Is Clear Air Turbulence becoming more common? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is Clear Air Turbulence becoming more common?

#121

Post by therobots927 » Fri, Jun 28, 2024, 11:51 PM UTC

Is anyone aware of the feasibility of research into using LIDAR to detect CAT? This study from last October claims to have found a method for detecting CAT ahead of time with LIDAR: http://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2023Photo..10.1185Z/abstrac...

This type of technology would be incredible in my opinion, and I’m also of the opinion that increased turbulence (assuming it is actually increasing) could be easily tied to climate change and the recent warming of the pacific and Atlantic oceans due to regulations on sulfur in cargo ship fuel (but that’s a tangent to this topic)

Re: Is Clear Air Turbulence becoming more common?

#122

Post by gerdesj » Fri, Jun 28, 2024, 11:58 PM UTC

jameshart wrote: post #104

Most of the recent widely publicized CAT injuries have been on long distance flights between Europe and South Asia. One thing that’s happened in the past couple of years along that air corridor is the squeezing of flight paths out of Ukrainian, Russian, Israeli, and Afghan airspace. Planes taking more circuitous routes, giving them less options to avoid weather conditions, much of the flight over hot mountainous terr…

"Most of the recent widely publicized CAT injuries have been on long distance flights between Europe and South Asia."

OK but you'll need a citation for your assertion and that is only about reported CAT via media sources and not what the article is on about - CAT events worldwide.

The article invokes evidence across the entire planet and cites Prosser et al with 1979 vs 2020 graphics, evidence and discussion. It also concludes that jet streams are where CAT events are intensifying.

Re: Is Clear Air Turbulence becoming more common?

#123

Post by dzhiurgis » Sat, Jun 29, 2024, 12:24 AM UTC

mulmen wrote: post #112

londons_explore wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile an accelerometer, microcontroller and a years worth of storage for the data probably all could be made with $5 worth of parts and a summer intern...

Comments like this make me glad the FAA requires certification for everything.

Oh come on. It's not like raspberrypi is going to force plane down.

Also there's likely 200 accelerometers on board already. Onboard wifi is becoming ubiquitous. Perhaps an app that trades in wifi time for accelerometer time would be good trade-off. And wouldn't require tons of certification.

Re: Is Clear Air Turbulence becoming more common?

#124

Post by vlovich123 » Sat, Jun 29, 2024, 1:05 AM UTC

mulmen wrote: post #113

vlovich123 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it hard to believe that the headsets they are using for software and hardware meet that level of criteria. They’re clearly using off-the-shelf parts. Some amount of care is called for sure, but 100k to apply a software patch or tweak the tech in FDRs which are swappable and upgradable? A flight recorder is 10k. You can’t tell me it costs 90k to install a new one capable of sending data over the satellite link…

You’re solving a human problem with technology. Pilots are resistant to data collection because of the proven track record of airlines using it against them. Unintended consequences are fatal in aviation. Saying “it ought to be easy” is an immediately disqualifying statement. You should ask instead why it is so expensive. Then decide if there’s a margin worth eroding.

What human problem am I solving with technology? I’m just saying we should have public data about turbulence so that we can understand changes to the jet stream. I’m not talking about making planes safer or solving human errors. I’m not sure how this data could possibly be used against pilots. I’m not talking about recording the cockpit; just the sensor data about what the plane is doing and experiencing.

> You should ask instead why it is so expensive.

That is literally my question. I’m highlighting that 100k seems really high to make a system that opportunistically transmits data we are already capturing locally. Rather than a flippant “airplanes should be expensive”, why not ask what is the cheapest retrofit we can do that doesn’t change the safety profile. As I said, this system should not be in the critical path and shouldn’t be a required other than the airplanes should generally be maintaining it to be functional (i.e. the SLA can be 75-90% and still provide tremendous value instead of the 100% SLA target for flight critical components which is what that 100k price tag sounds like).

That this is something highlighted by crash investigators as something that would help in corner cases like incidents over the ocean is just gravy.

Re: Is Clear Air Turbulence becoming more common?

#125

Post by vlovich123 » Sat, Jun 29, 2024, 1:08 AM UTC

renewiltord wrote: post #84

lucianbr wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the point of your comment? Should we just install a bunch of accelerometers on planes with faked paperwork because some people faked some paperwork somtime? Sounds like you're upset at Boeing and figured you would tell us you're upset on an unrelated thread. Note that it doesn't really matter if you are right to be upset at Boeing or not. It's still unrelated.

I think his point is that the proof is expensive, not the act itself. Reminds me of rivets in composites joined by adhesives. The benefit is inspectability. The cost is diminished strength.

Proof that it was installed and working correctly is super easy. Multiple airlines fly the same route. The airlines should be feeding the data to the government and the government can cross-validate that the data is legit for routes that have more than 2 airlines. + the jet stream is quite large so even not the exact same route should still be able to highlight airlines doing fraudulent data by. If they’re not sending data, that’s also super easy to tell.

At some point the cost of trying to lie and cut corners becomes worse than the cost of compliance and the airlines and airplane companies will just become good at doing a good job here.

Re: Is Clear Air Turbulence becoming more common?

#126

Post by vlovich123 » Sat, Jun 29, 2024, 1:12 AM UTC

benhurmarcel wrote: post #110

vlovich123 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we really not record turbulence sensor data off the airplanes and download it when they’re on the ground? I’m also surprised that these airplanes have on demand satellite TV streaming to these airplanes but airlines claim that it costs 100k to add that to existing planes. There’s just no way it’s 100k per plane - there must be a cheap way to retrofit the data without having it be reliable since it’s opportunistic.…

Some aircraft are equipped with a system that records parameters in flight, and sends it via 4G when on the ground. This is used for preventive maintenance mostly. It’s a service that’s more and more common. However that data belongs to each airline.

Yeah I feel like the FAA should require the airlines to share some of the data so we get research into the jet stream that we can cross correlate with other data sources.

Re: Is Clear Air Turbulence becoming more common?

#127

Post by jameshart » Sat, Jun 29, 2024, 1:15 AM UTC

gerdesj wrote: post #122

jameshart wrote: post #104

Most of the recent widely publicized CAT injuries have been on long distance flights between Europe and South Asia. One thing that’s happened in the past couple of years along that air corridor is the squeezing of flight paths out of Ukrainian, Russian, Israeli, and Afghan airspace. Planes taking more circuitous routes, giving them less options to avoid weather conditions, much of the flight over hot mountainous terr…

"Most of the recent widely publicized CAT injuries have been on long distance flights between Europe and South Asia." OK but you'll need a citation for your assertion and that is only about reported CAT via media sources and not what the article is on about - CAT events worldwide. The article invokes evidence across the entire planet and cites Prosser et al with 1979 vs 2020 graphics, evidence and discussion. It also…

The article exists because of several recent high profile CAT incidents.

It cites data from several years ago (before the recent spate of stories) that only talks about increases in CAT-conducive conditions, but says nothing about increases in actual incidents. The article leaves maybe the impression that any recent spike in high profile turbulence events might be a result of the changes in jet stream activity but doesn’t actually provide much justification for that. Other posts on this thread point out that there was no actual increase in reported CAT encounters that correlates with the proposed mechanism so… unclear if the article’s data says much if anything about recent media-reported CAT events.

Re: Is Clear Air Turbulence becoming more common?

#128

Post by kelnos » Sat, Jun 29, 2024, 1:57 AM UTC

jameshart wrote: post #104

Most of the recent widely publicized CAT injuries have been on long distance flights between Europe and South Asia. One thing that’s happened in the past couple of years along that air corridor is the squeezing of flight paths out of Ukrainian, Russian, Israeli, and Afghan airspace. Planes taking more circuitous routes, giving them less options to avoid weather conditions, much of the flight over hot mountainous terr…

Weird that this is the top-rated comment, as it's directly contradicted by the heat maps in the article, which show increases in CAT all over the globe, in many places that are not routes between Europe and South Asia.

(Also consider that the principal question the article tries to answer is not "are there more CAT incidents?" but simply "is there more CAT?")

I glanced at a few current (as of today) routes, e.g. CDG->SIN[0], which don't fly anywhere near the areas of heavy CAT noted by the heat maps. Hell, let's take a look at the flight mentioned, the LHR-SIN SQ321[1], where a passenger died in may (though, as the article notes, it was later determined not to be CAT): that one doesn't fly through any high-CAT areas (and in fact does fly through Russian airspace).

> giving them less options to avoid weather conditions

The entire characterization of CAT is that it is unavoidable because the cause often doesn't have all that much to do with weather conditions, and even when it does, you don't get (enough) advance warning.

[0] https://www.flightstats.com/v2/flight-tracker/SQ/335?year=20...

[1] https://www.flightstats.com/v2/flight-tracker/SQ/321?year=20...

Re: Is Clear Air Turbulence becoming more common?

#129

Post by kelnos » Sat, Jun 29, 2024, 2:01 AM UTC

jameshart wrote: post #127

gerdesj wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Most of the recent widely publicized CAT injuries have been on long distance flights between Europe and South Asia." OK but you'll need a citation for your assertion and that is only about reported CAT via media sources and not what the article is on about - CAT events worldwide. The article invokes evidence across the entire planet and cites Prosser et al with 1979 vs 2020 graphics, evidence and discussion. It also…

The article exists because of several recent high profile CAT incidents. It cites data from several years ago (before the recent spate of stories) that only talks about increases in CAT-conducive conditions, but says nothing about increases in actual incidents. The article leaves maybe the impression that any recent spike in high profile turbulence events might be a result of the changes in jet stream activity but do…

> The article exists because of several recent high profile CAT incidents.

Yes, but the article doesn't claim your narrowing of the scope, that it's mostly just between Europe and Asia.

Re: Is Clear Air Turbulence becoming more common?

#130

Post by kelnos » Sat, Jun 29, 2024, 2:10 AM UTC

vlovich123 wrote: post #51

ImaCake wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly no detectable trend in that data. But the accident frequency is so low that the random variation dominates and makes it impossible to distinguish any trend. What is demonstrably increasing is CAT, due to climate change. But considering how infrequent these incidents are we might not see a clear increase for several decades.

Do we really not record turbulence sensor data off the airplanes and download it when they’re on the ground? I’m also surprised that these airplanes have on demand satellite TV streaming to these airplanes but airlines claim that it costs 100k to add that to existing planes. There’s just no way it’s 100k per plane - there must be a cheap way to retrofit the data without having it be reliable since it’s opportunistic.…

There's essentially no cheap way to add anything to an airplane. Most changes will require extensive testing, verification, and sometimes certification when it comes to planes.

But anyway, where are you seeing a claim that it costs $100k to record and save turbulence sensor data? I don't see anyone upthread claiming that, and the article doesn't touch on it at all.