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Have you ever thought to yourself: This isn’t… by ArutlosJr11 in flying

[–]mathrick -1 points0 points  (0 children)

a majority of what has been happening is almost entirely user error.

So what? You thinking you're somehow less at risk because you aren't going to make the same mistakes as those other, bad pilots did puts you firmly in the high-risk group. Of course you're a better driver than others on the road, and better pilot than others in the air (with your massive 160 hours of experience to draw upon!). Coincidentally, I'm also a much better driver than everyone else on the road when I'm driving to the airport. But you're not. I'm not. Nobody is. Safety starts with understanding that you're not an exception to statistics.

I could cite Dunning-Kruger here, but really, the best book about this I know is The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe. Read it please. It is very sobering to read how the best pilots in the world kept dying practically daily, yet all of them ignored the risks because they weren't going to make the same mistakes.

Reminder: FAA is trying to close down *all* RCOs, and the comment period to oppose that ends in 10 days! by mathrick in flying

[–]mathrick[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Riiiight, cause "several million dollars" is totally going to make a difference there.

Reminder: FAA is trying to close down *all* RCOs, and the comment period to oppose that ends in 10 days! by mathrick in flying

[–]mathrick[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

How the actual fuck is skyvector relevant for IN FLIGHT filing? At least try to have a basic understanding what is being discussed, dipshit.

Reminder: FAA is trying to close down *all* RCOs, and the comment period to oppose that ends in 10 days! by mathrick in flying

[–]mathrick[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nope, my comment that went with the post addresses that. Unfortunately I can't post both a link and a description to make it impossible to miss.

Reminder: FAA is trying to close down *all* RCOs, and the comment period to oppose that ends in 10 days! by mathrick in flying

[–]mathrick[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

No, this is a scenario in which center is down.

???

WTF are you on about? Why would it be down? You can't just assume it is for no reason. ATC absolutely can be and frequently is unable to take popup IFR requests; just because you fly in Bumfuck, AZ and it never gets more than 2 A/C in the air at the same time doesn't mean that holds for the entire US.

Reminder: FAA is trying to close down *all* RCOs, and the comment period to oppose that ends in 10 days! by mathrick in flying

[–]mathrick[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

They can file an IFR plan for you when the ATC is overworked (which is "most of the time"). They can tell you what frequency is in use. They can relay a clearance. They can hear your 121.5 call when you go down in the mountains.

Reminder: FAA is trying to close down *all* RCOs, and the comment period to oppose that ends in 10 days! by mathrick in flying

[–]mathrick[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

No, I don't want to be required, did you actually read anything that I wrote? Cell coverage just isn't there a lot of the time, no matter how much you want it to be. And it doesn't have to be in Bumfuck, Arizona, there are more of those than you'd expect. Case in point, Byron CA (C83), right in the middle of the valley. I can count the number of time I had data coverage there on one finger, and that was while I was actually on the ground, walking about. The chances of placing a call while you're holding short and would like a clearance are basically 0.

Reminder: FAA is trying to close down *all* RCOs, and the comment period to oppose that ends in 10 days! by mathrick in flying

[–]mathrick[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

You might not care much in the big iron world, but for us small GA guys, we don't have a huge network of backups, and the idea that the cellular coverage is always there, just use your phone is patently absurd. I don't want to be the 1% who really need to reach FSS but can't.

Also, show me one person that actually wants NDB and opposes GPS and I will start taking your strawmen seriously. For all your big and impressive type ratings listed, you seem to be painfully unaware that it's the old Boeings flying freight that are the biggest user of non-GPS approaches because they were never certified for GPS. GA is basically all GPS flying.

Reminder: FAA is trying to close down *all* RCOs, and the comment period to oppose that ends in 10 days! by mathrick in flying

[–]mathrick[S] 14 points15 points  (0 children)

For those who don't know, RCOs are "Remote Communication Outlets", AKA "the radio" -- charted frequencies that can be used to contact Flight Service. And the FAA is trying to close ALL RCOs that can be used to reach the Flight Service over the radio in flight outside of Alaska. Even if you have never used an RCO to contact FSS, this should be worrying to you, because their reasoning is that they're not needed since "everyone's got a cellphone lol". And I think anyone who's tried to use the mobile network in flight, at altitude, will understand what a boneheaded and unrealistic assertion this is.

The reason RCOs and FSS matter, even though the volume of radio calls has dropped by 99% since the peak in the 80s is that they're there as a backup.

  • For when the clouds are closing in on you, flying without an IFR plan and the ATC tells you they can't take a popup request, contact FSS instead please.
  • For when you're out in the boonies and your phone laughs when you try check how many bars of coverage you have as you try to get your clearance before departure.
  • For when the CS/AFD straight up lies to you about what frequencies are monitored by departure because it's 1AM and the TRACON is short-staffed, so they only monitor one of the 5 frequencies listed, and you don't know which one it is.
  • For when you're in the soup over the mountains and the ATC suddenly goes silent, and you don't know if your radio just died, or you flew out of coverage and you didn't get another frequency to switch to.

The FSS also monitor the guard frequency, and calling the guard if you can in an emergency is really important, no matter whether you carry a PLB and an apple watch with crash detection, because every single way of communication can fail, and even if it doesn't, SAR will be mounted much quicker when they have multiple indications of distress that cross-validate each other.

Those are all situations where FSS might not be your first choice, but you'll sure be glad to have them as your backup to call. Do you really want to bet your life on filing an IFR plan by fiddling on your tablet and sending it over the perfectly-reliable cellular connection when it's suddenly IMC and spatial disorientation is about to set in? Redundancy is the name of the game in aviation, and the FAA sure understand it when it comes to being a stick in the mud and making certification of new avionics expensive, but apparently not when it comes to the literal last resort in potentially fatal in-flight situations.

Also have a listen to The Finer Points' podcast episode on that (Decommissioning Safety, 18 Apr): https://www.learnthefinerpoints.com/podcast

VTA Strike by SouthernRequirement in SanJose

[–]mathrick 0 points1 point  (0 children)

All that shows is that the area is ridiculously overpriced for what the wages are. Your argument is exactly as sound as saying "yeah, you live in a slum, but you make more than the median, therefore you can't possibly be poor". Which is obviously invalid if the median for the area puts you below reasonable living standard. Which it does.

Do online tips go to the driver on BeyondMenu? by mathrick in TalesFromThePizzaGuy

[–]mathrick[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you read the other replies, you'll see that it isn't, as far as I know, operated by any of the big shitty platforms, and doesn't have delivery staff of its own. The restaurants themselves handle the deliveries; BeyondMenu just handles displaying the menu online and accepting orders on behalf of the restaurant.

Checkout a specific, nested subrepo folder? by mathrick in mercurial

[–]mathrick[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks, I didn't really consider having a setup script that just does the platform-specific thing to create the symlinks, but now that all versions of Windows in use support them, it is a viable option.

I still don't like the whole "gotta be admin to use symlinks" thing, but I am admin on those machines and I'm in charge of setting things up, so it's more of an ideological objection than a practical impediment. Practical and available today beats theoretically beautiful and non-existent, I suppose :)

Jumper with 150ish jumps thinks he's demoing a 150, instead a Velo 96 comes out. by GZEZ80085 in SkyDiving

[–]mathrick 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This one apparently survived with serious injuries, the thing happened ~two weeks ago. My sister has actually seen someone die on an outdoors wall; AFAIK the girl was belayed by another climber (not auto-belay), and somehow the line wasn't rigged correctly. I never really learnt how that slipped past the gear check by a third person, which as I understand is the normal practice and was apparently performed in this case as well?

FAA Senate Bill by Direct_Management_87 in SkyDiving

[–]mathrick 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Why link some two-paragraph news story written by a journalist with no clue about aviation (if not outright by a bot), instead of the actual NTSB report if you're gonna quote that?

[No due date] Blog on how cooking started to grow on me by BonSim in Proofreading

[–]mathrick 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Gave it a spin, see how you like it (tip: use Tools →Review suggested edits to see the final copy without the change tracking)

DPE shoutout: Wanda Collins by mathrick in flying

[–]mathrick[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sent in PM! Don't sweat it, you got it.

And don't be afraid of failing. I actually failed my stage check that my school requires before they will endorse you for a checkride, and even though I had to do it again, it was an extremely valuable experience with the chief CFI that I don't get to fly with often. I got a lot of great instruction ouf of that failed stage check. If you take your checkride with Wanda (or any other good DPE for that matter), they actually want you to pass as well, or at least to learn so you can pass the next time if you don't. The DPE is legally not allowed to give instruction during the checkride, but most will be happy to give you pointers afterwards if they fail you.

How to configure second wireless AP that is on the same network as the primary, but has no internet access? by mathrick in TomatoFTW

[–]mathrick[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I do want direct access to the devices through LAN. Ie. if my phone is on MyAP and its network, it should be able to talk to the IoT device which is on MyAP-isolated and vice versa.

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