14 July 2013
Marsha Returns
14/07/13 06:14
Marsha returned on Friday.(Actually early Saturday morning by the time we got home.) I went over to get her and well you know how it goes. She was flying in at 7:15 in the evening. Afternoon ferries are notoriously busy though. Often you have to wait a sailing or even two to get a space on the boat. The answer was to take an early ferry. I took the 7:30 am ferry and got right on. Of course that put me on the mainland at 9:30. What to do all day? One word: Time For A Cheese Run To Bellingham. Five 2 pound blocks of Tillamook cheese, seven boxes of Grape-Nuts, and four packages of Jiffy-Mix cornbread. Later I was heading back north toward the border, the only major disappointment was the Mountain Bars. They are hard to get but we knew of one place in Bellingham, a Walgreens, that stocked them. Unfortunately, the place has changed hands, been totally remodelled, and dropped all Brown&Haley candy. They now have no Almond Roca, no Buttercrunch Toffee, and worst of all no Mountain Bars. Rats. Now I have to find another supplier.
After I got the supplies and was safely back in Canada. I headed for the city of Richmond, a suburb of Vancouver. My target was the Richmond Centre. A very large mall located right downtown. There I wandered around, visited the Apple Store and had dinner. This was the first time I had been in an Apple Store since we moved to Vancouver Island. There are three in Vancouver but none on the Island. Apparently Apple doesn’t realize how much they are missing. When it costs $120-$150 round trip just to get to the mainland, not a lot of people are going to hop over for a case or an iPod. On the other hand if they opened one in Nanaimo, I would be first in line,... to work there.
While at the Mall I also stopped by a Japanese place for dinner. I had a Vegetable Udon Soup that was wonderful. They grilled the vegetables and buckwheat noodles for just a minute, popped both in a bowl and added a vegetable broth and voile’ there it was. One of the simplest and best soups I’ve ever had. I will be making this.
Then I ran to the airport to pick up Marsha. I was early, no big surprise there, but her flight was running late, no big surprise there either and it took her longer than expected to get her luggage The upshot was that we didn’t make the 8:15 ferry. We had to wait for the 10:45 ferry and didn’t get home until after 1:00 on Saturday morning. Saturday was mostly spent sleeping.
While I was waiting for Marsha in the lounge, the TV was full of news, mostly the airplanecrash in San Francisco and the train wreck in Quebec. This reminded me of a few things my dad used to say. My dad, who flew for something like 60 years, warned about these exact kinds of accidents. In San Francisco what I suspect happened was what he called “Getting Behind The Power Curve". You see landing a plane is all about managing energy. The pilot has to slow the plane so that it goes from cruising speed to touchdown, reduce the altitude down to zero, and factor in gravity and wind all at the same time. The steeper you descend the faster you go. The shallower the descent then the touchdown point moves further downrange. There’s a lot of mental calculus, a lot of energy management, that has to happen to bring an aircraft from 5000 feet and 200-400 miles per hour to 0 feet and 60-100 miles per hour at the end of the runway. It’s easy to get caught by this on an approach to landing and it’s a VERY easy mistake to make in a complex approach to an unfamiliar airport.
Say a plane is coming in to land. The pilot reduces power to slow it down as he descends. For some reason the plane’s speed drops below what it should be. Maybe he gets a little low so he pulls the nose up to extend the glide. Whatever the reason is, a certain amount of additional power is needed to recover. The pilot advances the throttles but the engines don’t respond instantly and by the time the engines spool up the plane has slowed further and it’s not enough. He should have added MORE power than just what was needed at that moment. So the pilot ads more power, but the plane has slowed further, and needs even more power. Because of engine lag the pilot doesn’t catch up. He’s caught behind the power curve. As the plane slows, its rate of descent also increases. Soon the plane is well below the target speed and running out of altitude. In a severe case even if the pilot goes to full takeoff power it won’t be enough, or more precisely it won’t be enough SOON enough to save the plane. A lot of accidents where the plane lands short of the runway can be traced to getting behind the power curve. The way to avoid this is, as my dad said to “Fly the plane all the way to touchdown. Never let it get ahead of you. Even if you have an autopilot handling things, don’t assume it’s going to be fine. In the end YOU are responsible for what happens. You can’t blame the computer.” This is good advice no matter what you’re doing.
With the accident in Lac-Megantic Quebec I kept thinking about something else my dad taught us. “Always stop and think what if.” I learned about the concept of Fail-Safe long before I ever saw the movie. He taught us to keep in mind what will be the result IF something unexpected happens and be prepared for it. When he was flying he always kept an eye out for open fields and roads in case the engine stopped. When he was working around the house he always double checked the breaker even if power was off at the wall switch. He always would take a moment to check if the nails might poke through the other side, or if there was a wire or a pipe inside the wall, before he drove the first one. Whether working on an airplane or the car his motto was “All the way on or all the way off”. He’d never leave something half done and trust to remembering to get back to it. ALL the wheel nuts were torqued before he put the jack away. All the screws and panels were back in place before the power was turned on. He warned us that, “A lot of pilots get so involved with fixing the problem at hand they forget to fly the plane.” Hw wanted us to always keep the big picture in mind.
I wonder if the disaster in Lac-Megantic would have happened if the engineer had asked himself what if the one idling engine that was keeping the air brakes on quit. If he had gone out and locked more than the minimum number of hand brakes. If the company had stopped and asked themselves if parking a train on a slope was a good idea? If the crew that put out the small fire on the engine had not followed procedure, but had instead double checked to be sure shutting the one idling engine down would not cause a problem. If the regulators had stopped to ask if one person was enough to safely operate a train? Dad warned us that, “Accidents never have one cause”, it takes a string of failures. Simply asking ‘What If’ and ‘Is This A Good Idea?’at any one link in the chain might have prevented this whole disaster.
My dad was a pretty smart guy.
PIX: Thunder over Vancouver, White Cliffs of Vancouver, Eating out of the garden: Raspberry Salad for dinner.
After I got the supplies and was safely back in Canada. I headed for the city of Richmond, a suburb of Vancouver. My target was the Richmond Centre. A very large mall located right downtown. There I wandered around, visited the Apple Store and had dinner. This was the first time I had been in an Apple Store since we moved to Vancouver Island. There are three in Vancouver but none on the Island. Apparently Apple doesn’t realize how much they are missing. When it costs $120-$150 round trip just to get to the mainland, not a lot of people are going to hop over for a case or an iPod. On the other hand if they opened one in Nanaimo, I would be first in line,... to work there.
While at the Mall I also stopped by a Japanese place for dinner. I had a Vegetable Udon Soup that was wonderful. They grilled the vegetables and buckwheat noodles for just a minute, popped both in a bowl and added a vegetable broth and voile’ there it was. One of the simplest and best soups I’ve ever had. I will be making this.
Then I ran to the airport to pick up Marsha. I was early, no big surprise there, but her flight was running late, no big surprise there either and it took her longer than expected to get her luggage The upshot was that we didn’t make the 8:15 ferry. We had to wait for the 10:45 ferry and didn’t get home until after 1:00 on Saturday morning. Saturday was mostly spent sleeping.
While I was waiting for Marsha in the lounge, the TV was full of news, mostly the airplanecrash in San Francisco and the train wreck in Quebec. This reminded me of a few things my dad used to say. My dad, who flew for something like 60 years, warned about these exact kinds of accidents. In San Francisco what I suspect happened was what he called “Getting Behind The Power Curve". You see landing a plane is all about managing energy. The pilot has to slow the plane so that it goes from cruising speed to touchdown, reduce the altitude down to zero, and factor in gravity and wind all at the same time. The steeper you descend the faster you go. The shallower the descent then the touchdown point moves further downrange. There’s a lot of mental calculus, a lot of energy management, that has to happen to bring an aircraft from 5000 feet and 200-400 miles per hour to 0 feet and 60-100 miles per hour at the end of the runway. It’s easy to get caught by this on an approach to landing and it’s a VERY easy mistake to make in a complex approach to an unfamiliar airport.
Say a plane is coming in to land. The pilot reduces power to slow it down as he descends. For some reason the plane’s speed drops below what it should be. Maybe he gets a little low so he pulls the nose up to extend the glide. Whatever the reason is, a certain amount of additional power is needed to recover. The pilot advances the throttles but the engines don’t respond instantly and by the time the engines spool up the plane has slowed further and it’s not enough. He should have added MORE power than just what was needed at that moment. So the pilot ads more power, but the plane has slowed further, and needs even more power. Because of engine lag the pilot doesn’t catch up. He’s caught behind the power curve. As the plane slows, its rate of descent also increases. Soon the plane is well below the target speed and running out of altitude. In a severe case even if the pilot goes to full takeoff power it won’t be enough, or more precisely it won’t be enough SOON enough to save the plane. A lot of accidents where the plane lands short of the runway can be traced to getting behind the power curve. The way to avoid this is, as my dad said to “Fly the plane all the way to touchdown. Never let it get ahead of you. Even if you have an autopilot handling things, don’t assume it’s going to be fine. In the end YOU are responsible for what happens. You can’t blame the computer.” This is good advice no matter what you’re doing.
With the accident in Lac-Megantic Quebec I kept thinking about something else my dad taught us. “Always stop and think what if.” I learned about the concept of Fail-Safe long before I ever saw the movie. He taught us to keep in mind what will be the result IF something unexpected happens and be prepared for it. When he was flying he always kept an eye out for open fields and roads in case the engine stopped. When he was working around the house he always double checked the breaker even if power was off at the wall switch. He always would take a moment to check if the nails might poke through the other side, or if there was a wire or a pipe inside the wall, before he drove the first one. Whether working on an airplane or the car his motto was “All the way on or all the way off”. He’d never leave something half done and trust to remembering to get back to it. ALL the wheel nuts were torqued before he put the jack away. All the screws and panels were back in place before the power was turned on. He warned us that, “A lot of pilots get so involved with fixing the problem at hand they forget to fly the plane.” Hw wanted us to always keep the big picture in mind.
I wonder if the disaster in Lac-Megantic would have happened if the engineer had asked himself what if the one idling engine that was keeping the air brakes on quit. If he had gone out and locked more than the minimum number of hand brakes. If the company had stopped and asked themselves if parking a train on a slope was a good idea? If the crew that put out the small fire on the engine had not followed procedure, but had instead double checked to be sure shutting the one idling engine down would not cause a problem. If the regulators had stopped to ask if one person was enough to safely operate a train? Dad warned us that, “Accidents never have one cause”, it takes a string of failures. Simply asking ‘What If’ and ‘Is This A Good Idea?’at any one link in the chain might have prevented this whole disaster.
My dad was a pretty smart guy.
PIX: Thunder over Vancouver, White Cliffs of Vancouver, Eating out of the garden: Raspberry Salad for dinner.