So-Called “Dark Energy” is Silly

Quite a while ago when Bob was studying physics in university, we often had to do experiments and then use physical laws and math to show calculations that were consistent with observed physical results. Sometimes when our calculations didn't fit the results we got students were tempted to use what we called the “fudge factor.” Multiply your calculated results by “the fudge factor” and it matched observed data. For obvious reason the Professor did not accept calculations with a fudge factor. Either our calculations were wrong or we had not done our experiments accurately.

Over the past few years astronomers and physicists have observed distant galaxies and found interesting things. First they found that the observed motions did not fit their knowledge of physical forces so they created a hypothetical fudge factor called “dark matter.” The dark matter is said to be about ¾ of all matter, but is unseen and perhaps unsee able. Over the past 10 years physicists have spent millions of taxpayer dollars looking for dark matter, but haven't found any. Fudge factors don't exist in physical space.

The “dark matter” fudge wasn't enough. More recently the astronomers looked out into space and “determined” that distant galaxies are moving away from the earth, and the farther away they are the faster they move away. Distant galaxies appear to be accelerating away from each other and from us. That didn't fit with their known theories so they invented another, and even larger fudge factor called “dark energy.” So-called “dark energy” is said to make up about ¾ of all the mass in the universe. Between mythical dark matter and mythical dark energy, observable mass is down to maybe 5% or 10% of the universe. The other 95% is now said to be “dark,” unobserved, or just mythical. The fudge factor.

These fudge factors have now been integrated into the physics and astronomy being taught in universities. Instead of taking another look at their data, or their theories, they use the convenient fudge factors.

Here is one other theory. Suppose that the “observed fact” that distant galaxies are accelerating away is wrong. Lets look at the measurements. Astronomers measure the velocity of distant objects by looking at the color of light. Objects moving away from us are assumed to cause a shift toward red, or a “red shift.” The theory says, the more blue the light, the faster the galaxy is coming toward us. If light shifts red, then the galaxy is moving rapidly away.

Doppler shift works with sound waves in air and is easy to observe. The sound tone lowers as the speeding car moves past. But I can't recall ever seeing an experiment that demonstrated the same effect from light. Does light also shift color depending on the velocity of the source? There are some interesting relativistic properties of light that may not work the same as sound waves. Light acts like a wave, but also acts like a particle called a "photon." If any reader knows of and can cite a published experiment that demonstrates wave frequency shift of light depending on the velocity of the source please provide a citation.

Light is almost a total mystery. There is very little known about its physical structure. Is each photon made up of 10 zillion little photoids? Nobody knows. Does a photon slowly lose photoids and therefore total energy over billions of years? Nobody knows. Light color is a composite measure of the energy of its photons. A loss of energy from a photon shifts it red, but does not change its velocity - “c.” The farther away a galaxy is from earth, the more billions of years the photons have to lose energy and shift to red. Perhaps, instead of accelerating away from each other and from us, the light from distant galaxies is shifting red by some kind of degradation of he light. Its a lot less complicated theory than inventing “dark energy” making up ¾ of the universe. Use Occam's razor, a review of the observations makes more sense than inventing some huge mythical dark energy or dark matter. Lets go back to reality. Science has lost its way, and not just in pushing the fraud of “global warming.” Something is wrong with the observations. We just don't know enough about light to claim that accurate measurements have been made of the speed of the most distant galaxies. Lets get real. Lets go back to the data and the measurements. That's where the errors lie.

Airbus Hasn't Fixed its Vertical Stabilizer

On November 12, 2001, American Airlines Flight 587 ran into air turbulence shortly after taking off from Kennedy International Airport. The vertical stabilizer broke off from a combination of the air turbulence and pilot attempts to compensate for the turbulence.. The Airbus A300 crashed into the Belle Harbor neighborhood of Queens; a borough of New York City. The crash killed all 260 people in the plane and 5 people on the ground. The broken vertical stabilizer was found in the bay a few miles before the airplane hit the ground. When the vertical stabilizer came off the plane turned sideways, its engines broke off, and all control was lost.


American Airlines Airbus A300 Vertical Stabilizer
being lifted out of NY harbor

After some investigation and a great deal of looking the other way, aviation authorities blamed the dead pilot for over correcting, using too much rudder peddle during turbulence, and decided not to fix the obvious structural problem with ALL Airbus A300 aircraft. Grounding the fleet to correct a major structural defect would be very expensive and politically incorrect. See Wikipedia Article on Flight 587

It is generally unacceptable for an airplane to come apart in mid flight from air turbulence. It is unacceptable for an airplane to come apart in mid-flight from pilot over controlling the rudder. It is especially unacceptable when the structural failure kills 265 men, women, and children.

The tail structure of the Airbus A300 is made of carbon fiber and plastic. Its structural and fatigue characteristics should be classified as “experimental.” The death of 265 people in Queens, NYC, on November 12, 2001 demonstrated clearly to anyone with half a brain that the plastic tail of the A300 is not strong enough to be trusted with the lives of passengers.

Instead of redesigning and strengthening the plastic vertical stabilizers, Airbus used the same design on its enlarged A330 model. If the vertical stabilizer is not strong enough for the A300, it clearly is even more dangerous on the enlarged A330 mode. But fixing bad design costs money and its only the lives of passengers that is at stake. Airbus got away with it until last week.


Air France A330 (note paint on tail)

On May 31, 2008, Air France Flight 440, an Airbus A330, ran into some turbulence en route from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to Paris, France. Wikipedia Article The vertical stabilizer broke off. Flight 440 was traveling at high altitude and high speed when it lost all directional control. When the plane turns sideways at high speed, wind forces rip it to pieces. It dumped bodies and shreds of cabin with floating insulation over a wide area. Once again, the broken vertical stabilizer has been found floating some miles away. This time only 228 people were killed. See Yahoo Story: Crews find vertical stabilizer in Air France crash


Brazilian Navy recovers Air France vertical stabilizer from Atlantic.

If you read the Yahoo article or any other major media report you understand that they KNOW the plane is not structurally sound. In the Yahoo report they say that an error such as a minor data input glitch fed to the computer can cause major structural failure which kills all the passengers. They KNOW that the structure is not strong enough to survive turbulence and/or computer error or pilot error. They programmed the computer to limit pilot access to rudder control, but they did not make the plane strong enough to hold together when anything goes wrong. They KNOW that a small error will cause the structure to fail with loss of all life on board. That is just not acceptable.

The Airbus A300 and A330 design has an obvious structural flaw that comes apart and kills all the passengers when mid air turbulence is encountered. They are constructed out of cheap light weight plastic parts that are only strong enough to survive in calm air. They save money on every flight, but risk killing the passengers and crew whenever turbulent air is encountered. The Airbus A300 and A330 is UNSAFE to fly.

All A300 and A330 planes should be immediately grounded until major structural changes are made.
In the mean time, if you are planning to fly anywhere,

DO NOT FLY on an A330 or A300.


Update June 11, 2009

News stories all focus on inconsistent speed data from the 3 pitot tubes. Automatic trouble transmissions for the ill fated A330 began with notification of inconsistent air speed readings. Bob notes that airplanes tend to turn sideways, or spin horizontally, after the vertical stabilizer breaks off. Pitot tubes on an airplane going sideways, or in a flat spin, will give wildly changing data. There is a human tendency to blame the instruments when they don't give the reading we want to see. Three separate pitot tubes are unlikely to all fail at the same time. Rather than blaming the pitot tubes, the investigative authorities should look at what causes perfectly good pitot tubes to transmit strange speed readings. The answer is that pitot tubes only work well going frontward. When you turn the plane sideways, the air currents on each pitot tube will vary according to the angle of motion and its place on the plane. Turning sideways will also cause the wings to come off and the cabin to break up dumping passengers into the night sky to fall into the ocean. The pitot tubes worked properly, they gave accurate data from an airplane turning sideways.


All A300 and A330 planes should be immediately grounded until major structural changes are made.
In the mean time, if you are planning to fly anywhere,

DO NOT FLY on an A330 or A300.


Update June 12, 2009

Bob has found other sources who also demand a through review and repair of the Airbus A300/A330 airframe. Here is a site which was unsatisfied that nothing had been done to address structural failure of the vertical stabilizer after AA flight 587 after 5 years.

Here is another web site detailing the near crash of another Airbus A300. On May 12, 1997, American Airlines A300-605 was involved in a near-crash near West Palm Beach, FL. On that occasion the plane's vertical stabilizer delaminated near the attachment bolts that keep it fastened to the rest of the airplane. On flight 903 the vertical stabilizer began to delaminate (fail) from high stress near the attachment points, but the stress backed off before it failed entirely. The pilot managed to recover from a stall and land safely. That delamination should have been a big red flag for air safety officials.

In 2003 USATODAY published this article and complained that American Flight 587 would have been prevented if safety officials had learned the lessons of the structural problems found on Flight 903 in 1997. Now we have a 3rd similar failure, hundreds more dead people, and still they won't even talk about it. Is money more precious than hundreds of dead?

The FAA, NTSB, European authorities, Airbus and even pilot unions turn the other way because fixing the problem would be expensive, and therefore a political hot potato. Its only dead passengers after all, and then only a plane load every few years. Air safety authorities knew or should have known after flight 903 in 1997 that the A300/A330 vertical stabilizer is unsafe to fly. They have looked the other way while passengers die. They continue to point every direction but the structural defect that is killing so many people.

DO NOT FLY on an A330 or A300.


Update July 1, 2009

A crashed Yemeni Airbus A310 ran into air turbulence as it approached its destination, the island of Comoros in the Indian Ocean east of Africa. The death toll is 152 passengers -- only a teenage girl apparently survived. The flight originated in France with a stop in Yemen.

News media quote air safety officials cautioning us not to notice the man behind the curtain. See Washington Post report.

It is too soon to get photos of the wreckage from the plane. Bet on the vertical stabilizer falling off.


Bob has learned that an Air New Zealand Airbus 320 Crashed into the Mediterranean on a test flight last November 27, 2008, killing the pilots and engineers on board. Once again the apparent cause was the common vertical stabilizer shared by the A300/A310/A320/A330.


Airbus 320 tail from NZ plane.

Airbus knows exactly why their planes are falling out of the sky killing all on board. Transportation safety officials know too. But they do nothing about it. It is politically incorrect to blame Airbus for their unsafe design.

Reports on the NZ Airbus crash are here.

Times On-line story on the NZ Airbus. Blame the pilots. Read between the lines of the official story. The vertical stabilizer comes off. The plane skews sideways and begins a dutch roll into the ocean. Pilots scream as they die.

A list of the dead pilots and engineers is here

Do not fly on an Airbus A300/A330 until and unless the tail structure is corrected.


Update May 28, 2011

The flight recorders from Air France flight have been recovered from the bottom of the Atlantic. The flight data recorder reveals a lot of strange stalls and pilots trying desperately to control the stricken airplane. All the data is consistent with a plane turning sideways and going into a classic swept wing stall. When wings angle aft, any yaw causes one wing to square up and increase lift, while the other wing turns parallel to the wind and loses lift. Once the vertical stabilizer fell off, there was nothing that the pilots could do about the pending crash. It took 4 minutes for the terrified passengers to die when it hit the Atlantic.


UPDATE July 30, 2011

International "safety" authorities do their job of protecting financial profits of Airbus by blaming the dead pilots for the crash of Flight 447. “Pilot error” is the “official” excuse for another plane load of passengers killed by the known structural defect of the Airbus A-3xx vertical stabilizer.

Airbus excusers want us to believe that Air France pilots were so incompetent, and "poorly trained," that they pulled the nose up after a stall warning rather than nosing down. Putting the nose down to recover from a stall is just about the first thing EVERY pilot learns. The training is repeated in every certification and recertification. It is impossible to believe that any two pilots would put the nose up rather than down. What is apparent is that pitot tubes and flight data from a plane flying sideways and fluttering is confused. Air speed and stall data is wrong. Once the vertical stabilizer breaks off the nose goes up, down, and sideways, and there is nothing at all the pilots can do.

LA Times recites offical excuses.

Pilot error blamed in Air France crash
The pilots could have saved Flight 447, which killed all 228 aboard when it plunged into the Atlantic two years ago, but lacked sufficient training, a French air investigation concludes. Air France defends its crew's actions.

Bob is not the only voice who will tell the truth about serious structural failure of the Airbus A-3xx that kills plane loads of passengers when the vertical stabilizer falls off. All the pilots and airline industry officials known the truth.

Read Christian Science Monitor article

Rudder could be cause of Air France crash, pilots and experts say
There's been a pattern of irregularities linked to the tail fin, but Airbus says it's too soon to know
By Alexandra Marks, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor / June 19, 2009

New York: As they work to unravel the mystery of Air France Flight 447, aviation analysts and pilots are now urging investigators to focus attention on the plane's tail fin, known as the vertical stabilizer, in addition to the design of the Airbus's computerized flight controls.

HughesNet Really Sucks!

Update February 10, 2010

The HughesNet 9000 modem lasted for a little less than a year. It died suddenly leaving Bob without Internet service. Phoning the HughesNet All-India technical support made it worse. Prior to phoning the "support" person the modem status screen said that both its transmit and receive were functional but it wouldn't find a web site. After the HughesNet tech "support" interacted with it, the modem no longer would even try to transmit. They quoted $125 to send a technician out to look at the hardware. The technician spent 2 hours fiddling with the equipment and said he couldn't fix it. They will send someone else sometime next week.

The problem is most likely at the HughesNet Control Center, the system load shedding probably dropped customers who had been on for a year to free space for big commercial customers, and for new customers. Their management policy and practices are criminal. See HughesNet Still Sucks.


Update February 20, 2009

Despite what they promise on their glitzy TV commercials, the functional speed of HughesNet service is never close to the "up to" that they claim, and continues to decline over time. It gets slower and slower as long term customers get pushed lower and lower on their priority tree. Their HughesNet web terminal host computers serve the priority customers first, and then the lower priority customers when they have time. New customers are added to the top, and long term customers get what’s left. Eventually it becomes as slow as dial up phone service.

After 3 years, Bob’s HughesNet service not only was sloooooooooooooow, but it stopped working at all during peak evening usage hours. Bob phoned the HughesNet Asians who are euphemistically called “customer support.” Their job is to cause the customer to perform a series of useless tests until he becomes tired of complaining and goes away. HughesNet also has “level 2” support technicians, but they still don’t have any authority to raise your priority assignment until you get to their “level 3” technicians who are Americans and can actually speak good English. It is the job of the level 1 Asians not to allow you to speak to the level 3 technicians who have better things to do than take care of customers.

The Level 1 Asians recommended that Bob “upgrade” from the “DirectWay” DW 7000 model modem to a “new” HughesNet HN7000s modem. He said that HughesNet could not fix my problems (dropping out during peak usage periods) unless I paid to “upgrade” my modem. The cost of the HN 7000 modem was going to be $349 counting a service technician to install it.

Bob checked the HughesNet web site and found that they have not provided the 7000 series to new customers for almost a year, since last March. They were demanding that Bob pay over $300 to “upgrade” to an obsolete 7000 series which (according to the local HughesNet installer) is not significantly different from the DirectWay modem except that it says “Hughes” on it. Hughes bought or took over the service from DirectWay about the time that Bob became a customer. “We no longer support the DW modems,” said the Asian “customer service” operator.

New HughesNet customers have been getting a new HN9000 series modem since last March. Their own web site doesn’t even mention the 7000 series at all except when an existing customer requests an “upgrade.”

Bob called the Customer Service Asians back the next day and demanded to speak to someone who could address the change in service during peak hours, and/or provide a real upgrade to the 9000 series modems. Bob must have upset him because my HughesNet service went from bad to not functioning at all while I was talking to him. He refused to consider any options other than paying to “upgrade” to the now obsolete “HughesNet” 7000 modem. After that “customer service“ from Hughes, Bob has been without an Internet connection for about 2 weeks.

Bob phoned the Hughes account department to inform them that Bob would not be paying their bill as long as Hughes is refusing to provide service, and eventually was told that Bob would have to cancel the account in order to be eligible, as a “new” customer, for the 9000 series modems. I told her to cancel my account.

Bob eventually tracked down the local HughesNet installer and signed up for a new account with the new 9000 modem. The local technician said that the “upgrade” HN 7000 modem is no better than the DirectWay DW 7000 modem. He said that he often replaces the 7000 series with the 9000 series because the HN 7000 isn’t worth shit.

There is one other satellite direct Internet provider called “Wild Blue.” According to my installer, they used to sell a lot of Wild Blue installations, but had nothing but trouble with the modems and connections. They also are reported to have very shoddy billing and business practices. Wild Blue is apparently even worse than HughesNet. What ever happened to companies who take care to do a good job and serve their customers?

So Bob is back on-line from home again. There is a wire running across the yard on the snow, and through an open window, but its connected.

If you live in town where Comcast is available don’t ever get HughesNet. Even the phone company now has better service in most places. HughesNet really sucks. Lies and bad service is how they work. If Bob lived anywhere that any other broadband service is available, Hughes would be dumped immediately. At least with Comcast you don’t have to trudge out into the snow to sweep off your dish, it’s a lot faster, and doesn‘t limit your total usage.

Original Article April 24, 2006
I subscribed to HughesNet satellite direct Internet. It was DirecWay Internet. I've had it for about a month now and it's the biggest piece of crap I've ever had since I've been on-line. Bob has been on line since the days of Commodore computers and 300 baud bulletin boards. Bob has seen the good and the bad, and Hughes satellite direct Internet service is expensive crapola. About 1 day out of 2 it goes off-line and stays off line for hours. Their "technical support" phone number gives you an endless recording recommending their on-line support web site, which you can't access since their crap Internet service is down. Every other company I've dealt with at least would talk to their customers, and some of them actually have technical support available. For example, I subscribed to Comcast cable Internet for several years. Their service only went out about once a year, and when I messed something up their technical support was always available for help. Not with HughesNet crap. So fare I've never been able to talk to a live support person, and by now she doesn't want to hear the things I would tell her about how crappy their lack of service has been. As a company, HughesNet makes AOL seem like heaven. I wish we still lived where Comcast serves. HughesNet (DirecWay) has got to be the worst company I've ever tried to deal with. They don't provide the service they promise, and they won't talk to their customers.

Does anyone have a software that will phone their number every 15 seconds? I'd love to call their "customer assistance" line a few hundred thousand times. I'm liable to pack the whole dish up and give it back to them and tell them to sue me. They have failed utterly to provide the service they promised.

Put Down the Landing Gear

Anyone who has read or watched the news this week has seen a lot of footage of a US Air jet that landed hard in the Hudson River after takeoff from New York. A few of the passengers were injured but none were killed. Most of the plane remained in one piece, and it floated. Ferry boats picked up passengers from the frigid water before they succumbed to hypothermia.

The usual pundits are heaping accolades on the pilot of the doomed plane who chose the Hudson River rather than some street full of buildings, and who managed to miss all bridges and river traffic with the doomed airplane. He and the passengers were extremely lucky to have survived. Most of the time a plane hitting water comes apart in several pieces and many of the passengers are killed by sharp metal edges and high speed impact, or drowned. They were very lucky. The wreckage has been hoisted out of the river today and we see the ripped up under side of the airplane. One engine was ripped off by the impact with the water and the other engine was ripped apart but still clinging to a wing. Much of the aluminum skin on the bottom of the plane was ripped apart. They were very lucky. Another plane crash into water is sometimes seen on one of those “Worst Video” disaster programs as the other plane cartwheels and kills half the passengers.

Badly damaged Airbus

Back in the late 1960s while Bob worked in the structural test engineering division at the Boeing Aircraft Company the 727 airplanes were the new thing. Unlike previous 707 planes the 727 had a much smaller wing that was efficient at high speed. Without power the small wing 727 would glide like a rock. When experienced pilots moved from the 707 to the new 727 many of them tried to land the new plane the way they had always landed the older 707s. Standard practice was to shut the engines down to idle and glide onto the runway. That didn't work with the 727 and several pilots came down short of the runway because the new 727 didn’t glide well or far. Engines used in the late 1960s took up to 30 seconds to spool up to full power from idle. Once the pilot figured out that he wasn’t going to make the runway, he couldn’t get power in time to save the plane from a crash landing short of the field.

Two of the crashed 727s came down in water, in San Francisco and Boston where the airport is next to the bay. Unlike the US Air crash in the Hudson, the 727s were prepared for a normal landing on the airfield. They had their LANDING GEAR extended. They suffered virtually NO DAMAGE at all other than salt water corrosion.

Boeing engineers who evaluate every crash of a Boeing plane concluded that the LANDING GEAR deployment saved the plane and the passengers. The landing gear is the strongest part of an airplane, and is the ONLY part of the plane that is strong enough to hit the ground, or the water, without suffering major damage. At 150 mph water acts almost like a solid, deflecting any attempted penetration. The landing gear skid first and then sink in while transferring huge momentum of the plane into the water without suffering structural failure.

Boeing structural engineers concluded that pilots had always previously been landing wrong in water ditch situations. Pilot training throughout the history of aviation tells pilots to keep the landing gear up and pretend the plane is a “flying boat” for a water ditch landing. Unfortunately a flying boat is much stronger and shaped different than the bottom of a regularly plane. A regular plane’s underbelly rips apart, the wings usually catch a wave, and the plane tumbles and tears apart into several sections. Even WW II fighter planes that ended up in water usually ended up upside down. After evaluating the 727 crash landing short of runways with the landing gear down, Boeing engineering concluded that pilots should always put the landing gear down and land as if its solid ground. A plane ditching in water with the landing gear down will remain intact and none of the passengers will be injured or killed. Somehow this jewel of safety information has not been transmitted to pilot training. Pilots are not trained to put down the landing gear for a water landing.

The US Air pilot who has received so many accolades in New York was very lucky, not very smart. He was lucky to land in calm water without waves to catch one wing first and flip the plane sideways. He was lucky that the engines dragged water uniformly. He was lucky that only the bottom of the plane was ripped apart by the force of the water. He was lucky that the top part of the plane held together. The landing gear is the only part of the plane that is strong enough to hit the water without severe damage. The plane that landed in the Hudson River was an Airbus rather than a Boeing plane, but the structural strength of the landing gear is universal to all planes.


Destroyed Airbus on a barge

There were some people injured on the US Airways plane. One woman suffered two broken legs. A stewardess was badly cut. Several other people were also injured. He failed to do the most important thing when landing on water, but got away without anyone being killed.

To the pilots who may read this, do some research. Find out about putting the landing gear down. And don’t try to pretend you are piloting a flying boat. It doesn’t work that way. If you don’t put down the landing gear people are going to be injured and perhaps many will be killed.