#northeast airlines

[pretty-little-fools]

[robpegoraro]

Cheating on Amtrak

Notes on some atypical travel along the Northeast Corridor.

I did something Wednesday that I used to scoff at: I went from Washington to New York via plane, not train. Then I opted for the same mode of travel to get from NYC to Boston, another route on which door-to-door travel times can be shorter by rail than air. I feel a little dirty about those less-than-green travel choices, but I had my reasons this time. Cost was foremost among them. Amtrak…

[corvidist]

Portland International Jetport

[dcthreepainter]

The other Maximizer: Northeast Airlines N44992 circa 1964

Northeast Airlines' Ship Number 92 was a DC-3A converted from a former USAAF C-53 built in 1943. Northeast was her third owner, after United Airlines sold her to them in 1953.

[girlactionfigure]

🔘 WEDNESDAY night - ISRAEL REALTIME - Connecting to Israel in Realtime

❗️ATTACK ORDER AGAINST ISRAEL - In the last hour:  Iran's spiritual leader Khamenei ordered direct revenge for the elimination of Hamas leader Haniyeh while in Iran.  Israeli President Israel Herzog this evening called on citizens to remain vigilant.  In Israel it is estimated that the reaction is close, but it will not be tonight.

.. Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei ordered the Revolutionary Guards and the army to prepare plans for attack and defense should the war expand.

.. According to the same Iranian sources: The possibility of attacking military sites in the Tel Aviv and Haifa area with suicide drones and missiles is being considered, while avoiding civilian targets.

.. Iranian sources to the New York Times: Khamenei ordered to attack Israel directly.

❗️HAIFA MAYOR.. Mayor Yona Yahav: "calls on residents to stay near protected areas in the near future."

❗️ US ISSUES TRAVEL WARNINGS.. level 4 - maximum-do not travel - to all of Lebanon.  Level 3 - reconsider travel - to northern Israel.  “Do not come to these areas.”

♦️PALESTINIAN CLASHES - KALKILYA.. Report of clashes now at the Eyal crossing (Kalkilya) as violent armed protestors move on the checkpoint - IDF forces are responding with live fire.  At least 1 terrorist of the Israel Defense Forces was wounded by our forces.

⭕ In recent hours, Arabs have been carrying out dozens of terrorist attacks with stones, Molotov cocktails, and firecrackers in Judea and Samaria, along with marches and gatherings in cities and villages.  A march in Jenin with armed men with visible faces condemning the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh.

▪️EXPLOSION IN BAGHDAD, IRAQ.. Smoke rises in the Sabaa Qusour area, northeast of the capital, Baghdad, after hearing an explosion, the cause of which is unknown.

▪️AIR TRAVEL - VARIOUS RUMORS.. we’ve seen supposed reports that various US airlines have suspended travel to Israel, but have only been able to confirm United has paused flights for the moment.  “If your flight is canceled by a U.S. airline or departing from a U.S. airport, you are entitled to a cash refund, even if you purchased a nonrefundable ticket.”

▪️Report in Iran: Milad Bedi, an Iranian military adviser to the Revolutionary Guards, was killed yesterday in the Israeli attack against Hezbollah in Beirut.

[centrally-unplanned]

It's been a prior of mine for a while that long-distance high-speed rail projects between major U.S cities simply wouldn't have the efficacy or ridership that a local subway system in each of those cities would have instead. I'm curious of you think there's ground to this idea or not? Is it political considerations that seem to prioritize long distance lines over local ones, or is there something else at play?

From a castle-in-the-sky planner perspective, I totally agree with that - the US has very good highways, good airline infrastructure, very high car ownership, and most people don't visit other cities all that often anyway. Austin would definitely be better served building a subway (and the density a subway permits) than trying to HSR to Dallas.

But you can also do both? And they actually compliment each other - if you can HSR to Austin, then get on the subway from the main station, now visitors never need to rent a car. The places that fund subways and HSR are just different entities, if you "cut" HSR allocations from congress its not really going to go a subway project beyond top-up funds for existing ones, since subway projects are done locally. The big constraints on new subway projects is just that we stopped building cities with them in mind and have become unwilling to pay the temporary disruption price to get them, its all local politics stuff. (Austin has a small amount of light rail, but expansion has been very slow)

And while generally HSR loses out to subway, HSR in the Northeast Corridor would be very valuable. Almost all of those cities already have subways! And because of the distances the amount of travel between DC-Baltimore-Philly-NYC-Boston is pretty high and if it was faster could be a lot higher. DC NYC should be easily under two hours, totally doable, and there are "tipping points" in distances where things like day trips become viable and it changes the economies in question. So for the NEC, HSR should be the priority in this space.

[sisi-learns-languages]

About Me!

Hello again, Langblrs! It sure has been a minute and a lot has changed since I last logged in! I’ve made a few posts already since I’ve gotten back into studying Russian, but I’m not going to get ahead of myself. Let’s start with the basics:

I’m Sisi (see-see), I’m 25 years old, and I live in the northeast USA. I’ve studied languages in school and autonomously for as long as I can remember. I graduated from college in 2021 with two Bachelors Degrees— one in Political Science and the other in Spanish. During my time at my university, I took classes in Spanish (of course, it was one of my majors), French, Arabic, Italian, and German. Outside of my university, I have studied Russian and Norwegian. I was fortunate enough to study abroad during undergrad as well, so I spent a good portion of 2019 in Granada, Spain perfecting my Spanish to fluency.

Fast forward a few years, I am now a Flight Attendant with the #1 airline in the US and I couldn’t be happier. I have traveled everywhere— North America (I just saw the Aurora Borealis in Alaska!), Central and South America, Africa, Europe, Asia, anywhere you can imagine! I get paid to see the world which has always been a dream of mine. Traveling and interacting with people of various backgrounds, cultures, and languages has been the best experience of my life.

Now more personally, I am vegan! I care deeply about the earth and ALL its inhabitants— every life holds the same value. This sentiment of total equality carries through to my political and world views as well.

Well, that’s pretty much the general gist of who I am. I promise I’m not intimidating so please feel free to pop into my inbox and introduce yourself— I love language-learning buddies! This will be a Russian langblr but I will gladly follow/interact with profiles of any of the languages I’ve mentioned I’ve studied as I can always use more practice!Sorry for the long post, I just wanted to put a persona behind this blog for all of you. I’m happy to be a part of the langblr community!

-S

[thepastisalreadywritten]

This is what an erupting volcano looks like from space.

📽: NASA Johnson

—

A fortuitous orbit of the International Space Station allowed the astronauts this striking view of Sarychev Volcano (Kuril Islands, northeast from Hokkaido in Japan to Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia) in an early stage of eruption on 12 June 2009.

Sarychev Peak is one of the most active volcanoes in the Kuril Island chain, and it is located on the northwestern end of Matua Island.

Prior to June 12, the last explosive eruption occurred in 1989, with eruptions in 1986, 1976, 1954, and 1946 also producing lava flows.

Ash from the multi-day eruption has been detected 2,407 kilometers east-southeast and 926 kilometers west-northwest of the volcano.

Commercial airline flights are being diverted away from the region to minimize the danger of engine failures from ash intake.

This detailed astronaut photograph is exciting to volcanologists because it captures several phenomena that occur during the earliest stages of an explosive volcanic eruption.

The main column is one of a series of plumes that rose above Matua Island on June 12.

The plume appears to be a combination of brown ash and white steam. The vigorously rising plume gives the steam a bubble-like appearance.

In contrast, the smooth white cloud on top may be water condensation that resulted from rapid rising and cooling of the air mass above the ash column.

This cloud, which meteorologists call a pileus cloud, is probably a transient feature: the eruption plume is starting to punch through.

The structure also indicates that little to no shearing wind was present at the time to disrupt the plume.

(Satellite images acquired 2-3 days after the start of activity illustrate the effect of shearing winds on the spread of the ash plumes across the Pacific Ocean.)

By contrast, a cloud of denser, gray ash — probably a pyroclastic flow — appears to be hugging the ground, descending from the volcano summit.

The rising eruption plume casts a shadow to the northwest of the island.

Brown ash at a lower altitude of the atmosphere spreads out above the ground at image lower left.

Low-level stratus clouds approach Matua Island from the east, wrapping around the lower slopes of the volcano.

Only about 1.5 kilometers of the coastline of Matua Island are visible beneath the clouds and ash.

Credit: NASA Earth Observatory

[milkwithginseng]

WIP Wednesday

As this WIP Wednesday falls on Valentine's Day I thought I'd share my take on Pam and Ellen's first meeting. I'm still working on this fic but 1. I'm a painfully slow writer, also though I am still finding more things to put into it, so it'll be done when it's done

‘So, what did you do before coming to Houston?’

‘I worked at Cavalier,’ Ellen said, a little guiltily. She had always intended to spread her wings after graduating from MIT but being the eldest child her father put high expectations on her and with so few aerospace companies hiring women she just kind of fell into working in the family firm. 

‘What’s Cavalier?’ Pam innocently asked.

‘Cavalier Airlines, you’ve not heard of it?’

Pam shook her head and Ellen supposed that made sense, her father’s airline business mainly served the Northeast. Coming out west she was just ‘Ellen’. Joining NASA was not just an opportunity to explore the universe but her chance to get out of her family’s shadow. 

Pam drew herself closer to Ellen, so close she noticed her chest tighten, her heart beating faster. She noticed her cherry lip gloss and her cheeks redden. She looked into her deep hazel-eyes and asked in a low whisper, ‘Can you keep a secret?’

‘Sure,’ Ellen said, looking into Pam’s eyes, blue as the Earth itself. 

‘Don’t dare tell anyone at NASA, but I’ve never flown on a plane before.’ 

‘Really?’

‘Nope. Tell you the truth, I’ve never even left the state.’  

‘That’s okay, I’ve never left Earth before but I’ve already started planning my vacation,’ she said. It was a lame joke and Ellen knew it but Pam still smiled anyway and from that moment Ellen knew that she wanted spend the rest of her life trying to make this beautiful woman smile. 

 Looking at each other, it was as if time and space fell away. They could forgot they were in a shithole of a bar, in a world that didn’t accept them. It was just the two of them.

The illusion was sadly and inevitably broken by one of Outpost’s loud and invariably male, patrons demanding another beer. As Pam served the customer, Ellen looked behind her to see that her compatriots had thinned out since she had gotten talking to Pam.

‘What does it feel like to fly?’ Pam said, returning to her spot behind the bar opposite Ellen. 

‘It’s like nothing else, like there’s nothing stopping you, you’re just free.’ 

‘Sounds nice.’

‘Well you could always come for a ride with me?’ 

‘You mean…?’

‘I mean, I could rent a Cessna for us, there are enough private airfields about in Houston. We could go out to Galveston… that’s if you wanted to.’

‘I don’t know, I might need half the contents of this bar to give me enough dutch courage to consider taking to the skies. But thanks for the offer, it’s really sweet.’

[beardedmrbean]

Jan. 1 (UPI) -- A powerful 7.5-magnitude earthquake rocked western Japan on Monday, likely killing two people, as tsunami warnings issued earlier in the day were downgraded to advisories.

The earthquake struck about 26 miles northeast of Anamizu in Ishikawa prefecture, along the Noto Peninsula.

Authorities initially warned that tsunami waves could be as high as 10 feet along the Sea of Japan coast but the Japan Meteorological Agency later downgraded all of the tsunami warnings to advisories.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters emergency personnel are working to assess damage from the earthquake so far.

"In response to the M7 earthquake at Noto region in Ishikawa prefecture, we have immediately set up the Prime Minister's Office of Response, Disaster Counter Measure HQ," he wrote on X.

"Putting human lives as a priority, we are making every effort to assess damages -- putting forth all efforts in disaster response. For those in affected areas, please pay close attention to the latest information and place personal safety as your priority."

The quake shook buildings in central Tokyo, while local police on the peninsula reported two people were found showing no vital signs. The central government also confirmed six separate incidences of residents trapped alive in under collapsed houses in the area.

The earliest waves measured about four feet along the Noto Peninsula and around Ishikawa and Niigata. Some have been identified as far north of the Hokkaido Prefecture.

It marked the first time Japan has issued a major tsunami warning since 2011, when a 9.0-magnitude quake struck Tohoku, causing catastrophic damage from deadly tsunami waves.

Officials suspended bullet train service while Japan Airlines and Nippon Airways canceled all fights in the western region. Western Japan hospitals reported power outages but there were no confirmed numbers of possible injuries from the earthquake so far.

Strong aftershocks, ranging from 4.0 to 5.0 magnitude came in a rapid-fire succession of 21 incidents in central Japan, according to the JMA. The country's nuclear authority said there was "no risk of radioactivity leaking from nuclear power plants" in the affected areas.

Japan sits in the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, where many tectonic plates meet, causing a constant threat of earthquakes that has led it to develop one of the world's most sophisticated tsunami warning systems.

[mikerickson]

Double-Funeral Week Recap

Frontier is a fucking bus service in the air, but in a pinch it sure is a hell of a lot cheaper than the bigger airlines.

Six volunteers from the front rows had to re-seat towards the back of the plane for rebalancing so we could actually take off. I’ve never experienced that before, and it didn’t exactly inspire confidence.

The woman in front of us would not shut the fuck up the entire flight and I heard her recount her entire life story to an initially-willing seatmate.

(It was surprisingly messy so in retrospect, I kind of live.)

Got halfway through a book I didn’t like.

Andrew’s family rescued an puppy they watched someone abandon on the side of the road. His name is Decker because he’s all black, and my best guess is that he’s some kind of silent chihuahua-black lab mix? I miss him already.

Andrew’s family is massive and he must’ve heard “I haven’t seen you since you were this big!” about a dozen times.

An altar girl passed out (I’m talking full-on Bethesda ragdoll’ed) during the mass, I’m assuming from kneeling for too long. When things resumed the Bishop joked, “the Spirit can slay you in many ways!”

Apparently in the south during Communion, the congregation has the option to drink wine from a shared chalice and the priest wipes it down with a rag in between each person? This does not happen in the northeast, I could not believe what I was seeing.

The deacon who did the graveside reading was a Joe Pesci doppelganger, complete with a Queens accent. I have no idea how this man found himself in coastal Mississippi.

Flying back, two strangers sitting in front of us started a conversation that lasted the entire flight again.

I finished the book I didn’t really like.

My grandmother’s wake took place in a funeral home that I trick-or-treated at back in middle school. I didn’t get candy then, and I didn’t get candy this time.

Multiple people commented unprompted that I looked more muscular, despite the fact that I haven’t lifted since Tuesday before last. Small victories.

Two people that I haven’t seen in over a decade separately remembered that I used to be a decent pianist and asked if I still played. I sheepishly had to admit that I no longer practice to both of them.

The priest at the second funeral had a bizarre tangent during the sermon about an African boy who had a vision from Mary and then got shot in the head during the Rwandan genocide. He then segued with “anyway, I love this story because xyz...” but I couldn’t follow because I hadn’t recovered from the tonal whiplash yet.

Got some delicious seasonal pies at a small farm in the middle of the Pine Barrens.

[pretty-little-fools]

[runwayrunway]

No. 4 - jetBlue

Last time on Runway Runway, I covered all 19 of the things jetBlue paints on the tails of their planes. That post was by nature of its concept so long that I didn’t actually have time to discuss the livery itself. But I can’t just spend such a long time looking at their planes and not do that, can I? Especially not when they’re at least a sixth of the air traffic where I live. 

So, enough buildup. Let’s remember that all those tails are attached to the rest of an airframe. 

I really like jetBlue. They’re among my favorite airlines to fly with, and they name their planes things that are funny. I live in a jetBlue focus city and it’s fun seeing all their planes with their varied tails and their ridiculous names parked all around like a flock of extremely silly seagulls. There’s just one problem: 

I do not particularly like their livery. 

Okay. Here is a jetBlue plane. Relatively normal one. Just picked whichever one I stumbled on first. Painted exactly the same as all their planes have been for the last 23 years. She’s got all the bells and whistles. There’s the billboard logo in a nice legible font with its catchy lowercaseUppercase styling. Text on the tail somehow is the right combination of legible and out of place that it feels like a watermark rather than a part of the livery, but nobody’s perfect. Pleasing combination of blue shades. Ribbon variant of jetBlue’s signature jellybean tails. Definitely an airplane. Doesn’t hurt my eyes to look at.

Mostly white though. 

I mean, it could absolutely be worse. Definitely, it could be worse. The fact that there are both light and dark blue shades blends together so if you look from the side you can almost mistake the plane for not being white. It’s still white, though. You can at least see the blue on the belly from the side. It looks clean and intentional. It just...is mostly white with a fully blocked off tail? I don’t know. I feel like maybe the design process was ‘the tails are interesting enough, we should leave the fuselage mostly alone’ but I’m not entirely sure I agree. Yes, it could be overwhelming if the execution was botched, but it could also be better than the way it looks now. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. I think Tex Johnston said that. 

Oh, huh, there goes N3104J “Roses are Red, This Plane is Blue” flying right past my house as I type this. I had to check on FR24 to know the registration and all that but I could at least tell she was a jetBlue plane because I could see the blue underside and vague blue of the tail. If she were directly above me I don’t think I would be able to tell her apart from the Delta planes that also come here a lot, but jetBlue’s planes are at least somewhat distinctive from the vantage point of someone in the Northeast US. Mission somewhat accomplished? 

It’s just...lacking pizzazz and I would expect more from the airline with a plane named “FuhgeddaBlueDit”. At the same time, it does...it’s certainly designed somewhat. It feels less like they just hopped on the bandwagon and more like they made a design they genuinely thought was the best for them and it happened, by pure coincidence, to be the same thing everyone else was doing. Good equation, bad result, if you will. I think, honestly, she is...

Down in the deep blue...C. 

Mmm...yep. Seems like that’s it. I’m done here. Unless...oh, oh no. I remember now. I’m not even close to done. 

[mariacallous]

Nightmare summer travel is upon us as vacation season coincides with high temperatures and severe weather capable of disrupting flights. By Wednesday of this week, FlightAware, a site that follows air traffic around the world, had tallied some 30,000 delays and between 900 and 1,400 cancellations per day. In the US, more severe weather is expected in the Southwest, as scorching temperatures are forecast to reach above 115 degrees Fahrenheit in some areas, and thunderstorms are forecast for the Northeast.

The airline industry has a disproportionate effect on the climate; flying is a carbon-intense activity, responsible for 2 to 3 percent of the globe’s energy-related CO2 emissions. But it’s also vulnerable to the effects of higher temperatures and changing weather patterns. Hot weather causes obvious problems for aviation: It makes working conditions on tarmacs unbearable, and wildfire smoke reduces visibility. But there are also some surprising effects of a changing climate on flights, like more turbulence, problems with takeoffs, and more frequent and severe storms that can lead to delayed or canceled flights.

Individual storms or heat waves aren’t necessarily linkable to climate change, but the overall trends of a warming world will test aviation. “There are problems—and will be problems in the future—due to climate change,” says John Knox, a professor of geography at the University of Georgia.

First, there are the immediate effects of sudden heat waves themselves. Last summer, a heat wave in the United Kingdom damaged runway infrastructure and led to delays. As an extreme example of what heat can do, in 2012 high temperatures melted the tarmac at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, trapping a plane when its wheel became stuck.

More heat in the atmosphere means that the air holds more moisture, making thunderstorms more likely. United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby warned this week that more thunderstorms from warmer temperatures will bring more delays.

Climate change is also linked to increasingly severe fire seasons. This year’s rocky start to July comes after a bad June, when wildfires from Canada sent smoke that engulfed the East Coast and the Midwest and affected flights. Wildfire smoke does more than reduce visibility—it affects a plane’s advanced navigation systems. These are designed well to work through rain and fog, but particulate matter from smoke and ash are more disruptive. To respond to these conditions, the US Federal Aviation Administration shifts air traffic, creating more distance between planes as they land.

But there are more complicated, invisible effects of a warming world too. Hotter air is trapped near the ground, and cooler air above. Shifts in temperature gradients affect the wind shear, or the changes in speed and direction between air near the ground and at higher elevations. These eddies create clear air turbulence, which occurs in the absence of clouds. Light turbulence can cause sudden changes in altitude that feel like bumps, but severe turbulence can cause structural stress to the aircraft.

Turbulence isn’t just unpleasant. It’s the cause of more than one third of injuries aboard air carriers, according to the US National Transportation Safety Board, and in rare instances can even lead to death.

Changing wind patterns may also alter flight lengths. If, for example, there are stronger eastward winds, flights from the US to Europe will speed up, but flights in the other direction may take longer. Transatlantic flights may even need to reroute and refuel.

Research from Paul Williams, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Reading in the UK, found that jet stream changes could increase the amount of time flights are in the sky each day, leading to more fuel burning, higher costs, and more CO2 emissions. Jet streams are high-altitude air currents that drive weather systems. As the Arctic warms, the North Atlantic Jet Stream is changing, leading to more odd weather.

But heat alone can also lead to delays and cancellations, like when a 119-degree day in Phoenix grounded planes in 2017. That’s because high temperatures decrease air density. When the air is less dense, planes need more time and distance to fight gravity as they take off—so they may need a longer runway to become airborne. Not all airports can accommodate these sudden changes.

Passengers are feeling the effects, but this isn’t new or surprising to the aviation industry, which has grappled with sustainability issues for decades, says Rob Britton, a former American Airlines executive and a professor of marketing at Georgetown University.

The industry has taken strides to make flying more efficient, but significantly reducing delays and cancellations will depend on designing aircraft that can withstand new environmental challenges and updating aviation infrastructure. It’s a plan that requires cooperation from the FAA, airlines, and manufacturers. “These are not solutions that happen quickly,” Britton says.

Despite the drawbacks, people want to fly. The US Transportation Security Administration expected a record number of passengers to board planes this summer. Combine the travel boom with heat waves, worker strikes in Europe, and staffing issues in the US, and these headaches aren’t likely to end soon.

[aquariumdrunkard]

The Aquarium Drunkard Show: SIRIUS/XMU (7pm PST, Channel 35)

Via satellite, transmitting from northeast Los Angeles — the Aquarium Drunkard Show on SIRIUS/XMU, channel 35. 7pm California time, Wednesdays.

Intro ++ Robert Wyatt – Heaps Of Sheeps ++ Brian Eno – Burning Airlines Give You So Much More ++ Agitation Free – Laila, Pt. 1 ++ A.R. & The Machines – Station 2: Ice Bin Dein Sänger, Du Bist Mein Lied ++ Amon Düül – A Morning Excuse ++ Amon Düül II – Wie Der Wind Am Ende Einer Strasse ++ Popol Buh – King Minos II ++ Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band – Where There’s Woman ++ PAINT – Rokc Muzik ++ Harmonia & Eno ’76 – Vamos Campaneros ++ Brian Eno & David Byrne – Regiment ++ Wire – Practice Makes Perfect ++ Television – Marquee Moon ++ Faust – Just A Second (Starts Like That!) ++ Big Star – Kanga Roo ++ Cola – At Pace ++ Television – Glory ++ The Durutti Column – Sketch For Summer ++ Tobacco – Yum Yum Cult ++ Bondo – Compressed Drum ++  Fugazi – Lusty Scripps ++ Brian Eno – Third Uncle ++ Sagittaire – Desert Shore ++ Aphrodite’s Child – Loud, Loud, Loud ++ CAN – Future Days ++ Kevin Ayers – Decadence ++ Soft Machine – Pataphysical Introduction, Pt. I >> A Concise British Alphabet, Pt. II >> As Long As He Lies Perfectly Still ++ The Pretty Things – Baron Saturday ++ John Lennon – I Don’t Wanna Be A Soldier Mama I Don’t Wanna Die (Take 21 Raw Studio Mix)

Only the good shit. Aquarium Drunkard is powered by its patrons. Keep the servers humming and help us continue doing it by pledging your support via our Patreon page.

[aviaposter]

Boeing 777-200ER British Airways

Registration: G-YMMT Type: 777-236ER Engines: 2 × RR Trent 895 Serial Number: 36518 First flight: Jun 5, 2009

British Airways is the flag carrier airline of the United Kingdom and the largest airline in the United Kingdom. The airline is based in Waterside near its main hub at London Heathrow Airport. A British Airways Board was established by the United Kingdom government in 1972 to manage the two nationalised airline corporations, British Overseas Airways Corporation and British European Airways, and two smaller Cambrian Airways, and Northeast Airlines. On 31 March 1974, all four companies were merged to form British Airways. The centrepiece of the airline's long-haul fleet is the Boeing 777. British Airways is a founding member of the Oneworld airline alliance.

Poster for Aviators. aviaposter.com