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Comment by elchief | Hacker News Reader

"A crew of engineers from Winnipeg airport clambered into a van and headed for Gimli to assess the damage. During transit, however, their vehicle unexpectedly ran out of fuel, nearly ripping a hole in the delicate space-irony continuum."

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Another good one: “Many of the crew members were keenly aware that jumbo jets such as theirs were not designed for dead-stick flight — let alone dead-stick landings. In all probability, their inevitable confrontation with the Earth would not be an improvement on their current situation.”

That's a variant of a venerable old aviation joke: ''When flying, it is best to avoid the ground.''

"The Guide says that there is an art to flying,” said Ford, “or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.” He smiled weakly. He pointed at the knees of his trousers and held his arms up to show the elbows. They were all torn and worn through. “I haven’t done very well so far,” he said." - Douglas Adams, HHGTTG

Also, "First Officer Quintal caught sight of the fleeing families, but it was far too late to revise their landing plans, so he opted not to distract the captain with the unsettling discovery."

And "Some grizzled old pilots swear that sometimes, when the wind is just right on a quiet night, you can just about make out the double-engine-failure BONG! as the old girl is flying by; and if you’re very lucky, you might catch the faint odor of damp pilots in the air."

Nice to find an author with quality writing on a blog. Although this is long form so it doesn't get the usual "blog" connotations.

Apparently it was written by the sites creator.

The "not designed for dead-stick flight" is a bit off. Of course they are not designed to be gliders, but they are designed to be efficient, which means they have a reasonably high lift/drag ratio (in the range of 15–20 for most airliners). They glide quite well.

Indeed, it suprises people that light aircraft generally have a glide ratio comparable with a brick, whilst airliners are generally quite efficient given the incredible size.

It's been a while since an article managed to make me laugh out loud. It's some great writing.

Same. It was gripping in its description but then breaks the tension with genuinely hilarious turns of phrase.

You'll like this article if you haven't read it already: When you browse Instagram and find Tony Abbott's passport number, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24488224 (2020).

Also a good read thanks!

"the indicator panel lit up like a Christmas tree decorated with bad news" was an exellent twist on the cliché.

Loved how it was written too, even the dialog had a Canadian accent.

Was going to post this too.

What a very nicely written article.

Often I find long reads a bit of a labour to get going with - lots of words just for the sake of it.

But this was just marvellous.

the writing here is first class

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