Cafe Einstein : LPTP #9...onward and upward

I had a few conversations with those of the ultralight brigade. My eyes rapidly glazed over when I realised that they had grounded their aerodynamic thinking inside an alternate universe - the one where optimism and/or mere talk alters the laws of physics. Sad people. Oblivious to their self parodies.

I have a good rep with some patients for slamming those guys, metaphorically, up against the wall with their crap. And I receive the converse opinion from certain workplace insurers. I'm not their nemesis or anything, but I do have an annoying habit of calling their bluff with advocacy for my patients. Provided my judgment is careful & sound and based on demonstrable biological facts, they had just better not drag race against me ! But I view these as sporting opportunities ( ie. the hunting of lower life forms ) that go with the territory. I mean you've gotta have perk or two from the job, right ? :-)

Cheers, Mike.

( edit ) I ought point out that most ultralight incidents are airspace infractions, a pretty basic and quite serious part of air law :

(a) For any aviation category you must exceed 1000 feet vertical clearance over any dwelling & immediate surrounds. Unless under 'stress of weather' or specific ATC instruction ( which in practice they vary rarely give permission ). For some designated areas this minimum can be more eg. 1500 feet, or maybe to all heights eg. total exclusion around military air bases. This also implies certain take-off and landing flight profiles, plus related ingress and egress around the landing field.

(b) Ultralights are restricted to under 500 feet above terrain under all circumstances.

Unfortunately the ultralight brigade frequently interpret (b) without consideration of (a). For them the circumstance is simply put : you have to fly laterally around all dwellings. You may never legitimately overfly. So they buzz the locals as they please, in self satisfied smugness I'll add too, because they are persecuted by bureaucracy et al as per group mantra. The regulations are primarily for safety ie. time & distance to glide with power loss, but obviously also for amenity of dwellings.

There was one heck of a stink a couple of months ago when one guy came over the Healesville Sanctuary at tree top height during their 'Birds of Prey' display one afternoon. His prop nearly chewed up the very eagle that starred in the 'Healing' movie with Hugo Weaving ! The pilot didn't realise just how many people photographed him sufficiently well for a complete & unambiguous identification. Literally hundreds of excellent shots were taken. So when the sanctuary, police, air regulators, plus a horde of conservation groups, have finished with him he will be poorer by several tens of thousands of dollars. On the upside rumor has it the legislation will change to require registration markings clearly visible from all aspects. Neither markings nor registrations presently exist.

( edit ) So a powered plane is really two planes. It's a heavier-than-air craft that may climb if power is available. It's a glider if not. You have to be able to fly both types using the same airframe. You have to be aware of the unexpected transition.

He was U.S. Navy all right. Myth has it that he was born on an aircraft carrier. Or his mother was an aircraft carrier. Something like that. His father was The God Of Flight, that is known for sure. His performance is legendary and is/will be the paradigm to study for generations to come :

Oh, I've just lost all four engines simultaneously at low altitude. They are now emitting fan blades and duck liver pate. There's a river. I'll put this flying brick down in that. While I'm at it, I will just flare the plane a few metres above the water to stop the engines gouging in and destroying the plane. There you go, all done. Everybody unharmed. Anything else I can help with ?

Awesome ! DO they make them any better than a US Navy carrier air wing ? No sir !!! :-) :-)

Cheers, Mike.

( edit ) Or was it goose liver pate ?

( edit ) Here's a thing. Normally with cross country flying ie. outside of the local field traffic, you have to plan for alternates along the way. This means that if weather or fuel or some other problem occurs then you have to have a pre-planned 'escape'. That normally means a landing at a suitable airfield that you would otherwise be passing en route. For this section of the flight planning Rule #1 of Alternates applies :

If the Alternate requires it's own Alternate then it isn't an Alternate

This has two effects :

(a) Alternate selection is not a casual choice. A serious planning point. Alternates have to be reasonably achievable.

(b) If you can't make the alternate then directly set your mind to an emergency landing as best as you can. Rather than lose precious time & altitude trying to resuscitate a truly stuffed flight plan.

This is why air-cars should never be invented. Humans really don't do two dimensions without potential gradients that well, so why give them a third with a potential gradient. When I ask the question 'what is the most dangerous household tool?' I usually get power saws, drills, lawn mowers etc. Wrong IMHO. It's the ladder. You store gravitational potential energy as you climb. Falling from the roof level of the second floor gives you 50+ km/h by ground level, and that increases quadratically with height. The planet is a brick wall. The worst around the house injuries I've ever seen are ladder falls : 'just fixing' the gutters/roof/window/etc. They are the ICU admissions, and that's on a good day. The trauma is equivalent with a motor vehicle to pedestrian impact.

We naturally don't estimate the physics well for the vertical line. With to and fro horizontally most people think linear, or it becomes their linear. The stop at the bottom of that second floor fall causes your body to absorb energy at a rate of around 100+ kW ! Has anyone bought a 100 kW power tool from Home Depot recently ?

I reckon it would be very neat if we could talk with the birds. They would have an excellent grasp of flying evidently and I think we would be amazed with their worldview, as it were.

Rule #2 of Alternates : Rule #1 doesn't always apply. The idea is to have a stop/go check though. So if you are planning alternates that have their own alternates, say because you are expecting nasty weather, then maybe you shouldn't be going up at all. Having an alternate because you are not sure of getting ATC clearance through some restricted space is a relatively harmless reason. It always costs though. The fuel in the tank always goes down when you're up there, and nighttime approaches.

It's always better to be on the ground wanting to be in the air, than in the air wanting to be on the ground.

Cheers, Mike.

It was goose. Add to all that text in blue "and I have to hold it up high enough to clear a bridge, then drop it before I get to the next bridge."

Air tanks: what they tell us is to drain it until it stops spitting out water, except in the winter when we just leave them open so they don't freeze. I don't know if that's really the best practice, but it's what they tell us and I'm too new to argue with it.

I've always thought the best reason for not having air cars is that with ground vehicles, we rely on friction for both turning and stopping, and you don't have it for either purpose in the air. Anything you want to do to counter your momentum and available lift has to be done with thrust.

Check list for operating the streetcar (going from memory; I don't have it in front of me):
1. Open the barn doors. The reason this is #1 is so you have light for everything else.
2. Unlock and open the car doors, both ends.
3. Check the oil in the air compressor. This is a messy and difficult PITA that involves getting down on one knee and reaching your entire arm length under the side of the car, no doubt getting oil, grease, and general dirt on your arm and white shirt. Unscrew the cap, stick your finger in until you feel oil, then try to put the cap back again. It has a flop-over lever on the top that just barely doesn't clear something as it goes around, so you have to flop it, but when you do, the cap will change its angle because it hasn't bitten the threads yet. Seems to me like a good way to introduce grit into the air compressor, but again, I'm not the one who established these procedures. Also, nobody that I've talked to about it has ever found the oil level to be low, but none of us wants to be the guy who didn't check it and the compressor burned up. (BTW, when the compressor is running while I'm trying to give my history lesson to the passengers, I always describe it as the noisiest air compressor in the whole museum.)
4. Wipe the oil off your hands the best you can.
5. Open the ammo box that contains the reverser key, brake handle, and door handle. Put the first in your back pocket and the others in their operating positions.
6. Open the front and rear windows. (If it's cold, you can close them later.)
7. Turn on the air compressor switch (preferably the one with the breaker on it; this is the one at the rear of the car as you exit the barn and operate it all day).
8. Shout "Power coming on in Barn 7!" at least twice, waiting for a response. Hearing none, go to the great big breaker panel and turn on the great big switch, standing to the side, not in front of it. You now have 600VDC in the wire over the tracks inside the barn.
9. Raise the trolley pole on the rear end of the car. If all is well, the compressor will start to run. Preferably, do this from inside the car, but the one time I tried it I nearly killed myself leaning out the window. I've heard the story and learned the lesson of the guy who nearly killed himself doing it outside, and I won't do what he did.
10. While waiting for the air to reach adequate pressure, check for the first aid kit and fire extinguisher, open windows (probably not this Saturday; the forecast high is 55F), start to fill out the car card, and just generally inspect the interior.
11. Once you have air pressure, set the brakes. Go out and inspect the brakes and the brake cylinder to make sure they set properly. (Also generally inspect for anything under the car that looks wrong.) Get on and release the brakes. Get off and walk around to make sure they released properly. BTW, never walk between the car and the one parked behind it; go around the front. Get on and set the brakes again. Get off and remove the wheel chocks.
12. Finally, insert the reverser key and move it to forward. Stomp on the bell twice, release the brakes, and take one point of power. Swear because it doesn't move. Turn on the control switch (using the side of your fist, not gripping it). Try again. The car should move forward. Close the controller. Set the brakes to make sure they work. Release the brakes, stomp on the bell twice again, and take a point of power. Close the controller and stop with the front of the car even with the barn doors. Make sure no one is about to walk in front of you. Proceed completely out of the barn and stop.
13. Taking the reverser key with you, go back into the barn and turn off the 600VDC (unless someone else is using it).
14. Proceed forward very slowly until your pole comes off because the wire is too far over to the side. Swear. Set the brakes. Put the reverser key in your back pocket (do this anytime you walk away from the controller, even just to give a history lesson). Get off the car, walk to the back, and put the pole back on the wire. Get on the car, try to move, and swear again when you realize you put the pole on the guy wire instead of the running wire. Try again. Oh, while you're off the car, you might also check the first couple of switches to see if they're lined for you.
15. Call the dispatcher on the radio. Tell him you're in Yard 7, ready for service. Unless he has other traffic that will conflict, he will give you authority out of the yard, across the diamond, into the Tail Track, reverse out of the Tail Track onto the Car Line, and into regular rotation. He might say go once around to Depot Street and call him back. Repeat the authority back to him. He says that is correct.
16. Move slowly down the yard throat, checking each switch. If one is against you, stop (preferably where the ground is high) and line it for yourself. Stop when clear of the switch on the Tail Track. Give the brakes a deep set and remove the brake and door handles as well as the reverser key.
17. Get off and raise the pole on what has been the front of the car. Walk to the other end and pull down the pole. Throw the switch. If you're the first one out this morning, it's most likely thrown toward the yard, not the Car Line.
18. Get on at this end of the car and insert all the handles. Release the brakes and move slowly (once again doing the "swear because you forgot the control switch" bit). Do a running brake test (because you changed ends). Proceed past the switch onto the Car Line. This is a spring switch, so you can go through it without throwing it.
19. Take all the handles again. Raise the pole at the back end. Lower the pole at the front end, wrapping the rope around the catcher once or twice.
20. At some point, you have to make an extra trip to the back end of the car to close the doors.
21. Proceed around the Car Line. You can stop at all the stops if you want to, but if no one is waiting there, why bother?
22. If the dispatcher said to call him from Depot Street, do so. He will probably tell you to hold there, if he has other equipment coming out of the yard. Otherwise, he probably didn't tell you to call him.
23. Mark a trip on the car card. At some point during the day, also note the pressures at which the compressor starts and stops.
24. Once you have about a dozen passengers or more, give them the safety speech. Check the indicator for the switch at Car Line Junction. If it's set for the main, get out your radio and key in the code to change it. Wait until it does before you go.
25. Move slowly. Once you get in the circuit, the signal should change from Stop to Approach. If there's a train on Station Track 1 in the circuit, the signal will run time (about 10 seconds) before it changes for you. If the dispatcher is running the board in the tower, he already gave you the signal and you don't have to wait at all. If there's a broken bond wire, the signal will flash to Approach and then go right back to Stop again and you have to call the dispatcher for permission to pass the absolute signal displaying Stop indication.
26. Move quickly enough to get past all the frogs and insulators in the wire without drawing power, but slowly enough that your pole won't come off at that one frog where it does sometimes.
Repeat 23-26 all day.

At the end of the day:
1. Call the dispatcher and tell him you want to go to bed. He will give you permission into the Tail Track (if others will be following you in, you can leave the switch open) and across into the yard. Call him when you're clear of controlled track.
2. Proceed to the Tail track switch. Get off the car and throw the switch. Get on and pull through, slowly, keeping an eye on your trolley pole rope. If you don't have permission to leave the switch open, stop and restore it.
3. Pull into the Tail Track. Go through all the rigmarole of changing ends like you did coming out this morning. If you're the first one going in, you'll have to throw the switch for the yard. This is also a spring switch, so you didn't have to stop and throw it if it was already set for the yard.
4. Proceed up the yard lead, checking each switch and throwing them if necessary. You will probably throw several of them at once.
5. Go very slowly into track 74, hoping your pole doesn't come off like it did this morning. Stop outside the barn.
6. Go inside the barn and shout "Power coming on in Barn 7!" at least twice. Turn on the power.
7. Move the car slowly inside, making a safety stop even with the inside of the doors but not stopping with your pole on the wire insulator. Move veeeerrry slowly into the barn, giving it power for about half a second at a time if you need to so you're parked in the proper spot, not blocking the walkway.
8. Give the brakes a deep set.
9. Chock the wheels.
10. Release the brakes to make sure the car doesn't move.
11. Give the brakes another deep set, then remove the brake handle.
12. Turn off the air and control switches at both ends.
13. Lower the pole.
14. Sweep the car floor. You may have done this earlier while waiting for permission to go to bed.
15. Close all the windows.
16. Finish filling out the car card.
17. Drain the air tank until it stops spitting water.
18. Lock the car doors.
19. Turn off the barn power (unless someone else is using it).
20. Close the barn doors.
21. If you're the last one out, lock and close the side doors of the barn and turn off the lights.
22. Get in your car (which you probably parked right outside this morning) and drive to the other end of the barn. Close the doors there (again, if you're the last one out).
23. Drive the 100 feet to the office to sign out (FRA requirement) and put the ammo box away.