Okay, Now Is Not The Time For Popcorn
A couple of days ago we began to delineate an article made from notes that were themselves taken from a vlog by Konstantin, the vlogger who does "Inside Russia". Somewhat ironically, Big K has to do his work in Uzbekistan, having fled Ruffia during the mobilisation of last September. He's lived in Tashkent before, so this isn't the hardship it might be thought, though his wife and kids might not feel so blasé. Art!
Tashkent, capital of Uzbekistan South Kent. No relation.
Big K was focussing on the crash-landing of an Ural Airlines passenger jet in Siberia as a forewarning, breaking down the problems that Ruffian airlines now have in the post "Special Idiotic Operation" calendar.
The second major problem with aviation safety in Soviet Union 2.0 is that it requires an interlinked chain of technology, certification, training and - most especially - an industry watchdog with sharp eyes and sharper teeth. None of this applies in Ruffia any longer and both the government and aviation overseers have deliberately slackened rules all across the board to allow unsafe planes to fly. Cabin crew are no longer required to inform flight crew about any faults or flaws they find in the aircraft, as an example. Art!
That's Cyrillic for "Aeroflop"
Another problem, which has been kept verrrrry quiet by Ruffian aviation authorities, and for which there are no published statistics, is the lack of spare parts leading to cannibalisation of airframes to keep the others flying. The risk here is that incompatible spare parts get into the supply chain, which is simply not up to pre-SIO standards. Okay, cabin lights might not be too big a problem, but - engine or landing-gear components? Yikes.
Perhaps even more worrying is the use of a palimpsest (not a word you expected to see today) of supply companies to camouflage or conceal where various spare parts are intended to end up at - hint: Ruffia. This supply chain is long and complicated, which also means it's VERY EXPENSIVE, with prices up to 4,000% higher than normal. This then invites the use of counterfeit product, because the provenance of same is a very murky grey area. Art!
Conrad has no idea what 'bearing spacers' constitute but if they lack essential structural parts, then that cannot be good, can it?
Big K points out that Ruffian aviation is now looking to the 'Iranian Model' of how to avoid spare part sanctions: use fakes. This has rendered Iranian aviation very unsafe indeed, a process that it mirrored by the available accident statistics in Ruffia. In 2022 there were 130 aircraft accidents and 28 crashes. In the first 7 days of 2023 there were 7 'incidents' and Big K gave anecdotal evidence where 2 of his friends experienced incidents whilst flying. By extension this implies a catastrophe just waiting to happen; not merely a crash-landing, but a crash.
Konstantin ended with the above paragraph as a warning and he, personally, is not going to fly with any Ruffian airlines in future, no matter how cheap the tickets are; it's just too risky. Again, as in the above paragraph, he foresees an aviation catastrophe happening. Art!
That's Big K 11 months ago, bound for Tadzhikistan, when air travel was reasonably safe.
You might well be wondering why Ruffians travel by air in the first place, let alone when it's now so risky. One reason is time, space and geography, because Ruffia is freaking huge. Art!
Time zones
Anothe reason is geographical isolation. A lot of the towns and cities above the Arctic Circle have little or no road or rail links to the outside, especially in winter, which can last for half the year. Art!
Conrad: Hair-Splitter Par Excellence
In that disaster-upon-disaster film "Virus" which I watched recently, a small Antarctic community survives because the titular disease cannot survive in conditions of -10⁰C.
Of course - obviously! - Conrad could not simply accept this as given. What about the communities, villages, towns and cities, that exist above the Arctic Circle and which presumably experience similarly low temperatures? Art!
You can see some towns and cities here; there are actually more, such as Tromso in Norway and Kandalaksha in Ruffia. All told there are over 4 million people living above the AC who might be expected to survive The Virus.
This number will be quickly whittled down, mind. Murmansk would have been a target for South Canadian Minuteman warheads, for example, and Tromso might have been on the Sinister SIOP*. As I mentioned in the Intro, some of the Sinister cities would suffer famine when no more supplies arrive from the outside world. If cities such as Tromso survived, they might be able to prevail and sustain themselves by fishing or trapping migratory birds, or by harvesting seaweed.
Thus, even if only 1% of that pre-Virus population survived, it would amount to 40,000 people, which is enough to re-populate the world, eventually. Art!
Tromso: the cradle of human civilisation?
"City In The Sky"
Ace got to carry out one of her favourite activities: eating. She now has to satisfy the curiosity of the Arcology's inhabitants.
‘In a house?’
‘Did you go on a public transport vehicles?’
‘Is weather as terrifying as the books say?’
‘Did people really walk around naked to get burnt by ultra-violet
radiation?
She waved her hands.
‘One at a time! Listen, you ask a
question, I’ll answer it, then I ask a question and you can answer it. Is that fair?
Otherwise I’ll lose my voice!’
Ace couldn’t believe how many questions they had, questions that were
incredibly banal to her but which picqued the eager curiosity of people who had
never set foot on Earth, felt rain, ridden in a car or sailed on a
cross-Channel ferry.
In turn she heard about their fears for the slowly failing arcology; the
continuing decrease in ability to recycle, the machinery that broke down or
wore out (no more bicycles left), population pressure on the food supply,
depression and suicide becoming very real risks. This would be the last generation in orbit,
because if they couldn’t get back Downstairs, they would slowly perish
Upstairs. Dart One and Two’s failure and
destruction were forbidding signs to the crew.
A new face, a big stranger, came yawning and stretching up to the common room tables, focussing sharply on Ace. The other mechanics treated the stranger with deference, making the young woman wonder if he wasn’t their chief mechanic. He was old, at least fifty, plump, apple-cheeked and sharp-eyed.
Ah, what a situation, where riding on a bus is an adventure!
What Do I Keep Telling You?
Yes yes yes, I know, I know, "Conrad is a terrible person". APART from that. Come on, come on!
Yes - that the South Canadians secretly miss being subjects of the Crown, because Dog Buns! not a day goes by without "The Daily Beast" slavering over our monarchy. They definitely know more about the monarchy of This Sceptred Isle than does Conrad, who actually lives here. Art!
Conrad has only a hazy understanding of who these two are, and no idea at all of what this 'war' TDB is going on about might be. Gosh, you'd almost think 1776 never happened**!
We've Been Here Before
As you should surely know by now, Conrad is a profound bore on the Second Unpleasantness in North Africa, much of which occurred over the then-Italian colony of Libya.
The city of Derna has come into the news of late for all the very worst reasons. Art!
Bardiya, Tobruk, Derna, Martuba, Msus, Benghazi - all well-known names in the Desert War.
The phenomenon of severe winter flooding is not new, either. The Eighth Army, as well as the Axis forces, knew better than to make camp in any of the desert's wadis (dry watercourses) in winter. Art!
A dry wadi
The reason is that heavy rain could fall at any time, causing flash-flooding that would have swamped anything having a nice quiet kip in a wadi. Yes, there were occasions when the desert was turned to a sea of mud thanks to storms; the counter to this was that desert flowers would then bloom. You don't fight the desert; you accommodate it.
Finally -
Probably about time for a little lunch. I've already walked Edna, as the skies looked threatening. So far the rains have held off but Your Humble Scribe is not hopeful that will be the case all afternoon.
Pip pip!* "Single Integrated Operational Plan" i.e. which missiles are directed where.
** BOOJUM!'s position is that it was all an urban legend.
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