TC Checks out Santa

[Bushav8er]

TC now sends an inspector to the North Pole to check out Santa Claus's sleigh before allowing him to fly on Christmas eve.

The inspector arrives and checks the reindeer and they look good, he checks the harness and it looks okay, he checks the sleigh and it is also okay. Then he says, "Santa, lets take it up for a check ride and if everything looks good I'll certify you to fly."

Santa hitches the reindeer up and taxis onto the runway and just as he's starting his takeoff roll he looks over and notices the inspector has a pump shotgun on his lap. "Hey! Whats the shotgun for!?" Santa yells.

The inspector says, "Well, Santa, I'm really not supposed to tell you this, but there is going to be an engine failure on takeoff."

Season' Greeting to all, have a good, safe one.

[into the blue]

Good one! All the best, Merry Christmas!

[moocow]

Ah the classic Santa joke.

[The Mole]

Does santa have full SMS program.

[FlaplessDork]

Santa's sleigh was grounded today as Transport Canada issued AD 2010-23-12 regarding cracks in the sled rails. The AD requires immediate replacement of the sled rails, and an inspection every 100 hours thereafter. Santa has the parts on order but he is not certain they will arrive on time for this year's Christmas.

This is not the first time Santa has been grounded. Christmas of 1939 during a routine audit by Transport Canada , Santa's Operating Certificate was voluntarily suspended when it was it was discovered that the operation did not comply with IFR instrumentation requirements. Upon equipping the sleigh with the latest Rudolph Instrument Landing System, Transport Canada reissued Santa's Operating Certificate just in time for the season.

[godsrcrazy]

Rumor has it he will no longer be permitted to land on roofs of home's that are less the 1,500 sqft per floor. New RVSM requirements i am told.

[FlaplessDork]

Rumor has it he will no longer be permitted to land on roofs of home's that are less the 1,500 sqft per floor. New RVSM requirements i am told.

Santa now is required to maintain climb gradient requirements with a Reindeer out.

[snowbear]

The original post simply can not be true. There is no way any TC inspector will be out after dark. There is no over time in the budget:)

[goldeneagle]

You guys got it all wrong.

First off, the christmas delivery flight is not a 'one evening' flight. Due to time zones etc, the jaunt begins at 0001 Dec 25 in the timezone UTC+12, and ends at 2359 Dec 25 in the timezone UTC-12. This makes the christmas delivery jaunt a 48 hour duty day.

The jaunt runs irrelavent of weather, and goes to/from locations that have no facilities for de-ice, so all thoughts of a 'clean airframe' are filed for one of those 'nice things' they talk about in the safety meetings with the elves during preparation, but, completely ignored once out on the line flying the delivery trip.

The sled is loaded to the nuts, ie grossly overloaded, with parcels. To offset this a bit, it launches with insufficient fuel for the trip. The rationale is really simple, the pilots (reindeer) can fend for themselves during short stops.

The sled has no electical system at all, so, it operates nordo, and without lights. A small allowance for this is made, he hires a drunk to sit at the front of the line, with a large swollen red nose that glows a bit.

If you do just a little math on the route taken with the sled, and timeframe in which it is flown, simple arithmetic tells us, the sled operates at very high mach numbers between stops, no other way to complete the route within the allocated timeframe. But I must admit, I'm a little jealous of the performance, at a minimum it much achieve Mach 8, and does so operating from 40 foot runways (rooftops). Acceleration and deceleration capability of that machine is phenominal, yet somehow it's done without proper seat restraints, go figger.

I just checked on the TC website. There is no operating certificate in force for Santa at this time.


No oc, no weather limits, and blatant disregard for all speed regulations. In a couple hundred years has never missed a trip for weather, and only flies at the time of year when weather is the absolute worst. Blatant disregard for all regulations regarding weather, icing, speed limits, and duty days, but an impeccable record of never missing a trip, and never had a reportable incident. And the real kicker, 200 year old equipment that uses hay for fuel, the 'seat mile' economics put AC and WJ to shame.

This country could use a few more operators like santa.....

[ybwflyguy]

Little bit off topic but I'm sure will be appreciated by many: The physics of Santa...

1. No known species of reindeer can fly. BUT there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not COMPLETELY rule out flying reindeer which only Santa has ever seen.
2. There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since Santa doesn't (appear to) handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total - 378 million according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census)rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there's at least one good child in each.
3. Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west(which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75-1/2 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding etc.
This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man- made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second - a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.
4. The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that "flying reindeer" (see point #1) could pull TEN TIMES the normal anoint, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload - not even counting the weight of the sleigh - to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison - this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.
5. 353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecrafts re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Each. In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake.The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim)would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.

In conclusion -- If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's dead now.

[Lost Lake]

Actually, the TC inspector was concerned about maintyenance and contacted his counterpart in maintenance. Subject to further investigation, the sleigh was grounded subject to an actual weight and balance report, log books, and an approved amo. There was also concern about transport of dangerous goods, so TDGA got involved. Also CASA was brought in to investigate potreential security violations and proper prescreening of all goods and personell before flight.There were also concerns about the reindeer and the department of agriculture was called in to inspect the animals. The department of health was also contacted as the herd was co-located with humans, and water sampling was ordered. Labour Canada also found out about height deficient people living at the North Pole and there were concerns about possible labour law infringements. The department of health and welfare were also contacted regarding potential health issues and overcrowding. Revenuse Canada was also about the lack of filing of income tax, EI nor CPP deductions. CSIS was then brought in to determine where Santa was getting the mooney to build toys, since it appeared this could be a money landering scheme for the drug cartel.


Meanwhile, certain special interest rights group found out. The NCAA wanted to know why african americans, first nations and other minority groups were not hired as the same percentage of height deprived people there. Gay rights wanted assurance that they were not being descriminated either. Animal rights groups were concerned about the welfare of the reindeer and the exploitation of cute animals to further the gains of a greedy white man. The RCMP were also called into investigate why a fat old white man seemed so interested in little children and ran a check for a possible pedophile.

Santa was so dismayed by it all that he snuck out and moved to Vancouver island with a few of his loyal elves where he started a grow op. He can be seen in downtown Victoria at a local coffee shop, drinking hot chocolate spiked with mint liquer saying "Like Dude, ya know, like, I used to be Santa Claus dude."

As for the original inspector, he determined that Santa's sleigh did not conform to the definition of "aeroplane" and so was therefore, not under Transport canada's juristiction. The file was closed and the inspector was satisfied that there was another satisfied Canadian citizen rightfully dealt with.

[oldtimer]

I have it on jolly good authority that the following is the dang nab honest to god truth.
1. The only reindeer to ever be domesticated are the Lapland reindeer of Northern Russia, with examples in Alaska.
2. Both the male and female Lapland reindeer grow antlers.
3. In late fall/early winter, the male reindeer loose their antlers. The female reindeer do not.
4. Therefore, all of Santa's reindeer are girls.
5. Everyone fails to mention Adolf, the only male reindeer,
6. Adolf is the brown nosed reindeer. (as fast as Rudolf but without speed brakes.)

[stick'n'rudder]

Little bit off topic but I'm sure will be appreciated by many: The physics of Santa...

1. No known species of reindeer can fly. BUT there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not COMPLETELY rule out flying reindeer which only Santa has ever seen.
2. There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since Santa doesn't (appear to) handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total - 378 million according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census)rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there's at least one good child in each.
3. Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west(which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75-1/2 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding etc.
This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man- made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second - a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.
4. The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that "flying reindeer" (see point #1) could pull TEN TIMES the normal anoint, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload - not even counting the weight of the sleigh - to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison - this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.
5. 353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecrafts re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Each. In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake.The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim)would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.

In conclusion -- If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's dead now.

I couldn't breathe for a few minutes after reading this! ROFLMFAO....just....ROFLMFAO!!

I've never believed in any of this Santa bulls**t anyhow, so the next time someone asks me why, I'll just point them here. Thanks for doing the math for me

[KK7]

What??? Santa doesn't exist?????? ???? ??????






Actually, if anyone has visitied Rovaniemi, Finland, where Santa keeps his regular office, you can se for yourself how Santa achieves the feat of delivering all the presents in a relatively short amount of time. In Rovaniemi there is a very large building with a giant pendulum and clock mechanism that is designed to slow down time and the rotation of the Earth for Santa to deliver all of his presents. On the walls is even all the scientific proof of how it works and how it was designed. All in all, cool, but a very creepy place. Then you can visit the real Santa, who is fluent in 14 languages.

[Flying Low]

Actually...the big problem this year is that the RVOP/LVOP is in effect. If you have not upgraded the signage and lighting on your roof Santa may be able to land but cannot legally proceed to your chimeny.

Hoping you all have a good vis/RVR Christmas Eve!

[Beaver Driver]

All I know is that in this house, Santa gets rum and coke instead of milk and cookies, and I'm alright wirth that, but I apreciate the math...

[CrimsonSkies]

Santa....Bah Humbug.... I don't believe anymore........

This year all I asked for was a big black Hummer with lots of chrome........ the @%#'er brought me a dirty crack whore with braces.......................

[all_ramped_up]

Little bit off topic but I'm sure will be appreciated by many: The physics of Santa...

1. No known species of reindeer can fly. BUT there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not COMPLETELY rule out flying reindeer which only Santa has ever seen.
2. There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since Santa doesn't (appear to) handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total - 378 million according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census)rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there's at least one good child in each.
3. Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west(which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75-1/2 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding etc.
This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man- made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second - a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.
4. The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that "flying reindeer" (see point #1) could pull TEN TIMES the normal anoint, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload - not even counting the weight of the sleigh - to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison - this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.
5. 353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecrafts re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Each. In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake.The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim)would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.

In conclusion -- If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's dead now.

lol that was awesome. thank you.

[flying4dollars]

Does santa have full SMS program.

What about an MEL program?

[. ._]

Every once in a while I think I'm losing my mind...

Then along comes a thread like this. I still might be losing my mind, but now at least I know I'm in good company.

-istp