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Waterbomber sense

mgiles — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 07:26:42 +0000

Canadair Waterbomber

In the recent press it has been announced that the Victorian state Government has engaged the services of a DC 10 water bomber. Little detail has been release on the nature of the arrangements but it is a good start for the introduction of heavy metal into the fire bombing stakes here in Oz. the DC 10 is in the 11000 category simlar to the IL76 gallon but has a pressurized water load and can carry fire retardant which should assist its effectivness. A lot of observers are seeing the up coming fire season as having the makings of a horror event. It would be good to over react rather than under react. Of the other options, Various people conversant with the 747 have opined that it could easily manage the maneuvering required and the reports of the benefit of the IL76 in the Spanish fires are very enthusiastic. Some water scooping Amphibians would also be pretty good. Let us hope what is available is matched with what is required and the not invented here attitude does not prevail.
We wait with trepidation.

DC 10 Waterbomber

Frog in a pot phenomenon

mgiles — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 06:45:32 +0000

Frog in pot

There is a saying that if one slowly heats a pot of water with a live frog in it the frog will go to sleep and not get out and so get cooked whereas if he is dropped into a hot pot he will leap out. So it is in many situations in life. We have it in aviation where slowly evolving situations get way past a point where some action should be taken because each development is incremental and not so different from the last situation. So it is with Airbus pitots and standby instruments and now with Flight 188 overflying its destination I think we have the same thing. It does not really matter if they went to sleep or lost track of time there was considerable potential for trouble. Much has been made of the poor match of the human physiology and performance and yet steadily the man is being taken out of the loop in flying so that such things can happen. An extraordinary number of RPT flights pass uneventfully but where a trend emerges it should be addressed. Ground control is now possible and studies should be made, discussed and decisions taken. Pilots do not have to leave the cockpit. It is just another logical progression. The Helios tragedy where apparently a cabin crew member was walking about with a portable O2 system but unable to enter the cockpit is another situation where ground control could have saved hundreds. The reasons why this has not happened are many and various and to do with how aviation has evolved a rigid and inflexible regulatory process. Vested interests are many but it is mainly a sort of general inertia and no one has had the courage really to say come on guys wake up or more to the point, hear those who have been saying such. As usual there will be wails of technical difficulty and cost but it seems clear that it is going to be a small cost in the long-term and long over due for considerations. Maybe the risk of different sort of hostile take over is behind the resistance but we seem to find ways to trust our fellow men in many other situations. Why not?

911 Impact

In this last episode apparently, the pilots were so engrossed in conversation while checking their laptops that they lost contact with ground controllers for about 90 minutes.
The two pilots involved have had their licenses revoked, the Federal Aviation Administration reported.
The Wall Street Journal described the episode that occurred last week as illustrating two of the biggest problems in commercial aviation: cockpit discipline and pilot complacency. Surely, said airline experts, they must have fallen asleep. Apparently not. According to interview notes from the National Transportation Safety Board: – Both pilots are experienced and have never had an accident, incident or violation.
- Neither reported medical conditions. Both said they were not sleepy or fatigued. They had just had a 19-hour layover before the flight from San Diego to Minneapolis. Yet, from 6:46 p.m. Central Time until 8:14 p.m., the pilots did not communicate, reported The New York Times. More than a dozen controllers in three radar rooms tried to contact the pilots. Was the plane hijacked? Were the pilots in a medical crisis? Four fighter jets were on runway alert in case they were needed. What happened?
In short, the pilots radioed to controllers that there was “cockpit distraction” and “dealing with company issues.” It appears the pilots were discussing a new workplace schedule system following the merger of Northwest and Delta Air Lines, The Wall Street Journal reported. In the meantime, they failed to switch radio frequencies for a different set of air traffic controllers. Besides this inexcusable (? I’ll bet they dont ever do this again so why terminate thier careers?) example of incompetence, this points out several areas needing correction. Are cockpits too cozy? So much piloting is done automatically, in dark cockpits, that it’s easy to nod off or become inattentive. Airlines need to take steps to put the pilots at work doing something useful during that “down time” in the air. Some Boeing aircraft are equipped with warnings when pilots fail to adjust controls, The Wall Street Journal reported. Are voice recorders adequate?
The box recording the cockpit discussions only had the last 30 minutes available, leaving no record of the earlier distracted time. Every box should record every minute of every flight.
And what about video cameras? They should be used in every cockpit. This is not a privacy issue for the pilots, it’s a safety issue. When so many lives are at stake – 144 passengers, two pilots and three attendants – every reasonable means should be taken to protect them.
The good example of being prepared has been well documented, when Chester “Sully” Sullenberger safely landed an aircraft in the Hudson River with only a few minutes from warning to landing. As for the Northwest Airline pilots, every possible lesson should be learned from this strange incident. It would be appropriate for Congress to hold hearings – not to sensationalize this particular incident – but to probe for issues it has revealed. from http://jacksonville.com/opinion/editorials/2009-10-30/story/aircraft_safety_incredible_failure

Frog in pot

Time for a change in ATC? 4D Flying

mgiles — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 07:34:46 +0000

ATC is complex and resistant to computerization as many failed attempts to introduce advance automation into ATC has shown. Despite this the need to remove human error and to optimize trajectories which will over time lead to massive fuel and cost savings as well as efficiencies and time savings for the consumer has meant that the goal has been doggedly pursued. Numerous trials of various systems have taken place and are still talking place. Modern FMS and autothrottle and autopilot systems now permit such precise management of cruising speed that the time is now deemed by many to have come for the NextGen ATC which will provide these efficiencies.
In an announcement on 21st of August the FAA and Embry Riddle said that the dimension of time would be introduced into a demonstration of flight management.
Today’s systems that manage flights employ three dimensions: altitude, latitude and longitude. A fourth dimension – time – will be introduced in demonstrations beginning later this year under a new agreement reached between FAA and Embry Riddle’s aviation consortium.The new technology, called 4D trajectory based operations, will optimize an aircraft’s flight path through its entire flight – or trajectory – by adding the element of time. Time, in this case, means the ability of an aircraft to cross a specific navigation fix at a specific time. This type of precision – knowing an aircraft will be where it’s supposed to be at a certain time – will improve efficiency and capacity in the nation’s skies. It also gets to the heart of the Next Generation Air Transportation System: moving aircraft from Point A to Point B with greater efficiency, saving time, money and fuel.Beginning in the fall, flight demonstrations of the new flight management system in 4D trajectory based operations will help determine how well aircraft avionics predict and execute the optimum trajectory of an aircraft while sharing the information with ground systems. Data collected from flight management systems will help us understand how well aircraft systems are able to compute the most efficient path between Point A and Point B and their ability to comply with time constraints. The new technology is expected to be used on flights in medium-density markets such as Orlando. These 4D trajectory based operations will help determine the impact on traffic capacity and efficiency of operations.

NASA Targets Turbulence

mgiles — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 04:30:49 +0000

Thunderstorms

A new system to help guide pilots away from severe storms and turbulence in remote ocean regions is being developed at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo., NASA said this week. NASA is funding the development of a prototype that should be ready for testing next year. The system combines satellite data and computer weather models with artificial intelligence techniques to identify and predict rapidly evolving storms and other potential areas of turbulence. “Turbulence is the leading cause of injuries in commercial aviation,” said John Haynes, program manager at NASA headquarters, in Washington. “This new work to detect the likelihood of turbulence associated with oceanic storms using key space-based indicators is of crucial importance to pilots.” Turbulence has been cited widely as a possible factor in the recent loss of Air France 447 in the Atlantic Ocean, but it is not yet clear what role, if any, it played in that accident.

The prototype system will identify areas of turbulence in clear regions of the atmosphere as well as within storms. Pilots on selected transoceanic routes will receive real-time turbulence updates and provide feedback. When the system is finalized, it will provide pilots and ground-based controllers with text-based maps and graphical displays showing regions of likely turbulence and storms, NASA said. “Pilots currently have little weather information as they fly over remote stretches of the ocean, which is where some of the worst turbulence occurs,” said scientist John Williams, one of the project leads at NCAR. “Providing pilots with at least an approximate picture of developing storms could help guide them safely around areas of potentially severe turbulence.” Click here for the full NASA news release, which includes to a link to related graphics.
From Avweb http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archives/avflash/1411-full.html#200686

NASA Press release: 09-154

NASA Research to Help Aircraft Avoid Ocean Storms, Turbulence

WASHINGTON — NASA is funding the development of a prototype system to provide

aircraft with updates about severe storms and turbulence as they fly across remote

ocean regions.

Scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder,

Colo., in partnership with colleagues at the University of Wisconsin, are

developing a system that combines satellite data and computer weather models with

cutting-edge artificial intelligence techniques. The goal is to identify and

predict rapidly evolving storms and other potential areas of turbulence.

“Turbulence is the leading cause of injuries in commercial aviation,” said John

Haynes, program manager in the Earth Science Division’s Applied Sciences Program at

NASA Headquarters in Washington. “This new work to detect the likelihood of

turbulence associated with oceanic storms using key space-based indicators is of

crucial importance to pilots.”

The system is designed to help guide pilots away from intense weather. A variety of

NASA spacecraft observations are being used in the project, including data from

NASA’s Terra, Aqua, Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission, CloudSat and CALIPSO

satellites.

The prototype system will identify areas of turbulence in clear regions of the

atmosphere as well as within storms. It is on track for testing next year. Pilots

on selected transoceanic routes will receive real-time turbulence updates and

provide feedback. When the system is finalized, it will provide pilots and ground-

based controllers with text-based maps and graphical displays showing regions of

likely turbulence and storms.

“Pilots currently have little weather information as they fly over remote stretches

of the ocean, which is where some of the worst turbulence occurs,” said scientist

John Williams, one of the project leads at NCAR. “Providing pilots with at least an

approximate picture of developing storms could help guide them safely around areas

of potentially severe turbulence.”

NCAR currently provides real-time maps of turbulence at various altitudes over the

continental United States. Williams and his colleagues are building on this

expertise to identify turbulence over oceans. The team has created global maps of

clear air turbulence based on global computer weather models that include winds and

other instabilities in the atmosphere. Drawing on satellite images of storms, the

scientists also have created global views of the tops of storm clouds. Higher cloud

tops often are associated with more intense storms, although not necessarily with

turbulence.

The next step is to pinpoint areas of possible turbulence within and around intense

storms. The team will study correlations between storms and turbulence over the

continental United States, where weather is closely observed, and then infer

patterns of turbulence for storms over oceans.

In addition to providing aircraft and ground controllers with up-to-the-minute maps

of turbulence, the NCAR team is turning to an artificial intelligence technique,

known as “random forests,” to provide short-term forecasts.

Random forests, which have proven useful for forecasting thunderstorms over land,

consist of many decision trees that each cast a yes-or-no “vote” on crucial

elements of the storm at future points in time and space. This enables scientists

to forecast the movement and strength of the storm during the next few hours.

“Our goal is to give pilots a regularly updated picture of the likely storms ahead

as they fly over the ocean, so they can take action to minimize turbulence and keep

their aircraft out of danger,” explained NCAR scientist Cathy Kessinger, a project

team member.

The NCAR project is funded by NASA’s Applied Sciences Program, which seeks to

translate NASA’s investment in Earth observations into applications that address

real problems. The program and its partners are working to bridge the gap between

research results and operational aviation weather products in such areas as in-

flight icing, convective weather, turbulence, volcanic ash and space weather.

For images related to this turbulence prototype system, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/turbulence.html

Lockhart River GNSS NPA redesign

mgiles — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 01:22:15 +0000

GNSS RNAV NPA

Probably the most important outcome of the ATSB investigation into the Lockhart River Metro crash is the recommendation for a redesign of the RW 12 GNSS NPA. This is a result of recognising that GPWS terrain warnings could still arise even if the approach was flown within correct tolerances. Repeated spurious warnings can lead to crew becoming complacent in the face of such warnings. If they then decide to ignore the warnings the purpose of the system is obviated. The situation could even be aggravated because the crew might well believe they are still protected. This is a good example of the traps of designing your own approach and that is what a crew would be doing if they were to decide to ignore the GPWS alerts.

Lockhart River carash site