Tech marketing geek, with a passion for innovation.
Foster City, CA
Joined February 2009
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Peter Sheerin retweeted
There are still a few hours left on Friday the 13th, so it’s not too late for more calamities.
Peter Sheerin retweeted
As expected, new footage. This comes from one of the outboard cabins on board American Heritage.
What we see in this video:
1⃣The ship still had propulsion as we can see some wake astern of the vessel. This was not clear in the earlier videos - probably due to the distance.
2⃣After clearing the Crescent City Connection bridge, the ship appears to make a hard right turn, vice drifting back down after losing power.
3⃣The crew have dropped both anchors in an attempt to arrest the forward motion of the vessel, but it is not enough to stop the ship.
4⃣Atlantic Asphalt never sounded a danger signal to give warning to those on-board American Heritage.
5⃣This is not the reason you book a balcony room on a cruise ship.
Peter Sheerin retweeted
The engines shutdown like they had their repress clogged, which would have led to the Booster slamming down onto the chopsticks and or the Raptors exploding first due to run away engines which could have also blew the booster on the tower.
It tells me that even with a half stack of Starlinks that Super Heavy Booster was struggling to throttle up after Max Q, perform its boost back and then landing burn which melted those engines. Those flames are not supposed to look like that at all.
Hope they can retrofit the engines and tanks in time for flight 16. Booster looked like it had a lot of juice in it so it could handle the filters, new plumbing and or better avionics.
Peter Sheerin retweeted
I can't be certain, but this looks like a stuck rudder, and the crew did a good job getting the anchor down.
The anchor was my worry. If it isn't fully set, it shifts the ship's pivot point to the bow and makes the ship turn even harder.
But look closely: they were still paying out chain right up until the end.
There's a small chance the anchor did shift the pivot point and the captain ordered more chain in response, but that's the less likely explanation.
Three very different possibilities:
1) Mechanical failure. The crew reacted quickly, dropping anchor to slow the ship.
2) The anchor slipped during the bridge approach, shifting the pivot point forward and increasing the rate of turn.
3) Both. Crews don’t practice purposely dropping anchor often so it’s possible a mechanical failure caused the captain to order the anchor dropped and the helmsman was not prepared for the faster rate of turn.
Also… why didn’t they have tugboats alongside?
Why did we never have the public hearing after the Baltimore Bridge collapse in 2024. We had a brief NTSB report but no drawn out public hearing like we saw after the El Faro, Deepwater Horizon and Marine Electric.
Those hearings are important to find hidden lessons learned but neither the Biden nor the Trump administration was eager to hold one.
BTW, Captain Jeremy is an excellent follow.
Peter Sheerin retweeted
WHY DIDNT THEY SOUND THE HORN?
The fact that the ship never sounded its horn before hitting the cruise ship is trending right now.
Were they supposed to sound it?
Yes!
What were they supposed to sound?
The danger signal: five or more short blasts on the ship's whistle.
Why didn't they?
We don't know.
What's my guess?
Most of these foreign-flagged ships sail with skeleton crews, and an emergency like this demands a dozen things be done at once. Cut the manning and something gets missed.
Peter Sheerin retweeted
An absolute MIRACLE. Every passenger, most of them elderly, rescued.
For YEARS we’ve been told foreign cruise ship crews are just as capable as Americans.
Yet one of the last ALL-AMERICAN-crewed ships gets t-boned and pulls off an extraordinary miracle.
American mariners. American excellence. USA USA USA
End H1 Visas and stop bringing in foreigners to crew cruise ships NOW!!!
Peter Sheerin retweeted
Star Wars 50 aniversario es la película original, tal cual se estrenó en el año 77. Sin nuevas escenas, sin retoques digitales, sin alteración alguna del material original. ¿De dónde ha salido esta copia?
En los años 90, el estudio británico y distribuidora Rank, donó al instituto fílmico británico (BFI) una copia nueva en Technicolor IB de la original Star Wars. Las copias en este formato se conservan mucho mejor y no tienden a la degradación de color con el tiempo como en el celuloide Eastman. Esta copia se criogenizó (has leído bien) a -5 grados en los archivos del BFI y ahí ha estado durante 30 años para garantizar su preservación (con muchas otras películas y material fílmico). En 2025, los conservadores del BFI encontraron la película con el añadido que se hizo posterior de Episodio IV, pero también los rollos originales previos incluso a ese cambio: una copia original en dos rollos del material que se estrenó en el año 1977.
Tras comprobar la increíble calidad, el celuloide ha pasado por un transfer digital, escaneado en 6K y masterizado en 4K. Se usó software especializado para alinear fotogramas, eliminar imperfecciones (polvo, suciedad…) pero no se ha pasado un proceso DNR (reducción de ruido) y se ha conservado intacto el grano original y la estructura del celuloide.
Es la primera vez, desde 1993 con la copia en LaserDisc, que se dispone del master original inalterado y que además, se consigue a tal calidad. La película tendrá estreno en salas IMAX, también en IMAX de 70mm, salas 4K láser… y conservará su relación de aspecto original 2:40:1. El objetivo de este trabajo llamado SW77 era ser lo más fiel posible y tener la copia en mejor calidad del film original.
El sonido, que tenía varios masters uno de ellos de 70mm con 6 canales, ha sido restaurado y reconstruido desde 0, pudiendo trabajar con las cintas magnéticas originales con cada elemento aislado y se ha creado una mezcla en Dolby Atmos a partir de este material original. Incluyendo todos los diálogos originales y todos los efectos originales de Ben Burtt. Sin retoques.
La música de John Williams ha sido transferida nuevamente desde las cintas analógicas originales de la grabación en 1977 con la London Symphony Orchestra, usando el multipista original que ha dado la mezcla para incorporar, con limpieza de audio, la mejor calidad posible.
Lo que se ha hecho con esta copia es una auténtica obra de orfebrería, donde cientos de personas han trabajado para traer la mejor calidad posible a la película original, en un esfuerzo que merece la recompensa de volver a vivir aquello que hace 50 años muchos vivieron. Y aquello que muchos como nosotros no hemos podido vivir en años por la obsesión de George Lucas de modificar el material original.
¡Gracias a todos los implicados por este trabajo y por traerla a todos los países! Allí estaremos para disfrutarla.
A 50 días del 50.º aniversario de Star Wars en 2027, Lucasfilm y Disney informan de que el 19 de febrero estrenarán una versión restaurada de La guerra de las galaxias (1977) en miles de salas de cine de todo el mundo, incluida España.
#StarWars50🚀
Peter Sheerin retweeted
Today the Boom team uncovered a design mistake in our first turbine.
This is the kind of setback that if it had happened in a traditional company would have meant weeks or months of redesigning and rebuilding.
Multiple teams, design reviews, part releases, getting a supplier on contract to make a replacement part.
But the Boom team figured out a solution in a couple hours. Our shop is working overnight to make a replacement part which will be installed in the morning. The whole fiasco will cost us about 24h.
I was reflecting with the team - is this a failure story or a success story?
I’d argue it’s a massive success — an entire team and industrial setup that can occasionally make a mistake but recover super quickly.
Peter Sheerin retweeted
A US Army Specialist admonished a group with the Secretary of War at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier for not maintaining appropriate silence and respect, and Hegseth, like a true leader, accepted the reprimand and then gave the soldier a medal for doing what was expected of him despite the potential for reprisal from the highest ranking official in the Pentagon.
This is what honorable leadership looks like.
I’ve seen multiple Democrats hypothesize that Hegseth would use his position to punish the young soldier, and they could not have been more wrong.
Scoundrels always try to tear down men of honor because they know they can never measure up.
I can’t tell you how proud this makes me as a veteran.
God Bless Secretary Hegseth.
DOL, Sir! 🫡🇺🇸
Peter Sheerin retweeted
During the early days of SpaceX, a veteran NASA propulsion engineer told Elon Musk that his orbital trajectory calculations for the Falcon 1 contained an error. The engineer, who had worked on NASA missions for over 20 years, was confident. Elon disagreed. The room went quiet. A self taught engineer was telling a 20 year NASA veteran that his correction was the one with the error.
Elon pulled out his calculations. He walked through the physics line by line. The orbital mechanics, the delta v budget, the gravity loss estimates, the atmospheric drag coefficients. He didn't defer. He didn't say "let me check with the team." He stood at a whiteboard and derived the trajectory from first principles while the room of aerospace professionals watched.
He was right. The veteran's correction contained an assumption about atmospheric density at altitude that was based on an outdated model. Elon's calculation used a more recent atmospheric dataset. The difference was small but compound: the error would have resulted in insufficient fuel margin for orbital insertion. If they had followed the veteran's correction, the rocket would have failed.
The incident became part of SpaceX folklore because it established something that no other tech CEO has demonstrated: the founder could do the engineering himself. Not manage it. Not review it. Do it. The trajectory calculations that determine whether a rocket reaches orbit or falls into the ocean were computed by the CEO at a whiteboard from memory.
Jim Cantrell, one of the earliest SpaceX members, has described Elon's engineering knowledge as "actually terrifying." He said Elon learned orbital mechanics by reading textbooks cover to cover and then applying the physics directly, without the institutional assumptions that NASA engineers absorb through decades of working within a specific methodology. The lack of institutional assumptions is why he caught the error. The veteran was calculating inside a framework. Elon was calculating from the physics. The physics was right. The framework was outdated.
The CEO who people assume is a "business guy with engineers" is a man who derives orbital trajectories on a whiteboard and catches errors that 20 year veterans miss. The distinction between a CEO who manages engineers and a CEO who IS an engineer is the distinction that explains why SpaceX moves differently from every other aerospace company. The engineer in the room who knows the most is sometimes the one with the title.
The self taught man with the textbook beat the institutional man with the experience because the textbook contained the current physics and the experience contained the previous assumption. The lesson is not that experience is wrong. It is that assumptions, once installed, stop updating. Elon never installed the assumptions. He installed the physics. And the physics doesn't expire.
Peter Sheerin retweeted
Following his ouster as CEO of Nvidia Jensen Huang is reportedly considered for a high executive position at Mistral. Some experts, however, warn that for a high-profile position in France, two affairs might not be enough.
Peter Sheerin retweeted
Talked to a guy that was there opening the sea valves this morning inside the ship, he said a navy destroyer came by last night and said they would need to demo charge the stern and bow to make it sink straight down, county supervisor said no and deemed it unsafe, but navy was ✅
Peter Sheerin retweeted
Casing open (& outside of lab), bolts sheared, thermal insulator cracked open, broken data ribbon exposed, green plastic over memory ckt-board visible, no fire
I'm surprised it's in that good of a shape
Access data via cable, connector, desoldered memory chips, or opened chips
Peter Sheerin retweeted
Okay so all together this paints an interesting picture of the RVAC shutdown:
After E6 cuts off and after they established what occured of course we get the callout "E6 took an ORCU controller reset which is what drove the shutdown"
Raptor has two main valve&avionics packages. Didn't know their specific name until now but we can tell it is referring to this hardware from this other shot that depicts telemetry from E1 from the other package, the FRCU (not totally set on what the RCU portion means but best guess is just raptor controller unit, similar enough to the terminology used on Raptor 2, and alternating fuel/oxidizer as the leading letter for each of the two packages). This lists measured transducer temperatures (I assume from elsewhere in the fuel powerhead), board temps of the avionics inside the package, voltages of the avionics in the package, medians for the heater for the boards inside the package, and then what actually confirms that this is the hardware I suspect is the next two boxes, OPFV motor temps and OPFV heaters. AKA the oxygen preburner fuel valve. Both of these packages on the engine have one throttle valve, to respective preburners. The fuel side controller will throttle the fuel going to the oxygen preburner, and the oxygen side controller will throttle oxygen going to the fuel preburner, just to get everyone up to speed.
Anyway, that aside, so the oxygen side controller reset and drove the engine to shut down, but that wasn't really the end of that story. During the poll to continue to orbit a pneumatics leak was mentioned.
Later on during the coast we get a brief view of a preliminary report of some sort;
"Suspect E6 ORCU leak, likely ox into pneumatics
Suspect E5 ORCU leak, no pneumatics contamination
E5 and E6 ducers undertemped during run
E6 ORCU reset during suspect leak
E6 otp_zts died
PXOC spike on E6
E6 observed ORCU contamination of pneumatics system
pneumatics response [...]
Lost E6 OTP_ZTS"
So both E5 and 6 were experiencing issues with helium from the pneumatics system leaking out centered within the oxygen side controller. E6's was bad enough for oxygen products (likely liquid oxygen, more on that in a second) was able to contaminate the gaseous helium of the pneumatics system. That leak seemed to have persisted for it to continue to be of concern for the relight. PXOC spike on E6, I assume is one of the pressure transducers within the controller package itself, possibly also the cause of the upstream contamination into the ghe system. OTP_ZTS is a temperature probe. Can also see it referred to as OX ZTS.T. E5 and 6 also had some transducers going undertemped meaning they dropped below their operating range, IE they froze, lol. Suggests there was a bit of a lox leak from the OTP into the controller. Not really a huge problem for the rest of the vehicle because it is downstream of the prevalves and shutoff valves but I would hazard a *guess* that the combination of those conditions occurring within the controller is what prompted it to reset which prompted the vehicle to command both controllers to cut it.
The following problems persist as a result of it though. As mentioned pneumatics had been leaking during the coast phase, after SECO. The vehicle is just losing GHe which it needs for literally all functions. I'm not quite sure why but a lot of people seem to have this idea that helium is barely used or something...it's very strange but whatever. Helium is used for almost all pneumatic systems on the vehicles and has been for a long ass time and without it the vehicle loses all control over basically all but the smallest of solenoids. While discussing the early return concerns the following is said over comms:
"engine shutdown is an elevated risk...and then helium is somewhat of an elevated risk, you know, with the settling"
"I agree with the decision to go to early hawaii, I don't think that I would gate that just on using helium in the header tanks given we're pretty well mitigated"
Main takeaway here is that they swapped to using helium to pressurize the header tanks. Normally they are pressed with their respective gox and gch4 products but the ship exclusively has the ability to switch that to helium press, it's not ideal but it is a viable solution to a scenario like this where your ability to control any given set of valves is dubious thanks to a seemingly isolated pneumatics leak (there are multiple mostly independent circuits for different purposes). Especially after a longer on-orbit duration...it'd be pretty awful to go start conditioning for the deorbit 8 hours later just to find out you cannot control commodities to the engine or control header pressure or any combination of horrible things.
So that's my interpretation of the information that can be uncovered. Follows the principle of what they've already said the cause was but that was vauge. This prompts a better understanding of the cascade that caused them to return early. Obviously some things may be wrong because this is certainly more "gremlins in the engine" territory but I am astonished at the information that can be found in this video already.
Peter Sheerin retweeted
My internet adventure is strange. I suppose I’m a minor influencer now. Not my intent, but here we are.
So…here’s my social media experience:
I’m tap dancing on a landmine. My airline follows me, my union & even the FAA follows me. This is not a good feeling. Any one of them can decide to stick a sword in me & I’m done.
My undergrad degree is journalism & I have a desire to write. I kind of wish I didn’t, as there is very little personal benefit to posting. I could fly two hours at the airline a month & make a lot more than I get paid by Twitter.
I want to post in a way that is relatable & honest. Not necessarily the Gonzo journalism style, but not the polished publicity you often get. I want you to see me setting my alarm for 02:00, flying the redeye, getting my chain yanked by crew scheduling &, like yesterday, screwing up. I still feel ashamed about being late. I’ll eventually live that down, but I think it’s important to convey that the clock rules my life & I make mistakes sometimes.
Posting that way can be a problem. The swords are all pointed at me & every once in a while, I get poked. I took a week off last time I got seriously poked, and tried to learn from it.
I’m trying to inspire & educate. Aviation has a bit of an access problem, and the barriers can look impossible to overcome if you don’t have an inside connection. They are not, though, and there are plenty of opportunities if you only know where to look. I want to show you where to look & give you a pat on the back as you start your journey. Or as you help your kids start theirs. I studied journalism in part because I thought the doors to aviation were closed to me, but a friend of my Father’s asked me to come visit in the Wing Commander’s office at Kirtland AFB, NM.
As it turned out, he was the Wing Commander & it was his office. My father had helped him go from Enlisted to Officer, then he rose through the ranks. Dad had asked a favor.
He noted I’d been paying for my own flying lessons & told me he knew how to make the Air Force pay me to fly. Sounded like a good deal; flying lessons were expensive & I was having a hard time affording it. I was starting to go a month between lessons for finances.
So, I agreed & Bobby Wright helped me put in my application to the Air Force. I got rejected twice, but on the third attempt, my parents were at my place when I got back from an overnight shift as a security guard & they had a bottle of champagne. That was 26 years ago.
There are plenty of other aviation outlets out there, and they do good work. I’m trying to add something they don’t.
SO…
I owe Colonel Bobby Wright a debt. I owe my Dad, as well. Both have passed away, but the debt remains. This – posting on Twitter, as strange as it sounds – is how I see myself repaying it.
I’m here to tell you that you don’t need a special insider to get here. You can do it on your own. I’m also here to tell you that it’s not usually that glorious, that you’ll be pissed at crew scheduling & that you’ll feel like a zombie sometimes. I’m here to tell you that it’s a strain on family life, that it’s going to beat you up, that you have a higher risk of cancer & that you will sometimes fail. You’ll hate yourself for failing. I’m here – in part – to be the antithesis to the glory & the ads, and that means posting some downers sometimes & being honest.
I’m also here to tell you it’s fucking awesome & as long as you are in it for the love of defying gravity rather than money or some idea of prestige, you’ll never regret your choice. Getting snowed on at 04:00 while doing the exterior inspection of the jet can be either demoralizing or an affirmation, it just depends on you.
I will continue tap dancing on a landmine. Man, I hope it doesn’t blow up, but I gave up on aviation as a young man because I had an idea that they were all supermen, and I wasn’t.
It wasn’t true. You can do it. It’s hard, but if you want it, you can have it.
Peter Sheerin retweeted
I remember this day and event very well. I was a USAF Test Pilot School Instructor at that time, and just happened to be the Edwards AFB Supervisor of Flying (SOF) on that day. After hearing that a B-1B with a nose landing gear that was stuck in the up position was diverting to Edwards AFB to attempt a lakebed landing, I drove the SOF radio-equipped vehicle out by the Rogers Dry Lakebed and was on the radio with the B-1B aircrew once they were in radio range. That particular B-1B was from another base in a different state (it was not a test B-1 from Edwards AFB), and had been advised to divert to Edwards AFB, California. This brave aircrew were going to attempt to save this amazing bomber, and the Rogers Dry Lakebed was the safest place to attempt to land their B-1B while minimizing damage to both the aircrew and aircraft.
Since depth perception is a different challenge on the dry lakebed surface, we have black oil strips that outline the runway and help pilots judge their altitude during their approach to landing. Experimental Test Pilots are used to it, because we use the dry lakebed runways for many types of emergency landings. The gypsum dust on the dry lakebed acts as a fire suppressant during the landing rollout (or skid). We sometimes also choose to land a perfectly good jet (like a T-38) on the dry lakebed just for practice.
I had the aircrew practice low-level approaches and go arounds several times before they final approach. They had been on the radio for several hours already with design engineers from Rockwell, but none of the suggested workarounds attempts had been successful at gettng the nose gear to lower. This was their best option to save this expensive supersonic swing-wing bomber. An F-111 had been tasked to rejoin them inflight to act as a safety chase aircraft, as the flight envelope of the F-111 was very compatible with the B-1. F-111s and had also been used as chase planes during early B-1A prototype testing for the B-1B version.
I coached them to hold the nose up using the elevator until they slowed down without braking and allow the spoilers on the main wings slow them down along with main gear wheel friction, and then to gently lower the nose until it softly touched down. The sun was setting soon, so I advised them to attempt the actual lakebed landing on the very next pass as doing it after dark without their nose gear landing lights would be almost impossible to accomplish safely.
The next pattern showed that their practice low approaches had paid off as they were able to smoothly touch down on the main landing gear and hold off the nose until they got slow enough to gently lower the nose to skid out on the nose radome. Once the radome gently touched down, the entire aircraft was engulfed in a giant plume of gypsum dust from the lakebed. For a few moments, I feared the entire aircraft might have broken up! But, as they finally came to a stop and the dust cleared, everything was intact, no fire erupted and the aircraft and crew were saved. Cranes came out and gently lifted the nose up as the crew entry door is on the bottom behind the nose gear well. No one was injured, and the nose gear was extended manually by a ground maintenance crew.
That B-1B was fully repaired and returned to full flight status, thanks to the Rogers Dry Lakebed's properties. It the world's largest Dry lakebed and the reason Muroc Airfield (now Edwards AFB) was established there in the first place. It has saved the lives of many test pilots over the years, and was the perfect place to save this brave aircrew and their B-1B on that day, too.
Peter Sheerin retweeted
This is why we call it the “Pilot In Command”
This happened in the same vicinity where the ill-fated Lear Jet hit the storm cell.
JetBlue pilot en route from Fort Lauderdale to Austin says to ATC:
“So you're gonna make us go through a, uh, severe thunderstorm?”
The captain then commanded the situation and overrode the ATC:
“So we declare an emergency, making a left turn heading 260 for severe weather avoidance.”
Sometimes piloting demands a specific set of traits - decisiveness, independent judgment, and the backbone to reject an instruction when it doesn’t feel right.
Refusing the assigned heading showed exactly that kind of assertive leadership.
Whoever is pilot monitoring must make these tough calls but ultimately, the captain is the final authority and ultimately accountable for every soul on board.
Peter Sheerin retweeted
I was flying in Germany, and we were doing some training at Stuttgart airport.
A couple miles from the active runway, the bird in front of me got a transmission chip light.
(That’s a get the fck on the ground type of event).
ATC told us the hold off the runway until further instructions (imagine German accent here).
We did not hold- told them “no” and aimed straight for the pad, racing across the centerline in between arrivals.
This is why we call it the “Pilot In Command”
This happened in the same vicinity where the ill-fated Lear Jet hit the storm cell.
JetBlue pilot en route from Fort Lauderdale to Austin says to ATC:
“So you're gonna make us go through a, uh, severe thunderstorm?”
The captain then commanded the situation and overrode the ATC:
“So we declare an emergency, making a left turn heading 260 for severe weather avoidance.”
Sometimes piloting demands a specific set of traits - decisiveness, independent judgment, and the backbone to reject an instruction when it doesn’t feel right.
Refusing the assigned heading showed exactly that kind of assertive leadership.
Whoever is pilot monitoring must make these tough calls but ultimately, the captain is the final authority and ultimately accountable for every soul on board.