They're also heavy. The tragedy of Russia destroying the Ukrainian An-225 was it was one of the only ways to move very big grid scale transformers on short notice.
> Obama vs. Alan Keyes. Keyes was from out of state, so you can eliminate any established political base; both candidates were black, so you can factor out racism; and Keyes was plainly, obviously, completely crazy. Batshit crazy. Head-trauma crazy. But 27% of the population of Illinois voted for him. They put party identification, personal prejudice, whatever ahead of rational judgement. Hell, even like 5% of Democrats voted for him. That's crazy behaviour. I think you have to assume a 27% Crazification Factor in any population.
Herschel Walker got 48.6% of the Georgia vote against Warnock. Slightly different in that Walker was a popular football hero in Georgia but he was also clearly mentally incompetent.
You can see that factor in a large number of polls on all kinds of subjects. It doesn't matter what the question is, a fifth to a quarter of the population will make the dumbest, least consistent, most self defeating choice every time. I think if you can get ~70% of the population on board with something that's all that should matter because the bottom 25% of the intelligence curve are literally incapable of making good decisions and worrying about them or their opinions will only lead to disaster. I also think that this is a major flaw of a lot of democratic systems because if a movement can effectively mobilize that group to vote as a bloc then it can easily sway policy. Add in messed up systems like in the US where you can amplify the power of that bloc beyond their population and it easily explains how we got here
Iranian Air defense getting lucky is different to it being impenetrable.
This is not a binary situation, and a lucky F-15 kill would not make it a good idea to concentrate more assets in an area where the US will now focus more resources.
"I am morally correct therefore I need not be factually correct".
Stop doing this: it completely undermines the political argument because it makes it clear you are as uninterested in reality as the current administration.
It's rich to declare "they're lying" while happily being disinterested in the truth or clear communication.
Iron Dome is a specific interceptor system, and you can trivially look up what it is on Wikipedia.
Iron Dome is still not a catch-all term for the entire Israeli defense system, and all the other claims the poster has made are not supported by their links or evidence.
As noted: Iron Dome intercepting ballistic missiles is an apparent new capability which it was not expected to be capable of: so it's kind of weird to turn up and say "Iron Dome can't intercept ballistic missiles anymore!" when no one except whoever developed the upgrades would've expected it to do that, and Israel has a number of other still unrelated to THAAD ballistic missile interceptor systems.
I mean this has also been a problem for fighter pilots as well. The "piddle packs" for F-16 pilots are implicared at least one crash due to the complexity of using them.
Doing barrel roll, twist and speed up - radio to airliner „see buddy can you do that?”
Airliner „wait a moment” - some time passes nothing happens - airliner „hey buddy you seen that?” - f16 „what? Nothing happened” - airliner „I went to toilet on the back, took dump, made myself a coffee and strolled back to cockpit”.
Forget about pee, I always wondered about fighter pilots in one of those long, multi-hour flights, what happens if they really need to go number 2? I suppose they self-select as people without this kind of problems, but it can happen to anyone really.
I suppose in an emergency they just shit their pants, but I wonder what the ground crew says when they touch down.
Honestly this isn't something people select for at all--by the time you've made it through that many rounds of selection you aren't going to let GI issues keep you from the finish. I've heard of some creative solutions to the problem involving safing the ejection seat and getting out of your gear, but I don't really believe any of them. If you think it's a significant risk, you basically have two options: talk to the squadron flight surgeon and get medically grounded, or wear a diaper. Almost everyone is too proud to do either of those things, so a number of pilots have call signs related to shitting themselves in flight. Yes, everyone will make fun of you after the fact--if you're a decent person, you'll at least clean out the cockpit yourself.
That's one option, although for longer missions your preparation generally needs to start the night before and I wouldn't recommend flying on an empty stomach (unless it works for you, but it makes most people more susceptible to airsickness). There isn't one consistent method that works for everyone--I think the book Sled Driver has a section where they talk about physiological preparation for SR-71 flights, and the only consistent habit the crew had was NOT eating the "traditional," low-residue steak-and-eggs breakfast.
Good news for gassy food lovers is the cabin pressure changes make everyone fart, there's no one else in the cockpit to hear or smell you, and even if there was it'd be loud and they'd be wearing an oxygen mask. Little victories.
I didn't know that! But I do know that crews got eggs before flights. Nobody else did.
When RAF pilots went to the Soviet Union to help the Soviets, when the first frost came the pilots were horrified when the women brought out big vats of fat and ladled it out. But after flying in those cold temperatures, they realized the fat was just the thing to keep them warm!
The context is piloting a fighter aircraft in a multi-hour combat mission though. I think missing meal might matter for mission critical, uh, missions.
I'm not talking doing menial work while skipping lunch.
A full gut makes you sleepy and lethargic, as the blood moves to your gut to help digest. There's a reason many societies have a siesta after lunch.
A full belly can causes problem if you get wounded.
Besides, I doubt our ancestors went on the hunt with full bellies. I go jogging, but never after a meal.
If I'm busy, I also do not notice being hungry, even if I haven't eaten in 16+ hours.
One more thing. I hitched a ride with autocross racer. While I was strapped in tight, when he'd make a hard turn my guts would slosh over to the side, which was rather painful. The fix was to bear down hard on my abdominal muscles. I expect it would be much worse with a full belly, and a fighter pilot is going to be pulling lots of g's.
Oh, believe me, I know about the need for siestas.
But surely there's a middle ground between "heavy lunch" and "skipping lunch entirely" for a multi hour combat sortie?
Many people cannot focus (especially over long periods of time) on an empty stomach.
> If I'm busy, I also do not notice being hungry, even if I haven't eaten in 16+ hours.
Combat sorties are hours of boredom where you have to keep attention just in case, followed by an explosion of frantic action. Unless you're a combat pilot I'd say your experience doesn't apply here?
I'm not a combat pilot, but my dad was. Flying over enemy territory requires constant alertness, for many hours at a stretch. You can be attacked at any time, by flak or enemy fighters, who love to catch an enemy napping.
A favorite Luftwaffe tactic was to come up from behind, catch the tailgunner unawares, and rake it with cannon fire and get an easy kill. If the tailgunner was awake, he'd fire a few rounds of tracers (while out of range) to let the 109 know he was on the bounce, and the 109 would usually back off.
His cohort suffered 80% casualties.
> Many people
are not fit to be combat pilots. The AF is very selective.
(I didn't qualify, as I wear glasses.) They work hard to weed out slackers, people of low intelligence, sloppy people, unhealthy people, dishonest people, etc. They'll even reject you for a speeding ticket.
First, thanks for sharing your dad's experience! Very interesting.
I did say I thought it required constant alertness... over long periods of boredom, a bad combination. It's hours of nothing punctuated by frantic action. Worse to be keeping a watchful eye on a completely empty stomach, I'd say. Happy to be contradicted if your dad told you he flew long combat missions on an empty stomach...
I also think long combat flights with aerial refueling are longer now than in the WW2 era, right? Excluding maybe bombers, but surely bombers did have toilets, even if minimalistic?
> [many people] are not fit to be combat pilots. The AF is very selective.
I'm sure of this, but we're discussing a very specific thing. The other person who replied to my topmost comment, who also seems to be speaking from experience, assured me pilots don't select on this particular basis. In fact, this person said fighter pilots do shit themselves and earn nicknames because of it.
This is a problem in strategic reserve territory.
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