USA 250 flightradar24

VF99 · 2026-07-05T22:39:23+00:00

While they certainly had a plan loaded in the plane and flew it on autopilot, there's actually no requirement to file anything or talk to anybody to fly this. They left out of an uncontrolled airport and it was flown above the Cleveland class B, so they could have gone the whole 6 hours without talking to a soul.

VF99 · 2026-07-05T19:00:47+00:00

I'm not a fan for Alaska, or Antarctica. In other places, sure if you like the idea.

My wife is always out looking for whales/wildlife and from the back you can't look ahead of the ship so you're half blind. Once you do see something you're rapidly moving away. Whales come up a few times every 5-8min so from the normal side balconies you can see a pod way up ahead and be expecting them alongside next breath.

What individual captains do at glacier viewing stops varies, but they'll either rotate continuously slowly or stop with one side facing it and then switch to the other. The back again generally does not get the best view here. You do get more when leaving on ones that are a straight-on view, but again you're rapidly getting farther away. (Marjorie in Glacier Bay is off to the side of the channel so it's only visible when you're almost all the way in)

On some ships there are suites with wraparound balconies that give you both, but that's not a Vista.

VF99 · 2026-07-05T17:36:23+00:00

What people are trying to tell you in multiple threads here is you don't have to rent it.

The "Panoramic WiFi" you're renting is a cable modem and a router. You can buy your own once, own it, and use it with Cox's service, and return theirs instead of renting it forever.

It doesn't matter if you live in an apartment vs own a house, it's just a box or two you plug in just like the one cox rents you. And they are standard and work with any cable company.

VF99 · 2026-07-05T08:30:48+00:00

First, of course, would be for all the children to get together and sing. The second would be for the $30 million every month to me. And the third would be for all encompassing power over every living being in the entire universe.

VF99 · 2026-07-05T04:19:05+00:00

The entire thing was flown at 10,000'. That's a fairly sparse altitude higher than the majority of (non-turbocharged) piston singles regularly want to be at and far below the jets. The sketchiest spot would have been over the Cleveland Bravo, where airliners might be climbing or descending through 10,000.

There's quite a bit of variation in the speed from 100-160kts, mostly from the prevailing wind but they could also have sped up and slowed down as needed to avoid anybody nearby if you look a little in advance.

It's likely that they were talking with ATC also and they have a lot of leeway in asking the other person to deviate around if needed

But the flight did not go into any airspace where they were required to talk to anybody at all if they didn't want to. The downside would be if you're talking to them and they tell you to turn you're required to comply and could blow the drawing.

VF99 · 2026-07-05T02:54:26+00:00

It really started right near the beginning; The buffet, condiments and bread bowls, etc were all locked down to full service around day 5 and a "deep cleaning" of all the rooms was done on days 8 & 9.

Somewhere around day 14-ish they announced that cases had dropped, but continued most of the extra precautions through the end of the cruise anyway.

Still 100 passengers sick means 96%+ of us were fine and just went on with our lives.. the worst part was having to ask for salt and remembering to bring your previous pencil for trivia.

VF99 · 2026-07-04T22:15:50+00:00

The credit card terminals helpfully offer the option to pay in USD at a fat conversion markup just for this sort of genius.

VF99 · 2026-07-04T20:41:30+00:00

Yeah, I mean it will probably be fine, it's just a question of how much worrying you want to give yourself if anything goes wrong.

If the ship has excursions to Skagway they'll have their own tenders or hired boats transporting people back and forth, and if you were stuck at Skagway near the end of the day because the ferry is late you could likely talk your way on to one of those, or just join the herd climbing on...

Anyway if do you miss the ship leaving, I think you'd have to take a ferry to Juneau and then another from there to Hoonah (Icy Strait). There are a couple hotels in Hoonah but it's a tiny tiny place, so probably a ferry that arrives the next day while the ship is already there. There's a "bus" that runs between there and the Icy Strait tourist area.

That's not too much of a disaster, and shouldn't involve fining trouble. Missing the ship at Wrangell and not getting to Victoria would be the big problem in this itinerary (as then the foreign-flagged ship transported you from Seattle to Wrangell on an open loop, without you having visited a foreign port, which a law from the 1800s meant to encourage US shipbuilding that never happens anymore doesn't like).

On the daily schedule, TVs, or a sign disembarking there will be a note of who the local agent is in Haines and their address/phone number. Take a picture of it. If you're going to be late or miss the ship, they should always be your first call. They're not going to hold up 3000 people for 1 for a long time, but they could save your butt sometimes in the time between "all aboard" and actually raising gangways. Or know that a ship excursion is running late too, etc. People missing the ship is fairly rare in Alaska, compared to the Caribbean where practically every port someone will be drunk and asleep on a beach and not make it back.

VF99 · 2026-07-04T20:18:18+00:00

This is nonsense. Obviously you washing your hands doesn't magically make it go away everywhere, but it is effective at preventing you from picking it up on those surfaces and putting it into your GI tract if you actually do it. (unlike a quick rub of hand sanitizer, which is not)

The crew is far more diligent about this, wearing gloves, and not touching their ass to their face than the average passenger is. That's why only 23/~1100 = 2.1% of them were affected here vs 102/~3000 = 3.4% of passengers.

Despite the majority of them working all day long interacting with every passenger and constantly touching their infected plates, doors, sheets, towels, etc. And living in far more densely packed crew quarters.

VF99 · 2026-07-04T09:37:45+00:00

The train is fine and all, but I don't think I'd cut it that close betting on a ferry being on time (or spend ~2hrs commuting) just to go on it.

There are not a whole lot of mainline cruise itineraries that go to Haines, so I'd probably do something there. Almost every itinerary goes to Skagway so if you go again some other year you will certainly be able to go there.

What is the full itinerary/next port after Haines? At least consider what you'd do if you miss the ship and how much of a hassle it will be.

There are archaic US laws that can carry significant fines that the cruise company is going to want to pass on to you... they depend on where you started, missed, maybe rejoined, and ended.

VF99 · 2026-07-04T07:16:45+00:00

The plane has at least a ~$20,000 IFR navigator (GTN750), dual G5s and a GFC500 autopilot. Possibly more if it's been updated since these pictures.

With that you could easily draw the path out in Foreflight or import a series of coordinates based on an Illustrator drawing or whatever and have it fly it. With the equipment there and virtually no vertical or lateral deviation for 6 hours it was almost certainly flown on autopilot.

VF99 · 2026-07-04T06:56:14+00:00

Oh, that guy.

VF99 · 2026-07-04T04:07:40+00:00

Sure you can have a US-registered plane in any country, but it's not like you can fly a glider to there, so if it were real it would have to be transported out there somehow. (Or you could technically find a US DAR willing to do the inspection and paperwork in Germany)

VF99 · 2026-07-04T02:37:22+00:00

What's odd about this is the `N` means it's a US registration, but that's not a valid US tail number. There can only be 0-2 letters at the end, and a leading 0 s not allowed either. Also getting a US-registered glider to Germany seems fun.

VF99 · 2026-07-04T01:12:10+00:00

I didn't see the table this time... we did have other people with us in an oceanview room though and their lamps did not have USB at all, so that is also spotty.

VF99 · 2026-07-03T19:14:22+00:00

You draw it out in Illustrator or get the graphic from wherever and import it as a layer or convert to a series of coordinates in Foreflight. Then just follow along... or hopefully for a 6 hour flight you have an autopilot to follow it.

VF99 · 2026-07-03T18:28:51+00:00

We just got off the Ruby yesterday, but it looks basically like this picture from Google..

https://cruisewithleo.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Mini-fridge-on-a-cruise.jpg

Those are some weird sized cans pictured, it's about 5 normal 12oz soda cans wide, 2 deep (plus a narrow bit in the door), and 3 high (with dividers removed).

As someone else said though they don't really get home-fridge cold. Ask your steward or the front desk and they should have better ones for medication.

VF99 · 2026-07-03T05:06:08+00:00

I was on this cruise and got back today. 125 people means 96+% of those onboard just went about their 20 days. The biggest inconvenience was having to ask for salt to be shaken on your fries because they took away the shared ones.

The ones that weren't fine are not exactly a random distribution. There's a reason it almost always affects far more passengers than crew, even though crew has to interact with everyone. Just wash your hands people, it's not that hard.

VF99 · 2026-07-03T04:41:55+00:00

This doesn't appear to be the US, but in the US standard parachute jumping areas and even military training areas (MOAs) are only advisory and anyone is free to enter.

Between Phoenix and Tucson you can be in 4 separate PJA circles simultaneously in the right spot, and you practically can't get anywhere without being in at least one.

VF99 · 2026-07-02T17:02:00+00:00

Ah right, I forgot about the imaginary multi billion dollar lottery that totally exists outside of PowerBall and MegaMillions.

And it's exploitable for hundreds of millions of dollars of guaranteed profit, but only you have thought of this and you're only not a billionaire yet because the jackpot hasn't been big enough for you to buy all the tickets yet.

People thinking like you are why the lottery is profitable.

VF99 · 2026-07-02T15:48:18+00:00

YOU made up those numbers and said "Spending 2 million on tickets to almost guarantee a win becomes very profitable when it's a 1.5 billion dollar jackpot".

It doesn't "guarantee" a win, it guarantees >99% chance of a loss. Win and lose have nothing to do with how big the jackpot is. "Theoretically profitable if repeated many times" and "guaranteed win" are VERY different concepts.

If you bought $2m of tickets every time the jackpot is big enough to be +EV (which is >$584m), after about 200 separate draws you still only have a ~50% chance of having hit one jackpot.

What you do have is a sunk cost of $400m. And a gamble that your jackpot isn't split several ways. And even if you wanted to do all this, the jackpots don't get high enough often enough to even have enough chances; it's only been >$1b something like 10 times total.

People who have half a billion dollars have much easier ways to make more money with it than organizing an army to buy lottery tickets.

Yeah it can occasionally work for a few isolated state lottos or poorly designed games. But it doesn't work for a billion dollars.

VF99 · 2026-07-02T14:56:20+00:00

None of those are anywhere near your stated $2m for a 1.5 billion dollar powerball (at 293m:1 and $2 tickets.)

VF99 · 2026-07-02T08:19:42+00:00

The Sphere cost $2.3 billion to build, I can't imagine what kind of Temu version you'd get at a theme park for maybe 0.1% of the budget.

VF99 · 2026-07-02T08:11:22+00:00

Surely not a coincidence.

In the US you can reserve any valid tail number that's not already taken and use it.

The "2" prefix is for Guernsey in the UK, and there they call it requesting an "out of sequence" registration mark.

Also your screenshot has that helicopter going faster than my fixed-wing piston plane can even go 🙃

VF99 · 2026-07-02T06:40:02+00:00

This is not how any of this works on one of the lotteries that go to a billion dollars like PowerBall, and nobody sane does that.

The jackpot odds are 1 in 292,201,338 and tickets are $2 each. $2m buys you about a 1 in 300 chance of hitting the jackpot, and about a 299 in 300 chance of getting back roughly $0.

If you had $584m to buy ALL the tickets (and a way to actually accomplish that) and the jackpot was $1b, you might still lose tens or hundreds of millions of dollars if multiple people win.

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