[BITList] Fwd: Wanna fly with me? How 'Bout a Dash of "Airdash"?!!

[John Feltham]

Friday, Oct 16, 2009 00:07 PDT
Watch the pilot!

View the landing of a Boeing 767, from the cockpit. Behold the glory  
of approach lights at dawn. Plus: A tutorial
By Patrick Smith
This article has been edited since original publication.

Screenshot from Patrick Smith
Approaching a runway at dawn
Something new this week: videos! This lofts us to a whole new level.  
For nearly a tenth of a century, Ask the Pilot has virtually defined  
the vanguard of artistic and technological innovation on the Web, but  
always it lacked a certain visual flourish. Starting today, my usual  
savvy explanations are enriched by the thrilling accompaniment of  
choppy, low-resolution video, coming to you live, as it were, from the  
cockpit.

Would there be a problem with hooking up a nose camera so we could  
experience the same view as the pilots? It'd be very cool to see the  
takeoff and landing as the cockpit crew sees it.

A number of airlines already have this, connected to the seat-back  
screens on their 777 or Airbus series aircraft. I've experienced it  
myself on at least two carriers -- Air France and Emirates. On  
Emirates, the system allows you to switch back and forth between a  
nose view and one that points straight down, showing what the plane is  
passing over. (The latter resulted in a rather silly controversy in  
Britain when nude backyard sunbathers worried that overflying  
passengers were getting a free peep show.) Iberia Airlines is among  
those offering a backward-facing view -- a somewhat dizzying  
perspective that lets you see the departure runway slowly falling away.

I am not aware of any U.S. airlines with these features. Which is too  
bad. Behold the glory of approach lights at dawn in this one-minute  
video.

Otherwise, the closest we have anymore is the audio feed on United  
Airlines, which allows you to eavesdrop on the conversation between  
pilots and air traffic control. They call it "channel 9" in honor of  
its position in your armrest dial. It's either fascinating or  
tediously indecipherable, depending on your level of infatuation with  
flight. It is sometimes unavailable, at the crew's discretion, because  
of the unfriendly letters people send and the litigation they threaten  
when it's perceived the pilots have made some "mistake." Also,  
passengers not familiar with the vernacular may misinterpret a  
transmission and assume nonexistent or exaggerated troubles. Let's say  
a controller is spacing a series of aircraft and asks, "United 537,  
um, do you think you can make it?" This is a query pertaining to  
whether a plane can hit a specific height or speed at a specific fix.  
Depending on the controller's intonation, or the pilot's reply -- "No,  
I don't think so" -- such innocuous exchanges might have a passenger  
bursting into tears and picturing his wife and children.

Continue Reading
In the late 1970s, American Airlines had cameras in the cockpits of  
its DC-10s that would allow you to watch the crew performing takeoffs  
and landings. I remember seeing it a few times as a kid. How quaint  
the idea seems today. The footage was grainy, projected on the old- 
fashioned bulkhead movie screens. It looked something like this.

Note the fellow with the baseball cap and glasses. Pilots often wear  
ball caps while flying because it helps with the glare.

Our flight was delayed for two hours because they couldn't find a  
captain. Initially we were told he was en route from a different  
concourse, but then it changed to "We don't have a captain." How can  
an airline schedule a flight without a captain?

They can't and wouldn't. The scheduling matrix at a large carrier is  
highly complex, and crews will sometimes interchange, "connecting"  
much the way passengers do -- the captain arriving on one flight; the  
first officer from another. And because of earlier delays, one of  
those pilots might be subject to flight or duty-time restrictions  
while the other is not. With delays so unpredictable, last-minute  
substitutions aren't uncommon, which might entail having to call in a  
pilot from at-home reserve. These situations are often dumbed down  
into the likes of "We don't have a captain."

I've noticed that when cleared for takeoff, a plane's engines seem to  
increase thrust slightly, then level off, then go to full power three  
or four seconds later. It's like they are warming up for a moment. Is  
this correct?

Yes. This isn't the procedure for all engine types, but it is for many  
of them, including those on the planes that I fly. We accelerate the  
engines to a prescribed RPM, allow them to stabilize for a few  
seconds, then advance them toward takeoff power. At a certain point,  
the auto-throttle system takes over and fine-tunes the thrust.

Southwest was running a commercial that said its Boeing 737s fly at  
"an average speed of 590 miles per hour." That doesn't seem right to  
me. It sounds awfully fast.

It depends on whether they're talking nautical miles or statute, and  
true airspeed, indicated airspeed or groundspeed. Confused already?  
Keep reading...

The speed at which a plane is moving through air or relative to the  
ground isn't necessarily the speed a pilot reads from the cockpit  
airspeed gauges. They can all be different, and usually they are.

What the pilot sees on the primary cockpit speed gauge is called  
indicated airspeed (IAS). This is the basic reference for all flight  
maneuvering. This value does not account for changes in temperature  
and pressure, however, both of which, as a rule, drop as altitude  
climbs. Adjusting for this phenomenon gives us something called true  
airspeed (TAS). Imagine two airplanes. One is flying at 1,000 feet,  
the other at 30,000 feet. Both are showing 200 knots (nautical miles  
per hour) on their airspeed gauges. As far as the aircraft themselves  
are concerned -- in terms of the amounts of lift, drag and wind  
resistance -- both are traveling at exactly the same speed. However,  
the plane at 30,000 feet is actually traveling much, much faster  
through the air -- some 60 percent faster. But because the high- 
altitude atmosphere is thinner, the plane isn't "feeling" it. (TAS is  
never a fixed value. Because temperature and pressure can vary at any  
given altitude, so does TAS.)

Indicated speed is used as the standard reference rather than true  
airspeed, because this is what the airplane "feels." Stalls, takeoff  
and landing speeds, and various performance limitations are all  
predicated on IAS.

You've also got groundspeed to consider -- your velocity relative to  
the surface. Speed through the air and speed over the ground can be  
substantially different, dependent mostly on whether there's a  
headwind or a tailwind. Heck, you can point a small Cessna into a  
strong headwind and actually fly backward relative to the ground,  
still with a healthy IAS or TAS on the gauges.

Here's my cockpit demo on the various airspeed differences, shot  
recently on a flight coming from Europe.

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Friday, Jul 31, 2009 03:30 PDT
Information: The good, the bad and the ugly

Airworthy planes, "dangerous" airports, and baby talk from the cockpit
By Patrick Smith

Courtesy of Anthony Guerra
747 landing at Princess Juliana airport, St. Maarten.
After landing, our flight was met by a fire engine and ambulances. The  
pilots offered no explanation, and we never learned what had happened.  
Is there a protocol against telling passengers about certain  
malfunctions or emergencies to avoid causing alarm?

There is a widespread belief that airlines intentionally withhold  
information when something goes wrong. In reality, there is no formal  
policy against advising passengers about the nature or extent of any  
problem, other than common-sense stipulations to avoid inflammatory  
words and descriptions that might induce undue worry or panic. That's  
not to say that pilots will let you know about every burned-out light  
bulb or minor technical issue, but if anything occurs that poses a  
potential hazard, you will hear about it. This needs to be the case,  
for the purpose of evacuation planning, etc.

Continue Reading
As for why this particular crew said nothing, I have no idea.  
Certainly the presence of fire trucks or ambulances warrants an  
explanation, regardless of the reason. It may have been a passenger  
medical issue, and even minor mechanical or electrical malfunctions  
can result in the calling out of emergency vehicles -- as in this  
story -- but that is not an excuse for staying silent. Personally, I  
can't imagine a crew not offering an announcement in such a scenario.

Though, for what it's worth, I've noticed that carriers are becoming  
increasingly lazy with respect to public announcements in general,  
especially during delays. I was on a flight a couple of weeks ago that  
was delayed for almost two hours thanks to air traffic. There was no  
apology from anybody, at the gate or on the plane. No matter the cause  
of the delay, that's just not acceptable.

Or maybe it's better that way, judging from the vapidity of most  
airline P.A. efforts. Every time that microphone crackles, mostly what  
we hear is choreographed baby talk. Eyes begin to roll every time a  
customer service agent or crew member opens his or her mouth. Even the  
most basic broadcasts are heavily fortressed: the campy legal-speak  
theater of the cabin safety demo, the squeally condescension of the  
thanks-for-flying-with-us pitch. Anomalies are typically reworded,  
intentionally or otherwise, into a lexicon of infantile explanations.  
Turbulence becomes "a couple of bumps up ahead," the complexities of  
air traffic control delays are reduced to "waitin' for some rain  
showers to pass."

The desire is to avoid confusion, keep things topical, and never, ever  
insinuate danger. The result is the shaking of heads and a propensity,  
often enough, not to believe a word of it.

In that sense, an airline P.A. is a lot like a political sound bite.

Are your ears ringing? The above snippet is taken from an old column I  
did on airline P.A. madness. You can read it here.

I'm a nervous flier planning a trip this fall to St. Maarten. I was  
keeping my anxieties in check, but then I stumbled onto this list of  
what are supposedly the most dangerous airports in the world. Sure  
enough, St. Maarten's Princess Juliana airport is there! Tell me it  
isn't so.

It isn't so.

Princess Juliana International (SXM) is famous for the thrilling views  
it provides of arriving flights. Plane spotters and gawkers gather at  
Maho Beach, where the threshold of the airport's single runway extends  
nearly to the tide line, providing a spectacular, if earsplitting,  
view of giant jetliners passing just a few feet overhead.

But the aircraft arrive on a standard glide path. It just happens  
there's a public beach unusually close by. Really it's not much  
different from the arrivals into numerous other airports --  
LaGuardia's Runway 04, for instance, where a highway passes just shy  
of the threshold. At SXM there's the novelty of its being a tropical  
beach instead of a roadway, and the fact that some very large aircraft  
(747s, A340s, etc.) make regular appearances.

The Listphobia page above contains many distortions, exaggerations and  
just plain nonsense. Of SXM it says: "The airport is famous for its  
short runway … at only 2,400 meters it is barely long enough for heavy  
jets to land."

Not true. At 2,400 meters, or 7,800 feet, the runway is longer than  
those at LaGuardia and Washington-National, among others, providing  
ample room for pretty much any jet to land. Takeoff presents some  
complications, but nothing flights can't safely adjust for. Longer- 
haul flights out of SXM are usually weight-restricted. Legally, there  
must always be enough room for a plane to safely stop on a runway  
after accelerating to a point just below takeoff speed. If need be,  
flights will reduce payload to ensure these and other parameters are  
met.

"Therefore," the description continues, "incoming airplanes  
approaching the island have to fly extremely low."

That is also untrue. Pilots do not fly lower approaches because a  
runway is shorter than normal. The low passes over the beach are  
simply due to its being very close to the threshold. The glide angle  
is normal.

Listphobia collectively describes the airports on its list -- which  
also include Hong Kong's Kai Tak airport, closed for several years --  
as "an airline pilot's worst nightmare." That is, if you'll permit me,  
bullshit. If any airport were remotely nightmarish, no sane airline  
pilot would fly there. Some commercial airports are more challenging  
than others, sure, but none are dangerous.

(Man, when it comes to aviation, the amount of misinformation out  
there is truly stupefying. Making it worse, Listphobia refused to post  
my explanations in its comments section.)

The picture at the front of this column was taken at SXM by Anthony  
Guerra, who lives in France and who traveled to the island earlier  
this year specifically to photograph planes from Maho Beach. This is  
probably my favorite of the hundreds of Maho Beach shots in the  
archives at www.airliners.net. I don't want readers to spend all day  
there looking at pictures instead of reading Salon, but I'd be doing a  
disservice not to include a few other links:

How about this one :



Or here :



Through the cabin window it  looks like this :



And from a cockpit, like this :





If these landings are unsafe for anybody, it's the sunbathers and  
swimmers. You'd be advised to hit the sand to keep clear of jet blast  
and the swirling vortices from a 747's wingtip. Indeed the beach is  
posted with signs warning visitors of those very hazards.

At least one shot from the Airliners archives does seem to show a jet  
touching down a hair short of the threshold markings -- something that  
is very much not supposed to happen. Maybe it's a perspective thing,  
but check out this jaw-clenching shot, and note the figures cowering  
behind the chain link fence :



That one really gives you some sense of the size of a 747 -- though  
this is one perspective you should hope never to see in person.

On a recent Delta flight to Philadelphia, several passengers refused  
to board when they noticed, as one source put it, that "a part of the  
wing was missing." Care to clarify?

What was missing wasn't a part of the wing; it was a fairing. Those  
long, canoe-shaped pods that stick from the back of a wing are called  
fairings -- aerodynamic coverings that streamline the airflow around  
the flap mechanisms inside. Here you can see four of them,  
conveniently illuminated on the starboard wing of an Air France jet :





Their function is chiefly superficial, though when they're missing  
there might be a slight fuel-burn penalty. The wing itself is not  
affected, and the flaps can extend and retract normally.

Whether one or more fairings can be missing, and what the penalty  
might be, is spelled out in the plane's CDL (configuration deviation  
list). An airplane's technical bible consists of two books: the CDL,  
and something called the Minimum Equipment List (MEL). Together they  
spell out precisely which parts and components -- even components of  
components -- may be AWOL for a given flight. They specify when, under  
what flight conditions, and for how long. The asterisks and  
restrictions can be extensive.

Usually if a fairing, or portion of a fairing, is missing, it was  
removed for some maintenance-related purpose. It's not that they fall  
off. (Here in Boston, a wing flap panel once fell from a British  
Airways 747 and crashed onto somebody's car in Revere. Late 1970s I  
think that was.)

Getting back to that photo, the pronged, V-shaped doodad on the  
wingtip is called a winglet. They too can sometimes be granted a CDL  
waiver, depending on the aircraft model. Winglets are occasionally  
damaged by ground equipment or lightning strikes.

Winglets come in different shapes and sizes -- some are tall and  
rakishly canted; others are more modest -- but their function is  
basically the same: At the tip of a wing, the higher pressure beneath  
meets the lower pressure above, resulting in a turbulent discharge of  
air. The winglet smooths this mixing, decreasing drag and, in turn,  
improving range and efficiency.

Because planes have different aerodynamic fingerprints, winglets  
aren't cost-effective on all models. You'll notice the 747-400, A330  
and A340 have them, but the 777 does not. On others, like the 737-800  
and 757, they're available as an option. An airline must consider if  
the long-term fuel savings is worth the cost of installation. It  
depends on the type of flying its aircraft are typically engaged in.  
In Japan, Boeing sold a number of 747-400s, used specifically on short- 
range pairings by JAL and All Nippon, with the winglets removed.

It fills me with despair that people refused to board that flight to  
Philadelphia over something so minor. The jet was perfectly airworthy.  
Though from an airline P.R. point of view, I'm not sure which is more  
of a potential black eye, a fairing that's been removed, or one that  
looks like this :




That picture, sent in by an agonized passenger, ran in a column  
several years back. A similar picture was making the Internet rounds a  
few weeks ago, so let's revisit. What you're looking at is the  
perfectly safe and legal application of heavy-duty aluminum bonding  
tape, called "speed tape" in a mechanic's lexicon. Depending on what a  
plane's maintenance manual stipulates -- the manual itself being under  
the aegis of the FAA -- certain noncritical components, such as the  
flap fairing shown, can be temporarily patched with this material.  
Embarrassing as it looks, it has virtually no bearing on safety. The  
tape is extremely durable and is able to expand and contract through a  
wide range of temperatures.

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Thursday, Feb 22, 2007 04:57 PST
  Ask The Pilot
Ask the pilot

There's no excuse for locking people in a grounded plane for 10 hours.  
But is legislation the way to fix the problem?
By Patrick Smith

Last Wednesday, after a midwinter snow and ice storm slammed the  
northeastern United States, hundreds of JetBlue passengers at New  
York's JFK airport were stranded aboard grounded aircraft for as long  
as 10 hours. The incident made front-page news nationwide and has kept  
the talk shows busy for more than a week -- another glistening black  
eye for the beleaguered industry Americans love to hate.

Regrettably, we've seen this before. In late December, a massive storm  
system caused a similar drama to unfold at American Airlines. Nearly a  
hundred flights headed to that carrier's Dallas-Fort Worth megahub  
were diverted to other cities, where in some cases there were  
inadequate facilities and staff to handle them. One of those  
diversions, Flight 1348, sat on the tarmac at Austin, Texas, for more  
than eight hours. And perhaps most notorious of all, seven years ago  
in Detroit, thousands were stuck aboard Northwest Airlines planes for  
up to 11 hours during a New Year's weekend blizzard. These and other  
incidents have left people shocked, outraged and dismayed. Why,  
exactly, do such things happen? How are such preposterous situations  
allowed to develop?

The short answer is: I don't know, and I'm as appalled as you are. If  
you find it hard to imagine any plausible reason for locking people in  
a ground-bound plane for 10 hours, so do I, and frankly there isn't  
one. Such breakdowns are abhorrent and inexcusable.

The long answer mostly involves the capricious nature of weather and  
air traffic delays. It requires an understanding of the typical  
airline's interdepartmental communications and an acknowledgment of  
the vastness of the typical airline's network . Taking that last one  
first, a single large airline operates hundreds of planes,  
transporting hundreds of thousands of people daily across continents  
and oceans. Even little JetBlue, the 12th-largest carrier in the  
United States, flies some 50,000 people a day using more than a  
hundred aircraft. Whether in spite of or because of this, when things  
go bad, they sometimes go really bad.

Continue Reading
When a storm hits, there are two kinds of delays. The first is a  
material delay -- the physical slowdown that inevitably results when  
human beings are forced to perform their duties in harsher than normal  
conditions. Once the snow begins to fall, planes tend to be late  
taking off for the same reasons that people tend to be late getting to  
work or school: We move more slowly; our vehicles move more slowly;  
aircraft need to be de-iced, and in some cases de-iced again. And so  
forth.

The second kind, which is usually more serious and harder to predict,  
is the air traffic control delay. Storms hinder the flow of traffic  
both locally (on and in the vicinity of the airport) and en route  
(along the high-altitude flyways that connect cities). Even in ideal  
weather the skies are crowded and delays common; throw in any number  
of specific meteorological complications -- icing, low runway  
visibility, strong crosswinds, possible wind shear, slick surfaces,  
etc. -- alone or in combination, and you've greatly reduced the number  
of allowable arrivals and departures. You can blame the ATC system  
itself -- one that has been glacially slow to adapt and modernize --  
or you can blame the carriers that attempt to cram too many flights  
into already saturated airspace. Regardless, aircraft need to be  
choreographed into complicated instrument approach patterns;  
crosswinds or low visibility might render one or more runways  
unusable, and as local traffic backs up, the effects are soon felt  
hundreds, even thousands of miles away. A plane headed to New York  
City might be asked to fly a holding pattern over Pittsburgh. Or, as  
happens quite commonly, controllers issue "ground stop" orders  
preventing planes from ever leaving the gate.

What makes ATC postponements maddening to airlines and passengers  
alike is their fluidity. They change hour to hour, minute to minute.  
Typical scenario: A crew is preparing for a noontime departure from  
Washington to Chicago. Passengers are loaded, the aircraft is fueled,  
the checklists are complete. Suddenly, owing to a line of thunderheads  
somewhere above Ohio, there comes word of a ground stop. The pilots  
are assigned a "wheels up" time of 2 p.m., or two hours hence.  
Passengers are asked to disembark, with the plan to reboard at  
approximately 1:30. But then, 15 minutes later, ATC calls back with a  
revised time: The plane is cleared for departure immediately.  
Unfortunately, the passengers have all wandered off, to browse in the  
bookstore or have coffee at Starbucks.

Once a flight misses its ATC departure window, it usually goes back to  
the end of the queue and the clock starts again. And once that  
happens, the dominoes fall faster and harder. Pilots and flight  
attendants, remember, are subject to federally enforced flight and  
duty time limits. Once large numbers of crews begin timing out, it  
sends a ripple effect through a carrier's entire operational matrix  
that can last for days, affecting millions of fliers and costing  
millions of dollars.

So, while nobody enjoys sitting on a taxiway for long periods, keeping  
everybody together and at the ready often saves time in the long run.  
Ten hours? That's excessive and nobody denies it, but this is the  
thinking process that occasionally allows manageable situations to,  
yes, snowball out of hand.

Airlines coordinate delays both on-site and remotely. At or near  
company headquarters is the carrier's operational control center,  
where teams of dispatchers, flight controllers, meteorologists and  
crew schedulers work in a huge room that looks like NASA control.  
Locally at the terminal, the highest-level employee is somebody called  
the station manager. On paper this would seem to be a straightforward  
and efficient flow of command. In practice, information makes its way  
through a series of departments, each with its own expertise, its own  
lingo, and to some extent its own needs and priorities. What appears  
in one department to be a simple solution to a simple problem might  
not appear that way to somebody else down the line. This is where  
experience can really make a difference. As things unfolded at  
JetBlue, its bare-bones communications network left both employees and  
passengers in the dark.

And as information is passed along, there's plenty to lose in  
translation. Explaining delays to the public isn't easy. In the heat  
of battle, some carriers do it better than others. What the passenger  
finally hears crackling over the public address system at the gate, or  
inside the airplane, may or may not represent the entire story. (And  
the various personnel can be mighty territorial: Several years ago I  
was the captain of a commuter plane victimized by a snowstorm at  
Boston's Logan airport. Our 20 or so passengers were confused, and the  
gate staff did little to make things clear. So, there in the boarding  
lounge, I asked for people's attention and began to explain what was  
happening. Maybe I got too in-depth with the definitions of things  
like "wheels-up time," but a few seconds later came some loud  
footsteps and a voice behind me asking, "What the hell does this  
asshole think he's doing?" It was the station manager.)

Bear in mind that crews do not enjoy being stranded any more than  
passengers do. Cynical fliers have remarked that pilots and cabin  
attendants enjoy long delays because they're able to collect overtime  
pay. Without getting into the nitty-gritty of how crews are (or  
aren't) compensated, this is nonsense. If you're envisioning a pair of  
pilots up there in the cockpit, rubbing their hands and making that  
annoying cash register sound, believe me, nothing is further from the  
truth. A single extended delay can disrupt a pilot's entire monthly  
rotation, costing him dearly.

And although the captain has absolute authority over the aircraft and  
its occupants, there is only so much he or she can do if, quite  
simply, there is no place to go and no place to park. At JFK last  
Wednesday, apparently all gates were occupied and a number of aircraft  
had become frozen in their parked positions. You're forgiven for  
wondering why passengers couldn't be bused or otherwise escorted into  
the terminal, but if for whatever reason, good or bad, that is not an  
option, is the crew supposed to usher people down the escape slide and  
out onto the tarmac unattended? The captain would likely be arrested,  
prosecuted and fired.

(A number of readers have asked what might happen if passengers, on  
their own volition, organize a mutiny and pop an exit. I'm somewhat  
surprised this hasn't happened yet, but suffice it to say, the airport  
police would be extremely unhappy and you'd probably be responsible  
for the expense of restowing the emergency escape slide. Also, it's a  
long way down and those slides are very steep, so you're liable to get  
hurt.)

Carrier culpability, meanwhile, has become a highly contentious issue.  
Northwest Airlines eventually paid more than $7 million to settle a  
class action lawsuit for the 1999 Detroit fiasco, which included  
charges of "unlawful imprisonment," but admitted no wrongdoing.  
American Airlines said it was sorry for the Dallas debacle and issued  
thousands of $500 vouchers, pointing out that the storms that swept  
across Texas were the worst in 20 years. And JetBlue, an airline that  
prides itself on straight talk and good customer service, has publicly  
apologized for what happened at JFK. Founder and CEO David Neeleman  
called himself "humiliated and mortified." Days later his airline was  
still canceling dozens of flights and trying to reorganize, admitting  
it had badly underestimated the storm's potential impact, choosing to  
stick with a full schedule while competitors had been canceling  
departures and rerouting ticket holders in advance. JetBlue says it  
will soon unveil a "customer bill of rights" guaranteeing compensation  
to its passengers in the event of a sequel.

Neeleman's mea culpa was as swift, heartfelt and forthright as anyone  
could ask for. It was also designed, in part, to help stave off more  
binding resolutions soon to be put forth by politicians. Sen. Barbara  
Boxer and Rep. Mike Thompson of California will formally introduce  
versions of the oft-called Passenger Bill of Rights to the U.S.  
Congress in the next few weeks. Their legislation would, among other  
things, offer passengers the option of leaving any airplane delayed on  
the ground more than three hours after its doors are closed.

That certainly sounds reasonable, but although the proposal is well  
intended, it's wrongheaded for at least a couple of reasons. First,  
deplaning even one passenger requires a return to the gate, the  
possible offloading of luggage, and the very real danger of a flight  
missing its departure slot, subjecting those who remain to a  
substantially longer wait. It's never fun, but there are times when  
sitting on a plane for three and a half hours is the better alternative.

But more important, let me ask you this: Is the call center at my bank  
obligated under federal law to answer its phones in a certain amount  
of time? When UPS delivers a package late, is it beholden by an act of  
Congress to make amends? And so on. I'm not one of those people who  
believe the free market should be left to its own Darwinian devices  
every time, but it sets a bad precedent, and it's a very slippery  
slope, once we start legislating what is effectively customer service.

Additionally, these laws would go beyond the issue of delays to  
address matters like misdirected luggage and overbooking -- things  
already covered by the laws of common carriage, if not common sense,  
as outlined in the fine print on your ticket. Should we legislate  
legroom too? What about seat width and a law covering pillows and  
blankets? Apparently it's open season on the airlines; how petulant  
can we get? Well, last year, Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York came up  
with something called the Air Travel Delay Awareness Act of 2006,  
stipulating that carriers "make available to the public information  
regarding the delay of a scheduled passenger flight not later than 10  
minutes after such information is available."

Sorry, Chuck, but if you feel that an airline hasn't given you the  
proper information at the precise moment you'd like it, you should  
take your business to one of its competitors. And if you're that  
worked up over delays, you should begin by addressing their root  
causes -- an outmoded ATC system, and airline scheduling practices. In  
the meantime, if you or anybody else feels that you've been violated,  
"kidnapped," held against your will, or had your civil rights trampled  
upon, you are welcome to sue.

Contrary to popular assumption, airlines are not sadists intent on  
imprisoning their customers. No lone individual at JetBlue or any  
other airline comes to the sort of decision you might imagine: "Yes,  
we will lock people in that airplane without food, water or clean  
lavatories." It doesn't happen that way. It's a chain of errors and a  
combination of circumstances both within and beyond a carrier's control.

Don't get me wrong. As a pilot and avid traveler, I was offended by  
what happened in New York last week, and regardless of whether such  
breakdowns are entirely their fault, airlines need to realize the  
string is out. If they have any hope of winning back the public's  
trust and beating back mandatory regulations, they first and foremost  
need to communicate better. Their patrons don't want apologies and  
vouchers after the fact. They want timely information and timely  
decisions.

However, collapses like the one at JetBlue are the rare exception.  
More than 2 million Americans fly every day. The vast majority of them  
get to where they are going in an acceptable amount of time, in near- 
perfect safety, for a ridiculously low price. Airfares, adjusted for  
inflation, continue to hover near or around where they were 25 years  
ago, and that $179 you just paid for a trip to Florida equates to  
about 8 cents a mile. Airlines face razor-thin margins and cannot  
provide inexpensive tickets and top-notch service at the same time. By  
no means does that grant any carrier an abrogation of basic  
responsibility, but it reminds us to keep things in perspective.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Thursday, Jan 15, 2009 15:45 PST
  Ask The Pilot
Ask the pilot

Most bird strikes don't cause damage, but they can be disastrous.  
Thursday's accident ended well because of good luck and brilliant  
flying.
By Patrick Smith
This story has been updated since it was originally published.
The US Airways accident in New York City occurred after deadline for  
this week's column. Something tells me that an article about airport  
terminals would seem distressingly inappropriate after what happened  
on Thursday afternoon, so we're shelving the finished piece until next  
Friday.

 From what is known thus far, the US Airways Airbus A320 that crashed  
in the Hudson River Thursday afternoon encountered a flock of birds  
shortly after takeoff from La Guardia airport, presumably suffering  
substantial damage to both of its engines. Because of the plane's low  
altitude, it was unable to reach a suitable airport for an emergency  
landing, gliding instead to a splash-down in the river.

Birdstrikes, as they're called, are fairly common and seldom harmful  
(unless, of course you're talking from the bird's point of view). I've  
experienced many strikes in the course of my flying career. The damage  
in each case was a minor dent or superficial crease, if anything at  
all. Aircraft components are built to tolerate such impacts.

I've seen videos of bird carcasses being fired from a sort of chicken  
cannon to test the resistance of windshields, intakes and so forth.  
Occasionally, however, strikes can be serious, or even deadly --  
especially when engines are involved.

Modern jet turbofans are powerful and resilient, but they don't take  
kindly to the ingestion of foreign objects, particularly those  
slamming into their rotating blades at high rates of speed. The  
innards of a jet engine are essentially a series of interconnected  
fans -- compressors and turbines -- spinning at thousands of RPM. Bend  
or snap one of the many internal blades, disrupting airflow or  
throwing an assembly off-balance, and the results can be anything from  
a mild burble to a series of violent stalls to a total power loss. In  
rare cases, a badly damaged engine can even come apart -- a so-called  
"uncontained failure."

The larger the bird, obviously, the greater the potential for harm.  
Most species weigh less than a pound, but imagine a wild turkey, a  
vulture or, as was reported to be the case Thursday, a goose. Or two.  
Or imagine a whole flock of them.

Flying at 250 knots -- in the U.S., that's the maximum allowable speed  
below 10,000 feet -- hitting an average-size Canada goose will subject  
a plane to an impact force of more than 50,000 pounds.

In 1995, a military jet crashed in Alaska after losing two engines in  
an encounter with geese. Some colleagues of mine once hit a small  
flock of guinea fowl on takeoff at Port-au-Prince, Haiti. They  
diverted their DC-8 to Santo Domingo with two of its four engines  
surging and overheating.

And so I’m not terribly surprised by what happened. We were due,  
perhaps.

News coverage, meanwhile, is abuzz over the apparent heroics of the US  
Airways pilots, and maybe you are wondering how pilots are trained  
when it comes to putting a plane down in water.

They aren’t, per se. There are procedures in the book, but ditchings,  
as they’re called, are not regularly rehearsed in simulators. Not only  
are they exceptionally unlikely, but more critical than the ditching  
itself is dealing with the emergency that causes it -- multiple engine  
failures, a fire, or some other unfortunate scenario. As for hitting  
the water, the gist is to do so slowly and gently, with the nose at  
more or less the typical landing angle, wings level, and avoiding  
heavy swells.

The U.S. Airways jet remained in one piece Thursday and everybody on  
board survived -- indicators of a superb job by the flight crew under  
extremely urgent conditions. (And to clarify something that the rest  
of the media is predictably screwing up: there were two pilots in the  
cockpit -- a captain and a first officer. Both were fully qualified to  
operate the aircraft in all regimes of flight, and both are  
responsible for the outcome.) They were able to maintain control and,  
it seems, hit the water at as slow a speed as possible. Had they hit  
too hard and broken apart, we'd be looking for bodies.

Luck too played a role: It was daylight, visibility was good and the  
pilots were able to choose a suitable, albeit hardly ideal location to  
put the plane down. Darkness, poor weather or just the slightest  
change of location, and the result could easily have been  
catastrophic. This was, in a way, both worst-case and best-case  
scenario.

While not to downplay the seriousness of what happened -- or what  
could have happened -- I will ask the media to please refrain from  
spinning this accident into too-big a spectacle. I’m annoyed by the  
consistent references to "a miracle." By all accounts the pilots did  
an exemplary job in a very dangerous situation, and the results were  
quite fortunate, but they did what they  had to do, and what they  
weretrained to do. To hyperdramatize the event is, I think, to cheapen  
it. "Miracle" is an especially loaded word, and although not everybody  
means it literally, the pretense of supernatural intervention is  
tedious and insulting to those whose job it is to investigate airline  
accidents, and also to the thousands of victims of prior accidents who  
weren't so lucky. Granted, a jetliner crashing into the Hudson River  
is going to be, and should be, a major story. But some perspective,  
please. Nobody was killed.

In a lot of ways, the lack of fatalities and mostly successful outcome  
should underscore just how safe flying is. Somewhere on the order of  
15,000 commercial flights depart every day in this country, and yet  
two full years have elapsed since our last commercial airline  
fatality. That's a record. More than seven years since the last large- 
scale crash. Also a record.

Training, technology and, yes, plain old luck are all to thank, but  
it's astonishing if you think about it, and quite the irony: In a time  
when airlines have lost all respect, staggering through years of  
financial ruin, they have nonetheless maintained an impeccable  
standard of safety.

And lastly, let this be something of a lesson for those passengers who  
ignore those pre-takeoff safety briefings, scoffing at the seeming  
impossibility of a water landing. I know, the briefings are too long,  
too wordy and too bogged down with legal-ese and minutiae -- but there  
is good information in there, from the location and operation of the  
exits to the proper use of flotation devices.

________________________________________

Contrast this with what happened to my former neighbour, Capt  
R.P.Bhalla of IA. We got to know each other thus : I still go jogging  
with my dog (it used to be with six dogs when I lived on a coffee  
plantation!) and, back in the early 90's in Madras, it used to be with  
my black Lab, Tito. Capt B who lived close by had a Lab and a Goldie  
on a leash (walking, as he was too portly and roly poly to other than  
walk at a stately pace), with a pair of mongrels (also his) trotting  
at a respectful distance behind but free agents (i.e, not leashed)!

It was hard enough for me to jog on while deterring Tito's tendency  
to  stop to check pee mails along the way but doggie encounters of the  
close kind, such as with the Bhalla troupe, were unstoppable. Whilst  
catching my breath (and thus learning good neighbourliness from Tito),  
the Captain and I would swap dog lore and it led on to a few cockpit  
rides for me whenever I flew in one of his A 300's.

But I moved to Bahrain in 92 and the below is an account of what  
happened in late 93. He no longer lives in Madras and I have lost  
touch with him but this is how a fine pilot who saved over a 100 lives  
was treated:




Friday , February 20 , 2009 |

A TALE OF TWO LANDINGS
Abhijit Bhattacharyya
It indeed was a miraculous escape for Airbus 320 that crash landed on  
the Hudson on January 15. Since not a single fatality was reported and  
all the passengers were rescued, Captain Chesley Sullenberger of the  
US Airways deserves the compliments that have been coming his way from  
commoners as well as the high and mighty in the United States of  
America.

In fact, while turning the pages of history of air crashes during the  
last 50 years, one rarely found such a spectacular instance of non- 
fatal, yet unavoidable, crash landing on water. On most occasions, air  
crashes occur at the take-off course or landing funnel, resulting in a  
fall from air to ground. Given the speed of an aeroplane, and the  
consequential velocity of descent, the majority of air crashes is  
fatal or near-fatal.

Seen in this context, one has to admire Sullenburger’s unique feat.  
However, without underestimating his heroic act, one must also remind  
the world that exactly 15 years ago, an Indian pilot, Captain Ram P.  
Bhalla, flying an Airbus 300, force-landed in paddy fields near the  
Tirupati airfield. As in 2009, all 262 passengers and crew on board  
survived. Unlike Sullenberger, however, the Indian pilot never got any  
appreciation from any quarter. Far from showing gratitude, the  
Directorate General Civil Aviation of India pulled up Captain Bhalla  
for wrong judgment and miscalculation. He was barred from flying for  
days and remained on ground without being put onto a flight roster.

Captain Bhalla’s plane was to land at Hyderabad. With 250 passengers  
and 12 crew members, the plane weighed 140 tons. The drama began when  
flight IC 440 started descending. The visibility — known as runway  
visual range or RVR —dropped drastically, thereby stopping operations  
at the Hyderabad airport temporarily. Unable to sight the runway at  
decision height — the altitude at which one starts the final approach  
to touchdown — the commander carried out a “go-around.” Misfortune  
struck soon thereafter, as the aircraft’s flaps, the movable surface  
forming part of the wing to exert pressure on lift as well as on pre- 
touch down manoeuvres, failed to retract from the fully extended  
position. Unable to free the flaps and finding that the visibility at  
the two nearby airfields was even worse than at Hyderabad, the  
commander decided to divert back to Madras.

Different approach

Owing to the aircraft’s jammed flaps, its airspeed had to be limited  
to a maximum of 180 knots. Flying in this configuration at a height of  
15,000-17,000 feet above mean sea level dramatically increased the  
aircraft’s fuel consumption. As the aircraft’s fuel was insufficient  
to reach Madras, the commander sought assistance from Madras Control  
in navigating the plane to Tirupati. However, with very little fuel  
left, the flight force-landed in a paddy field near Tirupati.  
Expectedly, the aircraft suffered irreparable damage, but the  
occupants were evacuated safely. With the exception of 8 passengers,  
the others were unhurt.

Despite the astounding landing, Captain Bhalla’s actions were  
questioned and criticized. Critics said that he should not have  
proceeded to Madras, and instead hovered over Hyderabad. It was also  
said that during the attempted diversion to Madras, the Captain and  
his flight crew failed to make a proper assessment of fuel available  
and missed the opportunity to return to Hyderabad or divert to  
Vijaywada while it was still possible. The court of inquiry concluded  
that the “accident was caused by human failure and it was  
preventable....”

The incident clearly shows that Indians, unlike Americans, love to  
belittle their heroic countrymen. The difference in approach of the  
two nations towards two unprecedented non-fatal aircraft crashes is  
too conspicuous to be ignored.

Tuesday, Jun 2, 2009 08:03 PDT
  Ask The Pilot
Why the Air France plane crashed

Flight 447 shouldn't have gone down, but it did. Were normally non- 
dangerous phenomena the culprits?
By Patrick Smith

Reuters/Gonzalo Fuentes
Distraught relatives and friends of passengers of Air France flight  
AF447 arrive at crisis center at Charles de Gaulle airport near Paris,  
June 1, 2009.The Rio de Janeiro to Paris flight disappeared from radar  
early June 1, 2009 with 228 people aboard.
SAO PAULO, Brazil -- Lightning and turbulence. Did one or a  
combination of these things cause the crash of Air France Flight 447  
over the South Atlantic on Sunday evening? The evidence, scant as it  
is, suggests it might have.

I was asleep in my hotel room, here in the monstrous city of Sao  
Paulo, just south from Rio de Janeiro, when the phone rang early on  
Monday. It was a reporter from the Associated Press in Brussels,  
shooting off questions about Airbuses and electrical storms. I had no  
idea that anything had happened, but he quickly had my rapt attention  
with word of a Paris-bound A330 that had gone missing after takeoff  
from Rio. "They are saying it was lightning," he told me.

I flicked on the television and tried to makes sense of CNN and the  
BBC as they stumbled through their coverage. The jet had encountered a  
violent storm, they were saying, off Brazil's northeast coast as it  
set off across the ocean toward Europe. An automated status message,  
relayed to Air France's dispatch center in Paris, spoke of electrical  
failure and a loss of cabin pressure. There was no mayday or distress  
call. The plane, and everybody on it, was missing.

Neither lightning nor turbulence is normally harmful to commercial  
aircraft. Let's take a minute to review each ...

TURBULENCE:

Spiller of coffee, jostler of luggage, filler of barf bags, rattler of  
nerves. But is it a crasher of planes? Judging by the reactions of  
many airline passengers, one would assume so. Not until I began  
writing for this magazine, and fielding questions from the public, did  
I realize how upsetting, if you'll grant the pun, turbulence is for  
tens of thousands of travelers. "Turbulence is the issue," says Tom  
Bunn, a retired captain and founder of the nation's most popular  
fearful flier program, SOAR.  "It is far and away the No. 1 concern  
among my clients."

Intuitively this makes sense. There's not a more poignant reminder of  
flying's innate precariousness than a good walloping at 35,000 feet.  
It's easy to picture the airplane as a helpless dinghy caught unawares  
in a stormy sea. Everything about it seems dangerous. Except that, in  
all but the rarest circumstances, it's not. For all intents and  
purposes, a plane cannot be flipped upside-down, thrown into a  
tailspin, or otherwise flung from the sky by even the mightiest gust  
or air pocket. Conditions might be annoying and uncomfortable, but the  
plane is not going to crash. Turbulence is a nuisance for everybody on  
the plane, including the crew. But it's also, for lack of a better  
term, normal. When pilots change altitudes and routings to avoid  
bumps, this is by and large a comfort issue. The captain isn't worried  
about the wings falling off, he's trying to keep his customers as  
content and relaxed as possible.

The frightened passenger imagines the pilots in a sweaty lather: the  
captain barking orders as the ship lists from one side to another,  
hands tight on the wheel. Nothing could be further from the truth. The  
crew is not wrestling with the beast so much as merely riding things  
out. Most of the time, pilots will sit back and allow the plane to  
buck and buffet rather than attempt to recover every lost foot or  
degree of heading. Indeed, many autopilot systems have a special  
"turbulence" mode. Rather than increase the number of corrective  
inputs, it does the opposite, desensitizing the system.

So that I'm not accused of sugarcoating, I freely concede that  
powerful turbulence has, on numerous occasions, resulted in damage or  
injury. With respect to the latter, it is typically people who fell or  
were thrown about because they weren't belted in. But airplanes  
themselves are engineered to take a remarkable amount of punishment,  
including stress limit criteria for both positive and negative G- 
loads. The level of turbulence required to seriously damage a plane is  
something that even the most frequent flier will not experience in a  
lifetime. Around the globe each day, about 5 million people take to  
the air aboard 35,000 commercial departures. Yet over the past half- 
century, the number of airliners downed by turbulence can literally be  
counted on one hand, and almost always there were extenuating  
circumstances.

LIGHTNING:

Lightning strikes are fairly common. An individual jetliner is hit  
about once every three years. Regional aircraft, plying lower  
altitudes where there's a greater propensity for strikes, are hit  
about once a year. Putting that another way: Approximately 26,000  
commercial jetliners and turboprops are flying around the world.  
Assuming a given plane is struck once biennially, 35 planes are zapped  
every day.

Seeing how there have been only one or two lightning-caused crashes in  
the past 50 years or so, it's pretty obvious that airplanes are  
constructed with the phenomenon in mind. Aluminum is very good at  
helping a plane dissipate and shed lightning's energy, which can top  
300,000 amps. Composite components, used with increasing frequency on  
newer aircraft, are not as effective, but damage tends to be limited  
to superficial, non-critical areas such as winglets, nose cones, etc.

But, on those rare occasions when a strike does result in something  
more serious, more often than not it's an electrical issue. The  
electrical systems of modern jetliners are highly complex and also  
highly critical. Taken in whole, the electrical system is arguably the  
most crucial system on board -- a total electrical failure, for  
example, is about as dire an emergency as exists. But, the typical  
system employs numerous backups and fail-safe redundancies, making  
electrical emergencies very unusual.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

So there you have it. If nothing else, I have given you a sense of why  
Air France Flight 447 should not have crashed.

Except that it did.

And we are forced now to acknowledge that every so often, however  
seldom, normally non-dangerous phenomena turn out to be dangerous --  
even catastrophically so. The odds become higher when one or more of  
such phenomena are encountered simultaneously.

In and around thunderstorms, strong turbulence and lightning are both  
often present. Reportedly, Flight 447 had flown through an area of  
thunderstorms just prior to disappearing. The plane was passing  
through the notorious ITCZ -- the Intertropical Convergence Zone.  
Extending several degrees from either side of the equator, the ITCZ is  
known for unusually tall and intense storms.

Was a run-in with one of these storms the deadly culprit? Could be.  
It's possible to imagine any number of storm-related scenarios. For  
example, an unusually potent lightning strike first knocks out the  
plane's primary instruments, perhaps interfering with its high-tech,  
fly-by-wire control system. While this shouldn't be deadly in itself,  
now the plane is caught in the throes of intense turbulence.

According to reports, the jet had sent an automatic status message  
indicating electrical problems and a loss of cabin pressure. Were  
these issues related? Was the pressure loss caused by turbulence- 
induced structural failure? What about hail? Hailstones spewed from  
large storms can be hazardous, cracking windows and damaging engines.

We don't yet know, but believe me, no pilot relishes the thought of  
having to wrestle with a rapid depressurization, significant  
electrical problems and a high-powered thunderstorm all at the same  
time. Throw in control issues and any sort of structural failure, and  
prospects become very, very grim.

Of course, how the plane got caught up in such a storm -- if in fact  
it did -- is itself a mystery. Like all jetliners, the Airbus A330 has  
sophisticated on-board weather radar that makes it generally easy to  
avoid the worst weather. And storms in the ITCZ, for all their  
potential menace, tend to be isolated and easy to out-maneuver. This  
time, something was different. How so? We might never know.

One final note on the lack of survivors ...

If the airplane hit the water after partially breaking up, or when it  
was in any way out of control, the chances for survival would have  
been nil. A ditching (water landing) seems unlikely, but that too  
would have presented little chance for a successful outcome. The  
exploits of Capt. Sully, perhaps the luckiest pilot in the world, left  
us spoiled. This was not the calmly flowing Hudson River in daylight.  
It was the storm-whipped open ocean, in darkness.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -


June 1992
Making the Skies Safe from Windshear

Langley-developed sensors will help improve air safety

NASA's Langley Research Center is part of a joint NASA and Federal  
Aviation Administration (FAA) effort to develop technology for the  
airborne detection of windshear, a hazardous weather condition that  
has been blamed for the loss of hundreds of lives in airplane crashes.


This artist's sketch shows how windshear affects an aircraft. The  
downbursts are a danger to planes primarily during takeoff and landing.

Reducing danger: studies now in flight-test stage

Windshear studies at Langley started in 1986 with analysis, moved to  
simulation and now are in the flight-test stage. This effort was  
prompted by fatal accidents in New York in 1975, New Orleans in 1982  
and Dallas-Fort Worth in 1985. About 500 fatalities and 200 injuries  
have resulted from windshear crashes involving at least 26 civil  
aircraft between 1964 and 1985. Since 1985, windshear also has caused  
numerous near accidents in which aircraft recovered just before ground  
contact.

Windshear and how it affects an airplane

Windshear is a generic term referring to any rapidly changing wind  
currents. A type of weather phenomenon called "microbursts" can  
produce extremely strong windshear, posing great danger to aircraft.  
These are local, short-lived downdrafts that radiate outward as they  
rush toward the ground. As a downdraft spreads down and outward from a  
cloud, it creates an increasing headwind over the wings of an oncoming  
aircraft. This headwind causes a sudden leap in airspeed, and the  
plane lifts. If the pilots are unaware that this speed increase is  
caused by windshear, they are likely to react by reducing engine  
power. However, as the plane passes through the shear, the wind  
quickly becomes a downdraft and then a tailwind. This reduces the  
speed of air over the wings, and the extra lift and speed vanish.  
Because the plane is now flying on reduced power, it is vulnerable to  
sudden loss of airspeed and altitude. The pilots may be able to escape  
the microburst by adding power to the engines. But if the shear is  
strong enough, they may be forced to crash.


The cockpit of Langley's 737 research aircraft displays windshear data  
prior to penetrating a microburst.

Greatest danger: Takeoff and landing

Windshear poses the greatest danger to aircraft during takeoff and  
landing, when the plane is close to the ground and has little time or  
room to maneuver. During landing, the pilot has already reduced engine  
power and may not have time to increase speed enough to escape the  
downdraft. During takeoff, an aircraft is near stall speed and thus is  
very vulnerable to windshear.

"Wet" and "dry" windshear

Microburst windshear often occurs during thunderstorms. But it can  
also arise in the absence of rain near the ground. Some of the sensor  
systems that Langley is flight testing work better in rain, while  
others perform more successfully during dry conditions.

Three airborne predictive windshear sensor systems

Pilots need 10 to 40 seconds of warning to avoid windshear. Fewer than  
10 seconds is not enough time to react, while more than 40 seconds is  
too long, atmospheric conditions can change in that time. Three  
systems are being flight-tested to give advance warning of windshear:

Microwave radar: Sends a microwave radar signal ahead of the aircraft  
to seek raindrops and other moisture particles. The returning signal  
represents the motion of those raindrops and moisture particles, and  
this is translated into wind speed. Microwave radar works better than  
other systems in rain but less well in dry conditions. Because it  
points toward the ground as the plane lands, it picks up interfering  
ground returns, or "clutter." However, researchers are progressing in  
efforts to eliminate this interference. The radar transmitter is made  
by Rockwell International's Collins Air Transport division in Cedar  
Rapids, Iowa. NASA's Langley Research Center has developed the  
research signal-processing algorithms and hardware for the windshear  
application.


The microwave radar sensor is in the nose of the 737.

Doppler LIDAR: A laser system called Doppler LIDAR (light detecting  
and ranging) reflects energy from "aerosols" (minute particles)  
instead of raindrops. This system can avoid picking up ground clutter  
(moving cars, etc.) and thus has fewer interfering signals. However,  
it does not work as well in heavy rain. The system is made by Lockheed  
Corp.'s Missiles and Space Co., Sunnyvale, Calif.; United Technologies  
Optical Systems Inc., West Palm Beach, Fla.; and Lassen Research,  
Chico, Calif.


The LIDAR sensor is mounted in the belly of the 737 research aircraft.

Infrared: Uses an infrared detector to measure temperature changes  
ahead of the airplane. The system monitors the thermal signatures of  
carbon dioxide to look for cool columns of air, which can be a  
characteristic of microbursts. This system is less costly and not as  
complex as others, but does not directly measure wind speeds. This  
system is made by Turbulence Prediction Systems in Denver, Colo.


The infrared sensor is located on the side of the 737.

Windshear-alert systems using ground-based radar

A Low-Level Wind-Shear Alert System has been installed on the ground  
at more than 100 U.S. airports. Wind speed and directional sensors  
report to a central computer, and controllers can alert pilots in the  
¢ vent windshear is detected. But the systems cannot predict when  
windshears are approaching. However, a ground-based radar (Terminal  
Doppler Weather Radar) system has been tested at Orlando, Fla., and  
Denver Stapleton airports and is scheduled to be stationed at more  
than 40 other airports by mid-1994. Even with such systems installed,  
however, airborne detection will still be needed because windshear is  
a global phenomenon„and most airports will not have predictive, ground- 
based systems installed.

FAA mandate: Airlines must install windshear sensors

In 1988 the FAA directed that all commercial aircraft must have  
onboard windshear detection systems by the end of 1993. Three 
„American, Northwest and Continental„received exemptions until the end  
of 1995 in order to install and test predictive windshear sensors  
rather than "reactive" systems that do not report the condition until  
an airplane already has encountered it.

NASA and the FAA: Working together for a solution

Langley's flight tests are the most recent step in a government/ 
industry effort to produce a database on microbursts and detection  
systems. The effort began in 1986, when NASA and the Federal Aviation  
Administration (FAA) agreed to work together to develop methods of  
detecting and avoiding hazardous windshear. The NASA/FAA joint effort  
is a response to congressional directives and National Transportation  
Safety Board (NTSB) recommendations following documentation of  
numerous windshear accidents. The FAA created a flight safety program  
and supported NASA development of windshear detection technologies.  
The data gathered from analyses, simulations, laboratory tests and  
flight tests will help the FAA certify predictive windshear detection  
systems for installation on all commercial aircraft.









ooroo

Bad typists of the word, untie.




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