These "drones" are more like enclosed ultralights, heavily loaded, 50-80mph, which an airliner would have already stalled at and be dropping out of the sky.
More importantly, it's not uncommon when crossing Air Route Traffic Control Centers (ARTCC) regions (eg. from Washington Center, to NY Center) for controllers to instruct pilots to change Squawk codes. Same applies when crossing from one country's airspace to another.
One of these drones, without a bunch of extra avionics would be unable to change transponder codes in flight, and talk with controllers via relay, that would probably double the cost of the drone, or at least significantly increase it.
So even doing something creative, like spoofing the transponder Squawk code, from another aircraft, probably wouldn't help.
Also, with Mode-C, and Mode-S transponders, the later used with ADS-B, which feeds all the flight tracking websites, the transponder transmits altitude.
A SAM operator will figure out somewhat quickly if an airliner is supposed to be at 10,000ft and 250mph but isn't according to primary radar tracking, but much lower and slower, that it's spoofing it's transponder.
The Airliner has a transponder and a radio. Pretty sure the drone does not.
The transponder code, assigned by various ATC would identify that aircraft as a civilian airliner when it checks in, and on the screens of the SAM operators.
Also, the speed and altitude of the airliner, even approaching Grozny would not be the same as a drone. Airliners, even on approach, are somewhat faster, probably 200-250mph, or faster, and much higher in altitude, at least 5000ft, probably more like 10,000ft until close to the airport.
This is going back a few years, but we used on our systems, AD620 In-Amp (Instrumentation Op-Amp) front-end IC, and a PIC 16F series micro, some filtering in between, for 2 channels. Even today, I think one could get to 2 or 4 channels with wet saline solution, with a low BOM (Board-of-Materials) cost.
I used to repair EEG systems, and work as an EEG tech.
The irony that military healthcare, while far from perfect, has many advantages like it's part of the benefits to servicemembers and dependents, some retirees.
A surprising number of people, especially prior to the Affordable Care Act, would call expanding public healthcare "Socialism", even though many in Congress are veterans. The late Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), A Vietnam veteran A-4 pilot, and POW, cast the deciding vote against repealing the ACA. He earned his military healthcare, and then some.
I grew up in Australia, with a mix of somewhat similar Radioshack 160-in-1 kits, and the Dick Smith Funway into electronics [0] vol. 1 kit, and later on a few of the Funway vol. 2 and Funway vol. 3 kits.
Agreed. Doing it to mess with the controller is going to get the crew and the airline in hot water.
That said, there is a fair amount of discretion on the Captain's part, and if the pilot was unable to land at Oakland for an unforeseen reason, such as an ILS malfunction at OAK, then declaring a fuel emergency sooner may be justified.
Knowing that fatigue may also be a factor, which could also result in a missed approach, and they are required to have sufficient fuel for several ILS approaches before diverting, without using their final reserves, could push them to declare a fuel emergency.
Typically, the Captain would say something along the lines of "I can only hold another 10 minutes, before declaring fuel emergency", prompting ATC to get them sequenced for approach promptly.
Adm. Grace Hopper wasn't the only senior officer who was recalled because of their expertise. One is a retired JAG lawyer (a friend actually) who continues to advise at the Pentagon on several areas of expertise. She actually learned COBOL from Adm. Hopper herself, and always had high amount of respect for Adm. Hopper and how she disliked bureaucracy. There is a lesson there.
Ironically, my friend has programmed COBOL on DoD mainframes, and still does as a consultant, having interacted with them for decades. Back in the 1970s she had a surplus IBM minicomputer that her father brought home for business use, and learned COBOL on that, and used the computer for furthering her legal research.
I was a co-founder of a startup in 2014, and we applied to an incubator that had experience with hardware startups, and domain expertise.
Here's where it got interesting, my co-founder was friends with the founder of another much more established startup in a vaguely similar space. The leader of the incubator was under the impression we were focusing on a different idea (we considered as a secondary, later opportunity) and concerned about a conflict between the two startups. If we had listened to his suggestion, we probably could have come up with a successful product opportunity.
At the end of the day, It was my own stupid fault for not listening closer to what was said, and analyzing the option to pivot into a more successful path.
A lot of USAF pilots flew gliders at the USAF Academy, or as cadets in Civil Air Patrol. At some point in their career, they become airline pilots. It would be similar for the RCAF.
Some friends who work with kids with autism use noise cancelling headphones a lot.
They also have timelines and schedules. For some kids they literally specify a "T minus" timeline.
Some therapists and parents have found it helpful to have standard routines (procedures) and checklists [1], as a few were Navy flight surgeons and aviators in their other careers. The kids get used to a standardized, but not overly rigid way.
Back in the day before Reddit, Facebook, Twitter and Social Networks, there were groups that specialized in being "forum launch crews" that would help seed forums with a group of early, genuine users and posts, based on topics and categories to match the overall theme of the forum.
The last time I helped launch a forum, this was migrating a group mailing list to vBulletin. With some research, I did locate this Reddit post with some tips. [0]
Since this is 2023, One could also use ChatGPT Plus (GPT-4) [1] to generate the content, or the GPT-4 API if available.
I'm not so sure the F-18 Stores Management Processor used the i960MX. Any sources to confirm that?
There has been some interest recently in the F-22 Common Integrated Processor using the i960MX, as the USAF wishes to retire older F-22 Block 20 Aircraft.
Apparently, newer F-22 Blocks use FPGAs to provide a functional soft core of the i960MX, without having to locate long obsolete chip sources for legacy avionics designed in the 80s
Flightsuits are not complicated and the NASA ones, almost the same as the ones used in orbit, have been sold at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Center in adult sizes, or at Space Camp. As I recall, the actual astronauts receive standard sized flightsuits which are adjusted by a tailor. Astronauts are almost required to look sharp in public.
US military pilots sometimes order squadron flightsuits, with minimal approvals and lead time. If the pilots really wanted to, they are actually measured and tailor made for the pilots, instead of custom ordered from standard sizes.
More notably,the US Navy Blue Angles actually walk into a tailor in Pensacola, Florida and get measured for a flightsuit. A few days later they walk out in the first blue and yellow flightsuits we all at airshows, they test fit that suit, fly with it, make any adjustments, before several additional flightsuits are made.
For the 75th Anneversary of the Blue Angels[1], they had yellow suits made, presumably with command approval, and it couldn't have been difficult or expensive to have them tailor made for limited use.
The Russian cosmonauts and their tailors would have a pretty good idea of what material is approved for space use, and what they have in stock, so tailor made flightsuits would not be a huge undertaking. I'd assume they actually do have a tailor make or adjust the flight suits for the cosmonauts, to minimize the chance of snagging something in space.
I live in San Francisco, and while I largely agree with you, one of the larger challenges is the lack of accountability for the organisations and the staff that provide services to the poor and homeless. It seems they spend more money doing a lousy job than providing the services to a higher standard so more of the poorer people can get the assistance they need and find good, stable jobs.