Technology Ups and Downs

My ideas file is much longer than the time I am spending using it, so I've pulled out several news stories that I'd better comment on before they expire.

No headline writer could resist the fact that the captain's arm came off during landing, but if you read to the end you realize that the prosthetic stayed attached to the body. It's the clamping device he was using to ensure that the artificial limb maintained a grip on the yoke during the flare that came off the yoke. I have worked with a student pilot with an prosthetic foot and know of a pilot who lost both arms flying with prosthetics, and a pilot born without arms flying with her feet. (The hardest part of the exercise for her appeared to be fastening the lap belt). I have worked with commercial pilots missing a finger or two, but not a whole limb. I would have thought a co-pilot briefing on the subject would be required, and I would also have expected a co-pilot to automatically grab the yoke without a briefed transfer of control, the way you would reach for something fragile if you noticed it slip from your friend's hands, or the way the passengers in your car stomp the floorboards if the car in front of you brakes suddenly. (Except me: it has been documented that I grab for the brakes with my hands, as though I was stopping a bicycle. I rode a bicycle for many years before I drove a car and apparently in my brain that's still the hardwired subconscious stopping reaction). I thought until it was pointed out to me that I was throwing up my hands to protect my face, so perhaps it has now mutated into an attempt to bank out of the way.

As the person who sent me this link pointed out, rich idiots looking for fun has always been a source of danger in our communities, but the line that struck me in this article was, "Recreational drone users don't need approval from Transport Canada." Surely, however, they are restricted to uncontrolled airspace? It shouldn't be too hard to make it illegal to fly one in an airway or approach path. I will have to do more research on this in the winter.

I don't remember where I got this purported mid-air airplane repair. It must be staged, but it's still a pretty neat trick.

This caught my attention not only because it was an air accident involving a very respected Canadian operator with a lot of Antarctic experience, but also because it was on CBC North. Antarctica is the North of the South, of course. And it's likely that the crew although from Calgary, had ties to the North. I'm six minutes to boarding so don't have time to find if they managed to recover these bodies, or if the antarctic ice shifted and swallowed everything up.

Safe flying, people. Keep both arms on, and watch out for those drones.

Military Code of Honour

I'm working in the vicinity of military airspace today, where by today I mean the day on which I took these cryptic notes and put them in my blogging file. In Canada the lateral boundaries of permanent military airspace are marked on charts with a busy line itself composed of fine parallel lines that are perpendicular to the line they define. The area so designated is usually tagged CYR and a unique three digit number. That must be C for Canadian, Y for why do Canadians use Y so much in aviation? and R for restricted. The number is so you can look it up in the Designated Airspace Handbook to see who is in charge of it. Some military airspace may be CYA (A for advisory), but that just warns pilots that military aircraft may be present, and doesn't obligate pilots to remain clear or obtain permission the way restricted airspace does.

The vertical and temporal limits of restricted airspace must be discerned by careful scrutiny of the notations inside the marked boundaries. A lot of military airspace is only active nine to five local time Monday through Friday. Given the non-business-hours nature of military operations, this always seems a bit strange to me, but it's nice to be able to use their sky on the weekends. The civilian term for airspace restrictions being in effect is the word I just used, active, but the military controllers say hot and cold which is short and clear and sounds flashy. The military are good at that. Often military airspace is hot between certain altitudes continuously and then at an extended range of altitudes occasionally by NOTAM. That means I have to check the NOTAMs to see if CYA 999 is active today, but of course I have to check the NOTAMs anyway to see if there are any temporary flight restrictions. And yeah, I used that phrasing so I could make fun of the US which has what appear to be permanent TFRs over strategic national locations such as Disney World. They do have some pretty advanced robotics there, and you never know, Disney World might close down before the end of the current chart cycle.

On the particular day I'm writing about, I have done the chart interpretation dance before the flight, and decided that our work doesn't require entrance to the military airspace. I talk to the military controller anyway, for flight following. I go under some airspace, because its floor is above the altitude I need. Some parts are NOTAMed cold, so I get to go through them. There are clouds in the area we want to work, but the actual spot we want to overfly is very small, so we fly around in circles waiting for the clouds to get out of the way, and trying to dodge them and their shadows well enough to complete the work. It takes a number of passes, but we get it all and then inform the military controller that we are going to land at a small non-military aerodrome nearby. There's a published mandatory route to land there, and I tune a particular radial to ensure I follow it. The controller sees what I'm doing and clears me direct. Well that was easy.

There's an elaborate honour system involving multiple codes and keys to obtain and pay for fuel here, and a really questionable restroom. A wave hello to those who know exactly where I am today. I know it can't be too hard to figure out if you've been here, and it's okay to guess in the comments if you want, but more fun for the game to leave cryptic hints than a straight out answer. Once everything is put away I file a new flight plan and depart. The controller again clears me direct through the airspace I planned around. Just in case you need confirmation of your guess where we are, my fellow crew member starts making cow noises after a pilot coming into the same airport reads back his clearance. I laugh hysterically, because I had been about to moo, too.

On the ground an older pilot sees my ride and comes up to me to reminisce because he once worked in Nepal flying the type I'm flying now. He nails the strengths and weaknesses straight off, and tells me something I didn't know, that the fuel selector is designed such that at low temperatures it can become impossible to switch from the inboard to the outboard wing tanks. Interesting. I had not known that. The manual permits take off and landing on any tanks, without a published restriction on which fuel is burned first, as long as there isn't a sizable imbalance between wings.

Amazing Little-Known Aircraft

I really should spend some of the energy I expend reading webcomics and watching Law & Order reruns on keeping up with the coolness of experimental aviation. Here are a few I've been collecting to share with you, none of which I found out about as soon as I should have, so don't expect any breaking news.

The Goodyear Inflatoplane was built long before I was born, but really that is the sort of thing that legend should keep alive in everyone's hearts, even though the project is long gone. I love inflatable stuff. Inflatable Christmas decorations, punching bags, air mattresses, pool toys, you name it. And "Inflatoplane" is the best name. They really knew how to name things back then. The airplane I learned to fly in was designed in the same age of naming, and its features includes omnivision, paralift and land-o-matic.

Fortunately the fifties named inventions that were yet to be invented, so that this is still called a rocket pack or a jetpack or a rocket belt. It's a bit like the personal videophone though, into the proof of concept phase, but still not really there. Another model leaves the fuel on the ground, and removes dangerous exhaust from the vicinity of the user, allowing for much more flight time, but restricting the flight path to over relatively calm water.

This experimental miniature airplane uses the same flight techniques as the birds I love to watch, controlling their momentum with such precise timing that they come to a full-stall landing on a single point. It's awesome to watch them adjusting everything to make that landing. They mess up sometimes, but because their wingtips and tail sections are made of feathers, they don't need to report for major repairs or inspections when they do. Birds land on power lines because they are available and away from predators, so it's doubly cool that the MAV is using the power line as a food source, actually poaching the current to recharge its batteries.

And finally, last month the Solar Impulse has completed a flight of over twenty-six hours (yes, through the night and into the next day) entirely on solar power. The team is planning to build an even more efficient solar-powered airplane and do a round the world trip. I'm embarrassed that I didn't know about this the same day it happened, because it's the coolest thing ever. I'd love to fly a solar or human-powered aircraft. I should really get my glider licence. Started it once, but then I moved for a job, to somewhere there weren't gliders.