Mr. Cash and His Bird

Big words we all should be very familiar with but are not. Qualified Immunity Doctrine @justinamash is trying to change the law and he needs our support. Are you listening @RepMikeQuigley?

@MCCCANM My advice, from the planning side, fly early morning during thunderstorm season, for the reasons @MCCCANM stated (GDP'S, EDCTS, etc.). Most storms brew late morning onwards. If you're at your connecting airport or final destination, you're a hero for saving the family vacation.

Summer flying is around the corner, which often means thunderstorms & delays. A primer of what’s going on behind the scenes may help avoid some angst… To begin, the (U.S.) National Airspace (NAS) is divided into sections called “Flight Information Regions” (FIRs). Each one is under the control of an Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC), a big building w/ lots of antennas, usually named for the city it’s in. It controls traffic flying through the FIR, but usually doesn’t give radar approach vectors – those are separate facilities at the airport. There are 22 of them, including Anchorage & Honolulu. Each FIR is further divided into “Sectors”. The FIR is divided both laterally & vertically…so one sector could look exactly like the other, just stacked on top & divided at some altitude, like 23,000’ or something. Each sector has an Air Traffic Controller. It’s not uncommon for one controller to control multiple sectors, though, especially during slow periods. Ok, so the jets fly around on “Routes” that transit all these sectors & FIRs, switching from sector to sector & less often, Center to the next Center. There are various types of routes, but they all have numbers, so you can file a flight plan saying where you will join the route & where you will leave it. Some routes go very long distances, others don’t. I posted an example map below of Western CO / Eastern UT. You can fly around outside of the routes, too, but most of us stay on them. Anyway, when thunderstorms build, it can block the routes. Or it can make the destination airport unsafe. There can be 5,000 aircraft in the air at a time. The Sector Controllers know everything happening in their sector, and usually what’s happening in a bordering sector, but Denver Center doesn’t know what’s happening in Jacksonville Center, nor do they care. So, a center for the centers is needed. This is the Air Traffic Control System Command Center (ATCSCC), located in Virginia. It takes data from all the centers & manages the whole NAS to keep traffic flowing & avoid breakdowns. To do this, they use “Traffic Management Initiatives” (TMIs). In effect, the airline asks to takeoff & head to destination, but the ATCSCC is who authorizes it. As long as the ATCSCC has not put a TMI in place, the local ATC gives permission to proceed. TMIs take a few forms. The most common is a “Ground Delay Program” (GDP). When an airport is about to be hit by a storm, a GDP is issued. Any jets headed to that airport that have not yet taken off are immediately delayed & given an “Estimated Departure Clearance Time” (EDCT). This is good; you don’t want them showing up out of fuel & diverting. The jets already in the air will probably do that, or hold, pretty soon the airspace is packed & the divert airports are overflowing. That’s bad. GDPs & EDCTs go out to nearby airports first, then later to further away airports. It’s possible to have them go across the whole country, but you don’t need to delay a flight from LAX to JFK if your storm will be over in an hour…it will take the jet 5 hours to get there anyway. Now, just because the storm passed doesn’t mean you can ditch the GDP. Airports have a capacity, a max number of jets that can land per hour. After a storm, all the jets that couldn’t get in will now try, combining with the jets that weren’t delayed – which can exceed capacity. So, a GDP may remain after the weather clears. Remember FIRs & Sectors? Sometimes the weather isn’t affecting the airport, but it’s blocking enough routes that they can’t squeeze everyone into the remaining routes. Now you’re “Flow Restricted” & need to slow down how many will come through. This is a tough one for passengers, because the weather is good at the origin & destination, so it doesn’t make sense to be delayed for weather. Sometimes they don’t have staffing to man all the sectors & get flow restricted that way. 1/2

@Habubrats71 The picture of the pilots goes hard.

White House situation room misinformed We were flying over North Vietnam at 82,000 feet in the SR-71 when suddenly I had to do a quick maneuver to keep us from colliding with a weather balloon that whizzed by us just off my wing tip. At that very moment, we experienced an unstart ( un-start is when one of the engines stops firing or stalls, and then hopefully quickly recovers ) ~Linda Sheffield in my left engine. The unstart knocked me and my RSO (reconnaissance systems officer who is a trained navigator )all over our respective cockpits. My RSO looks out and sees the left engine trailing fuel, and he thinks we’ve been hit by a SAM. (Surface-to-air missile.) He shouts out “Buz we’ve been hit!! I had always suspected that we were more closely monitored on these flights than we probably realized by the special RC 135 snooper airplanes packed with powerful electronics. And now I am certain… Because by the time we made our second pass over the North ( Vietnam) THE WHITE HOUSE SITUATION ROOM… had been notified wrongly that our SR-71 had been hit over Hanoi. Written by Lieutenant Colonel Buz Carpenter in the book “Skunk Works” by Ben Rich.

@iowahawkblog He forgot one of them Dave. #ritari

Most of them know not to use apostrophes in plurals

@BizNasty2point0 The irony is the @mnwild quit working after 20 minutes last night so now everyone gets the weekend off. Woohoo!

These people don’t understand I don’t give a fuck who wins. I just wanted to go home to AZ and sleep in my own bed this weekend. I picked Hartman to win it. I want to go relax and go on a hike and get a reset before traveling for conference finals. I was giving Minnesota double wristers the entire broadcast. I said multiple times if they stay disciplined and keep their foot on the gas they’re going home for game 6. Wild stopped playing. If Wild fans want to take out their frustration on me bring it on I love this shit I’ll argue with you idiots on this app all day. I’ve made a living doing this shit. 😘

@10k_Takes Your team failed to work the last 40 minutes of the game, so just like the TNT crew, you'll get this weekend off too.

All because they didn't have to work this weekend, meanwhile our season just ended

The national media bias against Minnesota sports strikes again

Don't tweet dumb shit and you won't have to lock down replies. You're as smug as he is.

@AvalancheAmie @MNwildPuck97 As an Avs fan, I recognize this is a lot of ifs/buts. If Norm Green didn't get sideways with the law the Dallas Cup is very likely in Minny. The core of that Cup team was drafted by the North Stars. That 92/93 roster had a 22 y/o Modano, a 19 y/o Matvichuk and Hatcher was 20.

@MNwildPuck97 Settle down Dangles we all know how many rounds there are left and I am not new to puck I’ve been watching since the 90’s and I can even remember when the Northstars were the Minnesota team.

Never in my life would I have expected to see so many “state of hockey” fans putting more weight on an Olympic gold medal than actual NHL trophies/awards. It makes Americans look ignorant and arrogant. Our Men have 2, Canada’s has 9. Stfu you’re embarrassing us with your cope.

@AdoHernandez27 Just a dad making sure the homework got done and the kids are in bed. It's a school night after all.

Devon Toews postgame 🗣️: “I just have good teammates. They make me look good.” He mentioned calling home after the victory to check in on the wife and kids and they were “going nuts.” #GoAvsGo

Can anyone beat Vegas this year or is the cup basically theirs already?

@VoicesfromNam Utter p.o.s. He, McNamara and Max Taylor caused the unnecessary deaths of too many US Servicemembers in Vietnam. May they all be rotting in hell.

US President Lyndon Johnson in 1964. What's your opinion on him?

@jarvis_best You doing some advance scouting of the @AnaheimDucks, Jarv?

There’s a very pregnant very grumpy bartender at LAX. Does anyone have her contact information?

Bartles & Jaymes Berry Wine Cooler.

@doeincrisis Deer is having a rough day.

got hit by a fucking amish buggy.

@Justinjpearson Is it true you all started fires in the Capitol Building?

Speaker of the TN House Cameron Sexton just removed me and every Democrat — and therefore every Black elected official in the state legislature from any committee we served on. This move strips nearly 2 million Tennesseans from the representation they deserve in TN state leg.

You've got to appreciate the sound of five APUs working overtime... loud enough to set off car alarms from this Joon Airbus A340-300 at Sint Maarten. 📹: Vogelspinnen

@trump_nhl @jarvis_best is this your burner's burner account?

Much to the joy of retarded Tim Walz, who hates that they don't have Somalian players, the Minnesota Wild are going down fast and hard to the powerful Colorado Avalanche. So very SAD watching the Wild throughout history, who have been highly rated in many cases, yet sadly often choke like TOTAL DOGS and find themselves on the LOSER'S GOLF COURSE. The Wild are now just a SINGLE loss from having another season slip down the tubers, which would be a TOTAL disappointment, considering their fans and management consider them to be "Cup contenders." They are CHOKERS, who are CHOKING very bigly, and should be very ASHAMED of themselves! THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER! NHL PRESIDENT DONALD JOHN TRUMP

@ktvzky @EODHappyCaptain It's always the quiet one in the back of the room. Always.

Turns out EOD humor isn’t for everyone. Noted.

@LWillson_82 @sheldonjones83

@sheldonjones83 This isn’t a rule change lol. They are eliminating the second kneel down which is more of a formality. Are you advocating to see the second kneel?

I hate this more than any rule change. #CFL #NowISeeAmericanization

@CoachBGonzo @AvsBankInvest This you, dawg? Takes a team to win a medal too, you retard. x.com/i/status/20542…

@AvsBankInvest Last time I checked the best player in the world doesn’t have a ring because it takes a TEAM to win a Ring. Try again honey.

2026 Playoffs: Makar 8 Games 1 Goal 4 Assists =5 Points Quinn Hughes 10 Games 4 Goals 10 Assists =14 Points Just remember who the Best Blue Liner in the World is.

@MCCCANM @michael_k_woods derive Alternate mins off of CAT II/III approaches. Doing that, we have to make sure all required elements of the approach are functional and the airplane is capable. We can't do that for our Guppy fleet because we require at least 3 installed autopilots (2 must be operational).

@MCCCANM @michael_k_woods 1/2 RVR is runway specific. At my airline on the 737 for CAT I we can sub the Touchdown RVR with a Midpoint RVR (Rollout isn't required) if the TD is inoperative. As the minimums get lower (CAT II/III) the transmissometer requirements get more stringent. In some cases we can...

.@MCCCANM the fog at LAX was terrible last night with many go-arounds. Turns out the 25L RVR was unavailable but 25R (60/25/20) was accord to ATC. Pilots went go-around saying equipment (RVR) unavailable. Said to ATC could only do CAT 1 w/out RVR. Is it the general policy of airlines to not except RVR from the parallels? FWIW, I was diving past 25L at that time and 6,000 was definitely true for both L & R.