FOTW August 4, 2017

Showing 17 comments
  • American Nurse
    Reply

    I’ve seen this happen to planes before but there was also double engine failure

  • Billy Rogers
    Reply

    Sounds Like Oklahoma City as well Bill boy Brother Man Usually it is high 90’s in early August but mid to upper 80’s get is all we are supposed to get . Ben You Cut off Trevor really Bad at least it sounded like it No Offence Just the feeling it gave me Have a Good Vacation Ben.

  • Dave Posh
    Reply

    Not only has 2017 usher in the term “Fake News”, it appears “Fake Science” will also be brought to the forefront with more seriousness than the inconsequential Al Gore snake oil.

  • silvermitt
    Reply

    You’re confused about the Illuminati? Mission accomplished. Deep rabbit holes might be fun to explore, but you’ll never get the truth of the matter, just mishmash of clues, lies, and stuff in between.

    Glad you discussed the weather patterns. I haven’t seen this so prominent since the year of no summer, 2006. So far, my tomatoes, green beans, and bell peppers are shriveled by a combination of too much rain and lack of summer heat. But my cool weather plants, brussel sprout, are going gang busters. Southern Indiana is not experiencing normal weather at all.

  • Phurf aka Mike
    Reply

    I can verify the 50’s yesterday morning in South Suburbs of Chicago.

  • Bill
    Reply

    In regards to the damaged plane, don’t these pilots routinely practice instrument takeoff and landings?

    • JONATHAN GELEFF
      Reply

      Yes all pilots will do simulated blind landings, ie to simulate fog ect.

  • sativarg
    Reply

    Could the magnitude of the current coronal hole streams be greater that average due to the recent mass ejections that took place? could the solar wind be enriched right now bay matter that is still falling back to Sol?

  • SlapCat
    Reply

    Bass check Billy, what’s up guys

  • troy priddy
    Reply

    in southern IL at 2:30 am this morning my low was 52.. right on the 38 parallel

  • richard
    Reply

    I live in the east of England we have winter weather patterns in summer too! The nose of the plane covers the radar gear and is composite and very thin, leading edges are hard and very strong, the blades in the engines are a single grown tungsten carbide Crystal and are strong real strong! I’ve seen a number of planes left in this state not common but it happens.

  • Jeff S
    Reply

    The nose cone of the aircraft is actually a radome. The radome housing material often include fiberglass, quartz, honeycomb and foam cores; as well as various chemical resins. Not solid metal. Lighting strikes as well as hail can damage the nose cone.

    For more info https://www.azom.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=12107

  • Jeff S
    Reply

    Also, as part of learning to pilot an aircraft part of the training is to wear a hood (think welders helmet) which restricts the pilots vision to just the instruments and you must land an aircraft “blind” or by instruments only. Modern aircraft and airfields also have Instrument Landing Systems (ILS) which help with landing aircraft in zero/zero visibility.

  • Johnathan Jones
    Reply

    There is damage to the aircraft looks typical for hail. The nosecone Or Radome covers a radar dish, so it is designed to be electronically transparent while still being fairly strong to the aerodynamic and protect the dish. There’s not a lot of materials up there. Underneath the dash the nose is reinforced and strong.

    The aircraft engines are designed to process massive amounts of material through them very quickly. Go to Boeing.com to see aircraft engine test and they put a lot of stuff through them so that’s typical. And laminar airflow explains why there is limited to no damage to the wing aerodynamic surfaces leaving I just what you’re made of titanium a strong allies also it’s the same reason why when you try to swat a fly the mere fact of moving the air with your hand moves The air away from your hand. The windshield however is flat and not very aerodynamic so it provides a surface that hail can hit pretty hard and has Billy indicated they do Cortes frozen birds fired from the Canon to make sure that they are able to withstand such things that such speeds like 650 miles an hour which is why a pop-up hailstorm came can’t catch an aircraft by surprise

    • Johnathan Jones
      Reply

      There is damage to the aircraft looks typical for hail. The nosecone Or Radome covers a radar dish, so it is designed to be electronically transparent while still being fairly strong to protect the dish and also be aerodynamic. There’s not a lot of materials up there. Underneath the dish, the forward fusuluge is reinforced and strong.

      The aircraft engines are designed to process massive amounts of material through them very quickly. Go to Boeing.com to see aircraft engine test and they put a lot of stuff through them so that’s typical. And laminar airflow explains why there is limited to no damage to the wing control surface leading edges, they’re made of titanium and strong alloys. Also the hail missing the wing, is the same reason why when you try to swat a fly, the mere fact of moving the air with your hand moves the air and the fly away from your hand. The windshield however is flat and not very aerodynamic comparatively so it provides a surface that hail can hit pretty hard and has Billy indicated they do tests of frozen birds fired from the cannon to make sure that they are able to withstand such things like that at such speeds like 650 miles an hour.At aircraft speeds, a pop-up hailstorm can catch an aircraft by surprise, which is why it is good that aircraft is designed to survive such things.In the variable pressure, temperature, electrical and attitudinal environment aircraft operate in, there are many factors that change in greater ranges than even what we see at one altitude such a sea level.
      ps, how do you edit a comment on this board?

  • BeechComer
    Reply

    Some thoughts from a former corporate pilot (King Airs, Lear Jets):
    1. At 4k ft, you’re limited to 250 knots max pretty well everywhere. This is *indicated airspeed* which relates to the actual air pressures on the airframe. 250 knots is not a very high speed for hitting hailstones w/ strong metal leading edges on engine inlets and wings, especially because…
    2. Hail at 4k feet is only seconds from hitting the ground. Depending on the ambient air temperatures surrounding and beneath the storm, golf-ball hail can be hard as rocks (early spring) or somewhat mushy/slushy (late summer). That’s rather simplistic because airmasses do vary greatly and other factors (humidity, et al) can make an influence. Slushballs will not have much effect on strong metal, especially metal that for the most part presents at rather acute angles to the incoming hailstone vectors.
    Windshields are build up as “sandwich” panels of different glass & plastic layers and primarily designed to hold pressure (amounting to thousands of pounds per panel) IN – and secondarily to keep FOD (e.g. geese) out. Hailstones also present at much closer to 90° angles to the glass and therefore have much greater, uh, *impact*, if you will. It isn’t too hard to crack & craze the *outer* panels enough to compromise visibility.
    3. Airliners generally have CATIII landing capability, which can mean autopilot only landings, in zero ceiling and visiblity. It was once possible to land and then need a ground tug to get you to the gate b/c from the upper stories of a 747 there still won’t be visibility of enough of the ground to know where you are. GPS and electronic charts may have changed that, but that came after my time.
    4. Because of the difference between True Airspeed and Indicated Airspeed, a jetliner at 41,000′ going 470 knots (540 MPH) will only indicate around 200 knots. This is because due to reduced air pressure at that rarefied altitude, the air molecules are actually that much farther apart. It’s one of the reason that jets fly so high, at least if trip length at all allows it, due to going over twice as fast on less fuel.

    –The BeechComer

  • BeechComer
    Reply

    Accidently hit post when correcting…

    5. The primary “weather locator” on airliners and most other aircraft down to large single-engine piston-powered ones, is radar. Radar sends energy out ahead of the aircraft which is reflected back by raindrops. The larger the drops, the stronger the signal. By measuring how long it takes the speed-of-light signal to come back, radar can display distance and even motion (doppler). By applying some “most frequent case” filters to the signal, precipitation intensity can be depicted in colors that can help pilots determine whether a storm is strong enough to warrant diverting around it.

    However, larger raindrops that reflect more of the radar signal back to the transmitter mean that comparatively less signal is available to penetrate further into the storm (and be reflected back). The reflected signal also must fight its way back through all those big reflectors (big raindrops) to be detected by the aircraft. A really strong storm can put enough precipitation into the air to block ANY signal from coming back. To the non-astute radar operator / pilot (and until special radar classes [http://www.rtiradar.com/faq.html#p7APMc1_3] came out in the early 80’s, we ALL were non-astute) (and especially on monochrome, tube type radars), the blocked signal is indistinguishable from a “thin spot” in the storm, without using special procedures. This is known as “attenuation effect” and is what knocked down a Southern Airways DC9 (flight 242) on 4 Apr 1977.

    To quote from the Wikipedia article, “The crew attempted to pick out a path through the cells using their on-board weather radar display, but they were apparently misled by the radar’s **attenuation effect** and they proceeded toward what they believed was a low intensity area, when in fact it was the peak convective activity point, attenuated by rain” It is worth noting that this “pick their way” method was used at cruising altitude; also worth noting that the captain on this flight was a top pilot w/ over 38,000 hours, yet he was not aware of this important effect of heavy rain on radar signals, because it wasn’t taught — until aviation legend Archie Trammel figured it out and started conducting classes on the subject. I took his course in 1981, best 6 hours I ever spent in a classroom, saved me much grief many times over the next 12 years.

    6. Back to our AtlasGlobal pilots, I should also point out that a jet operating below 10k ft is a very busy place, due to what is usually going on at those altitudes: departure or arrival. You’re getting vectored by ATC, you’re reviewing charts as you try to get established on course, or as you try to brief and configure the navigation instruments for approach, and you’re running checklists. The radar is somewhat of a secondary concern unless you’re alerted to the presence of severe weather. ATC radar is NOT good at picking out weather, it’s designed to punch *through* weather to keep ATC apprised of every aircraft’s location. If there’s time, ATC can cause a special display to be overlaid that will show heavier precip, but there isn’t always time and such service is always secondary for them as they’re busy every minute planning for each of the 30 or so planes they may have under control. Avoiding collisions is primary for ATC!

    We have modern weather aids now that were not available or just a dream when I was active 25 yrs ago, such as XM satellite weather with composite radar from multiple stations that minimizes attenuation effect, very useful though often delayed by 20 minutes or more. In the middle of their low-altitude heavy workload, I find it no mystery at all how they could be caught by surprise by a fast-building storm system.

    In view of all these factors, I’d like to say that my experience says it would be premature to call the damage “selective,” or the successful landing a mystery, especially when better pix and all the details that will undoubtably come out of the investigation of this incident will solve all the mysteries.

    Much more compelling mystery to me is why, in late summer (typically a “slow weather” time of year), there was a storm system capable of generating golfball hail — anywhere. Typically this kind of WX is generated by advancing cold fronts combined w/ very warm & moist air at the surface, combined with decent shear (IOW lots of upper air support) and very cold midlevel altitudes. It takes a monster storm to make hail of that class, not heretofore seen w/ garden variety summer thunderstorms.

    Hope you find this illuminative!

    –The BeachComer

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