air travel

Chris Knight's avatar

This is something I wish Dad were still here to tell about it too.  As much as he disdained computers, he would no doubt find this to be very cool…

Two days ago a Beechcraft King Air became the very first aircraft to deploy an “autoland” system after the pilot became incapacitated.  It happened in Colorado.  The Garmin Autoland that had been installed on the plane kicked in and proceeded to automatically guide the aircraft down to a safe touchdown at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport.  After it came to a halt, emergency crew arrived and took care of the pilot, who is reportedly doing fine.
We have entered a new age of air flight, folks.  When this kind of thing gets to be more widely installed, a lot of people are going to be having second thoughts about going up in an aircraft.  Especially in smaller planes that may
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Chris Knight's avatar

Today is the 120th anniversary of the first powered air flight, by the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk on the  Outer Banks of North Carolina.

In May of 2017, not long after coming back east after nearly a year of traveling across America, I took my dog Tammy on a day trip to the Outer Banks.  I wanted her to be able to say (to other dogs anyway) that she has seen the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.  We drove down to Cape Hatteras and visited the lighthouse, then went back north.  We spent a little while at the Wright Brothers monument, and got our photo taken at the spot where that very first airplane flight took off from:

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Chris Knight's avatar

I haven’t heard Mitt Romney say a single nary thing about eliminating the Department of Homeland Security and completely scrapping the Transportation Security Administration. That he hasn’t and apparently approves of those governmental monstrosities is just one more reason why the Romney/Ryan ticket won’t get my vote next month. Neither will Obama/Biden, but that’s a post for next week.

But just in time for the election, The TSA is removing those cancer machines it euphemistically calls “body scanners” from major airports. The official line is that the cancer machines are being relocated to smaller airports in an effort to “speed things up” across the board.

But there are serious reasons to consider that rather than completely giving up on Nude-o-vision(tm), the TSA may in fact be gearing up to implement even WORSE technology: namely scanners with much finer resolution and stronger abilities at detecting small objects on a person ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

It can safely be said ten years after the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration that the federal government’s efforts to make air travel “safer” constitute one ginormous cluster%#@&.

Now we have an idea of the economic impact: $85 billion wasted and 900,000 jobs destroyed. From e-Travel Blackboard…

After a decade of enhanced aviation security post 9/11, US Travel Association president Roger Dow is set to testify in a Senate Committee Hearing on 2 November, claiming current security procedures are hampering travel and US economy growth.

According to the US Travel Association, the US economy is missing out on $85 billion in consumer spending and 900,000 jobs because American travelers are avoiding flying due to the “hassles of air travel”.

“A 2010 study…found that American travelers would take an additional two to three flights per year if the hassles in security screening were

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Chris Knight's avatar

Eleven airports – most of them in the Midwest and California but also Charlotte-Douglas International here in North Carolina – will be the first in the country to receive the full-body scanners that create a virtually naked image of the person being examined and leave nothing to the imagination.

The Transportation Security Administration, and the Department of Homeland Security over it, claims that the images created by these machines are not stored in any way.

Does anybody possessing more than the minimum neurons for a working ganglia honestly believe anything that this asshat excuse for a government tells us anymore?

This is simply more “security theatre”: measures that make it look like our government is sincerely doing something to deter “the terrists” but in reality is just a multi-billion dollar puppet show.

If the government was serious about both stopping terrorism and serving its people, domestic airports would adopt the ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

Need another reason to hate Transportation Security Administration (or as I call ’em “Thousands Slacking Around”)? No thanks to the new “backscatter” virtual strip search machines that Janet Napolitano wants to put into more airports, the United States government will soon be the world’s largest producer of pornographic images.

Here’s a pic that’s up on Drudge Report right now, showing a woman in one of the scanning machines…

And if you’ve got the nerve for it, here’s what one dude was able to produce with three clicks of Adobe Photoshop.

(With the same image, I was able to produce an identical photo with two mouse clicks inside Photoshop, in less than 20 seconds.)

Our British friends are already noting that the machines violate child pornography laws over there. And there is some speculation that the electromagnetic waves used in the backscatter devices can destroy DNA ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

Like my Dad said this morning, “That is one cool dude”.

Here’s the photo that’s most going around today of Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger, III, the pilot of US Airways Flight 1549 who landed his stricken jetliner smack down the middle of the Hudson River in New York City yesterday, an ultra-rare feat that saved the lives of everyone aboard…

I’ve said before that this blog exists to share my thoughts on various subjects, and to highlight and give praise to those people and things that deserve it. Well, it’s been too long since I’ve felt anything as terrific to report on as good Captain Sullenberger and what he and the US Airways crew did yesterday. This old world doesn’t have nearly enough heroes anymore. Yesterday, “Sully” gave it back its heroes....

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Chris Knight's avatar

If you’ve got ready access to a television news channel you might wanna tune in right now ‘cuz the story of the day is US Airways Flight 1549 from La Guardia in New York City to Charlotte, which had to land in the middle of the Hudson River after some birds hit the plane and cut out two of the engines…

The pilot was able to bring the Airbus A320 down in a controlled descent, right smack in a spot in the river that was plenty shallow without any risk of the plane sinking. The plane stayed in one piece and passengers were spotted standing on the wings awaiting rescue. Everybody got out safely.

That has got to be one of the best recoveries from an air emergency, that I can possibly recollect. And that pilot definitely deserves a medal....

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