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Air France 447: The ‘Coffin Corner’ and a ‘Mesoscale’ Maw

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Re: Air France 447: The ‘Coffin Corner’ and a ‘Mesoscale’ Maw

#31

Post by anigbrowl »

biohacker42 wrote: post #25
frisco wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a bit of a jump. How'd you go from "As a libertarian..." to "So I'd settle for a government mandate" in 3 lines?

Well simple. I really do want the market to work, but I know in reality it very often does not work at all. Most often with big industries where the startup costs are high. Do you prefer to continue to fly in a needle's eye rather then have the government step in? Ideally at least one airline would offer the safer option as a way to gain customers, but what if no one does? Is your libertarianism that pure? If so, tha…

Seems like a rather suicidal market strategy. So you invite people to pay 2x to fly with FlySafe (perhaps an existing airline with n outstanding safety record that rebrands itself), milk the resulting controversy to sell tickets for a while, only to later have every untoward incident, no matter how trivial, spun into a damning indictment of your business philosophy? No thanks.

Furthermore, the first time such a company did have a fatal or obviously dangerous incident, they'd go insolvent immediately. I see the point you're trying to make but it's simply impractical in a mass market like commodity air travel. Uber-expensive executive flying, perhaps.

Re: Air France 447: The ‘Coffin Corner’ and a ‘Mesoscale’ Maw

#32

Post by nopassrecover »

TweedHeads wrote: post #7
TweedHeads wrote: post #6

I will always say it was a bomb, and the more they try to make it look like it wasn't, the more I believe they are just trying to hide it from the public not to scare them to fly like in 2001. It was a bomb.

For a hundred years we've been flying planes thru storms, lightnings, adverse conditions of every kind, so fuck the coffin corner. The pilot and copilots had thousands of flight hours under their belt. Not a single mayday call.

Radio communication fail? Weird electrical/magnetic phenomena? Meteor? These are just some of the more plausible ideas than "covert terrorism".

Re: Air France 447: The ‘Coffin Corner’ and a ‘Mesoscale’ Maw

#33

Post by lutorm »

grandalf wrote: post #23

The article suggests that a stall is a horrible outcome. Old style biplanes used to do "stall landings" all the time. If you know the characteristics of the wing, then a stall can be anticipated and is not necessarily cause for alarm. How is it that the autopilot system (or other systems on the plane) would not be programmed to handle a stall gracefully? In a stall the wing loses lift, but as the plane falls the air…

This was my question too. But I think stalls in large airliners are a very different thing than in GA aircraft. I'm pretty sure full stalls are still part of the test regimen, but I don't think normal pilots ever do a full stall. It may also be other factors playing in at high altitude, and of course in severe turbulence a recovery might be even more difficult.

Re: Air France 447: The ‘Coffin Corner’ and a ‘Mesoscale’ Maw

#34

Post by lutorm »

JimmyL wrote: post #27
biohacker42 wrote: post #11

So while you are napping, eating or watching a movie on that flight to LAX, you should know the plane you are flying is cruising along at the ratty edge of its capabilities. Why? Money. The higher an airliner flies, the better gas mileage it gets. As libertarian I prefer an airline which will charge me premium for flying more expensive but safer routes. However, as a realist I realize that the barrier to entry for ai…

>> As libertarian I prefer an airline which will charge me premium for flying more expensive but safer routes. How would you even know? Saying "I'd pay more for a safer routing" is rather reminiscent of Steve Yegge's Shit's Easy Syndrome - you say you want a safer routing, but what does that mean? You'd pay an extra ten percent on your ticket to fly ten percent lower? What about other factors - would you demand more…

Flying lower = flying slower. You can already do that, just pick a plane that flies lower, like a commuter jet...

But in general, when flying it's safer to be higher and faster. By far the most dangerous thing you might encounter when flying is the ground...

Re: Air France 447: The ‘Coffin Corner’ and a ‘Mesoscale’ Maw

#35

Post by dpifke »

tomiles wrote: post #29
JimmyL wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They get weather updates en-route sent to them by their home airline (via the radio system) - not to mention that jets of that size carry along with them a better weather radar system than most local news channels have.

I'm talking about satellite imagery like it is shown in the article, which is the only kind that would provide reliable and usable info for storm evasion. You need a view from above to see a storm size and not just a surface look at it from the sides (with a radar). Weather radar only provides limited information, like the article says. "interpreting its display is a bit of a black art." - "It is akin to a blind man…

More raw data to the cockpit is unlikely to help. Pilots have a lot of things going on and varying levels of weather knowledge and experience (even professional pilots - weather is but one thing you train on).

A professional meteorologist on the ground who can interpret and summarize the relevant information is of way more use.

Re: Air France 447: The ‘Coffin Corner’ and a ‘Mesoscale’ Maw

#36

Post by dpifke »

anamax wrote: post #30
biohacker42 wrote: post #11

So while you are napping, eating or watching a movie on that flight to LAX, you should know the plane you are flying is cruising along at the ratty edge of its capabilities. Why? Money. The higher an airliner flies, the better gas mileage it gets. As libertarian I prefer an airline which will charge me premium for flying more expensive but safer routes. However, as a realist I realize that the barrier to entry for ai…

> However, as a realist I realize that the barrier to entry for airlines is very high and competition is sub-optimal. Is the barrier actually high? (I see new airlines every so often.) What are the actual barriers? If they're govt, why isn't reducing the barriers the right response? > So I'd settle for a government mandate of how high commercial airlines can fly. And govt would get it right because that's what they d…

Is the barrier actually high?

Besides the obvious cost of acquiring multi-million dollar jetliners (which, if bought new, typically have to be ordered 5-10 years in advance of delivery) and signing leases for gate space and hiring ground crew at airports and so on?

You also need FAA and TSA approved operations plans, adding for instance the cost of screening all your employees and equipping your planes with things like black boxes and weather radar.

Then you end up like Virgin America, who can't fly to Chicago because the incumbent carriers there claim there are no available gates at O'Hare (despite the number of flights in and out of the airport being down like 10-20% from previous peak).

Doesn't seem that high to me...

Re: Air France 447: The ‘Coffin Corner’ and a ‘Mesoscale’ Maw

#37

Post by stcredzero »

anigbrowl wrote: post #31
biohacker42 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well simple. I really do want the market to work, but I know in reality it very often does not work at all. Most often with big industries where the startup costs are high. Do you prefer to continue to fly in a needle's eye rather then have the government step in? Ideally at least one airline would offer the safer option as a way to gain customers, but what if no one does? Is your libertarianism that pure? If so, tha…

Seems like a rather suicidal market strategy. So you invite people to pay 2x to fly with FlySafe (perhaps an existing airline with n outstanding safety record that rebrands itself), milk the resulting controversy to sell tickets for a while, only to later have every untoward incident, no matter how trivial, spun into a damning indictment of your business philosophy? No thanks. Furthermore, the first time such a compa…

it's simply impractical in a mass market like commodity air travel. Uber-expensive executive flying, perhaps.

If it wasn't for the coverage of this incident, I would never have known of the "coffin corner." How would market forces operate on factors of which the public is not even aware?

Re: Air France 447: The ‘Coffin Corner’ and a ‘Mesoscale’ Maw

#38

Post by stcredzero »

lutorm wrote: post #34
JimmyL wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> As libertarian I prefer an airline which will charge me premium for flying more expensive but safer routes. How would you even know? Saying "I'd pay more for a safer routing" is rather reminiscent of Steve Yegge's Shit's Easy Syndrome - you say you want a safer routing, but what does that mean? You'd pay an extra ten percent on your ticket to fly ten percent lower? What about other factors - would you demand more…

Flying lower = flying slower. You can already do that, just pick a plane that flies lower, like a commuter jet... But in general , when flying it's safer to be higher and faster. By far the most dangerous thing you might encounter when flying is the ground...

Instead of flying a lot lower and slower, how about marginally lower and slower? You could give the plane 50 knots leeway in speed and still fly over most of the weather out there.

For conditions like the ones that the Air France flight was going through, this would seem prudent. You can't fly above thunderheads like that. Might as well get yourself into a safer part of the flight envelope in case something bad happens.

Re: Air France 447: The ‘Coffin Corner’ and a ‘Mesoscale’ Maw

#39

Post by yhnbgty »

DocSavage wrote: post #16
stcredzero wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boeing tests its wings to breaking by bending them behind the back of the plane until they are pointed up at ridiculous angles. The kind of force that would break the wings of a modern jetliner would also break the necks of a large number of the passengers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pe9PVaFGl3o EDIT: I stand corrected. As pointed out below, that huge deflection doesn't represent neck-breaking forces. But imagini…

Cool video. I wonder how much of an engineering/structural difference there is between the heavier 777 and the Airbus A330-200 that crashed.

Both are tested to 150% of their maximum rated load.

Re: Air France 447: The ‘Coffin Corner’ and a ‘Mesoscale’ Maw

#40

Post by lutorm »

stcredzero wrote: post #38
lutorm wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flying lower = flying slower. You can already do that, just pick a plane that flies lower, like a commuter jet... But in general , when flying it's safer to be higher and faster. By far the most dangerous thing you might encounter when flying is the ground...

Instead of flying a lot lower and slower, how about marginally lower and slower? You could give the plane 50 knots leeway in speed and still fly over most of the weather out there. For conditions like the ones that the Air France flight was going through, this would seem prudent. You can't fly above thunderheads like that. Might as well get yourself into a safer part of the flight envelope in case something bad happe…

There is a maximum safe speed in turbulence (it's called "design maneuvering speed") and I really doubt they would exceed that in these conditions. (You want the wing to stall in case of severe turbulence, because the alternative is to overstress it. That's why you don't want to fly fast.)
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