How to make people hate you even more.

(Written on 12/09/2014)(Permalink)

Rob Harrison, I am curious. Are you opposed to the CL-215/415 series in particular? To piston powered fire bombers vs. turbine powered? To all fixed wing fire bombers? To larger vs. smaller fixed wing fire bombers? Perhaps your problem is with the low altitude attack and skimming refill flight profile? I have to say that I am perplexed by the conversions of jetliners to fire bombers. It seems that wings and engines optimized for high speed, high altitude flight are, even with slats and flaps deployed, a poor match for the low speed, low altitude mission. The BAE-146 conversions appear to be somewhere in the middle, since the 146 has less wing sweep and was designed from the start for getting in and out of shorter runways and for lower and slower flight than most jetliners.

(Written on 12/06/2014)(Permalink)

Examination of the image shows that the gauges for the jet engines are on the pilot's panel, not the flight engineer's and the jet engine power levers are above the pilot's seats.

(Written on 11/20/2014)(Permalink)

preacher1, I don't think clearance is really the issue. The question is about system capability. Could the system, relying on visual separation of the choppers from each other and from the very nearby airliners on short final, be reliable in a dynamic, possibly chaotic situation? History strongly suggests the answer is no. The controllers could have taken it upon themselves, simply denying clearance, but then they would have been in the political gun-sights. Their bosses correctly saw that this was a management level decision and took it out of the controllers' concerns. Sometimes the bosses make a good decision and we should applaud them when they do.

(Written on 11/03/2014)(Permalink)

It's pretty bad that on an aviation specific website, commenters don't even bother to consider the aviation related aspects of a story! The center of the city of Ferguson lies about 1.5 miles from the ends of Lambert-St. Louis International Airport's two busiest runways. The southern city limit passes right under the extended centerline of 30R, about 1.6 miles from the touchdown point, 1.2 miles from the threshold. 30L is only a short distance farther south. Since the prevailing wind is from the west, 30R and 30L are often the approach runways. Where the Ferguson city limit intersects the 30R centerline, the published 3 degree glide slope is only about 450 feet AGL. Would you want to be landing an airliner with an uncontrolled gaggle of helicopters, some of which might, according to a pilot report, be receiving small arms fire from the ground, less than a mile from short final? I think a TFR was a mighty wise move!

(Written on 11/03/2014)(Permalink)

Come on, both Baumgartner and Eustace are just copycats. Kittinger was the pioneer. A few thousand feet higher, at that altitude is pretty meaningless.

(Written on 10/26/2014)(Permalink)

Nice collection of photos. There are several errors in the captions. Some dates are clearly wrong. Others are probably, but not certainly wrong. A couple of airplanes are misidentified, e.g. the plane Fiorello LaGuardia is sitting in is a DC-2 not a DC-3.

(Written on 06/29/2014)(Permalink)

How will this affect the frequency of throttle mismanagement errors, similar to the Asiana SFO crash? With the step down approach, the throttle setting changes multiple times during the procedure, making the crew more aware of its action. With optimized descent, the throttle remains at idle until low altitude and, perhaps low airspeed, a poor time for confusion about what the throttle is doing. I realize this depends a lot on details of cockpit system design and usage.

(Written on 06/25/2014)(Permalink)

Looking briefly at the US and Canadian standards, having the numbers at the beginning of the offset portion instead of the landing portion is only approved for a temporary situation. The Heligoland 21 situation certainly looks like a permanent one. I don't know the German rules, but if they are harmonized with the US and Canadian, then the numbers are in the wrong place on this runway. That could certainly lead to pilot error.

(Written on 06/04/2014)(Permalink)

Looking at the Google aerial photo, the offset runway markings are not terribly prominent, and the numbers are at the beginning of the offset portion, not at the beginning of the landing portion, just beyond the threshold, where they most commonly are placed. Apparently this is a legal way to do the markings, but, as in so many things in aviation, doing things more than one way invites mistakes.

(Written on 06/04/2014)(Permalink)