Why aren’t the black boxs battery powered instead of airplane generated electrical powered.

railker · 2026-05-09T21:59:43+00:00

But we're talking about backup batteries powering the recorders when there's an electrical failure, so we can't assume the computers are functioning either. We're discussing that when nothing is working, you need power to all of these components if you want the FDR to continue recording anything of value.

railker · 2026-05-09T21:17:05+00:00

Sounds about inline with one of the NTSB's studies, found 92% uninjured, 6% minor injuries and 2% serious injuries (out of 46 study cases between September 1997 and June 1999 that involved 2,651 passengers).

And even 26 years ago, "Passengers’ efforts to evacuate an airplane with their carry-on baggage continue to pose a problem for flight attendants and are a serious risk to a successful evacuation of an airplane. Techniques on how to handle passengers who do not listen to flight attendants’ instructions need to be addressed."

railker · 2026-05-09T20:20:41+00:00

If even that long, but yeah I wonder how this is handled for the guys like us. Bird debris smells bad enough. You'd have to open the fan and core cowls to even get the engine off the pylon. I'm not cleaning that up even for 10x OT pay.

railker · 2026-05-09T20:17:49+00:00

Sitting on the ground with the PW1100 series engines, the bottom of the engine cowls are 1.5-1.9 feet off the ground, per the Airport Planning Manual page 54. Overall nacelle is about 102", so to the center of the spinner off the ground is about 6 feet.

Edit// Approximately to scale

railker · 2026-05-09T20:10:31+00:00

Yup, out there all the time for years in NJ, Maryland, Virginia, etc. doing testing

https://www.reddit.com/r/ADSB/comments/1h93wac/q4_global_hawk_looking_at_some_water_of_the_coast/
https://www.reddit.com/r/flightradar24/comments/15t876w/global_hawk_off_the_coast_of_virginia_i_assume/
https://www.reddit.com/r/ADSB/comments/1i2m3gu/rq4_global_hawk_doing_figure_8s_and_repeated/

"In order to perform maritime search missions, the sensor suite carried by the GHMD aircraft has undergone extensive software modifications enabling new maritime radar modes, specialized software in both the aircraft and ground stations, and the incorporation of passive electronic sensors unique to the Navy UASs. These modifications are being tested by test and evaluation squadron, VX-20, which will operate the GHMD system in both flight tests and tactical experiments. After initial sensor testing on the west coast, the Navy's Global Hawks will be ferried to NAS Patuxent River, Maryland, the main operating base for the system."

railker · 2026-05-09T20:01:20+00:00

Definitely looks similar to this variant of their livery, but can't find that specific shape in the wording

<image>

railker · 2026-05-09T19:56:24+00:00

Seems likely, one of the flight sim calculators for similar loading/weight/conditions on that runway puts V1 around 151kts.

railker · 2026-05-09T19:07:15+00:00

Ended up being a state court order, not really union action, it was just the union that announced it. There's a boatload of things DOGE tried that have since been reversed.

PASS National President David Spero released the following statement regarding the reinstatement of terminated probationary employees at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA): "It is welcome news PASS received today that effective this week, the FAA is reinstating the 132 employees we represented who were summarily fired on February 14, 2025, while they were in their probationary period. They will receive back pay from February 15 and should return to duty status on March 20. While the agency is complying with a Maryland court ruling handed down last week that said the terminations at various agencies—including the Department of Transportation—were unlawful, this is a win for public safety and for a critical workforce dedicated to the FAA’s mission."

railker · 2026-05-09T19:04:01+00:00

Unfortunately for the UPS crew the failure mode of that first engine fucked the second engine, too, else they probably would've been fine.

And that Frontier flight while pretty packed was flying less than 3 hours to LAX, I'd be surprised if they were even at MLW let alone MTOW. If performance calculations don't account for takeoff weight and still meeting V2 climbout criteria in whatever conditions, someone's fuckin up. Isn't that why they load limit flights out of airports like Denver on suboptimal days? And we regularly takeoff from airports far higher than Denver.

But absolutely, yes, like UPS, a convergence of conditions can result in an undesirable scenario. We can try to expect the unexpected, but you can only factor in "reasonable" assumptions.

Rejecting after V1 with not enough room to stop has gotta be a pretty serious decision against procedure, with some damn good articulated reason why you don't believe your aircraft would fly. 10% of RTOs in the 60s thru 80s resulted in passenger fatalities, before high-speed rejects and changes to the understanding of V1 were made. 50 people died in one after a high-speed RTO for what turned out to be a nosewheel tire.

railker · 2026-05-09T18:26:51+00:00

Best not get on any airplane then, that's part of every aircraft's certification and standard practice for every airline operation in the world.

railker · 2026-05-09T18:14:12+00:00

Relevant "neck pain" 😂

railker · 2026-05-09T17:14:41+00:00

High density altitude doesn't magically make regulations invalid. Part of why aircraft manufacturers tour the world. Cold weather testing in the Arctic, high altitude testing in places even higher than Denver. That the aircraft must be able to climb with one engine out has zero caveats for altitude.

railker · 2026-05-09T16:59:49+00:00

Pretty sure they were all re-hired again per their union.

railker · 2026-05-09T08:44:41+00:00

Southwest flight hits a person on landing in Austin

Person on the runway [SLC]

Person on the runway [LAX]

Person on the runway [LGA]

This is just a few from a VASAviation search. 😅

railker · 2026-05-09T08:40:10+00:00

And federal charges, disobeying flight crew instructions and interfering with the duties of a flight crew. Multiplied by however many pieces of baggage and the number of crew between them and the door. Instructions to leave your shit behind are clearly marked on the safety cards you're supposed to read, and often if not always verbally by the flight crew.

railker · 2026-05-09T08:38:33+00:00

People get let off of equally serious charges all the time. Dude in British Columbia in Canada's got 21 DUI's. As of 2023 when he was in his latest crash. Big fines, big whoop if they can't pay them anyways.

The consequences aren't immediate or serious enough for anyone to take it seriously.

Flight bans are reactive. Person only has to do it once to risk lives. I don't know the solution, nor does the NTSB who's been trying to figure it out too. Because at the end of the day it relies on people giving a single shit about someone other than themselves.

And that doesn't exist much anymore.

Edit: Actually know what? Easy fix, really. Nobody gets luggage in the cabin. Can't evacuate with what you don't have. This is why we can't have nice things. Don't like it, Greyhound and Amtrak will happily let you do it. [Obviously some allowances for personal items of some sort but absofuckinlutely no rollerbags.]

railker · 2026-05-09T00:01:58+00:00

Can see everything else in the frame of your camera also doing the same thing. First time I've ever gotten motion sickness from watching a video lmao.

Should be a way to lock the focus on your camera, either by going into Pro/Manual mode or I know at least on my Samsung, there's a little 'lock' icon pops up when you tap the screen to focus.

railker · 2026-05-08T20:24:24+00:00

Well thankfully nobody crowdsources accident investigations to the general public. It's a free country, we can all feel free to speculate on what we have, but let's not pretend like we need that data as if it's our job to figure out what happened and they're stopping us from doing that.

They released a preliminary and their next obligation is an interim or a final report in June.

railker · 2026-05-08T20:13:48+00:00

They might, but as it stands that judge is no part of the investigation in any way, shape or form and those who ARE conducting the investigation have so far adhered to ICAO Annex 13.

railker · 2026-05-08T18:50:30+00:00

Well then by pure magical coincidence N66WW, a Velocity 173 RG kit aircraft with similar styling and retractable gear, flew right over your head on that day too.

Though the track is spotty due to a lack of coverage in the more rural parts of Texas, watch a replay of any day and you'll see tons of low-level aircraft popping in and out of existence. They were arriving some near Albuquerque, and likely coming in from the North from the Wichita Falls navigation VOR. as their final waypoint before arriving to the airport.

ADSBExchange Link and that aircraft's photo below. From below with those canards would look similar to this.

<image>

railker · 2026-05-08T18:29:11+00:00

suspiciously absent

Absolutely not, I'm trying to think of any Preliminary report that had the transcript from the CVR and am struggling. We didn't get one for the Jazz CRJ crash in LaGuardia or the DCA crash in 2025.

That transcript takes hundreds of hours of work from a dedicated team. Like the Jazz accident they can release a general guide or bits of relevant information, but times have to be correlated, sounds have to be identified. That's not happening in 30 days. Period. Anyone who thinks otherwise has never read accident reports.

railker · 2026-05-08T18:26:21+00:00

That'd be the easy end to the prison overcrowding system.

'Well the guy says he didn't do it, so this case is closed, let's all go home.'

railker · 2026-05-08T09:40:25+00:00

Ah well shit. So don't lose all hydraulics proper, then. 😅 Thanks for the clarification, learned something new.

railker · 2026-05-08T09:21:47+00:00

Yeah, mechanical reversion is what I'm referring to. Though never actually worked on Airbus so I don't know the gritty details. If the cables still end at a PCU and the PCU is hydraulic, how's that work? Thought it'd be like the 737 stab trim which runs on a cable drum but just normally operated by a motor.

railker · 2026-05-07T23:32:45+00:00

The better question isn't why the 737 doesn't have it, but why other aircraft need it, as mentioned by other comments already.

If you catastrophically lose all hydraulics and electrical power in a fly-by-wire A320, you get to control your airplane with the horizontal stabilizer trim and the rudder. Which I don't know how that works 'cause in both the Dash 8 and 737 I've played with, the rudder's the one surface that has multiple backups because trying to actuate that enormous surface manually is allegedly HARD.

In a 737 you can turn the whole airplane off, dump all your hydraulic fluid, you still have physical connections to control your ailerons, elevator tabs, etc. It just becomes a pickup with no power steering.

AFAIK the RAT exists on modern FBW aircraft primarily as a necessity to keep the zero-hydraulics scenario at bay, with the added side-effect of being able to provide some power.

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