Author: ssegraves

5,000 pilots hiding major health issues?

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From The Washington Post —

Federal authorities have been investigating nearly 5,000 pilots suspected of falsifying their medical records to conceal that they were receiving benefits for mental health disorders and other serious conditions that could make them unfit to fly, documents and interviews show.

The pilots under scrutiny are military veterans who told the Federal Aviation Administration that they are healthy enough to fly, yet failed to report — as required by law — that they were also collecting veterans benefits for disabilities that could bar them from the cockpit.

It is hard to figure out what the stats actually show. Not all of the 5,000 pilots are commercial pilots, they are simply pilots who hold a pilot’s license. It could be as simple as pilots exploiting holes in the Veterans Affairs system to receive benefits when they are not actually eligible. In any case, government bureaucracies are pretty good at matching up paperwork eventually and it seems like that’s exactly what has happened.

I am a terrible trip report writer

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In preparing to write this I came across this photo from 2017 of the amenities of a United Global First seat. The whole intention was to write a trip report, give my take on the experience, and create a little traffic on this blog. As you guessed, I never wrote that trip report. I got as far as uploading the photos and then had real work and real life get in the way. But on top of all of that, I don’t know that I am the best person to write trip reports.

I love aviation, flying, and all of the fun amenities that come with the airline experience but I am also someone who loves getting where I am going and being rested and ready to go when I get there. This typically means I may or may not eat the meal on a longhaul flight and usually spend a good chunk of the time sleeping. For example, on a recent British Airways flight in business class from Portland to London and onward to Lisbon I ate part of the dinner and slept right up until our final descent into London. I was only going to be in Europe for 5-6 days and was there for work, so being on the local time and not completely jet-lagged was priority number one.

Even on daytime flights my goal is to adjust to the destination time zone as painlessly as possible and this almost always involves some amount of sleep on the plane. On a recent Denver to Munich flight in business class I slept almost six out of the ten hours. I didn’t even eat the main meal, lunch, right after departure from Munich. Instead I put my seat down and went to bed in the hopes of jumpstarting my return to west coast time.

For me, most trip reports could be broken down into food and sleep and a few questions around those. Did I eat? Was it edible and filling? Did I sleep? Was it restful and comfortable? If the answers to most of those questions is “yes” then the whole trip report could be summarized with “It was fine”.

Most trip reports seem to focus on squeezing the maximum amount of “value” or perks out of a trip where my view of value is whether or not I was able to hit the ground running for work or was I able to return home rested and ready to spend time with family after a long or stressful work trip. I don’t think either view is necessarily wrong but I do believe my experience is very different and also not very compelling to read.

Let’s go back to that trip from 2017. Here is the main course served on that flight. It was fine. Nothing earthshattering or amazing. It was run of the mill airplane food. 
Yeah, it was better than economy but definitely wasn’t at restaurant quality. And to be honest, most airplane food is never going to be restaurant quality. Sure you might get a really nice champagne, wine or even caviar but overall most airplane food is just that.

I don’t know, maybe you all want to read about what work travel is really like. Feel free to let me know. In the meantime, there are a number of bloggers writing really in-depth trip reports. On top of that, there are vloggers creating some great trip reports on YouTube.

Let me know what you think, do I write the boring work travel reports?

Chemtrails: behind the conspiracy theory

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It seems like the chemtrails conspiracy theory pops up every so often but the BBC has a nice write-up of what contrails are and why they occur.

Contrails are formed when water vapour and fine soot particulates from burning jet fuel freeze into ice crystals. In low air humidity, the crystals just dissipate. In higher humidity, they persist, and end up creating visible vapour trails over large areas of sky.

Adding to this, even if it’s humid, you may only see thin clouds because the upper level winds blow the contrails apart.

Oddly enough, the conspiracy theory likely gets a bit of weight behind because of experiments in the 1950s and 1960s known as the Dorset Biological Warfare Experiments. Similar experiments took place in the United States and in 1977 the US Senate Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research led to the US Army revealing the details of the experiments.

Leaving Lyft

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Foggy Morrison Bridge in Portland

When Uber first entered the ridesharing market I was working in New York City and my coworkers used a rather expensive car service that we would call a day before our trip and arrange an airport dropoff. The rates to and from the airport were flat so regardless of traffic we paid a single fare and could tip if we so desired. The cars were nice and the drivers were friendly. Uber showed up at a time when different coworkers were having to go to different parts of the city and it was not longer possible to always ride together. We could arrange a car shortly before needing to leave and would usually end up in a black town car, just as if we were utilizing the black car service directly.

Over the years Lyft came on the scene and I preferred them mostly because they were a little more affordable when compared with Uber and I could schedule a pick-up in advance. There were some cases where Uber was the only option, particularly in parts of Europe, and I would use them when needed. Around 2018-2019 airports started having to change their pick-up policies because they were inundated with ridesharing cars clogging up the normal lines. A lot of airports moved pick-up areas to parking garages and in 2019, LAX launched LAX-it, where travelers needing a rideshare or a cab would take a shuttle to an offsite location to get their ride. All of this was done to try and reduce traffic around terminals but it had the knock-on effect of making rideshare pick up from airports less convenient.

During my last five or six trips to and from the airport here in Portland I have noticed that Lyft has been less reliable, more delayed, and more expensive. I’ve had a couple of instances where I scheduled a pick up from my house at a certain time only to have the driver changed multiple times by the Lyft algorithm and eventually show up 15 minutes late. When getting picked up from PDX I can request a ride while getting off the plane, walk to the pick-up area, and still wait 10-15 minutes for my ride to show up. Sure it’s a still a bit cheaper than Uber and probably $10 cheaper than a cab, but those 10-15 minute delays add up and after a long flight, I just want to get home. Sometimes even the cheapest Lyft is ridiculously priced. A recent trip from the San Diego airport to my hotel was $54 for a 4-mile ride in light traffic.

I don’t know if the PDX pick up issues are due to a lack of drivers or if it’s because of the newish configuration of the return to airport lane. For the latter drivers now have to make a long loop to get back to the airport and it involves waiting at a light. For the former, all I have is anecdotal evidence but it does feel like there are fewer drivers at the airport. Top this off with travel being back near 2019 levels and ridesharing just isn’t what it used to be.

So, where I can, I am giving up ridesharing. When going to PDX or returning home from PDX I am going to arrange for a car service. Supporting a local business that pays their employees like employees and picks me up on-time is more important than saving a couple of bucks. Remotely I will try to take cabs as much as I can but I know that there will be times when a Lyft or Uber makes more sense. What about you, have your experiences with ridesharing services been as bad as mine? Are you wanting to switch to something else? Why or why not?

Time for a new suitcase?

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My Rimowa suitcase, basically an older version of the Essential Cabin model, experienced a bit of an issue during my return from London and the seam around part of the zipper gave out. I have taken it to a repair shop but they seemed pessimistic about being able to fully repair the break. The Rimowa had a good 11-year run. As such, I have started the search for a replacement.

I tend to prefer the clamshell style suitcases where when opened, there are two sides where items can be stored and not just a lid opening into a single storage area. My preference comes from having the ability to separate my clothes out so if I have a long connection somewhere (like Singapore on a recent San Francisco-Singapore-Bangalore trip) I can have items readily available rather than digging through the entire suitcase. I do like Rimowa and with their recent change to include a lifetime guarantee for all suitcases purchased after July 25, 2022, they are an even more compelling option. However, I am open to suggestions; So here’s a quick list of things I am looking for:

  1. Four-wheel spinner. It’s nice to have a suitcase I can walk beside or manipulate in tight spaces.
  2. Nice wheels. High quality wheels that are smooth and don’t need to be replaced often.
  3. Clamshell design, for reasons stated earlier.
  4. Quality. I know there are cheap suitcases out there, but I’d rather have one for a long time.
  5. I lean toward hard-sided suitcases, but I’m open to soft-sided as well.

So, what recommendations do you have? Anything I should definitely avoid?

Bluetooth Audio on Planes is Real and it’s Spectacular

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I recently flew on a couple of United’s newer planes in the domestic fleet, a 737 MAX 8 and a MAX 9. The MAX 8, tail number N27267, was delivered to United in August and it still had that new plane smell. It also had United’s new inflight entertainment system, including Bluetooth audio for passengers to use to listen to the movies or television that were watching on their screen. I decided to give it a shot and was pleasantly surprised at how well it worked.

Bluetooth Audio Setup

You simply flip the switch for Bluetooth audio and put your device in pairing mode. A few seconds later it is connected and you’re listening wirelessly. For me, the biggest annoyance was that with my Apple Airpods Pro 2 had to be manually set to pair by holding the rear button, essentially wiping out the pairing information with my phone. I am not sure if this is my error or a flaw in how the Airpods pair but it was a small inconvenience.

The audio quality while enjoyable was not high quality. It actually didn’t sound any better than simply plugging wired headphones in. There was a slight static in the background and for scenes with music, it was definitely missing some bass. Part of me thinks this is a result of how the content on these systems is stored, likely highly compressed to save space. It could also be simply an interference issue. With Bluetooth being at every seat, that’s a lot of potential radio interference very close to you. Again, this wasn’t a huge downside for me. Being able to use hardware I already use everyday means I can carry less and it just worked. I’m really glad I got the chance to try it out!

One interesting quirk is that they can’t pipe PA announcements over Bluetooth and specifically ask you to remove the headphones when an announcement comes on.

Have you had a chance to try Bluetooth on United or another carrier? What was your experience like?

O-Chem? More like No-Chem

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Stephanie Saul for the NY Times:

Students said the high-stakes course — notorious for ending many a dream of medical school — was too hard, blaming Dr. Jones for their poor test scores.

The professor defended his standards. But just before the start of the fall semester, university deans terminated Dr. Jones’s contract.

N.Y.U. is evaluating so-called stumble courses — those in which a higher percentage of students get D’s and F’s, said John Beckman, a spokesman for the university.

“Organic chemistry has historically been one of those courses,” Mr. Beckman said. “Do these courses really need to be punitive in order to be rigorous?”

I’m sorry, what? Later on in the article it’s made clear that a large number of students taking Organic Chemistry are working towards going to medical school. Yes, I want O-Chem to be a weed-out course. This professor literally wrote the book on Organic Chemistry. I want the person learning the thing to understand the thing they are learning before they take it out in the real world and apply it (in this case, to someone’s body or medicine). This mentality of a class being too hard has seeped down into high schools and middle schools, with kids receiving passing grades either because a parent complains or because the teacher is tired of defending themselves. The cost though is real, that student that didn’t earn a passing grade doesn’t understand the material and is less likely to succeed when such material is built upon later in their school career.

What’s even worse is the recent opinion piece by Dr. Jessica Calarco in the NY Times:

The N.Y.U. students’ willingness to challenge this kind of pedagogical gatekeeping is a sign of how power dynamics are shifting at colleges and universities in the United States. To some degree, that shift reflects a rising sense of entitlement on the part of students and their parents. But that’s not the only factor at play. Another is the increasing diversity of student bodies, which casts many higher education traditions in a new light. One of those traditions is the weed-out mentality. Courses that are meant to distinguish between serious and unserious students, it has become clear, often do a better job distinguishing between students who have ample resources and those who don’t.

I am sure there are students who do not have ample resources, but is that what actually happened in this particular case? We have no idea. If it did, those students without ample resources approach the professor or teaching assistants to let them know they needed more resources? The op-ed goes on to talk about equity with empathy, which I definitely think is needed in education. If a student is failing but a teacher notices that they are falling asleep in class or knows they have a crazy home life, then yes, empathy should be shown. However, in the case of this professor at NYU, students didn’t approach him one-by-one or even in a group. Nope, they wrote a petition because it’s easy and it avoids an actual discussion.

United Airlines to suspend service to JFK

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David Shepardson reporting for Reuters:

United Airlines said on Friday it will suspend service in late October to New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport (JFK).

Earlier this month, United had threatened to take the action if the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) did not grant the air carrier additional flights.

United has been flying just twice daily to San Francisco and Los Angeles from JFK, the busiest New York-area airport, after resuming service in 2021.

United has not been running a large operation at JFK. In fact, they downsized the aircraft flying the route originally, a heavy business class 767-300ER to a 757-200 with just 16 business class seats. This strikes me as a ploy to try and get the FAA to the negotiating table to expand the number of slots at JFK, something I doubt the agency has any desire to do.

More stories of TSA craziness

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Another crazy story about the TSA from The Verge:

Soon, Cooper was joined at her station by a supervisor, followed by an assortment of EMTs and airport police officers. The passenger was dead. She and her family had arrived several hours prior, per the airport’s guidance for international flights, but she died sometime after check-in. Since they had her boarding pass in hand, the distraught family figured that they would still try to get her on the flight. Better that than leave her in a foreign country’s medical system, they figured.

The family might not have known it, but they had run into one of air travel’s many gray areas. Without a formal death certificate, the passenger could not be considered legally dead. And US law obligates airlines to accommodate their ticketed and checked-in passengers, even if they have “a physical or mental impairment that, on a permanent or temporary basis, substantially limits one or more major life activities.” In short: she could still fly. But not before her body got checked for contraband, weapons, or explosives. And since the TSA’s body scanners can only be used on people who can stand up, the corpse would have to be manually patted down.

“We’re just following TSA protocol,” Cooper explained.

You may remember, I posted about another Verge story on the TSA a while back. This most recent story is just a continuation on some of the wild stuff that happens at airport security in the United States.

In this most recent story I can’t decide what is crazier, that a family tried to take a dead relative on a flight (without actually alerting anyone she was dead) or that the TSA was completely fine just patting them down and letting them through the checkpoint. And the article goes on to point out how little TSA agents make, even after many years of service, so you end up with burned out workers who leave and you churn through a new batch. It is as though the TSA does not want it to be a career nor do they want to make the experience any better for passengers or for their employees.