Yes, you truly are the arrogant asshole I first thought you to be. You not only ignore the federal aviation regulations regarding minimum flight visibility for commercial operations, but the actual nature and variability of this monolithic "fog" you assume exists. You make numbers up from thin air (foggy air?) and try to prove something, which I thought was that "It's ALL on instruments." That's a direct quote. I've shown you that you are wrong about that claim by the simple fact that the regulations REQUIRE that the runway be visible prior to landing and that not seeing the runway means the pilot cannot legally land. (And I'll repeat the caveat that this excludes the rare cat III airport/aircraft/aircrew combination.) I cited the regulation. I've tried to instruct you on the standard operations during approaches at busy airports, where pilots are told "cleared for the visual" or "follow the company", which requires hand flying in visual conditions. I've shown that it is not ALL on instrument. That's all I needed to do to disprove a claim of ALL. Can you cite otherwise, or just insult?

You also made the ridiculous claim that "Pilots never get to see the ground if there is fog." That was trivially disprovable by personal experience. The only countering argument that you can manage is "you are insane". You seem unable to understand that a fog that has a visibility of the minimum for an approach will mean that the pilot will see the ground at higher than 1000 feet (1/6 of a mile) while he will not see the runway until he's 1/2 mile from it. He's seeing the ground. You say "never". I say "I've done it, been there." Once again, a single example refutes a claim of "never", even were there no other simple math to cover it. Do you believe there is some magic to fog that makes it thicker in the vertical than in the horizontal? You must, if you think pilots never see the ground when flying in fog.

And finally, your claim that "there is no light in the dark, rain, snow, fog... so windows would be useless" is just as patently absurd, as anyone who has driven a car at night can freely attest. It dark out. There is, according to you, no "light" and the windows are useless. Yet, millions of people drive at night by looking out those useless windows. They drive in the rain and snow. Flying an airplane is not significantly different in this regard. Pilots use city lights, stars, the moon, and especially the rotating beacon of the airport they are approaching, along with the approach and runway lighting systems, to fly their craft and land them safely, despite your claim that it being "dark" makes the windows "useless". And that has no dependence upon the size of the airplane. A 747, Airbus, 182, or even Skycatcher -- all have windows that pilots can see things through at night, in the rain, and even when it snows. (And again, I speak from this personal experience that you claim is irrelevant. It's only irrelevant because it proves you wrong.)

Now, I assume you have more pithy insults to use to deflect the truth, but I tire of dealing with you. I've only held on this long because it is fascinating to watch you hold on so firmly to your ignorance and even parade it about so proudly. And your last comment: "I do wonder if you're actually allowed to fly planes, or is that just your delusion too?" shows that you have never had any intention of a civil, adult conversation, since your only remaining defense of your ignorance is no more than "liar liar pants on fire".

You're talking about not being able to see out of windows when there is fog, rain, snow, or night. I hate to break this to you, but aircraft other than Airbus have windows, and the Airbus windows are not not as useless as you are claiming them to be. When you make patently stupid statements like "pilots will never be able to see the ground" because there is fog, you're not limiting yourself to just one kind of airplane. You made a blanket statement about pilots.

And I hate to break up yet another ignorant rant, but the same rules for flight conditions apply to a 747. There are visbility rules for instrument approaches, and they aren't "10 meters", at least not for the vast majority of airports on this planet. I was even pretty specific in referring to a 747 when I pointed out that the category D visibility for a non-precision approach was 1 mile. So, had you bothered to read what I wrote instead of try to show how smart you are, you'd have seen I was also talking about 747s. As well as a very very very large number of other aircraft.

I also didn't talk about conditions where I won't attempt landing, I talked about federal regulations that apply to commercial operations, which I am not. So, you got it exactly backwards. When I say that ground visibility has to be at least 1/2 mile for a pilot to attempt the approach, I was talking not about MY limit (because, as I said, it isn't the limit I fly under) but the limit the 747 pilot flies under.

By the way, you first claimed you were talking about an Airbus, now you say you were talking about a 747. You do realize that Boeing makes the 747 and not Airbus, right?

Or you are an idiot who cannot see a discussion about visibility and flight rules that apply to a very large number of aircraft and think that it might apply to a very large number of aircraft, INCLUDING your specific Airbus. Or 747. Whichever it is at the moment.

Where the hell did you get that from? Now I know you're making things up.

And you still haven't. All you have is insult and nonsense. You have no understanding of the weather condition known as "fog", since you seem to think it comes in only one style and density, yet you'll yap about how pilots won't be able to see the ground if it is foggy.

By the way, the landing speed according to Boeing for a 747 is not 194 knots (100m/s), it is a measly 150 or so (various versions have different speeds.)

And the fact that you have not yet admitted, but seem to have given up denying, is that flying an airplane is not all instruments. The landing part is (other than the cat III I mentioned) always visual. The instruments get the pilot to where he can see the runway. The rules DEMAND that he be able to see it. Otherwise he'll be stuck at 100 AGL. I cited the rule, can you debate it?

And you're an insulting pretend-to-know-it-all.

No, it isn't smoke, and I've never said that it was. It's condensed water. And the thickness of fog, in both density and actual thickness of the layer, depends on the conditions. I've seen ground fog where you can look up and see the sun but can't see the person ten feet away. If you've never seen that, then you are not one to lecture anyone on what fog looks like.

And I know that you can, indeed, fly out of the fog, because all fog really is is a cloud that's touching the ground. You probably have seen that clouds can be very regional in nature, haven't you? If not, again, don't lecture your betters about it. Yes, I've actually done that, too. I've departed an airport when I can see up but not laterally because I know as soon as I'm airborne I'll break out into the clear.

I've also taken off from an airport where it is severe clear, but there are pockets of ground fog (about 100 feet or less thick) in all the surrounding low areas. It's really very pretty. It's worth the price of admission.

If all you think fog can be is the dense, can't see your nose stuff, then you're ignorant. And if you think the dense, can't see your nose stuff has to cover more than a few hundred square feet, you're ignorant.

You truly know nothing about the subject. It is very common, especially in ground fog, for pilots to be able to see the ground but not far enough to see the runway a mile away. That's because the fog layer is vertically thin. I've done it more than once. Personally. In an airplane. Even in thicker layers, when the visibility is 1/2 mile, you can't see the runway a mile away but you can easily see the ground that's only 400 feet below you. Been there, done that. I guess it's not a very restrictive bubble I'm in. Your claim that pilots "never get to see the ground" is just ignorance at best.

And that ability to see the ground when the runway or the runway environment cannot be seen has led people a lot smarter than you to their deaths. They'll be on an approach, see the ground, think they know where they are, and think they can keep descending because the runway is "right ahead of them". Except it isn't and they run into a building or a power line or an antenna or .... So you are just flat out wrong when you say that pilots never get to see the ground if there is fog. Pathetically, miserably, horribly wrong.

And then, if they see the approach lights, they can get down to 100 feet AGL but NO LOWER, unless they can see something of the runway (the rules are here. At that point, they have to SEE the runway. Visible. As is true for many of the rules, this rule is there because there were too many people doing what I talked about in the previous paragraph. "Just a little lower ... WHAM!"

Not every occurrence of fog is that dense. And even if it is that dense right here, a mile away it can be clear. And most pilots won't be on an approach when the visibility is only 30 feet. That's rounded down to 0 anyway.

The closest ILS has a minimum reported visibility of 1/2 mile before a commercial operation can even TRY to make the approach. If the visibility is just 300 feet, he can't start. Private pilots can make all the attempts they want, but if they get to DH (200 feet AGL) and can't see the runway environment, they can't go any lower. Guess what that means? The landing is done VISUALLY. The instruments get the pilot to the place where he can see the runway to land, that's it. So no, is it NOT ALL ON INSTRUMENTS. That's just ignorance on your part, converted to arrogance by your attitude.

And those minima I mentioned are for standard ILS approaches. Many airports don't have ILS approaches. They're stuck with VOR or other non-precision ones. The minima for those approaches are even higher. For a 747 (category D), the minimum reported ground visibility at the same airport is one mile. Your 747 going into an airport with or without an ILS will never be making an approach if the visibility is 100m. (Except for the few CAT III airports.)

What IS really fun is that private pilots CAN attempt an approach when the ground visibility is reported as 0 because they are not prohibited from trying, and they might even be legal to land because the visibility they need is flight, not ground, visibility. Of course, if you land at an airport that has a reported visibility less than the approach minimum then you may have to explain how you came up with a better flight visibility, but the FAA wasn't in the plane with you and they can't tell. I've made approaches to airports that were 0/0 and the commercial guys were in holding patterns because they couldn't even start an approach. It's fun. Some people bungee jump. I shoot 0/0 approaches.

There is no "1 second" rule. And your 100m == 1 second puts the aircraft at 194 knots. That's faster than landing speed. That's more than twice what a single engine GA aircraft will be going. You really don't know what you're talking about. Please stop.

Think of the children!

Let's be practical here, huh? The child is dead. It won't make one whit of difference to him whether there's a Superman logo on his monument or not. It won't make any difference to his parents, who should be the ones who care but probably don't. DC gains nothing from saying 'yes' to this, and they get a permanent attachment to a horribly negative event if they willingly agree. At best, it's commercialization of a tragedy.

If your argument for allowing something is "let a little boy have a grave ...", you've lost. Graves are for the people who are left behind, not the ones in them.

And absolutely nobody would take any notice of any monument unless it has a Superman logo on it, because nobody cares about anything but Superman.

Build a monument without Superman on it. Don't drag irrelevant things into the case. Remember the kid and why he died, not that he liked to wear Superman costumes.

What did anyone expect DC to say when they were asked? They don't want a logo that makes them money connected to a dead child. They may have approved a Batman costume for Make A Wish, but the difference is that Make A Wish serves to make ill children happier, while this monument does nothing like that. One use is a positive event, the other attached to the negative.

While they said "no", if they have no legal authority to enforce it ("it should be public domain") then so what?

And finally, by saying no, DC brought more attention to the situation than had they said "sure". How many more people know about the death now than would have without this Streisand Effect?

Pilots can still see out the windows while in the clouds, in fog, and at night. Clouds and fog reduce visibility, but not always to zero, and the difference is, of course, that once a pilot flies out of the clouds or fog the windows are still perfectly good. A broken/disabled electronic display would still be broken/disabled.

As for "night", you have no idea what flying a plane is like, do you? "Night" doesn't disable a window, it just means the sun is down. Pilots can still see other planes, lights on the ground, and sometimes even stars. That all allows see and avoid to work, and maintains a pilot's orientation (up/down). Losing visual clues to orientation can be fatal.

Very few planes land on "instruments only" in any day, and at most airports they NEVER do. Even "flight on instruments" doesn't mean the pilot doesn't look out the window. In fact, "see and avoid" is still the requirement under hard IFR. It becomes mandatory under VFR conditions.

But random Joe's get into them and expect the pilots to be able to see so they can avoid things. And while pilots fly under instruments on a regular basis, they don't do it without windows.

I don't know where you come up with this nonsense, but yes, there are lights at night, and pilots know how to use their vision to see them. If they happen to be on another aircraft, they can even use their vision to avoid hitting them, or to follow them when told to.

And I guess you've never flown in the rain if you think there is no light (at least during the day). Or snow. I've flown in both, in visual conditions.

As for fog, yes, in the daytime there is light, just a lack of visibility. Until you fly out of the fog and need to see to land.

The people "looking around" include the guy who has the con, who tells the people who have the controls in their hands what to do.

No, it is "cleared for the visual". It requires being able to SEE. And sometimes, just sometimes, being able to turn your head so you can see in a different direction. You know, like where the camera ISN'T pointing.

I'm going to stop reading and responding to your nonsense at this point because you have shown that you are not just uninformed, you have no actual interest in an adult conversation.

Really? Never been to a "peace" rally before, have you?

But I suspect you mean "nobody complains that submarines don't have windows". Well, of course not. Most people realize that 1) the "passengers" on those subs are all highly trained volunteers to want to be there or they wouldn't be, not random Joes who find out after they go down the "subway" (not jetway) that there are no windows, 2) there is no light at the depths they submerge to, so windows would be useless, and 3) when they are doing close quarter operations (like docking) they are on the surface and people are actually standing on top of the submarine looking around. If you want a perfect example of what happens when you can't see what you are doing, look at the accident when a US submarine surfaced right through a Japanese trawler because it couldn't see it.

And I bet you've never heard a submarine coming into port told to "follow the Airbus, cleared to land", or "cleared for the visual" either. Yes, one way that busy airports deal with high levels of commercial traffic is to get them into visual operations (despite them all required to be on an IFR flight plan) and off of instrument operations as soon as possible. That requires being able to SEE.

You should read about an incident that has become known as the Gimli Glider. That was a 767 (passenger plane) that was piloted with no working engines to a safe landing with only minor injuries during the evacuation.

The glide ratio reported there was 12:1, which is actually better than the Cessna 172 (9:1) or 182 (10:1). Those numbers are approximations since they depend upon the best glide speed, which depends on aircraft weight and condition. In any case, much better than "a brick".

If your receiver is swamped by what looks like broadband noise, what signal do you have to 'error correct'? And when you're talking about Doppler radar, you are essentially transmitting a pure signal and looking for the "errors" in the bounce-back. Doppler radar is not a stream of digital information that can have FEC or ARC attached to deal with dropouts and noise. There is neither checksum nor NACK to force a retransmission.

Not necessarily that it's a "safety system", but vulnerable, yes. As are the OTH radars the Air Force operates in California that led to a reduction in the allowed use by radio amateurs in the 70 cm band there. As are the GPS signals that were being hindered by the attempts at land-based "satellite" services like Lightsquared. As can be the satellite downlinks for video programming from a number of things. As were the satellite ELT monitoring systems that could be interfered with by a faulty television.

Why? So he can tell you that a deliberate emitter sitting a mile away from a radar antenna will overpower the return from fifty miles away, either desensing the receiver or completely blocking the desired signal?

No joke, just that you've fallen for the old "all A is B means all B is A" logical fallacy. He said that microwave ovens use 2.4GHz and thus microwaves must be at least as low as 2.4GHz, not that the only microwave frequency is the frequency used by microwave ovens. I.e., "microwave means microwave ovens" is your backwards interpretation of what he said, which was, in essence, "microwave ovens means microwaves" are used.

You also missed the context, which was that the OP said that 5.8GHz was "almost microwave", and the point being made was that it isn't "almost", it's definite.

Yeah, those rubes have no need for weather information from Doppler radar systems. They should just stick to using their weather rocks and suck it up.

That's right. And the countdown doesn't change that. Once the DON'T WALK signal lights up, you cannot legally enter.

Not in Oregon. Drivers in Oregon are not required to stop for people standing on sidewalks, only for pedestrians who have actually entered the crosswalk. And even though the definition of "enter" is very liberal, it still requires an act on the part of the pedestrian to show he's intending to cross, not just standing on the sidewalk watching traffic go by.

An interesting twist in Oregon law is that a crosswalk does not have to be marked to exist. By default, crosswalks exist at all intersections.

The law cited does not differentiate between how the person gets into the crosswalk, so it applies even when the pedestrian has broken the law to enter the crosswalk in the first place.

That is not what "effective" means in this context. It means the ability to actually be heard. Not forcing people to hear you, that's something else. It means that your message is available to people.

You can have "free speech" as in beer by telling someone they can stand on a soapbox on the corner. This isn't effective free speech because the range is deliberately limited. Being able to pay for the "free speech" and buy a radio spot is effective because it puts the message where people can actually hear it. That's why effective free speech requires money.

Oh, absolutely the rights of the CU people were involved, free speech especially. If they could not be allowed to pay for airtime for a political message, then their right to free speech was being infringed. "You can speak all you want, as long as you can't be heard by anyone" is just as much a violation of the first amendment as "you cannot speak at all".

Well, campaign finance law has serious first amendment issues attached to it, so it should be no surprise that a lawsuit based on that law might include issues of free speech. And no, it wasn't to be MORE effective, and it certainly wasn't to be louder, it was to have the same kind of effectiveness. They were paying to air a movie. On TV. Where someone might actually see it.

So, apparently, it is ok if someone can pay for such airtime out of his own pocket, but not if twenty people pool their pockets to pay for it. Why shouldn't those twenty people have the same first amendment rights as the rich guy who can afford to pay for his speech on his own?

No, really, it isn't. You apparently don't understand the difference between an exclusive and a non-exclusive franchise.

It isn't falsely, because I know the franchise agreements in the places I've lived, and I know they aren't that unusual. Can you provide a link to something that shows the exclusivity of most of the country's franchise agreements?

Yeah, if you can't provide data to support your argument, just toss in an insult to make yourself feel better.

My town doesn't have an exclusive franchise. None of the places I've lived has had one. There is no "protection racket" to protect. You want to overbuild the existing plant and make huge profits battling Comcast, then put your money where your mouth is because you can do it here. Or in Portland (where Google is going to try), or in Syracuse, NY, or Lansing, MI. Go for it.