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Making the Brazilian ATR-72 Spin
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Note: This story was corrected on August 10th at 10:23 am, thanks to the help of a sharp-eyed reader.
Making an ATR-72 Spin
I wasn’t in Brazil on Friday afternoon, but I saw the post on Twitter or X (or whatever you call it) showing a Brazil ATR-72, Voepass Airlines flight 2283, rotating in a spin as it plunged to the ground near Sao Paulo from its 17,000-foot cruising altitude. All 61 people aboard perished in the ensuing crash and fire. A timeline from FlightRadar 24 indicates that the fall only lasted about a minute, so the aircraft was clearly out of control. Industry research shows Loss of Control in Flight (LOCI) continues to be responsible for more fatalities worldwide than any other kind of aircraft accident.
The big question is why the crew lost control of this airplane. The ADS-B data from FlightRadar 24 does offer a couple of possible clues. The ATR’s speed declined during the descent rather than increased, which means the aircraft’s wing was probably stalled. The ATR’s airfoil had exceeded its critical angle of attack and lacked sufficient lift to remain airborne. Add to this the rotation observed, and the only answer is a spin.
Can a Large Airplane Spin?
The simple answer is yes. If you induce rotation to almost any aircraft while the wing is stalled, it can spin, even an aircraft as large as the ATR-72. By the way, the largest of the ATR models, the 600, weighs nearly 51,000 pounds.
Of course, investigators will ask why the ATR’s wing was stalled. It could have been related to a failed engine or ice on the wings or tailplane. (more…)
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How the FAA Let Remote Tower Technology Slip Right Through Its Fingers
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In June 2023, the FAA published a 167-page document outlining the agency’s desire to replace dozens of 40-year-old airport control towers with new environmentally friendly brick-and-mortar structures. These towers are, of course, where hundreds of air traffic controllers ply their trade … ensuring the aircraft within their local airspace are safely separated from each other during landing and takeoff.
The FAA’s report was part of President Biden’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act enacted on November 15, 2021. That bill set aside a whopping $25 billion spread across five years to cover the cost of replacing those aging towers. The agency said it considered a number of alternatives about how to spend that $5 billion each year, rather than on brick and mortar buildings.
One alternative addressed only briefly before rejecting it was a relatively new concept called a Remote Tower, originally created by Saab in Europe in partnership with the Virginia-based VSATSLab Inc. The European technology giant has been successfully running Remote Towers in place of the traditional buildings in Europe for almost 10 years. One of Saab’s more well-known Remote Tower sites is at London City Airport. London also plans to create a virtual backup ATC facility at London Heathrow, the busiest airport in Europe.
A remote tower and its associated technology replace the traditional 60-70 foot glass domed control tower building you might see at your local airport, but it doesn’t eliminate any human air traffic controllers or their roles in keeping aircraft separated.
Max Trescott photo Inside a Remote Tower Operation
In place of a normal control tower building, the airport erects a small steel tower or even an 8-inch diameter pole perhaps 20-40 feet high, similar to a radio or cell phone tower. Dozens of high-definition cameras are attached to the new Remote Tower’s structure, each aimed at an arrival or departure path, as well as various ramps around the airport.
Using HD cameras, controllers can zoom in on any given point within the camera’s range, say an aircraft on final approach. The only way to accomplish that in a control tower today is if the controller picks up a pair of binoculars. The HD cameras also offer infrared capabilities to allow for better-than-human visuals, especially during bad weather or at night.
The next step in constructing a remote tower is locating the control room where the video feeds will terminate. Instead of the round glass room perched atop a standard control tower, imagine a semi-circular room located at ground level. Inside that room, the walls are lined with 14, 55-inch high-definition video screens hung next to each other with the wider portion of the screen running top to bottom.
After connecting the video feeds, the compression technology manages to consolidate 360 degrees of viewing area into a 220-degree spread across the video screens. That creates essentially the same view of the entire airport that a controller would normally see out the windows of the tower cab without the need to move their head more than 220 degrees. Another Remote Tower benefit is that each aircraft within visual range can be tagged with that aircraft’s tail number, just as it might if the controller were looking at a radar screen. (more…)
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The Global Need for Very Light Jet (VLJ) Best Training Practices
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Bob Barnes used to fly T-38s for the Air Force so the guy’s already one of my heroes. Turns out he and I served in the USAF around the same time during another war when we were both kids.
Today, Barnes focuses his love of flying on VLJs and how we’re going to be certain low-time, or low-turbine experience pilots don’t hurt themselves in these new birds … nor hurt anyone else for that matter.
He runs Robert B. Barnes, Aviation Safety and Training Specialists in Phoenix. A driving concern for Bob and other industry experts is that there are no succinct standards VLJ training suppliers must meet for new customers of the Cessna Mustang or the Eclipse 500. While both aircraft fall under the Technically Advanced Aircraft (TAA) label, training is covered right now by essentially no more than the FAA’s Practical Test Standards (PTS). That’s where Barnes comes in.
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Flying as Sport: What Would Wilbur Write Now?
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In the February 1908 Scientific American, Wilbur Wright wrote in Flying as Sport that up to that time “men have taken up flying partly from scientific interest, partly from sport, and partly from business reasons….” But recreational aviation would grow because “flying possesses attractions which will appeal to many persons with a force beyond that exercised by any of the similar sports, such as boating, cycling, or automobiling.”
Desire is what would fuel this growth: “Though methods of travel have been greatly improved in the many centuries preceding our own, men have never ceased to envy the birds and long for the day when they too might rise above the dust or mud of the highways and fly through the clean air of the heavens. Once above the treetops, the narrow roads no longer arbitrarily fix the course. The earth is spread out before the eye with a richness of color and beauty of pattern never imagined by those who have gazed at the landscape edgewise only.”
That’s how many of us think of flying today because, according to FAA data, most general aviation pilots fly for “personal” reasons, which is all flight that doesn’t fit into other categories like business and corporate travel, ag flying, and flight training. But what’s the reality? What would Wilbur write now, in the second century of powered flight? What would he think of the investment of time and money needed to “rise above the dust or mud of the highways,” and would he be surprised that the ever dwindling number of pilots pales in comparison to the people involved in recreational boating, cycling, and automobiling?
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ATC Overtime; FAA & Controller Perspectives
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Never in my quietest moments did I imagine the conversation about FAA and its overtime policy was going to erupt into such a round of air rage of sorts. Luckily only a few of the hostile words were directed at me personally. But the passion of the respondents here cannot be ignored, nor the fact that the level of controller anger is rising.
Last week I questioned why both the FAA and the GAO were publishing information that claimed controllers were volunteering for overtime at the same moment NATCA was on the Hill trying to convince Congress there are too few controllers and most are exhausted.
Thanks to all of you who chimed in.
We’re trying a bit of a point, counter-point today with input from FAA and a letter from a Denver controller that, for me at least, explains the controversy better than I or most of the experts.
First an update from FAA.
Laura Brown, FAA’s Deputy Asst. Administrator for Public Affairs offered comments that shed some light on how the agency sees this overtime issue.