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Calvin19

A World Without Airplanes.

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Ahhh... did the big bad airline give you imperfect food on the flight bought on expedia that you barely paid your share of fuel on?


http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8626000/8626927.stm

Edit: some muppets complained, so to explain, this article is not about the airline, but about current airline delays across Europe and how it is a good time to realize the distances and grasp other possible forms of travel. I just like description and fictional intro about a day without airplanes.

-SPACE-

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A world without airplanes? Hmmm ... I know the tree huggers yearn for such a world. But how about the rest of us? A world without airplanes would be a world going backwards as far as I am concerned. But I am pretty certain that unless an apocalyptic event was to strike the planet, there will still be a world of human flight. Now that humans know how to create wingsuits and BASE rigs (not to mention paragliders and hang gliders), you know human flight will always be an option for those who have access to a large enough cliff and who possess enough physical fitness to haul themselves up to the various exit points. I am pretty sure we will see Calvin soring in the skies for some time still. ;)



Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

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I just get annoyed when every muppet out there complains about flying airlines. as if they are entitled to anything. As if it was easy to get a million people going close to the speed of sound to twenty thousand different places worldwide.


The airlines are not perfect, but they do better than you can do.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r1CZTLk-Gk

-SPACE-

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>A world without airplanes? Hmmm ... I know the tree huggers yearn for
>such a world.

Yeah, but that's just an issue of technology. Here are a few low/zero emissions way to power airplanes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_Nuclear_Propulsion
http://intransit.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/07/solar-plane-takes-maiden-flight-slowly/
http://www.greenaironline.com/news.php?viewStory=376
http://www.electraflyer.com/electraflyerc.php

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People complain because the airlines are constantly nickel and diming us adding fees for all sorts of things vs. just raising their base prices so we don't have to try and get around the fees. Extreme cost cutting also hurts employee morale which effects how they treat the customer as well.

It's a cause/effect thing. People wanted lower prices so the airlines started cutting services, flights, and people and then added fees for everything to keep the base price low. They're basically bullshitting us.

The TSA isn't helping things either.

Respect is a 2 way street. If they'd just all charge what they need to as a base price and treat their workers with respect as well, they might be able to turn around this negative image.

It used to be standard service was included in the price of things and fees were reserved for extras or penalties. Now they are viewed as a huge moneymaking opportunity in a variety of industries.
Stupidity if left untreated is self-correcting
If ya can't be good, look good, if that fails, make 'em laugh.

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>If they'd just all charge what they need to as a base price and treat their
>workers with respect as well . . .

. . . then customers would get on Travelocity and buy tickets from the airline that doesn't do all those things, because they'd be $8 cheaper. 99% of the time that's all people care about.

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>If they'd just all charge what they need to as a base price and treat their
>workers with respect as well . . .

. . . then customers would get on Travelocity and buy tickets from the airline that doesn't do all those things, because they'd be $8 cheaper. 99% of the time that's all people care about.



Why don't Travelocity and all the other websites let you factor in the fees to the price shown?

It shouldn't be that hard to program. [:/]
Stupidity if left untreated is self-correcting
If ya can't be good, look good, if that fails, make 'em laugh.

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None of the alternatives you present are remotely mature enough to replace the existing fleet of airplane technology anytime soon in regards to how modern society has become dependent on the airplane to transport goods and people around the planet.

- The closest alternative is probably the bio-fuels option. But using food to fuel our cars has not gone over that well lately. Hard to say. Worth further exploration, but what is more important? Growing the food to feed the planet or growing the food to produce alternate fuels?

- Nuclear power is compelling. Possibly something we will see more of in the future, but the tree huggers certainly won't be advocating nuclear and nuclear power has the whole issue of where to dispose of the waste. Plus I do not know enough about nuclear powered aircraft to know what would be the consequences of airplane crashes. Humanity has a long way to go before we will ever rid ourselves of our mistakes in regards to crashing airplanes.

- Solar powered aircraft only work on light applications (at least with our current technology), and ...

- Electric powered aircraft? Same sort of thing. It may work on a small aircraft, but not large applications. Batteries are heavy just by themselves. Then you get into the pandora's box of "where did the electricity come from stored in the batteries? and how will you expose of the batteries once they live out their useful lives".

Of course if humans want to continue flying in the centuries to come, they will need to seek alternate fuels since there is only a century or so left of the known oil reserves around the globe, so I am not saying these alternates should not be explored. They just have a long long way to go before they can replace what exist today. In the mean time, as long as humans continue to look to the sky, human flight is not in jeopardy anytime soon. Leonardo da Vinici was correct. Once humans have tasted flight, they will continue to yearn for it.


Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

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>Why don't Travelocity and all the other websites let you factor in the fees
> to the price shown?

They do (airport fees etc) but they don't add optional fees. Even if they did offer that option, 90% of the users would check the "find me the cheapest fare" box.

Airlines stay in business by providing what people want - and they want cheap fares. They'll bitch about the bad food, but market research shows that generally people will still choose the cheap cruddy carrier over the slightly more expensive carrier that does not nickel and dime them to death.

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> But using food to fuel our cars has not gone over that well lately.

Right; weeds and rapeseed would work a lot better.

>but what is more important? Growing the food to feed the planet or
>growing the food to produce alternate fuels?

Based on the shape of most Americans, we could stand to convert some of our high fructose corn syrup and palm oil into biofuel.

>They just have a long long way to go before they can replace what exist today.

Yep, but that can happen very fast. Ten years ago there were no hybrid cars in the US, and a great many people wrote a lot about how they would not work well. The batteries will wear out! They'll electrocute people. They won't work in the cold. Now there are almost 2 million of them on the road in the US.

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I think you really, really missed his point.



Oh, the BBC article is a commentary on the failure of most people to appreciate distance and time. I know it is not about the industry, I just thought it had a good metephorical intro about "back in the day of airplanes". Just showing how much life would be different without metal monsters.

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Even if they did offer that option, 90% of the users would check the "find me the cheapest fare" box.



Exactly my point. The cheapest fare is the one that the total cost is the least.

We should be able to enter in a search prices for round trip flights from Atlanta to Dallas with one checked bag and one overhead carryon bag and be able to select the cheapest fare.
Stupidity if left untreated is self-correcting
If ya can't be good, look good, if that fails, make 'em laugh.

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Right; weeds and rapeseed would work a lot better.



Hey if humans can create alternate fuel out of weeds, power to the evolution of human ingenuity.
They can come over to my house anytime they want and harvest the weeds on my lawn. :ph34r:

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Ten years ago there were no hybrid cars in the US



Hybrids still use the dino juice. :o

Don't get me wrong, hybrids and electric cars make perfect sense for the city dweller. It's when you get out into the country where they become less viable (hybrids of course are much more viable than their electric car counter parts out there in the sticks, especially when the temperatures dip below -30). But hey you must have missed it, a few weeks ago I mentioned here that there are some hybrid cars I actually like. The Porsche GT3R Hybrid recently took 3rd place in a VLN endurance race at Germany's famed Nurburgring iconic race track and that is a very impressive result. Of course there is a lot more technology going into the GT3R Hybrid than the 2 million or so other hybrids on the US roads you speak of. But you can count on Porsche (and some of the other automakers) who engineer their cars through race experience to help push automotive car technologies further (look what F1 was doing last year with the KERS systems, even though the F1 teams have abandoned KERS for the time being). When an electric car wins the "24 Heures du Mans" race, then you know the time of electric cars are here.

In the meantime, further research in bio-fuels for the aviation world is probably the best alternate available today unless of course nuclear does not prove to be better. I don't know, I am just an aging low life software developer. I will leave nuclear technology to the nuclear scientists.


Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

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> But using food to fuel our cars has not gone over that well lately.

Right; weeds and rapeseed would work a lot better.


Well rapeseed (canola) is used as food quite extensively. More significantly, rapeseed is a soil raping product that is usually produced with the aid of very intensive chemical help. Around here anyone growing rapeseed more than one out of four years needs at least one if not two years of pasture in the cycle; rape to grain to rape won't do it. The price to total food production is perhaps larger than it appears at first glance.

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I just get annoyed when every muppet out there complains about flying airlines. as if they are entitled to anything. As if it was easy to get a million people going close to the speed of sound to twenty thousand different places worldwide.


The airlines are not perfect, but they do better than you can do.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r1CZTLk-Gk



That is a great video. I can't watch YouTube at work since YouTube is blocked in the office so I had to wait until I got home (WTF can you believe it, the nerve of my employer, I mean really WTF, I am entitled to my entitlements ... LOL). Seriously, everyone who complains about modern life should be forced to watch this video, over and over and over, etc, etc, etc. :ph34r:


Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

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High speed electric trains 'should'/'could' replace a great proportion of domostic and some international flights.

Initially they would be more expensive (potentially), but the convenience of leaving and arriving in the CBD, less security needed, and zero (immediate) emmisions.

While in France I was 'awakened' to how efficient, comfortable and fast trains can be. We were travelling at 350kmph but the train are rated to 500kmph on a straight track.

Those are old technology in the great scheme of things these days too and there is no reason trains couldn't travel as fast as aircraft if the same amount of money was put into the technology as is currently invested in the commercial aviation industry.
"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, then the world will see peace." - 'Jimi' Hendrix

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I agree ... we have 'fairly' good rail infrastructure ... that is currently being mismanaged (understatement of the year!!).

It's currently VERY expensive to travel by rail and yet cheap to fly:S.

What we NEED is a fully integrated, centrally managed, efficient transport policy - problem is..... it ain't going to happen.. Too many Fat Cats ripping off the country>:(>:(>:(>:(>:(>:(>:(>:(


(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

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>If they'd just all charge what they need to as a base price and treat their
>workers with respect as well . . .

. . . then customers would get on Travelocity and buy tickets from the airline that doesn't do all those things, because they'd be $8 cheaper. 99% of the time that's all people care about.



People bitch about safety issues like that asshole that droped the commuter on NY last year; they like the cheap tickets but if they knew the crew makes 18k to 25k / yr and are therefore often incompetent / inexperienced they *should* open their wallets and agree with gov regulation requiring more experience. That would be like having a TI with 100 jumps so you can jump for $10 lesss per tandem.

Capitalism bites out asses here over market control.

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>Those are old technology in the great scheme of things these days too
>and there is no reason trains couldn't travel as fast as aircraft . . .

The one big financial reason is real estate. You don't have to buy and develop a continuous air corridor between New York and California to fly an airplane there.

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