Hmm, so I did. Another case of my brain getting ahead of my hands. It's funny how I read my original comment multiple times and I did't pick up on that. I always miss stuff like that on a screen, but not on paper.

I know the FAA crashed a plane on purpose years ago, and they piloted it remotely. Remember though, this plane is being crashed first and foremost for a TV show, so having a human pilot who has to escape will allow them to add some drama. I would imagine though that they had to get the FAA involved pretty heavily in this project, so I'm sure all the safety regulatory agencies had all kinds of monitoring equipment on board along with all of Discovery's camera's and such.

What I said was "a pretty penny or 800,000,000", as in 800m pennies.

Insurance probably wouldn't let them near it.

I had a similar thought as well. That had to cost them a pretty penny or 800,000,000 million. As long as they use it for a good old fashioned "lets learn something" kind of show like they used to do, then I'm cool with it.

I know. I've been watching Discovery and other channels like it since before it was cool to watch that kind of stuff, but now the main channels are mostly full of stupid reality crap. You have to go to Science, H2, NatGeo, Green, BBC, Bio, etc to find good stuff, and not all cable or satellite providers offer all of those newer networks, much less offer them on the lower packages.

When I was looking at the options, the only thing I could think was "Common Sense". I've worked in a gas station for 8+ years now, and the one thing that I notice lacking in the people I interact with every day is common sense. I would agree that common sense does cover a lot of other areas, but I still think it is itself a concept that can be taught. If children are allowed to figure things out for themselves, and not have everything handed to them, then children will grow up with much better analytical skills and subsequently, have more common sense.