News and notes from around the interweb:
- Donate $5 and earn $8 worth of Hilton points if you link your Lyft account to Hilton you can earn 2000 Hilton points for a $5 or higher donation to Lyft rides for folks who need access to a vaccine by May 31. I value 2000 Hilton points at $8.
- American’s $10 billion financing backed by the AAdvantage program received $30 billion in bids. (Financial Times) The loyalty program was appraised last year as worth between $18 billion and $30 billion.
- Safety concerns with escalators, elevators, and moving walkways at Miami’s airport
- Serial airline stowaway explains how she does it
- DC complains FAA airport noise rules aren’t strict enough as part of complaining that planes now fly closer to the District around National airport, but come on they used to fly quite close prior to 9/11.
- The New York LaGuardia AirTran project to Willets Point: It may not be any good, but it was the easiest option.
- United restores buy on board service to more routes and introduces new snack boxes
- The Air Force has to re-engineer part of its own Stealth Bomber somebody must have lost the plans…
The articles doesn’t really explain how Marilyn Hartman got onboard the plane at the gate. It explains how she got past TSA but nothing says about how she actually evaded gate agent to get onboard the aircraft. I’m wondering how she did that.
I value 2,000 Hilton points at a few loud farts.
BRRRRRRRRRT
The military is a joke. Putting aside the push to woke the military with women in combat roles and transgender inclusion, every hardware system they’ve implemented has been a disaster for over 30 years. Boeing has been terrible but surely the military is partly to blame for the KC46 tanker debacle. The DDG proved to be a huge waste (3 ship built and they decided they will keep producing a 40 year Arleigh Burke design. The V-22 was delayed for 20 years and is a dangerous rotary craft that can’t lift cargo better than older equipment. The F-117 proved to be a waste. The F35 is extremely expensive. Illogically, their unpiloted drones are nearly as expensive as their manned aircraft. The new catapults on the Gerald Ford don’t work correctly and they literally can’t get their wiring throughout the ship fixed. Now we know why they continue to fly the B-52.
People on the left are right about one thing: military spending could be cut in half. We don’t need a standing army of 500K who never defend our borders at home and who are only ever used in wars they shouldn’t be in. Subs, Aegis Destroyers (few cruisers), and land based silos are all that’s needed to fight real wars against a major power. I rather the cut in military spending go to UBI or food stamps. At least it won’t be wasted.
When using DCA in the 1990s, I used to fly on a bunch of flights over DC that gave me great views of National Cathedral and of Georgetown and other parts of DC. And a bunch of that flying over DC proper was even after a truck driver’s light plane (a stolen Cessna?) crash landed on the White House South Lawn on a Sunday night during Clinton’s first term as POTUS. The pilot died in the plane crash in what was assumed to be a suicide of some sort and did spark a review that included the danger of suicidal pilots attacking ground targets in and around DC.