I worked for TWA in the early days of the 747. Two of our stations, LAX and SFO, both had over-the-wing Jetways, to enable two-door boarding/deplaning, something everyone thought would be needed, given the pax load of a 747. The agents, even experienced Jetway drivers, were very concerned about making a driving mistake with bridge and damaging the airplane. The mating section of the bridge was cantilevered out over the wing and the physics meant that the end of the Jetway would move around, a lot, until mated with the fuselage. Eventually, with all factors considered, we decided that single door boarding/deplaning would suffice. The otw at SFO ended up as a storage area for office supplies.

(Written on 11/09/2020)(Permalink)

Like the Bible, NEJM can be misinterpreted by those who start with a foregone conclusion. NEJM says that masks don't protect the WEARER, and virtually any person knowledgeable in the subject will tell you that. They're not intended to protect the wearer, they're intended to protect the community at large FROM the wearer, and if everyone wears a mask, whether or not they are symptomatic, the risk to the world at large is thus minimized. That assumes, of course, that one cares about anyone else.

(Written on 11/09/2020)(Permalink)

Further, as it happens, I understand the frequency of the precession was a harmonic of the wing's natural frequency and therefore amplified the forces until structural failure. I've got about 1,500 hours in the P-3A and B, and so had a keen interest in what happened. I always found it to be a great airplane, with exception of its pitch stability due to the Navy's reduction in fuselage length (we had noticable problems with airsickness, since the operating crew sat sideways) and its stiff landing gear, which made it a challenge to land smoothly.

(Written on 22/08/2020)(Permalink)

Question: Isn't it precession? As in the propeller "disk" began to precess, like a toy gyroscope precessing as it slows down?

(Written on 22/08/2020)(Permalink)

Absolutely. Tarmac is short for "tarred Macadam", madacam being a mixture of uniformly sized pebbles and gravel, originally developed by Scotsman John Macadam. Later tar was added to help keep dust down. It would be just as logical for journalist to say, "The plane was parked on the blacktop (the American term)" vs tarmac. One could even say, "The plane ran off the runway onto the grass." What a silly thing about which to get one's knickers into a twist.

(Written on 14/08/2020)(Permalink)

Let us remember that 1.5 is an arbitrary, reasonable number established by humans with experience and education in their respective field. We could make it 2.0 have cost the flying public millions, if not billions, of dollars because of the added weight of the structure, or we could go the other way, and be closer to potential loss of life. Yes, sometimes judgements regarding other factors like $ get in the way of those numbers, but in general those numbers (like 1.5) have proven their worth as a good balance of safety factors, engineering costs, manufacturing costs, and economics. For example: When the 747 did a qualifying evacuation using an average cross-section of population including elderly, adults, children, physically challenged, etc., one of the requirements was that half of the exits (there were a total of 10 on the -100 model)had to be rendered inoperative, and which ones were inoperative were not known to the flight attendants onboard. The evacuation had to be completed in

(Written on 29/11/2019)(Permalink)

I understand that there was such a flight not long ago, and the captain raised a few eyebrows when she welcomed the passengers on the airline's "unmanned" flight. After the announcement sunk in, there were many smiles all around on a very pleasant flight.

(Written on 26/10/2019)(Permalink)

But it did cost him some things-time, effort, all those things that money can't buy. Obviously you've never worked for an organization that has a 24/7/365 staffing requirement and the attendant people impact that implies. Perhaps human and familial interactions mean nothing to you, but to a lot of people they're pretty valuable.

(Written on 29/12/2018)(Permalink)

It's not about the money at all, it's about the spirit of putting the time and effort in giving a gift only he could give, and, if he did fly non-revenue, with no assurance he could even get on the flights.

(Written on 28/12/2018)(Permalink)

Agreed and amen.

(Written on 21/12/2018)(Permalink)