Grounded tigers, axed newspapers, rocket ships for sale

Please put up your hand if you have any actual certified training to fly an aeroplane. Games arcades do not count as credible training programs. Neither does any previous experience working for Tiger Airways.

Poor Tiger was clipped over the wings last week by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA), the body that oversees all things that fly in a civil fashion in Australian skies (except birds obviously), when CASA demanded DEMANDED! that Tiger ground all their planes.

CASA were a little miffed when they discovered that Tiger pilots do not really know how to fly planes properly. Which is actually kind of funny. Honestly, how can any airline possibly live up to CASAs safety standards?  That Flight Centre pilot is probably shaking in his boots because I don't think he even has a cardboard licence.

I wonder if the pilot of that French airliner that spun the other midget plane at JFK airport in New York earlier this year has ever worked for Tiger. Actually, it is just so typical of the French to barge through oncoming traffic and smack right into another plane that just happens to be sitting in their way. Didn’t even stop to exchange insurance information, which the pilot would have probably just pulled out of a ham and cheese baguette in lieu of a cereal packet.

Speaking of people who cannot do their jobs in a manner that is not, you know, legal in the eyes of the law...

The staff left standing at the News of the World who were not involved in the phone hacks of the world scandal are complaining that their employer's key headline-chasing workplace guideline, that being tampering and sticking one's nose into the personal phone records of people in the news, has made them lose all credibility.

Well, I’m not sure they BEGAN with any credibility; such was their choice to work for a newspaper that contains page three girls, and thinks important breaking news is covering the sex romps of English footballers. Perhaps these journalists (italicised for the purposes of sarcasm) could have fixed their credibility issue by working for a CREDIBLE newspaper.  Actually, probably not.  Maybe if they left the media industry altogether things would perk up for them.

Speaking of things being grounded and axed, NASAs Atlantis shuttle took off this week for the U.S. space program's final flight, after the Obama Messiah thought it a good idea to wrap-up one of the few good things to have come out of the United States.

All those young kids (who aren’t stoned) who stare at the night sky for hours, with dreams of being an astronaut, will just have to get a boring government job like the rest of us. Alternatively, they could get a gig at Tiger Airways.

Watching the take-off yesterday, it occurred to me that I didn’t know how space shuttles come back down to earth.  Well I imagined they didn't just hit the brakes at that speed because they’d likely burn up into oblivion on re-entry. So I ventured out into the great outer space of Wikipedia to suss it out:

The vehicle re-enters the atmosphere by firing the Orbital maneuvering system engines, while flying upside down, backside first, in the opposite direction to orbital motion for approximately three minutes, which reduces the shuttle's velocity by about 200 mph (322 km/h)... the shuttle then flips over, by pushing its nose down (which is actually "up" relative to the Earth, because it is flying upside down).

The vehicle then performs a series of four steep S-shaped banking turns, each lasting several minutes... in this way it dissipates speed sideways rather than upwards. This occurs during the 'hottest' phase of re-entry, when the heat-shield glows red and the G-forces are at their highest. By the end of the last turn, the transition to aircraft is almost complete. The vehicle levels its wings, lowers its nose into a shallow dive and begins its approach to the landing site.

That is friggin’ mad!  But I bet they can't parallel park.