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In most cities there is simply no physical space to build separate infrastructure for AVs.

The logical conclusion being that we should look elsewhere for AVs to take off?

It's a little too late for that. The JSF program probably should have been cancelled or completely restructured circa 1996. But now there's no remaining alternative. The inventory of legacy AV-8, F-16, and A-10 aircraft are going to be retired no matter what because they're literally falling apart and it's impossible to keep extending their service lives.

> and it's impossible to keep extending their service lives.

B52 projected to last till 2050


B-52s aren't subject to the same stress as fighter aircraft are, that's why they are able to keep flying for so long (among other reasons).

No. As long as it has electrical power and the flight controls are working it can remain stable and glide even with a complete engine failure. Of course the glide ratio is fairly low but it's totally possible for a skilled pilot to make a dead stick landing provided there's a suitable site nearby with acceptable weather conditions.

He was transitioning the aircraft from mode 4 (STOL) to mode 1 (normal flight) when he made the decision to bail. The wings were not generating lift - without computer control the aircraft could have rolled severely.

Pilots eject when the wings are level. If he was facing the possibility of severe uncontrolled roll (or believed he was) then ejecting now before the roll was a good call. At least so far as his wife and children are concerned.


The wings were generating lift and not stalled. Changing the flight control mode doesn't imply that the aircraft was in vertical flight.

Going from mode 4 to mode 1 on the F-35B (I don't know about the AV-8 family) has a significant portion of the flight below stall speed. I don't think that we know at what portion of the flight this happened.

And that's an insignificant detail in the rest of the post anyway, a nuance that does not invalidate the rest of the points made in the post you are replying to.


We do know at what portion of the flight this happened. It's right there in the report. The airplane was in stable forward flight, not stalled. You did not make any valid points.

Is that true for those fighter planes? From a cursory investigation it seems like they’re not very flyable at low speeds without being in vtol mode.

Every plane has what is called a stall speed, which if you go below it it loses its ability to stay in the air. Above that, even 1kt above, the plane will still fly. Also, to make sure you can fly the longest possible distance to have time to troubleshoot any issues, planes also have what is called best glide speed. If you maintain that, you’re golden.

There are a lot of factors that come into play when you lose the engine, but unless there is a serious issue, you still have control over the flight surfaces.


That depends what you mean by "low". The F-35B (like any fixed-wing aircraft) is perfectly well flyable down to stall speed, and below stall speed it doesn't fly at all. For the conditions described, stall speed would probably be something close to 120kn (exact performance parameters are classified). (Some fighters can use thrust vectoring and other aerodynamic tricks to retain a limited amount of post-stall maneuverability but that doesn't really apply in this case.) In an engine failure situation, pilots are trained to trim the aircraft to the speed that will give the best glide ratio and that's going to be well above stall speed.

Vertical flight mode wouldn't be usable in a situation like this. They only transition to vertical flight at low altitude with the landing site in sight.


I've heard Britons complain about the local chavs walking their kids to school while wearing pyjamas and drinking a can of beer.

Obesity is a major risk factor for both cardiovascular disease and cancer. They are highly correlated.

I remember reading something that your baseline consumption when standing is 140 calories/h vs 120 when seating. Definitely too marginal to have any sort of impact on obesity.

If those numbers are accurate then it would equate to a difference of about 2lb (1kg) of fat per year. That's a pretty typical rate of weight gain for many adults.

My math is a bit different. Assuming a 20 Cal/hr difference, a 40 hr working week, 52 weeks/year, 7700 Cal per kg of weight loss:

20*40*52/7700=5.4 kg/year

Surprisingly large. Did I mess something up?


Nit: 1 Calorie (capital C) == 1000 calories (lowercase c) == 1 kcal. 1 kCal == 1,000,000 calories, which probably isn't what you meant.

Oh yeah, that old chestnut. Thanks for pointing out. Fixed.

The body is pretty good at regulating the amount of energy we spend. Any increase at your desk is likely to be offset sometime else in your day.

Assuming that you would not eat the difference because you are more hungry.

Ha ha this is hilarious. When my daughter starts next year I guess I have something to look forward to?

Relax. The AMA has no regulatory or enforcement power. They don't care and won't do anything.

I've never heard of anyone being hospitalized for motion sickness. Symptoms stop quickly once the patient is back stationary on solid ground.

That’s cause you never had space motion sickness.

There are zero actual reasons to think that food price deflation would be terrible. You can look back through decades of consumer price history and find many cases where at least certain foodstuffs got cheaper. It wasn't a problem.

The US President has little power to lower food prices anyway though, so this discussion is kind of moot.


Deflation isn't necessarily a problem. Prices for some things like computers and consumer electronics are constantly deflating. Compare the price of a large HDTV today versus 20 years ago. Or do the same with rechargeable batteries or solar panels, etc. Of course much of that deflation was driven by economies of scale in Asian manufacturing hubs and we can argue about whether that's a good thing, but the deflation itself was good.

Apparently America draws the line of where it's bad somewhere between computers/TVs and food for the poor/working class.

Look at anything that the wealthy consider valuable: Jewelry, gold, real estate- all have undergone astronomical inflation.

You can’t go buy a nice oak table for less than you did 20 years ago. Or high quality tools (To get something like old Craftsman I need to import tools from Germany at 10x the price). No one notices because of the insidious nature of inflation. “Cheap TVs!” appear to be deflating and are the bread and circuses. Meanwhile a massive amount of wealth is being stolen.


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