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Location: By the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GCSTroop
Yeah. It most certainly is but there are a number (a plethora, actually) of aircraft systems that rely on raw air data to do a number of other functions. On many aircraft, airspeed (from the air data systems) is also tied to the operation of certain flight controls in various phases of flight. For example, on many aircraft, depending on your speed, various flight control movements are dampened to prevent an excessive movement around any given axis. If you kick the rudder left three degrees while going 350 kts. it's going to have a far more pronounced effect than if you kick it three degrees left while going 200 kts. Systems like that are almost always exclusively fed by computed airspeed data originating from the airspeed (pitot) sensors. If they're clogged with volcanic ash, it could affect a number of other systems. While the pilots could still gather airspeed data from GPS to get an accurate depiction of where they're headed and where they need to go, there a number of systems still dependent on that air data information coming from the pitot/static systems.
I was just thinking the USAF probably has access to a few tricks that might well be prohibitively expensive to the commercial fleet.
The main danger, as shown in the 1982 incident, is starving the engines of air. All 4 engines of British Airways 747 Flight 9 shut down and didn't restart until the plane fell below 14,000 feet - below the ash.
Flying at 14,000 feet uses much more fuel and speed is slower, than at 35,000 feet - a consideration for airlines flying granny to Manchester on a bargain basement fare. Air Force 1 and military planes don't have these economic restraints & AF1 would have more resources to detect and avoid.
Typical British understatement: Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them under control. I trust you are not in too much distress.
I just read that they did cancel Obama's flight. That really is too bad! Poor Poland... first the plane crash and now this.
Gosh, what a mess over there! I also heard that this volcano's last eruption back in the 18th century lasted 2 years
I've got a flight scheduled to Germany for May 5th. I hope everything is gonna be ok by then!
Several presidents, prime ministers etc. had to cancel their flights to Poland, but frankly I guess people have been making too much of a fuss about that polish politician. Sure, it is sad whenever someone dies, but I assume most people had never even heard of that guy.
I am sure there are official representatives such as diplomats and consuls of all countries taking part in the funeral
I hope dumbo goes. Poland needs a president and we have a useless one we sure would like to dump. maybe we can make a deal and unload some garbage on them.. We could probably get some sausage for him...
I was about to say, Norwegian press is reporting that Obama will miss the funeral, as will many other heads of state.
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