Fly using planes of National Aviation

New Russian "superjet", the hope of Russian aviation, S-100, was advertised as the new entry of Russia in the international aviation markets. Some of which, as the jet’s pilot said during the interview, Russia was still present in, until recently. I assume he means that Russian war planes were present in these markets’ air spaces.

The plane was thoroughly Russian. Now, of course, not all parts were made specifically in Russia (the flag with blue-white-red is French, by the way):



Nevertheless, Russians put it together. And a Russian pilot flew it.

As you can see on the map in the right-bottom corner, Mexico, Indonesia and (of course), the Fatherland, made "concrete orders" (a few other countries made "preliminary agreements"). The plane was flown to Indonesia for demonstration flights.

Yesterday, during the Indonesian demonstration flight, the plane flew straight into the side of a mountain. All 45 people on board are expected to have perished, although obviously, the rescue teams are having some difficulty reaching the crash site.



This map shows the jet’s flight right before the crash (which happened at point 0):



It’s not clear what happened, but based on the altitude reports, in points 3 and 4, the jet was flying barely above the mountains, within the radar’s margin of error. It was flying at something like 1900 meters, while the minimum allowed height in that region  is 3300. The pilot kept asking permission to drop altitude.

As I said, the reasons are not clear, but one possibility is loss of air pressure within the plane. It might have become difficult for the people to breath at higher altitudes, and as a result, the plane had to go lower, until it flew into the mountain.

Another reason could be that the pilot was tired or drunk.

Thank G-d, American airline industry has become denationalized and deregulated recently.

When people ask me whether I am planning to go back to Russia, I make uncertain noises. (I don’t like the idea of travelling in the countries with totalitarian regimes. That’s why I am not sure what I think about travelling to California.) But even if I went there, how would I move around? Russian planes crash. Russian trains crash (because of the confusion in time tables). Russian drivers are nuts (and there is a good chance of being hit-and-run by a drunk police driver). According to Lebedev, travelling by rivers is great, but I think that would rather limit my mobility.

It is little known that until 1861, Russia had slavery, just like the United States. It was called serfdom, but it was basically slavery. Unlike the United States, however, in Russia, 75% of its people were enslaved.

Even when the slaves were freed, they continued to live under an oppressive tzarist regime. Which was replaced by an even more oppressive socialist regime. Which was replaced by a period of societal chaos and now another oppressive regime.

This nation has lived in slavery for the last 1000 years.