is great when you're a student, but it all costs money, and pushes tuition even higher.
3. Easy credit - As with anything else, people are less careful with, and more willing to spend freely, money that isn't theirs or can be paid later. After all, $20,000 might be a lot if I have to pay cash, but if I can spread that out over twenty years, it's not so bad, right? Easy student loans with little or no qualifications increased the supply of money available to pay tuition, so the demand for tuition money went up. Further, people who had no hope of ever being able to repay their loans (read: paid way too much for a degree in a low-earning-potential field) still had tens of thousands to burn on the degrees.
There seems to be a universal idea (at least in the US) that college must be done right after high school, and you should study whatever your little naive heart desires, regardless of practicality. I believe the focus should be on first finding gainful employment (either technical school, STEM degree, or going straight into the workforce) and becoming economically self-sufficient, then coming back and getting your "fun" degree once you can pay for it yourself. Yes, it means you'll miss out on the "traditional" party-time college atmosphere, your degree might take longer, you'll probably be working full-time as well, and it might violate the spirit of academic purity or something, but it's the more responsible thing to do. And if you're paying for it yourself up front, you're going to care more about what you're really getting from it.
(Ok, I'll explain it... drinking lots of Coke every day does increase cholesterol and lead to obesity and such... and increasing your chances of dying early before Alzheimer's kicks in. So yes, the odds of dying from Alzheimer's go down, because you're much more likely do die earlier from something else.)
Why does it take three friggin' days to dock with the ISS? I never quite understood why it takes so long to do that sort of thing? Seems to me that orbital mechanics is well understood and computer processing speeds are fast enough to handle navigation with maneuvering thrusters.
Gemini XI demonstrated first-orbit rendezvous and docking in 1966. Apollo missions did it in less than two orbits after lift-off from the moon. But there are reasons it isn't routinely done for ISS launches, and it has nothing to do with not understanding orbital mechanics, or computing power, or anything like that.
Taking a day or two to get to rendezvous not only allows for a larger (read: more flexible) launch window, but also provides a good time for the spacecraft to do systems checkout, allows more flexibility for the launch vehicle in achieving orbit, and provides more maneuvering flexibility for the spacecraft.
There's a big difference between government-operated and government-produced, and it's the latter that GP was probably talking about.
It's one thing for the government to purchase launch services or to operate/maintain a launch site (parallels would be government hiring UPS to move some packages, or maintaining the airport). But the government (and especially congress) doesn't need to be making technical design decisions, like what the vehicle will look like, what engines it will use, and so on. The directive that SLS will use Shuttle-derived hardware is a blatant political bone to the existing companies, dictating sub-optimal equipment and configurations so as to keep those companies happy instead of finding a better solution freed of the constraints of said Shuttle-derived hardware (read: SRBs, VAB, crawlers, etc.).
Composites aren't going to replace everything. Landing gear and landing gear mounts, engine mounts, critical bulkheads, etc. will still be made of forged metal for a long, long time. Even with additive manufacturing techniques, forging will still be necessary because the forging process itself is what puts the strength in the parts.
But here's an interesting little bit: taxes pay for civilization. Civilization advances the entire social group. In other words, taxes provide more long-term benefits than you can get from not paying taxes.
But just because paying some taxes provides a benefit, doesn't mean that paying more taxes provides more benefit. Some is good; more isn't necessarily better.
Paying taxes to fund my local fire department is good.
Paying taxes to build and maintain roads and bridges is good.
Paying taxes so that little Suzy can go to school and learn basic literacy and math is good.
Paying more taxes so Suzy can go to school and get a welding certificate or engineering degree and help with item (2) above is good.
Paying more taxes so Suzy's classmate Billy can blow several times my annual salary at art school, going to nightly parties and getting a degree in film studies so he can serve coffee at Starbucks? Not a good use of taxes.
That is worse than just not encouraging people to get an education; it actively attacks our education system, by encouraging the "well I am going to have this huge debt when I graduate, so I better focus on vocational training and nothing more!" It is not just the humanities that suffer for it, although those subjects are hardest hit; even in my field (computer science), there is a push to use languages that are popular in industry (Java, C++) instead of languages that are academically interesting, theoretical courses fall by the wayside (there are a scary number of CS graduates who cannot explain the P vs. NP problem), and there are more career events than special lectures.
And the issue is....?
If government is going to be subsidizing post-high-school education at all, it should only subsidize those fields that have to potential to return a benefit to society. Engineering? Sure. Chemistry? Go for it. Plumbing certification? Awesome. Ancient Roman poetry? Umm, no. Film studies? Don't think so.
If you want to study those things on your own dime, nothing's stopping you. But there's no justification for spending taxpayer dollars on "luxury" degrees. Secure yourself financially first (which is part of the whole broader "becoming an adult" thing), even if that means learning a trade first, then coming back a few years later to do your "fun" education.
Indeed (another FF here). A fender-bender becomes "rollover with injuries and entrapment", at some random point along thirty miles of interstate. A controlled burn 20 miles away becomes a shopping center on fire. Or my favorite, the heat sensor alarm activation at a medical office that went out as a patient with a "burning sensation" in his arm. Fortunately, that was just a false alarm (bad sensor).
like the only people who can do maint on an experimental are the builder and a licensed A/P mech so unless your sale contract includes lifetime maint, a A/P needs to do all further maint work, and in practice relatively few would sign off on someone elses construction, so it was... an issue.
Picking a nit... the only people who can do the yearly condition inspection (it isn't called an annual with homebuilts) are the builder and an A&P. Regular maintenance, and even major modifications, can be conducted by anyone. But you still need the builder or an A&P for the yearly inspection.
Why not run alcohol instead then? That stuff loves high compression ratios. It seems like allowing lead in fuel is a bad move in general, considering what we now about the impact of lead on humans.
Alcohol tends to eat away at the seals in an aircraft's fuel system, and IIRC it also likes water (something you don't want in your fuel system). Both of these have been issues for people running airplanes on mogas if they aren't careful to get straight non-ethanol gasoline.
Regarding certification: The rule of thumb that most aviation experts use is that certification isn't over until the weight of all the documentation exceeds the weight of the aircraft. There is more truth in this joke than most people realize.
Indeed. These days, I'd almost say it's twice the weight of the aircraft.*
Going the homebuilt route saves significant cash (both on acquisition and maintenance) since you aren't having to pay for the embedded certification costs and build labor, and you don't have to use certified parts (e.g., you can use auto headlights if you want instead of aviation landing lights). If you built the airplane, you can also do your own annual inspections.
Of course, you pay for it in labor (your own, unless you buy used), utility (you can't use homebuilts for commercial purposes), and risk (which varies by design and the builder).
First, certification is expensive, not just due to the paperwork (lots and lots and lots of paperwork) but also due to the regulations being overkill for light airplanes--they're geared more for heavy, complex aircraft like airliners, King Airs, business jets, and so on.
There are also liability concerns. Decades-old designs have some level of exemption from liability in civil suits, but new designs put the manufacturer at risk of silly lawsuits (even when they are in no way at fault, like a pilot flying into weather he isn't rated to fly into).
On the technical side, you can't just take a car or snowmobile engine and substitute it in for an aircraft engine of the same horsepower. Airplane engines are designed to produce 75-100% of their rated power indefinitely; most car engines cruise at a much smaller fraction of rated power. Try running your average car engine at 85% power for hours on end, and it won't last nearly as long.
There are also other issues like maneuvering and gyroscopic forces; not only are aircraft likely to experience more variation in g-forces from turns and aerobatics, but there are also thrust and gyroscopic loads from the propeller to worry about. Running a reduction gearbox simply means your gearbox has to take those loads instead, presenting additional challenges.
These problems are not insurmountable--they just take time and money. But right now, the market just isn't there. General aviation sales are tiny compared to car sales, so your R&D costs would have to be spread over far fewer units--driving price up and sales down. That's why progress in the area of small aviation piston engines is very slow, and it's why Lycoming et al are still making engines based on 1930s designs.
I think you you missed the point in this case. I'm not suggesting routine automation of a 727.... This could have been accomplished from end to end without the pilot, and it would not have been prohibitively costly.
No, I got your point completely. And what I'm telling you is, you're wrong. I am an aerospace engineer and a pilot. I have a decent knowledge of modern aircraft systems and of the 727, and what it takes to automate functions normally performed by human pilots. You could not have flown the entire flight remotely without significant systems modification, even just for a one-off flight. This airplane requires significant human monitoring and intervention just to start up, taxi, take off, and cruise. Even just starting the engines is a highly manual process, with several separate switches to be thrown and close human monitoring of the instrumentation to detect any anomalies.
Remember also that the system will require significant testing just to ensure that it will properly operate safely and not kill anyone by crashing before it's intended to. You don't just bolt stuff into an airliner and fly it like you do your Wal-Mart R/C airplane.
I'd guess "ejected" was probably the wrong term to use. More likely, the pilot bailed out (jumped) from the tail airstairs like D. B. Cooper, or went out through a specially-rigged baggage door hatch (an installation common on airliner test aircraft).
The actual stick manipulation for basic flying doesn't take much additional equipment, but running all of the systems does. Remember, the 727 is a relatively old design, requiring a three-person crew. The third person is a flight engineer, whose job is to monitor and run the hydraulic (flight controls, brakes, landing gear), pneumatic (pressurization and deicing), electrical power, and powerplant (engine) systems. These functions are much more automated on newer aircraft (compare a modern computer-controlled car engine to one from the 60s), but older ones like the 727 require a human to monitor the analog gauges, control the systems, and prevent them from exceeding limits.
Trying to automate all of those things for a one-time flight would be simply cost-prohibitive. I know some of them wouldn't be necessary for the flight in question, but you couldn't just wave them all away, either.
This just in: not everyone wants to be a paper pushing middle manager and actually want to keep a technological position instead
This. There are plenty of graybeards out there with a decade or three of solid experience who would be valuable assets to any team... but would be completely out of their depth in a traditional management role. These are the people you hire for senior engineer roles where they're supervising and mentoring the work of the "grunts" and making important technical decisions, but you leave them out of the paper-pushing managerial BS as much as possible.
Good companies will have multiple "tracks" for their senior people so that they have ways to advance without having to become a management drone isolated from the technical side. My employer actually has three tracks; one is a purely technical one for guys with engineering PhDs and lots of technical experience, one is the traditional management route, and the third is a hybrid where you take some management roles while still remaining involved on the technical side. But then, we don't work in software/IT. We build airplanes.
That's what the proposal is asking: what technology should we work on that will make it cheap enough?
The catch with this approach is that you actually have to commit to technologies (which means building things, testing them, and actually making flights on occasion). You can't just sit back and say "yep, let's wait on someone else to develop the tech" and then not actually do anything.
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Anecdote =/= data, but that's definitely pump price in my area... we went from $3.69 (or higher) a few months ago to $3.03 this afternoon.
I'm going to somewhat disagree with the "just have fun and don't worry about anything" sentiment. That's not to say don't have any fun, but you can't be completely carefree.
1. No employer is going to care what you did the summer before you went to UG
They might. I got a co-op position primarily due to my post-high school summer activities; I spent the summer finishing a pilot's license and finishing a homebuilt aircraft with my dad. That company then hired me after I graduated college. In OP's case, he/she should find some kind of project (open source or otherwise) so they have something to show for while working on the next item below.
3. School is just school. Just do it, enjoy it while you're there, get good grades, and get a job after you're done (or go on to advanced studies, whatever).
OP, this applies more to after you're in college, but get an internship/co-op/something field-related while you're still in school. It may delay your graduation a bit, but you'll earn money in the process (less debt after graduation), get more experience on living out on your own, make contacts in the field, and avoid the "I can do school really well, but have no practial experience" trap. Also, internships and co-ops are often guaranteed job placement opportunities.
As for this summer, my suggestions:
Learn to cook. I'm not talking "bake a frozen pizza", but actual cooking, from raw ingredients. This will help reduce your cost-of-living in college, and you will likely eat healthier, too. It will also impress future romantic interests.
Get a regular exercise routine going, and stick with it once you get to school. It'll be much easier to get into this habit while you have more free time than to try and do it later, when you've put on 60lb from crappy cafeteria food, late-night takeout, and beer, and you're 5-10 years older. Trust me on this.
Good health is hard to get, and easy to lose. You'll thank yourself in ten years when lots of your peers are fat and get winded just walking to their mailboxes.
My employer uses a computer to screen all incoming resumes. Unless your resume hits every single keyword in the job description, you're kicked out and never get seen by a human being.
And the company as a whole wonders why it's so hard to fill most positions...
I use the time-honored solution of "get both". My collection of purchased music is the stuff I really like and don't get tired of; it is on my phone, both computers, and my home server. I listen to the stuff on the phone when I'm at work (poor data reception in the building, and streaming on company network/hardware is prohibited), in the car, or while running.
If I'm in the mood to find new things, or just get variety, I'll stream something in the car or at home. If I find something through streaming that I like, I will investigate further, and possibly purchase.
My wife and I still have unlimited data on our phones (I'm running a Charge, she has an iTurd). I don't want to lose that unlimited data, should I ever need it.
Then again, I just don't see how people manage to use gigs of data every month. Even with what for me is heavy usage (streaming some music, occasional Netflix videos at the gym, navigation and random browsing, etc) I've never topped 400MB. What the hell are you people doing that uses so much?
I've been cold-called by several recruiters via Linkedin, but none from any other site, or by any other means. A couple of them were good offers at well-known companies, but they required that I move further north and/or west than I care to (anywhere it snows more than once every few years is out, as is anywhere west of Texas due to family location). If only there were more jobs in my field in warm, sunny Florida...
I'd say there are three reasons for the increases in tuition costs.
1. Increased demand - There's been a decades-long push of "everone deserves to go to college" and "this job requires a degree" (even when it doesn't) that has led to more people wanting to go. And as every economics class teaches, when demand goes up without a corresponding increase in supply, the price goes up.
2. Extravagence - As tuition went up, competition among schools to get the better students (i.e., the ones most likely to stay in and keep paying tuition till graduation, instead of dropping out) went up as well. A lot of that competition came in the form of new fancy academic buildings for the front-runner majors, condo-like apartment housing instead of the traditional dorms, full-service athletic and recreational centers for students, and so on. All of that stuff is great when you're a student, but it all costs money, and pushes tuition even higher.
3. Easy credit - As with anything else, people are less careful with, and more willing to spend freely, money that isn't theirs or can be paid later. After all, $20,000 might be a lot if I have to pay cash, but if I can spread that out over twenty years, it's not so bad, right? Easy student loans with little or no qualifications increased the supply of money available to pay tuition, so the demand for tuition money went up. Further, people who had no hope of ever being able to repay their loans (read: paid way too much for a degree in a low-earning-potential field) still had tens of thousands to burn on the degrees.
There seems to be a universal idea (at least in the US) that college must be done right after high school, and you should study whatever your little naive heart desires, regardless of practicality. I believe the focus should be on first finding gainful employment (either technical school, STEM degree, or going straight into the workforce) and becoming economically self-sufficient, then coming back and getting your "fun" degree once you can pay for it yourself. Yes, it means you'll miss out on the "traditional" party-time college atmosphere, your degree might take longer, you'll probably be working full-time as well, and it might violate the spirit of academic purity or something, but it's the more responsible thing to do. And if you're paying for it yourself up front, you're going to care more about what you're really getting from it.
What's that whooshing sound?
(Ok, I'll explain it... drinking lots of Coke every day does increase cholesterol and lead to obesity and such... and increasing your chances of dying early before Alzheimer's kicks in. So yes, the odds of dying from Alzheimer's go down, because you're much more likely do die earlier from something else.)
Why does it take three friggin' days to dock with the ISS? I never quite understood why it takes so long to do that sort of thing? Seems to me that orbital mechanics is well understood and computer processing speeds are fast enough to handle navigation with maneuvering thrusters.
Gemini XI demonstrated first-orbit rendezvous and docking in 1966. Apollo missions did it in less than two orbits after lift-off from the moon. But there are reasons it isn't routinely done for ISS launches, and it has nothing to do with not understanding orbital mechanics, or computing power, or anything like that.
Taking a day or two to get to rendezvous not only allows for a larger (read: more flexible) launch window, but also provides a good time for the spacecraft to do systems checkout, allows more flexibility for the launch vehicle in achieving orbit, and provides more maneuvering flexibility for the spacecraft.
GP said early airplane travel. Think 1920s, not 2010s. Though, I still doubt the fatality rate was quite 2%.
There's a big difference between government-operated and government-produced, and it's the latter that GP was probably talking about.
It's one thing for the government to purchase launch services or to operate/maintain a launch site (parallels would be government hiring UPS to move some packages, or maintaining the airport). But the government (and especially congress) doesn't need to be making technical design decisions, like what the vehicle will look like, what engines it will use, and so on. The directive that SLS will use Shuttle-derived hardware is a blatant political bone to the existing companies, dictating sub-optimal equipment and configurations so as to keep those companies happy instead of finding a better solution freed of the constraints of said Shuttle-derived hardware (read: SRBs, VAB, crawlers, etc.).
Composites aren't going to replace everything. Landing gear and landing gear mounts, engine mounts, critical bulkheads, etc. will still be made of forged metal for a long, long time. Even with additive manufacturing techniques, forging will still be necessary because the forging process itself is what puts the strength in the parts.
But here's an interesting little bit: taxes pay for civilization. Civilization advances the entire social group. In other words, taxes provide more long-term benefits than you can get from not paying taxes.
But just because paying some taxes provides a benefit, doesn't mean that paying more taxes provides more benefit. Some is good; more isn't necessarily better.
Paying taxes to fund my local fire department is good.
Paying taxes to build and maintain roads and bridges is good.
Paying taxes so that little Suzy can go to school and learn basic literacy and math is good.
Paying more taxes so Suzy can go to school and get a welding certificate or engineering degree and help with item (2) above is good.
Paying more taxes so Suzy's classmate Billy can blow several times my annual salary at art school, going to nightly parties and getting a degree in film studies so he can serve coffee at Starbucks? Not a good use of taxes.
That is worse than just not encouraging people to get an education; it actively attacks our education system, by encouraging the "well I am going to have this huge debt when I graduate, so I better focus on vocational training and nothing more!" It is not just the humanities that suffer for it, although those subjects are hardest hit; even in my field (computer science), there is a push to use languages that are popular in industry (Java, C++) instead of languages that are academically interesting, theoretical courses fall by the wayside (there are a scary number of CS graduates who cannot explain the P vs. NP problem), and there are more career events than special lectures.
And the issue is....?
If government is going to be subsidizing post-high-school education at all, it should only subsidize those fields that have to potential to return a benefit to society. Engineering? Sure. Chemistry? Go for it. Plumbing certification? Awesome. Ancient Roman poetry? Umm, no. Film studies? Don't think so.
If you want to study those things on your own dime, nothing's stopping you. But there's no justification for spending taxpayer dollars on "luxury" degrees. Secure yourself financially first (which is part of the whole broader "becoming an adult" thing), even if that means learning a trade first, then coming back a few years later to do your "fun" education.
Indeed (another FF here). A fender-bender becomes "rollover with injuries and entrapment", at some random point along thirty miles of interstate. A controlled burn 20 miles away becomes a shopping center on fire. Or my favorite, the heat sensor alarm activation at a medical office that went out as a patient with a "burning sensation" in his arm. Fortunately, that was just a false alarm (bad sensor).
like the only people who can do maint on an experimental are the builder and a licensed A/P mech so unless your sale contract includes lifetime maint, a A/P needs to do all further maint work, and in practice relatively few would sign off on someone elses construction, so it was... an issue.
Picking a nit... the only people who can do the yearly condition inspection (it isn't called an annual with homebuilts) are the builder and an A&P. Regular maintenance, and even major modifications, can be conducted by anyone. But you still need the builder or an A&P for the yearly inspection.
Why not run alcohol instead then?
That stuff loves high compression ratios. It seems like allowing lead in fuel is a bad move in general, considering what we now about the impact of lead on humans.
Alcohol tends to eat away at the seals in an aircraft's fuel system, and IIRC it also likes water (something you don't want in your fuel system). Both of these have been issues for people running airplanes on mogas if they aren't careful to get straight non-ethanol gasoline.
Regarding certification: The rule of thumb that most aviation experts use is that certification isn't over until the weight of all the documentation exceeds the weight of the aircraft. There is more truth in this joke than most people realize.
Indeed. These days, I'd almost say it's twice the weight of the aircraft.*
*I am an engineer for an aircraft manufacturer
Going the homebuilt route saves significant cash (both on acquisition and maintenance) since you aren't having to pay for the embedded certification costs and build labor, and you don't have to use certified parts (e.g., you can use auto headlights if you want instead of aviation landing lights). If you built the airplane, you can also do your own annual inspections.
Of course, you pay for it in labor (your own, unless you buy used), utility (you can't use homebuilts for commercial purposes), and risk (which varies by design and the builder).
There are several problems, though.
First, certification is expensive, not just due to the paperwork (lots and lots and lots of paperwork) but also due to the regulations being overkill for light airplanes--they're geared more for heavy, complex aircraft like airliners, King Airs, business jets, and so on.
There are also liability concerns. Decades-old designs have some level of exemption from liability in civil suits, but new designs put the manufacturer at risk of silly lawsuits (even when they are in no way at fault, like a pilot flying into weather he isn't rated to fly into).
On the technical side, you can't just take a car or snowmobile engine and substitute it in for an aircraft engine of the same horsepower. Airplane engines are designed to produce 75-100% of their rated power indefinitely; most car engines cruise at a much smaller fraction of rated power. Try running your average car engine at 85% power for hours on end, and it won't last nearly as long.
There are also other issues like maneuvering and gyroscopic forces; not only are aircraft likely to experience more variation in g-forces from turns and aerobatics, but there are also thrust and gyroscopic loads from the propeller to worry about. Running a reduction gearbox simply means your gearbox has to take those loads instead, presenting additional challenges.
These problems are not insurmountable--they just take time and money. But right now, the market just isn't there. General aviation sales are tiny compared to car sales, so your R&D costs would have to be spread over far fewer units--driving price up and sales down. That's why progress in the area of small aviation piston engines is very slow, and it's why Lycoming et al are still making engines based on 1930s designs.
I think you you missed the point in this case. I'm not suggesting routine automation of a 727. ... This could have been accomplished from end to end without the pilot, and it would not have been prohibitively costly.
No, I got your point completely. And what I'm telling you is, you're wrong. I am an aerospace engineer and a pilot. I have a decent knowledge of modern aircraft systems and of the 727, and what it takes to automate functions normally performed by human pilots. You could not have flown the entire flight remotely without significant systems modification, even just for a one-off flight. This airplane requires significant human monitoring and intervention just to start up, taxi, take off, and cruise. Even just starting the engines is a highly manual process, with several separate switches to be thrown and close human monitoring of the instrumentation to detect any anomalies.
Remember also that the system will require significant testing just to ensure that it will properly operate safely and not kill anyone by crashing before it's intended to. You don't just bolt stuff into an airliner and fly it like you do your Wal-Mart R/C airplane.
I'd guess "ejected" was probably the wrong term to use. More likely, the pilot bailed out (jumped) from the tail airstairs like D. B. Cooper, or went out through a specially-rigged baggage door hatch (an installation common on airliner test aircraft).
The actual stick manipulation for basic flying doesn't take much additional equipment, but running all of the systems does. Remember, the 727 is a relatively old design, requiring a three-person crew. The third person is a flight engineer, whose job is to monitor and run the hydraulic (flight controls, brakes, landing gear), pneumatic (pressurization and deicing), electrical power, and powerplant (engine) systems. These functions are much more automated on newer aircraft (compare a modern computer-controlled car engine to one from the 60s), but older ones like the 727 require a human to monitor the analog gauges, control the systems, and prevent them from exceeding limits.
Trying to automate all of those things for a one-time flight would be simply cost-prohibitive. I know some of them wouldn't be necessary for the flight in question, but you couldn't just wave them all away, either.
This just in: not everyone wants to be a paper pushing middle manager and actually want to keep a technological position instead
This. There are plenty of graybeards out there with a decade or three of solid experience who would be valuable assets to any team... but would be completely out of their depth in a traditional management role. These are the people you hire for senior engineer roles where they're supervising and mentoring the work of the "grunts" and making important technical decisions, but you leave them out of the paper-pushing managerial BS as much as possible.
Good companies will have multiple "tracks" for their senior people so that they have ways to advance without having to become a management drone isolated from the technical side. My employer actually has three tracks; one is a purely technical one for guys with engineering PhDs and lots of technical experience, one is the traditional management route, and the third is a hybrid where you take some management roles while still remaining involved on the technical side. But then, we don't work in software/IT. We build airplanes.
That's what the proposal is asking: what technology should we work on that will make it cheap enough?
The catch with this approach is that you actually have to commit to technologies (which means building things, testing them, and actually making flights on occasion). You can't just sit back and say "yep, let's wait on someone else to develop the tech" and then not actually do anything.