sherpa

Primarily, because that capability and security does not exist, and is not close. Secondarily, such views are evidence of a lack of understanding of how things work, as evidenced in the link which states that airplanes are flown from shortly after takeoff to and through landing. That is grossly false. Beyond that, the money paid to this occupation is not for physical manipulation of controls. The safety, economy and success is based on understanding the system, fitting into it and using it to your advantage, better than the other guys. To do that successfully requires direct observation of the airborne situation. An airplane in flight is among very many, competing for altitudes, routes, speeds and a host of other things that make one flight far more efficient than one being run by some goof. Even getting from the gate pushback to the takeoff position requires a host of decisions to push ATC along to your advantage. In short, there's a ton more involved than just manipulating controls, and multiples more when things go wrong.

You are referring, I believe to a different Blue Angel accident at Niagara Falls in July of 1985. It was a midair killing LCDR Mike Gershon. Mike was a friend of mine, Sadly, his 13 year old son was killed in an ATV accident a year later.

Both paragraphs are utter, complete nonsense. Check out the wind limits on auto landings vs. manual landings. Auto landings are much more limited than humans. By the way, airports that have auto landing capability are extremely rare. Most airlines don't train to that, so are not qualified, nor are their airplanes capable. It is a very expensive capability to achieve and maintain for both the airport and the crew.

That discussion will be had over the years. The freight companies are already moving the ball. Anyway, to your point, I can point to many crashes with many fatalities that are the result of computer errors. Ultimately, it gets blamed on the pilots, but it is computer errors that are the direct cause. The 737 Max crashes, Air France 447 and a host of others come to mind. Never mentioned are the hundreds of computer data errors that put the plane in jeopardy every year that are resolved and overcome resulting in a safe outcome every year. Many times per month in fact. You can offer an opinion on the relative safety of humans vs computers. that is your right. As for my view, the claim that arrogance has anything to do with it is not an issue, but I would never get on an airplane that didn't have a human able to overcome computer errors. Day one of training, even as a private pilot. Controllers and computers will, one day, try to kill you. That was certainly my experience over 40 years of fighters and airliners at sea and all over the world. Not often, but enough. To each his own I 'spose.

You can't "flutter all they want." Once the spoilers are deployed, which they are in that video, and the thrust levers are moved to idle, which they undoubtedly were, you can't get airborne again. They had one bounce, which is all you get. If it got airborne again they would have slammed down, as there would not have been enough airspeed to control it. Kind of a famous landing there in the 90's when a 767 landed really hard there in very bad winds. Nobody in the cockpit said anything as they cleared the runway, but the cockpit phone rang, and when the extra guy picked it up a flight attendant mid cabin told them she could "see outside through the roof." Regarding Midway and the Southwest 737 overrun, there are so many components to that. The accident itself was the result of landing there in a tailwind, but it goes so much further than that and gets into Chicago and FAA politics and the life of the 737. The FAA was intent on forcing all jet operators to go to ORD. The City of Chicago was not willing to part with the tax and associated other revenue derived from there, wo they worked out a deal for Southwest to operate there, The exact same thing happened in Dallas with Dallas Love vs. DFW. That's why Southwest is there also, and nobody else is, and it's a huge financial advantage. The 737 is notorious for overruns, even though it's a relatively small narrow body. They have continuously updated and enlarged it, but it still has those tiny landing gear on all variants, and they simply don't have the capacity that other airplanes do to handle that kinetic energy. Simple physics. It is slow in cruise, but has a relatively fast final approach speed because of it's expanded size and small wing. making it more difficult to stop. Faster approach speed than other similarly smaller airplanes, but not fast at altitude. Until the last two years, you could always count on at least two 737 overruns per year, somewhere. Burbank, Kingston Jamaica, Sao Paulo Brazil are other examples just off the top of my head. That gets us to the FAA, and leads to the 737 Max crashes. The FAA requires "type" ratings to fly individual aircraft. When a single type undergoes many variations, there is pressure to require a different type rating if the differences are significant. Southwest enjoys a tremendous training cost advantage because between them and Boeing, they have convinced the FAA to never require a different type rating for the 737 variants, which is the only airplane Southwest operates. Other airlines operate many different types of aircraft, and as pilots switch, the training costs are very significant. This has been going on for years, and nearly got exposed with the 737 Max crashes, pointing out a significant change that was not required to be specifically trained on, but never was fully exposed. Sorry for length, but there is a lot of layers to that Southwest Midway overrun. Regarding MDW, there are many more difficult places to land, even in the US. It's just that the 737 is not an ideal airplane for that concrete.

It's a big building with sick people in it. But that's not important now. Oh wait.

Piece of cake. Here's a landing requiring a quick stop. At least the deck is steady tonight.

? I cannot imagine any NFL player ever having any desire to live in an Islamic state. That's just the players. Their wives would revolt. Very difficult to get people with much more muted lifestyles, ie State Dept and military families to go there.

This process was nothing more than a process for custom officials to be bribed. I had all the cabinets and flooring for a 36 unit condo building shipped from Paraguay through there as well as all the flooring and interior doors for my home. Being delayed going through there was inevitable. A bit of a nuisance, but you had to have a "guy" to help you get through it.

First time this has happened. US F-18s from Eisenhower successfully shot down 12 Houthi drones yesterday in the Red Sea. It is really time to go on the offense.

Perhaps. I'm not sure anyone can verify that. The real point is that it has become very difficult to believe any reports from that war from either side unless proof is provided. While I support aid, I gave up believing anything said that doesn't come from an independent, reputable source.

For those interested in accuracy, the claims made by Ukraine regarding Russian airplanes, at least fighter types, are grossly inaccurate. To be true, they would have had to shoot down nearly every operable Russian fighter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmMclP8dlI0&t=1839s Conversation on this subject is from 21:12 to the 22:52 mark. One minute 40 seconds.

I was in the cockpit of a 767 over the Atlantic on the way to somewhere in Europe. I set up the break schedule to ensure I would be in the seat at midnight. Watched the clock on the flight management system get to midnight and nothing happened. Lots of chatter on the air to air common frequency we talk to each other on when over the ocean, and everybody reported the same thing, which was nothing.

There is nothing "indiscriminate" about it. The link is yet more evidence of CNN's corporate ignorance regarding basic military stuff. I'm surprised their corral of military experts didn't get consulted on this one. Weapons are selected based on what the desired effect is. There is a technical manual called JMEMS, Joint Munitions Effectiveness Manual, which is used by the US to select weapons for various missions. A 500lb bomb is perfectly suitable for surface targets, but useless as a bunker buster, which is what the Israelis are doing to eradicate the tunnel system which Hamas has created and serves as it's primary defense and weapon storage facility. It takes a much larger weapon to get at those. Somebody should point out this most basic information to CNN and Tibs.

Nonsense. The Israelis are not firing missiles at non combatants from non belligerent nations, nor firing cruise missiles at Yemen, but those actions may be forthcoming, hopefully. The Houthis are not capable of cutting off ships going to to Israel if that attempted action is confronted. The Houthis are committing an act of war that has been confronted many times over the years, which is disrupting shipping in international waters. There is no Israeli quid pro quo to this. It needs to be dealt with immediately.

Could not disagree with this more. Doing nothing offensive does nothing other than invite more or this. There is an old military axiom. You don't build something, just so you can defend it. We need to move mud in Yemen, and we need to do it now rather than put up with another defense of 14 x $20k missiles using 16 x $2.5m missiles. Innocent non combatants are in jeopardy, and sailors from the cooperative nations are sitting on their hands waiting to be attacked instead of using what they are capable of to eliminate the threat.

I get your point, but the conflict has been widened. Interfering with navigation of non combatants in international waters is war. They have gone beyond interfering. They are attacking them. Optics be damned. Time to make a stand and stop putting up with this. If we don't the message will be sent to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard regarding the Strait of Hormuz. The Administration is putting the Navy in an unnecessary defensive position. It is time to get offensive re the Houthi group launching missiles against non combatant merchant ships.

This Houthi thing. While cooperating nations have announced joint support in protecting Red Sea-Bab el Mandeb Strait-Gulf of Aden shipping, I'm afraid we need to go a step further. This silly named operation "Prosperity Guardian" is an ill conceived plan that begs for more aggression from Iranian proxies. The concept is to provide an umbrella coverage of commercial shipping in those international waters. Already, commercial shippers have re-routed ships around Africa to avoid this, and are bearing 3x insurance costs. Long term the additional 3-4 weeks to sail these unplanned distances will obliterate shipping schedules and result in supply chain issues. Militarily, the strategy makes no sense. This past weekend, if sources are to be believed, the US Navy destroyed 14 Iranian drones launched from Yemen. The cost of those drones is about $20k/per. The cost of the missiles used to destroy them is about $2.5 million per. The proper choice is obvious, and goes back to the age old military strategy of "shoot the Indian, not the arrow." (cultural sensitivities acknowledged). The point is that with the carrier Eisenhower repositioned much closer to, or in, the Gulf of Aden, it is time to use the US Navy to do what it is in existence for, which is to protect shipping. If the US has the intel to determine where these drones/cruise/ballistic missiles are being launched from in Yemen, it is time to go ashore and demolish those sites. I am not a fan of this administration at all, but another weekend of wasting US taxpayer's money is not justified. Time to go "feet dry," as we used to say.

I think the contrast in history of attempted resolution is as clear as the history of achievement between the cultures. The Israelis are not free of guilt. In no way does their history compare to the barbarism and total dependence on leveraging civilian deaths as a military strategy. That is Hamas, and Hezbollah, and there is no current leader or vector in the Arab world to change course.

He was making a lot of money off of the situation. There seems to be an extreme resistance among the Islamic/Arab world to ever be the first to agree to a serious agreement leading to a long term coexistence with Israel. The Sadat lesson was learned.

Everything regarding economic stats during that time frame is grossly distorted becasue of the covid epidemic. That includes inflation, interest rates, corporate performance, buyout activity, startup activity and everything else.

What traitor do I "support"? If you are referring to Trump, I have never supported him. I simply said that one example of his history of stupid comments doesn't anger me, and regarding that subject, I formed a view on him in 1989 when I became aware of the results of forensic accountant's findings in a scheme he was involved in to get involved in a takeover. My view has never changed. I certainly agree with most of his views regarding US policy, but I don't like his chaotic, polarizing style that divides our country. Either way, it's kind of like how I view a Tibs or your posts. I think they're useless, counterproductive, uninformed, purely political is scope....but they don't anger me. I don't have the "road rage" gene that causes people to get needlessly angry. Gave it up years ago.

Fortunately, the people I served with, the company I served as an international check captain for, the community I belong to, as well as the volunteer fire company I serve as Treasurer of, and the church I belong to, as well as my family and friends do not share your view. What some knucklehead who is addicted to a useless posting hobby is of absolutely no concern to me.

Yes it does make sense. I commented on Biden foolishly stating that Israel was engaging in "indescriminate" bombing. Biden is our president. Israel is our ally, and engaged in an incredibly serious situation. Our president damages that situation by making foolish, untrue accusations. Regarding Carter, which the other guy brought up, Carter was a horrible president, and his foolish decisions directly impacted me and my fellow aviators in the Navy. Get that? Directly impacted. What Trump foolishly says about deceased veterans in no way has any impact on me, so I don't worry about it. It is one of the many reasons I wouldn't vote for him, but certainly not the most important, and in no way would ever make me "angry."

Yes I did. I think it was an ignorant comment, but he's known for that. I don't let things like that bother me. I have found that getting irritated over meaningless things is silly and a waste of time.