If you want to blow up a Tesla...cool. Go buy yourself a Tesla and blow it up.

Otherwise...---- off.

George Orwell was a committed socialist. What he struggled with was the fact that socialism is inherently authoritarian. It has to be.

After reading Homage to Catalonia years ago, I didn't really like the guy. During the Spanish Civil War, he spoke favorably of the ---, which was an absolutely vile organization. But, he was an honest guy, and not afraid to criticize proponent of those things he supported, when they went too far.

#76

You can definitely call a pilot on any VHF radio. Fin yourself a UHF radio and you can talk to military traffic.

And back in my B-52 days we would call HAM radio operators on HF and have them do a telephone connection with our families. Something to do when you got bored.

"Depends upon the orders, and what level they were issued, the pilot in command is the sole arbiter, and ultimately responsible for the safety of the flight/airplane.
You may catch alot of ---- for disregarding ATC or a dispatcher, but as PIC you do have the right to reply UNABLE."

That's absolutely true.

I don't think there is any circumstance where a pilot would be held accountable for violating a judges order. The judge has no authority over the plane while it was in flight. The only way a pilot could get in trouble would be violating ATC orders.

#60

Like I said previously, I'm pretty sure that DOJ and Alien Return flight plans are ADSB blocked. I don't know at what level that information is releasable, but up until the aircraft lands it is held at some restricted level.

Once the flight lands the information is readily available. I'm not a LEO guy-I'm DoD, but if you really wanted to find out the flight plan, I don't know how you could totally hide it without getting really weird.

#58

US ARTCC and global equivalents control air traffic. They tell them what to do. OCA is only responsible for deconfliction, but are supposed to follow IACO regulations.

If a US ARTCC region controller tells you to land-you land. If they tell you to climb to a different altitude, or change your heading, you do it. Otherwise, you get "violated." Like it sounds, that's not a good thing.

I think if you wanted to, you could probably go buy a radio and talk to astronauts in space if you wanted to. If they moved off of secure networks. Which I'm pretty sure they can.

"Someone? Anyone can call a pilot? Anyone? No checks, nothing? Do pilots get all kinds of prank calls? This is rather fascinating to me. I want to know!"

Yes. It's called spoofing.

You could go buy a radio and call a pilot right now.

You'd get sent to prison for it, but the NorKs do it all the time. Or at least they used to.

"The Dispatcher calls you and tells you to turn around because a Judge has Ordered you to turn around if at all possible. What do you do?"

You turn around and follow the direction of your dispatcher. If they're good, they work out the details for you. But even if they tell you to land at Possum Pouch regional airport, you do so and go park in the holding area until someone can come and collect the criminals. During the evacuation of Afghanistan, there were Afghans who sat in C-17s for hours at Al Udeid because there was nobody there who could do anything with them.

And I don't think you can bail out of a 757. I've never heard of that.

"Like Danforth said - step back and look at the chain of "command" and what's going on before you go to the pilot. Honestly, the pilot is down the chain on this."

Back when I used to fly bombers, there were lots of times when we would be flying through some sort of Oceanic Control Area and they would tell us to hold, or that we couldn't enter, or whatever. We ignored that ----. Under ICAO, they lack the authority to do that. When pilots start blindly following the orders of anyone who comes up on the frequency, we have problems.

"Tell me why that's wrong."

You're driving in your work car and someone calls you claiming to be a judge tells you to do something different than your employer told you to do.

Would you do it?

Is that all it takes to give you orders? Claim to be a judge?

And just for funsies, what if the judge had jumped on the company frequency and ordered the jet to turn around, and then a few minutes later another person cam up freq claiming to be a judge and told them to continue mission?

"The judge isn't and wouldn't do that. Those that ordered the action are responsible, and that includes ordering the pilot to turn around. If the pilot refuses them, that can still land that pilot in jail for disregarding a legal order."

Yes.

If over US airspace and directed to land, the pilot would very much be responsible for refusing to land. It's highly unlikely a pilot would ever do that. They would have no reason to. Beyond the control of US ARTCC, it would be up to the dispatcher to recall the aircraft, and then it would depend on whether or not the aircraft could be safely recalled.

"Do you often find pilots on a direct flight spending extra hours in the air for no reason? Or do you think the White House is lying in this case?"

I certainly wouldn't put it past the WH to lie, but I have no idea. I haven't seen the timeline, but I would love to if you have it.

I'm not 100% confident, but I do think that ADSB data is masked for DOJ flights and Alien Transportation Services. So the WH rep may have been truthful when telling the judge that they were unable to divulge flight plan data while the plan was till enroute to its destination. There may be some pay version of an app that give it to you, but I know that the DOJ stuff always pops up went I enter DAL (Delta Airlines), but it doesn't provide any data.

"Let's back up one step: do the pilots have to follow the judge's order or not?"

Absolutely not. A judge has no authority to radio a pilot and tell them to do anything. I would have ignored a call like that. Sounds like spoofing.

"And what about the crew on the ground? Do They have to follow the order, or do they get a veto?"

I'm not sure what you mean by the "ground crew." The only people I can think of in this case who would make a difference would be ATC and whomever you file the flight plan with. Once the flight plan is filed, ATC has no reason not to execute that plan. It's basically an order. The flight crew and ATC are obligated to follow it. This is a very unusual situation. Jets aren't normally turned around unless there is a conflict or terrorist attack-something like that that is very visible and recognizable. This would have probably required a representative of DHS or CBP to contact the FAA, determine where the plane was, and contact the controlling ARTCC. Because this is very much an in-extremis directive, proof would have likely been requested.

Once the aircraft leaves US airspace, it would be up to the dispatcher to direct any changes to the flight plan. And even then, the change would depend on the amount of fuel on the jet.

#32

Fair enough.

What federal law did these pilots break?

They filed a flight plan and took off. The only thing that could have got them in trouble is they refused an order by ATC to land, which would be a legal thing, or if their dispatcher ordered them to land. Of course if it's the dispatcher, it would be on the company to manage affairs on the ground once the plane landed.

"The Judge issued a verbal order saying the deportation flights should return to the US."

A judge has no authority over an aircraft in flight. That falls to the pilot in command of that aircraft. Even if the plane was in US airspace, what are the odds that ATC could have received orders to direct the aircraft to land in US territory?

It's also very likely that the plane had enough gas to get it there, but not more. Carrying more gas than you need is a waste of money.

The F-35 is a revolutionary aircraft. I spent most of my life in the Air Force thinking it was just another dumb fighter. It can drop bombs and shoot down other airplanes. It can do that, but its real value is as an ISR platform.

And I tell the pilots that. They are no longer fighter pilots. Any monkey can do that. They are ISR pilots.

I haven't gotten punched in the face yet.

"Musk and Trump both over-promise, then fail to deliver and lie on their pinky-swear promises."

The difference is that Musk presides over a publicly traded company. He's rich because he has over-promised to investors. And they can dump him.

Maybe Musk can try and prop up his flailing auto enterprise by smuggling cocaine. The BTTF remake will feature a Tesla.

"There are many online options for European banking. Makes me wonder if you really live in Europe at all..."

I have 2x European bank accounts. One in Belgium and one in Germany.

None of that matters if you're paid in USD.

"While it looks like it would be amazing, the ones I've seen required a mortgage worth of money to fix up and make livable."

My contract expires on 31 May. Odds are it is going to get renewed, we're just in DOGE thrash right now. If it doesn't, we're headed to Albania. There are lots of smaller 1 BR/ 1 both for 300 EUR a month. We will need something quite a bit bigger, but I'm thinking about getting one for my daughter.

"Like I said, you can't have conversations."

Yet here you are. Engaged in a conversation telling me I can't have conversations.

:)

#97

There are places in Italy that were selling houses for $1 to people from the US. I've seen similar offers in Switzerland.

But you're still faced with need to pay bills in EUR when you earn USD. My rent went up by 7% last week as a result of a declining dollar. If I don't get DOGE'd, I'm gonna need to ask for COLA.

"The Trump/GOP tax cuts only deepened the hole we're in."

Well, there seems to be another one on the way. I think a lot of the Trump craziness is just something he is putting out there so he can reverse it as a means of leverage in getting his tax cut across.

"If you want to know why I'm angry and feel the necessity to call idiots like you all manner of expletives, that's why."

I would offer up a recommendation to move to another country, but the decline of the dollar might mean that those who are paid in US dollar will be too poor to ever go anywhere else.

This reminds me of what I saw right after the commies invaded Ukraine. The vodka section at my local liquor store had a sign saying "none of these selections are from Russia."