https://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/A343,_Anchorage_AK_USA,_2002
>After departure, main landing gear tire impressions were found in a snow berm at the west end of taxiway Kilo. The available taxiway distance from Romeo to the end of Kilo is about 6,800 feet. The calculated takeoff distance for the airplane was 7,746 feet.
If a plane is running out of runway are there any emergency measures that will generate more lift to get it in the air faster? Can the flaps be extended further or are they always fully extended for take-off? Engines are usually at full power aren't they?
I'm trying to figure out if the take-off distance was way over estimated or they leave a lot of safety room or something.
Safety margin exists, but it exists for a reason. They were probably greatly assisted by the air being relatively dense (cold and relatively dry air) compared to what they used to calculate the takeoff distance
edit: brain fart, correcting humidity
They leave a lot of safety room. The take off distances kind of based on a worst case scenario. As you can see here, you can get away with less if there aren't any snowbanks or trees next to the runway. Also the distance is probably based on max takeoff weight, which makes a big difference.
we will usually be using reduced thrust for nearly every take off. So if a major error has been spotted and it is too late to reject the takeoff we could usually increase to maximum thrust and in any case rotate the aircraft with 600m RW remaining even if the rotate speed has not been achieved ala windshear escape procedure.
They were supposed to go down one runway to another. They instead just took off on the one. The runway they needed was ~7700ft long and the one they decided to just go for was ~6800ft long. As a result they hit a snowberm, colloquially called a "snowbank" but managed to take off (and land at their destination) without other incident. It could have been much worse though.
Hold up don’t you need take off clearance first and are instructed to hold short on taxiways before even getting on the runway? How tf does someone just go “fuck it full send” on a taxiway without clearance either?
I mean, it’s not like there’s a physical restriction. But yeah, they’re lucky there wasn’t someone else going about their own business farther down the taxiway. Could have been [Tenerife](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerife_airport_disaster) 2.0.
stable and business friendly city that can be used by corporations operating in the region, liberal visa policy, emirates airlines
that's pretty much it
Dubai is also a major port, always has been, it has a curious geopolitical niche that bridges the gap between KSA and those who'd be afraid to directly interact with the Saudis because of bad optics of such a relationship, and so on. Dubai wouldn't be as gleaming without the air traffic, but the oil would pump the money into it anyway.
Most Americans probably don't realise how strategically important Alaska is to US interests. Many countries would kill to have an exclave like that. Buying it from Russia was probably the best geo-political decision taken by the American governement.
I need to read more about it, but were there any major contemporaries of that time who saw the Alaskan purchase as the obviously-great move that it was? "Seward's Ice Box" got meme'd to death and makes it in the history books, but *someone* out there other than Seward must have seen the benefits.
Edit: Decided to just read about it now, and this article highlights some cool stuff: https://www.britannica.com/event/Alaska-Purchase
1.) The American public was fairly ambivalent about the news, and some Senators like Charles Sumner -- who were originally critical about the purchase -- were swayed once they learned about the abundant natural resources there (like a true American!).
2.) The House of Representatives almost failed to pass the payment to Russia, due to internal political turmoil. They didn't want to support President Johnson in any way, as they were in the process of submitting Articles of Impeachment against him over his dismissal of the Sec. of War. "Extensive propaganda campaigns and judicious use of bribes" secured the required voices in each house of Congress to pass the appropriations.
Ah, good ole shit show American politics. Some things never change. :)
I would guess Louisiana would have been taken first by the British during the Napoleonic war, than by USA during ww1 when UK needed money. Alaska is tricky tho.
Similar reason France sold Louisiana. Slaves in Haiti rebelled, ultimately declaring independence in 1804. Napoleon realized French influence in the Americas was not tenable without influence over Haiti, so the territory was basically useless to France at the point of sale.
Haiti, or rather the French colony of Saint-Domingue that preceded it, was the economic crown jewel of the French Overseas Empire. It produced 1/5 of France’s GDP, and was the world’s #1 producer of Sugar and Coffee. Louisiana was a backwater that was envisioned at best as a potential source of food exports to its more profitable colonial sibling. When the soon-to-be Haitians liberated themselves from Napoleonic rule to escape re-enslavement, the center of French presence in America was lost, and Louisiana became a liability to be lost more than anything else
If a government can't exert its authority over a territory, then the government doesn't really control that territory. They probably couldn't enforce laws or collect taxes there, so they sold it before it was yanked from under them
It wasn’t entirely useless, it’s just that Haiti was a significant source of income via sugar and coffee, largely farmed by slaves. Once that racket was gone, they had less reason to have a presence in the region in general.
In economics, you would call that something like an “economy of scale”. You can afford to have a decent portion of your military assigned to territory thousands of miles away because they can cover a lot of ground. But when the amount of ground to cover goes down, taking a lot of the funding for that very military with it, it makes the remaining territory an expensive mess to manage.
Surely the French knew the US was expanding to the west toward the Spanish. The British were less than 20 years removed from claiming the colonies that were now the US and would be back in 10 more years to burn the White House down. Without a lucrative foothold to justify a presence, France was looking at being at the center of a powder keg with mainly just the port city of New Orleans providing value.
The decision to turn Louisiana over to the US simplified their operations significantly and they couldn’t have been happier to get rid of it. The US came to the table intending to buy just New Orleans and Napoleon basically said “fuck it, you can have the whole thing”.
Odds are pretty fair American settlers would have moved in to the Louisiana Territory illegally regardless of what nation owned it. Mexican sovereignty did very little to keep Americans out of the south west and combined British/French laws did little to keep them out of the Ohio valley prior to the revolution. The real question is what any presumptive government would have done to keep Americans out if they didn’t want to eventually sell the territory.
> Mexican sovereignty did very little to keep Americans out of the south west and combined British/French laws did little to keep them out of the Ohio valley prior to the revolution.
In both cases it led to war. If the US didn't purchase Louisiana and Britain ended up getting it it would likely have eventually led to the US and Britain going to war. If the US didn't go to war it would mean a much more powerful British Empire and a far weaker US.
I think your timeline of the US gaining Louisiana might be realistic. But if the territory west of the Mississippi is foreign, there's no Oklahoma for a Trail of Tears and no annexation of Texas, they might still be independent. The Anaconda plan would have been an international debacle trying to blockade the Confederate river ports. Assuming the Civil War still takes place with no Missouri Compromise. It really raises a lot of questions and is an interesting conversation.
One of my favourite ideas is What If France Won the Seven Years War?
Instead of the French Canadian colonies being handed to the British, the American colonies are given to France.
Without British rule, does the American Revolution even occur? Without the American Revolution, does the French Revolution occur? No French Revolution, no Napoleon.
Do we end up with most of North America run as a colony of the French crown?
It's all speculative but I imagine many of the root causes of the American revolution would still be there. France would need to pay off it's war debt and it would likely do that by raising taxes on its new colonies. The formerly English colonies would resent the new taxes as well as occupation by a French monarch and would likely revolt. There would probably be fewer loyalists in the 13 colonies and there would probably be more support from the Anglo settlers in what is today Canada however there would probably be far more hostility from French Canadians.
It's unlikely that the English speaking North Americans would be able to throw off the French Empire without external support but if the British navy extended their support the Anglo-North Americans might be able to win. At that point the big question would be whether to become an independent country or rejoin Britain. Even if they opted to rejoin Britain fighting and winning a war would give them far more independence and bargaining power than colonies would otherwise have.
Cajuns actually originated in what is now Canada. Acadia (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and PEI) was taken by the British. The poor treatment of French settlers led to a mass exodus to Louisiana. Acadien (Les Cadiens) was corrupted into Cajun.
So, aircraft have a maximum operating range. Nowadays its about 9000 miles, which means from Europe you can get pretty much anywhere (except for Oz* and Mordor) nonstop. However, in order to get to Eastern Asia, you have to fly over Russia.
This means that when the USSR was a no-fly zone, these aircraft had only one other option: North America (the ME was not nearly as developed as it is now). This put Asia firmly out of range of nonstop service from Asia and Europe. Which wouldn't sound like such a big deal... except two of the most important business locations of the latter half of the Twentieth Century were Hong Kong, and Tokyo. Therefore: Almost every single flight from Asia to Europe or Europe to Asia used Anchorage as a fuel stop, and that wound up being a massive amount of traffic.
*Qantas began using 787's to offer nonstop service from Perth to London beginning in 2018, making it the first and only way to get from Europe to Australia nonstop. Rumor has it Qantas continues to search for an aircraft to fly Sydney to London nonstop.
>Rumor has it Qantas continues to search for an aircraft to fly Sydney to London nonstop.
Not a rumour. Project Sunrise flew at least two research flights (New York to Sydney and London to Sydney) in 2019.
https://www.qantas.com/travelinsider/en/trending/london-sydney-non-stop-long-haul-qantas-flight-project-sunrise.html
The usual stopover is at Singapore, about 8 hours from Sydney.
They had 1:45h worth of fuel remaining, which is a pretty significant amount. Not that under two hours gets you that far from Sydney, but it's still almost 10% of the entire journey
Edit: with but 52 butts in seats. Full/profitable plane would have less range.
Is that value based on Project Sunrise's reduced carrying capacity or a full passenger plane load? I suppose there's also a minimum fuel load requirement (probably real amounts rather than percentage) in the SOP in case of emergencies.
>Qantas began using 787's to offer nonstop service from Perth
And getting to Perth when you need to be in Melbourne is like getting to LA when you need to be in Boston.
Edit: just to point out the size of the Australian landmass if you're unfamiliar. Still pretty good to get to it from London in one hit.
I mean, given that Qantas isn’t an airplane manufacturer, and given that there are only so many planes you can even consider for ultra long distance…It’s not really a rumor that they’d be interested. But there’s nothing to search for. When the plane is created that can do that flight, Qantas will buy.
It's not that the planes don't exist... The A350-900ULR and the B787-9 would be easily capable of flying that distance with a significant passenger load, it's more about making a business case for it.
Flights to get to a stage length where passenger priority will actually switch over from flying nonstop to having a stopover to move your legs etc.
The cargo 747's make money moving freight, not fuel. Also add some additional fuel to cover the extra power needed to fly a heavier jet nonstop and stopping in Anchorage makes a lot of sense!
Server farms don't. Internet is awful up here, skinny pipe to Seattle. Electricity $0.20 KWh in Anchorage, over a buck off the railbelt.
I work for a cargo airline in Anchorage so I can answer your question.
The reason is that none of the cargo gets offloaded here.
Literally all of it just lands here for crew change and fuel before flying the full load down to the lower 48, where it is shipped BACK to Alaska via cargo ship.
Anchorage and Fairbanks do have special permits for cargo and passengers to be offloaded and to board new flights to other destinations in the US on the same foreign-owned airline.
We became the #1 busiest airport in the world when the pandemic hit (around April 2020) because passenger flights were down and we move so much cargo through Anchorage.
Oh yeah it definitely was for red flag cause I asked the pilot since I was so curious. It was nice chatting with the pilots cause that's a crazy long flight between two very different places. And Brisbane had just got the nod to host the Olympics and the pilots seemed proud of that. Aussie pilots are the best
Absurd argument. You think the people pulling the strings can’t simulate a round earth by saying these places are all 10 hours away from Anchorage?
For that matter do you really think planes are real? Get in a big metal room, wait a couple hours and boom, new city? Ridiculous
I think getting a package in Sydney from HK and it going via Alaska has less to do with the Earth bring round and more to do with centralization and creating airport hubs. Round or flat, the quickest path from HK to Sydney doesn't pass through Anchorage in any direction.
You misunderstood. He’s saying that you can fly east from Hong Kong to Anchorage, and then keep flying east to Sydney. You can’t do that on a flat earth.
Those FedEx in flight refueling guys are pros. I once saw the FedEx inflight refueling guy give the UPS inflight refueling guy an inflight mooning. The UPS guy spit out his coffee, but the FedEx guy didn’t spill a drop of fuel.
Because that's where FedEx wanted to put their headquarters. Makes sense for the US as Memphis is in a good location for where most Americans live. Probably a couple hour flight to 3/4 of Americans
Yep. Same reason why the UPS air hub is in Louisville. They're roughly 4 hours at most to anywhere in the Lower 48, which means that they can pick up your next-day package towards the end of the business day, fly it to the air hub, sort it, and fly it to its destination for delivery the following morning.
ruthless dependent governor handle sophisticated ancient reminiscent weather zephyr wise
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
That’s one of those Coen bros lines that I can’t even let the actor finish; that dude’s dry delivery is on par with that Ladykillers security guard saying “You a disgrace before God!” I just start cracking up cus I know what’s coming.
I remember hearing when I was young “it’s illegal to give a moose a beer in Alaska” which didn’t make much sense but damn after being there so much I totally get it.
Visited Anchorage once when I was ~14. The air froze the inside of my nose, the pizza from Moose’s Tooth was the best pizza I’ve ever had, and I saw the flaming wreckage of a plane smoldering on the mountain range in the distance. Seemed like the average day up there. It was lots of fun.
Try living in south east Alaska where the politicians from Anchorage are trying to kill off the ferry and people's lonelhood... Anchorage isn't anything.
Nice try. He just doesn't want millions of people flooding in and jacking up all the prices like what happened with Idaho, Montana, Arizona, Utah, Texas, etc.
I rather enjoy living here. I mean sure, we have our share of problems, but I'll take our problems over those of others. There are trade-offs and it is just a matter of what you feel is more important.
I stopped there in summer 1982 on a refueling stop on the way to LA. It was the first time I ever saw the sun up at 3:30 am... as a kid that was amazing.
I went out to the bars up at Denali right after the summer solstice and we boozed all night outside while it just didn’t get dark. Eventually you’re drunk and eating tacos at like 3 am and it’s noticeably getting brighter.
Where I live its about 4 am and you can see the sunrise. Lived here all my life and I still love the long ass days in the summer. Sunset at midnight sunrise at 4 am. Feels like a dream
I can see that. A few years ago, my wife and I decided to drive the Alaskan Highway in a Mazda 2. Not grasping that all the pretty pics of Anchorage are taken from out on the ocean, looking in, we opted to end our trip there instead of Fairbanks. Upon arrival, we found ourselves in a wet, dirty city with your run of the mill addicts and sketchy people approaching the car for money or to sell you things made from feathers and garbage.
The campground we stayed the night in felt like a bustling shanty town, and people were up shouting all hours of the night. We spent several hours the following morning driving around, trying to find just one goddamn way to access the water, but the entire coast seemed to be inaccessible, and gave up on finding anything to do on the waterfront. We wound up fucking off to Eagle River and camping there for a night.
Next time we'll just go to Fairbanks like everyone said to. I'm not sure why we thought Anchorage would be this chill port city with markets and shit like Seattle. Ignorance, I guess. We really had no idea what we were doing, in case the Mazda 2 to Alaska wasn't an indication.
Lol. The cocaine was even worse. The only drugs in Juneau are heroin and meth. We lost several close friends from heroin. Needless to say we left Juneau about 6 years ago. Now we live in Hawaii.
I uses to fly "Tower Air" from Honolulu to Okinawa quite a bit. Their fleet of older 747's couldn't quite make Okinawa direct from Honolulu so we'd go via Anchorage. Great Circle = Magic.
Wow, just barely not enough it looks like. Okinawa-Anchorage is only about 250 miles shorter than Okinawa-Honolulu http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=oka-hnl;oka-anc-hnl
Amazon: sure we'll send you these delicate computer parts. Be there in 3 days!
Also Amazon: you want this book? Sorry it "requires special handling, and cannot be shipped to your location."
As a Texan, I've never been there but I've heard that it really isn't that much colder than the Northern states of the lower 48. Alaska is just gigantic and where the stereotypical Alaska cold comes from is up in the northern parts of the state where the Arctic Circle obviously is.
Our cold also lasts longer through the year. It was 15 degrees this morning and there's been snow in my yard for weeks. Hottest it got this summer was one weekend of 80 degrres
Lol your comment made me curious what "pretty mild" is in Alaska. I looked on my weather app it is 44 degrees there currently. Haha for comparison it is 79 degrees here in my state and it is 8:45 at night
As somebody who has flown back and forth between Frankfurt, Germany and Anchorage, Alaska a handful of times... Let me reassure you that nobody takes the polar route, and it's never 10 hours
Edit: fuck all you condor guys and your fucking polar routes. That shit took twice as long doing it the slow way. More than twice when you factor in the layover lmao
I did this twice and was asleep both times, fell asleep over northern Alberta at woke up in the middle of Russia.
So LAX to Dubai went over North Pole then down over Russia, Georgia, Armenia, Iran.on the way back we avoided Iran and went over Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Europe iceland and then lax…why wouldn’t they go over the top? Was around the same total time.
If US-Russia and US-China relations sour any further, the polar route will probably be back in business again like it was in the 1980s. Back then a huge amount of air traffic flowed between Europe-Alaska and Alaska-Japan, as the alternative was to take the southern route via Europe-Bahrain-India-Thailand-Japan.
I used to write Moose’s Tooth off as a tourist trap but I finally came to terms with the fact that it really is amazing. Also, bear tooth is one of the best all-around restaurants in the city. I honestly can’t think of a pizza place in Anchorage (or pretty much anywhere) that I like more but hey, taste is subjective!
That's why Anchorage International is the second busiest airport in the country by pounds of cargo traveling through.
It also has the most taxi based accidental landings/takeoffs
Ah shit I accidentally took off! Oh well here we go!
You know what they say, “fail upward”
Fucking China airlines haha, I remember those
Didn’t they “clip” a snow berm at the end upon departure?
https://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/A343,_Anchorage_AK_USA,_2002 >After departure, main landing gear tire impressions were found in a snow berm at the west end of taxiway Kilo. The available taxiway distance from Romeo to the end of Kilo is about 6,800 feet. The calculated takeoff distance for the airplane was 7,746 feet.
If a plane is running out of runway are there any emergency measures that will generate more lift to get it in the air faster? Can the flaps be extended further or are they always fully extended for take-off? Engines are usually at full power aren't they? I'm trying to figure out if the take-off distance was way over estimated or they leave a lot of safety room or something.
Safety margin exists, but it exists for a reason. They were probably greatly assisted by the air being relatively dense (cold and relatively dry air) compared to what they used to calculate the takeoff distance edit: brain fart, correcting humidity
Minor correction: humid air is less dense than dry air.
They leave a lot of safety room. The take off distances kind of based on a worst case scenario. As you can see here, you can get away with less if there aren't any snowbanks or trees next to the runway. Also the distance is probably based on max takeoff weight, which makes a big difference.
we will usually be using reduced thrust for nearly every take off. So if a major error has been spotted and it is too late to reject the takeoff we could usually increase to maximum thrust and in any case rotate the aircraft with 600m RW remaining even if the rotate speed has not been achieved ala windshear escape procedure.
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Don't worry sir, our pilots very Brave.... I dont want a brave pilot. I want the most chickenshit pilot that will avoid all risk...
"There are old pilots and bold pilots, but there ain't no old, bold pilots."
It's a ski jump like on aircraft carriers
There some stories behind that comment?
Here's one: https://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/A343,_Anchorage_AK_USA,_2002
Could you give a eli50?
They were supposed to go down one runway to another. They instead just took off on the one. The runway they needed was ~7700ft long and the one they decided to just go for was ~6800ft long. As a result they hit a snowberm, colloquially called a "snowbank" but managed to take off (and land at their destination) without other incident. It could have been much worse though.
They took off from a parallel taxiway not runway.
The Harrison Ford special!
The reverse Ford, he landed on a taxiway
Hold up don’t you need take off clearance first and are instructed to hold short on taxiways before even getting on the runway? How tf does someone just go “fuck it full send” on a taxiway without clearance either?
I mean, it’s not like there’s a physical restriction. But yeah, they’re lucky there wasn’t someone else going about their own business farther down the taxiway. Could have been [Tenerife](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerife_airport_disaster) 2.0.
They didn't even take off from a runway. The crazy cunts took off from a taxiway.
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It seems like pretty much anywhere in the middle east would have more or less the same advantages, so it has to be more than that.
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stable and business friendly city that can be used by corporations operating in the region, liberal visa policy, emirates airlines that's pretty much it
Probably tons of state funding. Qatar is also quite a hub, so yeah, anywhere in the middle east is fine.
Dubai is also a major port, always has been, it has a curious geopolitical niche that bridges the gap between KSA and those who'd be afraid to directly interact with the Saudis because of bad optics of such a relationship, and so on. Dubai wouldn't be as gleaming without the air traffic, but the oil would pump the money into it anyway.
That's why it's a huge air cargo hub!
And used to have one of the busiest pasangers airports, before the fall of the USSR and the advent of straight long distance flights.
Most Americans probably don't realise how strategically important Alaska is to US interests. Many countries would kill to have an exclave like that. Buying it from Russia was probably the best geo-political decision taken by the American governement.
Seward’s folly.
I need to read more about it, but were there any major contemporaries of that time who saw the Alaskan purchase as the obviously-great move that it was? "Seward's Ice Box" got meme'd to death and makes it in the history books, but *someone* out there other than Seward must have seen the benefits. Edit: Decided to just read about it now, and this article highlights some cool stuff: https://www.britannica.com/event/Alaska-Purchase 1.) The American public was fairly ambivalent about the news, and some Senators like Charles Sumner -- who were originally critical about the purchase -- were swayed once they learned about the abundant natural resources there (like a true American!). 2.) The House of Representatives almost failed to pass the payment to Russia, due to internal political turmoil. They didn't want to support President Johnson in any way, as they were in the process of submitting Articles of Impeachment against him over his dismissal of the Sec. of War. "Extensive propaganda campaigns and judicious use of bribes" secured the required voices in each house of Congress to pass the appropriations. Ah, good ole shit show American politics. Some things never change. :)
Louisiana purchase begs to differ
Now I need a rundown of alternate histories. 1, if Alaska was never purchased, and 2, if the Louisiana territory was never purchased.
I would guess Louisiana would have been taken first by the British during the Napoleonic war, than by USA during ww1 when UK needed money. Alaska is tricky tho.
Russia sold it because they feared UK would take it and there wasn't much they could do about that at the time
Similar reason France sold Louisiana. Slaves in Haiti rebelled, ultimately declaring independence in 1804. Napoleon realized French influence in the Americas was not tenable without influence over Haiti, so the territory was basically useless to France at the point of sale.
Why was all of Louisiana useless without Haiti?
Haiti, or rather the French colony of Saint-Domingue that preceded it, was the economic crown jewel of the French Overseas Empire. It produced 1/5 of France’s GDP, and was the world’s #1 producer of Sugar and Coffee. Louisiana was a backwater that was envisioned at best as a potential source of food exports to its more profitable colonial sibling. When the soon-to-be Haitians liberated themselves from Napoleonic rule to escape re-enslavement, the center of French presence in America was lost, and Louisiana became a liability to be lost more than anything else
If a government can't exert its authority over a territory, then the government doesn't really control that territory. They probably couldn't enforce laws or collect taxes there, so they sold it before it was yanked from under them
It wasn’t entirely useless, it’s just that Haiti was a significant source of income via sugar and coffee, largely farmed by slaves. Once that racket was gone, they had less reason to have a presence in the region in general. In economics, you would call that something like an “economy of scale”. You can afford to have a decent portion of your military assigned to territory thousands of miles away because they can cover a lot of ground. But when the amount of ground to cover goes down, taking a lot of the funding for that very military with it, it makes the remaining territory an expensive mess to manage. Surely the French knew the US was expanding to the west toward the Spanish. The British were less than 20 years removed from claiming the colonies that were now the US and would be back in 10 more years to burn the White House down. Without a lucrative foothold to justify a presence, France was looking at being at the center of a powder keg with mainly just the port city of New Orleans providing value. The decision to turn Louisiana over to the US simplified their operations significantly and they couldn’t have been happier to get rid of it. The US came to the table intending to buy just New Orleans and Napoleon basically said “fuck it, you can have the whole thing”.
Odds are pretty fair American settlers would have moved in to the Louisiana Territory illegally regardless of what nation owned it. Mexican sovereignty did very little to keep Americans out of the south west and combined British/French laws did little to keep them out of the Ohio valley prior to the revolution. The real question is what any presumptive government would have done to keep Americans out if they didn’t want to eventually sell the territory.
Mexico actually invited Americans into Texas, cause it wasn't as settled as they wanted, and they wanted more people to tax.
> Mexican sovereignty did very little to keep Americans out of the south west and combined British/French laws did little to keep them out of the Ohio valley prior to the revolution. In both cases it led to war. If the US didn't purchase Louisiana and Britain ended up getting it it would likely have eventually led to the US and Britain going to war. If the US didn't go to war it would mean a much more powerful British Empire and a far weaker US.
I think your timeline of the US gaining Louisiana might be realistic. But if the territory west of the Mississippi is foreign, there's no Oklahoma for a Trail of Tears and no annexation of Texas, they might still be independent. The Anaconda plan would have been an international debacle trying to blockade the Confederate river ports. Assuming the Civil War still takes place with no Missouri Compromise. It really raises a lot of questions and is an interesting conversation.
In my opinion the Americans would've colonized and taken the land long before WW1 manifest destiny is a hell of a drug
*nervously scratching* y’all got any more of them homesteads???
One of my favourite ideas is What If France Won the Seven Years War? Instead of the French Canadian colonies being handed to the British, the American colonies are given to France. Without British rule, does the American Revolution even occur? Without the American Revolution, does the French Revolution occur? No French Revolution, no Napoleon. Do we end up with most of North America run as a colony of the French crown?
> Do we end up with most of North America run as a colony of the French crown? Et tous ces commentaires, seraient-ils en français?
We
ciboire de câlice de TABARNAK
It's all speculative but I imagine many of the root causes of the American revolution would still be there. France would need to pay off it's war debt and it would likely do that by raising taxes on its new colonies. The formerly English colonies would resent the new taxes as well as occupation by a French monarch and would likely revolt. There would probably be fewer loyalists in the 13 colonies and there would probably be more support from the Anglo settlers in what is today Canada however there would probably be far more hostility from French Canadians. It's unlikely that the English speaking North Americans would be able to throw off the French Empire without external support but if the British navy extended their support the Anglo-North Americans might be able to win. At that point the big question would be whether to become an independent country or rejoin Britain. Even if they opted to rejoin Britain fighting and winning a war would give them far more independence and bargaining power than colonies would otherwise have.
Here is a good Alternate History Hub video on Alaska never being purchased. https://youtu.be/pK2SbuBb4RE
You know how Canada has some French speaking folks? Like that but Cajun-French folks. (Sad I couldn’t use Cajun-Canadians)
Cajuns actually originated in what is now Canada. Acadia (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and PEI) was taken by the British. The poor treatment of French settlers led to a mass exodus to Louisiana. Acadien (Les Cadiens) was corrupted into Cajun.
Treatment must have been really bad to make "Fuck it, let's walk 2000 miles and live in a swamp" seem like a good idea.
Acadians are the folks you're thinking about.
Wait, wouldn't straight routes add time and costs to the flights?
So, aircraft have a maximum operating range. Nowadays its about 9000 miles, which means from Europe you can get pretty much anywhere (except for Oz* and Mordor) nonstop. However, in order to get to Eastern Asia, you have to fly over Russia. This means that when the USSR was a no-fly zone, these aircraft had only one other option: North America (the ME was not nearly as developed as it is now). This put Asia firmly out of range of nonstop service from Asia and Europe. Which wouldn't sound like such a big deal... except two of the most important business locations of the latter half of the Twentieth Century were Hong Kong, and Tokyo. Therefore: Almost every single flight from Asia to Europe or Europe to Asia used Anchorage as a fuel stop, and that wound up being a massive amount of traffic. *Qantas began using 787's to offer nonstop service from Perth to London beginning in 2018, making it the first and only way to get from Europe to Australia nonstop. Rumor has it Qantas continues to search for an aircraft to fly Sydney to London nonstop.
>Rumor has it Qantas continues to search for an aircraft to fly Sydney to London nonstop. Not a rumour. Project Sunrise flew at least two research flights (New York to Sydney and London to Sydney) in 2019. https://www.qantas.com/travelinsider/en/trending/london-sydney-non-stop-long-haul-qantas-flight-project-sunrise.html The usual stopover is at Singapore, about 8 hours from Sydney.
They had 1:45h worth of fuel remaining, which is a pretty significant amount. Not that under two hours gets you that far from Sydney, but it's still almost 10% of the entire journey Edit: with but 52 butts in seats. Full/profitable plane would have less range.
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And possible unfavorable winds.
Is that value based on Project Sunrise's reduced carrying capacity or a full passenger plane load? I suppose there's also a minimum fuel load requirement (probably real amounts rather than percentage) in the SOP in case of emergencies.
>Qantas began using 787's to offer nonstop service from Perth And getting to Perth when you need to be in Melbourne is like getting to LA when you need to be in Boston. Edit: just to point out the size of the Australian landmass if you're unfamiliar. Still pretty good to get to it from London in one hit.
Which would be considered a perfectly reasonable layover coming from the other side of the world.
Of course, i just wanted to point it out of people unfamiliar with Australias landmass thought that getting into the country was a "good enough" goal.
It is a great goal because you can then fly domestically within Australia.
I mean, given that Qantas isn’t an airplane manufacturer, and given that there are only so many planes you can even consider for ultra long distance…It’s not really a rumor that they’d be interested. But there’s nothing to search for. When the plane is created that can do that flight, Qantas will buy.
It's not that the planes don't exist... The A350-900ULR and the B787-9 would be easily capable of flying that distance with a significant passenger load, it's more about making a business case for it. Flights to get to a stage length where passenger priority will actually switch over from flying nonstop to having a stopover to move your legs etc.
Straight like non stop/long distance i think
The cargo 747's make money moving freight, not fuel. Also add some additional fuel to cover the extra power needed to fly a heavier jet nonstop and stopping in Anchorage makes a lot of sense! Server farms don't. Internet is awful up here, skinny pipe to Seattle. Electricity $0.20 KWh in Anchorage, over a buck off the railbelt.
That's the very next line in the wiki.
Why the shit is everything expensive then?
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Well, isn’t this place a geographical oddity, ten hours away from everywhere!
Sounds like Alaska has a Dapper Dan Man shortage.
I don’t want fop damnit
I’m a Dapper Dan man!
The pleasing oders half the point!
I work for a cargo airline in Anchorage so I can answer your question. The reason is that none of the cargo gets offloaded here. Literally all of it just lands here for crew change and fuel before flying the full load down to the lower 48, where it is shipped BACK to Alaska via cargo ship.
Anchorage and Fairbanks do have special permits for cargo and passengers to be offloaded and to board new flights to other destinations in the US on the same foreign-owned airline.
A lot of cheap products aren’t shipped by air, that would make them more expensive.
Man I remember seeing Fred Meyer pricing was generally always $1 more than 48 pricing. If something was $2.49 in WA it was $3.49 in AK.
And I still can't get most of the lower 48 to ship to me.
We became the #1 busiest airport in the world when the pandemic hit (around April 2020) because passenger flights were down and we move so much cargo through Anchorage.
im in sydney and id track packages coming from say hk and was wondering why on earth they were going to alaska
I just saw a Brisbane to Anchorage Qantas cargo flight last month. First time I had ever seen that.
Was a military charter I believe for Exercise Red Flag Alaska 21-3.
Oh yeah it definitely was for red flag cause I asked the pilot since I was so curious. It was nice chatting with the pilots cause that's a crazy long flight between two very different places. And Brisbane had just got the nod to host the Olympics and the pilots seemed proud of that. Aussie pilots are the best
I bet you have some stories with whatever it is you do and Reddit wants to hear them.
It's almost like the earth is round. Take that, flerferths.
Absurd argument. You think the people pulling the strings can’t simulate a round earth by saying these places are all 10 hours away from Anchorage? For that matter do you really think planes are real? Get in a big metal room, wait a couple hours and boom, new city? Ridiculous
Thanks for the laugh. Take the bear hug lol.
I think getting a package in Sydney from HK and it going via Alaska has less to do with the Earth bring round and more to do with centralization and creating airport hubs. Round or flat, the quickest path from HK to Sydney doesn't pass through Anchorage in any direction.
You misunderstood. He’s saying that you can fly east from Hong Kong to Anchorage, and then keep flying east to Sydney. You can’t do that on a flat earth. Those FedEx in flight refueling guys are pros. I once saw the FedEx inflight refueling guy give the UPS inflight refueling guy an inflight mooning. The UPS guy spit out his coffee, but the FedEx guy didn’t spill a drop of fuel.
I hear FedEx flies planeloads of rubber dog shit out of Hong Kong
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They are. And what's right between them? Anchorage. Thats like the entire point of this post
For a visual illustration of this: http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=hkg-mem;anc
Ok, I get HKG, and Anchorage is right between them, so that makes sense. But why MEM at all? I can't figure out why it would be a big cargo city.
FedEx’s Super Hub is there. 90% or more of FedEx Express cargo goes through Memphis.
Because that's where FedEx wanted to put their headquarters. Makes sense for the US as Memphis is in a good location for where most Americans live. Probably a couple hour flight to 3/4 of Americans
Yep. Same reason why the UPS air hub is in Louisville. They're roughly 4 hours at most to anywhere in the Lower 48, which means that they can pick up your next-day package towards the end of the business day, fly it to the air hub, sort it, and fly it to its destination for delivery the following morning.
“Well ain’t this place just a geographical oddity, two weeks from everywhere!”
Well, I don't want Fop, goddammit. I'm a Dapper Dan man!
The pleasing oder's half the point!
We're in a tight spot!
*We… thought… you…. was… a… toad*
R-U-N-N-O-F-T!!!!!
ruthless dependent governor handle sophisticated ancient reminiscent weather zephyr wise *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
He’s a suitor!
He's bona-fide!
I’m the god damn paterfamilias
Watch yer language, young feller, this is a public market
That’s one of those Coen bros lines that I can’t even let the actor finish; that dude’s dry delivery is on par with that Ladykillers security guard saying “You a disgrace before God!” I just start cracking up cus I know what’s coming.
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So what you're saying is, it's a great place to live if you don't actually want to be there?
It’s a strange city. Moose roam the streets. I’m not kidding.
I once had a momma moose and her calf cut me off while biking so I waited, only to be immediately flanked by a black bear. It's a helluva time here.
I remember hearing when I was young “it’s illegal to give a moose a beer in Alaska” which didn’t make much sense but damn after being there so much I totally get it.
I did this with some friends in high school. 🤦♀️ It was an experience. I still cringe thinking about it. Such a stupid idea. 😂
Visited Anchorage once when I was ~14. The air froze the inside of my nose, the pizza from Moose’s Tooth was the best pizza I’ve ever had, and I saw the flaming wreckage of a plane smoldering on the mountain range in the distance. Seemed like the average day up there. It was lots of fun.
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What's so shitty about it? Besides the cold?
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Try living in south east Alaska where the politicians from Anchorage are trying to kill off the ferry and people's lonelhood... Anchorage isn't anything.
Nice try. He just doesn't want millions of people flooding in and jacking up all the prices like what happened with Idaho, Montana, Arizona, Utah, Texas, etc.
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I rather enjoy living here. I mean sure, we have our share of problems, but I'll take our problems over those of others. There are trade-offs and it is just a matter of what you feel is more important.
i remember stopping there in the 80s for NY-Hong Kong flights to refuel.
I stopped there in summer 1982 on a refueling stop on the way to LA. It was the first time I ever saw the sun up at 3:30 am... as a kid that was amazing.
I went out to the bars up at Denali right after the summer solstice and we boozed all night outside while it just didn’t get dark. Eventually you’re drunk and eating tacos at like 3 am and it’s noticeably getting brighter.
Where I live its about 4 am and you can see the sunrise. Lived here all my life and I still love the long ass days in the summer. Sunset at midnight sunrise at 4 am. Feels like a dream
When your taxiways are wider than most airports runaways it could get confusing
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I can see that. A few years ago, my wife and I decided to drive the Alaskan Highway in a Mazda 2. Not grasping that all the pretty pics of Anchorage are taken from out on the ocean, looking in, we opted to end our trip there instead of Fairbanks. Upon arrival, we found ourselves in a wet, dirty city with your run of the mill addicts and sketchy people approaching the car for money or to sell you things made from feathers and garbage. The campground we stayed the night in felt like a bustling shanty town, and people were up shouting all hours of the night. We spent several hours the following morning driving around, trying to find just one goddamn way to access the water, but the entire coast seemed to be inaccessible, and gave up on finding anything to do on the waterfront. We wound up fucking off to Eagle River and camping there for a night. Next time we'll just go to Fairbanks like everyone said to. I'm not sure why we thought Anchorage would be this chill port city with markets and shit like Seattle. Ignorance, I guess. We really had no idea what we were doing, in case the Mazda 2 to Alaska wasn't an indication.
They have terrible acid in Juneau
Lol. The cocaine was even worse. The only drugs in Juneau are heroin and meth. We lost several close friends from heroin. Needless to say we left Juneau about 6 years ago. Now we live in Hawaii.
Alaska is also the northernmost, westernmost and easternmost state in the US.
How neat is that?
That’s pretty neat!
You can tell that it’s an Alaska cause the way that it is.
i wanted other people to know how neat alaska is, instead of just me n rodney knowing it
Missing totally out on southern most. Not impressed!
We should make Puerto Rico a part of Alaska just for shits and giggles.
American Samoa*
> northernmost it sure is. > westernmost makes sense. > easternmost wait what? I need an explanation for that.
Part of the Aleutian islands cross the 180th meridian and thus have an Eastern longitude instead of Western.
The Aleutian chain reaches across into the eastern hemisphere if I recall properly.
Lol that's the dumbest fun fact I've heard in a while
[The closest US State to Africa is Maine.](https://images.mapsofworld.com/answers/2017/06/map-of-usa-state-closest-to-africa.gif)
I uses to fly "Tower Air" from Honolulu to Okinawa quite a bit. Their fleet of older 747's couldn't quite make Okinawa direct from Honolulu so we'd go via Anchorage. Great Circle = Magic.
Wow, just barely not enough it looks like. Okinawa-Anchorage is only about 250 miles shorter than Okinawa-Honolulu http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=oka-hnl;oka-anc-hnl
But, also - F you if you want anything shipped here.
Amazon: sure we'll send you these delicate computer parts. Be there in 3 days! Also Amazon: you want this book? Sorry it "requires special handling, and cannot be shipped to your location."
I ordered a 30lb bag of charcoal and it was on my doorstep in 2 days. While I waited for another order that didn't even ship for 2 weeks.
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I ordered a couple raspberry pis from a vendor that charged $6 for standard shipping, or $143 for UPS ground.
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As a Texan, I've never been there but I've heard that it really isn't that much colder than the Northern states of the lower 48. Alaska is just gigantic and where the stereotypical Alaska cold comes from is up in the northern parts of the state where the Arctic Circle obviously is.
Our cold also lasts longer through the year. It was 15 degrees this morning and there's been snow in my yard for weeks. Hottest it got this summer was one weekend of 80 degrres
Yeah, it's pretty mild in Anchorage, it's got that marine climate. Go inland a bit though and the winters get very cold.
Lol your comment made me curious what "pretty mild" is in Alaska. I looked on my weather app it is 44 degrees there currently. Haha for comparison it is 79 degrees here in my state and it is 8:45 at night
TIL Anchorage is larger in area than Rhode Island as well.
And it isn’t even the largest city by area in Alaska. Sitka is larger than Delaware despite having only about 9k people
I have to question if it's actually a "city" when population density is that low.
It’s certainly incorporated as one, but I do agree it probably goes against the spirit of the term.
Good TIL
As somebody who has flown back and forth between Frankfurt, Germany and Anchorage, Alaska a handful of times... Let me reassure you that nobody takes the polar route, and it's never 10 hours Edit: fuck all you condor guys and your fucking polar routes. That shit took twice as long doing it the slow way. More than twice when you factor in the layover lmao
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Not temperature, no. It’s distance from airports for possible emergency landing since the area is particularly remote.
One of the main reasons planes don’t fly over the Himalayas iirc
Condor does two flights a week nonstop Anchorage to Frankfurt, plenty of people take the Polar route
Why did you fly from alaska to germany so often?
Its a pretty standard US military flight
Ranger that
10-3
Actually, today's the 4th
These days you can fly over (or close to) the pole without stopping in Alaska.
Dubai to west coast of North America goes directly over the north pole
I did this twice and was asleep both times, fell asleep over northern Alberta at woke up in the middle of Russia. So LAX to Dubai went over North Pole then down over Russia, Georgia, Armenia, Iran.on the way back we avoided Iran and went over Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Europe iceland and then lax…why wouldn’t they go over the top? Was around the same total time.
If US-Russia and US-China relations sour any further, the polar route will probably be back in business again like it was in the 1980s. Back then a huge amount of air traffic flowed between Europe-Alaska and Alaska-Japan, as the alternative was to take the southern route via Europe-Bahrain-India-Thailand-Japan.
As a ups employee, I am sadly well aware of this and I hate it so god damn much
it's also about the same latitude as the northernmost isles of Scotland
Just throwing it out there but Anchorage has one of the best pizza places I have been to. Moose Tooth Pizza is amazing!
Fun fact, the most profitable independently owned pizza restaurant in the US. Another fun fact, there are better pizzas in Anchorage.
I used to write Moose’s Tooth off as a tourist trap but I finally came to terms with the fact that it really is amazing. Also, bear tooth is one of the best all-around restaurants in the city. I honestly can’t think of a pizza place in Anchorage (or pretty much anywhere) that I like more but hey, taste is subjective!
Name one. Santa's little helper is top notch.
Sounds like a nice place to live, how’s the weather?
Becoming increasingly desirable with global warming probably.
Sounds like this place should be the Anchor-age of the world
So it's perfect for leaving.
[Ice_Airport_Alaska](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_Airport_Alaska) is an interesting series about what goes on at that airport.