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0 pointstgsovlerkhgsel3y ago0 comments

I'm surprised that I haven't heard of small jets (fighters/jet trainers) being used for commercial courier services (although there are instances of military jets transporting organs for transplant, https://apnews.com/article/c1309c58720c78347c1ebbbade56d35d).

They can be privately owned and operated, are very fast, and tend to have hundreds of kilos of payload capacity.

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Merad3y ago

Unless you have supercruise capability (which only four fighters in the world have) flying supersonic consumes and enormous amount of fuel, so flying any distance at supersonic speeds pretty much requires aerial refueling. IIRC you also need special permission to fly supersonic in US airspace. If you're limited to subsonic speeds then there's really no advantage provided by a fighter. Private jets can fly at similar high subsonic speeds (0.9-0.95 mach or so) and are usually cheaper and more efficient to operate than fighter jets.

tgsovlerkhgselOP3y ago

> Private jets can fly at similar high subsonic speeds (0.9-0.95 mach or so) and are usually cheaper and more efficient to operate than fighter jets.

Thanks, those two items were the part I was missing. (I already assumed supersonic would be out for noise/ground damage reasons)

lakis3y ago

This reminded me of "Police Camera Action - The Liver Run" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTN5X4JZFjU

30 Minutes to travel 27 miles across London in the middle of the day ! Stansted Airport, Essex to Cromwell Hospital, Kensington, London

jon-wood3y ago

David Nott’s book War Doctor includes a tale of him being called in to perform urgent surgery in central London, having just finished a flying lesson in Essex. He apparently called 999, asked for the Police, and after explaining the situation a car was despatched to take him at high speed through traffic. Sadly I don’t have the sort of career that would ever justify that but it sounds like great fun.

mattlondon3y ago

Interesting. I've seen similar "convoys" of police cars with a motorcycle platoon etc with them many times. I assumed it was some VIP. I never considered it might be a organ transplant!

I do wonder if they'd do that today - save one person's life by ploughing through central London at 70mph? There are so many cyclists and pedestrians not paying attention - it would feel safer to just helicopter it over?

Ichthypresbyter3y ago

They would normally have used the police helicopter back then too, but it was grounded due to a recent crash.

London now has an air ambulance service, which it didn't at the time- though the air ambulance also have some impressively fast cars (Skoda Octavia vRS IIRC) for when conditions don't allow the helicopter to fly.

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