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SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#19101: Mar 15th 2022 at 1:04:17 AM

Actually, I don't think that The War on Terror was the watershed moment...

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
AngelusNox Warder of the damned from The guard of the gates of oblivion Since: Dec, 2014 Relationship Status: Married to the job
Warder of the damned
#19102: Mar 15th 2022 at 6:04:25 PM

Germany is buying the F-35, it is official.

SAAB fanboys on the suicide watch, again.

Inter arma enim silent leges
TairaMai rollin' on dubs from El Paso Tx Since: Jul, 2011 Relationship Status: Mu
rollin' on dubs
#19103: Mar 15th 2022 at 7:07:22 PM

The Swiss, the Germans, who'll be the next in line?

I tried to walk like an Egyptian and now I need to see a Cairo practor....
Wabbawabbajack Margrave of the Marshes from Elbows out Since: Jun, 2013 Relationship Status: Awaiting my mail-order bride
Margrave of the Marshes
#19104: Mar 15th 2022 at 7:46:16 PM

Canada, assuming our federal government can finally make a decision it's been procrastinating on for the past 15 years.

FluffyMcChicken My Hair Provides Affordable Healthcare from where the floating lights gleam Since: Jun, 2014 Relationship Status: In another castle
My Hair Provides Affordable Healthcare
#19105: Mar 17th 2022 at 10:30:02 AM

Reuters: Russia fires official who said China refused to supply aircraft parts

  • Russian aviation authorities have fired an official who said last week that China had refused to supply Russian airlines with aircraft parts in the wake of Western sanctions, the Kommersant newspaper reported on Tuesday, citing sources and the official.
  • Valery Kudinov, an official at Russia's Federal Air Transport Agency (Rosaviatsia) responsible for maintaining airplane airworthiness, said Russia was in talks to source parts from countries including Turkey and India after a failed attempt to obtain them from China.
  • Sanctions have already cut off the supply of most foreign aircraft and parts to Russia, as major international airplane manufacturers Boeing and Airbus have halted the supply of components.

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Wabbawabbajack Margrave of the Marshes from Elbows out Since: Jun, 2013 Relationship Status: Awaiting my mail-order bride
Margrave of the Marshes
#19107: Mar 17th 2022 at 1:05:55 PM

It's one of the most common things in autocracies.

SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#19108: Mar 21st 2022 at 2:47:41 AM

China Eastern Airlines Boeing with 132 on board crashes in China

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#19109: Mar 21st 2022 at 9:46:01 AM

Someone posted the following links about ^ in the China thread:

Chinese Boeing jet crashes in mountains with 132 on board, no sign of survivors

Twitter link to the video footage showing the crash, plus the crash site itself

One thing that jumps out to me from these videos is that the plane appears to be missing its vertical stabilizer (tail fin).

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#19110: Mar 29th 2022 at 6:31:30 AM

Different topic: Destroyed An-225 "Dream" Cargo Jet's Owner Wants To Crowdfund Its Resurrection. That was the largest cargo plane in the world, also known as Mrija.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#19111: Apr 5th 2022 at 6:24:53 AM

USAF: Hill AFB’s 388th OSS exploring agile communications options for F-35A

The US Air Force is testing the use of Starlink satellite terminals to establish high-speed data uplinks to F-35A aircraft in the field. By linking the terminal to a gateway router that can fit in its travel pod, they achieved speeds of up to 30 times faster than existing military satellites. The entire system can be field-deployed in ten minutes with basic training.

Edited by Fighteer on Apr 5th 2022 at 9:25:05 AM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
minseok42 A Self-inflicted Disaster from A Six-Tatami Room (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Wishfully thinking
A Self-inflicted Disaster
#19112: Apr 5th 2022 at 6:38:57 AM

Is Starlink secure enough for military comms?

"Enshittification truly is how platforms die"-Cory Doctorow
LeGarcon Blowout soon fellow Stalker from Skadovsk Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
#19113: Apr 5th 2022 at 6:41:28 AM

Word from Ukraine says no but it's better than nothing over there right now.

I'd assume this is going to be better hardened.

Oh really when?
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#19114: Apr 5th 2022 at 6:47:38 AM

The US military has been interested in Starlink for exactly this sort of purpose for some time and has been testing it in a variety of situations.

Starlink itself is fully encrypted and has reportedly resisted hacking attempts from Russian actors. In fact, the deployment in Ukraine has been a golden opportunity for SpaceX engineers to get live aggressor testing. The only issues we know about publicly are related to jamming, and they have (again, reportedly) defeated that problem.

Obviously, any satellite uplink can in principle be tracked and used to target munitions, but that's hardly a problem exclusive to Starlink.

Edited by Fighteer on Apr 5th 2022 at 9:48:27 AM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#19115: Apr 5th 2022 at 7:32:11 AM

I'd imagine you would have to wait for the end of the war - right now, a lot of this stuff will be kept secret for operation security reasons.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
eagleoftheninth Shop all day, greed is free from a dreamed portrait, imperfect Since: May, 2013 Relationship Status: With my statistically significant other
Shop all day, greed is free
#19116: Apr 7th 2022 at 9:02:01 PM

ABC: DHL cargo plane skids off runway, breaks in half during emergency landing in Costa Rica.

    Article 
A cargo plane slid off a runway and broke in half during an emergency landing in Costa Rica, temporarily shutting down an airport but not injuring any crew.

Fire department officials said the Boeing 757-200, operated by cargo carrier DHL, took off from the Juan Santamaría international airport just west of the capital San Jose on Thursday morning but returned after pilots detected a failure in its hydraulic system.

As the plane attempted to land it skidded, turned and broke in two, exposing its cargo, fire department director Héctor Chaves said.

"Units mobilised to remove the pilot and co-pilot," Mr Chaves said.

A spokesman for DHL said both pilots were unharmed but one underwent a medical check as a precaution.

The incident closed the airport for several hours, with some 8,500 passengers and 57 commercial and cargo flights affected, airport operator Aeris said.

Luis Miranda, deputy director of civil aviation for Costa Rica, said the plane had gone only about 55 kilometres from the airport when it requested permission to turn back from its planned flight to Guatemala City.

He said the pilot and co-pilot were the only crew members aboard the plane, which was carrying only about two and a half hours' worth of fuel.

A spokesperson for the plane's manufacturer Boeing said they would defer questions to investigating authorities.

DHL and airport authorities said they were working together to move the aircraft, although they said it was not affecting operations.

"An investigation will be conducted with the relevant authorities to determine what happened," DHL said.

One day, we will read his name in the news and cheer.
SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#19117: Apr 8th 2022 at 1:44:01 PM

Update on the China Eastern Airlines disaster:

  • No evidence so far of common explosives.
  • No evidence of bad weather having a role.
  • Theories are either pilot suicide or a failure of the empennage.
  • A winglet was found at a distance from the wreck, but that may not mean anything.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#19118: Apr 27th 2022 at 1:08:31 PM

Update from another aviation accident six years ago: EgyptAir Flight 814 crashed after a pilot smoking in the cockpit caused a fire.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Wabbawabbajack Margrave of the Marshes from Elbows out Since: Jun, 2013 Relationship Status: Awaiting my mail-order bride
Margrave of the Marshes
#19119: Apr 27th 2022 at 2:18:25 PM

What a dumbass piece of shit.

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#19120: May 5th 2022 at 11:07:29 AM

Via Twitter, The Wall Street Journal is reporting (paywall) that Boeing has plans to move its corporate headquarters to Washington, DC from its current home in Chicago.

Observers note that this would further separate the engineering and management divisions of the company. That separation, initiated after Boeing's merger with McDonnell, is said to have led to the deemphasizing of the company's legendary engineering culture in favor of one that seeks profits and shareholder value. In turn, the destruction of that culture is blamed for the recent failures and delays in several of its programs, including the 737 MAX 8 aircraft, the Space Launch System rocket, and the Starliner space capsule.

Edited by Fighteer on May 5th 2022 at 2:08:18 PM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
minseok42 A Self-inflicted Disaster from A Six-Tatami Room (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Wishfully thinking
A Self-inflicted Disaster
#19121: May 16th 2022 at 8:58:13 PM

Cross-posted from the space thread: Vox: Flight delayed? Blame a spaceship

    Article 
You can typically blame an airline flight delay on a handful of usual suspects, like bad weather, mechanical issues, and traffic on the tarmac. But thanks to the rise of the commercial space industry, there’s now a surprising new source of air travel disruption: rocket launches.

In recent weeks, flights in and out of Florida have seen a sharp increase in delays. Palm Beach International Airport logged more than 100 delays or cancellations on April 15 alone. (Some of these can be attributed to a surge in private and charter flights.) Things are even worse at Jacksonville International Airport, where there were nearly 9,000 flight delays in March. Last week, federal regulators met to discuss these disruptions, which reflect many of the ongoing challenges facing the aviation industry, including storms, the rising cost of jet fuel, the Covid-19 pandemic, and a shortage of airline workers. But in Florida, a growing number of space launches — particularly those in the Cape Canaveral area — is also making flight schedules more complicated.

“They close significant airspace on the east coast before and during and after a launch. That traffic has to go somewhere,” John Tiliacos, the executive vice president of operations and customer service at Tampa International Airport, told Recode. “It’s like putting 10 pounds of potatoes in a five-pound bag, so you’re further congesting an already constrained airspace on the west coast of Florida.”

While right now these delays are concentrated in Florida, this problem could get a lot worse, especially as the number of spaceflights increases and as new launch facilities, or spaceports, open in other parts of the country. The situation is also a sign that the arrival of the second space age could have an unexpected and even extremely inconvenient impact on everyday life.

The spaceship problem is relatively straightforward: Air traffic controllers currently have to ground or reroute flights during launches. In order to break through the atmosphere and reach outer space, rockets must first travel through airspace that’s monitored by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which oversees air traffic control centers and flight navigation throughout the country. While these rockets typically only spend a few minutes in this airspace, they can create debris, like spent pieces of rocket hardware, either because they’re designed to shed their payloads in several stages or because the mission has failed. Reusable boosters used by some spacecraft, like Space "X"’s Falcon 9, reenter this airspace, too.

To make sure that planes aren’t hit by this debris, the FAA typically stops flights from traveling within a rectangle-shaped block of sky that can stretch from 40 to several hundred miles long, depending on the type of launch. Typically, there’s about two weeks of advance notice before each launch, and during that time, air traffic controllers can develop alternative arrangements for the flights scheduled on that day. While a launch is taking place, aviation officials track the vehicle’s entry into space and then wait for word from experts who analyze the trajectory of debris created by the launch in real time. If there is debris, air traffic controllers stand by until it falls back to Earth, which typically takes 30 to 50 minutes. Once that happens, regular flights can return to their normal flight paths.

A single space launch can disrupt hundreds of flights. For example, a Space "X" Falcon Heavy launch in 2018 — the same flight that infamously shot Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster into space — impacted 563 flights, created 4,645 total minutes of delays, and forced planes to fly an extra 34,841 nautical miles, according to data from the FAA. That extra mileage adds up quickly, especially when you consider the extra fuel and carbon emissions involved. Researchers from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida, estimate that a single space launch could cost airlines as much as $200,000 in extra fuel by 2027, and as much as $300,000 in extra fuel in the following decade.

The FAA insists it’s making improvements. Last year, the agency started using a new tool, the Space Data Integrator, that more directly shares data about spacecraft during launches and allows the agency to reopen airspace more quickly. The FAA also says it has successfully reduced the duration of launch-related airspace closures from about four to just over two hours. In some cases, the agency has been able to reduce that time to just 30 minutes.

“An end goal of the FAA efforts is to reduce delays, route deviations, fuel burn, and emissions by commercial airlines and other National Airspace System users as the frequency of commercial space operations increase,” the agency said in a statement. A graph representing the increasing number of licensed rocket launches in the US.

And the frequency of launches is picking up. There were 54 licensed space launches overseen by the FAA last year, but the agency thinks that number could grow in 2022 thanks to the rise in space tourism, growing demand for internet satellites, and upcoming space exploration missions. These launches could also become more common in other parts of the country as new spaceports, which are often built on or near existing airports, ramp up operations. The FAA has already licensed more than a dozen different spaceport locations in the United States, including Spaceport America in New Mexico, where Virgin Galactic launched its first flight last summer, as well as the Colorado Air and Space Port, a space transportation facility located just six miles from the Denver International Airport.

The FAA’s role in the rise of the commercial space industry is becoming increasingly complex. Beyond certifying and licensing launches, the FAA’s responsibilities also include studying the environmental impact of space travel and overseeing new spaceports. The agency will eventually have to monitor space passenger safety, too. This is on top of all the other new types of flying vehicles the FAA will also have to keep its eyes on, like drones, flying air taxis, supersonic jets, and even, possibly, space-faring balloons.

“Where things get contested is more on: How do all of these different types of vehicles fit in the system that the FAA is in charge of?” Ian Petchenik, who directs communications for the aircraft flight-tracking service Flightradar 24, told Recode. “Things are going to get much more complicated, and having a way to figure out who has priority, how much space they need, and what the safety margins are, I think, is a much bigger long-term question.”

While we’re still in the early days of the commercial space industry, some have already expressed concern that the agency isn’t headed in the right direction. The Air Line Pilots Association warned back in 2019 that the FAA’s approach could become a “prohibitively expensive method of supporting space operations,” and has urged the agency to continue to cut down on the length of airspace shutdowns during space launches. At least one member of Congress, Rep. Peter De Fazio, is already worried that the FAA is prioritizing commercial spaceflight launches over traditional air travel, which serves significantly more people.

Beyond air flight delays, the burgeoning space travel business has already influenced everything from the reality television we can watch and the types of jobs we can get to international politics and — because of the industry’s potentially enormous carbon footprint — the threat of climate change. Now it looks as though the commercial space industry could also influence the timing of your next trip to Disney World.

"Enshittification truly is how platforms die"-Cory Doctorow
SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#19123: Jun 9th 2022 at 12:31:27 AM

"broken arrow/empty quiver situation." as in "there was a nuclear weapon aboard".

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
LeGarcon Blowout soon fellow Stalker from Skadovsk Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
#19124: Jun 9th 2022 at 12:35:35 AM

There wasn't anything on board other than people, no radioactive material was present.

Oh really when?
eagleoftheninth Shop all day, greed is free from a dreamed portrait, imperfect Since: May, 2013 Relationship Status: With my statistically significant other

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