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Big flight gets green light as FAA clears Santa One

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...I’m pleased to say our air traffic controllers will have the opportunity to work with the world’s safest pilot very soon. Santa Claus has been flying accident-free for centuries, (fastlane.dot.gov) More...

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EDLM
EDLM 1
I just found this,and can only say,..
Come on you Guys,. were you never young.
Let the young ones live it,. as you not dought
also lived it.,
I think its Great,
Merry Christmas and have a good(Gud) New year
THRUSTT
THRUSTT 1
Callsign "Deer force one"
petesjet1
Awsome calsign!
Stonesurfer
Stonesurfer 0
After much research, we present the annual aeronautical engineers report on the theory of Santa:
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.

There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since Santa doesn't (appear) to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish & 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 that there's at least one good child in each.

Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with. This is due 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/second. That is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has .001 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/household, a total trip of 75.5 million miles; not counting stops to do what most of us do at lease once every 31 hours, plus eating etc. So Santa's sleigh must be moving at 650 miles/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 pokey 27.4 miles/second. A conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles/hour.

If every one of the 91.8 million homes with good children were to put out a single chocolate chip cookie and an 8 ounce glass of 2% milk, the total calories (needless to say other vitamins and minerals) would be approximately 225 calories (100 for the cookie, give or take, and 125 for the milk, give or take). Multiplying the number of calories per house by the number of homes (225 x 91.8 x 1000000), we get the total number of calories Santa consumes that night, which is 20,655,000,000 calories. To break it down further, 1 pound is equal to 3500 calories. Dividing our total number of calories by the number of calories in a pound (20655000000 / 3500) and we get the number of pounds Santa gains, 5901428.6, which is 2950.7 tons.

The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized Lego set (2 lb.), 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 300lb. Even granting that "flying reindeer" (see #1) can pull 10 TIMES the normal amount, we cannot do the job with 8, or even 9, reindeer. We need 214,200. This increases the payload - not counting the weight of the sleigh - to 353,430 tons. This is four times the weight of the ocean-liner Queen Elizabeth.

353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles/second creates enormous air resistance. This will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as a spacecraft reentering 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 .00426 of a second. Meanwhile, Santa, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250 lb. Santa, being very conservative in terms of guessing Santa's weight, would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 lb. of force. If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's dead now.

A Merry Christmas to one and all!
StA45
Patricia Lewis 0
That is so cool! Happy New Year
laxlover
Stephen Brown 0
Very interesting but I have to agree with Jeff. But you are very talented at research!!
THRUSTT
THRUSTT 0
Also, he'd be very old, unless it's a family tradition carried on by his great grandson. Or possibly newly furloughed Eagle pilots...
whip5209
Ken McIntyre 0
Darn, my belief in Santa Claus just took a big hit. LMAO
skuttlerats
Jeffrey Babey 0
BAH HUMBUG! What a Scrooge you are!!! lol
laxlover
Stephen Brown 0
Charming!!
WeatherWise
WeatherWise 0
Accident free because of those special de-icing "boots" he wears.
skuttlerats
Jeffrey Babey 0
The fat guy really knows how to fly by the seat of his pants! Most pilots would give anything to fly error free like the big boy does and get there on TIME every year too! Amazing pilot skills for an 8 engined (9 if Rudolph leads)sleigh.
And he does it by VFR too...simply amazing :)

Merry Christmas Flight-Aware Friends! May all your flights be safe and happy :)
BoeingFan59
Troy Raiteri 0
I wish Santa on his flight around the world! :) Fake or not still gotta believe in the spirit :)
BoeingFan59
Troy Raiteri 0
* I wish good luck
jmedina94
Julian Medina 0
I don't see any waypoints with that flight plan. lol.
C172kid91
C172kid91 0
Wish I could get GPS Direct everywhere I went...
preacher1
preacher1 0
Merry Christmas, Gang
daerico
Eric Wilkins 0
Merry Christmas to all. Except Stone Surfer. Humbug. lol I'd be lying if I didn't admit to reposting that report though
petesjet1
Santa's better than UPS and FED EX. He must have a huge paycheck to be able to afford to work one night a year!
aggieflyer
aggieflyer 0
I bet it was a nightmare to get all that stuff screened by the TSA!
grinch59
Gene Nowak 0
You forgot. This is a single seated private craft that is exempt from TSA! Thank God! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
skuttlerats
Jeffrey Babey 0
lol...you are right! Merry Christmas to you too!
skuttlerats
Jeffrey Babey 0
Ewwww.....Imagine what it smells like when Santa takes off his boots after walking through reindeer droppings? lol
skylloyd
skylloyd 0
Merry Christmas to all....and to all a good night.
denzler
david enzler 0
Merry Christmas Everyone!
StymieHo
Chris Donawho 0
Wish this article came from CNN or FoxNews.... Coming from the DOT/FAA, one cant help but wonder how many of our tax dollars went into the story. Figure the $20,000 for a toilet seat and this article may cause the next government shutdown.
preacher1
preacher1 0
Scrooge.lol
StymieHo
Chris Donawho 0
Bah Humbug!!!
StA45
Patricia Lewis 0
I am sure Santa has pick up points all across the world so never carries all that weight at one time. It would make flying way to hard.... for the reindeer even with Rudolph.
skuttlerats
Jeffrey Babey 0
Thats what 747-400 cargo freighters are for :) I'm sure Santa uses a good logistics provider too ;)
StymieHo
Chris Donawho 0
But apparently they cant use UPS for logistics as their pilots are far too sleepy to handle the job.

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