The local airport near me has had an experimental remote tower system since 2018. Prior to this there was no tower which limited the types of aircraft which could use the airport and the services which could operate out of it. They were informed in February that SAAB, the provider of the remote tower service, and the FAA were unable to reach an agreement regarding final certification of the system. SAAB has withdrawn their application for final certification. The remote tower system must be shut down June 30th. I believe the air traffic controllers are located in the Kansas City area and the facility there will remain open because the system is certified and in use some places outside the US.
The FAA is going to provide a mobile tower through September after which the town, which owns the airport, must enter a lease for the tower including manning it with controllers at a cost of $720k per year. The town is currently investigating how to fund the mobile tower and a permanent replacement tower. They are seeking grants and/or considering instituting landing fees. The permanent tower must be completed and certified within 5 years.
Important: the seller is different. When logged in, the seller is Amazon.com. When logged out, the seller is SHOEBACCA (which does not appear to use Amazon for fulfillment).
If you are logged in and click to see all New & Used options, you can select the SHOEBACCA variant at that price.
My guess is that when you're logged in as a Prime member, Amazon defaults to variants that are fulfilled by Amazon so they can guarantee Prime shipping times.
I'm seeing the same thing as you. Interesting that Prime members are shown worse pricing by default, for slightly faster shipping. There is the usual caveat, hidden among a forest of other links, that the item "May be available at a lower price from other sellers, potentially without free Prime shipping."
In this case, the shipping is free either way, and the delivery date is similar for both (12/13 versus 12/14-16)
It is a little fishy that Amazon isn’t an available seller when you’re logged out. Makes me think they are doing that in name only and assuming the risk and the shipping for the premium. Wonder if other products are like this.
There's some folklore in that criticism. Cirrus listed CAPS as its spin recovery technique because it was the easiest + cheapest way to demonstrate that it meets FAR 23.221. EASA didn't accept that and required actual spin recovery, so a test pilot put an SR20 into a spin about 60 times without incident. It sounds like there is some technique to it, but nothing that couldn't be taught in transition training or that you wouldn't expect from such a slippery airframe:
> The Cirrus test pilot performing the spin program noted that while all spins entered were recoverable, they required a method of spin recovery that, while not unique in light general aviation airplanes, is different from that of a light trainer airplane in which a pilot is likely to receive spin training. Significant variability in spin recovery training techniques also exists – ranging from merely releasing the elevator control in some light trainers, to movement of the control to neutral, to brisk forward movement to neutral, to brisk foreward movement past neutral, etc.. In the case of the SR20, the proper spin recovery procedure is to briskly move the elevator control to the full down position. This is an unnatural control movement, when the nose of the aircraft may already appear to the pilot to be pointing down sharply. This is also a movement not typically advocated by spin training instructors due to associated discomfort.
FSD does transfer to next owner with any private sale.
If you sell it to Tesla, they often remove FSD and resell without it; but that's no different than anyone else modifying a vehicle they own and then selling it in its new state.
There are documented cases of Tesla selling a pre-owned vehicle that was purchased with an optional feature, listing that optional feature in the sale ad, and then disabling the feature after the person they sold the car to has taken possession.
That's definitely not a standard practice, but I can see how that would happen by mistake (e.g. forget to remove FSD from the spec sheet) and then be difficult to get fixed. It's near-impossible to reach the right human at Tesla, so when things fall through the cracks, it's a nightmare. I suspect that's the issue OP is quoting, too -- there's likely a reasonable person at Tesla who can and would help if they knew about this story.
My mistake, thanks for the correction; edited (leaving my error for prosperity, and so the replies make sense). I added another bullet point to make up for it. :-)
I suspect there is a little more to the story. On the LiveATC audio, he was giving descent rates and asking tower/approach for headings. Didn't speak like a pilot but seemed to know more than a layperson. Maybe some aviation exposure but no flight time? Whatever the case, very well done by both him and ATC.
It seems reasonable that if someone is in a two person cessna they probably have some additional flight exposure, right? I wouldn't know anything about most of that stuff... but I could probably figure out some of it in the moment just because of my technical bent. A lot of my founder friends are pilots, and were able to adapt pretty quickly... so maybe it's one of those things?
> It seems reasonable that if someone is in a two person cessna they probably have some additional flight exposure, right?
I think that's true as you stated it, but this wasn't a little 150; it was a 208 (which seats up to 14). Very common to have non-aviation passengers in something like that. On the flip side, the fact that he was sitting front-right seat could be evidence he had some aviation background (e.g. as a pilot + aviation enthusiast, I would excitedly take that seat if it was an option).
I’ve given my wife the basic heading, airspeed, trim, radio comms briefing and experience. (And also given my older kid the same experience but just for fun.)
If I kicked off in flight on day/good weather, and she was up front, I’m pretty sure that airplane would end up inside the airport perimeter, probably stopped on all three wheels on a runway. That’s not to take anything away from this pax feat, but it’s pretty likely they at least had a pretty good idea of how things work. (And were in a fairly simple airplane.)
The handful of times I've been up with private pilots who took me in their cessna, I did get an if I become incapacitated speech where they showed me how to operate the radios how to squawk 7700 and how to keep the plane level before we even took off.
If the State is protecting debtors from going through bankruptcy, it seems appropriate that the State compensate the creditors who would otherwise be able to make claims as part of bankruptcy.
It doesn't matter what a "regular person in the street" thinks, from a safety standpoint. What matters is what Tesla owners think (i.e. the people driving the cars). Are they fooled by the term? Search around on TMC, /r/teslamotors, or any other owners group, and you'll find it's pretty universally understood.
Additionally, the car reminds you of its limitations every time you use it. And it disables if it doesn't detect torque on the steering wheel, or weight in your seat, or the seatbelt clipped in. I understand how someone could be mislead by marketing early in the buying process. But by the time you get to operating the vehicle, it is borderline impossible to use Autopilot and still believe it requires no human attention.
Not sure that these guys are in the reddit demographic... but regardless, Tesla intends their cars to be a mass-market product. Peer pressure is a thing, and many of the people who buy these cars are showing them off to their friends who are eager to see the "autopilot" in action. When people are given conflicting information, they'll believe the story they want to believe. ("that fine print is just stuff the lawyers put in there") While drivers have the ultimate responsibility for sure, the situation this perception has created is foreseeable.
> two men who were found dead inside the car had dropped off their wives at a nearby home and told them they were going to take the 2019 Tesla S class for a test ride.
> The man, ages 59 and 69, had been talking about the features on the car before they left.
Disables if it doesn't detect torque on the steering wheel
Are you sure?
What if the driver had a heart attack? Wouldn't the responsible thing for the car to do would be to slow down, steer off the road and park? And then notify the authorities?
If you have direct market access and a clearing house you can do whatever you want, its the reliance on brokers that limits all the other market participants
https://www.faa.gov/airports/planning_capacity/non_federal/r...