{"id":28026,"date":"2022-12-19T01:32:57","date_gmt":"2022-12-19T06:32:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=28026"},"modified":"2022-12-18T01:43:48","modified_gmt":"2022-12-18T06:43:48","slug":"norad-releases-specs-on-santas-sleigh-which-goes-faster-than-starlight-and-runs-on-hay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2022\/12\/19\/norad-releases-specs-on-santas-sleigh-which-goes-faster-than-starlight-and-runs-on-hay\/","title":{"rendered":"NORAD Releases Specs On Santa&#8217;s Sleigh, Which Goes &#8216;Faster Than Starlight&#8217; and Runs On Hay"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">President Biden suggested the US military&#8217;s C-130 transport aircraft is &#8220;a little more efficient than Santa&#8217;s sleigh&#8221;. Biden\u2019s assessment of Santa&#8217;s technical capabilities was clearly incorrect.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Lakeland Gazette<\/em> reached out to NORAD, which is a bi-national program run by the US and Canadian governments, shortly after the president&#8217;s speech. A spokesperson provided us with this statement on his remarks.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"710\" height=\"266\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 710px) 100vw, 710px\" src=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/Screenshot-11.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-28020\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/Screenshot-11.png 710w, https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/Screenshot-11-300x112.png 300w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;We really don&#8217;t want to compare Santa&#8217;s sleigh to a C-130, but what we can confirm is that Santa&#8217;s sleigh is a versatile, all-weather, multi-purpose, vertical short-take-off and landing vehicle,&#8221; the spokesperson said. &#8220;It is capable of traveling vast distances without refueling and is deployed, as far as we know, only on\u00a0December 24th\u00a0(and sometimes briefly for a test flight about a month before Christmas).&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Though the spokesperson declined to provide their own comparison of the C-130 and Santa&#8217;s sleigh, they gave us all of their &#8220;technical data&#8221; on the sleigh. Based on this information, it&#8217;s abundantly clear Santa&#8217;s sleigh is far faster and capable of carrying a much larger payload.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1118\" height=\"670\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1118px) 100vw, 1118px\" src=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/NORAD-Tracks-Santa.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-28027\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to NORAD&#8217;s fact sheet, the top&nbsp;speed of Santa&#8217;s sleigh is &#8220;faster than starlight.&#8221; NASA lists the speed of light as approximately 186,000 miles per second. On the other hand, the Air Force fact sheet on the C-130 notes its maximum speed is just 417 miles per hour. NORAD also said Santa&#8217;s sleigh can carry about 60,000 tons while the maximum allowable payload of a C-130 is 44,000 pounds. The White House did not respond to a request from Lakeland Gazette about the president&#8217;s incorrect claims about the sleigh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">NORAD&#8217;s technical data on Santa&#8217;s sleigh contains several other interesting tidbits. It notes the sleigh is armed with &#8220;purely defensive&#8221; antlers. NORAD also claims Santa weighs 260 pounds at the beginning of his annual mission and gains 1,000 pounds during his flight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Read NORAD&#8217;s complete &#8220;technical data&#8221; on Santa&#8217;s sleigh below.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><tbody><tr><td>Designer &amp; Builder<\/td><td>K. Kringle &amp; Elves, Inc.<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Probable First Flight<\/td><td>Dec. 24, 343 C.E.<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Home Base<\/td><td>North Pole<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Length<\/td><td>75 cc (candy canes) \/ 150 lp (lollipops)<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Width<\/td><td>40 cc \/ 80 lp<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Height<\/td><td>55 cc \/ 110 lp<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Note: Length, width and height are without reindeer<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Weight at takeoff<\/td><td>75,000 gd (gumdrops)<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Passenger weight at takeoff<\/td><td>Santa Claus 260 pounds<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Weight of gifts at takeoff<\/td><td>60,000 tons<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Weight at landing<\/td><td>80,000 gd (ice &amp; snow accumulation)<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Passenger weight at landing<\/td><td>1,260 pounds<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Propulsion<\/td><td>Nine (9) rp (reindeer power)<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Armament<\/td><td>Antlers (purely defensive)<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Fuel<\/td><td>Hay, oats and carrots (for reindeer)<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Emissions<\/td><td>Classified<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Climbing speed<\/td><td>One \u201cT\u201d (Twinkle of an eye)<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Max speed<\/td><td>Faster than starlight&nbsp;<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President Biden suggested the US military&#8217;s C-130 transport aircraft is &#8220;a little more efficient than Santa&#8217;s sleigh&#8221;. Biden\u2019s assessment of Santa&#8217;s technical capabilities was clearly incorrect.&nbsp; Lakeland Gazette reached out&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28027,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[4077,4078],"class_list":["post-28026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-norad-releases-specs-on-santas-sleigh","tag-which-goes-faster-than-starlight-and-runs-on-hay"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}