Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean the world's not out to get me, so my CDO has served me well - that's OCD except the letters are in alphabetical order as they should be. Indispensable attributes for flying and for engineering.

(Written on 11/04/2022)(Permalink)

Just trying to wrap my head around 80 countries voting for Russia inclusion. How much more damning evidence do they need?

(Written on 10/07/2022)(Permalink)

Yeah, Rob. That is a classic Confined Space that OSHA regulates very specifically. Can't believe a commercial aircraft maintenance facility didn't have the observer, portable quad gas monitor, full body harness or rescue retrieval equipment. Or, if they did, why didn't they take action at the first sign of distress or out-of-range monitor readings?

(Written on 09/16/2022)(Permalink)

This seems like seriously bending the FAA/DOT 3-hour taxi limit, but then that's par for the course for an airline that's now a shadow of its former once-great self. Once upon a time I was a die-hard Platinum Mileage Plus and Red Carpet member until 22 years ago I was unable to fly for nearly a year due to medical reasons. On my next Mileage Plus anniversary they busted me back to basic mileage plus and rescinded nearly 400,000 bonus miles. I sent a letter to the mileage plus and Red Carpet offices and got no reply. I decided I should be as loyal to United as they were to me so, of the nearly 1,500 flight segments in the past two decades since then, I don't even have to take off my shoes to count the number of United flights I have taken.

(Written on 09/02/2022)(Permalink)

This looks like a solution looking for a problem. He presumes everyone will have access to the cloud, but I have found wifi connections to be spotty, and at some airports, expensive, and although charging resources are improving, they are not yet sufficiently available. And, I'm not sure I'm comfortable with linking my devices to an airport network that creates another hacking risk. Here's a real problem to tackle: misleading flight performance data. The FAA keeps so much data for on-time/delay statistics that let airlines manipulate their data to appear more on-time than they are. Landing, or touch-down times are meaningless and misleading. The only flight performance datum that means anything is when the door opens at the gate so that I can get off the plane. When I traveled a lot in the past, I kept a spreadsheet of exactly that so that I could both keep track of my flight travels, but also look at airline performance that could influence my ticketing choices. I saw that some air

(Written on 08/19/2022)(Permalink)

And, with reprocessing that the rest of the world uses, there is enough "spent" fuel rods in storage to power all our existing nuclear powerplants in the United States for decades to come. (Fuel rods are only 10-12% used when enough inerts accumulate to interfere with the nuclear reaction.) So, 88-90% of their unused energy sit in storage pools and casks until our myopic politics change.

(Written on 08/12/2022)(Permalink)

Depends. Traditional "gray" hydrogen is produced from natural gas. "Green" hydrogen is produced with electrolysis or with a steam reformer. Since both use electricity, they can be powered by renewable energy or off-peak grid energy. As with other "new" technologies, costs will drop as production methods and volumes increase. So long term, hydrogen has a low/no carbon footprint outlook.

(Written on 08/12/2022)(Permalink)

And, yet ZeroAvia's website has their aircraft, front-and-center, in full United Airlines livery.

(Written on 08/12/2022)(Permalink)

That's a bit like saying that your car worked perfectly until a State Trooper came anong and gave you a ticket. No ody noticed the faulty altimeters until someone came along and wanted to use a lane that the instrument is blocking. More to the point, the cell phone companies paid for that bandwidth and the alitimeter operators didn't.

(Written on 06/24/2022)(Permalink)

Sure would have liked to see a photo of the plane after landing.

(Written on 06/05/2022)(Permalink)