sherpa

Sad. As a flat earther, he was sphere-less.

This is an extremely important exposure, if true. If it is, there should be relentless international outrage resulting in a true exposure of how horrible the Chinese are at being planet neighbors.

I'm not pretending anything, just relating information on a subject that gets scores of attention and is looked at very closely tens of thousands a time per day as hundreds of thousands of passengers make fare decisions. https://www.forbes.com/sites/airchive/2015/01/14/actually-airlines-are-giving-customers-exactly-what-they-want/#3dbd3c2d29bb From Forbes: " And airline products are determined almost entirely by customer preferences. US airline customers (and really passengers all over the world) have shown time and time again that they care about one factor above all else: price. And not just price but base fares (frequently ignoring out of pocket travel costs and even taxes). Non-business travelers, in aggregate, will choose a seat offered at a low base fare, almost every time. "Leisure travelers are an absolute majority of passengers for US airlines, even at full service carriers like United and Delta. And these passengers, voting with their wallets. Leisure travelers are an absolute majority of passengers for US airlines, even at full service carriers like United and Delta. And these passengers, voting with their wallets, have demonstrated that they care a lot more about low base fares than any of the service elements that Mr. Wu bemoans. Now clearly this doesn’t apply to every airline passenger, there are business travelers who choose flights based on schedules, status, or service, and even leisure passengers willing to pay a bit more for a more comfortable experience. But for about 60% of customers at US majors (and about 80% overall), price is king." "Journal of Air Transport Management" had a lengthy article about it as well, which can be read as PDF.

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.

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.

Yes. Because it is flammable, so it can't be in the cabin.

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.

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.

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.

This is REALLY bad advice. If you plan drinking your own alcohol on an airplane, bring your checkbook.

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.

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.

No. Lutheran ideology is Christianity without Catholic invention.

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.

These are still available.

But he lives in the "NFL MECCA" of Charlottesville.

We always knew who the whistle blower in that one was.

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.

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.

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.

Use stellarrium.org, and do it from home. I do.

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.

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.

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.

I would be very wary of that data, and it is a insane rate of decent.