No idea who's the bigger asshole here, but it reminded me of a funny bit from years ago.

Radio communication between US and Canadian seamen -

Americans: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the North to avoid a collision.

Canadians: Recommend you divert YOUR course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision.

Americans: This is the Captain of a US Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course.

Canadians: No. I say again, you divert YOUR course.

Americans: This is the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln, the second largest ship in the United States' Atlantic fleet. We are accompanied by three destroyers, three cruisers and numerous support vessels. I demand that YOU change your course 15 degrees north, that's one five degrees north, or countermeasures will be undertaken to ensure the safety of this ship.

Canadians: This is a lighthouse. Your call.

Two helios? No, sir you need to pay attention.

Papua has an ongoing genocide of the indigenous people by the central government. Mostly because of natural resources and corporate interests.

They're the lowest on the priority list when multiple islands are burning. Australia deserves credit and recognition for stepping in to help them with the wildfires.

How’d it get up there? I thought it would only go to the fourth floor.

That looks incredible!

I'm amazed at anyone surviving. It's a tragedy and clearly avoidable. They're flying like they're playing GTA and got enough health and armour to risk a crash.

There's an audio of it?

Would they've passed out before hitting the ground due to g-force or lack of oxygen or something like that?

I don't suggest listening to the pilot call it in. Poor lady knew they were fucked.

Holy shit, that looked like a missile

Man, they definitely came in hot.

Yeah, in many ways the two emerging fulcrums of multipolar military power are India and Brazil, but the thing is the absolute most hellish thing you can do is to try to regularly operate jet aircraft at sea off of a ship... putting all your eggs in being able to build that system from scratch isn't necessarily wise when you can bring in an established airframe with partners who have an interest in developing that capability themselves.

Work in progress

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindustan_Aeronautics_Limited

Wasn't India building their own fighter jets now?

Yeah it is for research into civilian supersonic flight as a way to remove the noise nuisance of supersonic booms among other things.

Apparently.

It's the "X-59" that got me, as if it was faster than the X-15.

I hope they succeed in their pursuit of quiet(er) SSTs. 🙂

This aircraft was specifically designed for quiet supersonic speed, not for pure maximum speed alone.

Designed and built at Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works facility in Palmdale, California, the Quesst X-plane initially took to the skies on Oct. 28, 2025. That first flight involved low, slow flight for system checks—the aircraft flew for 67 minutes, climbed to an altitude of 12,000 feet, and reached a speed of 230 mph. Since then, the X-59 has reached an altitude of more than 56,000 feet and speeds of up to Mach 1.53.

So it's slower than the X-15 and SR-71 Blackbird, which were built, IIUC, in the 1960s.

Wait, how does deploying a series of long range movable but inherently static sensors that mostly power themselves with alternative energy on your own countries' territory constitute saber rattling?

These are sensors not weapons, and they would be deployed by heavy cargo helicopters which typically are not weapon systems.

If there is something to be skeptical of here besides cooperation with the US on something classified (which is reasonable) is the validity of the below statement.

The sites mapped out in some of the filed plans include two in Quttinirpaaq National Park on Ellesmere Island and four within a migratory bird sanctuary on Banks Island. The documents state the project is expected to have little to no impact on wildlife.

Migratory bird sanctuary habitat is among some of the most valuable ecological habitat on earth, so any kind of proposal like this needs to be heavily scrutinized.

Sabre rattling. Provocateurism, performative.

This is already happening TODAY (sort of)

I saw an electric conversion on a floatplane at the abbotsford airshow this summer. I think it was a beaver. Super interesting really.

Basically their use case was 30 minute hops and they had DC fast chargers installed at each passenger drop off. In the ballpark of 100-150kw using CCS plugs like on cars. They claimed that the recharge time was about the same amount of time as it took to unload and reload passengers, maybe + 5 minutes. They had some battery cooling system that had the cooling radiators and fluid on the dock so it didn't have to be in the airplane.

It's a super niche use case but super cool. Here's a link if anyone is interested.

Transporting the "fuel"... Aircraft is the last place we should be putting battery tech - today.

Even cars aren't very good because most of the energy is for moving the vehicle, not the passengers (an existing problem for fuels, but current fuels as noted have a much higher weight-to-energy ratio). And with planes you're transporting less fuel weight as you fly.

Bicycles and motorcycles (or scooters) are the best bang-for-kilowatt right now. We should be promoting those and increasing experience/expertise there.

Even terrestrial trucks make far more sense than aircraft, currently.

Admiral’s mother’s visiting then.

I love the heavily swept wing on a slow plane. [Edit : actually it may not be too swept]

Also, the landing gear seems low. As they rotate during takeoff it seems likely the tail will strike.

The project may be credible but I don't think that photo is the final design.

Edit: this design makes more sense than the evtols which will have little range and endurance.

New band name: The Beached Buoys

Lol. Current batteries sit at 250WH/Kg even with Solid state Batteries at 500WH/Kg this is still way of to Kerosene at 11.000WH/kg energy density. Even short flights will be rough with most of the plane being filled with batteries out of necessity