BurnShrike: doglover: johnnygew: Canadians: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the South to
avoid collision.

Americans: Recommend you divert your course 15 degrees to the
North to avoid a collision.

Canadians: Negative. You will have to divert your course 15
degrees to the South to avoid a collision.

Americans: This is the Captain of a US Navy ship. I say again,
divert YOUR course.

Canadians: No, I say again, you divert YOUR course.

Americans: THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER USS LINCOLN, THE SECOND
LARGEST SHIP IN THE UNITED STATES' ATLANTIC FLEET. WE ARE
ACCOMPANIED BY THREE DESTROYERS, THREE CRUISERS AND NUMEROUS
SUPPORT VESSELS. I DEMAND THAT YOU CHANGE YOUR COURSE 15 DEGREES
NORTH--I SAY AGAIN, THAT'S ONE FIVE DEGREES NORTH--OR
COUNTER-MEASURES WILL BE UNDERTAKEN TO ENSURE THE SAFETY OF THIS SHIP.

Canadians: This is a lighthouse. Your call.

This always cracks me up.

Too bad it's an urban legend.

It's still real to me.

Ashtrey: BurnShrike: doglover: johnnygew: Canadians: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the South to
avoid collision.

Americans: Recommend you divert your course 15 degrees to the
North to avoid a collision.

Canadians: Negative. You will have to divert your course 15
degrees to the South to avoid a collision.

Americans: This is the Captain of a US Navy ship. I say again,
divert YOUR course.

Canadians: No, I say again, you divert YOUR course.

Americans: THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER USS LINCOLN, THE SECOND
LARGEST SHIP IN THE UNITED STATES' ATLANTIC FLEET. WE ARE
ACCOMPANIED BY THREE DESTROYERS, THREE CRUISERS AND NUMEROUS
SUPPORT VESSELS. I DEMAND THAT YOU CHANGE YOUR COURSE 15 DEGREES
NORTH--I SAY AGAIN, THAT'S ONE FIVE DEGREES NORTH--OR
COUNTER-MEASURES WILL BE UNDERTAKEN TO ENSURE THE SAFETY OF THIS SHIP.

Canadians: This is a lighthouse. Your call.

This always cracks me up.

Too bad it's an urban legend.

It's still real to me.

It's real to me too, especially since I spent 4 miserable years on the Lincoln.

Charlie Freak: Venus can look an awful lot like an oncoming landing or recognition light. So can the actual lights of an actual oncoming aircraft. The trick is that if you have Venus and the oncoming plane in the same field of view, the two bright lights look an awful lot like the wingtip lights of an aircraft that is REALLY close. Further, if the oncoming aircraft is moving in your field of view, it looks like the false, close-in aircraft is trying to evade hitting you, which can cause you to evade in another direction.

I am not a pilot but wouldn't you consider TCAS input in your reaction, especially if you are unsure of what you're seeing?

Well, Venus was at it's peak brilliance last night...

itsfullofstars: "mistook Venus for the oncoming airplane,"

Admit it, any of this have done this at a strip club before.

They're coming right at us!!!

In every single sense of the phrase.

One might regret eschewing a course of action that avoids potential danger, even where the action taken is subsequently found to have been unnecessary.

/if only there was a succinct adage to convey this sentiment . . .

To be fair there was at least one person dumber than the pilot on board.

FTFA: One passenger said she thought "... the plane had hit a mountain or another aircraft."

That comet that the wacko's killed themselves over, hale-bop, I was flying north up the new jersey coast towards kennedy, night, slight overcast, lots of traffic on the radio, and became alarmed that some heavy was descending through the overcast towards me probably going to mcguire (air force base in northern new jersey). Not wanting to sound utterly foolish, i adopted my best chuck yeager voice and asked jfk approach if there was any traffic at 11 oclock, opposite direction above me. They said no.

I was somewhat suspicious, but continued trucking along, keeping an eye on the obvious c-5a descending towards me. Still here today, comet hale-bob did not crash into my plane.

/csb

BurnShrike: Why'd he pull up? I'd hit it.

[upload.wikimedia.org image 200x336]

cuz women with no arms can't fight back? Yeah, I luvs me some rape.

costermonger: Mikey1969: If it ain't moving, I'm not mistaking it for anything other than a planet or star, unless I'm on some REALLY good meds...

Stuff that's gonna fly into you doesn't move very much in your frame of reference, just gets bigger. Autokinesis gives it just enough motion to make you think it's an aircraft.

I've never made the mistake of misidentifying venus but it has definitely caught my eye.

It HAS been very big lately. When I was posting my earlier screed, I was considering if it came head-on, which I figured it would get larger. I know in 3-D space that perspectives are different, and take some getting used to.

Speaking of odd angles for light, one of my apartments many moons ago was in a flight path. It was a cloudy night, so the planes were coming in lower than normal, and still cruising through the clouds. I heard a plane and looked up, but from my perspective, the landing lights looked exactly as large and spaced like they were a car. It totally looked like a car was cruising over my apartment complex for about 5 seconds before everything came into proper perspective. Totaly awesome 5 seconds... :-)

We got a call when I was at Disneyland for "something hovering over Harbor House (the guard shack) for at least an hour." All of us in dispatch looked up and said, It's a planet, since if it had been anything else, the guard there would have called us to tell us, post-9/11.

So whoever caught the call radioed the panicked worker back and said, "Well, it's probably Venus or something, don't worry."

"Yes, but it's been there for an hour! You need to check it out!"

So we sent some luckless fool out and he checked it out. Then we put the reply out on all channels. "Copy, Venus is hovering over Harbor House."

I think everyone was polite enough not to laugh over the radio, but I can't recall.

A 75 minute nap while flying an airplane? How is that not the headline here?

Mikey1969: Mind you, Venus gets extremely bright. If you got outside after sunset in the next few weeks you'll see it, shining like a laser in the western sky. It's so bright it gets mistaken for a UFO all the time (Jupiter does too; see Related Posts below). Even pilots have thought that many times in the past.

I don't care HOW bright it is, unless the damn thing is moving, I might interpret it as a UO, but NEVER a UFO. Seriously, I have never figured out how people make this mistake. I don't care how many images people post that shows Venus looking bright, or colorful, or low in the sky, or high in the sky, etc. If it ain't moving, I'm not mistaking it for anything other than a planet or star, unless I'm on some REALLY good meds...

Cruising at 35,000 feet, and waking up from a nap, and hearing that a fighter is reasonably close to your position... You're disoriented, and see a very bright light directly in front of you. You would react and try to move the plane. That, in itself is reasonable.

That being said... The pilot was awake and in the middle of reporting what was going on at the time. The copilot was a dumbass, no matter how disoriented he was, for not letting the guy who was awake, and in command, handle the situation.

I wonder if the airline was told to not wash the plane.

Charlie Freak: slykens1: Charlie Freak: Venus can look an awful lot like an oncoming landing or recognition light. So can the actual lights of an actual oncoming aircraft. The trick is that if you have Venus and the oncoming plane in the same field of view, the two bright lights look an awful lot like the wingtip lights of an aircraft that is REALLY close. Further, if the oncoming aircraft is moving in your field of view, it looks like the false, close-in aircraft is trying to evade hitting you, which can cause you to evade in another direction.

I am not a pilot but wouldn't you consider TCAS input in your reaction, especially if you are unsure of what you're seeing?

When it comes to collision avoidance, you always go with what the mark ones tell you because TCAS may have failed on either aircraft. Yeah, you should verify what you're seeing, but seconds can be the difference between a mid-air and nothing at all.

In fact, there is a study out there describing the time necessary to visually identify another aircraft, verify it's an aircraft, verify it's on a collision course, decide on your course of action, move the controls, and time for the aircraft to respond and move out of the path.

It ends up being about 12.5 seconds, which, at airline cruise speeds and roughly 1000 knots of closure on a direct collision course gives you a minimum safe distance of about 3.5nm away. You pick it up at 2 miles and you're dead.

With the predictability of our stars, you'd think they could come up with a HUD or some other display that annotates spots that do not belong to our celestial bodies.

Mikey1969: Totaly awesome 5 seconds... :-)

Seen the same thing multiple times, a pretty surreal experience.

I once looked up from the window of a moving car, and just the motion of my head swaying made the stars look like part of a uniform (ufo/ship)body in motion above the city. I about puked, so severe was the odd illusion...years later, I saw movies like Independence Day (ID4), and when shots looked up at the ships, and my belly still flopped.

It's not so bad now, it's to the point where I can enjoy the awe of a convincing video of large things in the sky.(the good part of uncanny valley) I think I finally see how people develop a great fear of, say, spiders. Perception and reality and memory click in just the wrong way, and it could very well create a life long reaction of a given object.

That's scary to see in the sky.

UVIA?

/unexpected venus in the air

costermonger: omeganuepsilon: With the predictability of our stars, you'd think they could come up with a HUD or some other display that annotates spots that do not belong to our celestial bodies.

Without a doubt, but that sounds expensive, and if you wanna put it in the front end of an airliner, double expensive.

Why?
Do they have the habit of doing the government spending thing, like $5,000 screwdrivers?

Hell, some amateur could develop an ipad app that would say, "IT's VENUS STUPID!" via an alarm on right day an hour before it should come into view if you entered in your flight-paths for the week, or something along those lines.

Just bugs me when I can see a simple solution to an avoidable thing that is still, if only seldom, apparently a problem

You can't spell Venus without Enus.

/sounds dirty, right?
^{//gah it's in urban dictionary already}

costermonger: omeganuepsilon: Why?Do they have the habit of doing the government spending thing, like $5,000 screwdrivers?Hell, some amateur could develop an ipad app that would say, "IT's VENUS STUPID!" via an alarm on right day an hour before it should come into view if you entered in your flight-paths for the week, or something along those lines.Just bugs me when I can see a simple solution to an avoidable thing that is still, if only seldom, apparently a problem

It would need to be compliant with a Technical Standard Order, which would need to be created for such a device. Then you'd have to prove that the system actually complies with the TSO, which would probably include things like proving it's effectively incapable of showing something that isn't a celestial body as a celestial body, how it ensures that it never overlays a real conflicting aircraft with a star behind it, etc. This all costs money, and I don't think you'd ever find somebody who thinks it's a big enough problem to be considered economically viable.

There's a reason it took so much time and effort to get iPads into cockpits (some, specifically approved airlines) as a wifi-less PDF reader.

So, it is similar to the government thing then.
As i mentioned, it could be as simple as an iPad app giving you a warning.
Better than post it notes on the consoles, but no more complicated.

Guess he picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.

omeganuepsilon: costermonger: omeganuepsilon: Why?Do they have the habit of doing the government spending thing, like $5,000 screwdrivers?Hell, some amateur could develop an ipad app that would say, "IT's VENUS STUPID!" via an alarm on right day an hour before it should come into view if you entered in your flight-paths for the week, or something along those lines.Just bugs me when I can see a simple solution to an avoidable thing that is still, if only seldom, apparently a problem

It would need to be compliant with a Technical Standard Order, which would need to be created for such a device. Then you'd have to prove that the system actually complies with the TSO, which would probably include things like proving it's effectively incapable of showing something that isn't a celestial body as a celestial body, how it ensures that it never overlays a real conflicting aircraft with a star behind it, etc. This all costs money, and I don't think you'd ever find somebody who thinks it's a big enough problem to be considered economically viable.

There's a reason it took so much time and effort to get iPads into cockpits (some, specifically approved airlines) as a wifi-less PDF reader.

So, it is similar to the government thing then.
As i mentioned, it could be as simple as an iPad app giving you a warning.
Better than post it notes on the consoles, but no more complicated.

Um, no. It's not at all like that. What costermonger is saying is that a developer would have to prove that the system wouldn't cause two planes to go kamikaze because of a software glitch/power surge/passenger surfing porn or any one of these or a million other things that might happen. Hell, I helped a hangar tenant move a leading edge slat off of his Falcon that he was replacing today. He looks at me and says "How does it feel to be holding $330,000?" A 10 foot long aluminum assembly costs that much because it CAN'T fail, or people will die.

The government, depending on your beliefs, pays $5k for a screwdriver for one of three reasons.
1. They really paid $5.00 for it, but the rest is just a way of concealing black ops in the budget.
2. The screwdriver is made of an alloy for use in a very special application where a normal screwdriver wouldn't work.
3. It's the government. They can pay that because if they run short on $$$, they'll print or seize more.

overzealous: As i mentioned, it could be as simple as an iPad app giving you a warning.
Better than post it notes on the consoles, but no more complicated.

But still, the below.
overzealous: 2. The screwdriver is made of an alloy for use in a very special application where a normal screwdriver wouldn't work.

That's just as reasonable as meeting TSO requirements.
ergo
Like the government thing.

But lets write short novella's saying the same thing, that's more efficient.(again, like the government).

This is why we can't have nice things.

She had the face of an angel
Smiling with sin
The body of Venus with arms...

Frankly, I don't see the problem here.