8 ms·

I flew from Moscow to Vladivastok recently, and it's a choice between 8 hour flight and a week in a train. The planes might be missing some maintenance, but the

by keddad 3y ago

I flew from Moscow to Vladivastok recently, and it's a choice between 8 hour flight and a week in a train. The planes might be missing some maintenance, but they are certainly not falling out of the skies, and it's not like the trains can't fail (especially considering occasional train tracks sabotages). There are always risks, it's not that big of a deal.

mudil 3y ago
Good luck with this logic.
- keddad 3y ago
  What is the alternative, curl up and cry? Doing anything (especially anything interesting) involves taking risks. Not to mention that I probably have more chances of being arrested or conscripted then actually suffering in an airplane accident, they are still quite safe. I don't think that worrying about everything, especially things as basic as an airplane travel, will do you any good.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago
    One of the surprising things I've learned in this online world of ours is that some people simply worry about everything. I don't get it either.
woodruffw 3y ago
I think the more apples-to-apples comparison here would be a train without breaks, wouldn't it be? After all, people can sabotage airfields and airplanes as well.
- krisoft 3y ago
  > I think the more apples-to-apples comparison here would be a train without breaks, wouldn't it be No. Not really. Russia has the means to produce brakes for their trains. They do not have the means to do the same for these airplanes. So the reality on the ground is that the trains have brakes while the airplanes don't (or they have breaks but with rapidly aging out of compliance parts.)
  - woodruffw 3y ago
    > No. Not really. Russia has the means to produce brakes for their trains. They do not have the means to do the same for these airplanes. I meant in terms of riders' perceptions of safety, not industrial capacity. That being said, it astounds me that Russia can't fabricate replacement breaks here: we're talking about a country with some of the best metallurgists in the world and a domestic aerospace industry; what gives?
    - HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago
      No one ever said that they can't. But going from zero to being able to buy replacement Boeing (or whoever the OEM was) brakes off the shelf is a process of many months (in the optimistic case) or years, not weeks. After all, even the simplest analysis for an aviation supplier has to be "can we make enough money selling these replacement brakes to cover the cost of setting up a manufacturing, quality control, and distribution system?"
      - woodruffw 3y ago
        This would have made sense 12 months or even 9 months ago, but we're now 18 months into a war that Russia's government had otherwise been preparing domestically for. Again: what gives?
        dragonwriter 3y ago
        They hadn't been preparing for it to last 18 months, and part of their preparation had been oriented at influence operations to preemptivelt disrupt Western unity and political response when the war qas launched. While I won't say that categorically failed (it still has tangible effects), it has been far from a complete success.
        jamiek88 3y ago
        It’s an incompetent oligarchy where competence is dangerous and gets you sidelined. Rotten from the top down.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- wmil 3y ago
  Trains are more vulnerable because they will always have long unguarded sections of track. A train without breaks isn't really comparable because the planes can break using thrusters. I don't believe that you can engine break on a train to a comparable degree.
  - woodruffw 3y ago
    > A train without breaks isn't really comparable because the planes can break using thrusters. I'm pretty sure a plane at V1 can't break using thrusters.
    - striking 3y ago
      I believe this to be true (the article definitely states "Brakes are also necessary for aborting takeoffs", and V1 is the speed at which takeoff ~~occurs~~ edit: must be committed to), but this is only one instant of the journey. At other times it is certainly feasible to brake (landings included) with just the use of the thrust reversers.
      - woodruffw 3y ago
        > At other times it is certainly feasible to brake (landings included) with just the use of the thrust reversers. This could be true; it's also not particularly reassuring as a passenger :-) (Not doubting you specifically, but it'd be nice to have one of the many pilots on HN opine here. My understanding as a passenger is that commercial airliners use breaks because the margins are very narrow, especially in the presence of a tailwind or busy runway designed with breaks in mind.)
        striking 3y ago
        There's definitely a difference between feasibility and what passengers should be guaranteed, yeah. Don't get me wrong, commercial airliners should have brakes.
        sokoloff 3y ago
MobileVet 3y ago
I first heard about Vladivastok when The Hunt for Red October came out. I have been fascinated with it ever since, hoping to make a journey someday. I love that this was just a mundane trip for you.
- nocoiner 3y ago
  I hate to possibly be the bearer of bad news, but I can’t think of any plot points in that movie that involved Vladivostok. The action all took place in the Barents Sea and North Atlantic, after Red October left Murmansk through the Polyarnny Inlet. Vladivostok is on the other side of the country, many, many time zones away.
  - MobileVet 3y ago
    Holy crap you are right!! I wonder if there is a reference later in the movie? Either that or it was another movie and the reference was about sending you to the middle of no where, because, as you said, it’s out there.
blibble 3y ago
> but they are certainly not falling out of the skies they will be shortly and you won't hear about it unless you're on it
- closewith 3y ago
  Hard to hide an airliner crash in this day and age. Certainly over land, anyway.
  - blibble 3y ago
    I'd agree if it was almost any other country meanwhile the Russian state has complete control of the media and 99% of the country's area is essentially empty
    - nixass 3y ago
      The way regular people take videos of destroyed bridges, damaged warships.. I wouldn't say so. The videos regular folks filmed on incident locations were perfect for damage assessment to us western folks. Russian government may control media in general but social media and messengers are full of uncontrollable stuff (for now)
    - dragonwriter 3y ago
      > meanwhile the Russian state has complete control of the media Traditional mass media, sure, but there are a lot of people that have to know about a plane crash, and containing that information, even in Russia, is nontrivial.
      - almostnormal 3y ago
        It is trivial. Official news will report that it was shot down or sabotaged by Ukrainian spies. I'm sure that the scripts and some stock footage are already prepared for when it happens.
        3y ago
wkat4242 3y ago
> The planes might be missing some maintenance, but they are certainly not falling out of the skies Yet. You don't want to be in the first one that does. Planes have gone down for much stupider reasons. Even serious airlines like KLM (Cityhopper) and Air France have flown perfectly good aircraft into the ground. It doesn't have to be faulty, human confusion is enough. Going outside of normal procedures like this reduces redundancy and increases the chances of confusion and error.
- marcosdumay 3y ago
  Oh, you may be surprised by the number of perfectly avoidable, not even cost-saving stupid things that cause train accidents around the world. The GP has a point. If the trip is necessary, planes are probably the safest way to do it. And as they become unsafe, the alternatives are prone to doing the same on an even quicker rate.
  - uwagar 3y ago
    > And as they become unsafe, the alternatives are prone to doing the same on an even quicker rate. russian railways isnt dependent like Aeroflot on EU/USA aircraft for their operations. maybe there will be more train travel until the indigenous industry supplies the necessary aircraft / spares?
toss1 3y ago
Russian Roulette is not that big a deal either, as long as it doesn't stop on the wrong chamber... Yes there are risks everywhere, but what you are putting on display is Normalization of Deviance [0], which reliably gets people killed. With luck, it won't be you that is killed before the entire fleet is grounded, but at this point it is just luck, maybe with better odds than Russian Roulette. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalization_of_deviance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalization_of_deviance
avar 3y ago
Isn't the in-between choice to drive or fly out of Russia towards Europe, then fly east on a non-Russian airline, and eventually take e.g. the Tokyo to Vladivostok direct flight?
- thriftwy 3y ago
  That would be prohibitively expensive and may require getting some visas which may in turn require further travel.
- martin8412 3y ago
  The Russian airlines can't fly to most of Europe. They're sanctioned by the EU. You'd need to drive. But better option is probably just flying through Turkey. Turkish Airlines still operate in Russia. Turkish Airlines isn't sanctioned, so they can maintain their planes just fine.
- rtpg 3y ago
  This isn't _that_ relevant because China is there as an option but there are no flights direct from Japan to Russia, for the same reason there aren't EU to Russia flights right now either.
lacrimacida 3y ago
The real choice was between 8 hours, one week and not making it there at all

by keddad 3y ago

mudil 3y ago

Good luck with this logic.

keddad 3y ago
What is the alternative, curl up and cry? Doing anything (especially anything interesting) involves taking risks. Not to mention that I probably have more chances of being arrested or conscripted then actually suffering in an airplane accident, they are still quite safe. I don't think that worrying about everything, especially things as basic as an airplane travel, will do you any good.
- HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago
  One of the surprising things I've learned in this online world of ours is that some people simply worry about everything. I don't get it either.

woodruffw 3y ago

I think the more apples-to-apples comparison here would be a train without breaks, wouldn't it be? After all, people can sabotage airfields and airplanes as well.

krisoft 3y ago
> I think the more apples-to-apples comparison here would be a train without breaks, wouldn't it be No. Not really. Russia has the means to produce brakes for their trains. They do not have the means to do the same for these airplanes. So the reality on the ground is that the trains have brakes while the airplanes don't (or they have breaks but with rapidly aging out of compliance parts.)
- woodruffw 3y ago
  > No. Not really. Russia has the means to produce brakes for their trains. They do not have the means to do the same for these airplanes. I meant in terms of riders' perceptions of safety, not industrial capacity. That being said, it astounds me that Russia can't fabricate replacement breaks here: we're talking about a country with some of the best metallurgists in the world and a domestic aerospace industry; what gives?
  - HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago
    No one ever said that they can't. But going from zero to being able to buy replacement Boeing (or whoever the OEM was) brakes off the shelf is a process of many months (in the optimistic case) or years, not weeks. After all, even the simplest analysis for an aviation supplier has to be "can we make enough money selling these replacement brakes to cover the cost of setting up a manufacturing, quality control, and distribution system?"
    - woodruffw 3y ago
      This would have made sense 12 months or even 9 months ago, but we're now 18 months into a war that Russia's government had otherwise been preparing domestically for. Again: what gives?
      - dragonwriter 3y ago
        They hadn't been preparing for it to last 18 months, and part of their preparation had been oriented at influence operations to preemptivelt disrupt Western unity and political response when the war qas launched. While I won't say that categorically failed (it still has tangible effects), it has been far from a complete success.
      - jamiek88 3y ago
        It’s an incompetent oligarchy where competence is dangerous and gets you sidelined. Rotten from the top down.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
wmil 3y ago
Trains are more vulnerable because they will always have long unguarded sections of track. A train without breaks isn't really comparable because the planes can break using thrusters. I don't believe that you can engine break on a train to a comparable degree.
- woodruffw 3y ago
  > A train without breaks isn't really comparable because the planes can break using thrusters. I'm pretty sure a plane at V1 can't break using thrusters.
  - striking 3y ago
    I believe this to be true (the article definitely states "Brakes are also necessary for aborting takeoffs", and V1 is the speed at which takeoff ~~occurs~~ edit: must be committed to), but this is only one instant of the journey. At other times it is certainly feasible to brake (landings included) with just the use of the thrust reversers.
    - woodruffw 3y ago
      > At other times it is certainly feasible to brake (landings included) with just the use of the thrust reversers. This could be true; it's also not particularly reassuring as a passenger :-) (Not doubting you specifically, but it'd be nice to have one of the many pilots on HN opine here. My understanding as a passenger is that commercial airliners use breaks because the margins are very narrow, especially in the presence of a tailwind or busy runway designed with breaks in mind.)
      - striking 3y ago
        There's definitely a difference between feasibility and what passengers should be guaranteed, yeah. Don't get me wrong, commercial airliners should have brakes.
      - sokoloff 3y ago

MobileVet 3y ago

I first heard about Vladivastok when The Hunt for Red October came out. I have been fascinated with it ever since, hoping to make a journey someday. I love that this was just a mundane trip for you.

nocoiner 3y ago
I hate to possibly be the bearer of bad news, but I can’t think of any plot points in that movie that involved Vladivostok. The action all took place in the Barents Sea and North Atlantic, after Red October left Murmansk through the Polyarnny Inlet. Vladivostok is on the other side of the country, many, many time zones away.
- MobileVet 3y ago
  Holy crap you are right!! I wonder if there is a reference later in the movie? Either that or it was another movie and the reference was about sending you to the middle of no where, because, as you said, it’s out there.

blibble 3y ago

> but they are certainly not falling out of the skies they will be shortly and you won't hear about it unless you're on it

closewith 3y ago
Hard to hide an airliner crash in this day and age. Certainly over land, anyway.
- blibble 3y ago
  I'd agree if it was almost any other country meanwhile the Russian state has complete control of the media and 99% of the country's area is essentially empty
  - nixass 3y ago
    The way regular people take videos of destroyed bridges, damaged warships.. I wouldn't say so. The videos regular folks filmed on incident locations were perfect for damage assessment to us western folks. Russian government may control media in general but social media and messengers are full of uncontrollable stuff (for now)
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    > meanwhile the Russian state has complete control of the media Traditional mass media, sure, but there are a lot of people that have to know about a plane crash, and containing that information, even in Russia, is nontrivial.
    - almostnormal 3y ago
      It is trivial. Official news will report that it was shot down or sabotaged by Ukrainian spies. I'm sure that the scripts and some stock footage are already prepared for when it happens.
      - 3y ago

wkat4242 3y ago

> The planes might be missing some maintenance, but they are certainly not falling out of the skies Yet. You don't want to be in the first one that does. Planes have gone down for much stupider reasons. Even serious airlines like KLM (Cityhopper) and Air France have flown perfectly good aircraft into the ground. It doesn't have to be faulty, human confusion is enough. Going outside of normal procedures like this reduces redundancy and increases the chances of confusion and error.

marcosdumay 3y ago
Oh, you may be surprised by the number of perfectly avoidable, not even cost-saving stupid things that cause train accidents around the world. The GP has a point. If the trip is necessary, planes are probably the safest way to do it. And as they become unsafe, the alternatives are prone to doing the same on an even quicker rate.
- uwagar 3y ago
  > And as they become unsafe, the alternatives are prone to doing the same on an even quicker rate. russian railways isnt dependent like Aeroflot on EU/USA aircraft for their operations. maybe there will be more train travel until the indigenous industry supplies the necessary aircraft / spares?

toss1 3y ago

Russian Roulette is not that big a deal either, as long as it doesn't stop on the wrong chamber... Yes there are risks everywhere, but what you are putting on display is Normalization of Deviance [0], which reliably gets people killed. With luck, it won't be you that is killed before the entire fleet is grounded, but at this point it is just luck, maybe with better odds than Russian Roulette. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalization_of_deviance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalization_of_deviance

avar 3y ago

Isn't the in-between choice to drive or fly out of Russia towards Europe, then fly east on a non-Russian airline, and eventually take e.g. the Tokyo to Vladivostok direct flight?

thriftwy 3y ago
That would be prohibitively expensive and may require getting some visas which may in turn require further travel.
martin8412 3y ago
The Russian airlines can't fly to most of Europe. They're sanctioned by the EU. You'd need to drive. But better option is probably just flying through Turkey. Turkish Airlines still operate in Russia. Turkish Airlines isn't sanctioned, so they can maintain their planes just fine.
rtpg 3y ago
This isn't _that_ relevant because China is there as an option but there are no flights direct from Japan to Russia, for the same reason there aren't EU to Russia flights right now either.

lacrimacida 3y ago

The real choice was between 8 hours, one week and not making it there at all