The Blue Angels will fly downtown!

[Captain Zissou]

I agree with STJR, the blue angels flyover was weak!  The rescue helicopter, chinook, and police helicopter were all around the downtown air space, so that may have forced them to fly further south, but it was still weak.  The chinook, stealth bomber, and the rescue demo were all amazing.

I loved all of the military activities at yesterday's game.

[mtraininjax]

Went to the beach Saturday, so we saw the F-16 and other jets with the Blue Angels, it was best to see them at the beach. Way cool.

[Overstreet]

I still can't believe it is physically possible for that thing to fly at all.  I wonder if there is some sort of alien thecnology in there?.................

It is called a computer. The computer does the minute adjustments to "install" inherent stability the flying wing does not physically have. This makes it possible to fly the thing.  The basic flying wing was pioneered in the 50's but they didn't have the fly by wire control systems to make it practical.

[Sportmotor]

I still can't believe it is physically possible for that thing to fly at all.  I wonder if there is some sort of alien thecnology in there?

Still, VERY VERY VERY cool!!!  I had a great time at the beach but had to leave before the Angels flew.

It was based off the German flying wing from WWII that had the same exact shape for a bomber, only it had props not jet powered.

The whole thing is a big wing, wing = lift
Although would be hard to fly without the computers in it that make it managable and do all the little corrections needed that humans couldnt do all at the same time to keep it flyin

[stjr]

Wow, a hard drive crash in the plane computer ='s a crash of the plane.

Our dependency on computers is scary. Last night 60 Minutes did a whole story on how vulnerable our society is to hackers taking control of computers.  They even showed a video of an electrical generator self destructing itself after its control system was hacked.  They pointed out that our generators are now made overseas, that it would take months to get a new one, and, if widespread, wide swaths of the electric supply could be quickly disabled.

Another example was how an entire oil refinery could be destroyed remotely by shutting down a recirculating pump and overriding a limit switch thus over-heating oil igniting a catastrophic explosion.

Even more vulnerable, our electric grid and financial systems.

No need for a war, the Chinese have downloaded bugs into all these systems, or so they think.  Just waiting for further instructions.

[Jason]

I think I've watched about every TLC, NOVA, Discovery, etc. episode on the stealth bomber imaginable and I'm still floored it flys as well as it does.  It looks like it should be thrown like a boomerang or flip end over end.  And yes, if there were a failure of the computer systems it would be hard to keep it in the air.  Now the stealth fighter, similar but different, actually looks like it is more than capable for flight and, although fly-by-wire, can still be piloted manually.

StJr, I watched the 60 minutes episode as well.  Very erie stuff.  But rest assured that we (Americans) are likely much more knowledgeable about other countries computer networks than they are ours.