GentlemanJim

Lesson 1 , you don't give your kids a Princeton Education and then continue to give them an allowance when they are 30 years old!

Looks like Gilbert Jr won't need an allowance for the next 50 years.

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If ATC cleared them , then they had permission , trying to pass the buck ?

Are you saying ATC has copies of all license agreements for every airline departing and landing in a given location. You do realize that ATC has a lot if stress placed on them just trying to keep planes from running into each other and perhaps has no time to try and figure out if an airline is ignoring their license agreement with a given country.

This is nothing to do with license agreements. The Indonesians are playing games. By revoking Air Asia's license it means their own national carrier can pick up the slack AND take over the slots, there is a LOT of money to be made here.

Saying this flight was unauthorized is BS. It WOULD have been flight planned, that means it must be given a slot time to take off AND Singapore must have had an arrival time. No flight plan, no flight ever ever ever. It is likely that due to the time of year and how busy it was extra slots were negotiated, it seems some Minister didn't get his slice of the pie. Focusing on this is utter crap and a damning indictment on The Indonesian Ministry.

I also do not believe for a nano second that the Pilots went on that flight without a Met Brief, again it is another red herring. If the local Met Office was closed they would have got one from else where. I just find it inconceivable that what the Indonesians are suggesting is anything other than political meddling in the extreme.

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She was my first heartthrob as a kid.

And I was too young to even know why...

You ba****d - She was MY heart throb

RIP Elly May, I just loved you and loved the show.

I'm Norwegian , civilians are not allowed to carry guns , I have nothing against you or anyone from the US , just the laws which we Scandinavians think belongs to the stone age or wild west if you like. Same with the death penalty . Even if a lot of people want terrorists like Breivik dead , we give them a life in prison instead. We don't kill people even if they deserve it. Call it being human if you like.

We call it being sanctimonious hypocrites, and it gets tiresome. Why don't you take all of Norway's contributions to civilization since "the stone age" and list them for us. They ought to fit on a postage stamp.

Well from memory, discovering the America's was probably quite an achievement, and then there was GSM and the Gas Turbine engine was probably quite important as well. Ooh and what would we have done without the aerosol spray can.

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I love this, especially being an Aussie:

http://youtu.be/fP3HJVp3n9c

Bang on the money. You have cost me 2 hours of my life because I started watching all his other gigs. Very funny and very true.

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The anvil shape at the top of a thunderstorm is an indication the storm is dying. The strong up and downdrafts that cause the mushroom shape are relenting. It's still incredibly dangerous to get near it.

Actually not true. For the record the anvil shape is the formation of ice crystals spreading out in the thinner colder air at the greater altitude, as I remember my physics I believe it is when it breaks through the tropopause. Normally as you climb higher the air gets progressively colder as the pressure drops though when you break through that tropopause layer the air will initially get warmer (though still very very cold up there of course) and this temperature inversion as it is called is what forms this tropopause layer. Once the powerful rising storm cell air column breaks through this layer with such force behind it and from below, then it will with such momentum of course rise rapidly and super freezes to form the ice crystals spreading out and thus forming the anvil shape we see. It takes a lot of upward force for the rising air to break through a strong tropopause layer and thus it cannot be an indication of the storm dying at all but clearly an indication of how strong and well established the storm most probably still is.

The mushroom appearance of CB clouds is in the lower area before the tropopause as once that billowing mushroom looking cloud breaks through only then does the familiar anvil shape referred to above appear. Whereas a dying storm cell is indicated by the ragged appearance of the clouds no longer being fed by the updraught of warmer moist air from below. Anyhow that is as I remember it from my much loved physics lessons years ago and also my later interest led study of meteorology, still in my younger days.

Anyway now lets get fully back on this sad news topic, and what of course really matters. As a very caring Atheist (not that it matters right now but yes caring is not the exclusive domain of religious folk you know and in my experience it is often a more prevalent trait with Atheists actually!!), I want to add that I am feeling very tearful and deeply saddened by this terrible incident. My thoughts and feelings go out to all the families and friends of these innocent folk who currently appear to have lost their lives so suddenly today in this tragedy. RIP to the poor victims, but let us still hang on to a slim hope that they all survived somehow, or at the very least that some of them may have. A very deeply sad day indeed.

We must of course all wait to hear the true cause, but I endorse what others here have said here in that the huge thunderstorm in the area seems pretty sure to be the primary or only cause of this terrible disaster.

That's interesting. Of all of the ground school I had I was always taught different. Not that it matters because I'd steer far clear of it. But I just looked it up and you're right.

Thanks for that confirmation as being so long ago as I implied I was not 100% sure but shows a big good character for you to admit what was anyway an easy error. I also liked your factual post about instrumentation with the lack of the normal avionics being available. I understand that to be true from my limited hobby led knowledge of aviation and time spent a few years ago with a fairly accurate PC based flight sim, and indeed gliding pilot theory and practical gliding instruction many more years ago.

Anyway of course none of that is important, nor does it help find the actual answer to what did happen here today, or indeed take away the terrible sadness and shock we are all feeling right now.

Actually you are both right!

Neversure, you are correct in that in almost all ground schools it is taught the anvil indicates a dying storm. Technically this is correct as this occurs in the latter stages of the 'mature stage', and the anvil is the very last part of the cloud to dissipate as the storm cloud will disappear from bottom to top. As soon as a good anvil has formed it is technically all down hill from there and the storm is passing its peak. Hence the assertion that it is 'dying'. However as you also point out, treat with extreme caution!

The technical description by rayw as to how/why the anvil forms is spot on.

This apparent weather accident is a complete tragedy and i hope the investigation will point a finger at the massive commercial pressure to operate flights on time every time, Vs the safety decisions that need to be made on occasion when the Captain feels that a better course of action would be a delay. Sometimes, no matter how much of a rush you are in it is better to sit on the ground for an hour until safer/more favorable flight conditions exist.

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Weather ahead would be the most common.

They only mentioned cloud, nothing else, so it's a case of what was not said.

They have not even identified the wreckage yet and you are quoting a snippet in the media as being an accurate representation of the actual words spoken by the pilot to air traffic. Please!

AirAsia flight QZ8501: Pilot asked to fly at higher altitude to avoid clouds

JAKARTA (REUTERS) – The missing AirAsia Indonesia flight QZ8501 had been flying at 32,000 feet and had asked to fly at 38,000 feet to avoid clouds, said an Indonesian official.

Joko Muryo Atmodjo, air transportation director at the Transport Ministry, told a news conference that the aircraft was between the Indonesian port of Tanjung Pandan and the town of Pontianak, in West Kalimantan on Borneo island, when it went missing,

It was bound for Changi Airport in Singapore at 8.30am on Sunday.

-- Source: http://www.straitstimes.com/news/asia/south-east-asia/story/airasia-indonesia-flight-qz8501-pilot-asked-fly-higher-altitude-avoi#sthash.WTJeLBcM.dpuf

Clouds? Or were they attempting to "outclimb a thunderstorm", as someone on PPRuNe put it.

More than likely but as the thunderstorms in that area were topping out above 45k then a climb of 2000ft would not appear satisfactory but we were not there at the time and do not know the real conditions. There is no need for a pilot to climb to avoid cloud as flying in cloud is not an issue, it is what the cloud might be hiding that is an issue and in this case it was very big active thunder storms.

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Asking for an unusual route causes a great deal of consternation and raises the inevitable question WHY?

Well try looking at the weather radar picture on page 1 and that might answer your question and ease your consternations. The area is cluttered with very dense very active thunder storm cells, the pilot would have been picking these up on radar and in an attempt to avoid them would have requested alternative routing from air traffic control. The routing would be dependent on where the aircraft was in relation to the thunder storm cells. Under the conditions it would be perfectly normal for aircraft to request alternative routing. The only question raised in my mind is that the area looks so bad in terms of weather the aircraft should have simply delayed an hour or two on the ground. The met picture for the area is/was horrendous, but hindsight is a beautiful thing! Back to your point, there is no issue for you to be concerned about at all, asking for another route would have been a sensible thing to do, seems it needed doing earlier though!

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Why does every article say the aircraft lost communication with air traffic control? It's the other way around! We're not on the aircraft so we have no idea now if they had comms problems but we do know that ATC lost radio, data and radar with the aircraft.

Is it safe to assume that AirAsia has not spent the extra money on installing the tracking equipment that we heard so much about in the MH370 story?

It is safe to assume that very few airlines will unless it is mandated and unless it is deemed mandatory why should they?

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And yet, there are many thousands of morons whom adore and love those barbarians and
wilfully and willingly joined them and give their life for them.. go figure what a warped , crazy
world we live in...

And there are other morons who supply them with arms to fight the Syrian government.

Your right. It's a no win situation. We should just turn it all into glass and be done with it.

I am sure the millions of women and children that would perish would love you for that consideration! - Not ! Your statement is a rather dreadful indictment on your profession.

She immediately chastised the confused crew-member, screaming at him to bring out the company’s in-flight service manual to read off the proper nut-handling guidelines, witnesses said.

I wonder if there was a paragraph about her in the nut handling guidelines?

However hard some of you are trying to justify this woman's actions/reactions there is NOTHING that justifies it in this case. it is appalling behaviour displaying a complete lack of any leadership or management skills. If nothing else the incident would have completely trashed the First class travel experience for the people that forked out a lot of money on that flight.

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very easy to get access to hotel wifi network. just ask for the password when you pay cash for a drink in the bar.

then anything is possible. including being parked outside the hotel.

or setup your own wifi network near the hotel called "St Regis hotel lobby" and wait for the first guest to log in using the hotels password. now you have their password and you are in.

make a record of every person using your internet connection? hahahahaha...

gain control over a hotel computer in the business center you have physical access to? easy as pie.

then use it to relay data or launch from another location.

and if this is a nation state, don't be surprised if this leads to another computer network, and another, and another.

or this could be the end of the line.

add your own wifi router to the hotels network for a short while in a hallway or service area? easy.

if it is a nation state, they don't care about MAC addresses, cameras or anything else.

a real hacker uses hardware with clean MAC addresses or spoofs the MAC address.

this really could have been done anywhere, and if North Korea is involved, I think they chose Thailand because the government is computer illiterate here and borders are easy to cross, is near by and the attack would have to be launched outside NK.

it is possible the NSA has this traffic stored in Utah.

As NCC1701A says this is just hacking 101. Very easy to conceal identity and to spoof, and not really hacking when you have a folder labelled 'passwords'

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The Cashmores, eh? Old money. Hope the boat's ok.

The boat seems to have buggered off down the hill and is MIA.

The good news is that the family pet rabbit is safe and sound.

Read before you write.... the boat is beside the damaged house, obstructed from Mrs C's view by the chassis.... she would have to crane her neck a little more!!

But what he (and I ) read was this

Ms Cashmore said she and her husband had wanted to move the boat to an area behind their house in Unsworth Heights.

She said she "felt awful" about the large hole left in her neighbour's home.

"It crashed and I don't know where the boat went flying to but it's gone, "she said, adding: "Just as well I took the rabbit off the deck."

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Unfortunately, I know this guy and had the displeasure of working with him many years ago. All teachers should have background checks done. Especially here in Thailand, where the opportunity for predatory behavior is enhanced.

We caught him with pictures of girls on his computer, and he had been using hi5 with a fake profile to stalk young girls. It made all of us squeamish when we would see him meeting with female students. Shortly after that, he resigned from the school to work in Udon Thani. I'm not surprised at the charges in the UK, and just hope he didn't harm anyone here in Thailand.

And you did nothing? Didn't report him? ........ nice one....... alt=coffee1.gif width=32 height=24>

As far as I know, that isn't criminal conduct. Just suspicious. I'm sure you wouldn't want to be reported for images of girls and porn videos on your harddrive.

You can't have it both ways. If you are saying it was not criminal conduct you observed then you have no right to throw fuel on the fire by telling us of a perfectly legal activity that an adult is allowed to engage in. If however as you originally say he was stalking young girls then by doing nothing you were in fact complicit in any harm he did do. We all have choices, but standing bye whilst somebody is seen as a threat to young children is not one of them. If they were not a threat but just displaying legal sexual tendencies then that is their business. By the way, how did you 'catch' him with pictures of girls on his computer?

Reminds me of one of the guys off the movie...'The Four Lions' - Brilliant, funny, sad! Download and watch !

Violators may face execution or a life sentence or serve a lighter sentence of 5 to 10 years in prison, if damages done were not too severe. In addition, such offenders are also guilty of violating Section 232 of the Criminal Code and that alone carries a sentence of 6 to 7 years in prison and a fine up to 1,000 to 14,000 baht.

Furthermore, those violators from a wealthy family, whose actions result in the downing of an aircraft with the loss of life of all onboard will face a telling off and a 22 baht fine.

Execution for launching a lantern, but a policeman who kills half a family in cold blood and is found guilty is allowed out on appeal (and absconds), A politicians son who shoots a policeman in the head in view of eye witnesses is never charged and given a job as a small arms instructor in the same organization, and a drunk drugged Ferrari driving retard who mows down a policeman and tries to blame the family driver is allowed a one year stay in Singapore to get rid of a cold because he cant fly back while 'sick'. Amazing Thailand.

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It is risk takers like Branson and all those before him that made it possible for ordinary folk like us to benefit. The idea that he is just attention seeking is a ridiculous comment. He is innovating and pushing boundaries. People like him and his team don't give up and thank God for that.

Branson is an entrepreneur, and a very successful one to boot. I have no qualms with that, but he has a tendency to overpromote himself. I never saw Bill Gates dressed up as a high heeled trolley dolly complete with wig and make-up, did you?

.........and as a result he and his company made the front page of ever major newspaper, how much would that have cost to buy. I sat next to him for 9 hours coming back from the caribbean. He is an awesome down to earth man who is a real pioneer. He is loved by the people that work for him, because he truly cares for them. This is a huge setback for commercial space travel and I hope they can establish the cause quickly - but first time with a new fuel......mmm! RIP the crew member and hoping the other makes a full recovery.

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It's complicated. alt=coffee1.gif width=32 height=24>

Pity the people in power don't understand that and gen up on what they are supposed to be saying and who is supposed to be the coalition. At the end of the day who is anybody in the USA to complain about anybody else providing funds and munitions to ISIS when that is all the US/UK et al have done for the last two years.

WOW!!! just WOW!!

our local council are going to NZ !!!

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As an englishman i wanted Scotland to vote yes since I'm fed up with their winging and moaning about being governed by english when in fact its english governed by them if Labour win next election. Since UK is going to give Scotland even more powers time for England to have its own government and parliament. I note Labour party say they rule out a federal UK and reason is obvious since they would never IMO get elected in England.

To ensure no part is much much bigger or stronger than rest we should go rob a federal system with england also being split into 4-6 federal states. Of COurse London and South east will dominate since thats where money is but i dont see why the north east north west West and say midlands could not have their own devolved parliaments with same powers we are giving to Scotland.

TO do otherwise would be totally unfair to English and many IMO will vote UKIP if english dont get a proper share. But of course thats also what Labour party want to split main.ly right wing vote

I left UK in 70's because of awful socialist governments then. Dead left unburied, rubbish not collected and rotting in streets. sick man of europe and UK having to go cap in hand to IMF Tax rates at 98% and exchange controls so you could not even have freedom to take your money out. People have a very short memory.

My underline and bold. And that basically invalidates anything you have to say in the post.