sf wrote:

> On Sun, 7 Dec 2008 14:41:00 -0600, "Gregory Morrow" >
> wrote:
> >
> >WOW, blake, wouldn't a party of all the those you listed be F-U-N...???
>
> He listed regular rfc posters that have been publicly plonked.
>
> <cough>
>
> At least the people on the list have something to say, so that party
> would be lively - to say the very least. LOLOL!


Seriously, I think we'd all get along...however I'd hope that Peterbreath
Lucas' plane gets "lost" along the way to the party...

Speaking of "lost planes", before the jet era and modern radar tracking c.
1960 airliners on long - distance flights would often simply "disappear", up
until then planes were pretty much only in radio contact, there was little
radar tracking. Planes would crash even over land and the only way the FAA
would know would be by peeps and local authorities calling in that there had
been a crash. It would take hours or sometimes even days to locate the
crash sites...there were no "black boxes" with radio beacons as is routine
now.

Trans - oceanic flights would take off and then they'd reach something
called "the point of no return", beyond which the primitive radar tracking
of the time would be of no use...the planes would only have radio
communications with their home bases and local ATC, every long - distance
plane had a radio operater, plus a navigator plus the pilot and co - pilot.
Planes disappeared all the time, there were many famous incidents especially
in the Pacific, c. 1958 a Pan Am piston Stratocruiser on the Hawaii - SFO
run simply disappeared, later some wreckage was found. One famous crash
happened c. 1957 over the Grand Canyon, a TWA Constellation and a United
DC - 7 fatally collided, it took quite some time to find it. Another famous
mid - air crash - witnessed by many, natch - was over Brooklyn in IIRC
1960, a United DC-8 jet and a TWA Constellation crashed on approach to
Idlewild (JFK), much loss of life, some on the ground. Something like that
is unimaginable now...

Even when transatlantic jets were introduced in late 1958, ATC on that route
was still dodgy...by then some of the brighter minds figgered out that the
US - Canadian - NATO DEW line radars could be used to not only track
incoming Russkie missiles and bombers, but also civilian airliners...

Now we have GPS and sat nav and all that stuff, every moment of every
airliner movement is tracked, you can see this on any home PC. The
introduction of jets was also a revolution in safety, those old propeller
piston airliners had mucho numerous parts that if any one was even a tidge
off could be fatal...watch _The High And The Mighty_, that stewardess was
not kidding that they were in trouble when she sensed a tiny vibration in
the cabin floor...

Anyways, that's the civil aviation history lesson for today, kidz...

;-)


--
Best
Greg