View Places I've Flown in a larger map.
Red = NewCo
Green = Horizon
Blue = Light Plane
Orange = Nonrevving
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Places I've Flown
View Places I've Flown in a larger map.
Red = NewCo
Green = Horizon
Blue = Light Plane
Orange = Nonrevving
Friday, February 11, 2011
Home
When I left Horizon in 2007, I knew I was doing the right thing for my career. I was a lot less sure about everything else. Dawn and I had a nice life in Portland, with good friends and a nice house and beautiful surroundings we loved to explore. It was home. Our families were all still in Minnesota, but it had long ago ceased to feel like a place I belonged. Quitting Horizon and moving back to Minnesota were two huge decisions we made over the course of about a day and a half, and I questioned whether we did the right thing for months afterward. I missed our old life.
The circumstances of the first year after our move didn't reassure me. When we initially moved back, I unsuccessfully tried to sell our townhouse myself, and then handed it over to an agent. She quickly found a buyer willing to pay near our asking price, but the transaction dragged out and finally fell apart at the very last minute in March of 2008. We put the townhouse back on the market but nobody was biting; the housing market in Portland was following the rest of the country off of a cliff. We resigned ourselves to renting out our former home.
At first we lived in Dawn's aunt's basement, a less than ideal situation necessitated by paying the mortgage on our empty townhouse while I took a 50% paycut. Eventually we rented a two-bedroom apartment in trendy Uptown Minneapolis, at first with a roommate and later on our own. We sold our Blazer and I took public transit to work and walked everywhere else. After I upgraded, we were able to aggressively pay down the townhouse and then sock money way for the place of our own that we yearned for. The timing was never right, though. The housing market was still in freefall, the RedCo-Widget merger was casting serious doubt on my future employment, and the commitment of our townhouse mortgage hung over us. We ended up staying at our cozy little apartment for three years, the longest we've lived anywhere in our nomadic life together.
This last spring, we started seriously looking into buying a place in the Twin Cities. In May, we put in a decidedly lowball offer on a short sale in Waconia, a small town about 30 miles west of Minneapolis. Two months went by before the bank accepted our offer as written. After that, things dragged out painfully slow. Bank of America, the mortgage holder, was impossible to deal with. They raised the price once on us after we supposedly had a purchase agreement, failed to tell us the house was about to go to a Sheriff's sale, and then raised the price again in late October. We'd had enough; we told them to drop dead. Our summer had been consumed by dealing with house purchase matters, all for naught.
Only a week or two later, a listing caught my eye and I asked our agent to arrange a showing. From the moment I set foot in the front door, I knew this was our new home. Dawn saw it a few days later, loved it as much as I knew she would, and wrote up an offer which was accepted within a day. The purchase process went smoothly and we closed in mid-December, rented back to the sellers over the holidays, and moved in last month.
Our new house sits high on a ridge overlooking the Minnesota River valley, with a backyard that slopes down to rolling forestland. There's a huge deck out back, and a stone patio out front. There's a three car garage with a workshop that is perfect for working on my motorcycles. The kitchen is shockingly big and useful after three years of trying to cook in a narrow galley kitchen with no counterspace. The house is truthfully too big for two people, but we'll be able to fill it with visiting friends for now - and eventually, we hope, a family. We've only been living here a few weeks, and it already feels like home. I hope we live here a long, long time.
Minnesota, too, finally feels like home to me again. This winter has been as cold and snowy as any, but it hasn't really bothered me. We're looking forward to another full season of cheering on the Twins in their beautiful new ballpark, and rediscovering our state from the unique perspective of a small plane lazing along at 1000 feet above the trees and lakes. Lately, Minnesotans have even discovered the virtues of good beer: I've been able to find Franziskaner, Moose Drool, and Black Butte Porter on local shelves and taps. Really, though, all these are just reasons to like Minnesota. The surest measure of home, for me, is the warm feeling in my chest that I get when I touch down in MSP on the last leg of a 4-day trip. Wherever I've been, there's no doubting that I'm truly home.
The circumstances of the first year after our move didn't reassure me. When we initially moved back, I unsuccessfully tried to sell our townhouse myself, and then handed it over to an agent. She quickly found a buyer willing to pay near our asking price, but the transaction dragged out and finally fell apart at the very last minute in March of 2008. We put the townhouse back on the market but nobody was biting; the housing market in Portland was following the rest of the country off of a cliff. We resigned ourselves to renting out our former home.
At first we lived in Dawn's aunt's basement, a less than ideal situation necessitated by paying the mortgage on our empty townhouse while I took a 50% paycut. Eventually we rented a two-bedroom apartment in trendy Uptown Minneapolis, at first with a roommate and later on our own. We sold our Blazer and I took public transit to work and walked everywhere else. After I upgraded, we were able to aggressively pay down the townhouse and then sock money way for the place of our own that we yearned for. The timing was never right, though. The housing market was still in freefall, the RedCo-Widget merger was casting serious doubt on my future employment, and the commitment of our townhouse mortgage hung over us. We ended up staying at our cozy little apartment for three years, the longest we've lived anywhere in our nomadic life together.
This last spring, we started seriously looking into buying a place in the Twin Cities. In May, we put in a decidedly lowball offer on a short sale in Waconia, a small town about 30 miles west of Minneapolis. Two months went by before the bank accepted our offer as written. After that, things dragged out painfully slow. Bank of America, the mortgage holder, was impossible to deal with. They raised the price once on us after we supposedly had a purchase agreement, failed to tell us the house was about to go to a Sheriff's sale, and then raised the price again in late October. We'd had enough; we told them to drop dead. Our summer had been consumed by dealing with house purchase matters, all for naught.
Only a week or two later, a listing caught my eye and I asked our agent to arrange a showing. From the moment I set foot in the front door, I knew this was our new home. Dawn saw it a few days later, loved it as much as I knew she would, and wrote up an offer which was accepted within a day. The purchase process went smoothly and we closed in mid-December, rented back to the sellers over the holidays, and moved in last month.
Our new house sits high on a ridge overlooking the Minnesota River valley, with a backyard that slopes down to rolling forestland. There's a huge deck out back, and a stone patio out front. There's a three car garage with a workshop that is perfect for working on my motorcycles. The kitchen is shockingly big and useful after three years of trying to cook in a narrow galley kitchen with no counterspace. The house is truthfully too big for two people, but we'll be able to fill it with visiting friends for now - and eventually, we hope, a family. We've only been living here a few weeks, and it already feels like home. I hope we live here a long, long time.
Minnesota, too, finally feels like home to me again. This winter has been as cold and snowy as any, but it hasn't really bothered me. We're looking forward to another full season of cheering on the Twins in their beautiful new ballpark, and rediscovering our state from the unique perspective of a small plane lazing along at 1000 feet above the trees and lakes. Lately, Minnesotans have even discovered the virtues of good beer: I've been able to find Franziskaner, Moose Drool, and Black Butte Porter on local shelves and taps. Really, though, all these are just reasons to like Minnesota. The surest measure of home, for me, is the warm feeling in my chest that I get when I touch down in MSP on the last leg of a 4-day trip. Wherever I've been, there's no doubting that I'm truly home.
Monday, January 24, 2011
How Not to Build a Trip
Last month I was assigned a trip that is an excellent example of how the current rest and duty rules are woefully inadequate and change is long overdue. I have reproduced the trip key below with only format changes to improve clarity. I hasten to add that although this is a NewCo pairing, every airline out there has these trips to some extent, and they are relatively rare here. Since their work rules were stripped away in bankruptcy, even the major airlines build some rotations like this one, and a few regionals build trips far worse than this one as a regular practice.
M7284 BASE REPT: 1050L
DAY FLT DEP-DEST STD STA BLK TURN
MO 5694 MSP-YYC 1135 1343 308 37
MO 5876 YYC-MSP 1420 1803 243 132
MO 5778 MSP-MDW 1935 2103 128
BLOCK 719 DUTY 1028 REST 1658
DUTY END: 2118L REPT: 1416L
TU 5749 MDW-MSP 1501 1635 134 230
TU 5755 MSP-BHM 1905 2134 229
BLOCK 403 DUTY 733 REST 926
DUTY END: 2149L REPT: 0715L
WE 5887 BHM-MSP 0800 1038 238 237
WE 5784 MSP-OMA 1315 1425 110 30
WE 5729 OMA-MSP 1455 1606 111 254
WE 5657 MSP-MSN 1900 2004 104
BLOCK 603 DUTY 1304 REST 926
DUTY END: 2019L REPT: 0545L
TH 5649 MSN-MSP 0630 0740 110 240
TH 5696 MSP-MKE 1020 1132 112 35
TH 5696 MKE-MSP 1207 1332 125 208
TH 5850 MSP-ORD 1540 1657 117 103
TH 5850 ORD-MSP 1800 1925 125 E75
BLOCK 629 DUTY 1355
DUTY END: 1940L
TOTALS BLOCK 2354 LDGS: 14 CREDIT 2354 T.A.F.B. 8050
Since most readers don’t likely see many trip keys, I’ll break this one down. The first two days are pretty easy, with three and two legs, respectively. The first layover, at Chicago-Midway (MDW), is a long one of nearly 17 hours. The following day, two legs to Birmingham (BHM), has less than 8 hours of duty time. That night, though, has only 9 hours and 26 minutes of rest time. In this situation, 9 hours is the legal minimum. It might even be adequate if followed by a moderately easy day and a long overnight. The trip, however, goes rapidly downhill from there.
On day three, there are four legs, three of them short, which combine for 6 hours of block time. Duty time, however, is 13 hours and 3 minutes thanks to two lengthy sits in Minneapolis. The day ends in Madison, WI with another barely-legal overnight. After 9:26 minutes of rest time, day four begins at 5:45am - completing the circadian swap from a trip that began on a P.M. schedule. There is a nearly three-hour sit in Minneapolis after the first leg, followed by a Milwaukee round trip and another two-hour sit. The day concludes with a Chicago O’Hare turn, with a little over an hour spent in Chicago. Block time and pay is 6 hours 29 minutes, but duty time is nearly 14 hours.
In all fairness, I bid for this trip, although not intentionally. I set my computer bidding preferences to look for efficient trips, those that have the most pay per day. This one is fairly efficient from that standpoint, with nearly 24 hours of pay in 4 days. It is inefficient from the standpoint that much of the down time is spent at airports, where there is no possibility of sleep, instead of at layovers. This is not, however, a criteria that our bidding system can sort. I was surprised when this trip appeared on my line, but on closer inspection saw that it did indeed meet all my criteria. There was nothing to do but fly the trip and get as much rest as I could in the little time allotted.
The first two days went fine. Everything was on time, the weather was good, and we even got into Birmingham a half hour early on day two, lengthening the layover to a full ten hours (although a late hotel van meant that less than nine was actually spent at the hotel). Day three was pretty long and tiring. We had plane swaps on each of our long sits, and the Omaha turn was delayed for a late inbound and for deicing. When we got to Madison, I was ready to hit the hay. Instead, we got to wait a half hour for the hotel van, and then spent twenty-five minutes riding to the complete opposite end of Madison. It was 9pm by the time we got to the hotel. I hurriedly ate a late dinner and went to bed. I tossed and turned for a long time before finally falling asleep, and then woke repeatedly throughout the night for a noisy fan that wouldn’t turn off.
The 4:30am wakeup call came bone-achingly early. The long ride to the airport, coupled with a shuttle that leaves on the top and bottom of the hour, meant we had to take a 5am van for a 5:45am show time. A hot shower and early cup of coffee didn’t do much to break my stupor. The short flight to Minneapolis seemed to take forever. A nap on our long break would have done wonders, but there was nowhere to sleep at MSP. The crew room is constantly busy, bright, and loud, and the designated quiet room off the side has been declared off limits to all but airport reserves. Instead I had another large cup of coffee. It worked, for a while: I was practically jumping off the seat on our way to Milwaukee.
Then I came crashing back down on the return leg, and I found myself missing radio calls and messing up simple things. On the descent, I fought an aggressive case of the nods by using the oxygen mask on 100% oxygen. We still had a two hour sit in Minneapolis – often more tiring than actually flying – followed by a four hour Chicago turn. There was no way I was going to make it. I called in fatigued shortly after landing.
The crew scheduler sounded incredulous. “Fatigued? You’ve only done three legs!” I told him to take a look at the trip, but that didn’t move him. “You’re going to have to talk to a chief pilot about this!” he exclaimed, obviously annoyed that he would need to find someone to cover the O’Hare turn. I told him I would go downstairs and talk to the base chief pilot that very minute, and hung up.
I’m happy to report that the base chief pilot was very supportive. I showed him the trip key and explained how the cumulative shortage of sleep was affecting me, and he agreed that the trip wasn’t exactly conducive to obtaining sufficient rest and thanked me for doing the safe thing. I know that fatigue calls are handled in a much less positive manner at certain other airlines, and that previous flight ops managers at NewCo reportedly took a different tack. In this case, the only negative effect I suffered was the loss of around $180 in pay.
It’s worth noting that none of my other crewmembers called in fatigued. They all said they were tired, but felt they could battle through the day safely. Fair enough; fatigue affects different people differently, and they may have been more successful in getting sleep the previous night. It’s impossible to say how the loss in pay may have affected my poorly paid flight attendants’ and First Officer’s decisions.
In any case, it’s hard to see how our crew planner could put together that pairing without it occurring to him that chances were excellent that at least one crewmember might become severely fatigued. At most airlines, not just NewCo, there is a prevalent attitude that “If it’s legal, it must be safe.” From a statistical perspective I suppose they’re right. We just finished the third year out of the last four without a major airline fatality in the United States. If pilots are flying around tired, they’re doing a remarkable job of not killing people in the process. The ATA and RAA’s obstructionism of the new rest and duty regulations shows they’re utterly willing to accept an occasional Colgan 3407 here, an American 1420 there, right up to the point that the body count causes passengers to start booking away.
Fair enough. They have tickets to sell and profits to make, and these days corporate responsibility in this country tends to start and end with the stockholders. It’s not like the majority of passengers disagree; I suspect the vast majority would willingly sacrifice 100 strangers every few years to keep ticket prices low. As a pilot, though, safety is my only concern. Sure, I put in the effort to run my ship in a timely and efficient manner, but I don’t lose any sleep if I block out a few minutes late or burn an extra hundred pounds of gas. My real job, indeed the very core of my professional identity, is to minimize the risk to my passengers in every way practical.
This is also, theoretically, the FAA’s only job. They do not have a responsibility to ensure the airlines turn a profit. Congress removed their responsibility to promote aviation economically a few years back for the very reason that I’m writing this post. Now, the FAA’s only job is to manage risk, and fatigue is clearly the chief risk factor they have allowed to go unaddressed for too long. It’s high time to put the new rest and duty regulations into effect and end the silliness of asking pilots to fly exhausting trips that tempt them to fly fatigued.
Wednesday, January 05, 2011
Old World New Year
As mentioned in my last post, I took advantage of my new-found super seniority to bid thirteen consecutive days off without the use of vacation time, which gave Dawn and I the rare opportunity to travel during her Christmas break. Not wishing to altogether shun our kin over the holidays, we attended our families' respective festivities on December 23rd through 25th, and then took off for Spain on Christmas afternoon. Old Man Winter very nearly nearly threw a monkey wrench in the whole works when Atlanta's first white Christmas in some 128 years resulted in our flight to Madrid, among many others, being scrubbed. Instead, we flew to Amsterdam and connected to Madrid on Iberia, arriving scarcely an hour later than the original plan. Unfortunately, my brother Jon, who had been planning on coming with us, backed out at the last minute both due to the weather difficulties and anxiety about making it back for the start of his next college semester.
Last-minute changes notwithstanding, it was a wonderful trip; we enjoyed Spain immensely. I planned a rather ambitious itinerary, encompassing Madrid, Seville, Tangier (Morocco), Granada, Valencia, and Barcelona in the space of seven days. We could have spent a week at any one of these places - Seville and Granada particularly - and will hopefully get the chance to do exactly that sometime in the future. In the meantime, this was an excellent introduction to the country and a great way to ring in the New Year.
We took some 700 pictures over the course of the trip; sorting and editing the photos was a sizable undertaking on our return. Here are a few of my favorites so far, with a few notations.
I wasn't that impressed with Madrid at first blush. It was a nice enough city, to be sure... but it struck me as being fairly blandly, typically European with nothing really identifiably Spanish about it. It reminded me a lot of Paris, which I suppose is rather high praise, except that when I wish to visit Paris, I generally go to France. This was my first impression. But it was a sunny Sunday afternoon, the day after Christmas, and the streets were soon overflowing with Madrileños - at El Rastro Sunday flea market (top), at Plaza Mayor and Puerto del Sol and on Gran Via, in the tapas bars on Calle de la Cava Baja (bottom), in the galleries at Museo de la Reina Sofia and Museo del Prado. It seemed like the entire city was out and about in 40º weather (4º C), having a good time. That sort of thing is infectious, and I found myself liking Madrid a lot more.
We loved Seville at first sight, even though our first experience in the city was getting hopelessly lost among the tangle of medieval streets at the end of our 5-hour drive from Madrid. Palm and orange trees lining the streets and squares (top) put one in a tropical state of mind on a cloudy 15º C day. The houses and buildings are varied and interesting, and Spain's Islamic past echoes through the years in an abundance of beautiful and intricate geometric adornment (second). Of course there are grander remnants of the Caliphate of Al-Andalus such as La Giralda, the magnificent 12th century minaret that became the Cathedral of Seville's bell tower after the Reconquista (third). Among the maze of back alleyways of the Barrio de Santa Cruz are many hidden treasures like tabernas and tapas bars no much larger than the average American bathroom, or the unmarked entrance to former coal storehouse turned flamenco club La Carboneria (bottom).
I approached our side trip to Tangier with a little trepidation. Not quite Africa, not quite the Middle East, but certainly not Europe, I wasn't sure what to expect. The town's reputation for seediness is as ancient as its port, and travel forums overflow with tales of fraud, petty crime, and persistent touts. After disembarking from the ferry and shaking one of those touts over the course of three blocks, we decompressed over sodas on the terrace of the famous Hotel Continental (top) before wandering into the Medina in search of accommodation - and immediately becoming hopelessly lost. Paying a young Moroccan a few dirham to show us to the Petit Socco (second) earned us persistent entreaties to be our tour guide for the remainder of the day. We found our way to the Kasbah, Grand Socco, and Cafe Hafa (third and fourth) just fine without him, although perhaps his presence might have dissuaded other touts. I do have to say that everyone we encountered aside from the touts was unfailingly kind, polite, and helpful. As our ferry pulled away from Tangier the next morning (bottom), it looked much less foreign than it did the previous day, and I reflected that should I have the opportunity to return, it'll be much easier with a knowledge of the Medina and practice in turning down touts.
Like Seville before it, Granada secured a special place in our hearts. It's a graceful, beautiful town (top) in the shadow of the snowcapped Sierra Nevada mountains, Spain's highest (second, third), and the magnificent Alhambra. The entire complex is beautiful, but the Nasrid Palaces are particularly breathtaking. Photos cannot adequately capture the beauty of their situation, design, and intricate detail (fourth through eighth). We could have spent days wandering the Alhambra, but the sun was soon setting and beckoning us to join the Granadans in staying out late among the multitude of tabernas, bodagas, and tapas bars (bottom).
I've always admired Santiago Calatrava's sweeping, innovative designs, so it was a real treat to be able to visit his Ciutat de les Arts i Ciéncias in Valencia. Several of the structures within the complex are notable in their own right, but to see these sleek designs clustered together in a futurescape of tile, steel, and water is quite striking, and a treat to photograph (first through third). Several kilometers northwest, we climbed the Cathedral belltower for a bird's eye view of the rather more traditional architecture of Valencia's city core (fourth). After dark, the town really came alive (bottom); strolling, people-watching, paella, sangria, and midnight flamenco kept us occupied until 1am, when we realized that an early drive to Barcelona must keep us from staying out quite so late as the Spaniards.
I was impressed by the Spanish roads and drivers, both of which were better than I'd been led to believe. In the interest of time we most often stuck to the Autovias and Autopistas, but made an exception for a glorious stretch of C31 that is scratched into rocky headlands jutting from the Mediterranean south of Barcelona (top). With a wheezing 1.0L engine, our Kia Picanto (bottom) wasn't the fastest car on the road, but it was the best handling. No, wait, it wasn't... but it was quite comfortable. Er, actually not that either. It was truthfully about the worst automobile I've driven in my life. All the same, after 1440 miles I had some unaccountable fondness for the little car.
The highlight of our short stay in Barcelona was a visit to Antoni Gaudi's still-unfinished masterpiece, La Sagrada Familia (top, second). I can only hope it is completed in my lifetime. Just down the road lie Gaudi's other contributions to L'Eixample's modernista architecture, Casa Mila (third) and Casa Batlló. Across the Barri Gotic is the original source of Barcelona's wealth, Puerto Vell (fourth), which once hummed with shipping to and from the Americas. Shortly before midnight, we pried ourself away from good Rioja and tapas to join the throngs on La Rambla, headed to Placa Catalunya (fifth). The atmosphere was jubilant and chaotic, but surprisingly there was no mass countdown to midnight. Instead, each counted and celebrated according to his own watch (bottom). I noted that 2011 should be an excellent year for us, as we have seven more hours to make good use of it than all of our friends!
The original plan was for Dawn to fly home on 1 January and for me to remain for a few more days, but then the flight loads closed up on Saturday and opened up for Sunday. Dawn agreed to stay an extra day, and I decided to go home with her. In the meantime we had an extra day to go somewhere we hadn't originally planned on visiting: the Pyrenees of Spain, Andorra, and southern France (top, second). The driving was excellent and the plucky Kia took to the mountains like a fish to water, so long as I didn't mind about 20 degrees of chassis roll from one curve to the next! We spent the night in the foothills some 60 km northeast of Barcelona, in an attractive but sleepy little town called Vic (third). The next morning we drove to BCN, said goodbye to our little car, waited rather shortly for seats (bottom), and flew to New York.
Last-minute changes notwithstanding, it was a wonderful trip; we enjoyed Spain immensely. I planned a rather ambitious itinerary, encompassing Madrid, Seville, Tangier (Morocco), Granada, Valencia, and Barcelona in the space of seven days. We could have spent a week at any one of these places - Seville and Granada particularly - and will hopefully get the chance to do exactly that sometime in the future. In the meantime, this was an excellent introduction to the country and a great way to ring in the New Year.
We took some 700 pictures over the course of the trip; sorting and editing the photos was a sizable undertaking on our return. Here are a few of my favorites so far, with a few notations.
I wasn't that impressed with Madrid at first blush. It was a nice enough city, to be sure... but it struck me as being fairly blandly, typically European with nothing really identifiably Spanish about it. It reminded me a lot of Paris, which I suppose is rather high praise, except that when I wish to visit Paris, I generally go to France. This was my first impression. But it was a sunny Sunday afternoon, the day after Christmas, and the streets were soon overflowing with Madrileños - at El Rastro Sunday flea market (top), at Plaza Mayor and Puerto del Sol and on Gran Via, in the tapas bars on Calle de la Cava Baja (bottom), in the galleries at Museo de la Reina Sofia and Museo del Prado. It seemed like the entire city was out and about in 40º weather (4º C), having a good time. That sort of thing is infectious, and I found myself liking Madrid a lot more.
We loved Seville at first sight, even though our first experience in the city was getting hopelessly lost among the tangle of medieval streets at the end of our 5-hour drive from Madrid. Palm and orange trees lining the streets and squares (top) put one in a tropical state of mind on a cloudy 15º C day. The houses and buildings are varied and interesting, and Spain's Islamic past echoes through the years in an abundance of beautiful and intricate geometric adornment (second). Of course there are grander remnants of the Caliphate of Al-Andalus such as La Giralda, the magnificent 12th century minaret that became the Cathedral of Seville's bell tower after the Reconquista (third). Among the maze of back alleyways of the Barrio de Santa Cruz are many hidden treasures like tabernas and tapas bars no much larger than the average American bathroom, or the unmarked entrance to former coal storehouse turned flamenco club La Carboneria (bottom).
I approached our side trip to Tangier with a little trepidation. Not quite Africa, not quite the Middle East, but certainly not Europe, I wasn't sure what to expect. The town's reputation for seediness is as ancient as its port, and travel forums overflow with tales of fraud, petty crime, and persistent touts. After disembarking from the ferry and shaking one of those touts over the course of three blocks, we decompressed over sodas on the terrace of the famous Hotel Continental (top) before wandering into the Medina in search of accommodation - and immediately becoming hopelessly lost. Paying a young Moroccan a few dirham to show us to the Petit Socco (second) earned us persistent entreaties to be our tour guide for the remainder of the day. We found our way to the Kasbah, Grand Socco, and Cafe Hafa (third and fourth) just fine without him, although perhaps his presence might have dissuaded other touts. I do have to say that everyone we encountered aside from the touts was unfailingly kind, polite, and helpful. As our ferry pulled away from Tangier the next morning (bottom), it looked much less foreign than it did the previous day, and I reflected that should I have the opportunity to return, it'll be much easier with a knowledge of the Medina and practice in turning down touts.
Like Seville before it, Granada secured a special place in our hearts. It's a graceful, beautiful town (top) in the shadow of the snowcapped Sierra Nevada mountains, Spain's highest (second, third), and the magnificent Alhambra. The entire complex is beautiful, but the Nasrid Palaces are particularly breathtaking. Photos cannot adequately capture the beauty of their situation, design, and intricate detail (fourth through eighth). We could have spent days wandering the Alhambra, but the sun was soon setting and beckoning us to join the Granadans in staying out late among the multitude of tabernas, bodagas, and tapas bars (bottom).
I've always admired Santiago Calatrava's sweeping, innovative designs, so it was a real treat to be able to visit his Ciutat de les Arts i Ciéncias in Valencia. Several of the structures within the complex are notable in their own right, but to see these sleek designs clustered together in a futurescape of tile, steel, and water is quite striking, and a treat to photograph (first through third). Several kilometers northwest, we climbed the Cathedral belltower for a bird's eye view of the rather more traditional architecture of Valencia's city core (fourth). After dark, the town really came alive (bottom); strolling, people-watching, paella, sangria, and midnight flamenco kept us occupied until 1am, when we realized that an early drive to Barcelona must keep us from staying out quite so late as the Spaniards.
I was impressed by the Spanish roads and drivers, both of which were better than I'd been led to believe. In the interest of time we most often stuck to the Autovias and Autopistas, but made an exception for a glorious stretch of C31 that is scratched into rocky headlands jutting from the Mediterranean south of Barcelona (top). With a wheezing 1.0L engine, our Kia Picanto (bottom) wasn't the fastest car on the road, but it was the best handling. No, wait, it wasn't... but it was quite comfortable. Er, actually not that either. It was truthfully about the worst automobile I've driven in my life. All the same, after 1440 miles I had some unaccountable fondness for the little car.
The highlight of our short stay in Barcelona was a visit to Antoni Gaudi's still-unfinished masterpiece, La Sagrada Familia (top, second). I can only hope it is completed in my lifetime. Just down the road lie Gaudi's other contributions to L'Eixample's modernista architecture, Casa Mila (third) and Casa Batlló. Across the Barri Gotic is the original source of Barcelona's wealth, Puerto Vell (fourth), which once hummed with shipping to and from the Americas. Shortly before midnight, we pried ourself away from good Rioja and tapas to join the throngs on La Rambla, headed to Placa Catalunya (fifth). The atmosphere was jubilant and chaotic, but surprisingly there was no mass countdown to midnight. Instead, each counted and celebrated according to his own watch (bottom). I noted that 2011 should be an excellent year for us, as we have seven more hours to make good use of it than all of our friends!
The original plan was for Dawn to fly home on 1 January and for me to remain for a few more days, but then the flight loads closed up on Saturday and opened up for Sunday. Dawn agreed to stay an extra day, and I decided to go home with her. In the meantime we had an extra day to go somewhere we hadn't originally planned on visiting: the Pyrenees of Spain, Andorra, and southern France (top, second). The driving was excellent and the plucky Kia took to the mountains like a fish to water, so long as I didn't mind about 20 degrees of chassis roll from one curve to the next! We spent the night in the foothills some 60 km northeast of Barcelona, in an attractive but sleepy little town called Vic (third). The next morning we drove to BCN, said goodbye to our little car, waited rather shortly for seats (bottom), and flew to New York.
Monday, December 06, 2010
Senior
The course of a flying career may be measured in terms of one's progression between two extremes. At one end, you work your butt off for very little pay. At the other pole, you fly your choice of trips only rather occasionally and seemingly rake in the dough. In general, you do everything in your power to move from the former position to the latter, but for the most part one's career progress is a matter of time and luck.
Meanwhile, this progression is repeated on a smaller scale at the individual employers one might fly for over the course of a career, and even within individual fleets at companies with a variety of equipment. Aviation is a 24/7/365 sort of industry, and whether the unions forced its use or not, seniority is the only workable method of determining who spends Christmas with the kids and who spends it shooting ILS approaches in the snow. Consequently, one's career progression more resembles the game of chutes and ladders than one continuous incline. You start completely over at each individual company over the course of your career. Within each company, your relative seniority suffers as you bid onto larger aircraft.
This does introduce some element of control in an often out-of-control industry. You can choose whether to leave for a more lucrative job, or whether to bid for the bigger airplane or for a Captain slot. By choosing to pass those things up, you can gain more time off, more control over your schedule, and greater stability; in turn you often forfeit a larger paycheck or future career opportunities. At every step of the career you see pilots who have made this choice. There are grizzled old freight dogs flying tattered Metroliners long after they needed to. At the major airlines, there are thousands of widebody FOs who could've held a Captain slot on narrowbody equipment ages ago. At the regional airlines, there is an increasingly huge contingent of lifers who are content to keep a decent schedule and a middling paycheck rather than play "furlough roulette" at the bottom of a major airline's seniority list.
With the recent departure of 60 senior NewCo Captains flowing up to WidgetCo, I suddenly find myself in the unusual position of being quite senior; next month, I will be #25 out of around 400 pilots. I've never been senior anywhere I've worked. I was the designated mop-up guy at AEX (my first part 135 gig), couldn't even get my choice of Lance routes at Ameriflight, was only around 50% of the Q400 FOs after 3.5 years at Horizon, and wasn't an FO at NewCo long enough to enjoy the fruits of seniority. I'm not complaining, because those moves were all the right thing to do from career and personal standpoints. I have, however, become quite accustomed to reserve, working weekends and holidays, inefficient trips, and other things that go along with being junior.
Earlier this year, my company closed our Memphis base and most of the Captains, many of whom were junior to me, came to Minneapolis. I went from 55% seniority to 45% seniority in my seat over the course of a few months. That small change was like flipping a switch. I went from being able to hold only one or two weekend days a month off to holding a cushy Monday-Thursday schedule. I was able to hold efficient trips. I was able to bid a lazy 75 hours instead of an excruciating 95. I was getting 3-5 more days off every month. This was a revelation: flying can be a really nice gig! Suddenly I get why regional lifers stay put, particularly at high-paying places like Horizon.
The thing is, being senior is no guarantee that you'll stay senior, particularly at the regionals. Our seniority list is riddled with pilots who had a good gig before their last airline went belly up or fell on hard times. That's enough to put any thought of sticking around at NewCo out of my head. I'm keeping my options open, but at this point there's a decent chance I'll wind up at WidgetCo sometime next year. If that happens, I'll be tickled, but I will be very, very junior for a long time. Therefore, I'm enjoying the benefits of being senior now - starting with having the 24th through the 31st of December off, heading to Spain with Dawn and my brother, and ringing in the New Year in Barcelona.
Meanwhile, this progression is repeated on a smaller scale at the individual employers one might fly for over the course of a career, and even within individual fleets at companies with a variety of equipment. Aviation is a 24/7/365 sort of industry, and whether the unions forced its use or not, seniority is the only workable method of determining who spends Christmas with the kids and who spends it shooting ILS approaches in the snow. Consequently, one's career progression more resembles the game of chutes and ladders than one continuous incline. You start completely over at each individual company over the course of your career. Within each company, your relative seniority suffers as you bid onto larger aircraft.
This does introduce some element of control in an often out-of-control industry. You can choose whether to leave for a more lucrative job, or whether to bid for the bigger airplane or for a Captain slot. By choosing to pass those things up, you can gain more time off, more control over your schedule, and greater stability; in turn you often forfeit a larger paycheck or future career opportunities. At every step of the career you see pilots who have made this choice. There are grizzled old freight dogs flying tattered Metroliners long after they needed to. At the major airlines, there are thousands of widebody FOs who could've held a Captain slot on narrowbody equipment ages ago. At the regional airlines, there is an increasingly huge contingent of lifers who are content to keep a decent schedule and a middling paycheck rather than play "furlough roulette" at the bottom of a major airline's seniority list.
With the recent departure of 60 senior NewCo Captains flowing up to WidgetCo, I suddenly find myself in the unusual position of being quite senior; next month, I will be #25 out of around 400 pilots. I've never been senior anywhere I've worked. I was the designated mop-up guy at AEX (my first part 135 gig), couldn't even get my choice of Lance routes at Ameriflight, was only around 50% of the Q400 FOs after 3.5 years at Horizon, and wasn't an FO at NewCo long enough to enjoy the fruits of seniority. I'm not complaining, because those moves were all the right thing to do from career and personal standpoints. I have, however, become quite accustomed to reserve, working weekends and holidays, inefficient trips, and other things that go along with being junior.
Earlier this year, my company closed our Memphis base and most of the Captains, many of whom were junior to me, came to Minneapolis. I went from 55% seniority to 45% seniority in my seat over the course of a few months. That small change was like flipping a switch. I went from being able to hold only one or two weekend days a month off to holding a cushy Monday-Thursday schedule. I was able to hold efficient trips. I was able to bid a lazy 75 hours instead of an excruciating 95. I was getting 3-5 more days off every month. This was a revelation: flying can be a really nice gig! Suddenly I get why regional lifers stay put, particularly at high-paying places like Horizon.
The thing is, being senior is no guarantee that you'll stay senior, particularly at the regionals. Our seniority list is riddled with pilots who had a good gig before their last airline went belly up or fell on hard times. That's enough to put any thought of sticking around at NewCo out of my head. I'm keeping my options open, but at this point there's a decent chance I'll wind up at WidgetCo sometime next year. If that happens, I'll be tickled, but I will be very, very junior for a long time. Therefore, I'm enjoying the benefits of being senior now - starting with having the 24th through the 31st of December off, heading to Spain with Dawn and my brother, and ringing in the New Year in Barcelona.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Security Silliness
The least favorite part of my workday is at the very beginning, when I am required to subject myself to security screening by the Transportation Security Administration. The checkpoints are usually crowded, power-tripping TSA agents are often barking orders, I feel like a jerk cutting in front of long-suffering passengers, and then there's the process of trying to disassemble and reassemble my luggage ensemble in a timely matter without battering surrounding fellow-sufferers. There are usually no less than five items to send through the X-ray machine: flight kit, overnight bag, lunch bag, bin with laptop computer, bin with hat and overcoat. It's small comfort that they don't make flight crew remove their shoes.
All this inconvenience would be an acceptable part of my job if I felt that it serves some purpose. It does not. It's completely absurd to screen the pilots who will, in less than an hour's time, be seated at the controls of a fuel laden aircraft in flight, with crash axe within easy reach! This was recognized before 9/11 and we were allowed to bypass security. That changed in the wake of 9/11, but not due to any credible threat of terrorist acts by pilots or pilot impostors. Rather, it was believed that seeing flight crews forced to go through security would make the public more accepting of new procedures. This is exactly the sort of useless display that has become the TSA's primary stock in trade, what security expert Bruce Schneier refers to as "security theater."
Recent changes in TSA equipment and procedures have elevated flight crew screening from a mere inconvenience and exercise in stupidity to an outright violation of rights and decency. The TSA recently installed hundred of whole body imaging scanners, both of the Millimeter-Wave (Terahertz) and Backscatter X-ray varieties, in order to better detect non-metallic weapons and explosives. These machines penetrate clothing to create a nude image of the subject. Ostensibly this image is to be viewed in private by a screener of the same sex, and TSA claimed that images cannot be saved; both of these assurances have been shown by events to be false. TSA also asserts that the devices are perfectly safe and cannot cause health problems. Expert opinion is not nearly so settled, particularly regarding backscatter technology, and in any case there have been no independent studies to verify that the TSA's health claims are any more authentic than their privacy claims.
Anticipating these objections, the TSA danced around Fourth Amendment issues by allowing pilots and other travelers to "opt out" of whole-body imaging and subject themselves to secondary screening instead. Simultaneously, the TSA changed their secondary screening procedures to make them infinitely more humiliating and invasive, and thus discourage further opt-outs. I have witnessed this process first-hand at several airports. First, the TSA agent loudly exclaims "Opt out! Opt out!"; this is sometimes parroted by other TSA agents, and has the effect of drawing the attention of other passengers. Then, in full view of those passengers (unless the subject specifically requests a private screening), a TSA agent aggressively pats down the subject's body, including breasts and genitals. The TSA manual states that the breasts and genitals are to be searched using the back of the hand, but I have twice observed TSA agents breaking that rule (at LaGuardia, I even observed an agent take both of a woman's breasts in the palm of her hands and squeeze hard twice - "honk, honk!"). This would be sexual assault if anyone other than the government were doing it. Worse yet, they can and do subject children to the search (again at LGA, I observed a TSA agent groping a crying 3 or 4 year old girl).
It is one thing to pass through a magnetometer and have my belongings X-rayed as a requirement of my job. It is another thing entirely to be forced to choose between a virtual strip-search that adds to the radiation I already get on the job (higher than a nuclear plant worker!) and a government-sponsored molestation. Those are absolutely unacceptable conditions of employment, and it's high time that pilots fight back. Toward that end, both the Allied Pilots Association (American Airlines' union) and the US Airline Pilots Association (USAirways) recently issued recommendations for their pilots to opt out of whole-body imaging, request a private room for secondary screening, require the presence of a supervisor or law enforcement officer during the pat-down, report inappropriate TSA behavior, and call in sick if the process leaves them too shaken to fly safely. That is excellent advice which has the potential to quickly overburden TSA checkpoints. It has already had the effect of reviving a long-stalled program to verify flight crew employment and allow them to bypass security. Sometime soon, I may not have to subject myself to the TSA's goons to go to work.
But what about when I travel out of uniform? What of my wife and parents when they nonrev? What of all our passengers, our customers, our bread and butter? Many of them are required to fly as a condition of their livelihood. Why should they be required to give up their Fourth Amendment rights by dint of setting foot on an airplane? Why have airports become rights-free zones? Because aviation has been targeted by terrorists? Trains and subways have been extensively targeted worldwide, should search and seizure without probable cause be allowed on them as well? New York City itself has been repeatedly targeted by terrorists more than any other city in America; should the Bill of Rights no longer apply on the island of Manhattan?
The standard worn-out answer is, "If you don't like it, you don't have to fly." That's a horrible excuse that can be expanded to cover nearly every trammeling of God-given rights. You don't have to travel by train or subway, or visit or live in New York City, do you? You don't have to use the sidewalk by your house, do you? In that case, should using these purely optional pieces of public property be probable cause for a police officer to detain and strip search you? I'm not saying we shouldn't have security at airports, nor that every right should apply (the 2nd ammd clearly does not, for example). The courts have clearly held that security checks at airports, as previously conducted, are constitutional administrative searches. That said, unelected officials have made a very large leap from minimally invasive passive technologies such as magnetometers and explosive trace sniffers to highly invasive technologies and techniques without a sniff of public debate on the constitutional implications and the poor precedents that might be set. That worries me.
Not everyone is so worried about rights. Some are a lot more worried about terrorism. Some are willing to give up almost any right "so long as it makes us safer from terrorists." It's not a mindset I agree with, but even by this standard there is not much reason to support the new body scanners. Many security experts doubt whether they would've detected the components that the "underwear bomber" of NW253 sewed into his undergarments. They cannot see under the skin, nor in body cavities. Remember that both surgically implanted bombs and bombs inserted into body cavities have already been used in Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and presumably any operation sophisticated enough to produce a viable high-explosive device would use one of these methods of gaming the body scanners. In a German test of one of the machines, a subject was able to hide all the components needed to assemble a bomb on his body (not in cavities) and pass through the scanner undetected. The Israelis don't use them for airport security and have no plans to; the head of security at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion International Airport called them "expensive and useless." For detecting explosives, sniffer machines are also expensive and maintenance intensive but considerably more useful. More low-tech but still one of the best means of detecting explosives: trained dogs. It just happens that the body imaging companies have far better lobbyists. Chief among them: Michael Chertoff, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security immediately preceding Janet Napolitano.
I'm on the front lines here. If, God forbid, a terrorist should succeed in detonating an explosive on board an airplane in flight, there's a decent chance that somebody I know will die, and I will find myself out of a job in rather quick order. I'm generally in favor of things that decrease the possibility of that happening. I don't think subjecting ourselves, spouses, and children to a virtual strip search or public molestation does anything to help in that regard, and the one thing it does do is make flying a far less pleasant experience. Meanwhile, rampers and other airport workers with much less extensive background checking than pilots are allowed to bypass security entirely. The TSA refuses to considers the one thing the Isrealis have found to be effective: behavior-based profiling, essentially ensuring that each traveler gets some face time to chat with a trained security officer and tailoring further screening according to their behavior.
I think it's high time we put our foot down to the TSA's incompetence and boorishness. To that end, the recommendations put forth by APA and USAPA show the best way forward: use the opt-out process to bring the whole works to a grinding halt. I suggest that everyone who will be flying on November 24th participate in "National Opt-Out Day."
All this inconvenience would be an acceptable part of my job if I felt that it serves some purpose. It does not. It's completely absurd to screen the pilots who will, in less than an hour's time, be seated at the controls of a fuel laden aircraft in flight, with crash axe within easy reach! This was recognized before 9/11 and we were allowed to bypass security. That changed in the wake of 9/11, but not due to any credible threat of terrorist acts by pilots or pilot impostors. Rather, it was believed that seeing flight crews forced to go through security would make the public more accepting of new procedures. This is exactly the sort of useless display that has become the TSA's primary stock in trade, what security expert Bruce Schneier refers to as "security theater."
Recent changes in TSA equipment and procedures have elevated flight crew screening from a mere inconvenience and exercise in stupidity to an outright violation of rights and decency. The TSA recently installed hundred of whole body imaging scanners, both of the Millimeter-Wave (Terahertz) and Backscatter X-ray varieties, in order to better detect non-metallic weapons and explosives. These machines penetrate clothing to create a nude image of the subject. Ostensibly this image is to be viewed in private by a screener of the same sex, and TSA claimed that images cannot be saved; both of these assurances have been shown by events to be false. TSA also asserts that the devices are perfectly safe and cannot cause health problems. Expert opinion is not nearly so settled, particularly regarding backscatter technology, and in any case there have been no independent studies to verify that the TSA's health claims are any more authentic than their privacy claims.
Anticipating these objections, the TSA danced around Fourth Amendment issues by allowing pilots and other travelers to "opt out" of whole-body imaging and subject themselves to secondary screening instead. Simultaneously, the TSA changed their secondary screening procedures to make them infinitely more humiliating and invasive, and thus discourage further opt-outs. I have witnessed this process first-hand at several airports. First, the TSA agent loudly exclaims "Opt out! Opt out!"; this is sometimes parroted by other TSA agents, and has the effect of drawing the attention of other passengers. Then, in full view of those passengers (unless the subject specifically requests a private screening), a TSA agent aggressively pats down the subject's body, including breasts and genitals. The TSA manual states that the breasts and genitals are to be searched using the back of the hand, but I have twice observed TSA agents breaking that rule (at LaGuardia, I even observed an agent take both of a woman's breasts in the palm of her hands and squeeze hard twice - "honk, honk!"). This would be sexual assault if anyone other than the government were doing it. Worse yet, they can and do subject children to the search (again at LGA, I observed a TSA agent groping a crying 3 or 4 year old girl).
It is one thing to pass through a magnetometer and have my belongings X-rayed as a requirement of my job. It is another thing entirely to be forced to choose between a virtual strip-search that adds to the radiation I already get on the job (higher than a nuclear plant worker!) and a government-sponsored molestation. Those are absolutely unacceptable conditions of employment, and it's high time that pilots fight back. Toward that end, both the Allied Pilots Association (American Airlines' union) and the US Airline Pilots Association (USAirways) recently issued recommendations for their pilots to opt out of whole-body imaging, request a private room for secondary screening, require the presence of a supervisor or law enforcement officer during the pat-down, report inappropriate TSA behavior, and call in sick if the process leaves them too shaken to fly safely. That is excellent advice which has the potential to quickly overburden TSA checkpoints. It has already had the effect of reviving a long-stalled program to verify flight crew employment and allow them to bypass security. Sometime soon, I may not have to subject myself to the TSA's goons to go to work.
But what about when I travel out of uniform? What of my wife and parents when they nonrev? What of all our passengers, our customers, our bread and butter? Many of them are required to fly as a condition of their livelihood. Why should they be required to give up their Fourth Amendment rights by dint of setting foot on an airplane? Why have airports become rights-free zones? Because aviation has been targeted by terrorists? Trains and subways have been extensively targeted worldwide, should search and seizure without probable cause be allowed on them as well? New York City itself has been repeatedly targeted by terrorists more than any other city in America; should the Bill of Rights no longer apply on the island of Manhattan?
The standard worn-out answer is, "If you don't like it, you don't have to fly." That's a horrible excuse that can be expanded to cover nearly every trammeling of God-given rights. You don't have to travel by train or subway, or visit or live in New York City, do you? You don't have to use the sidewalk by your house, do you? In that case, should using these purely optional pieces of public property be probable cause for a police officer to detain and strip search you? I'm not saying we shouldn't have security at airports, nor that every right should apply (the 2nd ammd clearly does not, for example). The courts have clearly held that security checks at airports, as previously conducted, are constitutional administrative searches. That said, unelected officials have made a very large leap from minimally invasive passive technologies such as magnetometers and explosive trace sniffers to highly invasive technologies and techniques without a sniff of public debate on the constitutional implications and the poor precedents that might be set. That worries me.
Not everyone is so worried about rights. Some are a lot more worried about terrorism. Some are willing to give up almost any right "so long as it makes us safer from terrorists." It's not a mindset I agree with, but even by this standard there is not much reason to support the new body scanners. Many security experts doubt whether they would've detected the components that the "underwear bomber" of NW253 sewed into his undergarments. They cannot see under the skin, nor in body cavities. Remember that both surgically implanted bombs and bombs inserted into body cavities have already been used in Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and presumably any operation sophisticated enough to produce a viable high-explosive device would use one of these methods of gaming the body scanners. In a German test of one of the machines, a subject was able to hide all the components needed to assemble a bomb on his body (not in cavities) and pass through the scanner undetected. The Israelis don't use them for airport security and have no plans to; the head of security at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion International Airport called them "expensive and useless." For detecting explosives, sniffer machines are also expensive and maintenance intensive but considerably more useful. More low-tech but still one of the best means of detecting explosives: trained dogs. It just happens that the body imaging companies have far better lobbyists. Chief among them: Michael Chertoff, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security immediately preceding Janet Napolitano.
I'm on the front lines here. If, God forbid, a terrorist should succeed in detonating an explosive on board an airplane in flight, there's a decent chance that somebody I know will die, and I will find myself out of a job in rather quick order. I'm generally in favor of things that decrease the possibility of that happening. I don't think subjecting ourselves, spouses, and children to a virtual strip search or public molestation does anything to help in that regard, and the one thing it does do is make flying a far less pleasant experience. Meanwhile, rampers and other airport workers with much less extensive background checking than pilots are allowed to bypass security entirely. The TSA refuses to considers the one thing the Isrealis have found to be effective: behavior-based profiling, essentially ensuring that each traveler gets some face time to chat with a trained security officer and tailoring further screening according to their behavior.
I think it's high time we put our foot down to the TSA's incompetence and boorishness. To that end, the recommendations put forth by APA and USAPA show the best way forward: use the opt-out process to bring the whole works to a grinding halt. I suggest that everyone who will be flying on November 24th participate in "National Opt-Out Day."
Friday, November 05, 2010
The "A" Model
There's an old saying in aviation that goes "Never fly the 'A' model of anything!" It neatly encapsulates the conservatism and resistance to change that, whether through innate personality, training, or experience, is an enduring trait of professional aviators. There's also the hard fact that a number of new aircraft designs over the years had hidden flaws that became apparent only after a fatal crash or two. Much more commonly, the bugs aren't serious enough to cause an accident, but cost early-adopting operators considerable time, money, and operational reliability while they work through the teething stage. This was the case with Horizon when they were the launch customer for the Q400, and with the JungleBus when jetBlue, USAir, and Republic took their first deliveries (At jetBlue, it was popularly known as the E180...because you'd always make a "180" back to the gate!).
On Thursday, a Qantas A380 suffered an engine failure six minutes after takeoff from Singapore's Changi Airport enroute to Sydney. Although modern engine failures are quite rare, they do happen, and they're not always indicative of a design or widespread manufacturing flaw. Even in a new design like the A380, an inflight engine shutdown would likely attract little interest outside of Qantas, Airbus, and Rolls-Royce.
This engine, however, failed in a very violent fashion, essentially blowing itself apart - a rare event known as catastrophic failure. When any such failure does happen, it most typically originates in the fan stage. For this reason, cowlings are built extraordinarily strong in the area around the fan blades, and engine manufacturers conduct rather spectacular tests to ensure they are sufficient to contain any catastrophic failure. You can see the "Blade Off" test for the A380's Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines here.
In this case, the failure appears to have originated in the high-pressure compressor or turbine sections, creating an uncontained engine failure. Any uncontained failure is an extremely eye-raising event, given its extreme rarity and potential danger, but never more-so than in a brand new design. What makes this one worse yet is the extensive damage it did to the airplane. The worldwide press, usually happy to hype minor incidents out of proportion, has been unusually reserved in reporting this as a mere engine shutdown or loss of a cowling. Photos of the damage to tell an entirely different story:
There are at least two major complete perforations of the wing visible, along with several smaller ones. Fuel vapor is visibly streaming out of the two large holes in the upper picture. Considering that those holes were likely made by turbine blades that have a normal operating temperature of 500-900º C, and that onboard witnesses reported seeing flames around the engine, I think the potential for a catastrophic fire resulting in the loss of the aircraft and 466 souls was very real. I don't think Qantas, Lufthansa, or Singapore Airlines were overreacting by grounding their remaining Trent-900 powered A380 fleets pending initial inspections.
Whether this failure originated in a design flaw or faulty procurement or manufacturing processes, or was simply a one-off fluke, will probably take some time to determine. In the meantime, there will be plenty of very concerned folks at Airbus, Rolls-Royce, and the early A380 operators - to say nothing of A380 passengers. Meanwhile, I don't think anyone at Boeing is popping champaign corks over their competitor's troubles: the forthcoming B787 is powered by the similar Trent 1000 engine, which suffered a very similar uncontained failure during ground testing this last August.
On Thursday, a Qantas A380 suffered an engine failure six minutes after takeoff from Singapore's Changi Airport enroute to Sydney. Although modern engine failures are quite rare, they do happen, and they're not always indicative of a design or widespread manufacturing flaw. Even in a new design like the A380, an inflight engine shutdown would likely attract little interest outside of Qantas, Airbus, and Rolls-Royce.
This engine, however, failed in a very violent fashion, essentially blowing itself apart - a rare event known as catastrophic failure. When any such failure does happen, it most typically originates in the fan stage. For this reason, cowlings are built extraordinarily strong in the area around the fan blades, and engine manufacturers conduct rather spectacular tests to ensure they are sufficient to contain any catastrophic failure. You can see the "Blade Off" test for the A380's Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines here.
In this case, the failure appears to have originated in the high-pressure compressor or turbine sections, creating an uncontained engine failure. Any uncontained failure is an extremely eye-raising event, given its extreme rarity and potential danger, but never more-so than in a brand new design. What makes this one worse yet is the extensive damage it did to the airplane. The worldwide press, usually happy to hype minor incidents out of proportion, has been unusually reserved in reporting this as a mere engine shutdown or loss of a cowling. Photos of the damage to tell an entirely different story:
There are at least two major complete perforations of the wing visible, along with several smaller ones. Fuel vapor is visibly streaming out of the two large holes in the upper picture. Considering that those holes were likely made by turbine blades that have a normal operating temperature of 500-900º C, and that onboard witnesses reported seeing flames around the engine, I think the potential for a catastrophic fire resulting in the loss of the aircraft and 466 souls was very real. I don't think Qantas, Lufthansa, or Singapore Airlines were overreacting by grounding their remaining Trent-900 powered A380 fleets pending initial inspections.
Whether this failure originated in a design flaw or faulty procurement or manufacturing processes, or was simply a one-off fluke, will probably take some time to determine. In the meantime, there will be plenty of very concerned folks at Airbus, Rolls-Royce, and the early A380 operators - to say nothing of A380 passengers. Meanwhile, I don't think anyone at Boeing is popping champaign corks over their competitor's troubles: the forthcoming B787 is powered by the similar Trent 1000 engine, which suffered a very similar uncontained failure during ground testing this last August.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
