All in a day's work

I was puttering about in the hangar yesterday with NPR's All Things Considered playing on the radio when I heard a story about a controller in Lake Charles, Louisiana, who talked a student pilot through landing her Cessna 172. For his efforts, he's been awarded NATCA's Archie League Medal of Safety. That student got lucky - not all air traffic controllers are pilots; here at LAX I'd estimate that about half of our controllers have some sort of piloting experience. Most other places I've been the pilot count among the controllers was somewhat less, perhaps somewhere between ten and thirty percent, but I don't think I've ever been the only pilot assigned to an air traffic facility. She was also lucky in her choice of airplanes: the Cessna 172 is just about the universal general aviation airplane, with an admirable safety record. In case you've never seen one, here's one I caught on the run-up pad this afternoon:



The most incredible part of the story to me was that she later flew away again. Since there was no further mention, apparently that landing went okay. I guess you really do have to get right back on the horse.

Here's a link to the NPR story: Flight Controller Honored for Grace Under Pressure

Delta Airbuses spotted

Last month, I showed you pictures of the Delta/Northwest B747, B757, and Airbus 330. Since then, a few of the A320-series Northwest Airbuses have shown up wearing the new Delta scheme. Northwest has A319's and A320's, the two middle models of the range, which runs from the A318 to the A321. The larger the number, the longer the fuselage. While I should use this as the starting point for the next part of the LAX Aircraft Spotter's Guide, the iBook's battery isn't up to the task right now, so you'll have to stay tuned!

In this picture there's one of each: the Delta is an A319, while the silver Northwest is an A320.
An easy way to tell the two apart (aside from length) is the overwing exits: the A319 has one, while the A320 has two.

This fuzzy shot through the tower windowshade was the first A320 I've seen in the Delta livery. I must concede that I'm not yet used to seeing Delta colors on Airbuses.

Here's a little Airbus lagniappe: Air Jamaica's one daily flight arrives and then departs again after dark, and so photo opportunities are few. I caught this A320 at Terminal Five last week.

Happy Mardi Gras Y'all!

I'm typing this during my lunch break at the tower, so no long drawn-out missive today. But I couldn't let it pass without wishing everyone a happy Mardi Gras. As you might imagine, Mardi Gras isn't quite the big thing in L.A. that it is in New Orleans or Rio. The first most folks here at the tower heard about it was when I hit the top of the stairs wearing my beads. They all seemed okay with it though when the king cakes arrived (gotta have beads and king cake!)

For those who need a Mardi Gras primer, here goes: Mardi Gras (in French "fat Tuesday") or Carnival is the celebration running up to Ash Wednesday, which is the beginning of Lent. In New Orleans, where I learned my Mardi Gras lore, the Mardi Gras season begins on Twelfth Night, or the Feast of the Epiphany, which is January 6th (this is the twelfth of the twelve days of Christmas in the carol - Many people don't realize that the twelve days of Christmas are after Christmas Day, not leading up to it like an advent calendar). Fat Tuesday itself is always the day before Ash Wednesday, which is in turn forty-six days (forty if you don't count the Sundays) before Easter, which is in turn the first Sunday after the first full moon after March 20th. Thus, the date of Mardi Gras moves each year just as the date of Easter does, and can be as early as the third of February or as late as the ninth of March. The king cake is ring-shaped (like a king's crown), and is in honor of the three wise men in the tale of the baby Jesus. That's also the origination of the baby in the cake, although in some cultures a bean is used instead. The tradition says that whoever gets the baby in the cake has to host the next celebration (in other words, provide the next cake). The traditional colors of purple, green, and gold respectively represent Justice, Faith, and Power. I was going to show you the cake, but . . .

I didn't think to get a picture of it before taking it upstairs, and food of this sort in the tower cab has no chance of approaching its 'sell by' date. So instead, here's the box it came in, all the way from Louisiana:

In other so-called 'news', the Oscars ceremony was this past weekend. While I didn't go, and in fact don't even know who did, I did get a shot of one of the full FBO ramps. Lotsa heavy iron in town:


Post script: The calculation of the date of Easter is known as computus, and is actually some what more involved than my abbreviated explanation above. For more, you might see this Wikipedia article.

Odds and ends

Sorry for the recent drought in entries, but as you may have heard we've had a bit of rain recently in Southern California . . . and my roof leaks. Like a sieve, lately. So the nice weather we've had for the last couple of days, which has for once coincided with my weekend, has seen me outside on the roof. Thus, this missive is mostly a composite of recent news items that I found interesting, with no particular connection to each other or anything else I normally comment on:

It's been a month for weird collisions. First, a couple of communications satellites collide in orbit. That news was followed by the announcement that a couple of submarines had collided beneath the surface of the planet's second-largest ocean. Then today, I heard about a train that hit a couple of girls who were sleeping on the tracks! Here are links to each of the stories:

Russian and US satellites collide

Nuclear subs collide in Atlantic

2 Teen Girls, Injured by Train, Cope with Change


Ever-so-slightly related to the first two stories, respectively, are two more. One about a joint effort to send a space probe to Jupiter's moon Europa, and the other about a recent discovery of a French battleship sunk in World War One:

Jupiter in space agencies' sights

Danton wreck found in deep water


I don't have anything special to say about the crash of the Colgan (flying as Continental Connection) Dash-8 last week. All the information I have came from public media sources, so no inside information stuff here. From the sound of it, the airplane had accumulated a load of ice, perhaps more than realized by the crew. When they extended the flaps on approach to Buffalo, the altered air flow over the wings and particularly the tail may have caused them to experience a loss of control. This could have been exacerbated by the reportedly gusty crosswinds in the area. The flight data recorder indicated that they attempted to retract the landing gear and flaps in their efforts to regain control, but ran out of altitude. While I have no Dash-8 piloting experience, I will say that the accepted practice in small general aviation aircraft is to leave the flaps up if the pilot suspects he may have accumulated ice. This quote comes from an FAA Advisory Circular to pilots about the effects of icing:

A tailplane stall occurs when, as with the wing, the critical angle of attack is exceeded. Since the horizontal stabilizer counters the natural nose down tendency caused by the center of lift of the main wing, the airplane will react by pitching down, sometimes uncontrollably, when the tailplane is stalled. Application of flaps can aggravate or initiate the stall. The pilot should use caution when applying flaps during an approach if there is the possibility of icing on the tailplane.


Links:

BBC: Plane crash in NY state kills 50

FAA Advisory Circular 91-51A

Capt. Dave's blog, part 1

Capt. Dave's blog, part 2