Other ways to protest that a person can do.

Libyan people using violence to overcome violence, ONLY NEW VIOLENCE AGAINST THE VIOLENCE.

Please all the people of Vietnam Hero follow Libyan people:

Gasoline burn all government buildings, the gas plants, the tank cars carrying fuel, the homes of Communist Party members Hunting Dogs.

Each comment then goes on to provide detailed instructions with different ways of making and using Molotov cocktails. My approach to comment moderation on OurAirports is fairly permissive — I’m happy to leave in comments with strong language, political views, or even scammers trying to defend themselves (it’s fun to see other commenters take them down). I will not, however, allow comments encouraging violence, and even more importantly, I won’t allow comments that include weapon-making instructions.

In a wonderful bit of unintended irony, each comment ends like this:

The U.S. government declared, would send U.S. troops to guard the people’s protests, the people in countries with rebel demands to overthrow dictatorships.

The United States — saviour of the Vietnamese people?

You see, a TFR isn’t a very Canadian thing. It’s not that we don’t know what fear and terrorism are — around 1970, bombs were going off in Montreal, and a provincial cabinet minister was kidnapped and murdered; even more recently, the Iranian embassy here in Ottawa was bombed; 24 of the 9/11 victims were Canadian; and the police in Toronto recently arrested a bunch of bozos who were talking big about doing terrorist stuff, though it’s unlikely they were smart or motivated enough to pull anything off. It’s just that, like the British with their IRA crisis, at least some of us have learned that heavy-handed security doesn’t actually solve problems; instead, it makes people more scared, and when people are scared, the world becomes more dangerous for everyone.

So we don’t shut down hundreds of square miles of airspace for our amusement parks, our Prime Minister, or even our Queen. In fact, our Prime Minister sometimes walks his kids to school. Before 9/11, you could essentially fly right past the windows of Parliament; now, you have to fly 1,000 ft AGL over Parliament, or 0.5 nm away, but you can still fly pretty close (and even those restrictions don’t apply if you’re landing or taking off IFR under ATC control).

‘Nuff said. Here’s the TFR for the president’s visit next week:

CYOW DESIGNATED AIRSPACE HANDBOOK IS AMENDED AS FOLLOWS:
1) CYR537, PARLIAMENT HILL ON, REVISED TO READ: CLASS F
RESTRICTED AIRSPACE IS ESTABLISHED WITHIN THE AREA BOUNDED
BY 12 NM RADIUS OF 452529N 754159W (PARLIAMENT HILL),
SFC TO 12,500 FT MSL. NO PERSON SHALL OPR AN ACFT WITHIN THE
AREA EXC FOR STATE ACFT, MIL, POLICE OPS, REGULARLY SKED
COMMERCIAL PASSENGER AND CARGO CARRIERS, EMERG OR HUMANITARIAN
FLT AUTH BY ATC.  FOR AUTH ACFT OPR WITHIN CYR537,
THE OPR RULES FOR EXISTING AIRSPACE APPLY.
DLA MAY BE ANTICIPATED.
0902191600/0902192030.
2) CYR539, OTTAWA ON, CLASS F RESTRICTED AIRSPACE IS ESTABLISHED
WITHIN THE AREA BOUNDED BY 10 NM RADIUS OF 451921N 754009W
(OTTAWA/MACDONALD-CARTIER INTL), SFC TO 12,500 FT MSL. NO PERSON
SHALL OPR AN ACFT WITHIN THE AREA DESCRIBED EXC FOR STATE ACFT,
MIL, POLICE OPS, EMERG OR HUMANITARIAN FLT AUTH BY RCMP AT
1-888-420-7958.  FOR AUTH ACFT OPR WITHIN CYR539, THE OPR RULES
FOR EXISTING AIRSPACE APPLY.
0902191515/0902191545 AND 0902192210/0902192255.
3) CYR540, OTTAWA ON, CLASS F RESTRICTED AIRSPACE IS ESTABLISHED
WITHIN THE AREA BOUNDED BY 30 NM RADIUS OF 451921N 754009W
(OTTAWA/MACDONALD-CARTIER INTL) EXCLUDING CYR537 AND CYR539.
SFC TO 12,500 FT MSL. NO PERSON SHALL OPR AN ACFT WITHIN THE AREA
DESCRIBED EXC FOR STATE ACFT, MIL AND POLICE OPS, REGULARLY SKED
COMMERCIAL PASSENGER, CARGO CARRIERS, EMERG OR HUMANITARIAN FLT.
FOR MIL AND POLICE ACFT OPR WITHIN CYR540, THE OPR RULES FOR
CLASS G AIRSPACE APPLY. FOR OTHER ACFT LISTED ABV, OPR WITHIN
CYR540, THE RULES FOR EXISTING AIRSPACE APPLY.
OPR PROC FOR ALL OTHER ACFT ENTERING, EXITING OR TRANSITING
THROUGH CYR540 AUTH BY ATC SHALL:
-PRIOR TO FLT PLANNING INTO CYR540, HAVE AN AUTH NUMBER OBTAINED
FM THE RCMP 613-949-1737, 18 FEB 1300 TO 2100,
OR 1-888-420-7958, 19 FEB 1200 TO 2300. THE REQUEST WILL INCLUDE
THE NAMES AND BIRTHDAYS OF ALL PERSONS ONBOARD.
-HAVE FLT PLAN WITH AUTH NUMBER IN THE REMARKS SECTION IN ORDER
TO OBTAIN CLEARANCE TO OPR WITHIN CYR540.
-BE ON AN ACTIVE IFR OR VFR FLT PLAN WITH A DISCRETE CODE
ASSIGNED BY ATC 1-866-WXBRIEF AND SQUAWK THE DISCRETE CODE PRIOR
TO DEP AND AT ALL TIMES WHILE OPR WITHIN CYR540.
-REMAIN IN TWO-WAY RDO COM AT ALL TIMES WITH ATC.
-ACFT DEP FM AN AD WITHIN CYR540, MUST ESTABLISH AND MAINTAIN,
AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, TWO WAY RDO COM WITH ATC.
-PRIOR TO ENTERING CYR540, ACFT MUST ESTABLISH AND MAINTAIN TWO
WAY RDO COM WITH OTTAWA TML 127.7.
-ACFT ARR OR DEP LOCAL AD WITHIN CYR540 AND AUTH ACFT TRANSITING
THROUGH CYR540, REQUIRE AUTH FM OTTAWA TML FRQ 127.7.
DLA MAY BE ANTICIPATED.
0902191500 TIL 0902192300

Basically, unless you’re security, an airline, or medevac, don’t fly within 30nm of the Ottawa Airport from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm next Thursday below 12,500 ft MSL, period. That’s actually harsher than the typical presidential TFR in the U.S.

If the stories are true, why not sell it, instead of shutting it down? Lots of other software companies would be thrilled to have such a popular and prestigious title, and it wouldn’t compete against anything else at Microsoft.

In any case, whether you’re an aluminum-and-15w50 pilot practicing approaches, or a gamer who does all your flying on a computer screen, there are still choices. Here are the two best candidates:

• FlightGear — an Open Source flight simulator that runs on most computer platforms. The scenery is a bit rough around the edges, but it’s solid and usable.
• X-Plane — a commercial product that already gets some retail distribution. It has a very devoted following, though I’ve never liked the demos I’ve tried as much as I’ve liked FlightGear and MSFS.

I’m looking forward to hearing more news. The huge MSFS developer community must be in shock (as well as the many small companies devoted entirely to producing MSFS add-ons).

While we don’t have all the details yet, it sounds like amazing work from a US Airways crew, ditching a jetliner (a 737?) into the Hudson River today (story) right after takeoff from La Guardia Airport. According to witnesses, the landing was smooth, the plane stayed upright and afloat, and all 148 passengers and crew were able to be evacuated off the wings to nearby boats.

That’s a non-trivial accomplishment at any time, but especially with an apparent engine failure right after takeoff — a very busy time on the flight deck — when the crew had no time to prepare mentally for the ditching. Expect “double engine failure immediately after takeoff over water” to be a popular simulator exercise for airline pilots for the next while.

Canadian soil

Anyone born on Canadian soil (other than a child of diplomats) is automatically a Canadian citizen, but what about someone born in Canadian airspace?

Here’s the problem: there are no customs requirements for entering Canadian or American airspace, when the final destination is not in that country — the pilot only has to be in contact with an air traffic control unit. Sometimes the controllers aren’t even from the same country: Canadian controllers in Toronto, for example, handle some U.S. airspace in Upper Michigan, while American controllers handle some Canadian airspace around Windsor, ON.

A new business opportunity?

That means that I could take off from the U.S. in a medevac-equipped Cessna Caravan with a woman about to give birth, get permission from American controllers to enter Canadian airspace, then circle over Windsor until the baby is born. Voilà! A new Canadian citizen!

To be honest, that sounds a little far-fetched as an immigration scam or as a grey-marked business model: it would be easier for the pregnant woman just to come into Canada as a tourist and give birth more comfortably on the ground. Besides, I’m hugely pro-immigration — I think Canada’s new immigrant communities are among its greatest strengths, and I welcome Baby Sasha as a fellow citizen.

Whose laws?

Still, it’s an interesting precedent that someone who was never vetted by immigration officials can still be considered to be “in Canada”. My concern is that it might lead to both Canada and the U.S. imposing new restrictions on foreign planes using their airspace.

In 10 years, will Canadian G.A. pilots still be able to take the shortcut across Maine to Nova Scotia, for example, just by making a quick radio call to Boston Center and getting a squawk code, or will we have to file paperwork five days in advance and wait for approval from Washington? Does that mean that Canadian law now applies to passengers while they’re in Canadian airspace (not just aviation regulations, but other laws)? Will Saudi laws about alcohol and women’s clothing apply to passengers in an airliner while it’s passing over Saudi Arabia?

Stay tuned.

190 knots true airspeed at 17,500 feet burning 3.5 gallons per hour — very nice! He can get 50 miles to the gallon at that setting (comparable to an economy car), or 100 miles to the gallon at a more economical power setting (comparable to a motor scooter).

Pair aboard downed plane from N.L. found in life-raft off Baffin Island (CBC)

A small plane ditches in the Arctic, just before the start of winter. Both occupants somehow make it into a life raft, and are rescued some time later by a fishing boat. At a very minimum, they must have been wearing survival suits, but I’m not sure even that would be any kind of guarantee. It was -25° C here in Ottawa this morning, and I shudder to think of being out in a life raft for hours and hours in the dark, and even colder temperatures.

Update: The CBC story has more info now. They landed on ice, their plane broke through and sank with their liferaft, and they spent 18 hours stranded on some ice before being picked up. It was only -13C there, quite a bit warmer than Ottawa this morning. They were wearing survival suits.

On the street

They hooked up London cabbies to an fMRI machine, and observed which parts of their brain were active during different tasks while driving around London in a simulator. Here’s what they found:

Hippocamus

Initial route planning

Retroslenial cortex

Tracking the route in progress (waypoints, etc.)

Anterior prefrontal cortex

Planning diversions during the trip

Right lateral prefrontal cortex

Hazard detection (closed streets, etc.)

Medial prefrontal cortex

Tracking distance to destination

For example, as the cabbies got closer to their (virtual) destinations, the medial prefrontal cortex lit up more and more, like a DME counting down the distance to a VOR. Different parts of their brains performed social tasks like worrying about passengers.

In the air

These map very closely to the tasks a pilot performs, so it’s possible we’d see the same thing if a pilot in a simulator were hooked up to an fMRI: the right lateral prefrontal cortex would light up when watching for traffic or looking at bad weather ahead, the medial prefrontal cortex would show more and more activity as the pilot approached destination, etc.

It makes sense, then, that different people would show different relative strengths based on brain development — some might be very good at planning a route, but lousy at diversions; other people might hate planning, but be great at responding to unexpected problems en route. It’s a good argument against one size fits all for flight instruction.

Or then again, maybe flying is different. If anyone is looking for a great excuse to fit aviation into a grad school research project, here’s your chance …

No surprise, really. Flying is a fuel- and land-intensive pastime, when both oil and real estate are expensive and in short supply.

Canada

In Canada, as of September 2007, there were 61,109 pilot licenses and permits in force, with an additional 7,683 student permits [Transport Canada]. If we had the same population as the U.S., that would be the equivalent of nearly 628,000 active pilot licenses. Granted, that’s licenses/permits and not pilots, and a few pilots will hold multiple licenses or permits (e.g. fixed-wing, helicopter, and glider), but it’s probably true that Canada has proportionally more pilots than the U.S. Furthermore, the number seems to be holding fairly steady — ten years ago, in 1998, there were 61,241 licensed pilots (excluding student pilots?) [Transport Canada].

Positive or negative vibes?

What’s the difference? After all, we’re paying slightly more for fuel than the Americans are. One thing might be the hysteria about security and terrorism in the U.S., which paints pilots and planes as, if not exactly potential terrorists, certainly high risks.

Why get involved in a pastime that will make people look at you suspiciously, where your state or city will try to run extra security checks on you, where you read in the news about small planes being intercepted in constantly-changing TFRs, where the less talented investigative reporters will sneak onto your little community airfield to see if your Cessna’s door is unlocked so that they can run a scare story on the news that evening?

That won’t turn everyone away from flying, of course, but it will make some difference — we’re all sensitive to what our friends and neighbours think. In Canada (and, I suspect, parts of the U.S., like Alaska), people still generally react positively when they hear that you’re a pilot, though they learn quickly not mention the weather as a topic of conversation.

The original pilots and some of the crew members are on board as it heads from Montreal to Tucson on its way to a bone yard in the Mojave desert.

“Unfortunately, [the policy] does nothing to fix the primary cause of delays – our nation’s increasingly antiquated air traffic control system,” ATA CEO Jim May said. “Additional fees . . . will only increase the cost of flying for the consumer.”

Yes, the U.S. ATC system is antiquated, and yes, higher peak-hour fees at big airports may mean higher ticket prices, but how is ATC the problem? Flights don’t get delayed because a controller has to use a voice line to coordinate hand-offs or stare at a cold-war era radar screen; they get delayed because runways at big hubs can handle only a limited number of landings per hour. The proof is in the fact that there are almost never delays flying to small airports. (Ever had a ground hold waiting to fly to Massena, NY? Didn’t think so.)

Let’s make it really easy for the ATA:

• Big airport (called “hub”) has one active landing runway.
• Runway can handle 40 landings every hour.
• Your members (airlines) schedule 50 flights per hour into the hub.
• Planes land late.

Give the FAA as much new shiny technology as you want, but if there aren’t enough runways, it won’t help. Do you really want to be flying heavy jets a minute apart or less? Fancy navigation technology won’t get rid of wake turbulence.

To effect positive change in the energy field of the Earth through input of the largest possible instantaneous surge of human biological, mental and spiritual energy.

The web site doesn’t specify that this has to happen in pairs — presumably, it helps the Earth’s [their capitalization] energy field just as well alone or even in groups.

If you need to be behind the controls of an aircraft at 6:08 UTC, however, you might want to substitute eating chocolate.

From a news story about a new U.S.-run military flight training school in Iraq:

The mission shift is particularly acute for [Lt. Col. Mark] Bennett, who flew 15-hour combat missions over Iraq in 2003 and now finds himself forming steadfast friendships with the Iraqi pilots he trains.

“The B-1 is a symbol of air power, and of weapon strength. Now I’m flying a Cessna — a symbol of training and guidance,” said Bennett, a 39-year-old San Antonio, Texas, resident who commands the 52nd Expeditionary Flying Training Squadron. “Frankly, I like this role better.”

This posting is not intended to make any moral statement, positive or negative, about the war in Iraq. I just want to share a nice perspective on flying, especially for people in small planes who fantasize about flying big military aircraft — it seems it can work both ways.

Cessna 172 photo from Wikimedia Commons.

Like pilots, flight attendants are highly-trained professionals; remember that next time you’re tempted to treat one like a waiter or bellhop (though you shouldn’t treat waiters or bellhops that way, either).

To see just how important they are, check out this high-res video of China Airlines Flight 120, the Boeing 737 that caught fire when a bolt punctured the fuel tank after the plane taxied to the gate at Naha Airport in Okinawa last August. The flight attendants had about a minute to evacuate 165 passengers and crew off the plane before the heat became so intense that it started warping the airframe (long before the firefighters arrived):

http://podcast.sankei.co.jp/movie/news/wmv/070820china_air.wmv

It’s terrifying how fast the fire can intensify and spread. It’s fortunate that they were already on the ground, and that the plane had already burned off some (most?) of its fuel during the flight.

Cheers to the flight attendants who got everyone out alive.

Jeers to the moron passengers who you can see carrying coats, carry-on bags, etc. with them on their way out — each item could have cost a fellow passenger’s life.

The system broke badly — while some calls do get through, there are numerous reports of dropped calls, 30+ minute wait times, confused briefers, and more. For U.S. pilots, it’s almost as if flight services has ceased to exist, and judging from discussion on the mailing lists, they’ve pretty-much stopped filing VFR flight plans (which aren’t mandatory in the U.S.) except when required for ADIZ or cross-border flights.

Pilot, clear thyself

Things have gotten so bad that there’s now a new wiki, ClearanceWiki, devoted entirely to collecting information on how to pick up IFR clearances from small airports without having to call Flight Services — it lists radio frequencies or direct ATC phone numbers that are or might be available at each airport.

When I couldn’t close my flight plan

My own experience with Lockheed-Martin’s new U.S. FSS has been mixed. I appreciate that I can now call from a Canadian landline or cell phone to reach U.S. flight services (when the FAA ran the system, non-U.S. area codes were blocked), and most of the time I have been able to get through (do foreign callers get better service?), but I’ve had some bad experiences.

The worst was last week, when I landed at Alexandria Bay/Maxson in Upstate NY to clear customs. I had filed a cross-border VFR flight plan (as required by law), but Maxson has no RCO frequency, and I could not get through to anyone by phone to close the flight plan while my search-and-rescue time fast approached. I decided that my best bet was to take off and climb until I could reach someone (I also had to pick up an IFR clearance for the rest of the flight, but it was VFR in Maxson).

Once in the air, I explained the problem to Wheeler-SAC approach at Fort Drum, and they started trying to reach FSS for me on their own dedicated lines, also with no success (they were able to give me my IFR clearance quickly, though). Finally, I was high enough to pick up a Burlington RCO transceiver, and at the same time, Burlington had heard enough of a call from Wheeler-SAC (before the line went dead) to close my flight plan.

Not ideal in Canada, but better

While I’d rather not pay my ~$75 annual Nav Canada fee and the avgas tax, and I’m seriously p*ssed with the extra $10/takeoff fee coming up for using big airports like CYOW, we do get excellent FSS service here in Canada. I almost never wait on hold on the phone for a Nav Canada briefer, and when I do, it’s usually a few seconds at most; in fact, a couple of times I’ve called Nav Canada from the U.S. to get a briefing because I can’t get through to U.S. flight services — they’re always understanding and happy to help.

It’s a big flying club, and I don’t know the 68-year-old pilot, but the fact that he walked away uninjured suggests he did a good job getting the plane down. The news story says that the plane landed “nose down” — it might have settled nose down, but I doubt that it initially made ground contact that way when the pilot wasn’t hurt. Still, there was nothing annoying, obviously inaccurate, or sensational in the story, which is a good sign — no discussion of “narrowly missing” houses and schools only half a mile away, etc. Good for the CBC!

Now the bar’s just a bit lower: in this story, Reuters uses uses the term “crash” to describe a collapsed landing gear in a Dash-8, presumably during the landing roll after the plane had already touched down safely (the story isn’t big on details). They didn’t even bother calling it a “crash landing”; just a “crash”.

The SI story talks about figuring out who was at the controls during the crash, but that’s not the point. Even if someone were to discover a photo showing Liddle’s instructor, Tyler Stranger, at the controls just before the crash, Liddle could still have been acting as pilot in command during the flight; if so, he would have continued in that capacity even when Stranger was at the controls. Likewise, if he were paying Stranger as his instructor during the flight, then he was acting in the capacity of a student, not a passenger, no matter who was at the controls or who was PIC.

I’m no fan of aviation exclusions in life insurance (my own insurer agreed not to put one in), and I don’t want to cheer the insurer on in the upcoming lawsuit, but there’s an important point to be made here about flying. As other aviation bloggers have pointed out, its the responsibility for a flight, not the physical manipulation of the controls, that defines a pilot in command. Two centuries ago Nelson’s Royal Navy, captains rarely, if ever, touched the wheels of their ships — that was the helmsmen’s job — but nobody doubted that they were captains, all the same.

The battery was still flat when the pilots started to retract the gear. The gear retraction required enough power that it caused a brief electrical interruption to the Centurion 1.7 diesel engines, and that interruption caused both engines to reset. Now Diamond and Centurion are debating the issue: Centurion points out that operating procedures require at least one engine to be started on battery rather than APU, while Diamond points out that in tests, the engine fails after only a 1.7 ms power interruption, while it should be able to tolerate at least 50 ms.

Magnetos don’t need a battery

I’m sure that the companies will work it out, but in the meantime I’m happy that the 1940s-style technology powering my Warrior is a bit more robust. Once the propeller’s spinning, I could disconnect the battery and throw it out the window, and the engine would still keep running until the tanks are empty — the electricity for the spark plugs comes from a redundant pair of magnetos powered by the engine itself, and do not require a battery or alternator to keep working.