Just realizing I had my original statement backwards by accident. The airplane can generally handle much higher G-forces than the pilot.  But the direction of the G-forces matters more to the pilot than it probably does to the plane.

In some directions, very much so. You can survive [forward, backward, and sideways] G-forces that are much greater than those that would kill you in the vertical directions. Dr. John Stapp, surgeon and all-around badass, did a ton of research on what extreme G-forces do to (his own) human body. And humans have…

“I dropped 48 tons of salt on your 13 car parking lot.  Pay me.  Pay me now.”

Also I remember as a teen touching an electric guitar and the string zapped me pretty bad, leaving a scar on my index finger that changed my print. So anything like that can change it any point of time.

There is a pilot's speedrunning community where they compete for high ground speeds and ahead of schedule landings.  Neither of these flights top TWA's supersonic 727 which actually made a Sonic boom after hitting an air pocket and going into a power dive. The plane was returned to service after a thorough inspection 

I suppose it depends on how you define it. Supersonic = greater than the speed of sound for given altitudes and pressures? Or Supersonic = beyond the subsonic and transonic flight regimes.

Unless that truck has special tires, I wouldn’t call it any more suitable for the environment than any other passenger car. The deep south uses a lot of concrete for the roads and those concrete streets turn into an ice rink really fast. It could be recency bias, but I feel like the wheels slip up way more with the…

While more common now, wife and I returning from Tokyo to Chicago O’hare on a 747 back in 1983 were well over the 800 mph ground speed due to the jet stream. The pilot remarked about it a few times - especially when our redeye was couldn’t get a gate (too early) and customs and immigration hadn’t opened yet! Faster -…

“Above maintenance workers” hmmmm I’m not so sure of that. I know a lot of maintenance workers who just brush off smaller job injuries, and 2 who have been badly injured by machines. I know 1 former auto tech classmate who was killed working on a heavy machine during the oil boom. I'm thinking we're under reporting. 

I give police officers all the credit in the world: Along with the military, they risk their lives doing a job that few of us would want, for lousy pay.

For reasons that were painfully obvious, somehow it took Cletus 17 hours to clear that mile of road.

A lot of the forensic “sciences” boil down to some dude’s Mark 1 eyeball. Forensic firearms examination (along with other tool mark comparisons) is sketch as well.

Technically not supersonic, as you mentioned, but still neat. That’s a lot of ground speed for the greyhounds of the sky.

That far south? The Sun/Time.

Welcome to ‘Murica!

No, they aren’t “clearing rooms,” but if they get called to the scene of an active crime, they’re not gonna wait for the police to confirm that all threats have been neutralised before they start doing their jobs.  People in need of emergency care don’t have that kind of time.

My opinion doesn’t matter much, since I am a white dude. But I grew up in PA, live in MD and spend a lot of time in PA and WV for work. WV people are legitimately nice, but in a mind your own business type way. PA, some areas get real dicey. VA, you still have south there and rural VA (South of DC/Fredericksburg or…

“Instead of answering, I would ask if I was being detained or arrested (the detained part was already in progress really) and then ask him for what law I had apparently broken or suspected of breaking.”

Ha ha ha. You must be white, because anyone with a non-white skin knows that route is a shortcut to handcuffs and a long wait for a drug dog, at best.

One of my friends was a firefighter/EMT, and he had an exemption to carry a handgun before he turned 21. He said a lot of first responders carry because they get called to crime scenes, and if there’s a fire or medical emergency, they can’t wait for police to secure the area first. So I’d give the fire chief the…