Keyboard and Rudder: A blog on the Art of Flying: 2015

Thursday, December 24, 2015

The Christmas Candy Bomber: A heartwarming true story

Best wishes to you and yours for a wonderful holiday season. There was no post last Wednesday as I was in the middle of a 13-out-of-14 day work stretch. The plus side of that is that it means this year (unlike last year), I am home for Christmas and New Year's Day.

After World War II ended in 1945, Germany was divided into West and East Germany. The Allies ran the west half and the Soviets the east half. In June of 1948, the Soviets began the Berlin Blockade, shutting down access to East Germany, including food-carrying freight trains.

The United States wouldn't take this lying down, and it certainly wouldn't allow the citizens of West Germany to starve. The Air Force created and executed one of the most amazing operations in history: the Berlin Airlift. Over the months that followed, thousands upon thousands of tons of food and supplies were flown into the city.

The operation itself is an amazing story all on its own. But inside that story comes the heartwarming tale of Gail Halvorsen, "The Candy Bomber", who came up with the ingenious idea of making tiny parachutes out of handkerchiefs and dropping candy to children along the way. In the video that follows, Tom Brokaw narrates, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sings, and the Salt Lake Symphony performs "Christmas From Heaven", a beautiful tribute to Operation Little Vittles during the Berlin Airlift.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!

The author is an airline pilot, flight instructor, and adjunct college professor teaching aviation ground schools. He holds an ATP certificate with a DHC-8 type rating, as well as CFI, CFII, MEI, AGI, and IGI certificates, and is a former FAASafety Team representative and Master-level participant in the FAA's WINGS program. He is on Facebook as Larry the Flying Guy, has a Larry the Flying Guy YouTube channel, and is on Twitter as @Lairspeed.

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Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Why a vacuum failure in IMC is an emergency

Not long ago, I wrote a post trying to figure out why some pilots are more likely than others to declare an emergency. More specifically, I gave some ideas on why professional pilots are more likely to declare an emergency than other pilots. This is the opposite of what one might expect, since aren't the pros trained to handle anything?

The answer to that question is a qualified yes. However, sometimes "handling something" means recognizing when you need help, asking for that help, and then accepting that help when you get it. Marvin Gaye may have not been too proud to beg, but fortunately as pilots we don't have to beg: all we have to do is ask.

That post was sparked by a online debate with a pilot who flatly denied that losing a vacuum system—and therefore the attitude indicator and directional gyro, which are the critical sources of the information necessary to keep the shiny side up—in instrument meteorological conditions was an emergency. I have 10x the number of hours in the logbook than he does, yet I would declare an emergency immediately in that situation.

As it turns out, AOPA's Air Safety Institute has an accident case study that examines a fatal accident that happened precisely because that scenario actually happened: a pilot lost his vacuum system, yet continued on to an approach which ended up in a crash. You can watch it below:

This pilot was not stupid. He was a highly intelligent, competent, and accomplished surgeon. His story is not a case of "that could never happen to me". In fact, the first big mistake he made was doing the other pilot was saying was the correct response: being unwilling to tell ATC he had lost his gyros and therefore was in an emergency situation.

The fatal mistake he made was one that any of us could have had kill up at one time or another: instead of continuing on to his alternate, which had fine weather so failed instruments would be no problem, he wanted to complete the mission and end up where he intended to be. There isn't a pilot in the world who hasn't been strongly tempted—or even done it and gotten away with it—to do the same thing.

There but for the grace of God go any of us.

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The author is an airline pilot, flight instructor, and adjunct college professor teaching aviation ground schools. He holds an ATP certificate with a DHC-8 type rating, as well as CFI, CFII, MEI, AGI, and IGI certificates, and is a Master-level participant in the FAA's WINGS program and a former FAASafety Team representative. He is on Facebook as Larry the Flying Guy, has a Larry the Flying Guy YouTube channel, and is on Twitter as @Lairspeed.

It takes hours of work to bring each Keyboard & Rudder post to you. If you've found it useful, please consider making an easy one-time or recurring donation via PayPal in any amount you choose.

Thursday, November 26, 2015

Crepuscular Rays on Thanksgiving Day

I have a lot to be thankful for this year, and I hope you do, too. I'm thankful that I got off reserve at the beginning of this year and have moved close enough to the top of the seniority list that I can get Thanksgiving Day off this year.

I'm thankful that I get to fly an aircraft that has all the safety and redundancy of a transport-category airliner but still requires enough technical prowess that my skills stay challenged, and I get paid to do it. It's not as shiny as some planes, and it gets no love from passengers, but it is probably one of the all-around best airliners for its job still flying.

I'm thankful that I get to connect loved ones, get people to job interviews, and bring soldiers home. But sometimes, I'm just thankful for the quiet moments aloft; for the minutes watching a particularly glorious sunset. Sunsets from the air last longer, aren't blocked by anything, and depending on the altitude and the conditions, sometimes you can see the blaze of red and orange fade to a pale blue and then to almost black on the opposite side of the sky. On evenings like these, you can see day and night at the same time.

On days when you're really lucky, something else happens around sunset: crepuscular rays. Their same comes from the Latin for "twilight", since that's when they make their appearance. When you combine sunset with the peak of fall, the results can be spectacular:

The next one combines some rays with a perfectly-placed shadow on the ground that makes it look like the plane is casting an enormous shadow:

The next 3 I'll let you enjoy on your own.

Since another term for crepuscular rays is "Jacob's Ladder", here's a picture of what I think looks like a line of angels singing a song of the heavens:

Or it could just be the rare "jellyfish stratiform". Whatever makes you feel most thankful on this Thanksgiving day. One of the things I'm most thankful for is all of you who read Keyboard & Rudder!

If you enjoyed these, you'll also like Weather Pictures Speak a Thousand Words, Part 1 and Part 2. Thanks for reading, and see you next Wednesday!

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Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Tmeless yet contemporary

Here's a quick and easy way to have a bit of fun. Try to identify which of the following seven statements were said by Orville Wright and which were by Wilbur Wright:

1. Common sense is the most important trait for a pilot. Don't let the distractions affect your concentration. I think that goes for any sort of flying, any operating of machinery. You can't break the laws of physics, you've got to respect the laws of nature and aerodynamics.

2. You need to be very self critical and open to criticism from others: be it a ground observer, your instructor or your analyst. You always need to focus on how you could improve and develop good self-discipline.

3. Concentrate on what's necessary at the time. 99 per cent of what's going on doesn't need to be dealt with immediately, one per cent does. The ability to prioritise is vital.... Make sure you fly the airplane first and foremost.

4. I feel nervous all the time [before a flight] but I think that's quite good. If I didn't feel nervous I wouldn't be concentrating properly.

5. I feel nerves but I'm pretty able to control them. One of the things I have to work on is being too relaxed - that can cause mistakes. If you're too relaxed you might focus on something two or three seconds ahead, rather than in the moment.

6. I'm not an adrenaline junky, if I feel my heart rate rising then I've done something wrong. To me that's bad news. I want to fly... in a really disciplined fashion, I want everything to go as I planned.

7. What is chiefly needed is skill rather than machinery.... It is possible to fly without motors, but not without knowledge and skill.

Answers: #7 was Wilbur Wright. The other six were by neither of them, and were said in 2015 by two world-class pilots. Nonetheless, the advice they contain actually sounds so similar to what the Wrights (mostly Wilbur) wrote elsewhere that they are almost paraphrases of what the earliest aviators themselves said. The advice is as true now as it was over a century ago.

Normally, GQ Magazine isn't the place you'd go to for aviation news. However, the British edition of GQ recently had an excellent and interesting interview with two of the best competition pilots in the world: three-time Red Bull Air Race champion Paul Bonhomme and 2014's champion, Nigel Lamb.

The first six quotations above were from that interview. Paul Bonhomme is responsible for #1, 3, 4, 6. Nigel Lamb said #2 and 5. To see how timeless they are, go back and read them again, this time knowing their source and time, and you'll see that they are just as meaningful as when you read them while thinking of the Wright Brothers.

They also contain outstanding advice you can incorporate into your everyday flying or your flight lessons. Many of these I have already devoted one or more blog posts to, and most of them echo points I've made in the working draft of my upcoming book.

I use this advice every day in my day job as an airline pilot. Having several thousand hours and an ATP doesn't mean this doesn't apply to me anymore: "You need to be very self critical and open to criticism from others.... You always need to focus on how you could improve and develop good self-discipline."

After every flight, I still take some time to mentally debrief what I did well and what I could have done better. Even though the flight was successful and a planeload of passengers got to their destination uneventfully, there's always something I could have done better. The walk from the plane back to the crew room takes several minutes. During this time, I silently run down the list of the good and the not-perfect, trying to make the first column larger and the second column smaller.

It is telling that both of them mentioned nerves before a flight. Bonhomme said, "I feel nervous all the time [before a flight] but I think that's quite good. If I didn't feel nervous I wouldn't be concentrating properly," and Lamb said, "I feel nerves but I'm pretty able to control them. One of the things I have to work on is being too relaxed - that can cause mistakes. If you're too relaxed you might focus on something two or three seconds ahead, rather than in the moment."

These are two world champion racing pilots saying they get nervous. While my flying (and yours) doesn't involve pulling high-Gs a dozen feet off the ground, that doesn't mean we should get complacent. I still feel some nerves before every flight, whether it be a flight for pay or one for pleasure. However, these "nerves" are not what people generally think of when people talk about being nervous.

This is not a knee-knocking or teeth-chattering or babbling incoherently type of nervousness. Instead, it is a focusing kind of nerves. You run through your head what it is you're going to do, how you're going to do it, and what possible things might interfere with the first two. Think of the "nervousness" shown by the sprinter as she kneels into the chocks, already running the race in her head, or the fighter in his corner a minute before the bell rings to open the first round, running down the fight strategy in his head while he keeps in mind his opponent's weapons and weaknesses.

When this nervousness isn't there, complacency opens the door to mistakes. Once you stop worrying about the successful outcome of the flight, the flight is less likely to have a successful outcome. Some New Age self-help books say you can make your life better by challenging you to letting go of worry. The laws of physics turn that challenge into a dare.

The last one, "I'm not an adrenaline junky, if I feel my heart rate rising then I've done something wrong," describes me well, and many other pilots, too. It is also similar to what I say about my job. When people find out that I'm an airline pilot, sometimes they say, "Oh, that must be exciting!" My reply is, "Not if I'm doing it right."

Next week, I'll have a post full of clouds to be thankful for on Thanksgiving Day.

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Wednesday, November 4, 2015

Best rejection ever.

Our Dulles-Newark flight has a bit of a crazy flight plan. Instead of going anywhere near a straight line, it starts out in the right direction, then wanders off to the southeast for a while, which is totally the wrong way. It ambles to the east for a while once it reaches Baltimore, then finally swings northeast, which is where we need to be going.

Our filed flight plan is the red line; the route air traffic control usually has us fly is the black line shortcut. Chart excerpt from vfrmap.com.

This flight plan, in red above, isn't created to waste fuel or give passengers a nice view of the Baltimore Browns's football stadium. The out-of-the-way nature comes because of the need to connect with the bottom right portion of the "Big Dipper"-like route there. That corner is SWANN intersection, which is the transition we use to begin the RUUTH1 arrival into Newark.

Most of the time, this isn't what we end up flying anyway; it's only in the computer for planning purposes. Usually by the time we hit the first corner (which is WOOLY intersection), we are cleared direct to ODESA. This creates a nice little shortcut, which I've outlined in black above.

Notice the box in the middle that says, "CAUTION: UNMARKED BALLOONS ON CABLE TO 10,000' MSL". Chart excerpt from vfrmap.com.

However, that shortcut happens to pass through a restricted area, R-4001A-C. This is near Aberdeen Proving Ground (yes, that is spelled correctly), and is airspace set aside for a pair of tethered balloons (techincally, aerostats) that are part of the Army's JLENS program. Those are the "unmarked balloons on cable" mentioned in the box above.

Normally that is no big deal. Air traffic control clears us through it, since we're above 10,000 feet anyway. I often get a chance to snap some pictures of the aerostats as we pass right on through the restricted area. Here is a picture of them that I took on October 17, 2015:

There are two of them in this picture: one just above the wiper toward the center left, and the other close to the horizon at the upper right.

This is a cropped, zoomed-in version of the center of the picture above so you can see both of them.

Unfortunately, on October 28th, one of them broke loose. It traveled 160 miles over Maryland and Pennsylvania, and its broken tether—over a mile of it—scraped along the ground behind it, knocking out power lines along the way. It also led to the slowest air chase in history, as a pair of F-16s followed it on its rampage.

Two days later, we were flying our normal Dulles-Newark flight. Once we reached WOOLY, we didn't get our normal shortcut. After a bit, I asked for it. The controller's response was, "Sorry, I can't give that to you today because of that balloon that ran away from home the other day."

We chuckled and a Southwest pilot keyed the microphone, summing it up perfectly by saying, "Best rejection ever."

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Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Weather pictures speak a thousand words, Part 2: Weather hazards

Part 1 had lots of pictures of air masses demonstrating how much the atmosphere flows like water. This time, let's see what happens when the weather misbehaves.

Icing

The problem with ice isn't, as many pilots think, that it adds a lot of weight. In reality, it doesn't weigh all that much compared to the enormous performance penalty it creates by changing the shape and/or smoothness of the wing surface. After all, how efficient would your wing be if it were made from rock candy?

That nub on the windshield wiper is put there specifically to ice up. That way you can easily see if you're picking up ice, since it's right in your field of view--unlike the wings.

Thunderstorms

Some days, you have no choice but to dodge towering cumulus clouds:

At least there was a gap between those. Here's something you don't want to see sitting right over your initial approach fix:

Sure, thunderstorms are pretty when you're sitting on the ground:

They're not so pretty when you're trying to get from one airport to another, however. This is a classic frontal line, where a cold front plows through, lifting the air ahead of it and creating a long line of thunderbumpers:

And this (like the first thunderstorm picture above) one is a classic air mass or "pop-up" thunderstorm. It's easy to identify because it's all by itself:

In What do beer and thunderstorms have in common? I wrote about what helps a pocket of convection build into a monster like this. If there isn't enough energy to create something like the big guy above, you might end up with a failed thunderstorm that never happened, like this:

You can tell from the wispiness of the cloud that it tried to get going but fizzled out. (Not surprisingly, as I took that picture at 7:12 a.m. before the heat of the day added enough fuel to the atmospheric fire. There were thunderstorms there later that afternoon.) However, if there is enough energy to get the convection ball rolling, you end up with something like the next four pictures, each taken two minutes apart:

See how fast that grew? In less than eight minutes, it went from a little puff to a decently-growing towering cumulus. If I'd have had a chance to take more, you probably would have seen it keep growing even more. It's almost like a bomb going off, which is what this pocket of convection looked like:

That's why in the post Why there is no reason to fly through a thunderstorm in peacetime I compared the average thunderstorm's power and an atomic bomb's power.

Ever wonder what rain would look like if you could see it from the side instead of having it fall directly on your head? On the ground, you can't do that, but from the air you see it all the time. It's the misty stuff in these pictures:

And here you can see some virga, which is rain that evaporates before making it to the ground:

Here I am getting rained on while above the clouds! Why? Because there's another layer above me:

But as the day goes on and the sun begins to set, the ground begins to cool and more energy isn't being fed into the convection system anymore. Things begin to calm down and die out:

Even when it's cruddy on the ground, it can be beautiful above. Check out next week's post for how pretty it can be once you blast through the gray on the ground.

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Weather pictures speak a thousand words, Part 1: The air flowing like water

During the private pilot ground school I teach at the local college, we spend two full weeks on weather. Some people's eyes glaze over at the technical discussion of things like heat exchange processes, fronts, air masses, standard pseudoadiabatic lapse rates, and the other things that go into the atmospheric dynamo that creates the weather.

Personally, I love weather, which will probably come as no surprise to those of you who have seen all of the posts I've written on it throughout the last several years. One of the things that I enjoy most about flying is that you're not just talking about some abstract concept: you're actually up in the atmosphere dealing with weather on every single flight. That, after all, is why we spend so much time on it in class!

This time, instead of the typical post analyzing a certain weather phenomenon, I'm just going to show pictures of the processes in action. Lots and lots of pretty pictures. In fact, so many pictures I need to split this one into more than one post!

Air Masses

Weather comes from air moving. It's that simple. Everything else is details. The air starts moving because the equator heats up more than the poles because the sun hits the equator more directly. After that, the warm air tries to flow toward the colder poles. It doesn't make it there due to things like the coriolis effect, but its attempt it what sets the weather process in motion.

I said the air tries to flow from the equator to the poles. That's because one of the other important things to keep in mind is that air behaves like a liquid.

Yes, this is a picture of actual water. However, you'll notice that you'll see the same sort of behavior in many of the pictures to come.

Imagine dropping a pebble into a very gently flowing stream. It's easy to visualize what would happen: you would get ripples that would follow the current.

Now imagine that instead of dropping a pebble downward, you threw it up into the sky. That wouldn't do much, but if you heat a parcel of air (like, for example, by having a big smokestack with a lot of hot air rising out of it), you can do almost the same thing, as you can see in the next two pictures.

Now imagine if you had the same stream, but on the stream bed were some ridges. As the stream flows along, the water at the bottom gets pushed upward when it hits the ridges. This would cause some small waves or bulges on the surface. In Life on the Mississippi, Mark Twain recounts how he learned the art of reading the Mississippi River. One of the things an experienced riverboat pilot could do was to be able to read what's under the surface just by seeing what the surface looked like.

Air does the same thing and has the same telltale signs. I spend much of my flying time going across and along the Blue Ridge Mountains. I have numerous pictures of "gravity waves", which is the technical term for ripples in the air that happen when air hits something like the ridges of the Blue Ridge.

First, here's what the mountains themselves look like:

Now here's what happens when air flows across those ridges:

If the cloud remains connected between waves, the gravity wave "humps" are still there on top:

Here's an excellent cap cloud:

If the conditions are just right, the waves can actually crest! These are Kelvin-Helmholz waves, and can be seen where two fluids meet at different velocities. They can even be seen clearly and beautifully in the atmospheric bands of Jupiter, but on Earth they're easy to spot along muddy riverbanks where the slower water near the bank encounters the faster current in mid-river, or when a breeze blows over the ocean, or (like what's happening in this picture) a faster layer of air rides over a slower one:

Continuing with the stream metaphor: what would happen if the stream hit an obstacle that it was too shallow to go over? It would back up and be dammed, right? Or if you live near water, you've probably seen a breakwall, which is a man-made obstacle placed in front of waves to cut down on erosion.

If the conditions are right (meaning stable air and lots of moisture in that air), the air will do the same thing water would do: it will hit the obstacle and either try to crash over it or get backed up behind it. The next picture is what happens when it flows over it. Recall that as the air rises, it cools. Once it cools to its dewpoint, it dumps its moisture and creates a nice cloud that traces the ridgeline almost perfectly:

The next picture was taken outside the airport entrance at State College, PA, early in the morning. I was standing there for about 20 minutes watching the veeeeerrrrrryyyy slooooowww process of the air hitting the mountain like water hitting a breakwall and slowly splashing up and over it. And by "slowly" I mean about half an hour for one "wave"!

The next two pictures show the same thing happening a couple of months later:

Here is the air getting dammed when it hits the ridge. The sharply defined line is it stopping when it hits the ridge and getting backed up like water in a reservoir. If you look closely you can see the mountains it is hitting:

To cap off part 1, here's some very stable air trapping a cloud in between two ridges, with the skyline of New York City in the distance:

In part 2, there are more pretty pictures. This time, it's about weather hazards: icing and thunderstorms. If you've ever wondered what rain looks like from above, head over there now!

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