Shivatron

> A lot of these important projects have a single point of failure - who is the president every four years. I wonder how we build institutions and resources resilient to that?

We already did. The legislative branch allocates funds for stuff that the people deem worthy. That budget becomes law. The Constitution says the "President shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." There's even a specific law that prevents the President from withholding Congressionally-approved funds.

What you are seeing here is not a lack of designed resilience, it's the wilful removal of that system.

I took 3t208—thank you!

You probably know this, but for the GP:

It's not clear whether the 1500 hour rule directly improved safety. Both the Colgan captain and the FO had more than 1500 hours at the time of the accident. What the rule did unambiguously is severely restrict the supply of new pilots to regional airlines. This significantly improved quality of life for regional pilots, who prior to Colgan were effectively making minimum wage or worse. (That may have indirectly improved safety, by making pilots more well-rested and fed...)

Another point of comparison is Europe, which has a not-dissimilar safety record, but still allows FOs to have 250 hours. That said, from what I understand, they have a very different training culture where students start in a multi-crew environment very early.

A two-wheel drive vehicle with an open differential is limited in acceleration by only one wheel (the drive wheel with the least traction). However, braking is always the combined effect of all wheels.

Critics of the Taycan Turbo badging usually make some argument about "Turbo" meaning the-model-that-has-turbocharger(s), but Porsche hasn't been consistent about that for some time. The iconic 911 Turbo is turbocharged, but since 2015 the regular non-Turbo 911 is as well.

(Next we can discuss whether a "Mustang" is a kind of horse, a two-door sports car, a four-door electric crossover, or...)

> ... it could be a fantastic tool for an affordable, fast commute.

I understand the attraction to owning your own plane and buzzing merrily above the wheel-bound masses below on the daily, but I have to think it's a bad idea (avgas or electric). I think of all the times I've overslept, needed to be at the office unexpectedly, forgot to put some air in the car tires, should get that warning light looked at, etc... phrases that are usually at the start of an NTSB report.

The beauty of airlines and charters is that you're paying them, at least in part, to tell you "no, we're not flying right now." Turns out it can be hard to do for yourself when your job depends on it.

Wanted to plug this; no connection other than being a subscriber. It's well-written, not spammy in the slightest, and a good overview of what's interesting in commercial spaceflight—especially for someone like me (physics background but no industry connection).

Probably not. First of all, "bravo tree uppercase delta mike uppercase quebec" isn't as memorable as "mouse hat door". Further, the NATO alphabet works because both the speaker and the listener understand what's coming. If the listener isn't familiar, then the speaker often needs to revert to "s as in sierra, k as in kilo, y as in yankee"—which tends to cause even more confusion as the listener then needs to parse the (intentionally) unusual set of words.

As others have said, this is incorrect. Quickly planning a flight in ForeFlight from LAX direct JFK for a Citation X (a midsize, 12-passenger business jet) at Mach 0.8/FL510 gives a fuel burn of 6700 lbs. The same flight in a 737-900ER (~180 seats in three class configuration) at Mach 0.8/FL390 gives 22500 lbs. Even assuming the Citation has only 6 souls aboard, that's ~1000 lbs/pax for the private jet and ~125 lbs/pax for the 739—"only" 8x worse.

Edit: I neglected to convert for the average American's carbon footprint (about 16500 kg CO2/yr as stated elsewhere in the thread). Each of the 6 Citation pax emits (21 lbs CO2/gal * 1000 lbs / 6.7 lbs/gal) = ~3.1k lbs CO2, or ~1400 kg CO2 during the flight—about 1/10 of the average yearly footprint.

As an instrument-rated pilot, I reject your brazen assertion that radio work is "by far the hardest part of flying a plane." Are you speaking from personal experience, or do you have some data to back up this claim?

From an instrument proficiency point of view, I'm much more worried about efficiently understanding the information on the approach plate, maintaining situational awareness with respect to the approach path, adhering to minimums, and so on. Missed something that a controller said? "Say again." There's a reason it's aviate, navigate, and communicate--in that order.