Almost a bad Oopsie at LAX when cross the runway became turn onto the runway; I’m sure Victor will have audio up on his channel soon
Nonsense. And what of all the VOR approaches & NDB approaches which have existed since the 1950s and 1940s respectively which also have no on/off switch and never did?
The goal is to maximize total safety; not to kneejerk remove one hazard at the cost of adding several other larger risks. RNAV/GPS approaches are vastly safer than what they replaced.
Interesting. An article with nil details. Some AA flight from somewhere in Europe is all it says. Which means the airplane was a 777 or 787.
Relatively a lotta room up in those gear wells, but a flight of that many hours means he was most sincerely and thoroughly dead. Then pretty well frozen solid; 8-12 hours at ~-50C will do that.
That article is all kinds of confused, but so is the situation. LAX has a lot of traps for the unfamiliar, tired, or unwary.
I really think it’s about time for the FAA to prohibit controllers from telling pilots to “hurry up” in whatever form. This isn’t a hurry-up business and continuing to stuff 12 lbs in a 10lb bag every day is going to continue to generate X number of close calls and some smaller Y number of actual accidents.
Is there not some equipment near the wheel wells that would add any heat? Not enough to survive, I’m sure, but your mention of it has made me curious. If someone who knew what they were doing absolutely had to try to survive stowing away on a plane, how hard would it be? Would an arctic survival suit and a jerry-rigged CPAP do any good at all?
So the stowaway can die of hypoxia instead?
I doubt a stowaway would have the resources for any of that, and if they did, they’d probably have the wisdom to not try it.
I know, but I find it interesting as an engineering challenge. If someone absolutely had to try it, would there be any hope at all, and how?
I was going to suggest tapping the tire as a source of breathable, pressurized air, then I remembered they’re filled with nitrogen. Still, could you build something that could use the pressurized nitrogen to compress air and get a little more oxygen to your lungs?
As to heat:
There’d be some for sure. But from experience, if you touch any of the metal up in there on an airplane that parked recently, it’s still nice and cold. Like sub-freezing. And that’s after being slowly warmed up by the entire descent, arrival, approach, landing, and taxiing process. I don’t know what kind of gear the (ant)arctic folks wear when working outdoors, nor how well that will support someone being sedentary for 10 or more hours at -50C or even -30C. There might be such gear.
As to breathing:
A CPAP machine is useless; it provides a tiny fraction of a PSI of raw air. At 25,000 feet breathing pure oxygen through a tight-fitting mask can sustain consciousness more or less indefinitely. At least until the tank runs out. By 35,000 feet, you need the pure oxygen rammed into your lungs at significant positive pressure. It’s a miserable experience unsuitable for more than a few minutes.
If they had the money for the resources they could pay for a seat.
Yes, the tires will heat up from braking and takeoff roll. It might keep the person comfortable enough until hypoxia kicks in and they drift off to Valhalla.
I’m surprised they don’t put cameras in the wheel well.
Jay Leno auto lands a Cirrus. You can skip through until he’s in the plane but he pushes the button and the plane lands itself.
Don’t have time to watch a 40-minute video without a significant time notation. Did he pop the ‘chute?
Nope, the chute is all different. At 30 mins in, he engages the auto land system. When you press that big red button, the autopilot kicks in, selects an appropriate airport, makes all the radio calls, then lands the plane without any human intervention including braking to a stop.
it’s new technology from Garmin, now available in a number of different GA craft.
You should think more along the lines of beefed-up U2 flight suit, or modified space suit.
From a pure engineering standpoint, that is possible. The pressurisation would help with thermal insulation. Make the inner and outer layers a thick foam, and you could be quite toasty.
Part of the pressurisation would even be free: Just seal the suit while still at ground level.
But you would need an oxygen cylinder and or CO2 scrubbers (like in spacecraft) to continue breathing.
I guess someone with resources and desperate to leave the country covertly could cobble that together. If that person would find enough space with all the extra bulk is a different question.
Boeing is developing a new narrowbody aircraft to replace the 737, according to the Wall Street Journal (but here’s a non-paywalled source instead). I’m not really too surprised by this, I guess I always thought of the MAX as just a stopgap until Boeing could develop a new clean sheet design. IIRC the initial WSJ report mentioned a planned entry into service of 2035, although none of the non-paywalled sources I can fine mention that date, and given the delays with the 787 and 777X, I don’t think I’d trust that date.
I loved flying the Blanik. Nice wing over at the end …scared the shit out my skeptical biz partner didn’t think sailplanes exciting…lulled him to relax then suddenly tipped it hard into a couple of very steep high g wingovers…..sounds of swearing ensued from the front seat. 
Blanik was a training aircraft for the Polish airforce, had retractable landing gear, flaps, air brakes and could spin. Noisy in a slow thermal climb but quite fun to take passengers up in.
I suppose a better way to say that is “Boeing is floating trial balloons to Wall Street to see how badly the stock will be tanked when they start spending billions on a 10 year development project with a 25 year time to payback if no other worldwide crises occur meantime.”
Both they and Airbus are due / overdue for a product line refresh. At the same time, they need vastly improved, not incrementally improved, fuel economy. Which isn’t happening without radical new engines and radical new aircraft layouts. Which suggests radically extended timelines and radically higher design costs.
Boeing’s CEO also said a few weeks ago that there will be no new clean-sheet airplanes until the Feds can credibly commit to an efficient fast transparent process for certification. They are hemorrhaging money trying to play “Guess what FAA will object to next?” on the 777X. It may well kill the whole 777X if FAA keeps playing Lucy with their football.
Pretty much every news story of any clean sheet design drops an “entry into service” date 10 years from the date of the story.
Every OEM is constantly exploring possible future designs, doing market surveys, technology reviews and trade-offs, regulatory reviews, preliminary concept testing, etc. When the stars align they’ll kick off a new program, with the public announcement usually being around the time they actually apply for the new type certificate.
For sure the OEMs are in talks with all of the engine makers to try to dial into the next level tech to select for their product especially with the industry talking so much about Net Zero. Unfortunately for everyone, fuel burning remains the best way to move heavy objects over a long distance with any speed.
In the case of Boeing it is something that has to happen. The 737 was extended past it’s life expectancy because of how many of them were flying. Airlines didn’t need to retrain pilots for the newer versions. But they took it as far as they could go with the existing air frame. They can’t make it any more fuel efficient.