Thinking about this makes me wonder -- maybe somebody here would know.
Have longitude and latitude ever had the 3rd dimension added to them in a commonly accepted and systemized way? If not, why not?
American Airlines plane crash
- Thread starter JamieDimonsBalls
- Start date
Thinking about this makes me wonder -- maybe somebody here would know.
Have longitude and latitude ever had the 3rd dimension added to them in a commonly accepted and systemized way? If not, why not?
But in theory, from what I've read the ATC didn't have any responsibility for the helicopter after he granted them visual flight permission. Even then when he saw them getting close he told the helicopter to go behind the plane.
I think we need to define DEI, and diversity. Let me ask this, if a town had almost no Black summer workers for parks and rec, would putting up help wanted signs at a Black church youth center be DEI and this bad? Would sending a PSA to a radio station with mostly Black demographics? Is it bad for a parks and rec to note it has hired 25 people and all are White?
Yes, we track objects above sea level in longitude, latitude and altitude. Be kind of hard to control air traffic or track potential hostile aircraft and missiles without altitude.
Can you remember where you saw this?
My very limited experience lends little to flying in the FRZ (couldn't have done it if I wanted to) -- and even less with military vs. civilian air traffic control. Although I'm sure everybody who flies in and around FRZ and the rest of the ADIZ deals with it every single day.
But saying "ATC didn't have any responsibility for the helicopter after he granted them" VFR doesn't sound right to me. They're in the FRZ, for chrissakes. If ATC didn't own the craft, then who did -- whether they were VFR or not?
No argument there but it doesn't matter if there are more than two. The helicopter pilot is still responsible to stay away from all of them. I saw video where it showed the plane in a slightly left bank (which would be normal for that landing) to get lined up with the runway and if the helicopter was at the wrong height then the plane's lights kinda blended in with the lights of the city. Like you, I really think it was the helicopter pilot's fault.
Late afternoon flight, so hoping at worst, that their hangover hasn't fully subsided. Early morning flight? Yeah, just rolling in from an all-nighter would be a concern.
I hadn't seen this:
6abc.com
Data from the jet's flight recorder showed its altitude as 325 feet, plus or minus 25 feet, when the crash happened Wednesday night, National Transportation Safety Board officials told reporters. Data in the control tower, though, showed the Black Hawk helicopter at 200 feet at the time.
The roughly 100-foot discrepancy has yet to be explained.
Conflicting preliminary data raises questions about aircrafts' altitude at time of DC midair crash
Data from the jet's flight recorder showed its altitude as 325 feet when the crash happened Wednesday night, NTSB officials told reporters. Data in the control tower, though, showed the Black Hawk helicopter at 200 feet at the time.
Couldn't agree more. DEI doesn't have a standard definition.
I wouldn't have a problem with this whether they had no black summer workers or lots of them....anymore than if they put up help wanted signs at places frequented mostly by white people. Help wanted is help wanted. And anybody can apply and be equally considered.
Are you saying that their intention is to emphasize hiring more black people -- and thus not to hire more white people?
If so, what happens when one of each shows up?
I guess I'd say that the idea of racial (or ethnic, etc.) bean-counting feels kind of icky to me. "Hey we have too many whites, we need to do things to get more black and brown people" may run afoul of EEO rules. But the problem with these rules is that we've all been conditioned to think of them as ways to help underrepresented minorities. But that isn't how Title VII is written at all. Here's how the meat of it begins:
DISCRIMINATION BECAUSE OF RACE, COLOR, RELIGION, SEX, OR NATIONAL ORIGIN
SEC. 703. [42 U.S.C. 2000e–2]
(a) It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer—
(1) to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges or employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; or
(2) to limit, segregate, or classify his employees or applicants for employment in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
Notice that these laws don't specify which race.If we're not prepared to approach things like hiring in a race-neutral fashion, then we don't really mean what was written in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. And arguing that white people have nothing to complain about, that anti-white discrimination isn't a problem, etc. really doesn't get us over this hump.
Race neutrality is race neutrality.
Well, I know things are tracked with altitude. Duh. C'mon Aloha.
I'm thinking more along the lines of systems like GPS. It seems like all systems like that should be 3 dimensional.
I hadn't seen this:
Data from the jet's flight recorder showed its altitude as 325 feet, plus or minus 25 feet, when the crash happened Wednesday night, National Transportation Safety Board officials told reporters. Data in the control tower, though, showed the Black Hawk helicopter at 200 feet at the time.The roughly 100-foot discrepancy has yet to be explained.Conflicting preliminary data raises questions about aircrafts' altitude at time of DC midair crash
Data from the jet's flight recorder showed its altitude as 325 feet when the crash happened Wednesday night, NTSB officials told reporters. Data in the control tower, though, showed the Black Hawk helicopter at 200 feet at the time.
The aircraft and the tower had two different altitudes? This was in DC, right?
Sonofabitch.
I misunderstood you. Sorry. Well, the GPS in my car does longitude, latitude and feet above sea level.
I was referring to radar, which does all three as well. Plus, the system calculates speed and predicts future locations as well. All pretty cool when looking at the big screens in the ship's Combat Information Center.
No I can't remember whare I saw it but I've heard that on videos that I've watch way before this happened. I'm sure the ATC still monitors them and I think ATC did see the helicopter was getting close and to them to go behind the CRJ.
This is what I was getting at. If our ATC network doesn't have systems that use all this data to predict violations of separation minimums, they damn well should.
But it now sounds like the tower may have had incorrect altitude information? If so, how does that happen?
I would think you would still hire the most qualified. I just want to up the pool of any group that may not be well represented.
And that is a good point, but it raises a similar problem to eliminating word-of-mouth hiring, how do we find racism? If we can't look at a Fortune 500 company with 10,000 only White employees and suspect something, I don't know how we could ever prove racism, assuming most people today are too savvy to publicly state their racism.
My question is more philosophical because I don't know there is a good solution. I don't want people hired on quota either, but I want someone to feel very confident if they don't get a job or into a school it is only on merit. So where we can find legacy, it has to go. But we need to be aware that racism can and will creep in, and I believe we both accept that is not a good thing.
USAToday has the same but add to it:The aircraft and the tower had two different altitudes? This was in DC, right?
Sonofabitch.
The plane's altitude suggests the Army helicopter was flying above 200 feet − the maximum altitude for the route it was using. Yet the control tower's radar apparently showed the helicopter at 200 feet at the time of the accident, though that information has not been confirmed, Banning said.
"That's what our job is, to figure that out," NTSB board member Todd Inman said.
Systems do have errors and occasional malfunctions. They're also not 100 percent precise all the time. There are tolerances which is why an ATC might order a plane or helo to an altitude of 150 feet or so lower or higher than needed to be safe.
When a particular poster was claiming that cell phone GPS was very precise in support of the stupid 2000 Mules movie, he was talking from ignorance.
The other thing not mentioned is IFF which comes from the aircraft to identify it and provide data from that location. It all gets combined in the systems in the tower.
They'll find out what happened in the next few months.
Hackers
When you say “well represented”, does that mean comparing to overall population demographics? Should it always be proportional? What if people of color aren’t applying at the same rate as whites? Should the major sports leagues take the same approach?
That stuff has been part of affirmative action plans for decades. I have no problem with any of that.
Problems arise when you impose a particular result. When processing an employee discrimination complaint, the EEOC requests the employer’s demographic data even though quotas are mostly not permitted. Employers try to keep a demographic balance for this reason.
I'm no defender of nepotism/legacy. It's a huge problem in the building trades unions. The unions control half the slots on the committees that choose who does and doesn't get a spot. And these are very coveted spots. Probably one apprenticeship for every 15-20 applicants.
If you're a legacy in that trade and your father hasn't made a lot of enemies within the union (some do, usually just by publicly expressing common sense), I wouldn't say that you're a shoo-in, but I would say that you're 80-90% likely to get in. One thing about unions is that they take care of their own. Another thing about unions is that they don't listen to anybody else who isn't them. So good luck getting them to give this up -- we've tried. (In fairness, some management legacies benefit from this as well, but it's way less common).
Anyway, I always thought John Roberts put this very well: “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race."
But some people clearly and earnestly believe that some forms of racial discrimination are "good" and necessary...as correctives for past "bad" racial discrimination. I totally understand why they think that. But I'm not sure they've considered the negative side of that -- let alone the 14A problems with it.
I think I suggested that places attempt to recruit applicants but hire based on merit. So yes, if a sports league suddenly finds all their players of a specific race they should do outreach to get other races involved. MLB has been trying to get more Black youths playing youth baseball as an example. Doesn't guarantee any will make to MLB.
Marvin, one other thing on building trades.
The specific trade union I'm most familiar with here has approximately 1000 members. And roughly 15 of them are black. This union does experience a lot of nepotism, as explained above.
But I'd also say that a racial minority who applies to this apprenticeship has a significantly better chance of acceptance than a white applicant (at least, one who isn't a legacy). There is no formal policy to this end. But it's an unwritten rule and every single member of that committee will quietly agree it's the case.
So....what do you think the problem here is? Why is this trade union heavily white (and heavily male)? Is it because they only want white males and actively discriminate against anybody who isn't?
Or is there another explanation?
This falls under my question a few days ago about the Military bird and ADSB. I just heard on Newsmax this AM that Military aircraft do not necessarily use that tech. Having said that, I have read the reg and it is a requirement especially in Class Bravo AS, and it doesn't mention the MIL are exempt. so who knows.
I'm confused (nothing new 🤣 ) .... what other dimension do they need? They have all the dimensions that a GPS gives you don't they?
On a side note: I was just listening to a ATC person explaining what visual separation means and she said it relieves the ATC of keeping planes separated and places the responsibility on the crew of the plane.
Have any of these things specified what specific separation rules they were operating under? There are a number of different sets -- and I'd be surprised if the FRZ didn't have its own custom separation minima -- just because of what it is.
I'm speaking from a lot of ignorance here, but I know there's such a thing as ATC Assigned Airspace that comes into play when there's proximity to certain military traffic (which is called an MOA). But I couldn't tell you if that was operative here.
My guess -- and, again, it's uninformed -- is that a discrepancy of 100 feet or so of altitude difference shouldn't have made a difference so far as the applicable separation minima. In other words, they still would've been too close, even if there wasn't this discrepancy. But if they really were flying under VFR, then maybe ATC wasn't paying as much attention?
As to VFR, yes, this is correct. But I'd think ATC's Collision Avoidance systems would still have been setting off warning alarms....even if they had incorrect altitude of the Blackhawk. A 100' FL discrepancy isn't a 1000' FL discrepancy. If they weren't getting these alarms, VFR or not, then there's something very deficient with their Collision Avoidance systems.
GPS doesn't give altitude. But aircraft altitude data are captured and sent to ATCs -- at least with the modern transponders I'm familiar with. I'm wondering if our aviation systems work similarly to the military systems Aloha was describing -- in terms of being predictive and inclusive of all spatial information and trajectories. Surely they do. But they clearly failed here...or they were ignored. And I'm just not convinced that ~100' difference in reported FL and actual FL would be enough to not trigger an alarm.
And I also think that altitude should be incorporated into more of these systems. That would certainly help with recreational drones and that sort of thing.
Last edited:
I've done a little more research into the real-time transmission of altitude data.
They now have a thing called "Mode S" surveillance, which requires a transponder equipped with Mode S functionality.
I'm pretty sure this system wasn't around when I was flying. If it was, it was in more advanced aircraft than I was in. In fact, I only ever flew one aircraft that even had GPS. I learned using the old-school navigation methods. They say that Mode S was developed in the 70s, but didn't get fully rolled out until the 90s. And it's backwards compatible with the older civilian interrogation modes (Modes A and C).
What I don't know yet is how a Mode S transponder gets its altitude data.
The mode I was familiar with using is Mode C. It does send altitude data, but is reliant on the altimeter being properly adjusted to air pressure at ground level. If this isn't set correctly, it would show an incorrect altitude above MSL.
This is for civilian aircraft. Military aircraft use different modes. And I'd be floored if both of these aircraft didn't utilize the same technology as Mode S.
They now have a thing called "Mode S" surveillance, which requires a transponder equipped with Mode S functionality.
I'm pretty sure this system wasn't around when I was flying. If it was, it was in more advanced aircraft than I was in. In fact, I only ever flew one aircraft that even had GPS. I learned using the old-school navigation methods. They say that Mode S was developed in the 70s, but didn't get fully rolled out until the 90s. And it's backwards compatible with the older civilian interrogation modes (Modes A and C).
What I don't know yet is how a Mode S transponder gets its altitude data.
The mode I was familiar with using is Mode C. It does send altitude data, but is reliant on the altimeter being properly adjusted to air pressure at ground level. If this isn't set correctly, it would show an incorrect altitude above MSL.
This is for civilian aircraft. Military aircraft use different modes. And I'd be floored if both of these aircraft didn't utilize the same technology as Mode S.
And that is what makes racism difficult to prove. I suspect it isn't as rampant as some thing, and not as close to zero as others believe.
One thing they have tried in studies is sending out resumes that are virtually identical except the name. Usually the Black sounding name receives fewer interviews.
Even that can sometimes be the law of large numbers. Sometimes. I doubt you could use it to prosecute a specific country, but can be used to indicate there is a problem
All I am suggesting is the White privilege is real. I do not have a solution.
Man, I don't know.
Privilege is real. But there are plenty of black people who have it. And plenty of white people who don't.
The fact that a higher percentage of white people have privilege than black people doesn't mean that our society has "white privilege." It just means that everybody comes from different backgrounds and has different exposures to things. Everybody has different parents -- some have shitty parents. Some have great parents.
And, for a number of reasons (including past discrimination), it's true that white people are, on average, better off than black people.
However, all people make different choices along their lives that have impact on their well-being. If somebody spends their life making lots of bad choices -- gambling, using drugs, dropping out of school, blowing off work, being lazy, having children in unstable family situations, spending more than they make, etc. etc. -- then they are far more likely to be in bad life situations than people who haven't made as many bad choices.
Screaming "No fair....privilege!" at people in better life situations isn't necessarily going to engender a lot of sympathy from me. Yes, some people are born into good or great circumstances. Some people are born into terrible circumstances. And it's absolutely true that success in life is going to favor those born into good ones. Deal with it. It's always been the case, always will.
But people can do themselves a huge favor by making good decisions. They will get better outcomes if they do. And they can live their lives and raise their families in such a way that their children can be said to come from a favorable environment rather than an unfavorable one.
I know many, many parents who came from meager circumstances and raised kids who did fantastically. If you weren't born into privilege, try to make it so that your kids were. You don't have to be rich to do this.
A GPS does give altitude... it's not as accurate as the other coordinates. At one tine I had logged a trip on my GPS.... happened to be sitting by the window and it would pick up the satellites. The altitude on my GPS would differ from what they said we were flying but that is understandable since they go by barometric altitude and not actual altitude. I always wondered how barometric altitude work since it's different everywhere but finally saw a video that said after a certain (real) altitude planes set the barometric pressure to the same setting. The real altitude may be incorrect but it would be incorrect for all planes.
On edit: As you probably know planes to have equipment to avoid collisions. It will tell one place to go down and tell the other plane to climb but that is disabled below 1000ft I think because there's just not enough room. I think the CRJ did get a "Traffic" warning.
Last edited:
The Mode S system obtains altitude information from the aircraft's transponder. When an aircraft is equipped with a Mode S transponder, it responds to interrogations from Air Traffic Control (ATC) radar systems by transmitting data, including the aircraft's barometric altitude. This altitude is referenced to standard atmospheric conditions and is typically derived from the aircraft's altimeter settings
That last sentence is what I was wondering about.
If a Mode S capable transponder is getting its altitude number from a traditional barometric altimeter, then it's possible that altimeter hasn't been set properly by the crew.
I wonder if the altimeters they're using these days get ground-level barometric settings from their GPS. When I was flying, we'd just be advised what the altimeter needed to be set at by whoever we were talking to. I'd get that data here at EVV, too -- but I didn't really need it because I knew the airfield's AMSL was 420'. So I'd just set the barometer to whatever it needed to be at to give me that altitude.
But obviously the ground-level air pressure changes as you move -- and you could get that data from a tower, approach, or an ATIS.
Similar threads
