Stilgherrian » aviation

Gimli Glider’s last flight

Stilgherrian — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 23:24:36 +0000

A milestone in aviation history this week. The Gimli Glider (pictured) made its final flight on Thursday 24 January.

I mentioned this amazing story a few months back. In brief, in 1983 an Air Canada Boeing 767 ran out of fuel at 28,000 feet over Ottawa and the pilots glided it safely to the ground — landing at an old airport which, unbeknownst to the pilot, was not a motor racing circuit. A very, very fine piece of flying indeed.

The aircraft was returned to normal service — there’s nothing a bit of panel-beating can’t fix! — and for the last 24 years has had a normal career.

Hat-tip (and the full story) thanks to Telstar Logistics.

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The Gimli Glider

Stilgherrian — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 22:05:34 +0000

Wanna read about some amazing flying? I stumbled across the story of the Gimli Glider yesterday — a Boeing 767 which ran out of fuel at 41,000 feet and was successfully landed by Captain Robert (Bob) Pearson and First Officer Maurice Quintal. Beautiful work, lads.

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Watching 29,000 aircraft

Stilgherrian — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 00:15:14 +0000

This isn’t a new video, but certainly one I like: a time lapse video of flight patterns over North America as they unfold over the course of a day.

You can clearly see the wave of activity following the time zones east to west as the morning commuter flights do their thing. International flights follow a different drummer.

One of the reasons I like this video is that it reminds us we’re all part of something much, much bigger. In this case it’s the human-made world of aviation, but like the Powers of Ten video, it helps generate a sense of perspective.

Thanks to The Long Now Foundation for the reminder — and follow their blog for many more similar reminders, such as a 35-year time lapse of the Tokyo skyline and some slow art.

I’ll write more about The Long Now Foundation another time.

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The Marvel of Flight, at $3 a go

Stilgherrian — Fri, 11 May 2007 10:20:49 +0000

Some Australian airlines announced record-low $3 airfares this month. But do you really want to travel on an airline where you contribute so little money to pre-flight checks and other maintenance tasks…?

Writing in Crickey last week, Ben Sandilands knocks the nail on the head:

There are claims that substantial numbers of Australian pilots have accepted — or been forced to accept — ‘fatigue management solutions’ that would be criminal if applied to the long-distance truckies on the nation’s highways.

The public sees cancelled flights, and airlines complain about pilots taking “too many sickies”, but one pilots tells Sandilands:

Too few pilots are declaring themselves fatigued in situations where they should emphatically not be permitted to control an airliner, especially if overtaken by those unexpected things, like mechanical failures, or severe weather, or an emergency landing, where the wrong decision is irretrievably wrong.

It’s not much better on the ground where, as one air traffic controller told Crikey this week, people are falling asleep on the job:

Just last week, I was having a busy session about 3am, and I had a few aircraft to ‘hand-off’ to the next sector. Now it just so happens, the next sector is the guy sitting about 20 feet behind me. On every occasion (about 5-10 minutes apart) the controller was sound asleep — to the point where I had to get up, go over and physically wake him up so that I could transfer the aircraft over to him!

I have nothing against the guy — he has more experience than me, but he has already worked the morning shift, and was now into his 14th hour of duty in less than 24 hours, and was already on his ninth shift in the same number of days. Our ‘Fatigue Management System’ says he was fit to be at work. He and I know better.

Of course management spouts the usual reassuring words, like this statement from Airservices Australia:

Safety is Airservices’ primary consideration in everything that we do in our business…

Uhuh. Of course it is.