Glad I'm not a passenger

nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
16,359
Can you post a link to the story you've quoted?
That exact story is a bit (but funny) of a urban legend but bears that size are real.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...ng-alaskan-grizzly-bear-tall-tale/3554240001/
The origin of the story
The bear in question was shot by Airman Ted Winnen, of Eielson Air Force Base near Fairbanks, Alaska, on Oct. 15, 2001, according to the North American Bear Center.

Winnen was deer hunting with a friend on Prince William Sound’s Hinchinbrook Island in Alaska, when they saw a bear fishing on the river.

Bear season was open, so when the bear was 10 yards away, Winnen “shot it through the head with a .388 Winchester Magnum and bowled it over,” according to the North American Bear Center’s fact-check.
1731033374254.png
https://www.google.com/search?sca_e...QIHVtuAG4QtKgLegQIEhAB&biw=1920&bih=913&dpr=1
 
Last edited:

nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
16,359
Sadly, more money than brains for the street racers that caused this crash.
A black Mercedes & A Grey Rolls Royce were believed to be racing at the time of the crash

Plain stupid. OUCH!
 

WBahn

Joined Mar 31, 2012
32,949
I wonder what the criteria was when said adjustments were decided
A big part of it was internationalization, so you wanted words that would be familiar enough to speakers with multiple native languages (specifically, at the time, English, French, and Spanish) so that they could be recognized easily and also be pretty unambiguous as to what letter a word started with. You also wanted code words that were sufficiently distinct from each other so that, even with severe static and fade, the listener had a good chance of picking the most-likely transmitted word correctly.

It is often called the International Phonetic Alphabet, but that is actually wrong (the IPA is a very different alphabet aimed at describing how words are spoken). The proper term is International Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet, but I almost never hear it called that. Sometimes I here it called the NATO Phonetic Alphabet or the NATO Spelling Alphabet. I'd say the term I hear most often is International Phonetic Code. The context of use is almost always more than sufficient to avoid confusion.
 

WBahn

Joined Mar 31, 2012
32,949
Haven't read the story, but I would doubt that the big concern was anything health related, but rodents in an aircraft is a huge risk for damage, mostly from chewing on things like wire insulation, hydraulic hoses, various fabrics, and such. So they want to be sure they get them out of there (or at least kill them, even if it leaves them to rot in place).
 

Thread Starter

cmartinez

Joined Jan 17, 2007
8,789
Haven't read the story, but I would doubt that the big concern was anything health related, but rodents in an aircraft is a huge risk for damage, mostly from chewing on things like wire insulation, hydraulic hoses, various fabrics, and such. So they want to be sure they get them out of there (or at least kill them, even if it leaves them to rot in place).
I say they should call Samuel Jackson and release snakes on that plane. That should take care of the hamster problem ...
 
Top