sherpa

I don't agree, which is fine. My views are in my original post, and have not changed. One thing worth mentioning though. I think your expressed views on the military budget are grossly unrealistic. One of the things I've noticed about this forum is that there seems to very few people who actually understand what the US military is tasked with, and what that costs. Those items relate to ability to early detect, respond quickly, minimize loss of life, ultimately win and provide superior search and rescue in hostile areas, along with massive transport capability, air to air refueling capability, and a host of other things that are rarely considered by folks who aren't familiar with this stuff. If the desire is to decrease the defense budget, those capabilities must be diminished, or in some cases, disregarded. That is the reality.

Yes I can, and so can the rest of the world.

Are you serious? There aren't two people on earth who do not know that Iran is funding Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis. Maybe you are one. Who do you define as a "Christian Nation?" I'm unaware of any, let alone one who was attacked. Attacking, taking over an embassy, and holding the people there as hostages is an act of war. Are you aware of that?

Taking over an embassy, which is universally regarded as an act of war is "starting it." Blindfolding and parading workers in that effort makes it far worse. I have no sympathy re the Iranian Islamic folks who have fomented countless death in the pursuit of their caliphate.

Body counts are meaningless. That regime has been at war with the US for decades, and is responsible for many, many US deaths. I have zero sympathy for them. That view does not transfer to the innocent people who may have been killed.

Same minimums, just more cameras. Europe has more days of low visibility and the UK gets a bit breezy, but the US has more really violent weather than cannot be flown through. US thunderstorm activity is far more frequent because we have cold Canadian air colliding with warm, moist Gulf air. Just a technical correction. Automated systems do fly the airplane. An autoland is such an example. Very rare, and very few airports are certified, but the autopilot(s) actually land the thing. There are very strict crosswind limitations, but if the airport, airplane and crew are certified, you can autoland. It is useful in very low visibility situations with light winds. Very rare. The training to do it takes about one hour of sim time for an already qualified captain/first officer. At 1500' above the ground, three autopilots separate, and three electrical systems separate. Each compares it's data to the other two, and if there is any discrepancy, it is annunciated and you go around. All talk is scripted, and no unnecessary things are said. The captain keeps one thumb on the autopilot disconnect button, and the other on the thrust levers which have a "go around" option. Very quite, very tense, but works great. Scripted event, so only a few things are said, but they must be said. After touchdown, you simply make sure the thrust levers are at idle, the spoilers are deployed and you manually engage the thrust reversers, as always.

I feel real compassion for the victim's families, but for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei? That regime is responsible for more death, mayhem and destruction than can be described.

That group has existed for years, as have others with similar goals. You have posted a bunch on this, and never seem to have any knowledge of how Israel has defended itself. You do nothing but literally post Monday morning thoughts, void of what they do. No acknowledgement of what is involved. Ignorant and pathetic.

Senseless. We should sue the victims of a terrorist attack because they should have known better? Can't wait for the victims and Hawaiian inhabitants to sue the US over Dec 7 1941.

I don't think it's a problem that the US' has less influence over Israeli policy. I think having less US influence, which is largely driven by the US political environment, is actually more likely to end this. Israel is not the US' family pet. They are a sovereign nation surrounded by enemies that want them destroyed. They should do what they need to do, much the same as any country would, removed from wacky American election year politics.

Sorry to hear that. A few weeks ago, if I recall, you claimed to have bee recruited by that three letter agency. You claimed they passed on you and offered an opinion, jokingly. When they found out about this claim, which they would have, it most likely would have disqualified you anyway, so maybe they saved you some time. I went through two thirds of that process before choosing another career, so I'm a bit familiar with it.

A few comments on where I think this is unrealistic. First, the discussion of a two state solution is currently without reality. If one state is Israel, who is the other? Simply stated there is nobody on that side for Israel to negotiate such an agreement. There is Hamas, who is beyond barbarism and intent on not only destroying Israel but every Jew on earth, and the Palestinian Authority which is, yet another, Iranian puppet with no desire for coexistence. Ergo.....There is nobody to negotiate with. Second....The defense budget. A 50% reduction is absurd. Beyond that, if there is a desire to reduce the defense budget, it has to start with the mission and goals the US imposes on its military, which is currently to be able to fight and win a two front war on either side of the world at the same time. Want to cut the budget? Change the requirements. Late edit. Regarding the desire of including a number of "relatively equal strength wester democracies" isn't realistic. There were none with the military capability or desire at the end of WWII, and there absolutely isn't any now. The UK is probably the closest, and they aren't close and about to get un-closer. Canada, France, Germany and a host of others are not in good enough shape to shoulder any of that burden at this time. As well, the more one understands how the defense budget is as much a jobs program and technology accelerator, the more one understands Congressional desire to keep it so. Dividing it up to their liking with funds to their jurisdictions is what Congress does. About "jumpstarting the economy," it doesn't need to be jumpstarted. Passing legislation that anchors it is one of the big problems, as well as constantly changing policy and tax law after every election is a gross waste of potential. An alliance with US businesses, which are the strength of this country, (certainly not our politicians), is the way to go.

Scraping a wing tip is a very big deal. One of the dangers in a screwed up landing, no matter runway length, is what happens if the airplane is not directionally aligned properly. If there is even a relatively minor angle between the fuselage and the runway, the tires will be misaligned and could separate from the gear. There are tremendous forces on the gear at touchdown. That's why crosswind landings are an art, and have wind limitations. Regarding autolandings, landings done by the autopilot, the airplane has to have three separate and isolated autopilots and electrical systems, The internal operation of the autopilot and electrical systems separate at 1500' and go through a self test that enunciates when complete. Very few are so equipped. The airport has to have very specific equipment which must be maintained and tested far more frequently, and even the taxi hold positions near the runway have to be expanded to prevent signal interference. It is a very big and expensive deal, and if an airport has has the capability it will usually be on one runway only. The aircrew training to keep certification used to take us almost two hours of simulator time alone, and we only were scheduled for eight hours in there at every recurrent cycle. That is why very few airlines have their airplanes equipped and their crews certified to do it. US and international majors do it, like American, United and Delta, but most don't. Certainly not those that don't operate internationally, as it simply isn't worth it to them.

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.