>> ^messenger:

Anybody know why he makes three passes, and what kind of force he suffers while he's stopping?


Can't explain the three passes. It does look like some kind of test flight though, so presumably it's to do with giving the pilot a feel for it, or possibly data collection.

I was interested in the forces as well, and it's typically about 4 to 5 Gs for a carrier landing. Incidentally, that's about the same as a grand prix racing car experiences under braking.

>> ^AeroMechanical:

Wow, that's a lot of energy. I had a friend who worked deck crew on an aircraft carrier, and he told me about how occasionally the wires used to catch the jets when they land would snap. He says he saw a guy have to jump over the same wire three times as it snaked around (it's the sort of thing that would cut you in half if it hit you).


scientific evidence:
http://videosift.com/video/Ghost-Ship-Awesome-Scene-from-a-Shitty-Movie

like this? http://videosift.com/video/PHY-NYA-Aircraft-carrier-mishap
>> ^AeroMechanical:

Wow, that's a lot of energy. I had a friend who worked deck crew on an aircraft carrier, and he told me about how occasionally the wires used to catch the jets when they land would snap. He says he saw a guy have to jump over the same wire three times as it snaked around (it's the sort of thing that would cut you in half if it hit you).

Wow, that's a lot of energy. I had a friend who worked deck crew on an aircraft carrier, and he told me about how occasionally the wires used to catch the jets when they land would snap. He says he saw a guy have to jump over the same wire three times as it snaked around (it's the sort of thing that would cut you in half if it hit you).

The aircraft carrier bit was a bit out of place ...

Got in another debate with a hardcore conservative today. Different one this time. I learned some pretty awesome things.

1. If you spend more money on your military, it will always be stronger. No matter what! If you slightly reduce spending on your military while removing troops from conflicts such as Iraq, thereby freeing troops up for other things, your military will still be weaker.

2. Military might is virtually solely determined by number of people in it. China has a better military than the US. In fact, China could successfully land invade the US right now!!! When presented with the fact that China has not even attempted a land invasion of Taiwan because a portion of the US navy is sitting between the two, this was ignored. When I pointed out the US spends multiple times more than China does on military, and therefore he contradicted himself, this was promptly ignored because China apparently also has a better economy than the US, too.

3. When I disputed the proposition that China could successfully land invade the US by pointing out that amphibious assaults require air power, and China doesn't have sufficient aircraft carriers, I was told that air power is not required for a successful massive land invasion. For example, the only thing air power was used for during D-Day was patrols and to parachute some troops in behind enemy lines. They were not required to protect naval vessels carrying troops, nor did they participate in any significant bombings of Normandy. Also, the US successfully invaded Normandy without aircraft carriers, so the fact that China only has one aircraft carrier is irrelevant. I asked how China would get its air force over to the West Coast of the US without aircraft carriers, but that was ignored because an air force wasn't necessary.

4. When I pointed out multiple sources of info showing that air superiority was needed during D-Day, and was specifically sought out prior to even contemplating invasion, and the fact that I have a degree in History, taught it, and my concentration in college was WWI to the present, he responded that he knew more because he was in the navy for 8 years.

In the end, I was accused of thinking I knew more about everything than anyone else, and ridiculed for thinking I knew things because I went to college.

Sadly, this is a true story, and I'm related to this person.

I know there are idiots in every political group, but the amount of ignorance and idiocy coming out of the right these days is staggering, and so many of them are obnoxiously loud and proud about these kinds of views.

I read the wiki article you posted, it says the opposite of what you suggest. That pre-1980, they had no ability to generate policy...they just gathered information. Do you have a link to something that talks about the freemarkety nature in the 80s?, because that link doesn't have it. Unless you are just talking about Regan doing free market stuff on the whole affecting education somehow indirectly, but the link clearly says he made it a federal government responsibility to create educational policy in the 80s. In that, I don't know that your argument fully answers @Grimm's claim that educational stardards have gone down since federal policy making has been done. We aren't talking about free markets here, even at the state level. We are talking about who makes better policies affecting children's education; federal or state. It has also been of my opinion that for important things, eggs in one basket methodologies are dangerous. Best to have a billion little educational experiments boiling around the country, cooking up information that the rest of them can turn around and use. Waiting for a federal mandate to adopt a policy can be rather tedious.

I have some friends that are educators, I will have to ask them how they feel about this. It is easy for us to have an opinion based on raw idealism of our core beliefs, but I would be interested to see what certain teachers have to say. I met a real interesting person at my friends bachelor party. He came from a union state, and moved down here to Texas, we have teachers unions and things, but they aren't as powerful as the north. He experienced a complete change in himself. He found that his own involvement in his union happened in such a way where he basically held the kids education hostage over wages. He said that is was basically the accepted role of teachers to risk children's education over pay. I am not talking about just normal pay, but he was making 50k as a grade school teacher in the early 90s. Not suggesting this is normal, but it is something we don't copy here in Texas. As for his own mind, he knows he would never teach in that area of the country again, and would never suggest anyone move their that values their children's education.

What would be interesting to me is if the absence of the DOE would break down some of the red tape and allow schools to "get creative" with programs a federal political body might not want to take a risk on. Education is to important to fail on, and applying "to big to fail" kind of logic to a failing system of education is to much politics to play for me. Empower teachers and schools, and try to avoid paying as many non-educators as possible would be one way to improve things I would wager. What aspect of the DOE do you think is successful that we need to keep exactly? I mean, I can tell you I don't like that the DOD is so huge and powerful, but I know nuclear subs and aircraft carriers can't operate themselves. What necessarily component of the DOE do you see as necessarily, beyond just talking point of either party line stance of it? I mean, the Department of Energy's main goal was to get us off foreign oil, like a long time ago, that is pretty failed as much as the DOE. Different approach needed, or a massive rethinking of the current one. You don't usually get massive rethinking nationally of any coherent nature, which is why I think a local strategy might be a good way to go here. Perhaps then, you could have that initial part of the DOE before it became the DOE of providing information to schools about what works from other schools kick in again.

This kind of talk of "Ron Paul addresses none of this" about something that isn't related exactly isn't really fair. It is like trying to talk about income tax issues and saying changing them doesn't address the issue of the military war machine...well of course not, it is a different issue. Did you see that recent Greewald video where he talks about the founders did think that massive inequality was not only permissible, but the idea...just as long as the rules were the same for everyone? What I mean to say is that there does need to be a measure of fairness, but that fairness needs to be the same for everyone, rich and poor. I still say the real problem lay in the government creating the monster first and the monster is now eating us. If legislators simply refused to accept the legitimacy of corporate entities and instead say that only individuals can deal on the behalf of themselves with the govenrment(the elimination of the corporate charter as it refers to its relationship to the government) things could get better in a day. But since the good ol USA thinks that non-people entities are people, well, I don't see much hope for restoration. Money is the new government, rule of law is dead. I liked the recent Greenwald input on this. Rant over Sorry, this is just kind of stream of consciousness here, didn't plan out an actual goal or endpoint of my ideas....just a huge, burdensome wall of text

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

The first incarnation of the department of education was actually created in 1876. Was our educational system unfucked before 1876? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Education
1980 was a pivotal year, but it had nothing to do with the department of education. 1980 was the year that Reagan ushered in a large number of 'free market' reforms: Privatization, deregulation, tax cuts for those at the top, austerity for those at the bottom... basically the Milton Friedman Shock Doctrine as described in Naomi Klein's excellent book.
We've since seen the rise of the corporate state and a deterioration of the public sector. These market principles have seen our jobs exported to 3rd world slaves (and then asked us to compete with those slaves), have given the green light to mass pollution and global warming, have allowed big business to use our military as middle east mercenaries and have redistributed vast amounts of wealthy to a tiny fraction of the population (not to mention numerous scandals (Enron, Exxon, BofA, Countrywide, Halliburton, Blackwater, Savings and Loans, Mortgages, etc..)
Ron Paul addresses none of this. He has no solutions for jobs or inequality outside of his faith in invisible hands and invisible deities. He doesn't even seem aware that there is a problem. I don't think he's lying when he pretentiously states that his partisan political views are the very definition of liberty. I just think he is another out of touch conservative millionaire with a mind easily manipulated by self serving dogma (be it religious political or economic).

This is how we land a commercial passenger jet on an aircraft carrier...

A US Navy report from the Naval Facilities Engineering Command published in January says that the jet efflux will “melt the top surface of asphalt pavements and is likely to spall the surface of standard concrete pavements” and that there are “no identified sealants that can survive a significant number of vertical landings”. It recommends that vertical landings are only made on specially designed continuous concrete pads (with no joints) of at least 100ft square.

A similar report published by the US Navy in November 2009 said that aircraft carrier decks will require significant strengthening to withstand the risk of buckling under the high temperatures generated by the F-35B.

http://www.airforcesmonthly.com/view_news.asp?ID=1749

Unknown Unknowns

By Thomas Sowell (Jul 13, 2011)

When Donald Rumsfeld was Secretary of Defense, he coined some phrases about knowledge that apply far beyond military matters.

Secretary Rumsfeld pointed out that there are some things that we know that we know. He called those "known knowns." We may, for example, know how many aircraft carriers some other country has. We may also know that they have troops and tanks, without knowing how many. In Rumsfeld's phrase, that would be an "unknown known" -- a gap in our knowledge that we at least know exists.

Finally, there are things we don't even know exist, much less anything about them. These are "unknown unknowns" -- and they are the most dangerous. We had no clue, for example, when dawn broke on September 11, 2001, that somebody was going to fly two commercial airliners into the World Trade Center that day.

There are similar kinds of gaps in our knowledge in the economy. Unfortunately, our own government creates uncertainties that can paralyze the economy, especially when these uncertainties take the form of "unknown unknowns."

The short-run quick fixes that seem so attractive to so many politicians, and to many in the media, create many unknowns that make investors reluctant to invest and employers reluctant to employ. Politicians may only look as far ahead as the next election, but investors have to look ahead for as many years as it will take for their investments to start bringing in some money.

The net result is that both our financial institutions and our businesses have had record amounts of cash sitting idle while millions of people can't find jobs. Ordinarily these institutions make money by investing money and hiring workers. Why not now?

Because numerous and unpredictable government interventions create many unknowns, including "unknown unknowns."

The quick fix that got both Democrats and Republicans off the hook with a temporary bipartisan tax compromise, several months ago, leaves investors uncertain as to what the tax rate will be when any money they invest today starts bringing in a return in another two or three or ten years. It is known that there will be taxes but nobody knows what the tax rate will be then.

Some investors can send their investment money to foreign countries, where the tax rate is already known, is often lower than the tax rate in the United States and -- perhaps even more important -- is not some temporary, quick-fix compromise that is going to expire before their investments start earning a return.

Although more foreign investments were coming into the United States, a few years ago, than there were American investments going to foreign countries, today it is just the reverse. American investors are sending more of their money out of the country than foreign investors are sending here.

Since 2009, according to the Wall Street Journal, "the U.S. has lost more than $200 billion in investment capital." They add: "That is the equivalent of about two million jobs that don't exist on these shores and are now located in places like China, Germany and India."

President Obama's rhetoric deplores such "outsourcing," but his administration's policies make outsourcing an ever more attractive alternative to investing in the United States and creating American jobs.

Blithely piling onto American businesses both known costs like more taxes and unknowable costs -- such as the massive ObamaCare mandates that are still evolving -- provides more incentives for investors to send their money elsewhere to escape the hassles.

Hardly a month goes by without this administration coming up with a new anti-business policy -- whether directed against Boeing, banks or other private enterprises. Neither investors nor employers can know when the next one is coming or what it will be. These are unknown unknowns.

Such anti-business policies would just be business' problem, except that it is businesses that create jobs.

The biggest losers from creating an adverse business climate may not be businesses themselves -- especially not big businesses, which can readily invest more of their money overseas. The biggest losers are likely to be working people in America, who cannot just relocate to Europe or Asia to take the jobs created there by American multinational corporations.

>> ^Psychologic:

Many private citizens carry guns and pepper spray as well. Do they carry an equal threat of violence?


As private citizens are usually concealed-carry, although the actual threat is larger, the implied threat is much less.

If an implied threat was benign, every last US aircraft carrier would sit at dock unless it was on an active mission.

You have been awarded 1 Power Point for fixing the embed code for Dead Pool video C-130 Hercules Landing & Take-off On An Aircraft Carrier. Thank you for helping maintain VideoSift's reliability.

I had a random guess as well. Most of the rail systems I am familiar with have a chamber the projectile travels down like the barrel of a gun. The main problem I have heard with this systems is the problem of bracing the projectile. How do you accelerate a metal object to super sonic speeds without it destroying the chamber via friction? Some had it in a jacket that was guided by a catapult like system on an aircraft carrier. This results in sparks, fires, and smoke because of the friction involved. I can't find details on this specific gun though beyond "they fired it".

http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/bae-producing-scaleddown-rail-gun-naval-weapon-01986/

http://www.navytimes.com/news/2010/12/ap-navy-dahlgren-railgun-test-121010/

You could pilot an aircraft carrier through the IQ gap between these two.

"
The landing didn't look that hard to me, not much worse then if he had tripped, his arms went out to brace the impact and his leg was out until he was close the the ground, so he didn't exactly just tip over face first. "

If the point was an aircraft carrier, and you where teh f-15. you would be right in the ocean about now. Because you completely missed it.