50 miles. There’s lots of other details, but I gotta run.
This should probably change. Or, at the least, costs should be imposed on the launch providers proportional to the window length. Provide an incentive for providers to limit their window to the minimum possible. If they need multiple hours because the rocket’s still finicky, or because it’s super important that the rocket goes up today–fine, as long as they pay for the privilege. But reliable providers shouldn’t reserve multi-hour windows just because there’s no downside.
I’ve been thinking of a career change. It’s probably too late to become a pilot, but is there anything else that the aviation industry is going to be needing?
The RAF has retired its C-130 Hercules aircraft, and this writer is… disappointed.
It couldn’t be clearer that the A400M is abysmal value for money and not very good either for long-haul air bridge work or shorter tactical trips within theatre – as from Kabul to Camp Bastion in recent times – a task for which the Hercules was ideal. We should have fleets of proper US-made C-17s and new Hercules, rather than being stuck with A400Ms which cost more even than hugely bigger C-17s and aren’t much good for any job even on the rare days when they are working.
This person thinks people should dress up to fly commercially.
In a nutshell:
- People who dress better tend to be less unruly.
- People who dress better tend to be treated better.
I tend to wear khaki or blue trousers when I fly. Sometimes I’ll wear non-faded, non-torn Levi’s. With either, I’ll wear a tucked-in long-sleeve short or an un-tucked, somewhat subdued, aloha shirt. (It seems aloha shirts are the only short-sleeve shirts I have.) I’ll wear a windbreaker or a flight jacket, depending on the weather. I’m not ‘dressed to fly’ in the classical sense, but I do try to be presentable. Now that I’ve finally bought a sport jacket, I can step up my game a little bit. Maybe I’ll buy a suit. I could use one.
[P]eople who dress up don’t act up. At least that’s airline pilot Ken Schulte’s assessment.
“Well-dressed people never cause drama on a flight,” said Schulte, who runs an aviation merchandise site. “You might not think pilots would notice all this, but every incident of bad behavior leads to a report to the flight deck. The troublemakers are the ones who look like they just rolled out of bed.”
The problem with a dress code beyond ‘Wear shoes, wear a shirt, and don’t wear anything “patently offensive”,’ is that some people seem not to own ‘presentable’ clothes. I don’t think they are necessarily a bunch of yahoos. Maybe they just don’t have the money. Or, like me, they seldom have an occasion to wear a jacket or suit and so they don’t own one. And, to address the quote above, I’ve read plenty accounts of ‘well-dressed’ Karens and Kens being booted off of planes.
I’d love to fly on a plane with appropriately-dressed, well-behaved, passengers who know how to board and exit a plane efficiently. I’d also like some more leg room. And a pony.
And I’d like the pony not to be on the plane.
Yes, that’s what aviation needs - even MORE pointless rules for passengers.
Has anyone considered that it’s all the officious nonsense involved with flying that makes people behave badly? I say that as both a passenger and a former airline pilot. When I’m done with my career it’s possible I will never step on an airliner again. I used to love flying as a passenger, but the experience has been made so unpleasant I avoid it at all costs.
I also bristle at the idea of dress codes in general, both personal and professional. I realize professions like mine, police, etc need to be recognizable to the public and therefore require a uniform. But we’ve made it such a goddam fetish. And I’ve know a few too many pilots who could wear a uniform correctly, but lacked flying ability. Polo shirt with a logo - that should be all anyone needs as far as a uniform.
I generally go for business casual when I fly as well - khaki pants, with a looser cut, with a nice polo shirt and a sweater or my best hoodie.
I am however quite skeptical of the idea of an airline-imposed dress code. It seems likely that if the relation “People who dress better tend to be less unruly” is true, it’s because the ruly people tend to dress down, not because dressing up makes you more polite. So you’d have the same people with the same attitude problem, except now they are in uncomfortable clothes.
I had thought to post this as a standalone question, but I’ll just toss it in here:
Why Iceland?
The several occasions that I or anyone in my immediate family have gone from the U.S. to Europe, we have had connecting flights through Iceland. I know there is some tourism in Iceland, but it seems that most passengers are on these flights are just making a connection. Is there any reason why this is seemingly a thing recently?
The big fallacy here is assuming that since the people who dress better tend to behave better, forcing everyone to dress better will make them behave better.
It seems to not have occurred to the writer that maybe people who voluntarily dress better are generally more conscientious people, and forcing others who aren’t as conscientious to dress better will do bupkis, or even have the opposite effect.
This is a common fallacy. See a correlation (better dressed people are better behaved), draw the wrong cause/effect association because it aligns with what you want to believe, then force everyone to do the same.
“Look, cities with thriving business sectors have lots of business services! So all we have to do is build lots of business services, and we’ll have a thriving business sector as well! We just hae to raise business taxes a little more to pay for it…”
It’s also similar to the ‘pilot program’ fallacy, in which a voluntary pilot program is set up in a school, the most motivated kids and parents and teachers sign up for it, and it’s a success. So they force it on everyone, and it fails and they can’t figure out why.
Exactly. And as I said, there are plenty of well-dressed people who cause problems.
I think Icelandair might be promoting themselves as a cheap way to get to Europe. And the now defunct low cost airline Wow Airlines was based in Iceland.
But that said, I don’t think connecting in Iceland is any more of “a thing” than connecting in Heathrow or Frankfurt or Paris. You just happened to book flights on an airline that has a hub in Iceland. I don’t know where you live, but maybe connecting there is the most convenient way to get to Europe from your home airport, so that’s why you always end up going that way. I, on the other hand, do not live in a city served by Icelandair, so I have never connected through Iceland on the way to Europe.
Blue Spruce Route. It’s part of a stepping stone to Europe and provides both navigation and fuel benefits.
Just out of curiosity, what pointless rules would you eliminate?
The problem with dressing up for commercial flying is that it was a social construct in the golden age of flight. It wasn’t a precursor for good behavior but an extension of it.
Times have changed.
Most of the nonsensical security for passengers, pilots and airport workers. Airplane mode on phones. “I need a verbal yes or no”.
I could go on. It’s not just the absurd rules, it’s the officious way we insist upon them. It’s infantilizing, it’s annoying and we should stop. And not all of the behavior problems are solely on passengers - I’ve seen crew members who apparently never heard of the word “de-escalate”.
With security, we can’t even have a serious discussion because we’re effectively forbidden to discuss it - to do so would supposedly reveal sensitive information. So we’re stuck with a system that does a brisk business confiscating water bottles and toothpaste while apparently missing lots of firearms. But lets not pretend you can’t buy your way out of this inconvenience - if you have the funds to fly private you can bypass most of the security theater.
So after being treated like cattle with no rights, people are then discharged into airports with mediocre, stupidly expensive food and are invited to again purchase the water they just had to throw out at the checkpoint. Then they get charged fees for their luggage, which creates an incentive to bring more carry-ons, which creates problems during boarding into your narrow, uncomfortable seat, at which point you get to listen to endless briefings and announcements. What really grinds my gears is airlines have the goddam gall to advertise their credit cards and whatnot to a captive audience who paid to be there.
So…
I wouldn’t defend anyone’s poor behavior in public. But it’s laughable to think that our absurd policies aren’t in some measure complicit in creating an atmosphere where people get fed up, go nuts and act out.
We’re dealing with a whole new group of flyers who are seriously messed up. There is no de-escalating crazy. I’d like to see people banned from all airlines for a minimal amount of time if they have to be removed from a flight.
We’ve contributed to messing them up. This is a case where I believe correlation and causation merge. A bunch of absurd rules and procedures were foisted on us after 9/11, and they have combined with other factors to create the situation we are now seeing.
And I also don’t have a problem booting people for causing actual problems. We saw the problems spike during the pandemic. But importantly, there were sound reasons for enforcing masking in flight. I don’t think we can continue making that argument for the shoes, belts and water bottle nonsense. Treat people poorly and some of them are going to behave poorly. I just don’t see how it gets better without acknowledging that reality.
I liked this quote:
Industry experts say that they can only speculate about what’s going on.
“I’m not sure if there is an overall increase in a feeling of self-entitlement,” said aviation security expert Jeffrey Price… “or if people are, for some reason post-Covid, feeling more empowered to assert what authority or influence they believe they have.”
So… ‘I’m not sure if it’s an increase in a feeling of self-entitlement, or if it’s an increase in a feeling of self-entitlement.’ 
More seriously [emphasis mine]:
[Association of Flight Attendants President Sara Nelson] also pointed to the pandemic’s long shadow, saying it “exposed deep social division and resentment over rising inequality,” and she criticized public officials’ “mixed messages and contempt for rules that protect our collective safety” as having made matters worse.
“Our cabins are microcosms of humanity, so this anxiety, confusion and division continues to show up in behavior on our planes,” she said.
It sounds like ‘Politicians get away with committing crimes that would land the rest of us in jail.’ I hope I this doesn’t turn into a hijack; but ISTM the divisive political climate in this country has made some people more aggressive, and when you cram polarised people into an already uncomfortable situation, tempers rise.
It’s also worth pointing out that some politicians have privileges with regard to airport security that enable them to not undergo the full TSA experience that everyday people do. I seem to recall Chris Christie was brought up short by this shortly after he left office as governor of NJ. But again, to discuss the particulars might not be allowed because it would reveal details of our security processes. Kind of a vicious circle.
Jim Tweto, who appeared on Discovery Channel’s Flying Wild Alaska, and a hunting guide were killed when Tweto’s Cessna 180 crashed on takeoff.
A report on the incident by Alaska State Troopers said that the plane “was witnessed taking off but not climbing and then crashing,” according to the Anchorage Daily News. The witness was a third person in the group’s hunting party who’d stayed on the ground, the newspaper reported.
Sounds like he didn’t get out of ground effect (perhaps taking off over-gross), there was a control failure (I’ve heard of planes crashing after takeoff when a control lock was not removed), a power failure (no mention of it in the article), or… something else (Big help!).