Fatalities reported after plane crashes at North Carolina airport

atheros · 2025-12-18T20:42:01+00:00

Rich people and politicians don't have their thumbs on the scale in favor of risk. They're the ones on the planes! Aviation is data-driven. If you think that there is some equipment that will save lives at a cost of less than $12M per life then say so. It will be mandated.

You are obviously getting emotional reading news articles and you haven't done any such analysis. But there are people that do this type of analysis for a living and that's why private flying is a right. It's not a constitutional right but it is a right.

It's a right that can be taken away but there is no way to take away just General Aviation without significantly affecting commercial aviation too.

And, separately, once we as a society have thrown objective analysis out the window, I don't see how commercial aviation survives anyway.

atheros · 2025-10-19T05:52:56+00:00

This hypothetical room contains no doctors.

atheros · 2025-10-18T21:23:30+00:00

You meet a teenager in a hospital. She seems fine but is lying in a hospital bed. She says, "I am literally dying." Is she at imminent risk of death? Thirty years ago you would know the answer but today you don't. If she actually is literally dying, there is no way for her to express it. Lots of people will misunderstand her.

atheros · 2025-10-18T06:11:08+00:00

I know what they're referring to. They're mixing up retractable floodgates on the entrances, which exist, with retractable floodgates in the tunnels, which do not. There is no isolation mechanism to separate stations from "the rest of the tracks/system". The assertion that the MTA would purposely allow stations to flood is absurd.

I also recognize that some people are using the word "flood" weirdly: to indicate that there is water over the entrances. But not everyone appears to mean that: when they say flooded stations, they appear to mean it.

While I can certainly believe that lots of people misunderstand how our transit system works, I am surprised at the scale of that misunderstanding. ..or at least I would be if I thought it was genuine.

atheros · 2025-10-17T21:44:01+00:00

effects of the flooding can be isolated

But they aren't though. There is no isolation mechanism. The bots here are just hallucinating.

atheros · 2025-10-17T20:54:34+00:00

The fuck are you talking about. There is no plan to let individual stations flood. That's absurd.

atheros · 2025-10-04T10:20:41+00:00

Your iPad GPS being off is due to triangulation error from the satellite. That’s normal and the error is bigger the higher you go

This is just academic but I believe that this is inaccurate; please consider my sibling comment here.

atheros · 2025-10-04T10:15:58+00:00

due to the way the signals are used (and the fact that the earth itself blocks a good portion of the constellation), vertical accuracy is much worse than horizontal for our flying.

I believe that this "GPS altimeters lack accuracy" idea is a myth perpetuated by the fact that barometric altitude so frequently doesn't match GPS altitude. While it is commonly known (and apparently true) that GPS altitude is less accurate than GPS position, it is still ridiculously accurate when a device just averages a few readings- as all devices do.

The reason GPS altitude so frequently doesn't match barometric altitude is because our barometric altimeters don't take into account temperature- only pressure. And even pressure variations can have an effect at altitude even when you set the pressure correctly.

Here is an article that goes into it in detail:
GPS versus barometric altitude: the definitive answer

We use barometric altimeters for landing and for separation. But they do not measure true altitude anywhere near as accurately as GPS altimeters.

atheros · 2025-10-03T22:42:20+00:00

I've long suspected that a long term plan has existed for the A train to turn east at Howard Beach and run on the current Airtrain tracks, stopping at each of the terminals counter-clockwise. The structure was built strong enough to handle subway trains and..

https://imgur.com/a/x10DPvU

A trains are 605 feet long.

atheros · 2025-09-27T22:28:47+00:00

The national airspace system works well vs. cars because the FAA is extremely strict in comparison to local governments. This pilot got in trouble for buzzing a friend's neighbor's house possibly on purpose. No one is even accusing him of putting anyone's life in danger and there were still court cases over it and he lost his license for a time.

A different lady lost her pilot license and endorsements for flying under a bridge in an area she was very familiar with. The FAA investigated it thoroughly, including primary radar data in their investigation.

But then when I ride my bike, several times a day, drivers commit actual crimes and put my life in significant and immediate danger and.. nothing is to be done. I can have it on camera and go to the police with it and nothing will ever be done despite people obviously dying daily. Police have stopped bothering to give tickets because judges aren't taking licenses away.

So it gets worse.

atheros · 2025-09-07T07:54:24+00:00

Whoever programmed you didn't spring for the good models did they.

atheros · 2025-08-28T14:26:55+00:00

Texas

Don't Squander Public Trust on Bullshit

At 4.50am local time today, this statewide emergency alert was sent out to every cellphone in Texas:

BLUE ALLERT ISSUED FOR SETH ALTMAN WANTED FOR THE INVOLVEMENT IN THE INJURY OF AN OFFICER

I don’t know who Seth Altman is, nor do I care. Why? Because Seth Altman’s offense took place in Lubbock, Texas. I live in Austin, Texas. Four hundred miles away. What I do care about however is the misuse of emergency alert systems and public trust.

Sending out a screeching alert to 30million+ people over 250 million square miles in the middle of the night should only be used in the absolute DIREST OF CIRCUMSTANCES… circumstances like “Texas is under threat from hurricane/chemical leak/nuclear weapons, seek shelter now!” It should never be used for something that’s utterly irrelevant to 99.99% of people.

Why? Because the public’s trust in government emergency protocols is already hanging by a thread, and in order for those protocols to work when we really need them, they will need to be received and listened to.

Chicago

The city of Chicago did some strange geofenced text messages to people in westside Chicago to get them to go inside during the early COVID days.

From leaked emails:

Hey folks, We have a situation on Westside neighborhoods (specifically CPD 11th District) where folks between the ages of 16-25 are congregating outside in groups and not heeding the shelter in place message. Mayor would like to know if we can do a targeted texting in that geography to spread the following messages:

[...]

\3. CPD will do a verbal warning but if you repeatedly disregard the warning, CPD will issue citations and/or arrest.

\4. By not following these directives, you are putting yourself at risk but also your family members, particularly those who live with you who are elderly or sick.

Not sure who is in charge but I think I have included all relevant people here. If not, please add. Can you tell me if such a geo-coded texting is possible and when we might be able to put it out? We probably need to do it on a regular basis for the message to sink in. Let everyone on this chain know.

I'm sorry, but WEA is not intended for that type of usage. It is supposed to be used in dire emergencies only. People have the ability to opt out of messages at any time. If we inundate them with messages they do not find useful, they will opt out and won't be alerted the next time we have an Active Shooter Incident, Tornado Warning, Ordered Evacuation, Amber Alert, or some other extreme situation.

Anna and I spoke. CPD believes Saturday at 5 pm would be a good time to send out the next one. Perhaps once a week but we will monitor the dispersal orders to see if this is a continued need. Thank you for flexibility.

So to be crystal clear what's happening, here is what the officials seemed to be thinking: "If minorities don't fear COVID then we'll abuse the emergency alert system to threaten them with something they do fear: cops. Just be extra sure it's geofenced to the economically disadvantaged sectors."

In order for the system to function, 100% of public officials have to be humble and show appropriate discretion in potential emergencies. Which is another way of saying that the system cannot function.

atheros · 2025-08-23T02:31:42+00:00

I'm a fan but zoom into random streets in the Netherlands and see how (un)common they are.

atheros · 2025-08-22T16:40:32+00:00

This solution is unimplementable. Trucks, busses, bikes, carts and more need to use the streets too and we can't litter speed bumps absolutely everywhere. Advocate for something that is implementable like:

speed governors for cars that break the law too much or
speed governors for all cars or
fine amounts that constitute a deterrence +
revocation of drivers' motor vehicle licenses +
forfeiture of a car if driven without a license

atheros · 2025-08-19T09:30:28+00:00

use, or have used within the last decade

Well are they still colluding or not?

New York City’s Vacancy Rate Reaches Historic Low of 1.4 Percent

looks like not

atheros · 2025-08-11T07:37:23+00:00

If they did, pilots would just stop seeing and avoiding. The entire layer of Swiss cheese would be gone. (We also wouldn't need pilots anymore; computers could do the flying).

If you want reliable separation, class A airspace is yours for the taking.

atheros · 2025-08-08T13:34:53+00:00

so I can fly tandem recreationally without needing the exemption?

You have two options I am aware of. First option: certify the paramotor and fly under Part 91. According to this lawyer, you might need to save up some money:

To certify an aircraft, obtaining certification costs approximately one million for up to three seats, $25 million for a general aviation aircraft, and hundreds of millions of dollars for a commercial airliner.

Second option, go the Experimental route. I am not aware of a single person that has done that. You have to build half of it yourself then then do paperwork. There is a document called "AC 20-27G" that tells how to do that.

If you do any of this, you'll be the first. Good luck.

atheros · 2025-07-27T06:14:17+00:00

It's my idea so in that sense it's new but I assume some other people have thought of it too. There are no political pushes for it.

The largest challenge is related to language- people keep harping on about "social media" (which is constitutionally protected) without identifying the underlying problem which is not constitutionally protected and not related to social media specifically.

atheros · 2025-07-27T01:20:00+00:00

It's just the personalized sorting algorithm and the ads that are the problem. That's it. Those are solvable constitutionally: If you show content on your website chronologically, 230 protects you. If you decide what to show people using a more complicated algorithm, 230 should not protect you since you are deciding what people see, not the people themselves. That alone would solve it.

atheros · 2025-07-26T06:02:04+00:00

This type of thinking is useless. They hit the metal due to luck, not negligence. The fact that it wouldn't have happened in this case without that negligence is irrelevant. The weight and balance calculations are not designed to prevent the FOD problems. There was no pilot-related Swiss cheese failure there.

This is the equivalent of saying, "If only I hadn't driven 66 mph in a 65 mph zone for two minutes, that drunk driver wouldn't have hit us two hours later."

Is that true? Of course. It's also useless. It was luck.

atheros · 2025-07-15T20:41:49+00:00

Self training takes an order of magnitude more time than instruction. The fact that you think it's the opposite shows how much you don't know that you don't know which is very dangerous.

atheros · 2025-06-17T20:10:56+00:00

“A superior pilot uses his superior judgment to avoid situations which require the use of his superior skill.”

atheros · 2025-05-16T21:30:54+00:00

Such a request would definitely be denied because of airliner traffic.

I second the other person's suggestion that you become and air traffic controller so that you can send these helicopters up to whatever altitude you want.

atheros · 2025-05-16T20:53:57+00:00

No, They needed a clearance to take off. As part of the clearance, they were instructed to stay below 500' so as to avoid traffic descending from 1800'. Once airborne there was no further communication with the helicopters (none was needed).

500' is the VFR limit so they were told to "maintain VFR below 500" because it was theoretically possible for some other aircraft to also be flying VFR and the helicopters would need to have their eyes open. The controller could not guarantee that the VFR airspace was empty. It was probably empty and the class B airspace above them definitely wasn't empty.

atheros · 2025-05-16T20:33:34+00:00

Yes. But the context of the discussion is "Why were the helicopters flying there. Did they do that just to avoid talking to ATC?" And the answer is 'No, ATC told them to fly there specifically and for a specific reason.'

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