SJC had this same runway problem 20 years ago. Luckily, they had 2 parallel runways and were able to remake the runways properly without shutting down the airport. They moved from asphalt to concrete that was 4 feet thick and two miles long. They used enough concrete to make a sidewalk that could stretch from San Jose to San Diego.

(Written on 12/08/2023)(Permalink)

There is a legal way to get good wildfire arial footage. My buddy applied to be a volunteer photographer with the state fire authority (CalFire) and they let him attach GoPros to the helicopter skids when they went airdropping. Naturally, he shared the video with CalFire for training purposes but he now has some of the best arial wildfire footage out there.

(Written on 10/20/2023)(Permalink)

I had to Google it but Hydrogen won't burn without oxygen.

(Written on 10/06/2023)(Permalink)

I can't give this post a thumbs up or thumbs down. If only there were a thumbs maybe.

(Written on 09/08/2023)(Permalink)

I have no Idea if this is related but I tried to purchase a ticked on united.com during the outage and was unable to do so due to a server error on United's end. I was able to make the purchase later in the day.

(Written on 09/08/2023)(Permalink)

Please do Miami International first. they have more payphones than water bottle filling stations. They seem proud to have a kiosk to recharge your phone while the modern airports have charging at almost every seat. Nice they rolled this out right when they're done upgrading Laguardia. Laguardia's new slogan is literally "It's no longer a hellscape".

(Written on 03/04/2023)(Permalink)

Up in the SF Bay Area, cities that don't want GA airfields that can't fight the FAA have gone around the federal government by banning leaded aviation fuel. If GA aircraft owners want to keep their planes parked nearby, that's fine but you better park it with a half tank of fuel so you can fly to the central valley to fill up. I don't know what ratio of GA planes require leaded gas but this purposefully overburdensome government regulation is having an effect. Some airfields have half as many planes parked as they used to.

(Written on 02/17/2023)(Permalink)

Time for a little Occam's Razor. The simplest explanation is usually the correct one. Some dude in China was inflating his weather balloon and instead of filling it to 6 feet in diameter, he only went to 5 feet in diameter. When you go to 6 feet, the balloon climbs to 100,000 ft elevation where P1V1=P2V2 tells us that the balloon expands to about 20 feet in diameter. At that size, the latex is stretched to the point of failure and the weather guy can go retrieve his device after the balloon has popped. Since this guy only filled the balloon to 5 feet in diameter, the balloon was only able to climb to 80,000 feet in elevation where the balloon only expands to 16 feet in diameter. Since the latex is not stressed to the point of failure, it just flows along with the currents for thousands of miles but the weather guy in China has one less weather balloon device in his inventory. https://www.weather.gov/bmx/kidscorner_weatherballoons#:~:text=Twice%20a%20day%2C%20every%20day,up%20to%20

(Written on 02/03/2023)(Permalink)

I'm not in the air industry but I read somewhere that if some of these newer planes do not get the regularly scheduled software updates, the planes quit running. Also, the seized planes are certainly not getting their spare parts from proper channels so their service history is nearly worthless. It kind of makes their value on the trade market nearly zero. I'd like to know what the FlightAware community thinks.

(Written on 07/08/2022)(Permalink)

Last week while waiting for my connector at a bar at DFW, I got to talking to an electrical engineer who works on cell phones. The subject of 5G and the people who think 5G frequencies are harmful to humans came up (a little off topic for this thread). He said that when a person goes through a full body scanner at the TSA checkpoint, they are exposed to about a 1000 times dose of 5G radio waves. According to him, the scanners all use the 5G wavelength. If this is correct, I wonder if these scanners at the airport are leaking radio emissions and interfering with flight communications.

(Written on 11/12/2021)(Permalink)