"Last week, in a frenzy of excitement, we broke the news (for English-language press, at least) that Taiwan's EVA Air would celebrate their 20th Anniversary by bringing back the old, immensely successful Hello Kitty-painted airplane. Instead of only one as before, however, there'd be three A330s, each with a unique paintjob and the full treatment of Hello Kitty-ization on the inside and out.
"That alone was awesome news, and now we have more. Although the Hello Kitty plane routes only operate from Taipei-Taoyuan International to Tokyo, Fukuoka, Hokkaido, Seoul and Hong Kong, EVA Air has just begun long-haul flights from New York-JFK to Taipei...."
(EVA Air, via jaunted, used w/o permission)
These "Hello Kitty" airliners may not be everyone's cup of tea: but the Lemming's hat is off to EVA Air for raising the cuteness quotient of air travel. The jaunted article's photo gallery has more (adorable?) photos and renderings of the Hello Kitty planes. Including a look at the interiors.
One of the interior renderings is really, really pink. With Hello Kitty artwork on the headrests that are so sweet, EVA Air may want to consider warning passengers with diabetes to pack extra meds.
Did the Lemming mention that these are cute airliners? Extremely cute?
"United Airlines has grounded 96 Boeing 757 airliners for 'unscheduled maintenance,' an airline spokesman said Tuesday.
"The grounding meant that some of the airline's flights would be canceled or delayed Tuesday night and Wednesday, spokesman Rahsaan Johnson said.
" 'Specifically ... United is performing follow-up maintenance checks starting today to the air data computers on its 96 Boeing 757s,' Johnson said. 'All of the air data computers are fully functional. The checks are necessary as part of a modification process to the system.'..."
That was "unscheduled maintenance," but apparently not unexpected. Work on the Boeing 757 computers connects with a 2004 Federal Aviation Administration airworthiness directive. The idea is that flight crews will now be able to stop an overspeed warning, or stall warning, that's going off when the airliner's flying normally.
Makes sense to the Lemming. Although it does raise the question of what happens if the airliner starts misbehaving - after the alarm's been turned off.
"The video is absolutely stunning: a remote-controlled plane flies over and around the Brooklyn Bridge, buzzes the Statue of Liberty, and explores New York from a point of view even 'real' airplanes rarely see. While the police were curious about what was happening, no arrests were made, and the creators of the video praise the police and the TSA for their professionalism.
"This is the story of how one group of enthusiasts made flying a plane around New York City fun again...."
That phrase, "...no arrests were made, and the creators of the video praise the police and the TSA for their professionalism...." may require a little explanation.
Two airliners flew into New York City's World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Folks living and working in Manhattan have been a tad more aware of unusual air traffic since then. A little SNAFU in 2009, involving Air Force One and F-16 fighters, probably hasn't helped calm their nerves. (Another War-on-Terror Blog (April 27, 2009))
Here's the YouTube video embedded in the ars technica post:
"...While you may think this sort of flying would catch the attention of the authorities and lead to terrorism scares, the response from the police was measured and sensible. 'The reaction was very professional. They asked me what I was doing and I told them I'd land and explain it to them. After that we got talking and I showed them how it all works, what I'm doing and so on.'..." (Ben Kuchera, Opposable Thumbs, ars technica)
The Lemming thinks that the low-key response was due in part to the radio controlled airplane not looking like a (real) threat. The aircraft isn't shown in the video, but its rapid maneuvering suggests a fairly small, lightweight design.
Also - this happened in New York City, not at an airport terminal where people are trying to get on an airliner. There seems to be something about air terminals that brings out the nutcase in people. (Another War-on-Terror Blog (December 1, 2010, November 16, 2010, March 27, 2008, September 1, 2007))
That video? It's not the best editing job ever done - but the views are spectacular, and the Lemming liked the background music.
"Yves Rossy, the first man to have the performances of an airplane (climb !) with only his body movements to steer: The Icare's dream reality !"
Yves Rossy's flown across the English Channel since that video was made: and other folks are developing personal flight technology, too. The Lemming doesn't think that the flying belts of the Jetsons are all that likely - not any time soon.
On the other hand, there are recreational and practical applications that just about guarantee that we'll see more of these things in the next few years.
"Aircraft could soon be covered in new technological cobwebs. Inspired by the gossamer strands of spider webs, scientists from Stanford University have created an ultra-fine mesh of strain and temperature sensors.
"Wrapped around an aircraft, the sensors could help craft monitor their internal well-being. This added awareness could prevent microscopic cracks from developing into catastrophic failures. Beyond aircraft, the new technology could create a new breed of intelligent automobiles, packaging and medical devices.
" 'We want to make airplanes that fly like birds,' said Fu-Kuo Chang, a scientist at Stanford University who developed the sensors and co-authored a recent article about the technology in the journal, Advanced Materials. 'Aircraft that have all the sensing information about what is happening around them, just like birds do.'..."
It's a pretty good article, discussing a new wrinkle in aircraft design - one that's being developed for other applications, too. (January 7, 2010, for one)
On the other hand, there's the occasion stumble:
"...But aircraft lack nerves. Unlike birds, they don't have a way to sense tiny changes inside their bodies. For instance, a bird in a dive can sense, through its nerves and other tissues, whether the strain is too great and if they need to pull up before their bones break...."
The sort of aircraft that the Wright Brothers built: those didn't have anything analogous to nerves. Contemporary fly-by-wire aircraft, with their avionics and data feeds going to and from various parts of the aircraft? The Lemming thinks those are analogous to nerves - even if the control system as a whole isn't all that smart.
Yet.
What's new isn't data being sent back and forth in an aircraft: It's aircraft that have a sense of touch, or something very close to it.
"Beyond the Black Box" Krishna M. Kavi, Tech News, Discovery News (August 23, 2010)
"On 1 June 2009, Air France Flight 447, an Airbus A330-200, crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, killing all 216 passengers and 12 crew members. No one knows why the plane fell out of the sky, because no one has ever found its black box.
"The plane plunged so deep that the black box's sonar beacon could not be heard, and by the time the French navy had dispatched a submarine to the area, the beacon's battery had evidently died. Crash analysts were thus reduced to poring over information the airliner had transmitted before going silent, information too sparse to determine what had happened, let alone how to prevent it from happening on some other airliner.
"One of the Best Inventions in Safety Engineering
"For half a century, every commercial airplane in the world has been equipped with one of these rugged, reinforced, waterproof boxes, which each house a flight data recorder and a cockpit voice recorder. For hundreds of crashes, they have given investigators the often heartbreaking details of the plane's demise: the pilot's frantic last words, his second-by-second struggles to keep the plane airborne, and the readings of the gauges and sensors that reveal such key parameters as the airspeed, altitude and the state of the plane's engines and flight-control surfaces. Such information has enabled analysts to infer the causes of most crashes and, often, to come up with preventive measures that have saved thousands of lives.
"Every now and then, though, a black box is destroyed, lost beyond all chance of recovery or, as in the case of Air France 447, beyond all chance of detection. Lacking the black box and its precious data, we have no way to tell whether the last problem reported was the cause of the crash, the result of a deeper problem, or just an artifact of the sensor system on board. And because we can't pinpoint the cause of the crash, we can take no steps to prevent similar failures in the future....
"...I envisage a glass box, that is, a system that would be transparent because it would be in the cloud -- not a cottony puff in the sky but rather the network of servers and databases that covers ever more of the world every day. The system would offer ubiquity, invulnerability, unlimited storage, and unparalleled powers of search...."
First of all, this isn't so much news, as an op-ed piece. And a pretty well-thought-out one.
Krishna M. Kavi's glass box could be used for situations other than crashes. The op-ed points out the experience of Flight 188, when pilots overshot an airport by 150 miles. A glass box on the plane would, in principle, have narrowed the possible explanations: and at the very least frazzled the nerves of ground controllers a bit less.
In a way, a "glass box" isn't a very new idea:
"...Most aircraft already shunt some information to ground stations. The data, which come at regular intervals, have to do with the flight path and airspeed, as well as information that maintenance crews need to service the plane when it lands. This system mostly uses VHF frequency-shift keying, which can handle just 16 bits per second, now popular in ships at sea...."
It seems to the Lemming that it wouldn't take all that much to expand the system to include what's stored in black boxes today.
Which are orange: This piece gives a short history of the black box, including how it got its name.
"The BBC's Richard Scott watched the plane coming in to land with chief project engineer Mike Sinnett
"The Boeing 787 Dreamliner has landed at Farnborough for its first appearance at an international air show.
"Boeing's flagship aircraft is different from conventional aircraft, having been built largely out of light-weight composite material.
" 'This is the first time we've had a new airplane at an air show since the early 1990s,' Jim Albaugh, boss of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, told the BBC.
"The plane has been delayed by more than two years after a series of hitches.
"When it was first conceived, the Dreamliner was a revolutionary concept, but rivals have since done much to catch up...."
The BBC article includes this two-minute, 26-second video. You may have a better experience with it than I did. The video itself is fine, probably. But the feed was the sort of choppy off-again, on-again sort that I've learned to associate with online video from old-school companies:
The Lemming linked to a few of the better (my onpinion) YouTube videos covering Boeing's Dreamliner, later in this post.
The BBC announcer said that the Dreamliner is, to a great extent, a "plastic" airplane." He's right, although it sounds cooler to say "carbon fiber."
I'm not terribly surprised that Boeing had "hitches" in production of its Dreamliner. The technology is new, the aircraft is a complex bit of machinery, and American regulations seem focused more on making sure that a new aircraft passes all its tests, than making sure it meets its deadlines.
The Dreamliner is more fuel efficient, uses materials that didn't exist when I was growing up, and advanced avoinics. What's more obvious is the window dressing. Literally.
If you're sitting by the window in an airliner and don't want the sun shining on you, you move a bit of material over to cover the window: pretty much the same technological principle we've used to control light levels since someone put a flap of cloth (or leather) over a cave entrance.
If you're a passenger in a Dreamliner, you'll have the window turn darker or lighter. No leather flaps.
The interior design of the Dremaliner is remarkable - but more about that, after the videos.
Here are those YouTube videos I mentioned. Despite the "raw video" in the first one's title, it's a fairly polished bit of editing.
"Thomson Welcomes the Dreamliner - Farnborough Airshow, July 2010...."
Thomson Airways has ordered at least one Boeing Dreamliner: and they want to be sure that their potential customers know about it.
"Boeing 787 makes maiden flight" [video available on YouTube only] ReutersVideo, YouTube (December 15, 2009) video, 1:08
"Boeing's revolutionary lightweight 787 Dreamliner took to the skies for the first time, marking a new era in air transport as it became the largest passenger jet to fly made mostly of composite materials."
Boeing's 787 Dreamliner's interior design caught my eye. Boeing probably wants to be sure that airlines - and the folks who fly Dreamliners - don't forget that they're looking at a seriously up-to-date aircraft.
Here are Boeing photos I found in a December, 2009, Autopia/Wired article:
"It's about to be the Fourth of July and I am going on a family vacation to the nation's capitol. This time around, we will not be going to the usual tourist destinations. Instead, we are taking a giant leap into the world of space tourism: All five of us will be spending our Independence Day suspended in gravity as we embark on our first family Zero-G trip.
"Many children go through a phase in their lives when they want to become an astronaut to see what it feels like to fly in space. It wasn't long ago that I was one of those starry-eyed kids and little did I know that I would get the opportunity of a lifetime to feel weightlessness before I even turned 23.
"As a political journalist, I spend the majority of my time following stories with fascinating characters and complex storylines chock-full of melodrama and power struggles. However, I must say that this has to be one of the coolest assignments I will ever have in my career...."
I think this article's writer had fun - both covering the assignment, and writing about it. There's a sort of 'personal' touch that's not always there.
Or maybe it's my interest in space flight.
A few quibbles: It's not "zero gravity," technically. "Weightlessness" is closer, since while the Boeing 727 is in its 30-second parabolic curves everyone in the cabin is 'floating.'
Sounds like fun, although I wouldn't recommend the experience for anyone susceptible to motion sickness.
And, until we get regular passenger service to low Earth orbit, those half-minutes of free fall are about as close as most of us could get to experiencing space flight.
"A highway-worthy airplane moves one step closer to production with a recent weight exemption approved by the Federal Aviation Administration.
"The Transition Roadable Aircraft, developed by Massachusetts-based engineering firm Terrafugia, will be allowed a maximum takeoff weight of 1,430 pounds, the same allowance made for aircraft designed to operate on water.
"Other planes in the class, called Light Sport Aircraft, are limited to a maximum takeoff weight of 1,320 pounds...."
The extra weight is for safety features that make the aircraft (fairly) safe to drive on surface roads.
To fly one of these things, you'll need a Sport Pilot certificate: and about $194,000. Also a bit of patience. The certificate takes about 20 hours of flight training - maybe a couple weeks on the calendar. That'll help you pass the time until the first Terrafugia Transition Roadable Aircraft rolls off the assembly line: maybe 18 months from now.
If all this seems vaguely familiar, you've read your history of transportation. The airphibian did about the same thing that the Transition Roadable Aircraft does, back in the 1940s.
"It's an amazing scene: A NASA space shuttle rocketing into space while U.S. Air Force pilots watch from their airborne F-15E Strike Eagle jet fighter. The stunning snapshot was taken May 14 as NASA's shuttle Atlantis soared into orbit on its final scheduled mission...."
(United States Air Force photo by Captain John Peltier, via Space.com, used w/o permission) "Lt. Col. Gabriel Green and Capt. Zachary Bartoe patrol the skies over Kennedy Space Center, Fla., in an F-15E Strike Eagle as the Space Shuttle Atlantis launches into space for the last time. During the patrol, Strike Eagle aircrews identified and redirected five aircraft that inadvertently violated the airspace restriction put in place for the launch. Colonel Green is the 333rd Fighter Squadron commander and Captain Bartoe is a 333rd FS weapons system officer. Both aircrew members are assigned to Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, Goldsboro, N.C. Full Story...."
The Lemming doesn't, as a rule, copy this much of an article's text - but there wasn't all that much text with the article to begin with. Besides, I wanted to be sure that the names got passed along. And you'll probably want to follow the links to the Space.com article for the full-size photo. And the fuller-size photo.
That should be "more-full-size" or "bigger" photo. You get the idea.
Let's see, the Lemming's reaction: spectacular? wow? Yeah, I think that just about covers it.
"The Biomimetics and Dextrous Manipulation Lab at Stanford University has developed a system that enables a small aircraft to land and take off from vertical surfaces."
This short video isn't likely to win awards for cinematography - but as a documentary, it gets the job done.
The small airplane - about 18 inch wingspan - has a "autopilot," according to the video: So I don't know quite what to make of the "R/C" (Radio Controlled) in the title. Maybe the autopilot's 'brain' isn't in the plane, and communicates with it's 'body' via radio. They don't say.
It's a remarkable little machine - with feet and a couple clawed toes on each foot. I've seen birds - and a bat - approach walls the same way, basically. The animals are better at it.
The same video, from a groovier YouTube account, was embedded in a Discovery News post: "Aircraft Lands on Side of Wall, Vertically, "Tech News, Discovery News (April 29, 2010)
"An enormous ash cloud from a remote Icelandic volcano caused the biggest flight disruption since the 2001 terrorist attacks as it drifted over northern Europe and stranded travelers on six continents. Officials said it could take days for the skies to become safe again in one of aviation's most congested areas.
"The cloud, floating miles (kilometers) above Earth and capable of knocking out jet engines, wrecked travel plans for tens of thousands of people Thursday, from tourists and business travelers to politicians and royals. They couldn't see the source of their frustration - except indirectly, when the ash created vivid red and lavender sunsets.
"Non-emergency flights in Britain were canceled, and most will stay grounded until at least midday Friday.
"Authorities in Ireland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Belgium also closed their air space. France shut down 24 airports, including the main hub of Charles de Gaulle in Paris, Germany's Berlin and Hamburg were shut Thursday evening, and several flights out of the U.S. had to double back...."
"We are not as advanced as we deceive ourselves to be.
"The thousands of burned-up dead people who died needlessly in flimsy tube & wing airliners would scream out in outrage at our BS if they could..."
Well, I like the look of the Northrop YB-49 Flying Wing, and think we may see airliners built like that. Someday. It's probably just as well, though, that passenger air services haven't used visionary designs like the YB-49.
These days, we've got sophisticated control systems that can take instructions from the pilot and make the aircraft bank, pitch or roll as ordered. Which is a good thing. Those control system can make real-time adjustments that human beings simply can't react to: not quickly enough.
The YB-49 prototype looked cool, and actually flew. But: "...Instability issues frustrate[d] pilots and crews...." ("Northrop YB-49 Flying Wing Bomber," Chris Conrad, Matt Eluk, Liz Craig, Virginia Tech (undated, includes 1997 citation))
The video is vintage ca. 1950 promotional footage. With very monaural sound. (On my system, everything came in through my left year.)
I'd take the assertions in the "info" section with a grain of salt. At least.
I'll agree, though, that innovative thinking and imagination are not limited to the last few years.
Today, with fly-by-wire systems developed for other aircraft, and over a half-century of advances in materials technology, I think we're closer to having the sort of luxury airliner that was imagined in that newsreel.
I don't buy the idea that 'corporate greed' and other nasty things are keeping nice things from happening. On the other hand, I do think that we won't see radically different luxury aircraft for a while: because there isn't a market for them. Today.
They'd require a fair number of people who are willing to pay top dollar for a nice, leisurely flight - with a view. That doesn't sound like the typical business traveler to me.
"Oh sure, Boeing's new 787 Dreamliner is made of composite materials and it's super fuel efficient, but unless you own an airline, the only thing you care about is how comfortable it is. Boeing knows this, and has striven to give passengers an experience unlike any other airplane.
"The aerospace company decided an all-new airplane needs an all-new interior and went all-out to make the 787's interior as innovative as its airframe, aerodynamics and engines. From the air you breath to the turbulence you (won't) feel to the windows you look through, the passenger experience promises to provide something new at every stage of your flight...."
"...Boeing wastes no time giving passengers a new experience. As soon as you board the Dreamliner, you're greeted by an open area just inside the door. The ceiling resembles a skylight, complete with blue LED lighting that mimics the sky.
" 'They've designed this kind of lounge area instead of coming in next to a galley,' Hamilton says. 'It really gives you a welcoming area instead of entering into somebody's kitchen.'..."
The Wired article has a half-dozen more photos, and a pretty good description of the Boeing Dreamliner. Looks like they've got a fine-looking airliner on their hands. And, that Boeing had the end user in mind in the design.
Developing the Dreamliner hasn't been an entirely smooth road. Almost two years ago, someone noticed that the sophisticated control system of Boeing's airliner could be hacked. Not good news, particularly these days. Well, that was then - and from the lack of fuss since January of 2008, my guess is that Boeing's engineers reviewed and reworked the system.
Although I think it's more in the bells and whistles line, than more central concerns about the airframe and control systems, the Dreamliner's interior lighting is - cool. It's got at least three modes. Or moods. One for boarding, that clear bluish-white look in the photo; another, warmer, illumination; and cool, dim, blue-white for sleep.
I'm not likely to ever be on one of those Dreamliners, but that won't keep me from enjoying the photos. and descriptions.
"New transcripts from the Northwest Airlines flight that overflew Minneapolis show air traffic controllers asking the crew about what happened, and whether they had enough fuel.
"Air traffic controllers asked the Northwest Airlines pilots who overflew Minneapolis repeatedly about what had happened on the plane before the pilots responded, according to transcripts released Friday by the Federal Aviation Administration.
"The Oct. 21 flight, which took off from San Diego and overshot its Minneapolis destination by 150 miles, had been out of contact for 77 minutes before controllers re-established contact, leaving air traffic controllers scratching their heads...."
After that little incident over northeastern America, back on September 11, 2001, air traffic controllers - and the Department of Homeland Security - get very interested when airliner flight crews go silent and fly right past their scheduled destination.
The article gives excerpts from the transcript, outlining the conversation between the pilots and ground controllers. The gist of the chat, as I see it, was 'are you alone, on the flight deck, and in control of the airliner?'
"...Air traffic controllers ultimately had the pilots perform several turns to verify that they were in control of the plane. It landed safely in Minneapolis, and was met at the gate by police...."
More good news was that Flight 188 still had enough fuel to land.
And, this article says what the pilots were probably doing on their laptops, when they should have been flying the plane:
"...The pilots have told the National Transportation Safety Board that they were discussing their company's complicated new crew-scheduling program over their laptop computers as their plane flew past Minneapolis by 150 miles. Northwest was bought by Delta Air Lines Inc. last year, and the company has been working to integrate its computer systems."
About a month ago, after learning that the pilots had dropped out of communication for over an hour - and been distracted by their laptops when they should have been flying the plane - I somewhat unkindly wrote, "I don't play Donkey Kong while driving the family's van." (October 26, 2009)
I still think that those two were daft to act the way they did, but their behavior makes a little more sense.
From the looks of it, the new Delta-Northwest merger may be run by the sort of clueless executives and managers who infest the Dilbert comic strip. (www.dilbert.com) Dilbert is an engineer, working in a technology company - and whose manager once used an Etch A Sketch®, under the impression that it was a laptop computer. That manager is a tech expert, compared to the CEOs, who are even further removed - and insulated - from reality.
Granted, the pilots should not have been wrestling with some Kafkaesque 'new and improved' crew-scheduling program.
But this new bit of information suggests that the problem may not be just two pilots whose spiritual home may be somewhere in management. Maybe whoever is running Delta/Northwest needs to consider the possibility that an airline should be interested more in getting people from one place to another, without having interceptors ready to fly up and see what was wrong: and less on implementing dangerously impractical software.
"Now that we have explored the properties of hypersonic flows, hypersonic aerodynamics, and theoretical waverider designs, you may be wondering if any vehicle utilizing these concepts has or ever will fly. We will now discuss a few of the more common applications of hypersonic vehicles...."
The "more common applications" include:
XB-70 Valkyrie
National Aerospace Plane (NASP) and X-30
X-43 Hyper-X
LoFlyte
"...designed using a Mach 5.5 conical flowfield, ... not actually capable of flying at hypersonic speeds..."
Used to test low-speed control systems for hypersonic vehicles
This page/article is part of the "Hypersonic Waveriders" section on Aerospaceweb.org's1 website.
"Hypersonic"? What's That?
"...The general rule of thumb is that the hypersonic regime begins at about Mach 5...." In other words, "hypersonic" speeds start at around five times the speed of sound.
Hypersonic vehicles aren't all that new. Design work started in the fifties. The XB-70 prototypes cruised at about Mach 3 - well under the Mach 5 low end of hypersonic flight: but used many features that a hypersonic transport would have.
I found this article with a Google search - hypersonic aircraft design - while doing some research for another blog. Some of what I found was clearly on the 'hard science fiction - fantasy' continuum. On the other hand, some of the weirder-looking designs are what serious engineers are working on.
You'll find "Mach 5 - 25" used as a speed range in a number of (serious) articles on hypersonic flight. That's impressive, since at around Mach 23, you're at orbital velocity for low Earth orbits.
One of the serious - and exciting - possibilities is that, after some rather tough engineering issues are worked out, it will be possible to fly from a commercial airport to low Earth orbit and back. In an aircraft that takes off and lands pretty much the same way airliners do now. Using air-breathing engines for most of the flight.
These spaceplanes won't look much like a Boeing 747. Some hypersonic vehicle designs look like gargantuan arrowheads, others like a block of wood that's been used to demonstrate planing techniques in a high school shop class.
1 "Aerospaceweb.org is a non-profit site operated by engineers and scientists in the aerospace field. The goal of this site is to provide educational information on a variety of subjects ranging from aviation to space travel to aerospace technology. Our primary areas of expertise include aerodynamics, propulsion systems, vehicle design, engineering career information, and aerospace history. Learn more about these and other topics by visiting the following sections of our site."
"The pilots of Northwest Flight 188 on Sunday told federal investigators that they lost track of time and location -- but never went to sleep -- when they failed last week to respond to air-traffic controllers for more than an hour, according to people familiar with the crew's statements.
"During a session with a team from the National Transportation Safety Board, these people said, the cockpit crew recounted the same sequence of events it previously sketched out for airline superiors: They became distracted in conversation while cruising at 37,000 feet Wednesday night, didn't realize how long the plane had lost radio contact and flew more than 100 miles past their destination. Such a scenario is consistent with the brief statements first officer Richard Cole of Salem, Ore., made to reporters earlier in the weekend...."
Good News, The Flight Crew Wasn't Asleep; Bad News, They Weren't Flying the Plane
So far, the flight crew of Flight 188's behavior comes under the heading of 'yagottabekiddin!'
By the way: If you've been running into some articles talking about "Northwest" and others about "Delta" - they're both right, sort of. The pilots were on a Northwest airliner. Northwest is owned by Delta.
In a way, it's nice to know that members of the flight crew were probably awake. But - doing something on a laptop that was so engrossing that they overshot the airport by 150 miles? And didn't respond to air traffic control?!
There were interceptors ready to go up and deal with the nitwits: to get their attention, in this case, since Flight 188 had a worse-than-useless flight crew. If terrorists had taken over flight 188, I'm not sure what action would be taken. Probably something along the lines of what the passengers and crew of Flight 93 were involved in.
I know: it wouldn't be nice to shoot down an airliner with people in it. But it wouldn't be nice to fly an airliner with people in it into a skyscraper with people in it: and that's been done, folks. The real world tends to have big, hard facts in it, some with sharp edges. We can ignore them - but we get hurt when we do.
As for the dudes on the flight deck of Flight 188, I have some sympathy: I work and play on a computer, and sometimes lose track of time. But I don't play Donkey Kong while driving the family's van.
"The NTSB is investigating a case of distracted pilots at the controls after a Northwest Airlines flight overshot the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport by about 150 miles.
"According to the National Transportation Safety Board, Northwest Flight 188 from San Diego to Minneapolis lost radio contact with air-traffic controllers around 6:56 p.m. CDT on Wednesday. The Airbus A320, cruising at 37,000 feet, was carrying 144 passengers and five crew, said Delta.
"At 7:58 p.m. CDT, the plane flew over MSP Airport and continued northeast for approximately 150 miles. The MSP air traffic controller reestablished communications with the crew at 8:14 p.m. and said that the crew had become distracted and had overflown MSP, and requested to return to Minneapolis..."
The pilots apparently were discussing airline policy while the autopilot kept the airliner safe - 37,000 feet over the Minneapolis-St. Paul International airport.
I'm heartily grateful that one of the crew stayed focused.
Maybe it's time to start thinking about banning humans from critical decision-making positions: although AI research and development hasn't produced robots capable of matching the best human decision-making. (I'm only half-joking about this: September 8, 2009, April 25, 2009, April 7, 2008, March 3, 2008, October 11, 2007)
123-Foot Cruise Missile Targets American City
This isn't, putting it mildly, the point in history when it's a good idea for an American airliner's crew to aim at a metropolitan area, go on autopilot, and stop responding to traffic control.
The Airbus A320 wasn't designed as a cruise missile, but neither were the airliners that took down New York City's World Trade Center and put a hole in the Pentagon, back in 2001. Even after a flight from Denver, I'd guess that Flight 188 had enough fuel on board to turn the IDS Tower into a torch.
Which helps explain the American military's response:
"...Military fighter jets in two locations were on alert after communication was lost with the NWA plane. Pilots were in the jets on the tarmacs, fueled up and waiting for orders...."
I'm pretty sure the pilots would have tried communicating with those nincompoops in the cockpit, before getting orders to shoot the Airbus down. We've been through something like this before. ("Six Years Ago, Tomorrow: Remembering 9/11," Another War-on-Terror Blog (September 10, 2007), excerpt about Flight 85)
If Flight 188's flight crew decides to defend their right to put the lives of their cabin crew and passengers in danger, things could get interesting. That particular Airbus had an older cockpit voice recorder: one that only retains the last 30 minutes of cockpit chatter. (FOXNews) So the pilots could play dumb.
Dumber."Apathetic"? I've discussed this earlier today.
"...A 6-year-old boy was found hiding in a cardboard box in his family's garage attic Thursday after being feared aboard a homemade helium balloon that hurtled 50 miles through the sky on live television. Sheriff Jim Alderden turned to reporters during a news conference and gave a thumbs up and said, 'He's at the house.'
" 'Apparently he's been there the whole time,' Alderden said.
"Investigators had searched the house twice, and interviewed one of Falcon Heene's older brothers several times, he said. He said the brother reported that the boy floated off in the balloon was 'very adamant,' and the parents 'were besides [!] themselves with worry.'..."
"The 6-year-old Colorado boy who is believed to have set adrift a helium balloon Thursday, prompting ground and air searches, has been found alive, authorities said.
"Falcon Heene was found in a box in the attic of his family's Fort Collins home, according to authorities.
"People across the world watched Thursday as the homemade helium balloon soared 7,000 feet over eastern Colorado for more than an hour and a half.
"A sibling said he saw the Falcon get into the craft Thursday morning, authorities said.
"But the boy was not inside the craft when it made a soft landing near Keenesburg, about 60 miles from its starting point, at 1:35 p.m. (3:35 p.m. ET).
"Shortly after the landing, authorities launched a ground search and suggested that Falcon never took off in the balloon.
" 'I'm very confident we will find him. I think it's a matter of him being a little scared,' Larimer County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Eloise Campanella said. 'Maybe he's not ready to be found.'..."
I think Eloise Campanella is spot-on. Young Falcon would have known that the balloon was very important to his father - and would likely enough have felt responsible for it's release even if he hadn't had much to do with it.
Hiding under the bed - or in a cardboard box - is a rather natural thing to do. Especially when "the authorities" search the house. Twice. At that point, Falcon might reasonably (he's six, remember) think that his dad was really mad at him.
I've been following this, off and on, since around 2:30, Central time. This news is a huge relief - and an unusually prompt and clear answer to prayer.
"ON TV Hitler's Stealth Fighter airs Sunday, June 28, at 9 p.m. ET/PT on the National Geographic Channel.
"Top stealth-plane experts have re-created a radical, nearly forgotten Nazi aircraft: the Horten 2-29, a retro-futuristic fighter that arrived too late in World War II to make it into mass production...."
The article gives a pretty good overview of a working military jet, made mostly of wood, that was designed to be virtually invisible on radar.
I could be wrong, but I detect some NIH (Not Invented Here) in one statement: "...Some experts, like the Garber facility's Lee, question the Hortens' postwar claims that their plane had been intended as a stealth plane...."
The National Geographic News article is, of course, intended to encourage people to watch the company's program this Sunday, June 28. It also is a pretty good look at one facet of recent history.
If contemporary tests show that the Horten design was 'stealthy, Germany came very close to having a fleet of stealth bombers in WWII. This could have changed the course of the war - at least for a short time, until countermeasures were developed.
"...But by early 1945, aviation historian George Cully said, 'The Germans had run out of pilots, petroleum, and time.' "
Whether you call it trafficking in persons, human trafficking, or slavery, buying and selling people isn't nice. And, in quite a few cou...
Today's News! Some of it, anyway
Actually, some of yesterday's news may be here. Or maybe last week's. The software and science stuff might still be interesting, though. Or not. The Lemming thinks it's interesting: Your experience may vary.
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