Posts by SkippyBing 2364 publicly visible posts • joined 21 May 2008
'But you have to verify passwords, so surely (Shirley) they know what they've input.'
That works if you're only ever logging on from the same computer, for instance I have a laptop with a US keyboard as well as a PC and laptop with a UK keyboard. To be extra tricky the US keyboard is set up as a UK one as I touch type which is fine but not all the characters are where I expect because it's a laptop keyboard and the layout is a bit odd at the edges.
Oh, I know, although the regulator to which I work says we should be going beyond compliance and predicting the next accident to prevent it before it happens. While also having a course where predicting the future is compared to driving a car down a country road at night, without headlights, looking out the rear window.
I just think it's ironic that when regulators try and prevent accidents before they happen someone from the cheap seats complains they're being needlessly restrictive as no one's died. Yet.
I suspect the live helicopter feed is only a daytime option rather than being an interim measure while they sorted out the comms link from the barge. Yes you can fly helicopters over the sea at night but, having done it lots, there are plenty of reasons not to if it's not a matter of life and death.
'It's interesting that pilots learn to fly on 'indicated air speed''
That's because that's the speed through the air being experienced by the wings which is more useful for the pilot to know than his speed across the ground. In the right aircraft with the right wind ground speed could in fact be negative.
The more accurate air speeds, from memory, correct for temperature and pressure, so represent the speed through an ideal atmosphere rather than the one you're actually in.
'That one or two privately owned corporations may end up in control of a structure the outlines of which we can only now begin to see with such profound effects on human social evolution is frankly terrifying'
While I agree with your point, I’m not sure I’d find it any less terrifying if it was politicians in control of the structure. Which raises the question, what is the best way to control these critical structures without giving any group a monopoly of power?
Couldn't get my 4 digit pin to work in a gas pump as, like you discovered, it was insisting on a fifth digit I didn't have. I was actually shocked in March when I managed to pay for something in Target using my chip & pin card for the first time, it was like a little piece of America had joined the 21st Century.
I've also only tried DK2 in one game, but Prepar3D (the Lockeed Martin version of Flight Simulator) not Elite.
Again it completly changes the experience, to start with I was even reacing for switches that I could see but of course weren’t there. Looking outside the cockpit was much more natural so flying a visual circuit where you look over your shoulder to judge when to turn was just like in the real thing. Admittedly with the DK2 the cockpit gauges weren’t that readable but I don’t do a lot of instrument flying so it doesn’t really affect me and logically the CV1 should be better.
I think for any sort of simulation where you’re seated, i.e. aircraft, car, spaceship, it’s worth considering, depending on your addiction level, it’s certainly cheaper than making your own dome simulator.
'Windows for Warships terrifies me to be honest. Sure it's a military-grade hardened OS but it's still XP technology under the hood with all the issues that go with it.'
I think there's some confusion about Window for Warships, it's not running the actual search and destroy command system type activities of the ships, that's left to a real time OS. It's more the mundane admin type stuff and holding electronic publications that you'd expect in a corporate IT system.
Also because it would be a bit silly storing the warheads in the home counties and the submarines in Scotland, generally you try and keep the weapons storage in the same postcode as the delivery system to avoid carting quite dangerous stuff all over the place. Why keep the submarines in Scotland some aggrieved Scot Nat will surely ask, because Faslane is the cloudiest place in the UK which made (makes?) it harder for foreign satellites to count the number of submarines alongside.
Rest assured despite many attempts by the US Air Force no one has yet managed to make a nuclear device go off by accident, it's almost as if they're designed not to.
I really just keep coming back here to look for outraged comments from people who don't get satire, do get it but don't think this was it, think this was it but done poorly, generally enjoy jumping on the outrage bus etc. etc.
I think I mean satire. I might mean something else but it's Friday...
'the Russians asked the Ukrainians why they had ground to air missile batteries in the area when the Pro-Russian groups don't have aircraft'
Or possibly the Pro-Russian groups weren't putting their aircraft where they knew the missiles were? You know, to avoid them being shot down...
If a drone's big enough to crop spray I'd be less worried about hitting it as it should be visible from a reasonable distance, i.e. only slightly smaller than the manned equivalent. In fact the commercial drone operators are the least of your worries from a safety point of view as they're law abiding and can read an air chart so know where to avoid.
On the plus side, a Cessna hit a small drone in Scandinavia with its wheel and seemed to survive okay. The drone less so, so that'll probably count against mankind come the uprising...
+ Several for the P3D references. It's so much better than FSX that I haven't used the latter for years now, it also nicely runs the Dodo Sim Bell 206 FSX add-on which lets me practise engine starts and emergencies before I go and commit actual aviation.
Incidentally if anyone is interested in add-ons with a nautical theme may I shamelessly plug www.flyingstations.com
'Mind you, I think this particular security/safety trade-off makes perfect sense!'
Statistically it may not, I believe post the German Wings accident more people have now died since 2001 as a result of being unable to gain access to the cockpit as died on 9/11 because terrorists could gain access to the cockpit. It was in an article on Flight Global, but since they've changed their website layout I can't find anything on there.
What's 'precision docking of oil tankers' if it isn't navigation?!
Okay technically it's pilotage but it's pretty much the same thing.
As an aside I've seen it used to synchronise frequency hopping radios and the operator was completly unaware the numbers on the display had anything to do with the geographic position. Still it was handy to know his phone number for when there was an exercise fire on the bridge and we had to navigate from the upper deck.
'Given that lift force is proportional to the volume of low pressure air above the wing'
Not according to NASA oddly enough https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/airplane/right2.html
Also the maths doesn’t work out if you calculate the force the pressure drop would produce.
Although I think most cases of the tail engine failing and causing ‘difficulties’ were with the DC-10 the rather rapidly developed competitor to the L-1011 Tristar. It probably helped that the Tristar had 4 hydraulic systems versus the DC-10’s 3 as, in the only case I can find, of a Tristar having an uncontained engine failure it retained control with the one working system.
Having said that statistically the DC-10 was more likely to kill you by having the cargo door fail and the control runs being crushed in the subsequent explosive decompression, than due to an uncontained failure of the tail engine. Or from one of the engines falling off. Or from one of the other engines having an uncontained failure dislodging a window and the passenger being sucked out.
To be honest I think they were just badly designed rather than the three engine configuration being a bad idea…
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