I don't understand why helicopters fly anywhere near fog.
Helicopters don't seem the safety of travel methods. Anything goes wrong, you are brown bread. Colin McRae, Kobe Bryant, the Leicester owners, Matthew Harding....
My former Aer Lingus mechanic father-in-law always says that planes are a lot safer than people think and helicopters a lot more dangerous.
Some time ago I managed to conquer a nasty fear of flying that I had since my youth. But there is no way, at all, ever, that I will be persuaded to get on a helicopter.
I have a fear of heights but not flying. I am drawn to the edge of cliffs. I can't look up at a high sheer cliffs or buildings or being in a boat under a dam. I can't walk out onto a tower if it is open at the top, even with a wall or railings in front of me.
However if I am enclosed I am fine. I have flown gliders many times, I have been in a Pitts Special doing aerobatics. I have now been in the front seat of a helicopter with glass beside me, above me and below me (and in front of course). I have also been involved in both an aborted take off and an emergency landing on commercial flights. None of that phased me, but at the Grand Canyon a sheer cliff I was looking at, but not standing on, so couldn't fall off of, gave me the collywobbles.
Morning all. This month's Ipsos is out, headline figures are Lab 41 (-3) Con 20 (+1) LD 11 (+3) Green 11 (!) (+2) Ref 9 (-4) Others 8 (+2)
That looks like a significant move to LLG.
+2 LLG -3 RefCon +2 Nats and ??
Although with Con not benefitting appreciably from the Reform drop off in any polling we can perhaps drop the rather daft association of Reform and Con as a 'unit'
The Conservatives and LDs and Others are up, Labour are down
It looks like a significant move towards the Lib Dems and the Greens. If the Reform trend continues and the Tories are still stuck, then the last hope for the Tories begins to look very thin indeed. If the Lib Dems get into the mid teens the Tories start to lose a lot more seats.
If the LDs and Greens eat into Labour votes the Tories also save more seats they would otherwise have lost to Labour
Depends where though. If the LDs eat into the Labour vote in the LD targets (ie tactical voting) then the Tories will lose more seats. From some of the polls it looks like Labour are building up quite a lot of votes in non target seats that the LDs are after. If that switches from Lab to LDs in those seats then the Tories will be in big trouble. Admittedly that is not clear yet, but if the LDs do go up in the polls that is a nightmare scenario for the Tories.
There are far more seats the Tories are at risk of losing to Labour than the LDs.
So if the LDs do go up on average mainly at Labour expense that overall saves more Conservative seats
No, not at all, young HY. Every seat is different, The amount of effort the Lib Dems are putting varies enormously from one seat to another. Where they are trying seriously to win, the Labour etc vote will be squeezed. The Lib Dems are not there to pull your Tory chestnuts out of the fire for you.
The Conservatives are doomed, I tell you. Doomed.
And quite deservedly so.
IPSOS suffers from the fact that it takes them a lot longer than other pollsters to publish their results. So its polling is always a tad out of date, in this case their fieldwork dates were from 8th to 14th May.
Taking the IPSOS poll together with the 6 polls that have already been published with more recent fieldwork, the LDs are on average polling 9.4%. That compares with 11.8% at GE 2019. So they're currently down about one fifth of their support in 2019. If that amounts to a surge it's a downward one.
Nor is there any evidence from general election polling that the LD vote is being refocused onto their target seats alone. In the R&W "Blue Wall" polling, which includes most of the LD target seats in the South, Labour remains in the lead on 34%. The LDs are in 3rd place (on 20% compared to 27.4% in 2019.)
The LDs will still pick up a few seats at the general election because the collapse in the Conservative vote outweighsthe slide in their own support. But apart from a very small number of seats, the best tactical option is now not to vote LD and the LD vote will be squeezed accordingly.
But that's just the point. If people vote tactically then the LD poll rating and LD vote share falls, yet they win more seats
I don't understand why helicopters fly anywhere near fog.
Helicopters don't seem the safety of travel methods. Anything goes wrong, you are brown bread. Colin McRae, Kobe Bryant, the Leicester owners, Matthew Harding....
My former Aer Lingus mechanic father-in-law always says that planes are a lot safer than people think and helicopters a lot more dangerous.
Some time ago I managed to conquer a nasty fear of flying that I had since my youth. But there is no way, at all, ever, that I will be persuaded to get on a helicopter.
I have a fear of heights but not flying. I am drawn to the edge of cliffs. I can't look up at a high sheer cliffs or buildings or being in a boat under a dam. I can't walk out onto a tower if it is open at the top, even with a wall or railings in front of me.
However if I am enclosed I am fine. I have flown gliders many times, I have been in a Pitts Special doing aerobatics. I have now been in the front seat of a helicopter with glass beside me, above me and below me (and in front of course). I have also been involved in both an aborted take off and an emergency landing on commercial flights. None of that phased me, but at the Grand Canyon a sheer cliff I was looking at, but not standing on, so couldn't fall off of, gave me the collywobbles.
The human brain (well mine anyway) is weird.
My old employer occasionally moved us around on (quite decrepit) private aircraft* and I had a "no helicopters, no single engine planes" rule, which seems eminently sensible to me, and I'm not a high level politician or diplomat...
*The other thing about flying privately is that it sounds nice in theory, but in practice, you don't get access to the duty free (I lived on cheap scotch and cigs for years) nor can you expense six lagers in the airside restaurant while you're waiting for your gate. *One* complimentary bottle of Becks at the Signature lounge in Southampton does not cut it.
I’m not saying it IS Israel. I’m merely asking the question, in a mildly provocative way
Given that Iran recently rained down a thousand missiles on Israel, it’s not stretching credulity to claim that the Israelis might have taken stealthy revenge
Doing it against a chopper in the fog and the rain gives them plausible deniability as well. So it’s doubly clever. If it’s them. Which it might not be. But it might be. Etc etc etc
Clowns In Amerigo Kate Mossad Inside Job Whatever NKVD go by now A big mountain getting in the way Pilot being a massive spanner
Take your pick or spin the wheel
Cui bono? Its not obvious
So this feels more like emotional revenge - if it’s not a simple accident - which then points to Israel or the Iranian “resistance”
For them the act itself is the benefit. A satisfying act of vengeance served cold in the fog
Well, an interesting aspect of this is that 3 WellyCopters took off and 2 made it home, the one that didnt just happened to be the one carrying the Iranian President whom they couldn't locate the site of for 12 and more hours in the same week someone tried to assassinate the Slovak president and on the same day that the first American military C17 landed in Azerbeijan in a year shortly after the Iranians left. Random Chance is a funny old thing
Yes, as you know I’m not prone to excitability or conspiracy theories but this makes me go HMMM
Edit to add: if I was high up in Mossad (spoiler: I’m not) I would absolutely do this. And if I was Bibi I’d absolutely approve
Israel was not allowed to carpet bomb Iran after the Iranian missile attack. The Americans said Nyet
But this is the next best thing. Take out two top leaders. That’s arguably an even better deterrent (especially when done in rain and fog so an accident is plausible). This says to any future Iranian leaders - “go ahead, bomb Jerusalem, but you’ll personally be dead in a month”
Very clever. And probably highly effective
Accident.
You were 90% wet market zoonosis until about a week ago. You’re not known for your imaginative and extrapolative capacities. And fair enough. Who wants a vivid imagination and rapid fire almost-psychotic extrapolating in an accountant? You want the opposite. No imagination at all and the narrowest of minds
Happily, the world has room for us both; indeed the world needs us both
Yes, you bring the flights of fancy, I'll bring the judgement and logic. It works.
This is, in essence, one of the unique strengths of this site. Not only do the interesting stories get flagged here first, they then get rigorously checked by a sceptical audience. Any story has to be pretty robust to withstand that.
It has some quite significant blind spots though and misses important stories it seems to find uncomfortable.
I’m not saying it IS Israel. I’m merely asking the question, in a mildly provocative way
Given that Iran recently rained down a thousand missiles on Israel, it’s not stretching credulity to claim that the Israelis might have taken stealthy revenge
Doing it against a chopper in the fog and the rain gives them plausible deniability as well. So it’s doubly clever. If it’s them. Which it might not be. But it might be. Etc etc etc
Clowns In Amerigo Kate Mossad Inside Job Whatever NKVD go by now A big mountain getting in the way Pilot being a massive spanner
Take your pick or spin the wheel
Cui bono? Its not obvious
So this feels more like emotional revenge - if it’s not a simple accident - which then points to Israel or the Iranian “resistance”
For them the act itself is the benefit. A satisfying act of vengeance served cold in the fog
Well, an interesting aspect of this is that 3 WellyCopters took off and 2 made it home, the one that didnt just happened to be the one carrying the Iranian President whom they couldn't locate the site of for 12 and more hours in the same week someone tried to assassinate the Slovak president and on the same day that the first American military C17 landed in Azerbeijan in a year shortly after the Iranians left. Random Chance is a funny old thing
Yes, as you know I’m not prone to excitability or conspiracy theories but this makes me go HMMM
Edit to add: if I was high up in Mossad (spoiler: I’m not) I would absolutely do this. And if I was Bibi I’d absolutely approve
Israel was not allowed to carpet bomb Iran after the Iranian missile attack. The Americans said Nyet
But this is the next best thing. Take out two top leaders. That’s arguably an even better deterrent (especially when done in rain and fog so an accident is plausible). This says to any future Iranian leaders - “go ahead, bomb Jerusalem, but you’ll personally be dead in a month”
Very clever. And probably highly effective
Accident.
You were 90% wet market zoonosis until about a week ago. You’re not known for your imaginative and extrapolative capacities. And fair enough. Who wants a vivid imagination and rapid fire almost-psychotic extrapolating in an accountant? You want the opposite. No imagination at all and the narrowest of minds
Happily, the world has room for us both; indeed the world needs us both
Yes, you bring the flights of fancy, I'll bring the judgement and logic. It works.
This is, in essence, one of the unique strengths of this site. Not only do the interesting stories get flagged here first, they then get rigorously checked by a sceptical audience. Any story has to be pretty robust to withstand that.
Yep. Things get hoisted up the flagpole and are then poo-poo'd upon. Only if they survive this do they get to fly. Some do more hoisting than poo-poo'ing, whereas with others it's the opposite, but this doesn't matter, the collective is what counts, the balance of hoisting and poo-poo'ing. Leon makes this point too (although spoils it slightly with his attempt to insult, which I'm too mature to react to).
Leon is nevertheless such an exemplar of sh*t thinking and such a magnet for sh*t theories that you won't go far wrong discounting anything as soon as he backs it.
Take it with the large pinch of salt which accompanies the source, but still.
https://x.com/JolyonMaugham/status/1792466209557889317 We have identified forty five separate payments made to Innova by the Department of Health averaging over £100m EACH: a total of more than £4.5 billion paid by us to Innova. The court documents suggest those transactions generated profits of between $750m and $2bn for Innova..
...Innova’s UK agent, Disruptive Nanotechnologies (aka Tried and Tested) is suing Innova for fraud. Robert Kasprzak, Innova’s lawyer, is suing Charles Huang, Innova’s CEO for fraud.
..Kenning Xu, who worked with Charles Huang at Innova, is suing Charles Huang for fraud. Charles Huang is suing Daniel Elliott, Innova’s previous CEO, for fraud...
Danger to whom? Reform's rise was due to dissatisfaction with the neglect of the working classes, including (but not limited to) the amount of inward migration. These points need to be addressed, and if not by discussion it will find expression elsewhere. The question is not whether this is a danger to Starmer, it's why the party which is supposed to be the sword and shield of the working classes is comfortable with neglecting them indefinitely.
Morning all. This month's Ipsos is out, headline figures are Lab 41 (-3) Con 20 (+1) LD 11 (+3) Green 11 (!) (+2) Ref 9 (-4) Others 8 (+2)
Green/Reform crossover. No, I don't know what it means either...
The Greens had 181 councillors elected at the local elections at the start of the month, an increase of 74. Reform UK had two councillors elected, an increase of two.
For comparison, the Workers Party had four councillors elected, the SDP one and the Women's Equality Party one.
Voters have presumably noticed that the Greens are a proper party, while Reform UK are not.
Greens are in some unexpected (to me) places.
Seven seats in Darlington, for example.
Does anyone know Darlington demographics etc. It is:
Harrowgate Hill Harrowgate Hill Harrowgate Hill Hummersknott Hummersknott College College
My knowledge of Darlington is a little rusty - 25 years since I lived there - but:
Darlington's best areas are to the west. College and Hummersknott are in that direction; Harrowgate Hill is to the north.
College is exactly what you would expect a Green ward to be - slightly bohemian, well-to-do; the nicest bit of inner-urban Darlington. Hummersknott - one step out from College westwards, more suburban, also quite affluent Harrowgate Hill is on the outer edge of the Darlington urban area - not unpleasant, but not quite as exalted as the other two wards.
I don't understand why helicopters fly anywhere near fog.
Helicopters don't seem the safety of travel methods. Anything goes wrong, you are brown bread. Colin McRae, Kobe Bryant, the Leicester owners, Matthew Harding....
My former Aer Lingus mechanic father-in-law always says that planes are a lot safer than people think and helicopters a lot more dangerous.
Some time ago I managed to conquer a nasty fear of flying that I had since my youth. But there is no way, at all, ever, that I will be persuaded to get on a helicopter.
I have a fear of heights but not flying. I am drawn to the edge of cliffs. I can't look up at a high sheer cliffs or buildings or being in a boat under a dam. I can't walk out onto a tower if it is open at the top, even with a wall or railings in front of me.
However if I am enclosed I am fine. I have flown gliders many times, I have been in a Pitts Special doing aerobatics. I have now been in the front seat of a helicopter with glass beside me, above me and below me (and in front of course). I have also been involved in both an aborted take off and an emergency landing on commercial flights. None of that phased me, but at the Grand Canyon a sheer cliff I was looking at, but not standing on, so couldn't fall off of, gave me the collywobbles.
The human brain (well mine anyway) is weird.
I'm similar. I suppose being enclosed, even if just by glass, protects you from falling. So perhaps it's more accurate to say fear of falling rather than fear of heights? Being scared to look up is a bit odd.
Take it with the large pinch of salt which accompanies the source, but still.
https://x.com/JolyonMaugham/status/1792466209557889317 We have identified forty five separate payments made to Innova by the Department of Health averaging over £100m EACH: a total of more than £4.5 billion paid by us to Innova. The court documents suggest those transactions generated profits of between $750m and $2bn for Innova..
...Innova’s UK agent, Disruptive Nanotechnologies (aka Tried and Tested) is suing Innova for fraud. Robert Kasprzak, Innova’s lawyer, is suing Charles Huang, Innova’s CEO for fraud.
..Kenning Xu, who worked with Charles Huang at Innova, is suing Charles Huang for fraud. Charles Huang is suing Daniel Elliott, Innova’s previous CEO, for fraud...
Disruptive Dom is involved.
The rest of the thread makes interesting reading.
I remember this one. I thought it strange at the time that we were backing a test the FDA thought was garbage.
As I recall though, the Innova test was passed by Porton Down... so how did it do that I wonder?
Yesterday I was out and about in Leeds. Plenty of people enjoying the good weather, with venues providing outdoor seating enjoying good trade.
There was a street stall on Briggate and a bunch of folk holding placards and handing out leaflets in support of Israel and against antisemitism. All very calm and orderly.
The police were maintaining a discreet presence just in case some Hamas sympathising "peace activists" happened to turn up. Fortunately no sign of bother while I was there.
I don't understand why helicopters fly anywhere near fog.
Helicopters don't seem the safety of travel methods. Anything goes wrong, you are brown bread. Colin McRae, Kobe Bryant, the Leicester owners, Matthew Harding....
My former Aer Lingus mechanic father-in-law always says that planes are a lot safer than people think and helicopters a lot more dangerous.
Some time ago I managed to conquer a nasty fear of flying that I had since my youth. But there is no way, at all, ever, that I will be persuaded to get on a helicopter.
Helicopters are un-natural things. If they were invented today, they’d almost certainly have trouble being approved on the basis of too many single points of critical failure, and that’s before we get on to unplanned terrain/vehicle interfaces in poor weather - although to be fair most of those are human-factors related, in what’s a very difficult skill to master.
I was out in the Flatlands on Friday and an Apache* flew over our local National Nature Reserve at extremely low altitude. They flew straight over an area with nesting cranes, which apart from being highly protected are rather large things to hit.
If I'd been doing a drone survey at the time they would have been underneath it (below 100m).
That can't be a terribly safe way to fly...
*cue DuraAce to tell me there is no such thing, but it was definitely a Boeing AH
Mossad have nailed "living rent free". Anything remotely unfortunate happens in the Middle East and the world just assumes it was them.
Weirdly MI6 also have this reputation in Russia.
I don't think it is necessarily that weird.
Gordievsky must have made MI6 seem omnipotent in the 70s/early 80s, after the disasters of the 50s and 60s. The fact that US sources didn't know who he was must have played into that psychology, and when you compound that with the embarrassment to the Leningrad KGB caused by his exfiltration (where one Vladimir Putin was an officer)...
I don't understand why helicopters fly anywhere near fog.
Helicopters don't seem the safety of travel methods. Anything goes wrong, you are brown bread. Colin McRae, Kobe Bryant, the Leicester owners, Matthew Harding....
My former Aer Lingus mechanic father-in-law always says that planes are a lot safer than people think and helicopters a lot more dangerous.
Some time ago I managed to conquer a nasty fear of flying that I had since my youth. But there is no way, at all, ever, that I will be persuaded to get on a helicopter.
I have a fear of heights but not flying. I am drawn to the edge of cliffs. I can't look up at a high sheer cliffs or buildings or being in a boat under a dam. I can't walk out onto a tower if it is open at the top, even with a wall or railings in front of me.
However if I am enclosed I am fine. I have flown gliders many times, I have been in a Pitts Special doing aerobatics. I have now been in the front seat of a helicopter with glass beside me, above me and below me (and in front of course). I have also been involved in both an aborted take off and an emergency landing on commercial flights. None of that phased me, but at the Grand Canyon a sheer cliff I was looking at, but not standing on, so couldn't fall off of, gave me the collywobbles.
The human brain (well mine anyway) is weird.
I'm similar. I suppose being enclosed, even if just by glass, protects you from falling. So perhaps it's more accurate to say fear of falling rather than fear of heights? Being scared to look up is a bit odd.
I don't think it's the prospect of falling, it's the thought - when you're close to the edge of a big drop, or eg to a railway platform with a train coming - that you could just take one step and boom, it's over. The fact you don't want to, and therefore won't, doesn't stop the feeling. The point is you could - just like that, you could. It's a 'terror of free will' thing. It creates fear and nausea, with a touch of exhilaration thrown in. That's the root of my problem with heights anyway, and it's why it disappears if I'm enclosed. Eg the lifts at La Defense in Paris, miles up, glass floor you can look down through, I was not scared at all. Liked it actually. But standing next to a cliff edge, even a yard or so away, can't do it.
Morning all. This month's Ipsos is out, headline figures are Lab 41 (-3) Con 20 (+1) LD 11 (+3) Green 11 (!) (+2) Ref 9 (-4) Others 8 (+2)
That looks like a significant move to LLG.
+2 LLG -3 RefCon +2 Nats and ??
Although with Con not benefitting appreciably from the Reform drop off in any polling we can perhaps drop the rather daft association of Reform and Con as a 'unit'
The Conservatives and LDs and Others are up, Labour are down
It looks like a significant move towards the Lib Dems and the Greens. If the Reform trend continues and the Tories are still stuck, then the last hope for the Tories begins to look very thin indeed. If the Lib Dems get into the mid teens the Tories start to lose a lot more seats.
If the LDs and Greens eat into Labour votes the Tories also save more seats they would otherwise have lost to Labour
Depends where though. If the LDs eat into the Labour vote in the LD targets (ie tactical voting) then the Tories will lose more seats. From some of the polls it looks like Labour are building up quite a lot of votes in non target seats that the LDs are after. If that switches from Lab to LDs in those seats then the Tories will be in big trouble. Admittedly that is not clear yet, but if the LDs do go up in the polls that is a nightmare scenario for the Tories.
There are far more seats the Tories are at risk of losing to Labour than the LDs.
So if the LDs do go up on average mainly at Labour expense that overall saves more Conservative seats
No, not at all, young HY. Every seat is different, The amount of effort the Lib Dems are putting varies enormously from one seat to another. Where they are trying seriously to win, the Labour etc vote will be squeezed. The Lib Dems are not there to pull your Tory chestnuts out of the fire for you.
The Conservatives are doomed, I tell you. Doomed.
And quite deservedly so.
IPSOS suffers from the fact that it takes them a lot longer than other pollsters to publish their results. So its polling is always a tad out of date, in this case their fieldwork dates were from 8th to 14th May.
Taking the IPSOS poll together with the 6 polls that have already been published with more recent fieldwork, the LDs are on average polling 9.4%. That compares with 11.8% at GE 2019. So they're currently down about one fifth of their support in 2019. If that amounts to a surge it's a downward one.
Nor is there any evidence from general election polling that the LD vote is being refocused onto their target seats alone. In the R&W "Blue Wall" polling, which includes most of the LD target seats in the South, Labour remains in the lead on 34%. The LDs are in 3rd place (on 20% compared to 27.4% in 2019.)
The LDs will still pick up a few seats at the general election because the collapse in the Conservative vote outweighsthe slide in their own support. But apart from a very small number of seats, the best tactical option is now not to vote LD and the LD vote will be squeezed accordingly.
But that's just the point. If people vote tactically then the LD poll rating and LD vote share falls, yet they win more seats
No, the point is that if people choose the right tactical voting option to get the Conservatives out, then the LDs may win a few more seats but Labour will win a lot more seats. That's because given the current scale of the polls the right tactical voting option is in most cases not to vote LD.
I don't understand why helicopters fly anywhere near fog.
Helicopters don't seem the safety of travel methods. Anything goes wrong, you are brown bread. Colin McRae, Kobe Bryant, the Leicester owners, Matthew Harding....
My former Aer Lingus mechanic father-in-law always says that planes are a lot safer than people think and helicopters a lot more dangerous.
Some time ago I managed to conquer a nasty fear of flying that I had since my youth. But there is no way, at all, ever, that I will be persuaded to get on a helicopter.
I have a fear of heights but not flying. I am drawn to the edge of cliffs. I can't look up at a high sheer cliffs or buildings or being in a boat under a dam. I can't walk out onto a tower if it is open at the top, even with a wall or railings in front of me.
However if I am enclosed I am fine. I have flown gliders many times, I have been in a Pitts Special doing aerobatics. I have now been in the front seat of a helicopter with glass beside me, above me and below me (and in front of course). I have also been involved in both an aborted take off and an emergency landing on commercial flights. None of that phased me, but at the Grand Canyon a sheer cliff I was looking at, but not standing on, so couldn't fall off of, gave me the collywobbles.
The human brain (well mine anyway) is weird.
I'm similar. I suppose being enclosed, even if just by glass, protects you from falling. So perhaps it's more accurate to say fear of falling rather than fear of heights? Being scared to look up is a bit odd.
I don't think it's fear of falling it's the thought, when you're close to the edge of a big drop, or eg to a railway platform with a train coming, that you could just take one step and boom, it's over. The fact you don't want to, and therefore won't, doesn't stop the feeling. The point is you could - just like that, you could. It's a 'terror of free will' thing. It creates fear and nausea, with a touch of exhilaration thrown in. That's the route of my fear of heights anyway, and it's why it disappears if I'm enclosed. Eg the lifts at La Defence in Paris, miles up, glass floor you can look down through, I was not scared at all. Liked it actually. But standing next to a cliff edge, even a yard or so away, can't do it.
I hate building edges and I'm not terribly keen on sea cliff edges either.
But I've walked / climbed on extremely thin ridges, including some snow ridges in the Alps, and that was fine.
I think it helps when you've got some movement or activity to concentrate on. Just standing there you've got nothing else to think about.
I don't understand why helicopters fly anywhere near fog.
Helicopters don't seem the safety of travel methods. Anything goes wrong, you are brown bread. Colin McRae, Kobe Bryant, the Leicester owners, Matthew Harding....
My former Aer Lingus mechanic father-in-law always says that planes are a lot safer than people think and helicopters a lot more dangerous.
Some time ago I managed to conquer a nasty fear of flying that I had since my youth. But there is no way, at all, ever, that I will be persuaded to get on a helicopter.
Helicopters are un-natural things. If they were invented today, they’d almost certainly have trouble being approved on the basis of too many single points of critical failure, and that’s before we get on to unplanned terrain/vehicle interfaces in poor weather - although to be fair most of those are human-factors related, in what’s a very difficult skill to master.
I was out in the Flatlands on Friday and an Apache* flew over our local National Nature Reserve at extremely low altitude. They flew straight over an area with nesting cranes, which apart from being highly protected are rather large things to hit.
If I'd been doing a drone survey at the time they would have been underneath it (below 100m).
That can't be a terribly safe way to fly...
*cue DuraAce to tell me there is no such thing, but it was definitely a Boeing AH
I find the Osprey absolutely fascinating. it's cool but also seems like the most overengineered thing in the world.
What I'm surprised by is that scaled up four propellor drone designs havent replaced traditional helicopters. I have zero engineering knowledge but it seems like if it works at a small scale it would work on a larger one?
Mossad have nailed "living rent free". Anything remotely unfortunate happens in the Middle East and the world just assumes it was them.
Weirdly MI6 also have this reputation in Russia.
Occam's razor says old helicopter, poor maintenance due to difficulty accessing parts and bad weather...plus if a helicopter malfunctions you are pretty much done for, no multiple engines / potential to glide like a plane.
Not what Occam's razor is about. It would apply if we said We have no other evidence that Israel is actively interested in and very good at assassinating Iranians but if we supposed it did, and hypothesized the existence of an arm of the state dedicated to this activity, that would be a pretty good explanation of this incident. Actually lots of aircraft are much older than you would think and there may be evidence that the Iranians are shit at helicopter maintenance but where is it?
Iran’s aviation industry has been blighted by years of neglect, underinvestment, and grueling sanctions that have made it nearly impossible to purchase new aircraft. Accidents are recurrent and air transportation safety standards have steadily fallen, leading to concern among the many Iranians who choose to fly with the country’s domestic carriers or have no other choice because internal routes are not served by international airlines.
Without access to spare parts and technical support from manufacturers, the safety of Iranian carriers is also a significant concern. In 2022, Asia Times reported that The Aviation Safety Network had recorded 1,959 casualties from air disasters in Iran since 1929. Notably, only about 10% occurred before 1979, when the country was first sanctioned by the US.
Nevertheless being a high ranking Iranian of interest to mossad is also documentably very high risk, and there's ample evidence of mossad penetration of the Iran military and the fact that the aircraft took off from Israel friendly Azerbaijan. So we just don't know.
I don't understand why helicopters fly anywhere near fog.
Helicopters don't seem the safety of travel methods. Anything goes wrong, you are brown bread. Colin McRae, Kobe Bryant, the Leicester owners, Matthew Harding....
My former Aer Lingus mechanic father-in-law always says that planes are a lot safer than people think and helicopters a lot more dangerous.
Some time ago I managed to conquer a nasty fear of flying that I had since my youth. But there is no way, at all, ever, that I will be persuaded to get on a helicopter.
Helicopters are un-natural things. If they were invented today, they’d almost certainly have trouble being approved on the basis of too many single points of critical failure, and that’s before we get on to unplanned terrain/vehicle interfaces in poor weather - although to be fair most of those are human-factors related, in what’s a very difficult skill to master.
I was out in the Flatlands on Friday and an Apache* flew over our local National Nature Reserve at extremely low altitude. They flew straight over an area with nesting cranes, which apart from being highly protected are rather large things to hit.
If I'd been doing a drone survey at the time they would have been underneath it (below 100m).
That can't be a terribly safe way to fly...
*cue DuraAce to tell me there is no such thing, but it was definitely a Boeing AH
There are nesting cranes around Doncaster?! I didn't know they came to Britain at all.
I don't understand why helicopters fly anywhere near fog.
Helicopters don't seem the safety of travel methods. Anything goes wrong, you are brown bread. Colin McRae, Kobe Bryant, the Leicester owners, Matthew Harding....
My former Aer Lingus mechanic father-in-law always says that planes are a lot safer than people think and helicopters a lot more dangerous.
Some time ago I managed to conquer a nasty fear of flying that I had since my youth. But there is no way, at all, ever, that I will be persuaded to get on a helicopter.
I have a fear of heights but not flying. I am drawn to the edge of cliffs. I can't look up at a high sheer cliffs or buildings or being in a boat under a dam. I can't walk out onto a tower if it is open at the top, even with a wall or railings in front of me.
However if I am enclosed I am fine. I have flown gliders many times, I have been in a Pitts Special doing aerobatics. I have now been in the front seat of a helicopter with glass beside me, above me and below me (and in front of course). I have also been involved in both an aborted take off and an emergency landing on commercial flights. None of that phased me, but at the Grand Canyon a sheer cliff I was looking at, but not standing on, so couldn't fall off of, gave me the collywobbles.
The human brain (well mine anyway) is weird.
I'm similar. I suppose being enclosed, even if just by glass, protects you from falling. So perhaps it's more accurate to say fear of falling rather than fear of heights? Being scared to look up is a bit odd.
I don't think it's the prospect of falling, it's the thought - when you're close to the edge of a big drop, or eg to a railway platform with a train coming - that you could just take one step and boom, it's over. The fact you don't want to, and therefore won't, doesn't stop the feeling. The point is you could - just like that, you could. It's a 'terror of free will' thing. It creates fear and nausea, with a touch of exhilaration thrown in. That's the root of my problem with heights anyway, and it's why it disappears if I'm enclosed. Eg the lifts at La Defense in Paris, miles up, glass floor you can look down through, I was not scared at all. Liked it actually. But standing next to a cliff edge, even a yard or so away, can't do it.
My Dad is the same as you. I have a more traditional slight queasiness - vertigo basically. Don't let it stop me though.
I don't understand why helicopters fly anywhere near fog.
Helicopters don't seem the safety of travel methods. Anything goes wrong, you are brown bread. Colin McRae, Kobe Bryant, the Leicester owners, Matthew Harding....
My former Aer Lingus mechanic father-in-law always says that planes are a lot safer than people think and helicopters a lot more dangerous.
Some time ago I managed to conquer a nasty fear of flying that I had since my youth. But there is no way, at all, ever, that I will be persuaded to get on a helicopter.
Helicopters are un-natural things. If they were invented today, they’d almost certainly have trouble being approved on the basis of too many single points of critical failure, and that’s before we get on to unplanned terrain/vehicle interfaces in poor weather - although to be fair most of those are human-factors related, in what’s a very difficult skill to master.
I was out in the Flatlands on Friday and an Apache* flew over our local National Nature Reserve at extremely low altitude. They flew straight over an area with nesting cranes, which apart from being highly protected are rather large things to hit.
If I'd been doing a drone survey at the time they would have been underneath it (below 100m).
That can't be a terribly safe way to fly...
*cue DuraAce to tell me there is no such thing, but it was definitely a Boeing AH
I find the Osprey absolutely fascinating. it's cool but also seems like the most overengineered thing in the world.
What I'm surprised by is that scaled up four propellor drone designs havent replaced traditional helicopters. I have zero engineering knowledge but it seems like if it works at a small scale it would work on a larger one?
Multicopter style? I think that is likely to be inefficient. Some mad people have built personal ones but I don't think there's been any practical demo. I think you'd need an Octocopter to have a safety margin as a single failure in a Quad would not be good.
I don't think the Osprey has a terribly good safety record although it does look exciting. I don't think I'd want to get in one!
I don't understand why helicopters fly anywhere near fog.
Helicopters don't seem the safety of travel methods. Anything goes wrong, you are brown bread. Colin McRae, Kobe Bryant, the Leicester owners, Matthew Harding....
My former Aer Lingus mechanic father-in-law always says that planes are a lot safer than people think and helicopters a lot more dangerous.
Some time ago I managed to conquer a nasty fear of flying that I had since my youth. But there is no way, at all, ever, that I will be persuaded to get on a helicopter.
Helicopters are un-natural things. If they were invented today, they’d almost certainly have trouble being approved on the basis of too many single points of critical failure, and that’s before we get on to unplanned terrain/vehicle interfaces in poor weather - although to be fair most of those are human-factors related, in what’s a very difficult skill to master.
I was out in the Flatlands on Friday and an Apache* flew over our local National Nature Reserve at extremely low altitude. They flew straight over an area with nesting cranes, which apart from being highly protected are rather large things to hit.
If I'd been doing a drone survey at the time they would have been underneath it (below 100m).
That can't be a terribly safe way to fly...
*cue DuraAce to tell me there is no such thing, but it was definitely a Boeing AH
I find the Osprey absolutely fascinating. it's cool but also seems like the most overengineered thing in the world.
What I'm surprised by is that scaled up four propellor drone designs havent replaced traditional helicopters. I have zero engineering knowledge but it seems like if it works at a small scale it would work on a larger one?
Multicopter style? I think that is likely to be inefficient. Some mad people have built personal ones but I don't think there's been any practical demo. I think you'd need an Octocopter to have a safety margin as a single failure in a Quad would not be good.
I don't think the Osprey has a terribly good safety record although it does look exciting. I don't think I'd want to get in one!
It averages about 3 total loss mishaps per 100,000 hours so about the same as military rotary wing aircraft and about three times more than fixed wing types (except the Harrier, LOL).
I'd get in one, but that's not really saying much because I'd get in anything (except a Qashqai, LOL).
I don't understand why helicopters fly anywhere near fog.
Helicopters don't seem the safety of travel methods. Anything goes wrong, you are brown bread. Colin McRae, Kobe Bryant, the Leicester owners, Matthew Harding....
My former Aer Lingus mechanic father-in-law always says that planes are a lot safer than people think and helicopters a lot more dangerous.
Some time ago I managed to conquer a nasty fear of flying that I had since my youth. But there is no way, at all, ever, that I will be persuaded to get on a helicopter.
Helicopters are un-natural things. If they were invented today, they’d almost certainly have trouble being approved on the basis of too many single points of critical failure, and that’s before we get on to unplanned terrain/vehicle interfaces in poor weather - although to be fair most of those are human-factors related, in what’s a very difficult skill to master.
I was out in the Flatlands on Friday and an Apache* flew over our local National Nature Reserve at extremely low altitude. They flew straight over an area with nesting cranes, which apart from being highly protected are rather large things to hit.
If I'd been doing a drone survey at the time they would have been underneath it (below 100m).
That can't be a terribly safe way to fly...
*cue DuraAce to tell me there is no such thing, but it was definitely a Boeing AH
I find the Osprey absolutely fascinating. it's cool but also seems like the most overengineered thing in the world.
What I'm surprised by is that scaled up four propellor drone designs havent replaced traditional helicopters. I have zero engineering knowledge but it seems like if it works at a small scale it would work on a larger one?
Multicopter style? I think that is likely to be inefficient. Some mad people have built personal ones but I don't think there's been any practical demo. I think you'd need an Octocopter to have a safety margin as a single failure in a Quad would not be good.
I don't think the Osprey has a terribly good safety record although it does look exciting. I don't think I'd want to get in one!
The interesting thing about it to me is payload delivery, i.e. we know the little four blade multi-copter drones are good at picking up boxes and moving them from A to B, hence the airware "amazon delivery drone" hype.
The idea that you could move, say, a small shipping container from A to B suggests potential multi configuration usage. But I'm guessing the weight/payload doesn't check out.
But other than autonomous moving from A to B, it's a way of divorcing the engine from the payload, so you could have the drone 'lift' a box containing cargo one day, another box configured as a luxury lounge that seats four the next, for example.
I don't understand why helicopters fly anywhere near fog.
Helicopters don't seem the safety of travel methods. Anything goes wrong, you are brown bread. Colin McRae, Kobe Bryant, the Leicester owners, Matthew Harding....
My former Aer Lingus mechanic father-in-law always says that planes are a lot safer than people think and helicopters a lot more dangerous.
Some time ago I managed to conquer a nasty fear of flying that I had since my youth. But there is no way, at all, ever, that I will be persuaded to get on a helicopter.
I have a fear of heights but not flying. I am drawn to the edge of cliffs. I can't look up at a high sheer cliffs or buildings or being in a boat under a dam. I can't walk out onto a tower if it is open at the top, even with a wall or railings in front of me.
However if I am enclosed I am fine. I have flown gliders many times, I have been in a Pitts Special doing aerobatics. I have now been in the front seat of a helicopter with glass beside me, above me and below me (and in front of course). I have also been involved in both an aborted take off and an emergency landing on commercial flights. None of that phased me, but at the Grand Canyon a sheer cliff I was looking at, but not standing on, so couldn't fall off of, gave me the collywobbles.
The human brain (well mine anyway) is weird.
I'm similar. I suppose being enclosed, even if just by glass, protects you from falling. So perhaps it's more accurate to say fear of falling rather than fear of heights? Being scared to look up is a bit odd.
I don't think it's fear of falling it's the thought, when you're close to the edge of a big drop, or eg to a railway platform with a train coming, that you could just take one step and boom, it's over. The fact you don't want to, and therefore won't, doesn't stop the feeling. The point is you could - just like that, you could. It's a 'terror of free will' thing. It creates fear and nausea, with a touch of exhilaration thrown in. That's the route of my fear of heights anyway, and it's why it disappears if I'm enclosed. Eg the lifts at La Defence in Paris, miles up, glass floor you can look down through, I was not scared at all. Liked it actually. But standing next to a cliff edge, even a yard or so away, can't do it.
I hate building edges and I'm not terribly keen on sea cliff edges either.
But I've walked / climbed on extremely thin ridges, including some snow ridges in the Alps, and that was fine.
I think it helps when you've got some movement or activity to concentrate on. Just standing there you've got nothing else to think about.
Yes, that makes sense. Eg when I was younger, despite having a fear of heights in the way described, I was well-known for climbing things (hence my nickname of Chimp). Trees, telegraph poles, in and out of windows in buildings, scaling from one room to another via the ledge etc etc, I was always at it. I don't do this now but that's mainly due to the physical limitations of age (I'm 63) not to being scared.
The long delayed contaminated blood enquiry just dumped (quite rightly) a huge compensation liability on government. And incidentally utterly trashed Ken Clarke's reputation.
"The scandal that caused thousands of people in the UK to become infected or die from contaminated blood was avoidable and inflamed by a “subtle, pervasive and chilling” cover-up by the NHS and government, a scathing report has concluded...
I don't understand why helicopters fly anywhere near fog.
Helicopters don't seem the safety of travel methods. Anything goes wrong, you are brown bread. Colin McRae, Kobe Bryant, the Leicester owners, Matthew Harding....
My former Aer Lingus mechanic father-in-law always says that planes are a lot safer than people think and helicopters a lot more dangerous.
Some time ago I managed to conquer a nasty fear of flying that I had since my youth. But there is no way, at all, ever, that I will be persuaded to get on a helicopter.
I have a fear of heights but not flying. I am drawn to the edge of cliffs. I can't look up at a high sheer cliffs or buildings or being in a boat under a dam. I can't walk out onto a tower if it is open at the top, even with a wall or railings in front of me.
However if I am enclosed I am fine. I have flown gliders many times, I have been in a Pitts Special doing aerobatics. I have now been in the front seat of a helicopter with glass beside me, above me and below me (and in front of course). I have also been involved in both an aborted take off and an emergency landing on commercial flights. None of that phased me, but at the Grand Canyon a sheer cliff I was looking at, but not standing on, so couldn't fall off of, gave me the collywobbles.
The human brain (well mine anyway) is weird.
I'm similar. I suppose being enclosed, even if just by glass, protects you from falling. So perhaps it's more accurate to say fear of falling rather than fear of heights? Being scared to look up is a bit odd.
I don't think it's the prospect of falling, it's the thought - when you're close to the edge of a big drop, or eg to a railway platform with a train coming - that you could just take one step and boom, it's over. The fact you don't want to, and therefore won't, doesn't stop the feeling. The point is you could - just like that, you could. It's a 'terror of free will' thing. It creates fear and nausea, with a touch of exhilaration thrown in. That's the root of my problem with heights anyway, and it's why it disappears if I'm enclosed. Eg the lifts at La Defense in Paris, miles up, glass floor you can look down through, I was not scared at all. Liked it actually. But standing next to a cliff edge, even a yard or so away, can't do it.
I think you have got it spot on @kinabalu. That is exactly the feeling I have. It is the fact you could and are drawn to it. You resist (hence I am here today) but there is that desire to do it which scares you. If enclosed you can't, but I am drawn to the door handles on a plane (now I have you worried). Same thing. I guess that is the looking up thing as well. If I am close to something high I look up and can imagine jumping.
I think it was discussed here before but I also have the desire to shout out at silent moments, say in a theatre or a big presentation. Needless to say I have never done it. I think that is the same thing as well. You want to. You won't. But you could which makes it exciting and gives you the fear of free will.
Morning all. This month's Ipsos is out, headline figures are Lab 41 (-3) Con 20 (+1) LD 11 (+3) Green 11 (!) (+2) Ref 9 (-4) Others 8 (+2)
Green/Reform crossover. No, I don't know what it means either...
The Greens had 181 councillors elected at the local elections at the start of the month, an increase of 74. Reform UK had two councillors elected, an increase of two.
For comparison, the Workers Party had four councillors elected, the SDP one and the Women's Equality Party one.
Voters have presumably noticed that the Greens are a proper party, while Reform UK are not.
Greens are in some unexpected (to me) places.
Seven seats in Darlington, for example.
Does anyone know Darlington demographics etc. It is:
Harrowgate Hill Harrowgate Hill Harrowgate Hill Hummersknott Hummersknott College College
My knowledge of Darlington is a little rusty - 25 years since I lived there - but:
Darlington's best areas are to the west. College and Hummersknott are in that direction; Harrowgate Hill is to the north.
College is exactly what you would expect a Green ward to be - slightly bohemian, well-to-do; the nicest bit of inner-urban Darlington. Hummersknott - one step out from College westwards, more suburban, also quite affluent Harrowgate Hill is on the outer edge of the Darlington urban area - not unpleasant, but not quite as exalted as the other two wards.
I live there but don’t have time to comment now - will try to do so tonight
The long delayed contaminated blood enquiry just dumped (quite rightly) a huge compensation liability on government. And incidentally utterly trashed Ken Clarke's reputation.
"The scandal that caused thousands of people in the UK to become infected or die from contaminated blood was avoidable and inflamed by a “subtle, pervasive and chilling” cover-up by the NHS and government, a scathing report has concluded...
This is why we can't have nice things in the Autumn Statement. Uge liability.
I don't understand why helicopters fly anywhere near fog.
Helicopters don't seem the safety of travel methods. Anything goes wrong, you are brown bread. Colin McRae, Kobe Bryant, the Leicester owners, Matthew Harding....
My former Aer Lingus mechanic father-in-law always says that planes are a lot safer than people think and helicopters a lot more dangerous.
Some time ago I managed to conquer a nasty fear of flying that I had since my youth. But there is no way, at all, ever, that I will be persuaded to get on a helicopter.
I have a fear of heights but not flying. I am drawn to the edge of cliffs. I can't look up at a high sheer cliffs or buildings or being in a boat under a dam. I can't walk out onto a tower if it is open at the top, even with a wall or railings in front of me.
However if I am enclosed I am fine. I have flown gliders many times, I have been in a Pitts Special doing aerobatics. I have now been in the front seat of a helicopter with glass beside me, above me and below me (and in front of course). I have also been involved in both an aborted take off and an emergency landing on commercial flights. None of that phased me, but at the Grand Canyon a sheer cliff I was looking at, but not standing on, so couldn't fall off of, gave me the collywobbles.
The human brain (well mine anyway) is weird.
I'm similar. I suppose being enclosed, even if just by glass, protects you from falling. So perhaps it's more accurate to say fear of falling rather than fear of heights? Being scared to look up is a bit odd.
I don't think it's the prospect of falling, it's the thought - when you're close to the edge of a big drop, or eg to a railway platform with a train coming - that you could just take one step and boom, it's over. The fact you don't want to, and therefore won't, doesn't stop the feeling. The point is you could - just like that, you could. It's a 'terror of free will' thing. It creates fear and nausea, with a touch of exhilaration thrown in. That's the root of my problem with heights anyway, and it's why it disappears if I'm enclosed. Eg the lifts at La Defense in Paris, miles up, glass floor you can look down through, I was not scared at all. Liked it actually. But standing next to a cliff edge, even a yard or so away, can't do it.
I think you have got it spot on @kinabalu. That is exactly the feeling I have. It is the fact you could and are drawn to it. You resist (hence I am here today) but there is that desire to do it which scares you. If enclosed you can't, but I am drawn to the door handles on a plane (now I have you worried). Same thing. I guess that is the looking up thing as well. If I am close to something high I look up and can imagine jumping.
I think it was discussed here before but I also have the desire to shout out at silent moments, say in a theatre or a big presentation. Needless to say I have never done it. I think that is the same thing as well. You want to. You won't. But you could which makes it exciting and gives you the fear of free will.
I don't understand why helicopters fly anywhere near fog.
Helicopters don't seem the safety of travel methods. Anything goes wrong, you are brown bread. Colin McRae, Kobe Bryant, the Leicester owners, Matthew Harding....
My former Aer Lingus mechanic father-in-law always says that planes are a lot safer than people think and helicopters a lot more dangerous.
Some time ago I managed to conquer a nasty fear of flying that I had since my youth. But there is no way, at all, ever, that I will be persuaded to get on a helicopter.
Helicopters are un-natural things. If they were invented today, they’d almost certainly have trouble being approved on the basis of too many single points of critical failure, and that’s before we get on to unplanned terrain/vehicle interfaces in poor weather - although to be fair most of those are human-factors related, in what’s a very difficult skill to master.
I was out in the Flatlands on Friday and an Apache* flew over our local National Nature Reserve at extremely low altitude. They flew straight over an area with nesting cranes, which apart from being highly protected are rather large things to hit.
If I'd been doing a drone survey at the time they would have been underneath it (below 100m).
That can't be a terribly safe way to fly...
*cue DuraAce to tell me there is no such thing, but it was definitely a Boeing AH
There are nesting cranes around Doncaster?! I didn't know they came to Britain at all.
Yes.
It was all hush hush for many years but there is a sustainable (and spreading) local population here and in Norfolk / East Anglia. There's also a reintroduction programme in Somerset now. They are still prone to disturbance so the actual nesting sites (mostly well away from busy areas) aren't advertised but they aren't exactly low profile birds as they make a bit of a racket.
They turned up here naturally in the late 90s, probably from Holland, as per the Norfolk birds.
It is amazing to see them flying around after being extinct in the UK for 400 years.
Mind you, in Sweden you can see many thousands of them gathered together at some sites, so we've a way to go yet.
I don't understand why helicopters fly anywhere near fog.
Helicopters don't seem the safety of travel methods. Anything goes wrong, you are brown bread. Colin McRae, Kobe Bryant, the Leicester owners, Matthew Harding....
My former Aer Lingus mechanic father-in-law always says that planes are a lot safer than people think and helicopters a lot more dangerous.
Some time ago I managed to conquer a nasty fear of flying that I had since my youth. But there is no way, at all, ever, that I will be persuaded to get on a helicopter.
I have a fear of heights but not flying. I am drawn to the edge of cliffs. I can't look up at a high sheer cliffs or buildings or being in a boat under a dam. I can't walk out onto a tower if it is open at the top, even with a wall or railings in front of me.
However if I am enclosed I am fine. I have flown gliders many times, I have been in a Pitts Special doing aerobatics. I have now been in the front seat of a helicopter with glass beside me, above me and below me (and in front of course). I have also been involved in both an aborted take off and an emergency landing on commercial flights. None of that phased me, but at the Grand Canyon a sheer cliff I was looking at, but not standing on, so couldn't fall off of, gave me the collywobbles.
The human brain (well mine anyway) is weird.
I'm similar. I suppose being enclosed, even if just by glass, protects you from falling. So perhaps it's more accurate to say fear of falling rather than fear of heights? Being scared to look up is a bit odd.
I don't think it's the prospect of falling, it's the thought - when you're close to the edge of a big drop, or eg to a railway platform with a train coming - that you could just take one step and boom, it's over. The fact you don't want to, and therefore won't, doesn't stop the feeling. The point is you could - just like that, you could. It's a 'terror of free will' thing. It creates fear and nausea, with a touch of exhilaration thrown in. That's the root of my problem with heights anyway, and it's why it disappears if I'm enclosed. Eg the lifts at La Defense in Paris, miles up, glass floor you can look down through, I was not scared at all. Liked it actually. But standing next to a cliff edge, even a yard or so away, can't do it.
My Dad is the same as you. I have a more traditional slight queasiness - vertigo basically. Don't let it stop me though.
And funnily enough MY dad has vertigo. So I'm like your dad and you're like mine ... in this respect.
But what do you mean by you don't 'let it stop you'?
I don't understand why helicopters fly anywhere near fog.
Helicopters don't seem the safety of travel methods. Anything goes wrong, you are brown bread. Colin McRae, Kobe Bryant, the Leicester owners, Matthew Harding....
My former Aer Lingus mechanic father-in-law always says that planes are a lot safer than people think and helicopters a lot more dangerous.
Some time ago I managed to conquer a nasty fear of flying that I had since my youth. But there is no way, at all, ever, that I will be persuaded to get on a helicopter.
Helicopters are un-natural things. If they were invented today, they’d almost certainly have trouble being approved on the basis of too many single points of critical failure, and that’s before we get on to unplanned terrain/vehicle interfaces in poor weather - although to be fair most of those are human-factors related, in what’s a very difficult skill to master.
I was out in the Flatlands on Friday and an Apache* flew over our local National Nature Reserve at extremely low altitude. They flew straight over an area with nesting cranes, which apart from being highly protected are rather large things to hit.
If I'd been doing a drone survey at the time they would have been underneath it (below 100m).
That can't be a terribly safe way to fly...
*cue DuraAce to tell me there is no such thing, but it was definitely a Boeing AH
I find the Osprey absolutely fascinating. it's cool but also seems like the most overengineered thing in the world.
What I'm surprised by is that scaled up four propellor drone designs havent replaced traditional helicopters. I have zero engineering knowledge but it seems like if it works at a small scale it would work on a larger one?
Multicopter style? I think that is likely to be inefficient. Some mad people have built personal ones but I don't think there's been any practical demo. I think you'd need an Octocopter to have a safety margin as a single failure in a Quad would not be good.
I don't think the Osprey has a terribly good safety record although it does look exciting. I don't think I'd want to get in one!
The interesting thing about it to me is payload delivery, i.e. we know the little four blade multi-copter drones are good at picking up boxes and moving them from A to B, hence the airware "amazon delivery drone" hype.
The idea that you could move, say, a small shipping container from A to B suggests potential multi configuration usage. But I'm guessing the weight/payload doesn't check out.
But other than autonomous moving from A to B, it's a way of divorcing the engine from the payload, so you could have the drone 'lift' a box containing cargo one day, another box configured as a luxury lounge that seats four the next, for example.
Archer and Joby are developing such things. As they're also battery powered, range will be very limited compared to military helicopters.
The long delayed contaminated blood enquiry just dumped (quite rightly) a huge compensation liability on government. And incidentally utterly trashed Ken Clarke's reputation.
"The scandal that caused thousands of people in the UK to become infected or die from contaminated blood was avoidable and inflamed by a “subtle, pervasive and chilling” cover-up by the NHS and government, a scathing report has concluded...
Morning all. This month's Ipsos is out, headline figures are Lab 41 (-3) Con 20 (+1) LD 11 (+3) Green 11 (!) (+2) Ref 9 (-4) Others 8 (+2)
Green/Reform crossover. No, I don't know what it means either...
The Greens had 181 councillors elected at the local elections at the start of the month, an increase of 74. Reform UK had two councillors elected, an increase of two.
For comparison, the Workers Party had four councillors elected, the SDP one and the Women's Equality Party one.
Voters have presumably noticed that the Greens are a proper party, while Reform UK are not.
Greens are in some unexpected (to me) places.
Seven seats in Darlington, for example.
Does anyone know Darlington demographics etc. It is:
Harrowgate Hill Harrowgate Hill Harrowgate Hill Hummersknott Hummersknott College College
My knowledge of Darlington is a little rusty - 25 years since I lived there - but:
Darlington's best areas are to the west. College and Hummersknott are in that direction; Harrowgate Hill is to the north.
College is exactly what you would expect a Green ward to be - slightly bohemian, well-to-do; the nicest bit of inner-urban Darlington. Hummersknott - one step out from College westwards, more suburban, also quite affluent Harrowgate Hill is on the outer edge of the Darlington urban area - not unpleasant, but not quite as exalted as the other two wards.
I live there but don’t have time to comment now - will try to do so tonight
Actual it’s easy - College and Hummersknott are as described (but Hummersknott now has new housing so will change next time round).
Harrrowgate Hill is a protest vote because of the opening up of a new estate without suitable road capacity and the announcement of a new 1000+ house green village without any changes. Basically they want the northern relief road built so that A66 traffic going north doesn’t go past them
And yes there is a lot of irony in the Green Party voters wanting a bypass to get the cards away from them - but I fully get their point of view I wouldn’t want to live there given the amount of through traffic they get
Morning all. This month's Ipsos is out, headline figures are Lab 41 (-3) Con 20 (+1) LD 11 (+3) Green 11 (!) (+2) Ref 9 (-4) Others 8 (+2)
Green/Reform crossover. No, I don't know what it means either...
The Greens had 181 councillors elected at the local elections at the start of the month, an increase of 74. Reform UK had two councillors elected, an increase of two.
For comparison, the Workers Party had four councillors elected, the SDP one and the Women's Equality Party one.
Voters have presumably noticed that the Greens are a proper party, while Reform UK are not.
Greens are in some unexpected (to me) places.
Seven seats in Darlington, for example.
Does anyone know Darlington demographics etc. It is:
Harrowgate Hill Harrowgate Hill Harrowgate Hill Hummersknott Hummersknott College College
My knowledge of Darlington is a little rusty - 25 years since I lived there - but:
Darlington's best areas are to the west. College and Hummersknott are in that direction; Harrowgate Hill is to the north.
College is exactly what you would expect a Green ward to be - slightly bohemian, well-to-do; the nicest bit of inner-urban Darlington. Hummersknott - one step out from College westwards, more suburban, also quite affluent Harrowgate Hill is on the outer edge of the Darlington urban area - not unpleasant, but not quite as exalted as the other two wards.
7 Gains. 2 in 2019. 5 in 2023.
6 from Con. 1 from Lab.
So that fits - Darlington's answer to ... ish ... Crouch End and West Hampstead?
I don't understand why helicopters fly anywhere near fog.
Helicopters don't seem the safety of travel methods. Anything goes wrong, you are brown bread. Colin McRae, Kobe Bryant, the Leicester owners, Matthew Harding....
My former Aer Lingus mechanic father-in-law always says that planes are a lot safer than people think and helicopters a lot more dangerous.
Some time ago I managed to conquer a nasty fear of flying that I had since my youth. But there is no way, at all, ever, that I will be persuaded to get on a helicopter.
Helicopters are un-natural things. If they were invented today, they’d almost certainly have trouble being approved on the basis of too many single points of critical failure, and that’s before we get on to unplanned terrain/vehicle interfaces in poor weather - although to be fair most of those are human-factors related, in what’s a very difficult skill to master.
I was out in the Flatlands on Friday and an Apache* flew over our local National Nature Reserve at extremely low altitude. They flew straight over an area with nesting cranes, which apart from being highly protected are rather large things to hit.
If I'd been doing a drone survey at the time they would have been underneath it (below 100m).
That can't be a terribly safe way to fly...
*cue DuraAce to tell me there is no such thing, but it was definitely a Boeing AH
I find the Osprey absolutely fascinating. it's cool but also seems like the most overengineered thing in the world.
What I'm surprised by is that scaled up four propellor drone designs havent replaced traditional helicopters. I have zero engineering knowledge but it seems like if it works at a small scale it would work on a larger one?
Multicopter style? I think that is likely to be inefficient. Some mad people have built personal ones but I don't think there's been any practical demo. I think you'd need an Octocopter to have a safety margin as a single failure in a Quad would not be good.
I don't think the Osprey has a terribly good safety record although it does look exciting. I don't think I'd want to get in one!
The interesting thing about it to me is payload delivery, i.e. we know the little four blade multi-copter drones are good at picking up boxes and moving them from A to B, hence the airware "amazon delivery drone" hype.
The idea that you could move, say, a small shipping container from A to B suggests potential multi configuration usage. But I'm guessing the weight/payload doesn't check out.
But other than autonomous moving from A to B, it's a way of divorcing the engine from the payload, so you could have the drone 'lift' a box containing cargo one day, another box configured as a luxury lounge that seats four the next, for example.
Archer and Joby are developing such things. As they're also battery powered, range will be very limited compared to military helicopters.
The ability to airlift any materiel quickly in a short range sounds like a useful thing in 21st century warfare. Good to know it's being worked on (I'm obviously not the first person to have had this random shower thought, but I was expecting the PB brains trust to point out it doesn't work due to weight/payload etc).
I guess from a military perspective the question is how much of a sitting duck is said omnicopter. Which is why I was interested in potential civilian uses.
I was once walking on Salisbury Plain, and passed an area of paddock-style grassland with loads of MOD-style "Keep your feet orff my land" signs. An Apache came in to land, and it appeared to be an area where they practiced landings. I waved at it, and whilst the helicopter remained at the same angle, its gun turned to point straight at me.
Apparently the gun points wherever the (pilot/gunner/whoever) is looking...
The long delayed contaminated blood enquiry just dumped (quite rightly) a huge compensation liability on government. And incidentally utterly trashed Ken Clarke's reputation.
"The scandal that caused thousands of people in the UK to become infected or die from contaminated blood was avoidable and inflamed by a “subtle, pervasive and chilling” cover-up by the NHS and government, a scathing report has concluded...
This is why we can't have nice things in the Autumn Statement. Uge liability.
Don't forget there are also the WASPI women as well who are after a similar sum after the Parliamentary Ombudsmans report. The govt may just kick this into the long grass and let Labour deal with it though.
🚨New Voting Intention🚨 Labour lead widens to twenty-two points in our latest results. Con 23% (-4) Lab 45% (-) Lib Dem 10% (+2) Reform 12% (+2) SNP 3% (+1) Green 5% (-1) Other 3% (+1) Fieldwork: 17th-20th May 2024 Sample: 1,968 GB adults (Changes from 10th-13th May 2024)
Morning all. This month's Ipsos is out, headline figures are Lab 41 (-3) Con 20 (+1) LD 11 (+3) Green 11 (!) (+2) Ref 9 (-4) Others 8 (+2)
Green/Reform crossover. No, I don't know what it means either...
The Greens had 181 councillors elected at the local elections at the start of the month, an increase of 74. Reform UK had two councillors elected, an increase of two.
For comparison, the Workers Party had four councillors elected, the SDP one and the Women's Equality Party one.
Voters have presumably noticed that the Greens are a proper party, while Reform UK are not.
Greens are in some unexpected (to me) places.
Seven seats in Darlington, for example.
Does anyone know Darlington demographics etc. It is:
Harrowgate Hill Harrowgate Hill Harrowgate Hill Hummersknott Hummersknott College College
My knowledge of Darlington is a little rusty - 25 years since I lived there - but:
Darlington's best areas are to the west. College and Hummersknott are in that direction; Harrowgate Hill is to the north.
College is exactly what you would expect a Green ward to be - slightly bohemian, well-to-do; the nicest bit of inner-urban Darlington. Hummersknott - one step out from College westwards, more suburban, also quite affluent Harrowgate Hill is on the outer edge of the Darlington urban area - not unpleasant, but not quite as exalted as the other two wards.
I live there but don’t have time to comment now - will try to do so tonight
I had a look because the presentation I mentioned a couple of weeks ago from the Leader of the Green group Matthew Snedker about how they engaged with the nuts and bolts of the Council to try and achieve influence was posted last night.
He is a good an insightful speaker on the organisational side, whether you agree with his ideas or not.
The long delayed contaminated blood enquiry just dumped (quite rightly) a huge compensation liability on government. And incidentally utterly trashed Ken Clarke's reputation.
"The scandal that caused thousands of people in the UK to become infected or die from contaminated blood was avoidable and inflamed by a “subtle, pervasive and chilling” cover-up by the NHS and government, a scathing report has concluded...
Keep clapping everyone. Envy of the world.
The contaminated blood products were American, so not exactly an endorsement of private medicine either...
I don't understand why helicopters fly anywhere near fog.
Helicopters don't seem the safety of travel methods. Anything goes wrong, you are brown bread. Colin McRae, Kobe Bryant, the Leicester owners, Matthew Harding....
My former Aer Lingus mechanic father-in-law always says that planes are a lot safer than people think and helicopters a lot more dangerous.
Some time ago I managed to conquer a nasty fear of flying that I had since my youth. But there is no way, at all, ever, that I will be persuaded to get on a helicopter.
Helicopters are un-natural things. If they were invented today, they’d almost certainly have trouble being approved on the basis of too many single points of critical failure, and that’s before we get on to unplanned terrain/vehicle interfaces in poor weather - although to be fair most of those are human-factors related, in what’s a very difficult skill to master.
I was out in the Flatlands on Friday and an Apache* flew over our local National Nature Reserve at extremely low altitude. They flew straight over an area with nesting cranes, which apart from being highly protected are rather large things to hit.
If I'd been doing a drone survey at the time they would have been underneath it (below 100m).
That can't be a terribly safe way to fly...
*cue DuraAce to tell me there is no such thing, but it was definitely a Boeing AH
I find the Osprey absolutely fascinating. it's cool but also seems like the most overengineered thing in the world.
What I'm surprised by is that scaled up four propellor drone designs havent replaced traditional helicopters. I have zero engineering knowledge but it seems like if it works at a small scale it would work on a larger one?
Multicopter style? I think that is likely to be inefficient. Some mad people have built personal ones but I don't think there's been any practical demo. I think you'd need an Octocopter to have a safety margin as a single failure in a Quad would not be good.
I don't think the Osprey has a terribly good safety record although it does look exciting. I don't think I'd want to get in one!
The interesting thing about it to me is payload delivery, i.e. we know the little four blade multi-copter drones are good at picking up boxes and moving them from A to B, hence the airware "amazon delivery drone" hype.
The idea that you could move, say, a small shipping container from A to B suggests potential multi configuration usage. But I'm guessing the weight/payload doesn't check out.
But other than autonomous moving from A to B, it's a way of divorcing the engine from the payload, so you could have the drone 'lift' a box containing cargo one day, another box configured as a luxury lounge that seats four the next, for example.
Archer and Joby are developing such things. As they're also battery powered, range will be very limited compared to military helicopters.
I wonder how easy they are to scale up.
Small consumer drones rely on having very low rotational energy in the propellers so that their speed can be adjusted quickly by the controller in response to attitude changes.
Once you start putting a lot of weight on them that becomes more difficult.
Maybe you just need lots and lots of props to keep the force on each individual one low?
🚨New Voting Intention🚨 Labour lead widens to twenty-two points in our latest results. Con 23% (-4) Lab 45% (-) Lib Dem 10% (+2) Reform 12% (+2) SNP 3% (+1) Green 5% (-1) Other 3% (+1) Fieldwork: 17th-20th May 2024 Sample: 1,968 GB adults (Changes from 10th-13th May 2024)
Deltasplat with deltapoll
That's another polling company joining the 20+ lead group.
It would save time if the govt just announced inquiries into everything that's been flagged more than twice by private eye.
If I were the Tories I'd write down a long list of scandals affecting the public, publicly apologise for all of them and commit to vast amounts of compensation to be payable...in the next parliament.
Morning all. This month's Ipsos is out, headline figures are Lab 41 (-3) Con 20 (+1) LD 11 (+3) Green 11 (!) (+2) Ref 9 (-4) Others 8 (+2)
That looks like a significant move to LLG.
+2 LLG -3 RefCon +2 Nats and ??
Although with Con not benefitting appreciably from the Reform drop off in any polling we can perhaps drop the rather daft association of Reform and Con as a 'unit'
The Conservatives and LDs and Others are up, Labour are down
It looks like a significant move towards the Lib Dems and the Greens. If the Reform trend continues and the Tories are still stuck, then the last hope for the Tories begins to look very thin indeed. If the Lib Dems get into the mid teens the Tories start to lose a lot more seats.
If the LDs and Greens eat into Labour votes the Tories also save more seats they would otherwise have lost to Labour
Depends where though. If the LDs eat into the Labour vote in the LD targets (ie tactical voting) then the Tories will lose more seats. From some of the polls it looks like Labour are building up quite a lot of votes in non target seats that the LDs are after. If that switches from Lab to LDs in those seats then the Tories will be in big trouble. Admittedly that is not clear yet, but if the LDs do go up in the polls that is a nightmare scenario for the Tories.
There are far more seats the Tories are at risk of losing to Labour than the LDs.
So if the LDs do go up on average mainly at Labour expense that overall saves more Conservative seats
No, not at all, young HY. Every seat is different, The amount of effort the Lib Dems are putting varies enormously from one seat to another. Where they are trying seriously to win, the Labour etc vote will be squeezed. The Lib Dems are not there to pull your Tory chestnuts out of the fire for you.
The Conservatives are doomed, I tell you. Doomed.
And quite deservedly so.
IPSOS suffers from the fact that it takes them a lot longer than other pollsters to publish their results. So its polling is always a tad out of date, in this case their fieldwork dates were from 8th to 14th May.
Taking the IPSOS poll together with the 6 polls that have already been published with more recent fieldwork, the LDs are on average polling 9.4%. That compares with 11.8% at GE 2019. So they're currently down about one fifth of their support in 2019. If that amounts to a surge it's a downward one.
Nor is there any evidence from general election polling that the LD vote is being refocused onto their target seats alone. In the R&W "Blue Wall" polling, which includes most of the LD target seats in the South, Labour remains in the lead on 34%. The LDs are in 3rd place (on 20% compared to 27.4% in 2019.)
The LDs will still pick up a few seats at the general election because the collapse in the Conservative vote outweighsthe slide in their own support. But apart from a very small number of seats, the best tactical option is now not to vote LD and the LD vote will be squeezed accordingly.
But that's just the point. If people vote tactically then the LD poll rating and LD vote share falls, yet they win more seats
The long delayed contaminated blood enquiry just dumped (quite rightly) a huge compensation liability on government. And incidentally utterly trashed Ken Clarke's reputation.
"The scandal that caused thousands of people in the UK to become infected or die from contaminated blood was avoidable and inflamed by a “subtle, pervasive and chilling” cover-up by the NHS and government, a scathing report has concluded...
Keep clapping everyone. Envy of the world.
The contaminated blood products were American, so not exactly an endorsement of private medicine either...
The domestic blood donations taken via the NHS were I understand properly screened and safe.
I don't understand why helicopters fly anywhere near fog.
Helicopters don't seem the safety of travel methods. Anything goes wrong, you are brown bread. Colin McRae, Kobe Bryant, the Leicester owners, Matthew Harding....
My former Aer Lingus mechanic father-in-law always says that planes are a lot safer than people think and helicopters a lot more dangerous.
Some time ago I managed to conquer a nasty fear of flying that I had since my youth. But there is no way, at all, ever, that I will be persuaded to get on a helicopter.
Helicopters are un-natural things. If they were invented today, they’d almost certainly have trouble being approved on the basis of too many single points of critical failure, and that’s before we get on to unplanned terrain/vehicle interfaces in poor weather - although to be fair most of those are human-factors related, in what’s a very difficult skill to master.
I was out in the Flatlands on Friday and an Apache* flew over our local National Nature Reserve at extremely low altitude. They flew straight over an area with nesting cranes, which apart from being highly protected are rather large things to hit.
If I'd been doing a drone survey at the time they would have been underneath it (below 100m).
That can't be a terribly safe way to fly...
*cue DuraAce to tell me there is no such thing, but it was definitely a Boeing AH
I find the Osprey absolutely fascinating. it's cool but also seems like the most overengineered thing in the world.
What I'm surprised by is that scaled up four propellor drone designs havent replaced traditional helicopters. I have zero engineering knowledge but it seems like if it works at a small scale it would work on a larger one?
Multicopter style? I think that is likely to be inefficient. Some mad people have built personal ones but I don't think there's been any practical demo. I think you'd need an Octocopter to have a safety margin as a single failure in a Quad would not be good.
I don't think the Osprey has a terribly good safety record although it does look exciting. I don't think I'd want to get in one!
The interesting thing about it to me is payload delivery, i.e. we know the little four blade multi-copter drones are good at picking up boxes and moving them from A to B, hence the airware "amazon delivery drone" hype.
The idea that you could move, say, a small shipping container from A to B suggests potential multi configuration usage. But I'm guessing the weight/payload doesn't check out.
But other than autonomous moving from A to B, it's a way of divorcing the engine from the payload, so you could have the drone 'lift' a box containing cargo one day, another box configured as a luxury lounge that seats four the next, for example.
Archer and Joby are developing such things. As they're also battery powered, range will be very limited compared to military helicopters.
I wonder how easy they are to scale up.
Small consumer drones rely on having very low rotational energy in the propellers so that their speed can be adjusted quickly by the controller in response to attitude changes.
Once you start putting a lot of weight on them that becomes more difficult.
Maybe you just need lots and lots of props to keep the force on each individual one low?
I think the problem is likely to be one faced with small wind turbines - efficiency scales with size.
You can get away with it on a light uncrewed drone, but as soon as you want to carry around people and cargo it gets to be more difficult. But it may be a surmountable difficulty.
The long delayed contaminated blood enquiry just dumped (quite rightly) a huge compensation liability on government. And incidentally utterly trashed Ken Clarke's reputation.
"The scandal that caused thousands of people in the UK to become infected or die from contaminated blood was avoidable and inflamed by a “subtle, pervasive and chilling” cover-up by the NHS and government, a scathing report has concluded...
Keep clapping everyone. Envy of the world.
The contaminated blood products were American, so not exactly an endorsement of private medicine either...
That clearly does not excuse the NHS's actions and its part in the cover up.
Without private medicine there would be no NHS.
Without private medicing you wouldn't have Wegovy and Ozempic, for example.
It is high time we stopped regarding the NHS with such reverence in this country and saw it warts and all. It is not perfect, it has faults. These need addressing and challenging.
"Pilot of helicopter that crashed into London street 'wasn't happy about flying because of freezing fog' but wasn't pressured by company, inquest told The helicopter Pete Barnes, 50, was flying hit a crane in Vauxhall He died from injuries and pedestrian Matthew Wood, 39, was also killed Mr Barnes' partner Rebecca Dixon said he was worried about fog that day He did 'not take adverse risks' coroner's inquest was told "
I was living in South Lambeth at the time, so about 150m away from where it came down (on the other side of the railway line).
I didn't hear the helicopter, but the crash was horrendous - three big echoing BANGs, followed by car horns and shouting, with sirens of the arriving emergency services a couple of minutes later. At the time, I assumed that someone had been shot but I suspect the separate bangs were actually from the rotors hitting the ground.
I walked up to Vauxhall about half an hour later on my way to work, and everything down towards Wandsworth / Battersea was still in the process of being sealed off. No-one seemed to know what had happened at that point, and it was only mid-morning that people started talking about a helicopter crash.
Truly terrifying. I'll certainly not be volunteering to go on any helicopter flights any time soon...
I don't understand why helicopters fly anywhere near fog.
Helicopters don't seem the safety of travel methods. Anything goes wrong, you are brown bread. Colin McRae, Kobe Bryant, the Leicester owners, Matthew Harding....
My former Aer Lingus mechanic father-in-law always says that planes are a lot safer than people think and helicopters a lot more dangerous.
Some time ago I managed to conquer a nasty fear of flying that I had since my youth. But there is no way, at all, ever, that I will be persuaded to get on a helicopter.
Helicopters are un-natural things. If they were invented today, they’d almost certainly have trouble being approved on the basis of too many single points of critical failure, and that’s before we get on to unplanned terrain/vehicle interfaces in poor weather - although to be fair most of those are human-factors related, in what’s a very difficult skill to master.
I was out in the Flatlands on Friday and an Apache* flew over our local National Nature Reserve at extremely low altitude. They flew straight over an area with nesting cranes, which apart from being highly protected are rather large things to hit.
If I'd been doing a drone survey at the time they would have been underneath it (below 100m).
That can't be a terribly safe way to fly...
*cue DuraAce to tell me there is no such thing, but it was definitely a Boeing AH
I find the Osprey absolutely fascinating. it's cool but also seems like the most overengineered thing in the world.
What I'm surprised by is that scaled up four propellor drone designs havent replaced traditional helicopters. I have zero engineering knowledge but it seems like if it works at a small scale it would work on a larger one?
Multicopter style? I think that is likely to be inefficient. Some mad people have built personal ones but I don't think there's been any practical demo. I think you'd need an Octocopter to have a safety margin as a single failure in a Quad would not be good.
I don't think the Osprey has a terribly good safety record although it does look exciting. I don't think I'd want to get in one!
The interesting thing about it to me is payload delivery, i.e. we know the little four blade multi-copter drones are good at picking up boxes and moving them from A to B, hence the airware "amazon delivery drone" hype.
The idea that you could move, say, a small shipping container from A to B suggests potential multi configuration usage. But I'm guessing the weight/payload doesn't check out.
But other than autonomous moving from A to B, it's a way of divorcing the engine from the payload, so you could have the drone 'lift' a box containing cargo one day, another box configured as a luxury lounge that seats four the next, for example.
Archer and Joby are developing such things. As they're also battery powered, range will be very limited compared to military helicopters.
The ability to airlift any materiel quickly in a short range sounds like a useful thing in 21st century warfare. Good to know it's being worked on (I'm obviously not the first person to have had this random shower thought, but I was expecting the PB brains trust to point out it doesn't work due to weight/payload etc).
I guess from a military perspective the question is how much of a sitting duck is said omnicopter. Which is why I was interested in potential civilian uses.
The long delayed contaminated blood enquiry just dumped (quite rightly) a huge compensation liability on government. And incidentally utterly trashed Ken Clarke's reputation.
"The scandal that caused thousands of people in the UK to become infected or die from contaminated blood was avoidable and inflamed by a “subtle, pervasive and chilling” cover-up by the NHS and government, a scathing report has concluded...
Keep clapping everyone. Envy of the world.
The contaminated blood products were American, so not exactly an endorsement of private medicine either...
The domestic blood donations taken via the NHS were I understand properly screened and safe.
Not entirely true. It was not possible to test for the Hep C or HIV in the Seventies as the viruses were not described, though a much lower risk donor population.
Most countries haemophilia populations were decimated by the contaminated American blood, and while some countries handled the liability issue much better.
🚨New Voting Intention🚨 Labour lead widens to twenty-two points in our latest results. Con 23% (-4) Lab 45% (-) Lib Dem 10% (+2) Reform 12% (+2) SNP 3% (+1) Green 5% (-1) Other 3% (+1) Fieldwork: 17th-20th May 2024 Sample: 1,968 GB adults (Changes from 10th-13th May 2024)
Deltasplat with deltapoll
That's another polling company joining the 20+ lead group.
They've been there a few times, Deltapoll are a little more volatile than most. This one is higher end Labour, lower end/bottom Tory this year. The running averages recently are probably 44, 25 (maybe 26) for LabCon and tend to run couple points either side from there. If next weeks Delta is similar it might indicate movement. Tories are off 4, but 27 was equal their highest since a 29 in January, interestingly Labour hold a recent high of 45 (theyve had 46 and 48 earlier this year). Also has Reform bouncing back which is probably noise and not yet seen elsewhere. Tory 23 has been recorded several times with DP but they've not (yet) been below it, even with Truss. Tories creaking, definitely!
Morning all. This month's Ipsos is out, headline figures are Lab 41 (-3) Con 20 (+1) LD 11 (+3) Green 11 (!) (+2) Ref 9 (-4) Others 8 (+2)
Green/Reform crossover. No, I don't know what it means either...
The Greens had 181 councillors elected at the local elections at the start of the month, an increase of 74. Reform UK had two councillors elected, an increase of two.
For comparison, the Workers Party had four councillors elected, the SDP one and the Women's Equality Party one.
Voters have presumably noticed that the Greens are a proper party, while Reform UK are not.
Greens are in some unexpected (to me) places.
Seven seats in Darlington, for example.
Does anyone know Darlington demographics etc. It is:
Harrowgate Hill Harrowgate Hill Harrowgate Hill Hummersknott Hummersknott College College
My knowledge of Darlington is a little rusty - 25 years since I lived there - but:
Darlington's best areas are to the west. College and Hummersknott are in that direction; Harrowgate Hill is to the north.
College is exactly what you would expect a Green ward to be - slightly bohemian, well-to-do; the nicest bit of inner-urban Darlington. Hummersknott - one step out from College westwards, more suburban, also quite affluent Harrowgate Hill is on the outer edge of the Darlington urban area - not unpleasant, but not quite as exalted as the other two wards.
7 Gains. 2 in 2019. 5 in 2023.
6 from Con. 1 from Lab.
So that fits - Darlington's answer to ... ish ... Crouch End and West Hampstead?
Yes, I suppose so! Or to relate to an urban area I know rather better: College = Chorlton Hummersknott = Ashton on Mersey Harrowgate Hill = Mottram in Longdendale
I don't understand why helicopters fly anywhere near fog.
Helicopters don't seem the safety of travel methods. Anything goes wrong, you are brown bread. Colin McRae, Kobe Bryant, the Leicester owners, Matthew Harding....
My former Aer Lingus mechanic father-in-law always says that planes are a lot safer than people think and helicopters a lot more dangerous.
Some time ago I managed to conquer a nasty fear of flying that I had since my youth. But there is no way, at all, ever, that I will be persuaded to get on a helicopter.
Helicopters are un-natural things. If they were invented today, they’d almost certainly have trouble being approved on the basis of too many single points of critical failure, and that’s before we get on to unplanned terrain/vehicle interfaces in poor weather - although to be fair most of those are human-factors related, in what’s a very difficult skill to master.
I was out in the Flatlands on Friday and an Apache* flew over our local National Nature Reserve at extremely low altitude. They flew straight over an area with nesting cranes, which apart from being highly protected are rather large things to hit.
If I'd been doing a drone survey at the time they would have been underneath it (below 100m).
That can't be a terribly safe way to fly...
*cue DuraAce to tell me there is no such thing, but it was definitely a Boeing AH
I find the Osprey absolutely fascinating. it's cool but also seems like the most overengineered thing in the world.
What I'm surprised by is that scaled up four propellor drone designs havent replaced traditional helicopters. I have zero engineering knowledge but it seems like if it works at a small scale it would work on a larger one?
Multicopter style? I think that is likely to be inefficient. Some mad people have built personal ones but I don't think there's been any practical demo. I think you'd need an Octocopter to have a safety margin as a single failure in a Quad would not be good.
I don't think the Osprey has a terribly good safety record although it does look exciting. I don't think I'd want to get in one!
The interesting thing about it to me is payload delivery, i.e. we know the little four blade multi-copter drones are good at picking up boxes and moving them from A to B, hence the airware "amazon delivery drone" hype.
The idea that you could move, say, a small shipping container from A to B suggests potential multi configuration usage. But I'm guessing the weight/payload doesn't check out.
But other than autonomous moving from A to B, it's a way of divorcing the engine from the payload, so you could have the drone 'lift' a box containing cargo one day, another box configured as a luxury lounge that seats four the next, for example.
Archer and Joby are developing such things. As they're also battery powered, range will be very limited compared to military helicopters.
The ability to airlift any materiel quickly in a short range sounds like a useful thing in 21st century warfare. Good to know it's being worked on (I'm obviously not the first person to have had this random shower thought, but I was expecting the PB brains trust to point out it doesn't work due to weight/payload etc).
I guess from a military perspective the question is how much of a sitting duck is said omnicopter. Which is why I was interested in potential civilian uses.
They're being evaluated by the US military, but it will probably need something along these lines to make them seriously useful.
It's a funny one, we belt and braces everything in peacetime, but in wartime it's a question of getting product to market as quickly as possible from a minimum viable product perspective. Hence why 50 years of rockets were based on the V2, etc.
Drone warfare has evolved at a lightning pace during the Ukraine war, A six hundred quid cardboard jobbie can strike an oil refinery deep into Russian territory. And if it fails, well, it's six hundred quid.
Since it seems like such an obvious idea, the lack of "giant omnicopters that can lift a tank or a cargo container" based on the same principles as the little drones suggest they're either a) hard to make work or b) not as useful as they sound
The long delayed contaminated blood enquiry just dumped (quite rightly) a huge compensation liability on government. And incidentally utterly trashed Ken Clarke's reputation.
"The scandal that caused thousands of people in the UK to become infected or die from contaminated blood was avoidable and inflamed by a “subtle, pervasive and chilling” cover-up by the NHS and government, a scathing report has concluded...
Keep clapping everyone. Envy of the world.
The contaminated blood products were American, so not exactly an endorsement of private medicine either...
The domestic blood donations taken via the NHS were I understand properly screened and safe.
Not entirely true. It was not possible to test for the Hep C or HIV in the Seventies as the viruses were not described, though a much lower risk donor population.
Most countries haemophilia populations were decimated by the contaminated American blood, and while some countries handled the liability issue much better.
We actually ran unapproved clinical trials, without consent or even subsequent notification, on patients to see how many more the US product would kill. That only came out this month in the enquiry.
Every government since the mid 80s has known about, and covered up the extent of the scandal. And the enquiry was set up in 2017.
I don't understand why helicopters fly anywhere near fog.
Helicopters don't seem the safety of travel methods. Anything goes wrong, you are brown bread. Colin McRae, Kobe Bryant, the Leicester owners, Matthew Harding....
My former Aer Lingus mechanic father-in-law always says that planes are a lot safer than people think and helicopters a lot more dangerous.
Some time ago I managed to conquer a nasty fear of flying that I had since my youth. But there is no way, at all, ever, that I will be persuaded to get on a helicopter.
Helicopters are un-natural things. If they were invented today, they’d almost certainly have trouble being approved on the basis of too many single points of critical failure, and that’s before we get on to unplanned terrain/vehicle interfaces in poor weather - although to be fair most of those are human-factors related, in what’s a very difficult skill to master.
I was out in the Flatlands on Friday and an Apache* flew over our local National Nature Reserve at extremely low altitude. They flew straight over an area with nesting cranes, which apart from being highly protected are rather large things to hit.
If I'd been doing a drone survey at the time they would have been underneath it (below 100m).
That can't be a terribly safe way to fly...
*cue DuraAce to tell me there is no such thing, but it was definitely a Boeing AH
I find the Osprey absolutely fascinating. it's cool but also seems like the most overengineered thing in the world.
What I'm surprised by is that scaled up four propellor drone designs havent replaced traditional helicopters. I have zero engineering knowledge but it seems like if it works at a small scale it would work on a larger one?
Multicopter style? I think that is likely to be inefficient. Some mad people have built personal ones but I don't think there's been any practical demo. I think you'd need an Octocopter to have a safety margin as a single failure in a Quad would not be good.
I don't think the Osprey has a terribly good safety record although it does look exciting. I don't think I'd want to get in one!
The interesting thing about it to me is payload delivery, i.e. we know the little four blade multi-copter drones are good at picking up boxes and moving them from A to B, hence the airware "amazon delivery drone" hype.
The idea that you could move, say, a small shipping container from A to B suggests potential multi configuration usage. But I'm guessing the weight/payload doesn't check out.
But other than autonomous moving from A to B, it's a way of divorcing the engine from the payload, so you could have the drone 'lift' a box containing cargo one day, another box configured as a luxury lounge that seats four the next, for example.
Archer and Joby are developing such things. As they're also battery powered, range will be very limited compared to military helicopters.
The ability to airlift any materiel quickly in a short range sounds like a useful thing in 21st century warfare. Good to know it's being worked on (I'm obviously not the first person to have had this random shower thought, but I was expecting the PB brains trust to point out it doesn't work due to weight/payload etc).
I guess from a military perspective the question is how much of a sitting duck is said omnicopter. Which is why I was interested in potential civilian uses.
They're being evaluated by the US military, but it will probably need something along these lines to make them seriously useful.
It's a funny one, we belt and braces everything in peacetime, but in wartime it's a question of getting product to market as quickly as possible from a minimum viable product perspective. Hence why 50 years of rockets were based on the V2, etc.
Drone warfare has evolved at a lightning pace during the Ukraine war, A six hundred quid cardboard jobbie can strike an oil refinery deep into Russian territory. And if it fails, well, it's six hundred quid.
Since it seems like such an obvious idea, the lack of "giant omnicopters that can lift a tank or a cargo container" based on the same principles as the little drones suggest they're either a) hard to make work or b) not as useful as they sound
It's only recently that batteries, lightweight aviation electric motors, and lightweight materials have been available and cheap enough to make them possibly feasible, I think ?
The long delayed contaminated blood enquiry just dumped (quite rightly) a huge compensation liability on government. And incidentally utterly trashed Ken Clarke's reputation.
"The scandal that caused thousands of people in the UK to become infected or die from contaminated blood was avoidable and inflamed by a “subtle, pervasive and chilling” cover-up by the NHS and government, a scathing report has concluded...
Keep clapping everyone. Envy of the world.
The contaminated blood products were American, so not exactly an endorsement of private medicine either...
The domestic blood donations taken via the NHS were I understand properly screened and safe.
Not entirely true. It was not possible to test for the Hep C or HIV in the Seventies as the viruses were not described, though a much lower risk donor population.
Most countries haemophilia populations were decimated by the contaminated American blood, and while some countries handled the liability issue much better.
We actually ran unapproved clinical trials, without consent or even subsequent notification, on patients to see how many more the US product would kill. That only came out this month in the enquiry.
Every government since the mid 80s has known about, and covered up the extent of the scandal. And the enquiry was set up in 2017.
So does Theresa May deserve credit for setting up the enquiry in the first place to bring this to a head ?
I don't understand why helicopters fly anywhere near fog.
Helicopters don't seem the safety of travel methods. Anything goes wrong, you are brown bread. Colin McRae, Kobe Bryant, the Leicester owners, Matthew Harding....
My former Aer Lingus mechanic father-in-law always says that planes are a lot safer than people think and helicopters a lot more dangerous.
Some time ago I managed to conquer a nasty fear of flying that I had since my youth. But there is no way, at all, ever, that I will be persuaded to get on a helicopter.
Helicopters are un-natural things. If they were invented today, they’d almost certainly have trouble being approved on the basis of too many single points of critical failure, and that’s before we get on to unplanned terrain/vehicle interfaces in poor weather - although to be fair most of those are human-factors related, in what’s a very difficult skill to master.
I was out in the Flatlands on Friday and an Apache* flew over our local National Nature Reserve at extremely low altitude. They flew straight over an area with nesting cranes, which apart from being highly protected are rather large things to hit.
If I'd been doing a drone survey at the time they would have been underneath it (below 100m).
That can't be a terribly safe way to fly...
*cue DuraAce to tell me there is no such thing, but it was definitely a Boeing AH
I find the Osprey absolutely fascinating. it's cool but also seems like the most overengineered thing in the world.
What I'm surprised by is that scaled up four propellor drone designs havent replaced traditional helicopters. I have zero engineering knowledge but it seems like if it works at a small scale it would work on a larger one?
Multicopter style? I think that is likely to be inefficient. Some mad people have built personal ones but I don't think there's been any practical demo. I think you'd need an Octocopter to have a safety margin as a single failure in a Quad would not be good.
I don't think the Osprey has a terribly good safety record although it does look exciting. I don't think I'd want to get in one!
The interesting thing about it to me is payload delivery, i.e. we know the little four blade multi-copter drones are good at picking up boxes and moving them from A to B, hence the airware "amazon delivery drone" hype.
The idea that you could move, say, a small shipping container from A to B suggests potential multi configuration usage. But I'm guessing the weight/payload doesn't check out.
But other than autonomous moving from A to B, it's a way of divorcing the engine from the payload, so you could have the drone 'lift' a box containing cargo one day, another box configured as a luxury lounge that seats four the next, for example.
Archer and Joby are developing such things. As they're also battery powered, range will be very limited compared to military helicopters.
The ability to airlift any materiel quickly in a short range sounds like a useful thing in 21st century warfare. Good to know it's being worked on (I'm obviously not the first person to have had this random shower thought, but I was expecting the PB brains trust to point out it doesn't work due to weight/payload etc).
I guess from a military perspective the question is how much of a sitting duck is said omnicopter. Which is why I was interested in potential civilian uses.
They're being evaluated by the US military, but it will probably need something along these lines to make them seriously useful.
It's a funny one, we belt and braces everything in peacetime, but in wartime it's a question of getting product to market as quickly as possible from a minimum viable product perspective. Hence why 50 years of rockets were based on the V2, etc.
Drone warfare has evolved at a lightning pace during the Ukraine war, A six hundred quid cardboard jobbie can strike an oil refinery deep into Russian territory. And if it fails, well, it's six hundred quid.
Since it seems like such an obvious idea, the lack of "giant omnicopters that can lift a tank or a cargo container" based on the same principles as the little drones suggest they're either a) hard to make work or b) not as useful as they sound
One of the drones that is starting to appear more often in videos over the last couple of months are ground drones packed with explosives. Advantages seem to be that they can carry more explosive, and they're harder to see coming. But they're much slower and have a shorter range than a drone in the air.
I don't understand why helicopters fly anywhere near fog.
Helicopters don't seem the safety of travel methods. Anything goes wrong, you are brown bread. Colin McRae, Kobe Bryant, the Leicester owners, Matthew Harding....
My former Aer Lingus mechanic father-in-law always says that planes are a lot safer than people think and helicopters a lot more dangerous.
Some time ago I managed to conquer a nasty fear of flying that I had since my youth. But there is no way, at all, ever, that I will be persuaded to get on a helicopter.
Helicopters are un-natural things. If they were invented today, they’d almost certainly have trouble being approved on the basis of too many single points of critical failure, and that’s before we get on to unplanned terrain/vehicle interfaces in poor weather - although to be fair most of those are human-factors related, in what’s a very difficult skill to master.
I was out in the Flatlands on Friday and an Apache* flew over our local National Nature Reserve at extremely low altitude. They flew straight over an area with nesting cranes, which apart from being highly protected are rather large things to hit.
If I'd been doing a drone survey at the time they would have been underneath it (below 100m).
That can't be a terribly safe way to fly...
*cue DuraAce to tell me there is no such thing, but it was definitely a Boeing AH
I find the Osprey absolutely fascinating. it's cool but also seems like the most overengineered thing in the world.
What I'm surprised by is that scaled up four propellor drone designs havent replaced traditional helicopters. I have zero engineering knowledge but it seems like if it works at a small scale it would work on a larger one?
Multicopter style? I think that is likely to be inefficient. Some mad people have built personal ones but I don't think there's been any practical demo. I think you'd need an Octocopter to have a safety margin as a single failure in a Quad would not be good.
I don't think the Osprey has a terribly good safety record although it does look exciting. I don't think I'd want to get in one!
The interesting thing about it to me is payload delivery, i.e. we know the little four blade multi-copter drones are good at picking up boxes and moving them from A to B, hence the airware "amazon delivery drone" hype.
The idea that you could move, say, a small shipping container from A to B suggests potential multi configuration usage. But I'm guessing the weight/payload doesn't check out.
But other than autonomous moving from A to B, it's a way of divorcing the engine from the payload, so you could have the drone 'lift' a box containing cargo one day, another box configured as a luxury lounge that seats four the next, for example.
Archer and Joby are developing such things. As they're also battery powered, range will be very limited compared to military helicopters.
The ability to airlift any materiel quickly in a short range sounds like a useful thing in 21st century warfare. Good to know it's being worked on (I'm obviously not the first person to have had this random shower thought, but I was expecting the PB brains trust to point out it doesn't work due to weight/payload etc).
I guess from a military perspective the question is how much of a sitting duck is said omnicopter. Which is why I was interested in potential civilian uses.
They're being evaluated by the US military, but it will probably need something along these lines to make them seriously useful.
It's a funny one, we belt and braces everything in peacetime, but in wartime it's a question of getting product to market as quickly as possible from a minimum viable product perspective. Hence why 50 years of rockets were based on the V2, etc.
Drone warfare has evolved at a lightning pace during the Ukraine war, A six hundred quid cardboard jobbie can strike an oil refinery deep into Russian territory. And if it fails, well, it's six hundred quid.
Since it seems like such an obvious idea, the lack of "giant omnicopters that can lift a tank or a cargo container" based on the same principles as the little drones suggest they're either a) hard to make work or b) not as useful as they sound
One of the drones that is starting to appear more often in videos over the last couple of months are ground drones packed with explosives. Advantages seem to be that they can carry more explosive, and they're harder to see coming. But they're much slower and have a shorter range than a drone in the air.
This cardboard number costs a couple of grand, and even if it's only effective 10% of the time, it's still an order of magnitude cheaper than a single missile that hits every time, costing 100k. Then imagine a missile that costs 1m, etc.
I'm the most non-expert non-expert to be passing any kind of commentary on this, but I do find the subject fascinating.
I also wonder how much of the UK's defence budget is devoted to tactics and equipment designed for a previous era's war.
I’m not saying it IS Israel. I’m merely asking the question, in a mildly provocative way
Given that Iran recently rained down a thousand missiles on Israel, it’s not stretching credulity to claim that the Israelis might have taken stealthy revenge
Doing it against a chopper in the fog and the rain gives them plausible deniability as well. So it’s doubly clever. If it’s them. Which it might not be. But it might be. Etc etc etc
Clowns In Amerigo Kate Mossad Inside Job Whatever NKVD go by now A big mountain getting in the way Pilot being a massive spanner
Take your pick or spin the wheel
Cui bono? Its not obvious
So this feels more like emotional revenge - if it’s not a simple accident - which then points to Israel or the Iranian “resistance”
For them the act itself is the benefit. A satisfying act of vengeance served cold in the fog
Well, an interesting aspect of this is that 3 WellyCopters took off and 2 made it home, the one that didnt just happened to be the one carrying the Iranian President whom they couldn't locate the site of for 12 and more hours in the same week someone tried to assassinate the Slovak president and on the same day that the first American military C17 landed in Azerbeijan in a year shortly after the Iranians left. Random Chance is a funny old thing
Yes, as you know I’m not prone to excitability or conspiracy theories but this makes me go HMMM
Edit to add: if I was high up in Mossad (spoiler: I’m not) I would absolutely do this. And if I was Bibi I’d absolutely approve
Israel was not allowed to carpet bomb Iran after the Iranian missile attack. The Americans said Nyet
But this is the next best thing. Take out two top leaders. That’s arguably an even better deterrent (especially when done in rain and fog so an accident is plausible). This says to any future Iranian leaders - “go ahead, bomb Jerusalem, but you’ll personally be dead in a month”
Very clever. And probably highly effective
Accident.
You were 90% wet market zoonosis until about a week ago. You’re not known for your imaginative and extrapolative capacities. And fair enough. Who wants a vivid imagination and rapid fire almost-psychotic extrapolating in an accountant? You want the opposite. No imagination at all and the narrowest of minds
Happily, the world has room for us both; indeed the world needs us both
Yes, you bring the flights of fancy, I'll bring the judgement and logic. It works.
This is, in essence, one of the unique strengths of this site. Not only do the interesting stories get flagged here first, they then get rigorously checked by a sceptical audience. Any story has to be pretty robust to withstand that.
Yep. Things get hoisted up the flagpole and are then poo-poo'd upon. Only if they survive this do they get to fly. Some do more hoisting than poo-poo'ing, whereas with others it's the opposite, but this doesn't matter, the collective is what counts, the balance of hoisting and poo-poo'ing. Leon makes this point too (although spoils it slightly with his attempt to insult, which I'm too mature to react to).
Leon is nevertheless such an exemplar of sh*t thinking and such a magnet for sh*t theories that you won't go far wrong discounting anything as soon as he backs it.
And yet somehow I get paid for this shit thinking - and you don’t get paid for your sensational insights, you just shout into the void somewhere near Ventnor
The long delayed contaminated blood enquiry just dumped (quite rightly) a huge compensation liability on government. And incidentally utterly trashed Ken Clarke's reputation.
"The scandal that caused thousands of people in the UK to become infected or die from contaminated blood was avoidable and inflamed by a “subtle, pervasive and chilling” cover-up by the NHS and government, a scathing report has concluded...
Keep clapping everyone. Envy of the world.
The contaminated blood products were American, so not exactly an endorsement of private medicine either...
The domestic blood donations taken via the NHS were I understand properly screened and safe.
Not entirely true. It was not possible to test for the Hep C or HIV in the Seventies as the viruses were not described, though a much lower risk donor population.
Most countries haemophilia populations were decimated by the contaminated American blood, and while some countries handled the liability issue much better.
We actually ran unapproved clinical trials, without consent or even subsequent notification, on patients to see how many more the US product would kill. That only came out this month in the enquiry.
Every government since the mid 80s has known about, and covered up the extent of the scandal. And the enquiry was set up in 2017.
So does Theresa May deserve credit for setting up the enquiry in the first place to bring this to a head ?
Given how long it's taken, one might see that as a further delaying tactic.
The long delayed contaminated blood enquiry just dumped (quite rightly) a huge compensation liability on government. And incidentally utterly trashed Ken Clarke's reputation.
"The scandal that caused thousands of people in the UK to become infected or die from contaminated blood was avoidable and inflamed by a “subtle, pervasive and chilling” cover-up by the NHS and government, a scathing report has concluded...
Keep clapping everyone. Envy of the world.
The contaminated blood products were American, so not exactly an endorsement of private medicine either...
The domestic blood donations taken via the NHS were I understand properly screened and safe.
Not entirely true. It was not possible to test for the Hep C or HIV in the Seventies as the viruses were not described, though a much lower risk donor population.
Most countries haemophilia populations were decimated by the contaminated American blood, and while some countries handled the liability issue much better.
We actually ran unapproved clinical trials, without consent or even subsequent notification, on patients to see how many more the US product would kill. That only came out this month in the enquiry.
Every government since the mid 80s has known about, and covered up the extent of the scandal. And the enquiry was set up in 2017.
So does Theresa May deserve credit for setting up the enquiry in the first place to bring this to a head ?
I don't understand why helicopters fly anywhere near fog.
Helicopters don't seem the safety of travel methods. Anything goes wrong, you are brown bread. Colin McRae, Kobe Bryant, the Leicester owners, Matthew Harding....
My former Aer Lingus mechanic father-in-law always says that planes are a lot safer than people think and helicopters a lot more dangerous.
Some time ago I managed to conquer a nasty fear of flying that I had since my youth. But there is no way, at all, ever, that I will be persuaded to get on a helicopter.
Helicopters are un-natural things. If they were invented today, they’d almost certainly have trouble being approved on the basis of too many single points of critical failure, and that’s before we get on to unplanned terrain/vehicle interfaces in poor weather - although to be fair most of those are human-factors related, in what’s a very difficult skill to master.
I was out in the Flatlands on Friday and an Apache* flew over our local National Nature Reserve at extremely low altitude. They flew straight over an area with nesting cranes, which apart from being highly protected are rather large things to hit.
If I'd been doing a drone survey at the time they would have been underneath it (below 100m).
That can't be a terribly safe way to fly...
*cue DuraAce to tell me there is no such thing, but it was definitely a Boeing AH
I find the Osprey absolutely fascinating. it's cool but also seems like the most overengineered thing in the world.
What I'm surprised by is that scaled up four propellor drone designs havent replaced traditional helicopters. I have zero engineering knowledge but it seems like if it works at a small scale it would work on a larger one?
Multicopter style? I think that is likely to be inefficient. Some mad people have built personal ones but I don't think there's been any practical demo. I think you'd need an Octocopter to have a safety margin as a single failure in a Quad would not be good.
I don't think the Osprey has a terribly good safety record although it does look exciting. I don't think I'd want to get in one!
The interesting thing about it to me is payload delivery, i.e. we know the little four blade multi-copter drones are good at picking up boxes and moving them from A to B, hence the airware "amazon delivery drone" hype.
The idea that you could move, say, a small shipping container from A to B suggests potential multi configuration usage. But I'm guessing the weight/payload doesn't check out.
But other than autonomous moving from A to B, it's a way of divorcing the engine from the payload, so you could have the drone 'lift' a box containing cargo one day, another box configured as a luxury lounge that seats four the next, for example.
Archer and Joby are developing such things. As they're also battery powered, range will be very limited compared to military helicopters.
The ability to airlift any materiel quickly in a short range sounds like a useful thing in 21st century warfare. Good to know it's being worked on (I'm obviously not the first person to have had this random shower thought, but I was expecting the PB brains trust to point out it doesn't work due to weight/payload etc).
I guess from a military perspective the question is how much of a sitting duck is said omnicopter. Which is why I was interested in potential civilian uses.
They're being evaluated by the US military, but it will probably need something along these lines to make them seriously useful.
It's a funny one, we belt and braces everything in peacetime, but in wartime it's a question of getting product to market as quickly as possible from a minimum viable product perspective. Hence why 50 years of rockets were based on the V2, etc.
Drone warfare has evolved at a lightning pace during the Ukraine war, A six hundred quid cardboard jobbie can strike an oil refinery deep into Russian territory. And if it fails, well, it's six hundred quid.
Since it seems like such an obvious idea, the lack of "giant omnicopters that can lift a tank or a cargo container" based on the same principles as the little drones suggest they're either a) hard to make work or b) not as useful as they sound
One of the drones that is starting to appear more often in videos over the last couple of months are ground drones packed with explosives. Advantages seem to be that they can carry more explosive, and they're harder to see coming. But they're much slower and have a shorter range than a drone in the air.
This cardboard number costs a couple of grand, and even if it's only effective 10% of the time, it's still an order of magnitude cheaper than a single missile that hits every time, costing 100k. Then imagine a missile that costs 1m, etc.
I'm the most non-expert non-expert to be passing any kind of commentary on this, but I do find the subject fascinating.
I also wonder how much of the UK's defence budget is devoted to tactics and equipment designed for a previous era's war.
The long delayed contaminated blood enquiry just dumped (quite rightly) a huge compensation liability on government. And incidentally utterly trashed Ken Clarke's reputation.
"The scandal that caused thousands of people in the UK to become infected or die from contaminated blood was avoidable and inflamed by a “subtle, pervasive and chilling” cover-up by the NHS and government, a scathing report has concluded...
Keep clapping everyone. Envy of the world.
The contaminated blood products were American, so not exactly an endorsement of private medicine either...
The domestic blood donations taken via the NHS were I understand properly screened and safe.
Not entirely true. It was not possible to test for the Hep C or HIV in the Seventies as the viruses were not described, though a much lower risk donor population.
Most countries haemophilia populations were decimated by the contaminated American blood, and while some countries handled the liability issue much better.
We actually ran unapproved clinical trials, without consent or even subsequent notification, on patients to see how many more the US product would kill...
I don't understand why helicopters fly anywhere near fog.
Helicopters don't seem the safety of travel methods. Anything goes wrong, you are brown bread. Colin McRae, Kobe Bryant, the Leicester owners, Matthew Harding....
My former Aer Lingus mechanic father-in-law always says that planes are a lot safer than people think and helicopters a lot more dangerous.
Some time ago I managed to conquer a nasty fear of flying that I had since my youth. But there is no way, at all, ever, that I will be persuaded to get on a helicopter.
I have a fear of heights but not flying. I am drawn to the edge of cliffs. I can't look up at a high sheer cliffs or buildings or being in a boat under a dam. I can't walk out onto a tower if it is open at the top, even with a wall or railings in front of me.
However if I am enclosed I am fine. I have flown gliders many times, I have been in a Pitts Special doing aerobatics. I have now been in the front seat of a helicopter with glass beside me, above me and below me (and in front of course). I have also been involved in both an aborted take off and an emergency landing on commercial flights. None of that phased me, but at the Grand Canyon a sheer cliff I was looking at, but not standing on, so couldn't fall off of, gave me the collywobbles.
The human brain (well mine anyway) is weird.
I'm similar. I suppose being enclosed, even if just by glass, protects you from falling. So perhaps it's more accurate to say fear of falling rather than fear of heights? Being scared to look up is a bit odd.
I don't think it's fear of falling it's the thought, when you're close to the edge of a big drop, or eg to a railway platform with a train coming, that you could just take one step and boom, it's over. The fact you don't want to, and therefore won't, doesn't stop the feeling. The point is you could - just like that, you could. It's a 'terror of free will' thing. It creates fear and nausea, with a touch of exhilaration thrown in. That's the route of my fear of heights anyway, and it's why it disappears if I'm enclosed. Eg the lifts at La Defence in Paris, miles up, glass floor you can look down through, I was not scared at all. Liked it actually. But standing next to a cliff edge, even a yard or so away, can't do it.
I hate building edges and I'm not terribly keen on sea cliff edges either.
But I've walked / climbed on extremely thin ridges, including some snow ridges in the Alps, and that was fine.
I think it helps when you've got some movement or activity to concentrate on. Just standing there you've got nothing else to think about.
Yes, that makes sense. Eg when I was younger, despite having a fear of heights in the way described, I was well-known for climbing things (hence my nickname of Chimp). Trees, telegraph poles, in and out of windows in buildings, scaling from one room to another via the ledge etc etc, I was always at it. I don't do this now but that's mainly due to the physical limitations of age (I'm 63) not to being scared.
I dislike heights as well. I’m sure part of it is for the reasons you eloquently adduce, tho Freud wouid say we all have a death urge - Thanatos - which is at war with the life urge - Eros. And looking at human history I would say Freud is onto something. We are drawn to darkness and death
If you want to terrify the vertigo shit out of yourself I recommend the Iron Age fort - dun aonghasa - on the cliff on inis mor - an island off the west coast of Eire
Omg. Completely sheer. The only way I could look over without soiling myself was by lying face flat on the rock then slowly pulling myself to the edge and peering over. Even then I was horrified
I didn’t feel that ridiculous, however: because every one else was doing exactly the same. Properly scary
I don't understand why helicopters fly anywhere near fog.
Helicopters don't seem the safety of travel methods. Anything goes wrong, you are brown bread. Colin McRae, Kobe Bryant, the Leicester owners, Matthew Harding....
My former Aer Lingus mechanic father-in-law always says that planes are a lot safer than people think and helicopters a lot more dangerous.
Some time ago I managed to conquer a nasty fear of flying that I had since my youth. But there is no way, at all, ever, that I will be persuaded to get on a helicopter.
I have a fear of heights but not flying. I am drawn to the edge of cliffs. I can't look up at a high sheer cliffs or buildings or being in a boat under a dam. I can't walk out onto a tower if it is open at the top, even with a wall or railings in front of me.
However if I am enclosed I am fine. I have flown gliders many times, I have been in a Pitts Special doing aerobatics. I have now been in the front seat of a helicopter with glass beside me, above me and below me (and in front of course). I have also been involved in both an aborted take off and an emergency landing on commercial flights. None of that phased me, but at the Grand Canyon a sheer cliff I was looking at, but not standing on, so couldn't fall off of, gave me the collywobbles.
The human brain (well mine anyway) is weird.
I'm similar. I suppose being enclosed, even if just by glass, protects you from falling. So perhaps it's more accurate to say fear of falling rather than fear of heights? Being scared to look up is a bit odd.
I don't think it's fear of falling it's the thought, when you're close to the edge of a big drop, or eg to a railway platform with a train coming, that you could just take one step and boom, it's over. The fact you don't want to, and therefore won't, doesn't stop the feeling. The point is you could - just like that, you could. It's a 'terror of free will' thing. It creates fear and nausea, with a touch of exhilaration thrown in. That's the route of my fear of heights anyway, and it's why it disappears if I'm enclosed. Eg the lifts at La Defence in Paris, miles up, glass floor you can look down through, I was not scared at all. Liked it actually. But standing next to a cliff edge, even a yard or so away, can't do it.
I hate building edges and I'm not terribly keen on sea cliff edges either.
But I've walked / climbed on extremely thin ridges, including some snow ridges in the Alps, and that was fine.
I think it helps when you've got some movement or activity to concentrate on. Just standing there you've got nothing else to think about.
Yes, that makes sense. Eg when I was younger, despite having a fear of heights in the way described, I was well-known for climbing things (hence my nickname of Chimp). Trees, telegraph poles, in and out of windows in buildings, scaling from one room to another via the ledge etc etc, I was always at it. I don't do this now but that's mainly due to the physical limitations of age (I'm 63) not to being scared.
I dislike heights as well. I’m sure part of it is for the reasons you eloquently adduce, tho Freud wouid say we all have a death urge - Thanatos - which is at war with the life urge - Eros. And looking at human history I would say Freud is onto something. We are drawn to darkness and death
If you want to terrify the vertigo shit out of yourself I recommend the Iron Age fort - dun aonghasa - on the cliff on inis mor - an island off the west coast of Eire
Omg. Completely sheer. The only way I could look over without soiling myself was by lying face flat on the rock then slowly pulling myself to the edge and peering over. Even then I was horrified
I didn’t feel that ridiculous, however: because every one else was doing exactly the same. Properly scary
I’m not saying it IS Israel. I’m merely asking the question, in a mildly provocative way
Given that Iran recently rained down a thousand missiles on Israel, it’s not stretching credulity to claim that the Israelis might have taken stealthy revenge
Doing it against a chopper in the fog and the rain gives them plausible deniability as well. So it’s doubly clever. If it’s them. Which it might not be. But it might be. Etc etc etc
Clowns In Amerigo Kate Mossad Inside Job Whatever NKVD go by now A big mountain getting in the way Pilot being a massive spanner
Take your pick or spin the wheel
Cui bono? Its not obvious
So this feels more like emotional revenge - if it’s not a simple accident - which then points to Israel or the Iranian “resistance”
For them the act itself is the benefit. A satisfying act of vengeance served cold in the fog
Well, an interesting aspect of this is that 3 WellyCopters took off and 2 made it home, the one that didnt just happened to be the one carrying the Iranian President whom they couldn't locate the site of for 12 and more hours in the same week someone tried to assassinate the Slovak president and on the same day that the first American military C17 landed in Azerbeijan in a year shortly after the Iranians left. Random Chance is a funny old thing
Yes, as you know I’m not prone to excitability or conspiracy theories but this makes me go HMMM
Edit to add: if I was high up in Mossad (spoiler: I’m not) I would absolutely do this. And if I was Bibi I’d absolutely approve
Israel was not allowed to carpet bomb Iran after the Iranian missile attack. The Americans said Nyet
But this is the next best thing. Take out two top leaders. That’s arguably an even better deterrent (especially when done in rain and fog so an accident is plausible). This says to any future Iranian leaders - “go ahead, bomb Jerusalem, but you’ll personally be dead in a month”
Very clever. And probably highly effective
Accident.
You were 90% wet market zoonosis until about a week ago. You’re not known for your imaginative and extrapolative capacities. And fair enough. Who wants a vivid imagination and rapid fire almost-psychotic extrapolating in an accountant? You want the opposite. No imagination at all and the narrowest of minds
Happily, the world has room for us both; indeed the world needs us both
Yes, you bring the flights of fancy, I'll bring the judgement and logic. It works.
This is, in essence, one of the unique strengths of this site. Not only do the interesting stories get flagged here first, they then get rigorously checked by a sceptical audience. Any story has to be pretty robust to withstand that.
Yep. Things get hoisted up the flagpole and are then poo-poo'd upon. Only if they survive this do they get to fly. Some do more hoisting than poo-poo'ing, whereas with others it's the opposite, but this doesn't matter, the collective is what counts, the balance of hoisting and poo-poo'ing. Leon makes this point too (although spoils it slightly with his attempt to insult, which I'm too mature to react to).
Leon is nevertheless such an exemplar of sh*t thinking and such a magnet for sh*t theories that you won't go far wrong discounting anything as soon as he backs it.
And yet somehow I get paid for this shit thinking - and you don’t get paid for your sensational insights, you just shout into the void somewhere near Ventnor
The world is indeed cruel
Hmmm not sure of the logic there Leon. Firstly you are a very good writer, secondly people like reading sensationalism. People don't like reading boring accurate stuff.
So just because you write stuff that people like reading does not mean it is accurate. So both you and @IanB2 can both be right in the conclusions you both come to. They aren't contradictions.
In summary it is not impossible nor unlikely that people get paid for having shit thinking and shit theories that should be discounted provided they are good writers and the ideas are sensational enough. I do appreciate this criticism does not apply to you though.
A polling anomaly tidbit. Deltapoll continually seem to find 1% support for UKIP. I believe they are the only pollster that still prompts for them. They have declared candidates in 3 seats. If they get 1% I'll eat my other hat.
I’m not saying it IS Israel. I’m merely asking the question, in a mildly provocative way
Given that Iran recently rained down a thousand missiles on Israel, it’s not stretching credulity to claim that the Israelis might have taken stealthy revenge
Doing it against a chopper in the fog and the rain gives them plausible deniability as well. So it’s doubly clever. If it’s them. Which it might not be. But it might be. Etc etc etc
Clowns In Amerigo Kate Mossad Inside Job Whatever NKVD go by now A big mountain getting in the way Pilot being a massive spanner
Take your pick or spin the wheel
Cui bono? Its not obvious
So this feels more like emotional revenge - if it’s not a simple accident - which then points to Israel or the Iranian “resistance”
For them the act itself is the benefit. A satisfying act of vengeance served cold in the fog
Well, an interesting aspect of this is that 3 WellyCopters took off and 2 made it home, the one that didnt just happened to be the one carrying the Iranian President whom they couldn't locate the site of for 12 and more hours in the same week someone tried to assassinate the Slovak president and on the same day that the first American military C17 landed in Azerbeijan in a year shortly after the Iranians left. Random Chance is a funny old thing
Yes, as you know I’m not prone to excitability or conspiracy theories but this makes me go HMMM
Edit to add: if I was high up in Mossad (spoiler: I’m not) I would absolutely do this. And if I was Bibi I’d absolutely approve
Israel was not allowed to carpet bomb Iran after the Iranian missile attack. The Americans said Nyet
But this is the next best thing. Take out two top leaders. That’s arguably an even better deterrent (especially when done in rain and fog so an accident is plausible). This says to any future Iranian leaders - “go ahead, bomb Jerusalem, but you’ll personally be dead in a month”
Very clever. And probably highly effective
Accident.
You were 90% wet market zoonosis until about a week ago. You’re not known for your imaginative and extrapolative capacities. And fair enough. Who wants a vivid imagination and rapid fire almost-psychotic extrapolating in an accountant? You want the opposite. No imagination at all and the narrowest of minds
Happily, the world has room for us both; indeed the world needs us both
Yes, you bring the flights of fancy, I'll bring the judgement and logic. It works.
This is, in essence, one of the unique strengths of this site. Not only do the interesting stories get flagged here first, they then get rigorously checked by a sceptical audience. Any story has to be pretty robust to withstand that.
Yep. Things get hoisted up the flagpole and are then poo-poo'd upon. Only if they survive this do they get to fly. Some do more hoisting than poo-poo'ing, whereas with others it's the opposite, but this doesn't matter, the collective is what counts, the balance of hoisting and poo-poo'ing. Leon makes this point too (although spoils it slightly with his attempt to insult, which I'm too mature to react to).
Leon is nevertheless such an exemplar of sh*t thinking and such a magnet for sh*t theories that you won't go far wrong discounting anything as soon as he backs it.
And yet somehow I get paid for this shit thinking - and you don’t get paid for your sensational insights, you just shout into the void somewhere near Ventnor
The world is indeed cruel
Hmmm not sure of the logic there Leon. Firstly you are a very good writer, secondly people like reading sensationalism. People don't like reading boring accurate stuff.
So just because you write stuff that people like reading does not mean it is accurate. So both you and @IanB2 can both be right in the conclusions you both come to. They aren't contradictions.
In summary it is not impossible nor unlikely that people get paid for having shit thinking and shit theories that should be discounted provided they are good writers and the ideas are sensational enough. I do appreciate this criticism does not apply to you though.
All those making a good living via substack says otherwise.
🚨New Voting Intention🚨 Labour lead widens to twenty-two points in our latest results. Con 23% (-4) Lab 45% (-) Lib Dem 10% (+2) Reform 12% (+2) SNP 3% (+1) Green 5% (-1) Other 3% (+1) Fieldwork: 17th-20th May 2024 Sample: 1,968 GB adults (Changes from 10th-13th May 2024)
Deltasplat with deltapoll
That's another polling company joining the 20+ lead group.
They've been there a few times, Deltapoll are a little more volatile than most. This one is higher end Labour, lower end/bottom Tory this year. The running averages recently are probably 44, 25 (maybe 26) for LabCon and tend to run couple points either side from there. If next weeks Delta is similar it might indicate movement. Tories are off 4, but 27 was equal their highest since a 29 in January, interestingly Labour hold a recent high of 45 (theyve had 46 and 48 earlier this year). Also has Reform bouncing back which is probably noise and not yet seen elsewhere. Tory 23 has been recorded several times with DP but they've not (yet) been below it, even with Truss. Tories creaking, definitely!
What can be said with certainty is that there have not been any signs of swingback yet.
Even week and month that passes without swingback starting is a lost opportunity for the Tories and a win for Labour.
It contrasts strongly with the 2015 election chart where significant Labour leads mid-term were gradually eroded and close to a dead heat by this point in the election cycle.
I don't understand why helicopters fly anywhere near fog.
Helicopters don't seem the safety of travel methods. Anything goes wrong, you are brown bread. Colin McRae, Kobe Bryant, the Leicester owners, Matthew Harding....
My former Aer Lingus mechanic father-in-law always says that planes are a lot safer than people think and helicopters a lot more dangerous.
Some time ago I managed to conquer a nasty fear of flying that I had since my youth. But there is no way, at all, ever, that I will be persuaded to get on a helicopter.
Helicopters are un-natural things. If they were invented today, they’d almost certainly have trouble being approved on the basis of too many single points of critical failure, and that’s before we get on to unplanned terrain/vehicle interfaces in poor weather - although to be fair most of those are human-factors related, in what’s a very difficult skill to master.
I was out in the Flatlands on Friday and an Apache* flew over our local National Nature Reserve at extremely low altitude. They flew straight over an area with nesting cranes, which apart from being highly protected are rather large things to hit.
If I'd been doing a drone survey at the time they would have been underneath it (below 100m).
That can't be a terribly safe way to fly...
*cue DuraAce to tell me there is no such thing, but it was definitely a Boeing AH
I find the Osprey absolutely fascinating. it's cool but also seems like the most overengineered thing in the world.
What I'm surprised by is that scaled up four propellor drone designs havent replaced traditional helicopters. I have zero engineering knowledge but it seems like if it works at a small scale it would work on a larger one?
Multicopter style? I think that is likely to be inefficient. Some mad people have built personal ones but I don't think there's been any practical demo. I think you'd need an Octocopter to have a safety margin as a single failure in a Quad would not be good.
I don't think the Osprey has a terribly good safety record although it does look exciting. I don't think I'd want to get in one!
The interesting thing about it to me is payload delivery, i.e. we know the little four blade multi-copter drones are good at picking up boxes and moving them from A to B, hence the airware "amazon delivery drone" hype.
The idea that you could move, say, a small shipping container from A to B suggests potential multi configuration usage. But I'm guessing the weight/payload doesn't check out.
But other than autonomous moving from A to B, it's a way of divorcing the engine from the payload, so you could have the drone 'lift' a box containing cargo one day, another box configured as a luxury lounge that seats four the next, for example.
Archer and Joby are developing such things. As they're also battery powered, range will be very limited compared to military helicopters.
The ability to airlift any materiel quickly in a short range sounds like a useful thing in 21st century warfare. Good to know it's being worked on (I'm obviously not the first person to have had this random shower thought, but I was expecting the PB brains trust to point out it doesn't work due to weight/payload etc).
I guess from a military perspective the question is how much of a sitting duck is said omnicopter. Which is why I was interested in potential civilian uses.
They're being evaluated by the US military, but it will probably need something along these lines to make them seriously useful.
It's a funny one, we belt and braces everything in peacetime, but in wartime it's a question of getting product to market as quickly as possible from a minimum viable product perspective. Hence why 50 years of rockets were based on the V2, etc.
Drone warfare has evolved at a lightning pace during the Ukraine war, A six hundred quid cardboard jobbie can strike an oil refinery deep into Russian territory. And if it fails, well, it's six hundred quid.
Since it seems like such an obvious idea, the lack of "giant omnicopters that can lift a tank or a cargo container" based on the same principles as the little drones suggest they're either a) hard to make work or b) not as useful as they sound
One of the drones that is starting to appear more often in videos over the last couple of months are ground drones packed with explosives. Advantages seem to be that they can carry more explosive, and they're harder to see coming. But they're much slower and have a shorter range than a drone in the air.
This cardboard number costs a couple of grand, and even if it's only effective 10% of the time, it's still an order of magnitude cheaper than a single missile that hits every time, costing 100k. Then imagine a missile that costs 1m, etc.
I'm the most non-expert non-expert to be passing any kind of commentary on this, but I do find the subject fascinating.
I also wonder how much of the UK's defence budget is devoted to tactics and equipment designed for a previous era's war.
We don't hear much about the Bayraktar TB2 any more. I think a sustained war between peer adversaries is always going to make most of the kit you have at the start of the war look obsolete.
I think it's a hard thing to know what you should equip yourself with during relative peacetime. The last war is always going to be the most recent piece of solid evidence on what works in practice.
The long delayed contaminated blood enquiry just dumped (quite rightly) a huge compensation liability on government. And incidentally utterly trashed Ken Clarke's reputation.
"The scandal that caused thousands of people in the UK to become infected or die from contaminated blood was avoidable and inflamed by a “subtle, pervasive and chilling” cover-up by the NHS and government, a scathing report has concluded...
Keep clapping everyone. Envy of the world.
The contaminated blood products were American, so not exactly an endorsement of private medicine either...
The domestic blood donations taken via the NHS were I understand properly screened and safe.
Not entirely true. It was not possible to test for the Hep C or HIV in the Seventies as the viruses were not described, though a much lower risk donor population.
Most countries haemophilia populations were decimated by the contaminated American blood, and while some countries handled the liability issue much better.
We actually ran unapproved clinical trials, without consent or even subsequent notification, on patients to see how many more the US product would kill. That only came out this month in the enquiry.
Every government since the mid 80s has known about, and covered up the extent of the scandal. And the enquiry was set up in 2017.
This is the really horrendous bit for me.
AIUI, many of those affected had a type of haemophilia which was previously untreatable, and which probably would have killed them sooner than the infections received by the contaminated blood.
But there were others with less-severe forms of haemophilia, who would likely have been fine without treatment. They were seen as being particularly valuable for these unapproved trials as they had "virgin blood" (ie. had not previously been treated).
So they were treated unnecessarily, and weren't provided with enough information to have been able to give properly informed consent.
And at no point did any with authority admit that that had happened.
The problem with that is the one I get continually - there is no point going into an office unless everyone is there because if I’m doing team / zoom calls I would be better off at home where the equipment and coffee is better and I get 2 more hours (the time I’m not traveling) to do what I want
I don't understand why helicopters fly anywhere near fog.
Helicopters don't seem the safety of travel methods. Anything goes wrong, you are brown bread. Colin McRae, Kobe Bryant, the Leicester owners, Matthew Harding....
My former Aer Lingus mechanic father-in-law always says that planes are a lot safer than people think and helicopters a lot more dangerous.
Some time ago I managed to conquer a nasty fear of flying that I had since my youth. But there is no way, at all, ever, that I will be persuaded to get on a helicopter.
I have a fear of heights but not flying. I am drawn to the edge of cliffs. I can't look up at a high sheer cliffs or buildings or being in a boat under a dam. I can't walk out onto a tower if it is open at the top, even with a wall or railings in front of me.
However if I am enclosed I am fine. I have flown gliders many times, I have been in a Pitts Special doing aerobatics. I have now been in the front seat of a helicopter with glass beside me, above me and below me (and in front of course). I have also been involved in both an aborted take off and an emergency landing on commercial flights. None of that phased me, but at the Grand Canyon a sheer cliff I was looking at, but not standing on, so couldn't fall off of, gave me the collywobbles.
The human brain (well mine anyway) is weird.
I'm similar. I suppose being enclosed, even if just by glass, protects you from falling. So perhaps it's more accurate to say fear of falling rather than fear of heights? Being scared to look up is a bit odd.
I don't think it's fear of falling it's the thought, when you're close to the edge of a big drop, or eg to a railway platform with a train coming, that you could just take one step and boom, it's over. The fact you don't want to, and therefore won't, doesn't stop the feeling. The point is you could - just like that, you could. It's a 'terror of free will' thing. It creates fear and nausea, with a touch of exhilaration thrown in. That's the route of my fear of heights anyway, and it's why it disappears if I'm enclosed. Eg the lifts at La Defence in Paris, miles up, glass floor you can look down through, I was not scared at all. Liked it actually. But standing next to a cliff edge, even a yard or so away, can't do it.
I hate building edges and I'm not terribly keen on sea cliff edges either.
But I've walked / climbed on extremely thin ridges, including some snow ridges in the Alps, and that was fine.
I think it helps when you've got some movement or activity to concentrate on. Just standing there you've got nothing else to think about.
Yes, that makes sense. Eg when I was younger, despite having a fear of heights in the way described, I was well-known for climbing things (hence my nickname of Chimp). Trees, telegraph poles, in and out of windows in buildings, scaling from one room to another via the ledge etc etc, I was always at it. I don't do this now but that's mainly due to the physical limitations of age (I'm 63) not to being scared.
I dislike heights as well. I’m sure part of it is for the reasons you eloquently adduce, tho Freud wouid say we all have a death urge - Thanatos - which is at war with the life urge - Eros. And looking at human history I would say Freud is onto something. We are drawn to darkness and death
If you want to terrify the vertigo shit out of yourself I recommend the Iron Age fort - dun aonghasa - on the cliff on inis mor - an island off the west coast of Eire
Omg. Completely sheer. The only way I could look over without soiling myself was by lying face flat on the rock then slowly pulling myself to the edge and peering over. Even then I was horrified
I didn’t feel that ridiculous, however: because every one else was doing exactly the same. Properly scary
Inis mor is also one of only two places I’ve heard Irish Gaelic spoken naturally between people
That's got me all of a gibber just thinking about it.
I went up the Strat in Las Vegas and was ok. I was also ok watching people jump off it on bungees. However the two rides at the top, one going straight up and the other over the edge just make me go weak at the knees just thinking about it. I also couldn't look up at the Strat when close by, but can from a distance. It is only when close to a building I can't look up.
🚨New Voting Intention🚨 Labour lead widens to twenty-two points in our latest results. Con 23% (-4) Lab 45% (-) Lib Dem 10% (+2) Reform 12% (+2) SNP 3% (+1) Green 5% (-1) Other 3% (+1) Fieldwork: 17th-20th May 2024 Sample: 1,968 GB adults (Changes from 10th-13th May 2024)
Deltasplat with deltapoll
That's another polling company joining the 20+ lead group.
They've been there a few times, Deltapoll are a little more volatile than most. This one is higher end Labour, lower end/bottom Tory this year. The running averages recently are probably 44, 25 (maybe 26) for LabCon and tend to run couple points either side from there. If next weeks Delta is similar it might indicate movement. Tories are off 4, but 27 was equal their highest since a 29 in January, interestingly Labour hold a recent high of 45 (theyve had 46 and 48 earlier this year). Also has Reform bouncing back which is probably noise and not yet seen elsewhere. Tory 23 has been recorded several times with DP but they've not (yet) been below it, even with Truss. Tories creaking, definitely!
What can be said with certainty is that there have not been any signs of swingback yet.
Even week and month that passes without swingback starting is a lost opportunity for the Tories and a win for Labour.
It contrasts strongly with the 2015 election chart where significant Labour leads mid-term were gradually eroded and close to a dead heat by this point in the election cycle.
Agreed. My view is that on calling the election we will see a slight closing as I think the DKs that wake up and get interested will tilt Tory (as most 2019 Lab are already in the red column) but the best the Tories can hope for is perhaps 30% and losing by 10 or so, they're likely however to get 26/27 losing by mid teens
The problem with that is the one I get continually - there is no point going into an office unless everyone is there because if I’m doing team / zoom calls I would be better off at home where the equipment and coffee is better and I get 2 more hours (the time I’m not traveling) to do what I want
Its why you can't have hyrbid work where people choose their days.
The problem with that is the one I get continually - there is no point going into an office unless everyone is there because if I’m doing team / zoom calls I would be better off at home where the equipment and coffee is better and I get 2 more hours (the time I’m not traveling) to do what I want
And the only other person there has whooping cough/COVID/consumption and refuses to wear a mask.
Comments
However if I am enclosed I am fine. I have flown gliders many times, I have been in a Pitts Special doing aerobatics. I have now been in the front seat of a helicopter with glass beside me, above me and below me (and in front of course). I have also been involved in both an aborted take off and an emergency landing on commercial flights. None of that phased me, but at the Grand Canyon a sheer cliff I was looking at, but not standing on, so couldn't fall off of, gave me the collywobbles.
The human brain (well mine anyway) is weird.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/live/c9wz0ry1l1vt
Times Radio
@TimesRadio
·
17m
“The real danger is that you’re going to see the emergence of a reform of the left which is Galloway adjacent.”
Corbyn’s re-election would cause further headaches for Starmer within the left-leaning contingent of the Labour Party.
https://x.com/iainmartin1
*The other thing about flying privately is that it sounds nice in theory, but in practice, you don't get access to the duty free (I lived on cheap scotch and cigs for years) nor can you expense six lagers in the airside restaurant while you're waiting for your gate. *One* complimentary bottle of Becks at the Signature lounge in Southampton does not cut it.
Also, will leaders/senior members of signatory countries wish to meet with him any more?
https://x.com/JolyonMaugham/status/1792466209557889317
We have identified forty five separate payments made to Innova by the Department of Health averaging over £100m EACH: a total of more than £4.5 billion paid by us to Innova. The court documents suggest those transactions generated profits of between $750m and $2bn for Innova..
...Innova’s UK agent, Disruptive Nanotechnologies (aka Tried and Tested) is suing Innova for fraud. Robert Kasprzak, Innova’s lawyer, is suing Charles Huang, Innova’s CEO for fraud.
..Kenning Xu, who worked with Charles Huang at Innova, is suing Charles Huang for fraud. Charles Huang is suing Daniel Elliott, Innova’s previous CEO, for fraud...
Disruptive Dom is involved.
The rest of the thread makes interesting reading.
Trump claims he wants to testify at his trial. No one else thinks he should.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/20/trump-testify-hush-money-trial-00158756
Darlington's best areas are to the west. College and Hummersknott are in that direction; Harrowgate Hill is to the north.
College is exactly what you would expect a Green ward to be - slightly bohemian, well-to-do; the nicest bit of inner-urban Darlington.
Hummersknott - one step out from College westwards, more suburban, also quite affluent
Harrowgate Hill is on the outer edge of the Darlington urban area - not unpleasant, but not quite as exalted as the other two wards.
As I recall though, the Innova test was passed by Porton Down... so how did it do that I wonder?
Yesterday I was out and about in Leeds. Plenty of people enjoying the good weather, with venues providing outdoor seating enjoying good trade.
There was a street stall on Briggate and a bunch of folk holding placards and handing out leaflets in support of Israel and against antisemitism. All very calm and orderly.
The police were maintaining a discreet presence just in case some Hamas sympathising "peace activists" happened to turn up. Fortunately no sign of bother while I was there.
If I'd been doing a drone survey at the time they would have been underneath it (below 100m).
That can't be a terribly safe way to fly...
*cue DuraAce to tell me there is no such thing, but it was definitely a Boeing AH
Gordievsky must have made MI6 seem omnipotent in the 70s/early 80s, after the disasters of the 50s and 60s. The fact that US sources didn't know who he was must have played into that psychology, and when you compound that with the embarrassment to the Leningrad KGB caused by his exfiltration (where one Vladimir Putin was an officer)...
But I've walked / climbed on extremely thin ridges, including some snow ridges in the Alps, and that was fine.
I think it helps when you've got some movement or activity to concentrate on. Just standing there you've got nothing else to think about.
What I'm surprised by is that scaled up four propellor drone designs havent replaced traditional helicopters. I have zero engineering knowledge but it seems like if it works at a small scale it would work on a larger one?
Nevertheless being a high ranking Iranian of interest to mossad is also documentably very high risk, and there's ample evidence of mossad penetration of the Iran military and the fact that the aircraft took off from Israel friendly Azerbaijan. So we just don't know.
I don't think the Osprey has a terribly good safety record although it does look exciting. I don't think I'd want to get in one!
I'd get in one, but that's not really saying much because I'd get in anything (except a Qashqai, LOL).
The idea that you could move, say, a small shipping container from A to B suggests potential multi configuration usage. But I'm guessing the weight/payload doesn't check out.
But other than autonomous moving from A to B, it's a way of divorcing the engine from the payload, so you could have the drone 'lift' a box containing cargo one day, another box configured as a luxury lounge that seats four the next, for example.
And incidentally utterly trashed Ken Clarke's reputation.
"The scandal that caused thousands of people in the UK to become infected or die from contaminated blood was avoidable and inflamed by a “subtle, pervasive and chilling” cover-up by the NHS and government, a scathing report has concluded...
I think it was discussed here before but I also have the desire to shout out at silent moments, say in a theatre or a big presentation. Needless to say I have never done it. I think that is the same thing as well. You want to. You won't. But you could which makes it exciting and gives you the fear of free will.
OK that is all my weird stuff out in the open
https://www.wbur.org/endlessthread/2018/06/29/the-call-of-the-void
He will claim that the gag order prevented him from testifying. His supporters have believed less likely things.
It was all hush hush for many years but there is a sustainable (and spreading) local population here and in Norfolk / East Anglia. There's also a reintroduction programme in Somerset now. They are still prone to disturbance so the actual nesting sites (mostly well away from busy areas) aren't advertised but they aren't exactly low profile birds as they make a bit of a racket.
They turned up here naturally in the late 90s, probably from Holland, as per the Norfolk birds.
It is amazing to see them flying around after being extinct in the UK for 400 years.
Mind you, in Sweden you can see many thousands of them gathered together at some sites, so we've a way to go yet.
But what do you mean by you don't 'let it stop you'?
As they're also battery powered, range will be very limited compared to military helicopters.
Harrrowgate Hill is a protest vote because of the opening up of a new estate without suitable road capacity and the announcement of a new 1000+ house green village without any changes. Basically they want the northern relief road built so that A66 traffic going north doesn’t go past them
And yes there is a lot of irony in the Green Party voters wanting a bypass to get the cards away from them - but I fully get their point of view I wouldn’t want to live there given the amount of through traffic they get
6 from Con. 1 from Lab.
So that fits - Darlington's answer to ... ish ... Crouch End and West Hampstead?
I guess from a military perspective the question is how much of a sitting duck is said omnicopter. Which is why I was interested in potential civilian uses.
Apparently the gun points wherever the (pilot/gunner/whoever) is looking...
Labour lead widens to twenty-two points in our latest results.
Con 23% (-4)
Lab 45% (-)
Lib Dem 10% (+2)
Reform 12% (+2)
SNP 3% (+1)
Green 5% (-1)
Other 3% (+1)
Fieldwork: 17th-20th May 2024
Sample: 1,968 GB adults
(Changes from 10th-13th May 2024)
Deltasplat with deltapoll
He is a good an insightful speaker on the organisational side, whether you agree with his ideas or not.
I'll post later with a comment.
Small consumer drones rely on having very low rotational energy in the propellers so that their speed can be adjusted quickly by the controller in response to attitude changes.
Once you start putting a lot of weight on them that becomes more difficult.
Maybe you just need lots and lots of props to keep the force on each individual one low?
You can get away with it on a light uncrewed drone, but as soon as you want to carry around people and cargo it gets to be more difficult. But it may be a surmountable difficulty.
Without private medicine there would be no NHS.
Without private medicing you wouldn't have Wegovy and Ozempic, for example.
It is high time we stopped regarding the NHS with such reverence in this country and saw it warts and all. It is not perfect, it has faults. These need addressing and challenging.
I didn't hear the helicopter, but the crash was horrendous - three big echoing BANGs, followed by car horns and shouting, with sirens of the arriving emergency services a couple of minutes later. At the time, I assumed that someone had been shot but I suspect the separate bangs were actually from the rotors hitting the ground.
I walked up to Vauxhall about half an hour later on my way to work, and everything down towards Wandsworth / Battersea was still in the process of being sealed off. No-one seemed to know what had happened at that point, and it was only mid-morning that people started talking about a helicopter crash.
Truly terrifying. I'll certainly not be volunteering to go on any helicopter flights any time soon...
https://www.jobyaviation.com/news/joby-widens-usaf-partnership-will-deliver-two-evtol-aircraft-macdill-afb/
but it will probably need something along these lines to make them seriously useful.
Rolls-Royce small turbine for hybrid-electric aircraft begins tests
https://flyer.co.uk/rolls-royce-small-turbine-for-hybrid-electric-aircraft-begins-tests/
Most countries haemophilia populations were decimated by the contaminated American blood, and while some countries handled the liability issue much better.
https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/uk/66315/infected-blood-inquiry-scandal-culpability#:~:text=Over a decade, the global,infected, 719 are still alive.
Tories creaking, definitely!
Or to relate to an urban area I know rather better:
College = Chorlton
Hummersknott = Ashton on Mersey
Harrowgate Hill = Mottram in Longdendale
Drone warfare has evolved at a lightning pace during the Ukraine war, A six hundred quid cardboard jobbie can strike an oil refinery deep into Russian territory. And if it fails, well, it's six hundred quid.
Since it seems like such an obvious idea, the lack of "giant omnicopters that can lift a tank or a cargo container" based on the same principles as the little drones suggest they're either a) hard to make work or b) not as useful as they sound
That only came out this month in the enquiry.
Every government since the mid 80s has known about, and covered up the extent of the scandal.
And the enquiry was set up in 2017.
https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-australian-made-cardboard-drones-used-to-attack-russian-airfield-show-how-innovation-is-key-to-modern-warfare-212629
This cardboard number costs a couple of grand, and even if it's only effective 10% of the time, it's still an order of magnitude cheaper than a single missile that hits every time, costing 100k. Then imagine a missile that costs 1m, etc.
I'm the most non-expert non-expert to be passing any kind of commentary on this, but I do find the subject fascinating.
I also wonder how much of the UK's defence budget is devoted to tactics and equipment designed for a previous era's war.
The world is indeed cruel
If you want to terrify the vertigo shit out of yourself I recommend the Iron Age fort - dun aonghasa - on the cliff on inis mor - an island off the west coast of Eire
Omg. Completely sheer. The only way I could look over without soiling myself was by lying face flat on the rock then slowly pulling myself to the edge and peering over. Even then I was horrified
I didn’t feel that ridiculous, however: because every one else was doing exactly the same. Properly scary
https://heritageireland.ie/places-to-visit/dun-aonghasa/
Inis mor is also one of only two places I’ve heard Irish Gaelic spoken naturally between people
Anyone who has been here will know whereof I speak. One of the most mysteriously imperious buildings I’ve ever encountered
So just because you write stuff that people like reading does not mean it is accurate. So both you and @IanB2 can both be right in the conclusions you both come to. They aren't contradictions.
In summary it is not impossible nor unlikely that people get paid for having shit thinking and shit theories that should be discounted provided they are good writers and the ideas are sensational enough. I do appreciate this criticism does not apply to you though.
Deltapoll continually seem to find 1% support for UKIP. I believe they are the only pollster that still prompts for them. They have declared candidates in 3 seats. If they get 1% I'll eat my other hat.
Rise of ‘coffee badging’ as staff bend working from home rules
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/05/20/working-from-home-bosses-return-to-office/
Even week and month that passes without swingback starting is a lost opportunity for the Tories and a win for Labour.
It contrasts strongly with the 2015 election chart where significant Labour leads mid-term were gradually eroded and close to a dead heat by this point in the election cycle.
I think it's a hard thing to know what you should equip yourself with during relative peacetime. The last war is always going to be the most recent piece of solid evidence on what works in practice.
AIUI, many of those affected had a type of haemophilia which was previously untreatable, and which probably would have killed them sooner than the infections received by the contaminated blood.
But there were others with less-severe forms of haemophilia, who would likely have been fine without treatment. They were seen as being particularly valuable for these unapproved trials as they had "virgin blood" (ie. had not previously been treated).
So they were treated unnecessarily, and weren't provided with enough information to have been able to give properly informed consent.
And at no point did any with authority admit that that had happened.
I went up the Strat in Las Vegas and was ok. I was also ok watching people jump off it on bungees. However the two rides at the top, one going straight up and the other over the edge just make me go weak at the knees just thinking about it. I also couldn't look up at the Strat when close by, but can from a distance. It is only when close to a building I can't look up.
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1792556360913072303?t=GcIWJW7GMGaD_KQIZRLfZg&s=19
McStarmer fans please explain