Media Hysteria

I was greeted by a picture in the paper today of an airliner landing at Edinburgh Airport in the recent bad weather.

The caption refers to 'bumpy landing' and the airliner being 'buffeted by strong winds'.  Media panic?

This is not necessarily supported by the photograph however.  All we see is an airliner coming in 'wing low'. 

Any pilot in the audience will recognise this as a standard option available to pilots in strong  cross winds and does not imply buffeting or a bumpy landing.  There are two approaches available to pilots which may be used alone or in combination. 

The first is the crab approach whereby the aircraft is kept level but pointing in to the wind, hence the name as it appears to be crabbing sideways down the runway.  This requires the pilot to straighten the aircraft just before touchdown.  Too early and the aircraft will drift sideways, too late and there will be excessive load on the landing gear and a jerk as the aircraft pulls straight.

The second approach, which may be what is displayed here, is the wing down approach which allows the aircraft to sideslip into the wind while remaining straight down the runway.  It has the advantage that it can often be maintained until touchdown.  Where a risk does exist however is if the bank angle exceeds a certain aircraft specific figure which means there is a risk of the wingtip or an engine touching the runway.

Airline pilots are highly trained for these situations, aircraft are designed to handle them, only the media like to hype it up to generate a story.

Chinese Lanterns

More and more these days we are seeing these pesky chinese lanterns.  They are launched at weddings, parties, in fact any time when someone has got them without any particular reason.

I think they should be banned on a number of grounds, and this is just from personal knowledge - there may be other reasons that I haven't thought of.

Firstly, it seems that they never burn out completely, so even those with 'biodegradable' frames rather than metal wires will still come to earth in some form.  The metal frames are litter that is dangerous to animals and children that come across them, but even the new biodegradable frames are potentially hazardous and can remain around for a long time.

Secondly, the fire risk.  I have seen a chinese lantern, still burining, land on the roof of a nearby house.  This was likely to be the result of a downdraft which exceeded the lantern's ability to rise.  Fortunately it sat on the tiles and burned out without causing any damage- how different that could have been if it had landed on say a plastic gutter, thatched roof, or perhaps a dry crop in a farmer's field?  There could have been massive and expensive fire damage.

Then of course we have the calls to the emergency services after people are convinced they have seen distress flares, aircraft going down in flames or in some cases, they are convinced these are aliens flying over.

Finally for now, as a pilot I have never had the misfortune to encounter one whilst airborne, but there are clearly two concerns.  Firstly there is the possible damage, though unlikely, if one or more lanterns are ingested by an aircraft engine - the metal framed ones will be worse here.  Secondly, the potential distraction caused to the crew if one suddenly comes into their field of view and they have to quickly identify it.  Here I speak from experience of flying around bonfire night, with around 500 litres of high octane fuel in tanks either side of me, and questioning how high fireworks can get!  The simple answer is that I climbed another 1,000 feet just to be sure but these lanterns can get very high depending on the weather conditions.  I wouldn't want to experience that!

Flying Cars

The Daily Mail reported today that flying cars could be with us in five years.  Prototypes exist in the USA and reportedly the CAA states that certification in Europe should be easy on the back of that.

Should we be worrying about the skies being filled with these things? I would say an emphatic NO to that, and here's why.

I would expect certification in the USA to be in the Experimental category - this allows people to build flying machines and use them privately but with fairly strict limitatons.  At present we have no equivalent category in Europe and the present European legislation is stricter than that of the US.  It is to change as Europe takes more control over aviation from the individual countries but I can't see a European Experimental category.

To fly you need a pilot's licence - these are expensive to obtain and maintain.  It is quite possible that the majority of the people who want one already have one and are quite happy flying aircraft - there's a novel idea.  Some may take to the flying car but I can't see it being too many.

Aircraft have to be maintained to a high standard of airworthiness - this is not cheap at all as any owner will tell you.  This is why many pilots hire an aircraft to let others have the risk and expense of maintenance and repairs, not to mention insurance.

As these flying cars are fixed wing, not rotary, they will need a runway to operate from.  This means you will have people having to get in their flying car, drive to an airfield, convert from car to aircraft, takeoff and fly to an airfield near their destination, convert back to a car and then drive to their eventual destination.  Practical, no more than driving to the airfield, hiring a real aircraft, and getting a taxi or hire car at the other end - which will also be less time consuming as there will be no rigging / derigging.

We also have the weather to contend with - weather you can safely drive in will prevent flight - so chances are you will have to drive anyway in a car that is a compromise and offers the worst of both worlds.

The final reason I have come up with for now is damage.  Get a car park ding in a conventional car and you are annoyed.  Get one in this machine and it can no longer be used as an aircraft until a certified engineer has repaired it and it has been deemed fit to fly again.

No way will I be getting a flying car rating on my licence!