Anyone else have fleeting special interests? Mine's been air traffic control.

[Megamegablahblah]

I have been watching You Tube videos of interactions between Air Traffic Controllers and Pilots on repeat, some funny ones. Also sad ones. I practically feel like I have learnt how to fly a plane. Clearly I haven't!

The ones I like best are where the ATC puts the Pilots through their paces. They are so good at their jobs. They also have some amusing interactions. I also just really like, I mean love, the sound of a voice over a radio frequency.

I'm not sure but I think historical disasters could become a special interest. There's something so all encompassing about learning everything about a past event from perspectives of different people and also through the lens of technologies.

I wonder how the 'smart phone age' will be studied in future centuries, it's been a mixed bag so far 😂

That sounds like the one in Greece..

Engineer didn't close out some work on the pressurisation completely.

Flight crew didn't pick it up in initial checks.

Aircraft didn't pressurise in the climb but the flight crew, possibly already hypoxic, got confused by the early version 737s warning systems and didn't respond appropriately and kept climbing with unfortunate results.

Aircraft carried on up to cruise level and carried on flying the lateral portion of thr planned route programmed into the nav system but stayed at altitude and didn't descend (because you need pilot input to do that)

Aircraft entered and then went round a programmed hold near destination at high level until it ran out of full.

One theory is one of the cabin crew held a licence,.maybe a basic commercial...he may have got his hands on a walkround O2 bottle and managed to get the flight deck but didn't know enough about the aircraft to actually change the outcome and eventually his O2 bottle ran out.

I think the engineer ended up with a jail term.

Can anyone recommend any flight disaster films? Wierd request I know.

I just watched the one about the two planes that collided on a runway.

I have found my people! :D

Pre Worboys road signs

World War 2 air fields that have been made into business parks or that are still air fields (e.g Wolverhampton)

Arabic insults

Micro cars

Making naan bread

And the work of Larry Grayson!

I am interested in a shipping app called Marine Traffic, I especially like to check on all the ships near to Singapore. I also like checking out container ports. The Strait of Malacca is very busy.

ive holidayed a few times in Malaysia & Singapore so I’ve seen these areas in person.

Lots of reused airfield near where I am in West Yorkshire and surrounding areas. Also near Speke Hall and Liverpool Airport.

Some also have public footpaths where you can walk along the old runway.

I like to look at Google maps and use OS maps when planning walks and have spotted quite a few of these.

'Society of the Snow' about the plane crash in the Andes.
Society of the Snow (2023) - IMDb

I remember the movie Alive that was made about this and the book which I read.

Yes!
AI (spent about 200 hours coding a chat bot in uni-pre the GPT's)
Economics
UFO's
Lenormand readings (cartomancy)
Solar flares/solar weather

Looking for my next big special interest haha!

My current one, is watching people renovate Chateau's. Dp watches them, now I've got into them. I spend hours watching people build walls, tile floors etc 🫣

2002 Überlingen mid-air collision
One of the most tragic. Hard to watch.

I've just finished reading Sepulchre by Kate Mosse and now want to learn everything there is about tarot cards. I've never been remotely interested int hem in my whole life but I really am now

@PauliesWalnutsJust came back to say I’ve downloaded that book and am tearing through it, it’s fascinating and well written to be entertaining rather than dry facts.

Yes, the most recent one is investigating tectonic plates, other recent interests include studying all the different types of UK postboxes, mosaic doorsteps, the history of Ray-Ban sunglasses, Lovejoy’s Suffolk and The Flintstones.

Sea containers fascinate me too (where have they been, what have they carried, what else are they used for etc) but have never got beyond just wondering about them. (Never wandered about one either…)

What a life affirming thread, thanks OP!

You might enjoy the podcast Welcome to Defiance on BBC Sounds. Telling a 9/11 story via an ATC. I found it gripping

Wonderful thread thanks everyone on here

Oh really glad! I didn’t realise how old mine was (bought it when I lived in London but I’ve been back 15 years now) so not sure if it’s updated, but am rereading mine at the moment!

Oh this is tragic especially the ending of the doc.

This is an interesting podcast - 99% invisible.

Yeah, Russian father went down as a hero in Russia which is very 😵‍💫

My fleeting special interests have included -
Numbers stations.
Building shelters out of sticks and moss.
MBTI
Small Japanese apartments
Earwax removal/pimple popping
The Backrooms
SCP Foundation
Crochet

Ooh, thought of another one. Car MOT history and mileage for older cars (20+ YO).

You can find this out for any car by typing in the registration number on the DVLA website.

Many are fairly dull but the ones I find interesting are very low or very high mileage (a lot have consistently done 2-3000 miles a year since new so you have 25 YO car with 50/60k miles on it), others are well over 200k miles in total) or those where you can see where the car has changed hands or someone started WFH during COVID due to the reduction in annual mileage.

If anyone wants a new thing to get into I recommend looking at the 100s of episodes of witnesses history on bbc sound.
Each episode is only 10 minutes long so it's enough to give you a taste of what to look into in more detail.
There are episodes on alsorts from chimps that have been taught sign language, Manchester inflatable banana , Peru secret delivery pilots, the legalisation of the pill in Japan are just a few examples

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/p004t1hd?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile