sherpa
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Posts posted by sherpa
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47 minutes ago, GaryPinC said:
This statement means nothing. I will always pay some extra money to take a direct flight instead of one or more layovers. But I have my limits on how much more.
What attempts at comfort, food, convenience have the airlines attempted that you feel are reasonably priced? Because I don't see too many. You can argue price but it's about value. That's what the airlines have failed at.
One example I have seen that has value is wifi for long flights. Definitely a solid number of people pay for this and will until they make it too expensive.
Means nothing?
The airlines have offered "comfort, food, convenience," and a host of other things that cost money.
Know what?
Passengers won't pay for it, proven over and over again, and your "reasonably priced" variable is something I doubt you have any idea of the underlying cost
I guarantee you have no idea what it costs to offer various meals, and WIFI.
WIFI on an aluminum tube with limited space and significant cost to affix anything to the outside fuselage travelling at 600 mph is a different issue than sitting in your living room.
I also guarantee you have no idea what it costs to provide schedule reliability in bad weather.
Here's some information.
Airline crews are "legal" to certain weather minimums. Aircraft and those crews are required to be certified for the lower minimums.
That is extremely expensive.
Low cost airlines don't have that capability, so they simply cancel, but people buy those tickets every day betting that won't happen, because it usually doesn't.
Still, that reliability costs a lot of money.
Happens a lot.
Here's a tip.
A CEO of a major US airline was on CNBC last year. This exact discussion was held.
Airlines pay extreme attention to yield management issues.
Yield management is the industry term for how much to charge for a seat, and these things are done millions of times per day to achieve a balance.
His statement was that a $1 change in price in an economy ticket moves 20% of the market.
Get that? If the price for a seat changes by $1, 20% of the people will move to save the dollar.
Think those people are willing to pay for increased leg room in coach?
If so, you would be among a couple of airline CEO's who have been removed for making that bet, because they were wrong.
All of this has been offered before, at the cost of tens of millions, and it has always proved that price is what moves the seats in coach.
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20 minutes ago, GaryPinC said:
..... and any alcohol above 24% is considered a hazardous chemical, which I'm sure entails other rules.
Yes.
Because it is flammable, so it can't be in the cabin.
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And you get what you pay for.
The only thing that matters regarding domestic flights is price.
Countless attempts have been made to offer more comfort, food, schedule reliability, convenience etc., and it doesn't matter.
US passengers, and to an even greater extent, those of other countries, vote with their choices, and it is nothing other than price.
Tons of empirical data to back that up, as well as tens of millions spent and lost offering other options.
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Just now, plenzmd1 said:
i just do not see it as that big a risk. Granted, i am never "drunk"...i have never even been questioned. Every once in a while person seat next to me will ask about it, and i say with all seriousness I hate takeoff and they can see in my eyes better I have a pop then be a sweaty mess for the next 10 minutes LOL.
Have had way more people in bad turbulence lean over and say"ya got an extra one of those'?
Evidently the benefit to you is worth the risk.
What I am saying is that if any passenger reports it to a flight attendant, and wants to make a bit of noise about it, as everyone seems to be doing now on every single perceived "affront," that flight attendant is going to lose his/her job if they don't react to it, even though they might not care about the consumption.
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Just now, plenzmd1 said:
Been doing since 07 when i started flying a lot for work. Has to be in the airplane bottles, or really any container under 3 ozs. I always have at least 7-10 in my backpack when traveling, have never once been asked about it or asked to dispose of them by TSA. On the plane , just don't be an ass about it, drink discretely from the bottle or very discretely with mixer..and dont get drunk!
@sherpa, why do think such a bad idea?
Because it is illegal, and while you may have gotten away with it, its liking drinking and driving.
You can do it a hundred times with no repercussions, but get caught, and the fines are huge.
What you may not be considering is the dynamic and context of doing that.
If one person spots you, smells you or anything else that points to this, and they report it to a flight attendant, they could lose their job if they don't act on it and the "reporter" decides to may a case of it.
If you're willing to bet that much on your fellow passengers, that's your call.
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10 minutes ago, plenzmd1 said:
BRING YOUR OWN BOOZE ON THE PLANE!!!!
it is 100% legal to bring as many of those airplane bottles that ya want on the plane!. Not legal to drink them, but if discrete no one will give a rats behind! I don't like takeoff and turbulence, and that's when i need a little liquid courage. Only to have it at those times is to have in your bag!
Also, for you single guys having one of those as an extra is a good conversation starter with the young ladies who may be seated in a row with you!
This is REALLY bad advice.
If you plan drinking your own alcohol on an airplane, bring your checkbook.
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Anybody remember McAdoo missing playing time with the Braves?
The official story was something about him eating soap in the shower or some such thing.
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Didn't the Magic Carpet have a whistle on a balcony that produced a minor electrical shock when you pulled it?
They may have taken that "feature" out do to complaints.
I distinctly remember my first time through there and one of my siblings told me to pull the chain to activate the whistle.
When the minor shock came, I could't let go because I couldn't open my hand to release it, so my sibling had to pull my hand off it.
Never touched again.
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4 hours ago, WhoTom said:
Isn't that Lutheranism? (AKA "Catholic Lite")
No.
Lutheran ideology is Christianity without Catholic invention.
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7 hours ago, RochesterRob said:
It was always said that the Church forbade marriage for priests because it would make church assets subject to divorce settlement. I don't know how much I believe that as women had little social standing prior to the 19th Century.
I think the marriage prohibition had a lot more to do with passing on assets to heirs rather than an ex spouse.
No marriage, in theory, no heirs.
Of course a number of dead popes had "nephews," but that is a different story.
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These are still available.
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2 hours ago, loyal2dagame said:
High profile player in the "NFL MECCA OF LOS ANGLES". That's how. He had a solid career, but not HOF worthy.
But he lives in the "NFL MECCA" of Charlottesville.
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20 minutes ago, Bob in Mich said:
A few pages ago I posted my take from 1999 on the Clinton impeachment. I thought he should have been convicted and removed.
We always knew who the whistle blower in that one was.
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As this investigation proceeds, watch for two things.
First, nobody operates these type helos under FAA Part 135, (charters), with only one pilot.
Second, watch for NTSB comments about the number of passengers.
In addition, there is a disparity between what Kobe paid for this helicopter and the market value of similar make/model helos. That disparity usually means something.
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24 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:
You won't get killed by me for an astute perception and correct call - I am a small airplane pilot and have never flown for a living. No where stated or implied to the contrary. So that's exactly how my posts should read.
But that does not mean there is no "us pilots" - that part is, pardon my saying, out of line on your part. Commercial pilots who fly for a living are the minority of certificated pilots. Look it up. There are vibrant and enthusiastic communities of general aviation pilots all across the country. Some of them have more experience than you do (I feel very safe saying that) and some have much less, and we all get opinions and reactions too.
To your lack of understanding on the pin: Threads about significant news or events get pinned for a while to keep them elevated so multiple threads don't propegate on the same topic. It will get unpinned when interest is seen to have died down. Hope this helps.
I appreciate your comments, and mean no disdain.
It is just very obvious that in reading your posts, you don't, or didn't, do this for a living.
Your posts contain a lot of conjecture, if not guesses.
Most are reasonable, but some are not.
Regarding experience, which you bought up, I will not argue.
I have flown small singles, have a double II, flown fighters from an aircraft carrier, a tour as a TopGun adversary, and airliners for over three decades.
I don't want any more experience.
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6 hours ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:
I think that pilot is kind of blowing smoke out his arse a bit, which, to be honest, a lot of us pilots like to do in these situation. It's the "footsteps on our graves" phenomenon. At this point, the most straightforward cause that fits the facts publically known involves craptastic pilot decision making AND he took 8 people with him including 3 kids. We'd all like to believe we're 100% better than that and would nevereverever do something that dumb. The Bell by damn Won't Toll for Us! We're smarter than that! We have better judgement! That leads to pontificating of which there's a lot at present- me too. But it's not that simple.
?♂️
I have read your posts with curiosity.
There is no "we." here.
There is no "us pilots," to use your term.
Frankly, and I'll get killed for this, your posts read like a small airplane pilot or new instructor who has never done this for a living, and is enamored of that, and I don't understand why this thing is pinned.
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Use stellarrium.org, and do it from home.
I do.
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2 hours ago, Dante said:
On another forum, I was reading some pilots going back and forth. Like you I am no aviation expert. What stuck out to me while listening to ATC instructing the pilot was for him to follow highways to navigate. #5 and #118 for example. One of the pilots who I believe knows what he is talking about thought that if the conditions are that bad where you are relying on highways as navigation, then you should land immediately and call a limo.
This is what happens when people not familiar with the way these things work start judging them.
Not you, but whoever posted what you referred to.
Helicopters are a special sub set of aviation, and they frequently use ground reference for navigation.
Special VFR is an alternative for them that allows them to fly as long as they stay clear of clouds and have a very low visibility requirement.
They are so low that they rarely get into the regular system.
I fact they rarely fly using IFR rules and clearances.
Some never do for their entire helo career.
Areas that have a high degree of helo traffic, for whatever reason, come up with their own procedures and agreements for these types of things, and helo corridors are built to facilitate it. New York and LA are two of the most obvious.
These types of things involve police, sight-seeing, personal transport, power line inspection and a host of other things.
Having this guy, who is under special VFR, and that never changes, navigate by using highways or other ground based points is not unusual for this area.
What he should have done is land at Van Nuys and let them Uber it to the practice site.
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1 hour ago, Alphadawg7 said:
I do still wonder if something happened to the pilot though as well still given the point the other poster mentioned of not having any evidence of distress communicated over the radio if he had say lost control. Obviously, could have all happened so fast that he just didn’t radio for help either while he was frantically say trying to regain control.This is one of the misconceptions that comes up all the time in media reports and other discussions of this type.
There is nothing that "radioing for help" is going to do, anymore than getting into a control situation in a vehicle and thinking it would be a good idea to get on you cell phone and tell people about it.
The old axiom is "aviate, navigate, communicate.
What the media always calls "issuing a mayday," is actually declaring an emergency, which is a legal declaration, not an indication of distress, which the media often suggests.
Declaring an emergency opens up the entire tool box of options, and allows the individual in command to do whatever is necessary to lead to a successful conclusion regardless of of ATC issues. You will be held responsible for the actions, but you do what you need to do and handle that issue later.
From a pilot's perspective, folks are hesitant to do it for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that you are probably very busy and ATC is going to start asking a lot of questions that you really don't have time to answer, and are not related to the issue, so you do so when you need to use your emergency authority.
In any event, if there is a mechanical or a control problem, you solve the problem first. The last thing done is tell ATC about with some thought that they are going to provide a solution.
If the "problem" results in being degraded to the point where you need to inform them so they may consider it in their traffic picture, you tell them, but in the case of a control issue, you do what you do to regain control before anything else.
They are capable of helping out a little guy who is lost, gets into a little weather without weather radar, or a host of other things, but with most problems, they have no more knowledge than anyone else.
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1 hour ago, Seasons1992 said:
As someone who is for some reason, fascinated with studying air-vehicle crashes and the causes, I believe initially this was 100% pilot error based on the debris field and the reported speed. I think he was disoriented and lost visual markers for the hillsides.
I understand there is fascination with this kind of thing, and offering views on it on this forum is a harmless exercise.
Still, having been in this industry for 45 years, it has always been my experience that waiting until accurate data is available is always far wiser than guessing based on sketchy, incomplete information.
As an example, there are quite a few likely errors in this thread. Not important, not intentional, but errors.
In addition, the "data" that is being put out by media outlets quite often is not qualified by stating that it is ADSB data, which could be wrong.
As well, the sound bites they keep playing from LA law enforcement people about their 800'/2 mile vis requirement that they use has nothing to do with what this guy was doing, or any other aviation operation for that matter.
This time of year, the LA basin weather conditions can vary tremendously in a very short geographic area based on temp, dew point, the position of the marine layer, etc.
Many times LAX will be require Category 2 or 3 landings, which permit extremely low visibility, (down to 300' visibility and 0' ceiling), and 15 miles east of there will be beautiful.
NTSB will do their thing and everyone will know.
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12 minutes ago, T&C said:
This article is from earlier this morning:
What really caught my eye was this part:
"Details of what followed are still under investigation but there are indications that the helicopter plunged some 1,000 feet (305 meters). It was flying at about 184 mph (296 kph) and descending at a rate of more than 4,000 feet per minute when it struck the ground, according to data from Flightradar24."
That strikes me as an insane rate of speed in foggy conditions.
I would be very wary of that data, and it is a insane rate of decent.
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17 hours ago, SlimShady'sGhost said:
they have to be able to balance out the weight distribution
Not an issue here.
The issue is the airbags in the business class seats on this 787.
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48 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:
https://larrybrownsports.com/basketball/video-kobe-bryant-helicopter-audio/535392Flight wasn't that brief. They cut out the dead space and other pilot transmissions on the same frequency so listeners aren't bored to tears.
There's nothing in that transmission about a climb to "go above a layer of clouds" though it could be previous. The pilot told the Van Nuys tower controller that he was "VFR at 1400" (above sea level) which in controlled airspace is 3 miles visibility and 500 feet below clouds. Van Nuys is 800 ft MSL (above sea level) so he's saying he's roughly 600 ft above the ground and 500 feet below the reported ceiling (but he hasn't gone a layer of clouds under that scenario).
Based upon the interview with the sound engineer in the TWA hat, cloud conditions were lower than that near the crash
He was asking for vfr radar services ("flight following" in pilot lingo) from enroute air traffic control (Center) and being declined on the grounds of being too low for radar to pick him up at the end. It's not uncommon for Center to be unable to provide radar services to an aircraft that is at a safe altitude above terrain, but below where their radar can pick him up. Flight following is not navigational guidance or terrain avoidance, it's traffic alerts.I don't want to quibble or appear pedantic, but be very careful when you are talking about an accident that isn't even close to being truly started before offering opinions.
First, he is special VFR, which for a helo doesn't even require a mile and clear of clouds, so the altitude stuff is not relevant.
That's why he is being held up at the beginning. Without the actual radio transmissions, because they are not on the freqs he is, it is obvious they are clearing IFR traffic in front of him, which takes priority over SVFR, and he is waiting his turn.
They eventually build a hole and send him on his way.
Further, he was not talking to center, ever. They don't work traffic that low. He is talking to various towers and eventually gets handed off to SoCal approach, who never really handles his request for following as he is too low.
Maybe wait a while.
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There's clouds and there's fog, and they can exist in the same area, because they are the same thing, codensed water vapor, except one is very close to the ground.
LA basin has predictable coastal fog at predictable times every year, and it burns off mid morning.
A low ceiling can turn to fog with a half degree temperature, and "burn off with just the same temperature change.
Nothing strange about it.
I would never engage in impromptu accident investigation, but its a really bad idea to hunt around for a cloud base when you don't know it it extends to the surface.
The Airplane Seat Incident.
in Off the Wall Archives
Posted
I'm shortsighted?
Do you think, for a second, that this hasn't been tried and the market has voted?
Everyday, all the time.
By the way, as I noted in my reply to you initially, you may not be familiar with this issue.
In the first case, you mentioned value regarding a number of options, and I mentioned that you may not be aware of the cost of these things.
In your most recent, you state something regarding how you might pay more for legroom on trips of lengthier duration, but not on shorter ones.
Did you think about this before you made that claim?
Once an airplane is configured, and they are as "fleets," not individually, which would be insanely idiotic and expensive, they are in the system.
Once in the system, they operate on all routes.
The people who decide these things do so on market results, and they are not stupid.