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Flight 447 was also flying at a cruise altitude of 35,000 feet, an altitude where the relationship between an aircraft's stall speed and the speed of sound has gained the name "the coffin corner"
Untrue. Coffin corner for AF447 existed at an altitude significantly higher than 35,000ft. A330 FCOM charts put its SAFE max operational altitude at around 37,500. In fact, the chart accompanying this story indicates that AF447 would have lost airspeed data in the middle of a 60-70kt speed margin. That's hardly "coffin corner".
Originally posted by Scientific American
If the lift produced by the flow of air over the wings becomes less than the weight of the aircraft, you are no longer flying, but falling in a "stall".
Untrue. You are still flying. You are descending. You are not stalled.
So, why would Scientific American be reporting gross inaccuracies like this?
About the Author: Keith Eric Grant is a freelance writer, physicist, and massage therapy instructor.
Aaactually, I was decrying a person's knowledge of journalism, not aviation. A journalist doesn't need to have knowledge of aviation. A journalist needs to know how to get accurate information from a reliable source and then fact-check it before publishing nonsense on a major news channel. All that is taught in journalism schools, which provide professional journalists with their paper 'qualifications'.
Sorry if that confused you.
I didn't say this person was a good journalist, or that he was anything other than a moron. What I find surprising is that you, of all people, would disparage him on the basis of his qualifications. I'm sure there are many outstanding journalists who never went to journalism school. Why not say the person is clueless, and leave it at that?
Soldiers coming home dead or alive is very much an american thing based on pride that "we leave no man behind." believe me, there are plenty of americans all over the world whose remains remained where they died and were not brought home. hmmm doesn't france have some huge american cemetery???
the point is, seeing the dead and bringing them home is solely a selfish act. it does not serve the dead. they don't care. it serves only the living who are trying to find some comfort by holding on to the physical remains of what used to be the person's body. the actual person--personality, emotions etc.--ceased to exist as we know it when the person died.
i spent 14 years as a paramedic in NYC and carried more than my fair share of dead people. i retrieved body parts from the ocean, rivers, subway tunnels, sidewalks, elevator shafts... in those cases, where the bodies were in plain site and had not been buried for two years at 13,000+ feet, yeas, it made sense to retrieve them and allow for autopsies, burials etc. i respected the dead then and still do today. i have little respect for survivors who place their "need" to connect to the departed by seeing the remains.
i highly doubt the officials in this case had intention on doing autopsies, since the cause of death of every soul aboard is no secret.
and on that note, i'll stop the thread hijack...
The cause of death of every person on board is not a 100% certainty.
And I'm still not following how someone having one preference or another regarding how the remains of a loved one are treated is selfish. If I promised my recently departed mother that she would be buried next to her late husband and the last 4 generations of her family in the family plot, and the opportunity arose to possibly secure her remains, could it not be considered equally selfish of others to insist she be left at the bottom of an ocean strapped like a wax dummy in an airplane seat? Unlike you, I do respect people's "needs" in the aftermath of losing a loved one, whether I happen to agree with them or not.
Untrue. You are still flying. You are descending. You are not stalled.
Unture. If the lift produced by the flow of air over the wings becomes less than the weight of the aircraft you are at a load factor of less than 1. That typically will mean that you are either reducing your rate of climb (something that happens at least once in every single flight when leveling-off after climb) or increasing your rate of descent (something that happens at least once in every single flight when initiating the descent).
On the other hand, you can be stalled with a lift greater, equal or less than the weight of the aircraft.
And you can be both descending or not descending while both stalled or not stalled.
So, in short, if the lift becomes less than the weight you could be:
a) stalled
b) descending
c) both a) and b)
d) neither a) nor b)
--- Judge what is said by the merits of what is said, not by the credentials of who said it. ---
--- Defend what you say with arguments, not by imposing your credentials ---
Please, both of you, don't start it again here.
Please just leave it at that, or take it to PM. Ok?
--- Judge what is said by the merits of what is said, not by the credentials of who said it. ---
--- Defend what you say with arguments, not by imposing your credentials ---
Unture. If the lift produced by the flow of air over the wings becomes less than the weight of the aircraft you are at a load factor of less than 1. That typically will mean that you are either reducing your rate of climb (something that happens at least once in every single flight when leveling-off after climb) or increasing your rate of descent (something that happens at least once in every single flight when initiating the descent).
Isn't that what I just said. Obviously, in the scenario described (departing level 1G flight due to reduced airspeed), you are not reducing your rate of climb. There is no mention of pitch change. The amount or airspeed reduction is not enough to significantly redirect the freestream upward. So how can this result in stall? Yes, I understand that it can eventually result in stall when the rising vertical speed and reducing forward speed increases the AoA beyond critical (and perhaps this is what happened), but he is talking about initial upset at FL35. Without a change in pitch, how do you stall there?
The author mentions stalls in a glider and the line of storms. It is fundamental to realize that in a sail plane or glider that the thermal activity around a storm is often characterized not as just the lift we all associate with a billowing cloud mass but the sink around the edges. This will often find you scrambling to "get out of town" because the elation of lift is often followed by the elevator shafts down button. After getting the "boot in the ass" upwards you are tossed out the window into extreme sink.
That late in the evening and at that altitude how a "mature" storm acts? How broad across was that column? Chasing the needles is not uncommon, first in sink you are chasing altitude and then ...
Obviously, in the scenario described (departing level 1G flight due to reduced airspeed)...
Obviously what? What scenario described by who? What this guy wrote could be perfectly understood also as they holding altitude despite the speed, something that would eventually lead to a stall.
You are right that he doesn't mention a change in pitch before (leading to) the stall. But you fail to note that he doesn't mention change of altitude either. Are you choosing those parts that support your POV and discarding those that doesn't. There was a name for that behaviour...
--- Judge what is said by the merits of what is said, not by the credentials of who said it. ---
--- Defend what you say with arguments, not by imposing your credentials ---
I'm OK with leaving all the personal attacks out of the forums entirely. Will you agree to that FOF?
I don't consider my comments to have been a personal attack. I am questioning why you would go after a reporter's qualifications as the basis of your criticism when that is precisely what people on this forum have done to you.
As for keeping personal attacks out of the forum, is that to include attacks against drunk Polish generals, greedy lawyers, lousy reporters, incompetent government bureaucrats, and trolling forum members? Are you sure you know what you're asking?
Ok, I've tried. Not that I thought that the mods editing the title of this thread to include "On topic only!" would have had any effect.
--- Judge what is said by the merits of what is said, not by the credentials of who said it. ---
--- Defend what you say with arguments, not by imposing your credentials ---
- investigators are fairly confident the data will be intact
- they will start working on the black boxes today
- it will take several hours just to open them
- investigators are still contemplating retrieval of bodies, sensitive to the wishes of some families, but only if DNA makes identification possible
- hoping to release final report in early 2012
He holds a PhD in Applied Science from University of California, Davis, and has worked as an atmospheric scientist and computational physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Keith is a member of the National Association of Science writers, American Geophysical Union, Society for Industrial & Applied Mathematics,
First volunteer to match qualifications with the guy? How did the person who "noticed" his massage therapist qualification ONLY manage to notice that? But I think the above might possibly explain why Scientific American would feel safe in publishing what he said.
Granted, a totally detailed discussion of every point would run to many more pages.
News articles are now calling the remains of victims "mummified". I'm wondering what sense they are that. But they did get some bodies back, still strapped to seats. Wonder if anyone will get to do an autopsy before burial. Surely there is vital information in those remains. Maybe the non-French won't be subject to French jurisdiction.
CNN said all of that along with the stupid belly flopping comment? JEEZ!
I do work for a domestic US airline, and it should be noted that I do not represent such airline, or any airline. My opinions are mine alone, and aren't reflective of anything but my own knowledge, or what I am trying to learn. At no time will I discuss my specific airline, internal policies, or any such info.
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I rest Evan's case.
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