Perfect flight formation :D

[udaman]

Nice SR obtuse thread title

You'll just have to click on the link
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationw...0,1,1708873.story?coll=la-headlines-columnone

(you'll need to either reg via bugmenot or clear cookies that latimes sets inorder to read the site more than one click)

Now why would any sane (jtr excluded ) individual use anything but air flight to travel across oceans, unless they were on a ship cruise (few of them go transoceanic) to waste weeks on the oceans stuck inside gambling and getting drunk and eating lots of food to get fat...then again why would anyone go on their honeymoon---idiots---on an [SIZE=-1]Antarctic [/SIZE] cruise ship that hits an iceberg and sinks?

Especially when the flight attendants look nicer than any other service route

Why maglev tech will never work in the USA...money, politics, and more lawsuits/injunctions about rail right of way (will make some attorney's wealthy though...hurry jtr, your future is bright if you go to a top law school now ahead of the rush of litigation over this doomed technology).

Super Trains: Plans to Fix U.S. Rail Could End Road & Sky Gridlock


http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/transportation/4232548.html

Building high-speed train routes in the U.S. would not be easy or cheap. Almost every proposed route faces some sort of political fight, and, depending on who you ask and what technology you’re considering, the cost per mile of high-speed rail is anywhere from $5 million to $100 million. However, more and more transportation engineers and city planners are starting to see high-speed rail as the only rational way to ease the strain that booming populations are placing on their already overwhelmed infrastructure. “By 2035, the six counties in the Los Angeles region will add roughly 6 million people—that’s the size of two Chicagos—to the 18 million residents already living here,” says Richard J. Marcus of the Southern California Association of Governments. “How are all those people going to get around?”

LOL, they are *not* going to get around, gridlock both literal and political will see to that

But mostly, critics of maglev point to its enormous expense. “Maglev routinely costs three to four times what is projected,” Diridon says.

The oft mention LA-Vegas route (IIRC is billions more, lots more than 4x, than initial projected costs) is nice if you like to waste your money gambling but it hardly makes sense to fund this insanely expensive gimmick technology just to make gamblers gamble faster, lol. That entire project should be shelved, IMO until actual practical uses for such technology can be used in gridlocked So. Cal proper, not some wham-bam-ty-maam quickie weekend gambling fix. Anything over 500mi distance, even with typical airport delays (not weather shut downs) is much faster via commercial jets, only commuter turbo props travel at pokey slow 300mph speeds of yet non-commercially feaseable maglev trains. To be as practical as commercial jets, those trains would have to completely replace all existing rain service, with additional routes/cities/stops added...trillions & trillions of dollars (or Euro since the US dollar is in a slump)

btw, for jtr, plane travel to Hong Kong is currently, even with $85+ barrel oil, <$1000 from either LA or Newark (via Russian airspace route) and it does *not* take a whole day either on a non-stop or one-stop flight. ~7.2k mi from LA, ~14hr, 8.4k mi via Newark ~16hr...sixteen hours to oggle (I noticed Sinapore Airlines has banned sex on their flights, no mile high clubbing then...party poopers) and try to pickup on sexy flight attendants (possibly your future wife jtr, lol).

 

[jtr1962]

More detailed reply later-I just woke up and will be busy for a while soon. The real problem with aeroplanes (besides the fact that they do crash on a far too regular basis) is that they're unsustainable over the long haul. Think the fights over rail right-of-way by NIMBYs will be bad? They're not half as bad as the fights over noise near airports. If planes were brand new I dare say they would never even be allowed to build airports within, say, 100 miles of major cities due to the noise issue. As we continue to discover the detrimental effects of noise, more and more airports will have their operations curtailed.

Fuel is another problem. Besides the fact that it's going up in price, it's also running out. Before that happens high fuel prices will eventually make flying a province of the wealthy (much as it used to be, actually). How do the masses go long distances then? Car really isn't practical. The NIMBYs will stop new roads faster than new rails, and car is too slow anyway. Maglev for now isn't practical in most situations. That leaves high-speed conventional rail, probably built mostly along existing Interstate highway rights-of-way, or in tunnels near population centers.

More later but that's the basic argument....

 

[P5-133XL]

I won't fly on a commercial airplane, period. It's a personal issue: I have a perfume allergy and unless I want a severe asthma attack, they have to be avoided. There will always be someone, in the plane, with perfume, hair spray, deodorant, etc. and recycled air just isn't fresh or clean enough and in a plane, I can not move away or even up-wind. So if I want to go to Europe, it currently has to be by trans-Atlantic boat or a chartered plane.

On a less personal note, the world runs on transportation. Unless, we wish to go back to a pre-modern world it is going to continue. Having a variety of different transportation modes seems, to me, as appropriate. In todays capitalistic world, letting people choose and forcing them to pay the appropriate costs is just plain the way the world works. Trying to fight it is just a recipe for a concussion as you repeatedly hit your head against a brick wall.

 

[ddrueding]

Just to grab some envy from JTR, I rode the Maglev in Shanghai 2 years ago. It was really, really smooth. At the time, I didn't know it was a Maglev, until the conversation got boring and I looked out the window. Holy cow! We were positively flying!

 

[Howell]

How do the masses go long distances then? Car really isn't practical.

Many of the masses do go by car. Me and three college student drove 1500 miles round trip for T-giving break. And there were plenty of other cars out there too.

 

[ddrueding]

A buddy did 1100 miles each way for a week in Mexico...

Hell, I did 800 miles in a weekend on vacation....

 

[Handruin]

I just recently took a trip to Washington DC last weekend and it was a bit over 1000 miles round trip.

 

[Gilbo]

I once did about 3000 km in a long weekend... Nearly 45 of the 90 hours that the trip lasted were spent driving. It was in university to visit a cottage, and it was a great weekend. I had help on the driving, but I'm not sure I'd ever do it again.

I drove from Halifax (with some help) to a cottage a little north of Bancroft Ontario, and all the way back again. I don't think I'd ever do it again. It's the kind of thing you only do once.

 

[sechs]

In todays capitalistic world, letting people choose and forcing them to pay the appropriate costs is just plain the way the world works. Trying to fight it is just a recipe for a concussion as you repeatedly hit your head against a brick wall.

What gets me is how skewed spending in the United States is towards highways. This is pretty much the least efficient long-haul transit system and it gets the most money!

If people really had to pay the full cost of each form of transit that they used, they would travel differently.

 

[ddrueding]

If people really had to pay the full cost of each form of transit that they used, they would travel differently.

I agree, and I would welcome such a change. But I would likely still be driving, as my work and the locations of my clients practically requires it.

 

[Fushigi]

Well, so much for rail. Amtrak admits after yesterday's collision between a freight & passenger train in Chicago that they didn't even know which train should be on which track. As long as they lack even that basic resource scheduling info I'll never ever set foot on a passenger rail train.

 

[ddrueding]

Aren't they in the process of rolling out GPS assisted navigation for trains? Why not use a form of adaptive cruise control as seen in high-end cars?

 

[Bozo]

Well, so much for rail. Amtrak admits after yesterday's collision between a freight & passenger train in Chicago that they didn't even know which train should be on which track. As long as they lack even that basic resource scheduling info I'll never ever set foot on a passenger rail train.

I guess you didn't see the news lately on all the near misses the airlines have had this year.

Maybe best to stay home.

Bozo :joker:

 

[timwhit]

The nice thing about trains is that when they crash everyone on board doesn't die.

 

[ddrueding]

The nice thing about trains is that when they crash everyone on board doesn't die.

Good, or bad? When I get on a plane, I know for a fact that my life is not im my hands. No matter what I do or how quick I am, it won't help me. On a train, however, perhaps fast reflexes could save me? So I should constantly be on alert, ready to head for one of the emergency windows at the first sign of trouble. I certainly shouldn't be drinking, and I should be sure to be in the middle cars, to avoid accidents at either end....

Nah, flying is much more relaxing.

 

[sechs]

Well, so much for rail. Amtrak admits after yesterday's collision between a freight & passenger train in Chicago that they didn't even know which train should be on which track. As long as they lack even that basic resource scheduling info I'll never ever set foot on a passenger rail train.

I guess you'll never set foot on a passenger train. You'll probably never set foot on any other form of transit.

As it was in this case, Amtrak usually runs on other railroad's tracks. They go when and where their host tells them; they have no choice in this matter. The host railroad generally doesn't give copious information about the location of other trains in the vicinity; this is generally unnecessary and would waste time communicating. This is to say, not only does Amtrak not know which train should be on which track, it's not their problem.

If you look at it, an airline or bus company isn't going to have this kind of information either. Controllers tell planes where to go; the airlines don't know which plane should be in which space. Better yet, any driver isn't going to know at any moment which vehicle "should be" in which lane on a multilane road; it's simply unnecessary information.

 

[sechs]

Good, or bad? When I get on a plane, I know for a fact that my life is not im my hands. No matter what I do or how quick I am, it won't help me. On a train, however, perhaps fast reflexes could save me? So I should constantly be on alert, ready to head for one of the emergency windows at the first sign of trouble. I certainly shouldn't be drinking, and I should be sure to be in the middle cars, to avoid accidents at either end....

Nah, flying is much more relaxing.

Air plane crashes are usually catastrophic. Ever heard of a lot of people using their flotation devices after a water landing?

Train crashes rarely are catastrophic. Most people walk away from a serious train incident.

I've also never had a train fall out of the sky....