pilot training

FortNine looks at why Tesla Autopilot has rear-ended motorcyclists, speculating that the vision system misreads motorcycle taillights as a distant car. It argues that radar and other sensors would help.

A PBS Space Time episode introducing de Broglie-Bohm pilot wave theory, an interpretation of quantum mechanics that avoids much of the strangeness of the mainstream views. It is aimed at curious lay viewers.

Veritasium shows silicone oil droplets bouncing on a vibrating bath, a physical analogue of pilot wave theory that reproduces quantum-like behavior such as double-slit patterns.

Looking Glass Universe explains de Broglie-Bohm pilot wave theory (Bohmian mechanics) as an alternative to the standard interpretation of quantum mechanics. The video lays out the pros and cons of the theory and links to related videos on contextuality and entanglement.

A Boeing 737 pilot explains the runaway stabilizer checklist, the procedure for stopping unwanted horizontal stabilizer movement such as an MCAS activation on the 737 MAX. He walks through the steps, the trim cutout switches and the jackscrew mechanism, and shows a simulator run including the manual trim wheel effort.

Mentour Pilot, a 737 instructor, explains the approach-to-stall and escape manoeuvre and why the 737 MAX needs MCAS while the 737NG did not. He covers the jackscrew and pitch behavior in terms a general viewer can follow.

Yosh trains a reinforcement learning agent to drive Trackmania until he can no longer beat it. The video explains how the training works and the design choices involved.

Rick Beato argues that adults cannot develop true perfect pitch, which he ties to critical-period brain plasticity and language acquisition. He says it can only be developed in young children, and discusses the research behind this.

Robert Miles explains reward modelling, in which an AI learns what humans want from their preference comparisons instead of a hand-written reward function. He walks through the 2017 paper on deep reinforcement learning from human preferences.

FortNine's tongue-in-cheek guide to why drivers fail to see motorcyclists and how riders can make themselves more visible. It touches on perception psychology, including the role of saccades.

Alex O'Connor shows that ChatGPT cannot draw a wine glass filled to the brim, and ties the failure to David Hume's missing shade of blue. It asks what the failure says about how image models learn.

Wendover Productions explains how airlines make money from different cabin classes and why premium seats matter so much to profits. It also touches on how this shaped decisions such as the decline of supersonic travel.

CGP Grey compares airplane boarding methods, based on an arXiv paper, and shows why the intuitive back-to-front approach is slow while random or outside-in boarding does better.

Real Engineering explains how Zipline built a drone delivery network for medical supplies in Rwanda. It covers the fixed-wing drones, catapult launch, parachute drop and the logistics behind the service.

Wendover Productions explains why Boeing's efficient 787 beat Airbus's giant A380, contrasting hub-and-spoke with point-to-point routes. It covers the economics of long-haul flights.

A short video on the US Sprint anti-ballistic missile, which accelerated to around Mach 10 in seconds under extreme g-forces and heat. It includes striking launch footage and a brief development history.

Veritasium's Derek Muller visits NASA JPL to see the Mars helicopter Ingenuity before it was mounted on the rover. He explains how it can fly in Mars's thin atmosphere with large, fast-spinning contra-rotating rotors and low mass, and covers power and cold.

Wendover Productions explains why drone delivery has not become the future once promised. It covers no-fly zones, costs and the difficulty of the final drop-off.

Real Engineering analyzes whether electric planes are feasible, focusing on battery energy density limits compared with jet fuel. It concludes electric flight works mainly for short ranges.

Wendover Productions explains how overnight shipping works, covering the hub-and-spoke logistics of companies like FedEx and UPS and the use of cargo aircraft. It touches on the economics that make next-day delivery possible.

A short Wendover Productions explainer on ETOPS, the rules that let twin-engine jets fly long routes over oceans. It covers the economics that favored twinjets like the 787 over four-engine aircraft like the A380 and 747.

A Wendover Productions explainer arguing that major airlines make much of their profit from loyalty programs and co-branded credit cards rather than flying. It frames airlines as quasi-banks that sell points in bulk, using United's pandemic-era loan as a hook.

Wendover Productions explains why modern airliners fly no faster than they did decades ago, covering the economics of speed and fuel efficiency, and why supersonic travel faded.

AVweb's Paul Bertorelli explains why general aviation has failed to replace leaded avgas, blaming industry inertia, bureaucratic delay and an exemption that removes the incentive. This is part one of two.

AVweb's Paul Bertorelli explains in part two of a series why general aviation has not replaced leaded avgas. He covers industry inertia, bureaucratic delays and the exemption that lets the industry keep using lead.

A Wendover Productions explainer on the political agreements, from the Chicago Convention onward, that determine which airlines can fly where. It lays out the five freedoms of the air.

A Wendover Productions explainer on how airport security is designed, covering screening layers, x-ray scanning, and the contrast with Israel's profiling-based approach. It walks through the logic behind why security works the way it does.

Vox explainer arguing the two Boeing 737 Max crashes were not just a software bug but the result of a company's drive to beat its rival, with a flawed MCAS design.

Veritasium explains how jet engines run hotter than their components' melting points, using cooling air and single-crystal superalloy turbine blades. It covers how the blades are grown as aligned crystals.

A Wendover Productions explainer on how budget airlines can sell tickets for under 10 euros. It covers the costs airlines face and how low-cost carriers structure their business.

CGP Grey explains why airport codes are inconsistent and sometimes confusing, from their origins in old weather station codes to the quirks that cause mistakes. He builds the story around a single typo that sent a flight to the wrong continent.

Scott Manley explains rotating detonation engines, how they differ from pulsed detonation engines, and why thermodynamics predicts they beat traditional jet and rocket engines.

AVweb's Paul Bertorelli analyzes the safety record of the Cirrus Airframe Parachute System (CAPS), looking at the 90-plus deployments over 20 years of Cirrus flying. He asks whether the whole-aircraft parachute has actually saved lives.

Nature video showing MIT researchers flying the first plane with no moving parts, powered by an ion drive that creates an ionic wind from high-powered electrodes. The 5m-wide craft flies across a sports hall.

Curious Droid surveys vertical take-off and landing rockets that predate SpaceX and Blue Origin, including the McDonnell Douglas DC-X of the 1990s. It shows that propulsive landing has about 60 years of history.

A short Boeing-supplied clip where the 737 MAX program's chief project engineer explains how the lengthened landing gear of the MAX 10 folds up. It shows the gear model in motion.

Half as Interesting explains why airlines flew empty 'ghost flights' out of Heathrow to keep their landing slots under use-it-or-lose-it rules.

Adam Neely explains what perfect (absolute) pitch is, how it differs from relative and quasi-absolute pitch, and why he would not want it. He covers its drawbacks, including drift with age.

3Blue1Brown's second neural network chapter explains cost functions and gradient descent, showing how a network learns by minimizing error during training.

Verge Science's pilot of its Trial & Error series follows amateur scientist Jon Larsen on a hunt for micrometeorites. It shows how tiny space rocks can be found on rooftops and confirmed under a microscope.