Flying tip 4 - Radio comms

Radio communication is vital in todays aviation world.

An increase in air traffic - coupled with pressures in schedules and increased expectations from airline passengers - has resulted in more planes moving around the sky at any one time.

This has manifested itself in an increased workload on air traffic controllers. This was something that was pointed out to me on my recent trip to Farnborough's Air traffic control facilities.

What was pointed out again and again is the need for pilots to be in contact with controllers and for them to have good communications skills.

Here's a challenge for you. Take a small airband scanner to your local airport and tune in to the tower frequency. Listen to what is being said and then see how many exchanges completely follow the standard comms pattern defined by the CAA. For example, the use of pleasantries is discouraged and all altitude readings need to have an altimeter pressure setting read back with them. (i.e. "... level at 3500ft, 1012").

Now change frequency and listen to the local LARS or zone controller. When a new aircraft comes on frequency and is told to "pass your message", listen how many do it right.

The correct sequence is:

• Call-sign
• Aircraft type,
• Point of departure and destination,
• Altitude with altimeter setting,
• Intentions
• Request

How many times have you heard someone on the radio say something like "G-Mike Mike Mike Mike is at 3000 ft currently abeam Reading requesting flight information service.. Oh I'm a Cessna 150" only be to asked the point of departure and destination and intentions?

Todays quick tip then is "Learn the expected items to pass on a radio contact (along with what needs to be read back to the controller)"

It makes things easier for everyone AND ensures everyone has all the information needed for a safer journey

photo courtesy of Nite_Owl

Qantas plane plummets from the sky!

Talk about sensational journalism. I've just read a headline similar to the title of this blog post which talks about a plane "plunging 20,000 feet in terror" after a 10ft hole appeared in the side.

Now I'm not discounting any of the reports that have appeared in the press. I also know and understand that a hole that size in the side of a pressurised plane at altitude is not normal and needs to be dealt with. But I do believe that sensationalist reporting like that needs to be controlled.

Here's what we know as facts.

A Qantas 747 from London to Melbourne had taken off from Hong Kong an hour earlier and a hole appeared in the side of the plane. We don't know why. It caused a depressurisation which would have resulted in 2 things:

1) The oxygen masks would have appeared
2) The pilots would have executed an emergency descent to an altitude where the air was more breathable.

The aircraft touched down safely at Manila at 11.15am local time and all 346 passengers and 19 crew disembarked normally.

Anything other than that is pure speculation. A 20,000ft terror plunge is pure speculation and hyperbole

From the sounds of things there were no injuries, no damage to anyone and only a few passengers suffering from vomiting.

I'll keep an eye on this story for you. I'm interested to know what caused the damage ahead of the starboard wing which apparently penetrated the cabin.

The BBC appears to have the most well balanced view of the story at the moment

Farnborough

Well yesterday was the last day of the Farnborough International Air show 2008 and I blagged a ticket courtesy of a major aerospace manufacturer. No names but it was a bit of a stealth attack if you get my meaning. . .

Despite the fact that I live 10 minutes from the place and have done for 11 years, this was my first time at the show. The queues were quite long and I ended up parking in a different post code but I finally got there.

The interesting thing is that the airshow is actually more show than air on public days. It has something of a carnival atmosphere with children's play areas, fast food stalls, racing car displays, simulator rides and an inflatable castle/slide. It's only when you get deeper into things that you see the static displays and the exhibitor pavilions. Unfortunately most of those pavilions were invite only. And I didn't have an invite!

Air displays:
Running in parallel with all this were the air displays which were quite spectacular. I saw the Hornet, the Blades display team (awesome aerobatics from a bunch of ex Red Arrows pilots), the Navy Lynx display choppers - who flew backwards along the runway, in formation, against a strong crosswind- the Battle Of Britain flight - a Spitfire, Hurricane and Lancaster bomber making low passes over the airfield- the Hawker Sea Hawk, and the first flight of a completely restored Vulcan bomber.

To be honest the Vulcan was more impressive than I thought as it was very loud, very big and climbed out at what looked to be a very steep angle. A lot of people spent a lot of money putting it back together and they still need more money to keep it flying.

Static displays:
In a way I was a little disapointed with the static displays Don't get me wrong there were quite a few of them, but with one or two exceptions they were all 'Stand at a dstance and watch' displays rather han 'Get up close and personal' displays. The exceptions were the US Air Force Galaxy, Hercules and F15 displays - although they were only letting in small groups at a tie and the queue was almost as long as the one to find a parking space to get in! I got onto the Sirrus stand and looked at their new SR22 Turbo as well as the SR20. Also, despite what you may have read on the Farnborough website, the Boeing 777 and several of the other static displays were not there - at least not on the Sunday. However one welcome arrival was the Airbus A380 which was parked on the end of the cross runway (the only place it would fit). This too was open for inspection - although only for invited people, which was a shame. i watched it for about 30 minutes and saw 8 people wonder inside it. The theme of the A380 was 'Environmentally recyclable' and I had to smile at the irony of pushing an environmental agenda when there were fuel guzzling fighter jets and the old Vulcan bomber flying overhead....

By the way, Blades display team are actually a fully licensed airline which means that you can fly with them, as a fully insured paying passenger, in the front seat of one of their Extra's. How cool is that!

Technorati Tags: farnborough, airshow, air show

Why the airlines should hire behavioural economists

Scott Shane, A. Malachi Mixon III, Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies at Case Western Reserve University, has put forward a radical idea to help the airlines beat falling passenger numbers and higher costs.

He is recommending that airlines hire behavioural economists to understand how different framing of a problem can solve bigger issues. For example: How about the airlines paying passengers for NOT checking bag's in.

The principle works like this:

In a 'normal' situation, an average human considers benefits and losses on different scales. Thus finding $50 is proportionately more enjoyable than the pain of losing that $50, even though it's the same $50.

Knowing this he is recommending airlines change their pricing structures to take advantage of it.

At the moment you may buy an airline ticket for $150. Then when you get to the airport you check in 2 bags at $5 each. You ask for an aisle seat which costs another $5. During the flight you buy your $5 sandwich and $3 drink and spend another $5 on the headset to listen to the movie. In total your $150 flight has cost you $178.

So let's change the paradigm and take a behavioural economists approach to this:

You buy your ticket for $178. When you get to the airport you decide to check in only one bag. The airline refunds you $5 for the other bag not checked in. You still opt for the aisle seat but decide against watching the movie (which you've seen before). You get $5 back for not hiring the headset. You still have the food and the drink. At the end of the day your airline ticket cost you ($178 - $5 - $5 = $168). Overall you've spent more than the original $150 that ticket would have cost you, but you've spent less than the $178 you paid for the ticket. And, more importantly, you got $10 back off the airline.

From the airline's point of view the seat earned them the $150 they originally wanted for it, but they also made an additional $18 for the aisle seat, the food & drink and the one checked bag. Because this covers their costs they don't mind paying back the money to the customer and, on top of that, the customer feels better spending $168 for their $150 dollar ticket, than $150 for the ticket with 'surcharges' on top.

Refunds always beat surcharges, regardless of the overall cost at the end of the day.

I think this is a great idea. Richard Branson - are you listening....?

Braille Controllers.....

So I read in the papers that St. Mary's airport on the Scilly Isles has been advertising for a new air traffic controller. Nothing unusual about that you may think. However following equal opportunity guidelines response to the advert can be received in Braille.

Now I can think of numerous jobs where blind and partially sighted people would have no problem undertaking (we already have blind politicians and sportsmen/ women), but if I'm flying the crowded skies of Southern England (or even the sparse skies over the Scilly Isles), I would like to think that the person operating the radar could at least see it!

A spokesman for the Council of the Isles of Scilly, which runs the airport, said the alternative formats were offered on all job adverts.

(Phot courtesy of pne)

Fear of Flying

I got a note from a friend of mine in Australia recently. Regarding flying, he said.. "Would like to try it some time, though reading some of the other more recent posts makes me wonder how safe it really is!"

He was referring to posts I have written on this blog that mention accidents and incidents and, understandably it has raised a good deal of concern with him (and, no doubt, with other readers of his blog)


Let me tell you, there is nothing to be scared of when it comes to flying. Statistically it is still the safest way to travel. Statistically you are more likely to be hit by a meteor than be killed while flying (I'm not sure if that's true, but it illustrates a point!)

However: It is a well known fact that there are plane crashes every year. In fact there are quite a few plane crashes every year. A lot of them don't get talked about too much (small planes crashing in wilderness etc.). Some of them make the news, but not all (Colin McRae's helicopter crash last year and the Cessna Citation jet that crashed in Kent killing racing driver John Leslie). Mostly these get publicity more for the people who were on board than for the accident itself.

But there are, occasionally, large accidents that get coverage due to the sheer scale. The largest accident on record was the crash between two 747's on the tarmac at Tenerife in the 1970's. The Lockerbie bombing in the 80's and the 4 jets that went down on September 11th 2001 were terrorist attacks rather than accidents. TWA 800, the 747 that blew up over Long Island was an electrical short circuit.. the list goes on and on.

So let's put this in perspective. According to the National Safety Council, who have been logging US safety-related accidents since 1920, the odds of dying in an air or space related accident in the US in 2004 were 1 in 432,484. Compare this with the odds of dying in a car (1 in 19,216), pick-up truck (1 in 75,142) or as a pedestrian (1 in 49,139). What about "Inhalation and ingestion of other objects causing obstruction of respiratory tract" (1 in 91,340) or "Accidental poisoning by and exposure to noxious substances" (1 in 14,017) or "Assault by firearm" (1 in 25,263).

If you want actual data, 697 people were killed in aviation or space related accidents in 2004. That compares with 5976 pedestrians, 4018 motorcyclists, 15282 car occupants, 15494, 'Other and unspecified land transport accidents' and 17357 who were shot, stabbed or otherwise killed in an assault. And that's just the USA alone! According to the CAA in the UK, over the 1985-94 period, only 0.2 passengers were killed or seriously injured per billion passenger km flown by UK operators. This compares with 1872 on motorcycles, for example.

The fact of the matter is when you are in a large commercial plane the number of things that have to occur to cause a fatal accident are huge. It is very rarely a single issue that brings a plane down. It is usually a chain of events, missed items, mechanical issues and pilot error that all come to a point and cause the incident. Anyone who's watched National Geographic's "Air Crash Investigation' will know this. The Tenerife incident I mentioned earlier was caused by a combination of bad weather, no radar, tight crew schedules, an overbearing Captain who intimidated his crew, and a misheard radio communication. If any one of those had not been present the accident would have been avoided. Similarly, the TWA flight 800 crash was caused by the plane carrying an empty centre fuel tank coupled with decreased pressure from flying at altitude and a short circuit in a single wire (The empty fuel tank contained kerosene vapour which ignited when the spark from the short circuit met the lightly pressurised vapour). Once again a change in any of these circumstances would have prevented it (Standard operating procedure is now to keep fuel in the central tank to avoid the situation where vapour can form).

But when it comes to the smaller, general aviation planes of the type that I fly, the prospect of an incident is larger. The systems are simpler, but the pilots are less experienced (or more particularly they are less trained in all circumstances). This leads to situation where a single problem can cause an incident. In this years 'Clued Up' magazine from the CAA, Irv Lee talks about a carb icing problem he had which caused his engine to die and necessitate an emergency landing in a field. The cause of this was very simple: His student throttled back to start a decent without adding carb heat. As Irv himself says "That was the end of the flight". This wasn't a case of 3 or four things conspiring to cause an issue it was one simple mistake - a pilot error - as the student didn't follow his procedures correctly.

But again, to put all this into context, there were 14 fatal aeroplane accidents last year in the UK. The CAA believe that there were around 900,000 hours of general aviation flying in that time. That's not a bad ratio.

Of course a lot of the hoopla surrounding aviation accidents is causing many people to have a fear of flying. Most of this is to do with lack of control. But some of it is to do with not understanding how planes fly (I was on a long distance BA flight a number of years ago. As we rattled down the runway and the plane clawed it's way into the sky I shook my head in disbelief that 300 tonnes of metal, people and fuel could get airborne. The elderly lady seated next to me said 'Why are you shaking your head?"
"I fly upwards of 100 to 200 flights per year", I replied, "And I still don't really understand how it works. But it's not a problem as long as the pilot does" She smiled and leaned over to me 'It's OK", she said "The pilot know what he's doing. It's my husband").

One of the ways of combating this is to go on a fear of flying course. My mother took one of these recently. She used to hate flying, needed valium type pills to calm her down and remove the anxiety she was feeling. But she spent a day at Manchester Airport with British Airways and went on a 30 minute flight where the captain talked everyone through what was happening, and she nows flies 6 or 8 times a year to various destinations without any medication. It doesn't mean she likes flying, but it has removed her fear and anxiety.

So should my Australian friend be scared of flying in small aircraft? Absolutely not. They are statistically a lot safer than any other form of transport. Most occurrences are caused by pilots flying outside their comfort zone (into bad weather for example), and of the incidents that are reported, very few are fatal.

I'd rather be flying than in a car, personally!

(Graphic courtesy www.lumaxart.com/)
Technorati Tags: caa, GA, safety, aviation