that's a serious contender for dad joke of the day.

19 hours ago, Malcolm said:

A little like High Speed trains replacing short haul flights between major cities

They have been used quite effectively for that purpose in Japan, China and France.

On 1/13/2024 at 11:06 AM, st27 said:

When I was working, I was always curious the cost to deice an aircraft in the CDF…..never did find out the answer, as it was not to be a deterrent to get deiced….for “just a little frost” for example. It was also rumoured the deice crews were paid throughout the summer to keep them available and trained for the winter.

Does anybody have  info to share? Let’s say the cost for an A330, type I & IV.

The GTAA lists a facility charge of $2.41/1000 kg but I’m sure that is just the start of charges.

In the early 2000's, I saw a bill for deicing an A330 at YYZ that exceeded $10,000, but on that occasion the aircraft had been parked outside during a lengthy wet snow / freezing rain event. I recall the crew saying they were in the de-icing bay for over 45 minutes.

2 hours ago, Kip Powick said:

That is true.......but many think I am a relic and as one, I know I have problems almost everyday 

I am not enjoying the transition from the time when I used to occasionally wake up and notice something that hurts to now, when I wake up and celebrate whatever doesn't hurt.

I can laugh at them because no one was hurt. Boeing should see this as a sign. It's never a good thing when one of your flagship products becomes a straight line for the comedy circuit.

Took me a minute but I finally remembered where I'd seen the pot proponent before. He played one of the firefighters on the 70's TV series Emergency.

My point still stands. The people making those decisions get a disproportionate benefit. It also PO'd the governments who handed out billions in supporting cash during COVID and then saw it spent on buybacks instead of compensating people whose flights were cancelled.

I agree that I don't see the big deal with the NDA, they're a fairly standard element of settlement agreements. It seems some folks want more than just their money back. They also want the right to slag the airline on social media forever and a day.

17 hours ago, W5 said:

airlines’ practice of buying back stocks while failing to save sufficiently has come under scrutiny

And why do they engage in share buybacks instead?

1. Because they can, and
2. Because it benefits the decision makers (and the shareholders who put them there) disproportionately vs. improving the company's cash position.

19 hours ago, st27 said:

What a waste of an airplane (lucky the PAYING passengers weren’t hurt badly!) ….so many things wrong with the story…the host sums things up …. but really, unbelievable!
 

 

Back in the day we called those outfits "Chisel Charters". Hoover's right - this won't be the last one. There are plenty more of them out there doing similarly stupid stuff.

22 hours ago, Malcolm said:

Size Matters at Southwest

Yet another example of Marketing 101 vs reality, at least for the poor gate agent who in the case of a full flight will need to find a seat for the bulky passenger and will have to take one seat away from another passenger and deny them their booked passage.  Hmmm

Southwest's plan is meant to reduce the frequency with which that happens though, which is one reason why I think it's a smart way to handle a delicate issue.

On 12/15/2023 at 10:55 AM, deicer said:

This from a FB post....

 

Well, there seems to be a whole lot of car enthusiasts in this Group, so I thought I would Post this here. Drag racing must be one of the most expensive hobbies on the Planet ! A single barrel of fuel is over $750.00 U.S., and here is what you get from that :

What 10,000 horsepower does to a top fuel tire at launch.

TOP FUEL ACCELERATION PUT INTO PERSPECTIVE

* One Top Fuel dragster 500 cubic-inch Hemi engine makes more horsepower (10,000 HP) than the first 5 rows at the Daytona 500.

* Under full throttle, a dragster engine consumes 1.2-1.5 gallons of nitro methane per second; a fully loaded 747 consumes jet fuel at the same rate with 25% less energy being produced.

* A stock Dodge Hemi V8 engine cannot produce enough power to merely drive the dragster's supercharger.

* With 3000 CFM of air being rammed in by the supercharger on overdrive, the fuel mixture is compressed into a near-solid form before ignition. Cylinders run on the verge of hydraulic lock at full throttle.

* At the stoichiometric 1.7:1 air/fuel mixture for nitro methane the flame front temperature measures 7050 degrees F.

* Nitromethane burns yellow. The spectacular white flame seen above the stacks at night is raw burning hydrogen, dissociated from atmospheric water vapor by the searing exhaust gases.

* Dual magnetos supply 44 amps to each spark plug.

This is the output of an arc welder in each cylinder.

* Spark plug electrodes are totally consumed during a pass. After 1/2 way, the engine is dieseling from compression plus the glow of exhaust valves at 1400 degrees F. The engine can only be shut down by cutting the fuel flow.

* If spark momentarily fails early in the run, unburned nitro builds up in the affected cylinders and then explodes with sufficient force to blow cylinder heads off the block in pieces or split the block in half.

* Dragsters reach over 300 MPH before you have completed reading this sentence.

* In order to exceed 300 MPH in 4.5 seconds, dragsters must accelerate an average of over 4 G's. In order to reach 200 MPH well before half-track, the launch acceleration approaches 8 G's.

* Top Fuel engines turn approximately 540 revolutions from light to light!

* Including the burnout, the engine must only survive 900 revolutions under load.

* The redline is actually quite high at 9500 RPM.

* THE BOTTOM LINE: Assuming all the equipment is paid off, the crew worked for free, & for once, NOTHING BLOWS UP, each run costs an estimated $1,000 per second.

0 to 100 MPH in .8 seconds (the first 60 feet of the run)

0 to 200 MPH in 2.2 seconds (the first 350 feet of the run)

6 g-forces at the starting line (nothing accelerates faster on land)

6 negative g-forces upon deployment of twin ‘chutes at 300 MPH An NHRA Top Fuel Dragster accelerates quicker than any other land vehicle on earth . . quicker than a jet fighter plane . . . quicker than the space shuttle.

The current Top Fuel dragster elapsed time record is 4.420 seconds for the quarter-mile (2004, Doug Kalitta). The top speed record is 337.58 MPH as measured over the last 66' of the run (2005, Tony Schumacher).

Putting this all into perspective:

You are driving the average $140,000 Lingenfelter twin-turbo powered Corvette Z06. Over a mile up the road, a Top Fuel dragster is staged & ready to launch down a quarter-mile strip as you pass. You have the advantage of a flying start. You run the 'Vette hard up through the gears and blast across the starting line & pass the dragster at an honest 200 MPH. The 'tree' goes green for both of you at that moment.

The dragster launches & starts after you. You keep your foot down hard, but you hear an incredibly brutal whine that sears your eardrums & within 3 seconds the dragster catches & passes you.

He beats you to the finish line, a quarter-mile away from where you just passed him. Think about it - from a standing start, the dragster had spotted you 200 MPH & not only caught, but nearly blasted you off the road when he passed you within a mere 1320 foot long race!

That's acceleration!

This one is a bit outdated. Top fuel no longer runs the 1/4 mile - they reduced it to 1,000 ft after Scott Kalitta's fatal crash. Yet they still exceed the 330 mph top speed. It's mind boggling.

23 hours ago, UpperDeck said:

And when do we collectively draw the line and say; "No more!!"?

You appear to acknowledge that bureaucrats with agendas will persevere.....and succeed.

Whether it be rainbow-hued sidewalks or uni-sex washrooms.....in my opinion, the voices of the majority should prevail in a "free and democratic society."

 

Sliding slightly off topic here, no? Clearly neither of us has ever been part of a marginalized element of society. There is plenty of historical evidence how a "majority" benefited from at the expense of a minority, yet over time we evolved and decided that said benefit was inhuman.  And honestly, how does a multi-coloured crosswalk negatively affect "the majority's" day in any tangible way? Personally, I have way bigger things to be concerned about.

1 hour ago, conehead said:

I don't care what caused the obesity, it doesn't matter. If the customer requires 2 seats, then they should pay for 2 seats.

Then prepare to see a world where everyone pays for their flight by the pound, because that's the slippery slope this introduces. Same would go for charging disabled pax for wheelchair services, etc. etc. etc. 

Southwest's move on this is brilliant. Think about it - if you were the obese passenger, would you rather travel that way, or face the embarrassment of taking up half the person's seat next to you. I've never been in those shoes but I can imagine it's a difficult place to be. And if you are that person sitting next to them, would you rather lose half your seat space, or see the airline do something similar? Southwest wouldn't have done it without first engaging in a cost analysis (because cost control is engrained in that organization) and they've clearly decided the benefits outweigh the risks. IMHO, the day is going to come when companies either engage in something similar voluntarily or they will have it forced upon them.

17 hours ago, UpperDeck said:

In my opinion this is an incredibly sad statement about our current social standards and willingness to roll over in the face of a potential negative social media barrage.

This is a self-inflicted disability and diminishes the significance of accommodations of those who have mobility limitations through no fault of their own.

I'm not going to dive deep into this one, but for many obese people, the issue is a lot more complicated than just a character flaw. Are there people who have self-inflicted? Yes. But to tar all of them with that brush does a disservice to the subject. 

I guess you guys are too young to remember Popular Mechanics and their many futuristic articles. Read dozens of them, never once thought it was a waste of my time.

On 12/8/2023 at 1:48 PM, Specs said:

You haven't travelled around this country too much then I suspect. 

 

I'm not suggesting we don't have issues, but please, I think you'd find there aren't many Canadian women who'd rather grow up in their world than in ours.

I'm sure it has nothing to do with them wanting to find a life in a country that isn't still trapped in the dark ages, especially for women.

21 hours ago, GDR said:

How will we ever believe anything we see on the web. They can make anybody say anything.

This crap is pretty scary. Imagine getting an AI FaceTime call from one of your kids in some sort of distress. Are we going to be savvy enough to pick out a scam under duress like that?

That thing has far too many single points of failure for my liking. Once again, I find myself wondering if the Osprey's mission is so vital that it's worth the risk to those who are crewing it.

Putting replacement FA's into their program would take a lot more than just a snap of the finger. IOW, new legislation or not, it simply can't happen. No operator with a modicum of brain cells would think it was a good idea to put an entire crew of newbies on board their flights, and they don't have nearly enough managers on staff to take the lead FA role.

1 minute ago, st27 said:

With a surface area like that above the waterline, I think they would be essential……saves on the cost of tugs.

Absolutely agree, it's just mind boggling to me that they have more water movement capacity than the pumping station that was supposed to keep the Sumas prairie in Abbotsford from flooding two years ago.

3 hours ago, Malcolm said:

Watch: Propeller plane misses runway and crashes into car in Texas (bbc.com)

Technically they didn't "miss" the runway, they just couldn't get stopped on it.

On 11/12/2023 at 4:49 AM, Kip Powick said:

Been on a few cruises...A ship this size doesn't interest me.

Would be like cruising with over 8600 Torontonians on a barge.. 

On the technical side, I'm still trying to wrap my head around the size of the bow thrusters - and the fact that there are four of them!