John Smith

Ferry Pilot

[Stephen Mayne @MayneReport]

@AlanKohler dons the safety googles as Elon Musk's SpaceX IPO fires up, gauges the RBA's next move and evaluates what's fuelling One Nation's sudden and unprecedented rise to the top of the polls.

Another excellent Saturday read - worth a free trial

https://t.co/DiKTgonwil

[John Smith @qrewroom]

@Peter_Fitz General Eisenhower’s mother when asked if she was proud of her son; “Which son?” There were six.

[theanswriz42 @theanswriz42]

@Starlink @elonmusk the new restrictions on the local priority plan for general aviation users is ridiculous. Do you actually think any GA pilots are going to pay $250 for 20GB of usage a month? That's totally unreasonable, and this is clearly a bait and switch scam.

[Kiko Jeantette @kikojeantette]

@elonmusk @Starlink
Hey Elon and Starlink team,
Many of us in general aviation just received this email about an immediate change to operating speed limits. Our Roam plan in-motion use is now capped at 100 mph (we were running up to 200 mph before) and it’s pushing us toward the new Aviation plans with a massive price jump.
We were paying $160/month for unlimited service. These aren’t charter or commercial pilots — we’re GA pilots and small business owners who rely on Starlink’s safety and affordability to deliver services to local communities in remote areas.
GA pilots represent less than 0.1% of the population, but Starlink has been a true game-changer for us.
Please reconsider this decision and bring back (or create) a plan that actually works for general aviation. Don’t price us out.
Thank you — we’ve loved Starlink until now.

[Paul Hathaway @GrotonPilot]

The new @Starlink aviation service plans are so poorly designed it is embarrassing for a company with this level of technical advantage. Can we do better please? You can design plans based on seat capacity, max altitude, operating region. Willing to help if you need it.

[Rich Williams @RichDoubleU]

@JoshDMartin @Starlink Yeah, this was kind of a d!€k move @elonmusk

Starlink now more than insurance and hangars; now impossible to justify. 0 chance of 10-20x variable costs. 100% aviation gouge w/ pricing based on a thumb in the wind. Would’ve been less meatball math to decide to support GA.

[Josh Martin 🛫 @JoshDMartin]

So @starlink gets thousands of airplane owner/operators to sign up for game-changing affordable inflight WiFi ($50/mo for 100GB use) and then raises the price per month by hundreds and cuts the data amount by 80%. Looks like classic Bait and Switch

[Kyle Reed @KyleReedTrader]

Why did @elonmusk just kill the general aviation market for @Starlink? Prices went from $65/mo for 50GB to $250/mo for 20GB. Every pilot I know at my local airport canceled their subscriptions.

https://t.co/QfE0Sk2Aq7

[David Martin @Sir_DavidMartin]

@elonmusk @Starlink
Elon—GA pilots adore Starlink. It’s our safety net for weather, comms, everything. Then bam—overnight 400% price hike, speed caps killing us. We scrape by on fuel and hangars already. This isn’t helping connect America’s skies… it’s pricing us out.

[John Smith @qrewroom]

@Keg767 @RangaRunner This is what you show the animators as a reference to draw a pilot in a Looney Tunes cartoon

[Keg ✈️🇦🇺 @Keg767]

Air New Zealand takes the award from Qantas for the worst pilot hat, and uniform!

It’ll probably look good on the 6’2” Adonis types like @RangaRunner but for those of us shaped more like a beer Keg it would be appalling.

[Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський @ZelenskyyUa]

Three years of resistance. Three years of gratitude. Three years of absolute heroism of Ukrainians. I am proud of Ukraine! I thank everyone who defends and supports it. Everyone who works for Ukraine. And may the memory of all those who gave their lives for our state and people be eternal. 🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦

#SupportUkraine

[Dr Helen Fry | WWII Historian @DrHelenFry]

Geoffrey Stuart was a German Jew who fought for Britain on D-Day.

The only way for his tank squadron to progress through the perilous Villers-Bocage, was to allow the Germans to expose their positions by directly firing at them.

This is his first-hand account:
(a thread)

[RS Archer @archer_rs]

We will be leaving Paris today on the train home, people here often ask me what our journey is like and the experience of the TGV network. The best page for this is that of Mark Smith (https://t.co/ffrjfAgrjZ)

https://t.co/DQ1FXJB9Hk

[Newsroom @NewsroomNZ]

Health professionals pushing Casey Costello to provide evidence that repealing smoke free legislation won’t lead to more harm say she has none https://t.co/AIhLpOSUCs

[Peter Beck @Peter_J_Beck]

😂A hot fire a day keeps the critics away,

Of course we are rotating engines in and out as we put them through their paces, find limits and make tweaks. SN2 is on the stand now and SN1 and SN3 will be going back out to the site as soon as next week as we play with things. It’s all part of a normal engine development and qualification program. Sorry, no explosions so far but we are working on it. That’s normal too.

[Paul Gregoire @PaulrGregoire]

A Centrelink officer blew the whistle internally on Robodebt in 2017. This was ignored

@Richard_D_Boyle went to the press with dodgy tax office practices after being ignored internally

If the Robodebt discloser had gone public, she'd likely be facing prison like Boyle now

https://t.co/fZ9PDMLGVr

via @sydcrimlawyers

[The Intellectualist @highbrow_nobrow]

“When you see Trump with Putin, as I have on a few occassions, he’s like the 12-year old boy that goes to high school and meets the captain of the football team. ‘My hero!’ It’s really creepy.”

- @TurnbullMalcolm, 29th Prime Minister of Australia.

[archivetvmusings @archivetvmus71]

The first episode of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy was originally broadcast on this day in 1979. This BBC2 screening was swiftly followed by a two part omnibus repeat on BBC1 during Christmas 1979.