These people are getting hacked left, right and center, while using personal devices to communicate the most sensitive classified information. There’s no way the Russians, Chinese and any number of the more than 200 countries that Trump thinks exist in the world are not elbow deep in all these unofficial back doors.
I use 20-character, randomly-generated unique passwords for each login from a password manager. It’s so easy and secure. These people are all so lazy and dumb they can’t even do that.
India has launched a military operation against Pakistan. So we have two nuclear powers going at it and the Trump administration in charge. What can go wrong?
Apropos nothing, Jar Jar Vance visited the region last week.
So India and Pakistan are in a proper shooting war, and another one of our jets jest fell off an aircraft carrier off Yemen while a military Black Hawk shutdown Reagan Intl by doing joy rides around the Pentagon.
It’s difficult to conceive that this is down to the incompetence of the Trump administration as it’s all happening so soon after they took over. It’s also difficult not to put it down to the Trump administration as they have demonstrated an ability to stuff anything into the shitter almost immediately, and them taking over is the only thing that’s changed.
This is not a recent or new problem either. It is a miracle there has been only one mid-air collision. I will never fly into Reagan. My travel agent is on notice.
Yeah, Reagan is a mess. I was thinking about the ill-discipline of flying loops near there so soon after the collision, and the jets falling off carriers in an active war zone.
It’s funny you say that. I have a really interesting 3-pronged perspective: 1) I fly in and out of DCA 2-3 times per month, 2) when I am there in DC for the week, my commute has me come down the NW approach to the airport, which is the most used route for military/blackhawks AND Marine Corps 1, and 3) my office is in the SW corner of the top floor of our building with an unobstructed view of all of the flightlines in and out of DCA so I see the flows all day, every day.
As a passenger, I have always been surprised at the spacial distances in play in that crowded airspace. Since I fly a lot, you get used to general separation spaces and, when they are “breached”, they really stand out. It’s so common around DCA that I don’t even notice it anymore. I’ve literally seen the faces of blackhawk pilots below me as they scoot SE down the Potomac River channel valley approaching Rosslyn at maybe 200’ and we are on the same approach 500’ above them.
When I drive down the Clara Barton Parkway that runs right along the river, it is shocking to see the triad of MC1 helicopters heading NW up the river with Commercial airliners coming SW on approach above them. The Blackhawks are less consistent, moving basically SE to NW up the river but kind of all over the place at instead of with clear directional purpose. The worst of the bunch is the Metropoloitan PD helicopters. They appear to have free reign over the city and even in that NW - SE flightline along the river.
My office building has a rooftop terrace and I will work out there sometimes. Watching the flow of planes taking off and landing is mesmerizing and quite enjoyable. You get used to the “flow” and it’s become easier for me to understand how air traffic controllers make sense of what appears to be chaos at first. That said, when those flows are disrupted, the actual chaos potential becomes very clear. When things like helicopters come into play, you can see the noticeable disruption to the flows. I would guess that deviation from the norm is where most of the risk is. And, it’s really easy to see if you just sit and watch for a bit.
Thanks for the perspective. I think one of the things that came out of the collision is that what goes on at DCA on the daily is far below the safety standards of other airports.
In my limited flying career, I flew in absolutely locked down airspace where you don’t fart unless ATC tells you its ok, and I’ve flown into air fields, where there is a guy in room with a radio who cannot even see the field and whose only job is to receive and acknowledge calls from aircraft that are broadcast for everyone to hear (we aren’t allowed to talk directly ship-to-ship).
Both systems work because everyone knows what the deal is. In controlled space, you are trusting the controllers to keep 'em separated while verifying with your own eyes and ears, and at Cow Poo Aerodrome everyone is listening to what everyone else is saying so you have a heads up as to what to look out for; e.g. if someone is calling “final”, you don’t roll out to take off.
At DCA, though, it seems they have a combination of both: commercial traffic on strict lock down and military traffic just operating on its own recognizance. That seems like a recipe for chaos, but then its gets worse when you realize that neither group can hear the radio chatter of the other because they use different frequencies.
In my (again, limited) experience, bifurcated radio frequencies just doesn’t happen. If you’re in the same airspace as other aircraft, you’re on the same radio frequency as those other aircraft. The only time this is violated is if someone declares an emergency and everyone not up shit’s creek gets bumped to a secondary channel to let the controllers deal with the distressed plane.
I had a friend take flying lessons out of Hobby Airport (which is a stupid idea, btw). He was in a Cessna trying to weave in with the incessant SWA 737 traffic (which is why it was a stupid idea). When in and around the airport, he was on the same radio frequency as those SWA jets.
The Black Hawk that hit the airliner was flying above its ceiling. The one doing loops around the Pentagon was…well…doing fucking loops around the Pentagon. It’s one thing to give them freedom of movement where they have separation from commercial traffic, but these guys are brazenly ignoring what little restrictions are on them and for no good reason other than they had been getting away with it.
This isn’t a Trump admin created problem, but it’s on them to fix it. I could see any administration other than Trump’s privately yanking the right chains to bring them back in line. This lot, though, no chance.
ETA: When The Real World’s Sean Duffy was asked by an incredulous Laura Ingraham whether he’d done even as little as calling Fox News Weekend’s Pete Hegseth, Duffy said “no”.
