Something civilian themed - is anyone here familiar with the Terminal 2 of the airport of Los Angeles? I am asking because I have a story involving two unaccompanied minors (the aviation concept, not the immigration one) waiting for a flight there but I don't get a complete picture of what would happen to them there. From their arrival at check-in to the departure of their flight is about a hour, for the record.
Edited by SeptimusHeap on May 2nd 2021 at 10:56:39 AM
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
rollin' on dubs
SeptimusHeap - All US Airlines have a program for unaccompanied minors
. Airline employees will escort them from gate to gate and may feed the kidlet(s).
Now the problem comes when a flight is canceled or the airline employees drop the ball...
All night at the computer, cuz people ain't that great. I keep to myself so I won't be on The First 48
Well, I just found out that apparently Google Maps has a lot of images from inside the terminal, so I can go with that. Now I only need to know whether Starbucks there has packaged oatmeal...
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Further questions, this time about exit row seats:
How strict are age rules on who is allowed to seat in exit row seats? From what I can see China, Australia and the USA expect passengers there to be at least 15 years old but the text of the regulation in the US case isn't 100% definitive ("No certificate holder may seat a person in a seat affected by this section if the certificate holder determines that it is likely that the person would be unable to perform one or more of the applicable functions listed in paragraph (d) of this section because ")
^ The US regulation has more to do with able-bodiedness than age. It's not expected someone under the age of 15 would understand or be able to remove the doors in an emergency either physically or psychologically.
Similarly, if you're wheelchair-bound or otherwise frail, you can't be seated there. (Usually the airline provides accommodation if you somehow qualify as that but are placed at an emergency exit.)
A Self-inflicted Disaster
NYT published an interactive article showing how risky it is to fly in a pandemic. The air inside an airliner cabin is continuously vented outside and fresh air is pumped in, and if someone sneezes or coughs, the droplets from their mouth are limited to the rows around them. However, if you do not wear a mask, or take it off, you are at risk of inhaling the viruses from passengers near you. The airport might be even more dangerous than the airplanes, as the ventilation systems are not designed to stop the spread of diseases.
Telegraph reported something regarding MH 370.
Aerospace engineer Richard Godfrey, who has spent years investigating the flight's 2014 disappearance, said his research suggested that pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah took a "carefully planned" flight path to avoid "giving a clear idea where he was heading".
The Boeing 777 with 239 people on board, dropped off radar screens after taking off from Kuala Lumpur International Airport, bound for Beijing.
The plane took an unexplained U-turn from its planned flight path and headed back across the Malay Peninsula and the Malacca Strait before vanishing.
Mr Godfrey said the plane's final movements could be mapped out using data from Weak Signal Propagation (WSPR), a global network of radio signals that can trace the movement of planes as they cross signals and set off invisible "electronic trip-wires".
"WSPR is like a bunch of trip-wires or laser beams, but they work in every direction over the horizon to the other side of the globe," Mr Godfrey said in his report.
His research found MH 370 crossed eight of these "trip-wires" as it flew over the Indian Ocean, which is consistent with previous studies of the plane's flight path.
But he said the plane's change in movements and speed appeared to suggest it was trying to avoid leaving clues about where it was heading.
"The flight path appears carefully planned," he added.
"The level of detail in the planning implies a mindset that would want to see this complex plan properly executed through to the end."
Friends of the pilot said he was “lonely” and “sad” while aviation specialist William Langewiesche wrote in The Atlantic that “there is a strong suspicion among investigators in the aviation and intelligence communities that he was clinically depressed."
One theory put forward by electrical engineer Mike Exner, from Colorado, is that the pilot probably made a climb which "accelerated the effects of depressurising, causing the rapid incapacitation and death of everyone in the cabin."
With oxygen still available in the cockpit, Mr Ahmad Shah could have kept flying for hours.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau's (ATSB) $200 million search for MH 370 scoured more than 120,000sq km of Indian Ocean floor using high-resolution sonar between 2014 to 2017 but could not locate the plane.
A second search sponsored by the Malaysian government was also fruitless.
In its final report, the ATSB identified an area of less than 25,000sq km "which has the highest likelihood of containing MH 370".
While the aircraft has not been located, 33 pieces of debris – either confirmed or highly likely to be from MH 370 – have been discovered in Mauritius, Madagascar, Tanzania and South Africa.
Lost in Space
So, wait, they think the pilot deliberately crashed the plane? I hadn't heard that somehow...
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Pilot Suicide has been floating around as a theory for a while.
"Yup. That tasted purple."
rollin' on dubs
@Flying while COVID: The problem with "fresh air" in jetliners - many pilots are told to keep recirculating air while on the ground. This cropped up in The '90s because some airlines believed that recirculating air saved fuel. Whether or not that was true, passengers and flight crews were getting sick with flus and colds due to the air on the taxiway being recycled.
All night at the computer, cuz people ain't that great. I keep to myself so I won't be on The First 48
My Hair Provides Affordable Healthcare
Even if Shah did indeed intentionally crash the plane, why all the extra effort to evade radar? If he really was determined to die, he could have just smashed the plane into the ground minutes after take off.
Perhaps he was some kind of sadist who really hated the airline/his passengers?
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
He didn’t want to be found.
rollin' on dubs
Also, he could have been forced back if he was spotted on radar. If he was trying to suicide, it's likely that he did so because he didn't want to be forced to land somewhere and/or have ATC or someone else talk him out of it.
All night at the computer, cuz people ain't that great. I keep to myself so I won't be on The First 48
Report: China Wants To Revive A Strategically Located Military Airfield Deep In The Pacific.
Kanton Island was once a stopover airfield for the US Army Air Forces in World War Two.
If they really want to use that, they're picking an awfully indefensible region compared to the capabilities of the entire Chinese military. It's out of Dong Feng range, well within cruise missile and airstrike distance of the US Pacific Fleet and US Air Force, it's a flat atoll so there's no real defending it against either amphibious Marine or seaborne attack. It's also incredibly limited in use. You'd get maybe a single sortie out at the start of a war before it's blasted beneath the sea possibly by nuclear attack. It's not a huge airfield by any stretch.
It's just a mind-bogglingly stupid idea to go there of all places surrounded by potential enemies. It'd be like trying to put a US Air Force base in the Paracel Islands or near Moon Sound off Estonia.
My Hair Provides Affordable Healthcare
The Chinese are banking on the US being too afraid of escalating tensions and potentially starting a war to try to actually remove the PLAN from the island bases. It worked with Obama and sort of with Trump so far.
Taira, supposedly they've got air filters on the planes now to catch a lot of that stuff as the air circulates, similar to how a face mask works. I didn't inspect the AC system on the plane I flew on last year, so I am taking this on faith.
Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar
Question for my historical fiction.
Does anyone know when is the first ever confirmed airstrike kill scored by an aviator, be it by shooting or bomb dropping? By aviator, I refer to those of heavier than air flying machines.
I can find plenty of firsts in air to air kill or surface to air kill, but not air to surface. The first recorded case of airstrike as a whole seems to happened in Italo-Turkish War of 1911, but that doesn't mention whether if it actually resulted in casualty or not.
The context: Basically, the main character, a lieutenant in US Navy and Naval Aviator No.2note participates in the US Occupation of Veracruz and conducts aerial reconnaissance.
Basically, after getting shot at by surface forces a couple of times, he goes "Screw those assholes, I'm gonna drop fucking bombs on their heads."
After a very reluctant approval from Admiral Fletcher, he flies over one of the fortified positions and chucks a couple of grenades down, becoming the very first American pilot ever to score a kill.
As I draft that scene, I was wondering if that would be just first American pilot or pilot in the whole world, leading to my question.
Edited by dRoy on May 10th 2021 at 11:57:49 PM
I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
I don't know but I am 99% sure it's gonna be either a brick or a hand grenade dropped by a guy in an observer seat.
No I'm not joking about the brick.
Oh really when?
Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar
Oh don't you worry, I would totally believe it if the very first airstrike was a brick.
I mean seriously, who would pass up such an opportunity? ![[lol]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lol2v12_4863.png "[lol]"){kind=small}
Not to mention it is a common, cheap, and a legitimately dangerous dense material to drop...
Edited by dRoy on May 11th 2021 at 12:21:08 AM
I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.
Would an empty wine bottle land with enough force to kill someone?
Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar
It would be easier to list a hard object that wouldn't kill a person if dropped from way up high.
At least, that's what I heard from my father when I tried to drop a penny from the Empire State Building back when I was a kid.
Lost in Space
Any object when dropped will reach its particular terminal velocity, which is when the drag force from air equals the acceleration due to gravity. Dropping from any higher than the distance needed to achieve terminal velocity (which depends on its coefficient of drag, mass, and surface area) does not increase the velocity at which it hits the ground (or something in the way of the ground).
A heavy glass object like a wine bottle could most definitely maim or kill if it hits someone at terminal velocity. However, because of its irregular shape it would be difficult to aim.
A penny is too light to cause more than minor injury even at its terminal velocity, but it would also be blown all over the place by the wind if you dropped it from sufficiently high up, making it extremely inaccurate.
Edited by Fighteer on May 11th 2021 at 7:01:24 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar
...GODDAMN IT, I should've gone for it!
I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.
“HASC members react to a GAO report” is one of those articles defense-adjacent journalists can’t seem to stop themselves from writing every few years.
They should have sent a poet.