While the crazed shooter, as usual, gets the news, the dead security guard plays second fiddle. Pity. Stephen Tyrone Johns, 39, was a brave man, obviously, and well worth remembering.
Via Simply Jews.
UPDATE: The American Jewish Committee has set up a fund to raise money for his family, which includes a new child.
Comments Off on Stephen Tyrone Johns, R.I.P.
Posted in Israel, Obituaries, Scribbles, The War
Tagged Holocaust Museum, Stephen Tyrone Johns
This photoshopped image, by a commenter on this pilot’s forum, shows where the jet’s recovered vertical stabilizer apparently tore off–though whether in mid-air or on impact with the ocean is unknown. Meanwhile, previous notions of a superbolt of lightning frying the plane’s electronics apparently have been quashed by this updated meteorological analysis:
"* Lightning — Though in earlier versions of this study I had identified lightning as occurring in this mesoscale convective system, recent evidence from spaceborne and sferic sensors is pointing to the possibility that this system contained no lightning. Soundings do indicate moderate levels of instability, but there are indications in the literature that cumulonimbus clouds in oceanic equatorial regions entrain considerable quantities of drier, cooler air that dampen upward vertical motion in the lower portions of the storm, and in some way this reduces charge separation. In any case it does look fairly likely that we can rule out a lightning strike as being a factor in the A330 crash."
Indicating that turbulence within the storm apparently was the cause of the breakup at altitude unless there was some other factor which only analysis of the debris and/or the voice and data recordings could show.
Comments Off on AF 447’s breakup
Posted in Obituaries, Scribbles, Space, Weather/Climate
Tagged AF 447, Air Franbce, PPRuNe Forums, vertical stabilizer
I think one reason newspapers are dying, as I’ve said before, is that the front page has become a one-sided public scold. Any public figure who says anything that’s not politically correct can count on getting bashed on the front page until they issue an abject apology.
But it only works one way: you have to offend a liberal. Thus a no-talent bozo like Letterman, late-night prattler on cBS, the smallest-audience television network, can call Sarah Palin a slut and imply the rape of her daughter and the front page remains silent. Letterman, after all, supports abortion. Palin does not. People have noticed and, having other cheaper, more diverse sources of information (such as the Internet) have stopped buying newspapers.
Comments Off on When the word police are off-duty
Posted in Library, Obituaries
Tagged Don Surber, Letterman, Palin, the word police
I keep thinking back to the scenes of four pilots on separate flight decks unknowingly converging over the Amazon jungle. The Brazilian 737 pilots are sharing family photographs and flirting with a flight attendant. The American pilots in the Legacy biz jet are puzzling over how to operate a digital camera.
Both groups are at Flight Level 370 (37,000 feet) in normal mode: eyes inside the boat, letting their autopilots, transponders and collision-avoidance gear do the work while assuming that Air Traffic Control has things well in hand. But the Legacy’s transponder was on the blink and the controllers were asleep at the switch. Heckuva tale about what happened, here by journalist William Langewiesche.
His father’s classic, Stick and Rudder, led me to try flying back in 1974 in a Cessna 150 over South Florida. I was defeated practicing stalls above Boca Raton. Could not get the feel of falling out of my stomach or the picture of disaster out of my head. And it was too expensive. I stuck to scuba diving.
Comments Off on Two arrows touching, nose to nose
Posted in Library, Obituaries, Scribbles, South of the Border
Tagged autopilots, Cessna 150, Stick and Rudder, tcas, transponder, William Langewiesche, Wolfgang Langewiesche
Now that the Brazilian air force’s media-assisted "debris trail" has been debunked, it’s probably best to ignore whatever the mainstream media produces on the disappearance. But several good sources remain. One of the best is the (mostly) informed speculation at Airliners.net. Best weather analysis still is here.
UPDATE: Well, make that debunked, and then resucitated with more detail than before.
Comments Off on AF 447: Informed speculation
Posted in Obituaries, South of the Border, Weather/Climate
Tagged AF 447, Air France, Airliners.net, Brazilian Air Force, Weather Graphics
Bad things can happen when the Airbus’s electrical systems go out:
"Simply, the Airbus 330 is one of the few commercial aircraft that is completely fly-by-wire [i.e., fully automated by computer]. The Airbus 320, of Hudson River fame, has mechanical backups, but the Airbus 330 and 340 don’t."
So when their computers quit, what’s left? Exactly nothing. Not much. Except, uh, prayer.
Comments Off on Pulling an Airbus’s plug
Posted in Obituaries, Science/Engineering
Tagged 340, Airbus A330, computer automation, fly-by-wire
And, above all, whatever you do, as Douglas Adams would say (did say, in fact): Don’t Panic.
Via Simply Jews.
Comments Off on Happy Belated Towel Day
Posted in Blogosphere, Library, Obituaries, Science/Engineering, Space
Tagged Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy, Towel Day
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 