Sure, have it as well as, but don’t replace the code with plain language. NOTAMs are a different matter, they are often written in “code” by someone who is just making it up on the fly and have no consistency.
Appropriate XKCD
As I see it there are 2 issues with emergency procedures. You have to know which procedures to follow and you have to have practiced those procedures in advance.
Imagine a cast iron pot that boils over. The likelihood of grabbing the handle without a pot holder is pretty good because nobody practices for the event. It’s human nature to react to something based on previous behavior.
I’ve had this what-if conversation with many pilots. It should be no surprise that aircraft emergencies get buggered up because they weren’t practiced for in advance. It can be as simple as using a flight bag as an “airbag” or opening the door before landing in a field to avoid the door jamming in the frame. Nobody tells you this when learning to fly. but unlike car windows that be smashed open you can’t easily break plastic aircraft windows.
Actually, proper training should include all that. But seldom does.
But agree 100% with your overall point. In a crisis, people do what they’ve practiced. If they’ve practiced nothing, they do nothing. Followed by doing something ill-considered. But at least it’s late.
Payne Stewart redux?
The Department of Defence scrambled fighter jets to intercept a private jet that entered Washington DC airspace and later crashed into mountainous terrain in southwest Virginia, officials said…
According to the Aviation Safety website, the plane veered of its planned route about 1 hour 15 minutes into the flight. It went past its intended destination in Long Island, and began a rapid descent spiral shortly before it crashed, according to the site.
And here is the flight path:
Wow. Putting all that together the air defense folks around Washington must have gone apeshit looking at that. Odd coincidence that the runway at Islip on Long Island is boresighted on downtown Washington DC a couple hundred miles away.
I’m a little surprised about the sonic booms in DC. Not that they can’t or won’t do that to chase intruders. But rather I’d have expected fighters to have been launched a long time previously , like while they were over the water off NJ heading towards Long Island still at altitude and unresponsive. Those jets wouldn’t have needed to be in (much of) a hurry.
From the replay they were above 10K ft in just a few minutes and above 25K ft not long thereafter. Which is pretty typical. A total failure to pressurize and to notice or react to that fact could have meant they were a ghost ship from not even 10 minutes after liftoff.
It’ll be interesting in the next couple of days to hear where/when in the flight the pilots were last heard from. Was it relatively down low, or did they get established in cruise then go silent?
Just noticed the title change — how long has it been this way?
Brian
Dunno. I never saw it until you pointed it out. It almost certainly has been less than a couple weeks.
Yeah don’t know. I’ve only ever read it as “Bla bla bla Aviation bla bla”. I do like the change though, more representative of what we actually talk about.
I noticed the change just minutes ago.
If it had been up to me to warn of the British coming, we would have been in deep trouble.
My dad told me the acronym “BOBOB” for a quick turn-around for an airliner.
Spoilered, in case anyone wants to guess.
Bodies Off, Bodies On, and Boogie
This is more of a military aviation question, but with the title change (which I just noticed this morning), it’s now totally appropriate for this thread.
So I just watched the Hulu miniseries Catch 22 recently. I have no idea how accurately they actually portrayed the procedure for dropping bombs from a B-25, but one little detail I noticed is that Yossarian says “bombs away” over the intercom before he hits the button to release the bombs. I’m guessing those bombs are a pretty significant portion of the plane’s weight, so dropping them will have a fairly significant, and sudden, impact on how the plane handles. So is saying “bombs away” before actually dropping them meant to warn the pilots to be ready for that sudden change in weight?
The B-25 used the Norden bomb sight. An amazing piece of hardware for the time, and one of the biggest secrets of the war.:
I believe the version in the B-25 was slaved to the autopilot so the pilot wasn’t actually flying when the bombs are released. In earlier versions, the pilot had a ‘PDI’ or Pilot Direction Indicator controlled by the bomb sight telling them the heading to fly for accurate bombing.
Regardless, “Bombs Away!” is generally said immediately before the drop. No doubt as a final warning to the crew and announcement that the bombing phase has started.
The reason you mentioned is a real thing. I have a friend who flew a modified B-25 water bomber. She said that when they dumped water she was ready to push the column forward hard to deal with the sudden weight and Cg change. Bombs would be no different.
I was going to ask about that. I know that the Norden bomb sight flew the airplane after it was set up at the IP, and dropped the bombs automatically, but I didn’t know if they were used on B-25s.
Hey, what about Major Kong?
He probably could have used a warning.
I never flew a crew-served bomb dropper. So can’t say anything about “Bombs away”, although it is a cool song.
About the heaviest load we salvo-ed in the F-16 was 2x 2000lb Mk-84 bombs. So 4,000 pounds leaving in an instant. From a machine that weighed, with typical combat fuel about 22,000# after the bombs were gone, 26,000# before. So an instant 15% reduction in weight and also losing a bunch of drag.
Most fighter-bomber bombing is done in some manner of dive with ideally a straight flight path at the instant of release, meaning you’d have between ~0.7 and and 0.9G on the airplane depending on dive angle. It was a pretty good jolt when you pushed the button. “Jolt” is not normally a word that applies to safe flying.
We did some tossing attacks where you’d have 2 or 3 G on the jet at release. Accuracy was reduced, but range to target was greatly increased which improved our survivability. Great for area targets defended with AAA, not SAMs. Dumping 4000# off the jet under 3Gs was one hell of a jolt. Don’t bite your tongue off.
Back to the Norden and WW-II…
I can certainly believe that even with the smaller bombs dropped in a train back in the WWII days, warning the crew what was about to happen would be a darn good idea.
One of the things USAAF did with their giant bomber formations was to have the lead bombardier be the one who controlled the attack. All the pilots tried to hold their formation spacing carefully so the whole formation became a giant shotgun of a known pattern of bombs.
The lead bombardier would do all his aiming & timing to get the lead aircraft into the right spot in the sky. Meanwhile all the other bombardiers would watch his plane carefully & push their release button when they saw his bombs (or anyone else’s). Lead would call some warning over the radio just before to ensure everyone was paying attention.
I think, but am not sure, that the “bombs away” call was the final radio warning.
I didn’t hear the boom myself but this was a big item on the local news here in Maryland. Why did the autopilot turn the plane around back (presumably) to the starting point in Tennessee when it got to New York ?
More news on the aircraft that sparked the air defense scramble.
- Plane was a privately owned Citation V.
- All 4 souls on board were lost: pilot, daughter and granddaughter of A/C owner, and granddaughter’s nanny
- Plane went down hard in the deep woods on the Blue Ridge near Waynesboro, Virginia
- During the air defense intercept, the pilot of the mishap plane was reported to be slumped unresponsive in the pilot’s seat
So, yes, looking a lot like Payne Stewart all over again.
It did not. The error is in the “presumably”. Not knowing your background I’ll start at the basics. I apologize in advance if that’s condescending vs. your background.
Airports are equipped with pre-designed procedures to land in bad weather. Called generally an “approach” or “instrument approach”, these provide a designated trackable vertical and lateral path for the last 5 to 15 miles of flight upstream of the landing leading directly to the correct spot on the runway(s). Airports are also equipped with pre-designed procedures (“arrivals”) leading from cruise altitude at known navigation point(s) maybe 100 miles from the airport to a point at low altitude 15-20 miles from the airport that logically connects to one or more approach(es).
With modern computerized planning and navigation systems it’s common to know the planned arrival before takeoff. It’s also common, based on weather forecasts for the destination at your expected arrival time to know the most likely landing runway and hence the approach(es) leading to it. It’s therefore commonplace to configure all that into the airplane’s nav computer before takeoff. With jets it’s also normal that whether the weather is bad or good, they’ll plan to operate under instrument procedures using arrivals and approaches rather than just ad libbing their maneuvering towards the airport.
The plans often change a bit enroute. But at least you’ve provided the computer with a “rough draft” of what’s to come. Which in turn improves the quality of its predictions of arrival time, remaining fuel, etc. If plans do change later, just erase the inapplicable parts and substitute the revised parts, wait a few seconds and the new expected results are displayed.
Once in the air on the programmed plan with autopilot engaged, the airplane will follow the lateral aspect of the plan as last entered. If climbing, the airplane will continue climbing as planned then cruise at the planned height. If already established at the planned height that will be maintained indefinitely. What it won’t do is descend later without a pilot input authorizing descent.
With the result that if the crew is incapacitated in climb or cruise, the aircraft flies the cruise portion as programmed. Then when it gets to the place where the crew would normally start down, the computer will not receive that input and so will remain at cruise altitude but follow the programmed arrival ground track which aims it generally towards the destination airport and assumed runway. It will then, still at cruise altitude, pick up and follow the programmed approach ground track, leading to it overflying the intended runway just about perfectly. But instead of being at low altitude and low speed configured for landing, it’ll be up at cruise altitude at cruise speed.
Typically at that point it has no further idea where to go, so it’ll simply go straight ahead and maintain altitude, expecting pilot intervention soon enough. Absent intervention they will cruise along in a straight line at a constant altitude until the fuel runs out, the electricity quits, and the computers shut down. Then the airplane rolls over on its side and plunges into the ground at high speed.
So that’s the set-up.
By happenstance, the runway they expected to use in Long Island New York points just about exactly at downtown Washington DC, some 225 miles away. And also points pretty nearly towards Elizabethton TN from where they took off.
If by happenstance the wind was blowing the other way in New York that day the plane would probably have been programmed to land the other way and therefore flown a different path towards the other end of the airport. It would then have passed over the airfield going northeast, not southwest, and they would have crashed into the ocean 50-100 miles off the coast of Maine instead.