[HN Gopher] A bad day at the office
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A bad day at the office
Author : freediver
Score : 239 points
Date : 2024-02-26 15:26 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (airminded.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (airminded.org)
| chris_wot wrote:
| 350 feet up... and they climbed it, then lowered the pilot with a
| _really_ long rope... wowsers!
| a2tech wrote:
| I would imagine they'd lower him down a bit and then while
| someone held him, the others would descend. Managing 300 feet
| of rope up that high (and especially as the guy got lowered
| more) would be really difficult.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| A modern rope for rock climbing is 50 to 60m, about 160 feet.
| Some climbers use thinner double/twin ropes that are twice
| that length. It can be a pain but isn't unmanageable if you
| take your time. I could see them doing it all at once using
| whatever reasonable rope they had at the time.
| whoisthemachine wrote:
| Not only that, one climbed _onto_ and then _into_ the cockpit
| to secure the pilot.
|
| > ...a seaman of the Naval Reserve named Rath climbed up the
| inside of the mast until he reached the machine, and then
| crawled out to the plane to hold the pilot until help came.
| DowagerDave wrote:
| I assume all that experience climbing the rigging up to the
| crowsnest paid off even on land, working with a different
| service!
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Part of me wants to say that British ships did not have
| "crows nests" rather "fighting tops", flat platforms for
| multiple people rather than the barrel-shaped crows nest.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_(sailing_ship)
| devsda wrote:
| To make it even better, for one of them(from ground crew) it
| was their first time climbing 360ft on that mast.
|
| Before that day, they never climbed beyond 73ft [1]. Because of
| this reason he (Rath) was awarded a gold medal while the other
| two received different (silver I presume) medals.
|
| [1]. Link at
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39512332#39513137
| lmm wrote:
| > Because of this reason he (Rath) was awarded a gold medal
| while the other two received different (silver I presume)
| medals.
|
| Apparently the standard one was bronze.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Medal_for_Lifesaving
| n4r9 wrote:
| Interestingly the second time I've seen mention of Portsmouth
| (UK) on HN in a month. Previous time here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38988389
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Such things happen more often than people like to think. The
| image from this 2019 incident is almost unbelievable.
|
| https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/pilot-uninjured-after-plane-get...
|
| And Florida 2021:
|
| https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2021/09/24/florida-p...
|
| Ontario 1986:
|
| https://tessa2.lapl.org/digital/collection/photos/id/32617
|
| Power lines seem surprisingly good at catching small aircraft
| without shattering them.
| hammock wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arresting_gear
| hypertexthero wrote:
| Also trees: https://abc7news.com/plane-crash-connecticut-small-
| plainvill...
| zoogeny wrote:
| It reminds me of flies being caught in spiderwebs.
| monitron wrote:
| It happened in my neck of the woods (Maryland) a few years ago:
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/27/plane-cra...
| iamtheworstdev wrote:
| it happened by a guy who had literally previously done it and
| i think at that same airport. i hope they took his license
| after that last one.
| dpedu wrote:
| I'd be very curious to see how similar the forces experienced
| by power lines are in wind storms vs catching a small aircraft.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Looks like someone thinking they're a navy pilot trying to hit
| the #2 wire
| duck wrote:
| They're also good at catching a moose:
| https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/high-wire-act/
| silasdavis wrote:
| How slow can a light aircraft go if pulling up heavily into a
| stall? Are they only going a few kmh when snagged like that?
| Waterluvian wrote:
| So many wires that are likely less visible, more present, and
| less survivable. Amazing he hit and became affixed to the main
| tower.
| gnfargbl wrote:
| I found a little more on the incident at
| https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/-/media/royal-navy-responsive/i...
| (page 14).
| eszed wrote:
| Thanks! Great additions to the story. My favorite is that one
| of the rescuers was a groundsman who had never been higher than
| 75ft up the mast!
|
| It reminds me of the Mr Rogers line about "look for the
| helpers" - the folks who run towards trouble. Nicholas Rath,
| RNR. His name deserves to be remembered.
|
| The writer also includes a nifty contemporary simile. Good
| stuff.
| DowagerDave wrote:
| There's a similar scenario described in "How To" by Randall
| Munroe, where he asks astronaut Chris Hadfield if you "could land
| a plane by rolling it on it's side and catching the arrest hook
| on the cable hanging from a crane?" Chris is skeptical it would
| work, but answers seriously and references the frequency of small
| planes getting caught in powerlines & towers.
| imoverclocked wrote:
| This particular plane has a top-speed of 100mph. It might be
| flyable down to 30mph... which would make such stunts far more
| possible than with faster aircraft today. Of course, you can do
| anything once; The real question is, "can you do it multiple
| times?"
| mattpallissard wrote:
| A good landing is one you walk away from. A great one is
| where you can fly the plane again.
| tejtm wrote:
| quote attributed to Chuck Yeager.
| TylerE wrote:
| 30mph is unrealistically low, more like 45-50, which is
| already more than doubling the impact force. On top of that,
| they can only fly that slow straight and level. Banking
| increases the amount of lift you need to generate to maintain
| altude, as the lift is now pointing to the side instead of
| straight up.
|
| Maintaining flight in a 90 degree bank is something
| aerobatics aircraft can do, but it's hard, requires a
| specific aircraft setup, and you're not doing it at approach
| speed. More like 100-150mph.
|
| Very easy spin an aircraft when attempting to maneuver at low
| speeds, and that will invariably result in a crash as you
| need several thousand feet of altitude to recover. Such
| crashes are 99.9% fatal.
|
| Usually looks something like this (Warning: It's a crash,
| there's a fireball, but it isn't overly graphic):
| https://youtube.com/shorts/urTs-y7MiJE?si=ovfiC3ZvCgcFr5Nu
|
| Rather than just rolling out the pilot pulled back sharply
| right around when when he got fully inverted, you see the
| nose quickly start to come around, and then a split second
| later the left wing stalls deeper at which point it enters a
| counterclockwise spin and impacts the ground after
| approximately a quarter rotation.
| wlll wrote:
| > you can do anything once
|
| I'm not sure that's the quote. You can't after all eat your
| own head, even once.
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| Slightly related but a fun thing to learn about was the flashing
| lights on powerlines (i'm nerdy so love hearing about stuff like
| this from people in the know).
|
| You know those balls they have on powerlines that flash? Easy
| right? It's just a flashing light. That's what i always thought
| at least. Until someone pointed out to me that they sit on one
| line at a time with no earth and no battery, just a capacitor to
| store charge between blinks. So how do they create a circuit?
| There's only one wire!
|
| Well since there's current flowing through the wire there's
| induction and you can wrap that wire in what is essentially half
| an AC transformer and create a whole new circuit at much lower
| voltage. In fact the blinking lights on powerlines internally
| just have two metal plates either side of the slot that goes over
| the line and clips in. From induction they leach power from the
| power lines despite there only being one wire and no earth in the
| whole system.
|
| Which i find really cool and simple. You can take any high
| voltage power line and a metal plate and power a blinking light
| just by getting close to it!
| KMag wrote:
| > You can take any high voltage power line and a metal plate
| and power a blinking light just by getting close to it!
|
| Well, for high-voltage DC transmission lines (typically used
| for longer distances to minimize induction loss), you'd
| presumably need to try to power them via current leaking to the
| air instead of induction. I'm not sure how feasible that is.
| samatman wrote:
| It gets weirder than that, if you bring a fluorescent bulb
| close enough to high-voltage transmission lines, it will just
| glow. https://www.farmanddairy.com/top-stories/how-to-make-a-
| fluor...
|
| Induction is a fact about the physical world which I accept but
| have never truly understood.
| Izkata wrote:
| I remember reading about an experiment years ago where
| computer chips that could be reconfigured programmatically
| (FGPAs? Not sure) were put through a genetic algorithm to see
| if it could come up with a circuit to do a task on its own.
| In one of the results, the circuit wasn't actually connected
| end to end so it took them a while to figure out how it
| worked - turned out the two halves were communicating through
| induction.
|
| I think that same experiment had a configuration that would
| only work on one chip and not others it was copied to,
| because it accidentally relied on impurities in one of the
| components.
| ikiris wrote:
| Its not about current flowing through the wire, its the fact
| its an AC line so it has a shifting magnetic field. You can
| easily extract power from any moving mag field.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| I used to bjj in the mornings before work because my mentality
| was "If i've already been choked out, beat up, and tapped out
| then there's nothing worse that the day (or my boss) can throw at
| me." (ie, it's all easier from 8am on)
| earthwalker99 wrote:
| It must feel nice to forget that your boss can fire you. The
| bliss of ignorance.
| parthianshotgun wrote:
| We must accept everything and resolve inequity internally,
| within our souls no less! I fully support this mentality (and
| I need to, because I may someday be a boss, and I certainly
| wouldn't want my unders to realize material issues, it's
| better for me in the long run to let people 'self actualize'
| and ensure my totality)
| Damogran6 wrote:
| Once it's happened a few times, you'll find you get much more
| pragmatic.
| rcbdev wrote:
| It genuinely feels nice to live in a society where getting
| fired is not a big deal.
| earthwalker99 wrote:
| Which society is that????
| rcbdev wrote:
| Vienna, Austria.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| It's not that he can't fire me. It's that facing (mocked)
| death gives perspective to the actual threat of being fired.
| At least in my life and circumstances being fired is not an
| existential threat. Sure my comforts may be threatened, but
| at the very worst case I can have a bed in a shelter and food
| from a kitchen. It's not what I want, but it's also not as
| dire as others make it out to be.
|
| The fear of being fired gives them more power over you.
| Remove the fear and take your power back.
| earthwalker99 wrote:
| Thankfully my parents didn't live with such recklessness.
| With such nonsense floating around, we won't even have a
| society in a few generations because nobody can raise a
| family like that, and we should not be surprised that the
| few children we are producing have so many problems.
| jiveturkey42 wrote:
| There needs to be a term for when a replier thinks they're
| doing clever one-upsmanship, but everyone else sees it as
| unpleasant misanthropy
| kstrauser wrote:
| "You're not wrong, Walter..."
| nilslindemann wrote:
| Why would your boss fire you if you do Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu?
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| Similarly, I've been anti-confrontational all my life, until I
| got in a car wreck where we were rear-ended on the highway and
| thanks to the airbag I really just had the wind knocked out of
| me, but ever since then I've figured getting punched in the
| face is probably not worse and can handle more stressful
| situations now. Still haven't been punched in the face tho.
| infinite_salt wrote:
| A former UFC heavyweight flipped his truck recently and said
| that the airbag hit him harder than any of the opponents he
| had faced
| chasd00 wrote:
| i was mugged once, got jumped from behind by about 4 people
| and beat up pretty good, idk about anyone else but getting
| hit really hard in the back of the jaw with a fist is not
| something you instantly shake off and respond to like in the
| movies. I went down like a load of bricks and it took 30 sec
| for me to figure out what was even happening. That whole time
| I was getting kicked and hit more. By the time i was even
| capable of getting to my feet it was over and my pockets were
| empty.
| neilv wrote:
| My martial arts training was more gentle (Aikido, which did
| involve a lot of tapping out, but the sensei was very
| conscientious about safety, and BJJ would've been too rough for
| me personally).
|
| So one of my personal baselines for physical danger... I've had
| guns pointed at me a couple times on dark streets, including
| once by a crazy-overconfident young teen saying he was going to
| shoot me when I told him I didn't have a wallet (and I had to
| maneuver as he was saying this, to put a parked car between us,
| before I sprinted away and hopefully didn't get shot in the
| back once he could line me up). The other time, as soon as I
| realized what was happening, I went to an old script for
| handing over my wallet, suddenly very clear-headed and focused
| and calm, so much so that the mugger pointing a gun at me
| started getting nervous and shouting at me.
|
| I was wired after both those times, but humans evolved for
| brief life-threatening stress like that.
|
| Job stress is different, and can be worse for humans:
|
| * It can be something you can neither fight nor flee.
|
| * It can happen over a long period, which we aren't built for.
|
| * It can threaten more than just you (your family, your
| colleagues, strong values).
|
| I've had desk-job crisis situations in which the company might
| rest upon me pulling off something not necessarily possible,
| when I have to invoke calm, sharp, in-command Astronaut Mode,
| for days at a time. But IME that only works when you can take
| some command, which isn't all bad corporate situations.
|
| If one has the perspective that the job can't be worse than
| what they've survived, I suspect that's great, in that it will
| help them avoid stress adverse impact on their health.
|
| Unfortunately, I don't think everyone can have that
| perspective, and it's also not always an accurate perspective.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| You make great points/caveats to what I was identifying. BJJ
| (rolling particularly) helped for a subset of normal work
| stresses as opposed to chronic stresses bordering on traumas
| :)
| flir wrote:
| Commemorative event and additional context, 2017:
| https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-and-latest-activity/news/2...
|
| More photos of the wireless station:
| https://www.commsmuseum.co.uk/CoursesNonCHC/horsea.htm
|
| Archaeological report, 2018:
| https://maritimearchaeologytrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2020...
| Damogran6 wrote:
| Ordinary Seaman Knoulton
|
| My feelings for his job title are...complicated. (Webmaster
| Miller, Network Intrusion Specialist, Red Team...)
| sophacles wrote:
| Tangential - from the article referenced by the article:
|
| > The pilot owes his preservation to the intrepid gallentry of
| these three men, who, while aline to the risks they ran,
| performed the rescue without hesitation for personal safety.
|
| Aline means (according to a brief search): a cut of garment
| consisting basically of two A-shaped panels for the front and
| back, designed to give increasing fullness toward the hemline.
|
| Is this a typo/transcription error or some out of date usage I'm
| unable to find a definition for?
|
| If it's a typo of aligned, it makes sense but that's a strange
| (to me phrasing).
| parkererway wrote:
| Bad OCR of "blind", maybe?
| CrazyStat wrote:
| I read it as a typo/mistranscription for "alive"--to be alive
| to the risk means they are aware of it.
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| From the context I believe it means "to be aware of".
|
| It's possible to do something incredibly dangerous because you
| aren't aware of the risks -- that isn't courage or bravery,
| that's just plain ignorance.
|
| There's a comment on the article:
|
| > While aline to the risks? No.
|
| > While cognizant of the risks.
| Izkata wrote:
| https://www.dictionary.com/browse/Aline
|
| Down the page: British dictionary - a rare spelling of "align".
|
| The garment is apparently A-line, not aline.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| I'm just amazed at how tall and skinny that structure is. Must be
| some strong steel. I guess the latticing provides a lot of
| strength as well.
| pvg wrote:
| It's also cabled (guy-wired, I guess) to the ground. A mast
| like that was once the tallest human structure
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_radio_mast
| extr0pian wrote:
| There's also probably around a dozen guyed wires holding it up.
| flir wrote:
| It was timber, believe it or not. Metal guy ropes.
| benatkin wrote:
| This made me think of literally an office, and The Crimson
| Permanent Assurance.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crimson_Permanent_Assuranc...
|
| It is quite a story, though. I struggled to wrap my head around
| them carrying him off the building. With the detail of the rope,
| it made more sense.
| 1letterunixname wrote:
| It's all about improvised office weapons and the scaffolding
| that moves with the building. CPA should set sail for the
| pointless megabuildings of Austin.
| a3w wrote:
| Whose 350 feet? Instructions for unclear jumped out of the plane.
| DerCommodore wrote:
| I wonder how often this really happens
| 1letterunixname wrote:
| I'll use this as a meme for when an unhandled edge case causes
| catastrophic failure.
| stevage wrote:
| Impressivetaht they had a 100m rope close at hand to lower him
| down with.
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(page generated 2024-02-26 23:00 UTC)