irrational fear of flying

[jclay]

"Frequent-flying “‘super emitters” who represent just 1% of the world’s population caused half of aviation’s carbon emissions in 2018, according to a study.

Airlines produced a billion tonnes of CO2 and benefited from a $100bn (£75bn) subsidy by not paying for the climate damage they caused, the researchers estimated. The analysis draws together data to give the clearest global picture of the impact of frequent fliers.

Only 11% of the world’s population took a flight in 2018 and 4% flew abroad. US air passengers have by far the biggest carbon footprint among rich countries. Its aviation emissions are bigger than the next 10 countries combined, including the UK, Japan, Germany and Australia, the study reports."

More, here:

https://www.theguardian.com/business...study-covid-19

[busdriver1959]

There used to be some aerial refueling tracks over central PA. One of the coolest sights I ever saw from the flight deck was a KC-135 refueling a B-52 over central PA. I was in a Sabreliner enroute to Burlington, VT. We were well above the KC-135/B-52 and about 3-5 miles to the south, but our courses and speeds were nearly the same. We were able to watch them for several minutes before our paths diverged. Just an amazing display of piloting skill for us mere mortals.

Greg

AD1F1D83-3925-4399-86E9-25F5583A1EE4.jpeg
Here’s some flying skill for you. And, no, that’s not photoshopped.

[theflashunc]

AD1F1D83-3925-4399-86E9-25F5583A1EE4.jpeg
Here’s some flying skill for you. And, no, that’s not photoshopped.

My personal favorite is the SR-71 mid-air refueling required after takeoff. Two aircraft at the extreme ends of their operating abilities, with a flying bullet barely staying in the sky while a tanker is doing all it can to hustle to ensure said bullet doesn't drop out of the sky.

Planes are awesome.

[gregl]

My personal favorite is the SR-71 mid-air refueling required after takeoff. Two aircraft at the extreme ends of their operating abilities, with a flying bullet barely staying in the sky while a tanker is doing all it can to hustle to ensure said bullet doesn't drop out of the sky.

Planes are awesome.

From what I've read and learned from military pilot friends, aerial refueling is difficult under the best of circumstances. Add in bad weather, nighttime, challenging receiver aircraft (e.g., SR-71, B-52), fatigue, mechanical problems, etc... and it becomes extraordinarily difficult. I've read that topping off an SR-71 often required the Blackbird pilot to light one afterburner to avoid falling off the boom. "Late-model" B-52s (G and H models) only have spoilers for roll control, making the aircraft very slow to respond. Imagine a poor handling aircraft to begin with gaining tens of thousands of pounds while the tanker is losing the same amount of weight. Here's a great description of aerial refueling in a B-52: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/201...he-B-52-Part-3

Greg

[Dave Thompson]

AD1F1D83-3925-4399-86E9-25F5583A1EE4.jpeg
Here’s some flying skill for you. And, no, that’s not photoshopped.

You really need to explain that. Helluva pic of some great flying.

[gregl]

You really need to explain that. Helluva pic of some great flying.

https://www.avgeekery.com/b-52-aircr...es-just-prove/

Greg

[rwsaunders]

I forgot how fun Winter flying could be.

[Mabouya]

I forgot how fun Winter flying could be.

Especially the 30 minute wait for the deicing trucks.

But knowing how badly a little bit of ice can mess up the lift on the various surfaces, I'm willing to sit a bit longer in my teeny seat.

[rwsaunders]

Roger that...a Delta flight slid off of the taxiway yesterday in Pittsburgh and I bet that was interesting to say the least. 2-3 hours to remove the passengers and crew because of the way that the nose was positioned.

https://www.cbs46.com/atlanta-bound-...177276d98.html

[gregl]

Roger that...a Delta flight slid off of the taxiway yesterday in Pittsburgh and I bet that was interesting to say the least. 2-3 hours to remove the passengers and crew because of the way that the nose was positioned.

https://www.cbs46.com/atlanta-bound-...177276d98.html

Operating aircraft from slippery surfaces has many parallels with driving on snow and ice. While I've never driven a large tractor-trailer, I suspect the challenges truck drivers face are similar. The mass of larger aircraft means that once they start sliding off the paved surface, it can be nearly impossible to return them to their intended paths. Crosswinds add a dimension that drivers of smaller, low-profile vehicles rarely encounter.

I remember being awed with the skills of my captains when I was a junior co-pilot. The finesse with which they coordinated the steering, brakes, and throttles was amazing. A few years (and several upstate NY winters...) later, I was the guy in the left seat mentoring the new pilots. Equally important to knowing how to handle slippery conditions was knowing when to delay or cancel a flight. Some days that were technically legal to fly just had too many potentially dangerous factors to be safe. You had to assess all the factors and understand when they were pointing toward a potential incident or accident. There's a lot of self-imposed pressure to complete trips. "Get home-itis" is a real issue that you have to understand and not allow to cloud your judgement.

Asymmetric thrust (both forward and reverse, when available) was both your worst fear and one of your biggest assets. Used knowingly, it could keep you where you wanted to be. If encountered unexpectedly, it could send you off to the (snow-covered) weeds in a heartbeat. The closest I ever came to damaging an aircraft occurred when we had asymmetric thrust reverser deployment on an icy runway. Good situational awareness and adherence to emergency procedures saved the day (and my career). Another factor in jets with rear mounted engines was rudder blanking. Reverse thrust can actually disrupt airflow over the vertical stabilizer, leading to loss of directional control. You really earn your pay during winter flying.

Greg

[rwsaunders]

A combination of technology and a well trained crew...incredible that the plane didn’t go down, let alone the fact that nobody on the ground was struck by debris.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/21/us/un...rnd/index.html

[Scott G.]

The crew deserves a steak dinner with all the fixings at Panchos.

[gregl]

The crew deserves a steak dinner with all the fixings at Panchos.

References to “The Right Stuff” are always appreciated!

Greg

[thollandpe]

My personal favorite is the SR-71 mid-air refueling required after takeoff. Two aircraft at the extreme ends of their operating abilities, with a flying bullet barely staying in the sky while a tanker is doing all it can to hustle to ensure said bullet doesn't drop out of the sky.

Planes are awesome.

And the SR-71 required quick refueling after takeoff because its fuel tanks didn’t seal at ambient temp so it pissed all over the runway. It had to get airborne and warm up, due to friction of the air on its skin, for the tanks to seal.

What a beast. The person who taught me fluid dynamics had five black patents on that engine, such an audacious piece of engineering.

https://theaviationgeekclub.com/form...ial-refueling/

[thollandpe]

And speaking of awesome, chapeau to these pilots:
United 777 Pilots Calmly Landed Jet After Catastrophic Engine Failure -- avgeekery.com





I'm pretty sure that the PW4000 engine on the 777 was the first to use composite fan blades. I worked at Pratt & Whitey in the late 80's and early 90's, and one thing was getting composite fan blades to handle a bird strike. While this was on early prototypes of the PW4000, the subscale test specimens I worked on turned into "black toothpicks" in tests and I really had nothing to do with what became those engineering marvels of carbon fiber fan blades. Except maybe "don't do it like this". And yeah, it takes a very, very long time to develop things for a jet engine and make it into production. There are some very rigorous tests to pass.

The full-scale FAA bird strike test is incredible, and the blade-out test is even more spectacular (well worth you-tubing). That's where they rev an engine on a test stand up to full takeoff thrust and deliberately sever (by explosive charge) one of the fan blades at the root. In order to pass, the engine must not liberate any high-energy fragments (which could pierce the fuselage or other vital control components), stay attached to the airframe, shut down safely, and not catch on fire. Seeing all that forward nacelle missing in the pics above makes me wonder if they lost a blade.

The other way that composites work into that equation is the containment ring around the fan, which keeps all those high-energy pieces inside the engine. You can see by the color that one is kevlar, which is a huge weight savings over metal. Early versions were spectacular failures, either distorting so much it stopped the engine so quick it sheared off its mounts, or by catching and throwing back the loosed blade like a slingshot.

PS Those fan blades might also be hollow titanium, another project I worked on. Rolls-Royce used a three-piece design (two halves and a honeycomb core) that used a foil for a constant-temperature bonding that was kind of a braze weld (tritectic). Pratt's design used two ribbed clamshell halves that were diffusion bonded (solid phase welding, beeyotches). Either way, mind-boggling engineering and manufacturing.

[gregl]

And the SR-71 required quick refueling after takeoff because its fuel tanks didn’t seal at ambient temp so it pissed all over the runway. It had to get airborne and warm up, due to friction of the air on its skin, for the tanks to seal.

What a beast. The person who taught me fluid dynamics had five black patents on that engine, such an audacious piece of engineering.

https://theaviationgeekclub.com/form...ial-refueling/

They also refueled after takeoff due to an operational requirement for fuel tank inerting with nitrogen:

https://theaviationgeekclub.com/form...%20degrees%20F.

An amazing aircraft on so many levels. The Blackbird family (A-12, YF-12A, SR-71) are this aero geek's all-time favorite aircraft (closely followed by the F-86, P-47, and F-4). Many years back, I flew into Wright-Patterson AFB on a semi-regular basis. My company did business with the Air Force and we had permission to fly in and out of Wright-Pat. Security was very light in those pre-9/11 days. After we refueled our plane and buttoned it up for the day, we'd hop on a base shuttle bus and head to the Air Force Museum. They had their YF-12A in their annex hangar on the east side of the field. Yet another shuttle bus would take you from the main museum to the annex. The annex was typically deserted on a weekday morning and no one minded if you walked right up the to aircraft, including peering into any openings. I spent literally hours poking around the YF-12A, admiring the great Kelly Johnson's handiwork. Pilot/aero engineer heaven!

The photos below are of the elusive A-12 at the US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, AL.

Greg

[gregl]

I worked at Pratt & Whitey in the late 80's and early 90's, and one thing was getting composite fan blades to handle a bird strike.

Thank you for an awesome post! The amount of aeronautical knowledge both here and across the hall is amazing! Come for the bikes, stay for the aviation sidebars.

Greg

[rwsaunders]

Interesting about the turbine blades Todd. Never a pilot and always a passenger with about 2.5M miles under my belt and the one time that I do remember experiencing an engine issue, (that I knew of anyway) was when we lost the port engine on a 757 due to a bird strike. We were on the approach coming into DEN when it occurred and I only felt a slight dip in the plane at the time. People on the wing started pointing toward the engine right after the dip and when we landed several minutes later, the plane taxied to a ramp away from the terminal and then a tug came to bring us in about 30 minutes later. Smelled like burnt chicken in the cabin and when we we able to leave the plane, we saw the pilots and ground crew up on a stand, taking cell phone pictures of the engine.

[bigbill]

More aviation stuff, I was an Officer of the Deck on the USS Theodore Roosevelt during OIF (2003). We were operating between Cyprus and Turkey with another carrier. We were the night carrier, we commenced the launch cycle at dusk and recovered our last plane at dawn. We were sending airstrikes up over Turkey to hit northern Iraq to support the Army advancing south. We had Hornets (F-18 C and D models), Tomcats (bombcats), S-3 Vikings, Prowlers, and Hawkeyes. The Vikings were the tankers until the aircraft reached Turkey then they'd hit an Air Force tanker. The Hornets and Tomcats were carrying four 2K pound smart bombs. Not a big deal for the Tomcats, but the Hornets needed afterburners to get off the deck because they were half-flap due to the bomb load. As soon as a Hornet reached altitude, it had to tank. The Tomcats could wait until Turkey. We were dropping hundreds of bombs a day in the first month. We would take on a million gallons of JP5 (fuel) every third day. After a while, the targets became scarce and planes started returning with their bombs. The Hornets could still only do half-flap so we needed a much higher than normal wind down the deck. We had two 550 MW reactors and I exercised them quite a bit to catch planes because the early mornings had almost no wind, I had to make wind.

I used to do cool stuff.

[thollandpe]

Oh boy, not looking good for P&W. These were the hollow titanium fan blades and this report says it lost one at the root and another at mid-span. Similar to an uncontained failure in 2018, which ironically happened to the same airplane that these passengers got on afterward. And another contained failure on a Japan Air Lines 777.

UNITED 777-200 UPDATE: FAA TO GROUND AFFECTED JETS - Mentour Pilot