You know that feeling when you see a news report from a reputable news source that is just so insanely wrong that it makes you question everything they do? Well, here’s a good one for you. This report is so absolutely ridiculous that it has earned the Associated Press a Cranky Jackass award.

This video has apparently been making the rounds of various news outlets lately, and it needs to be stopped. It must be a slow news week for this to get picked up. The premise? When an airplane aborts its landing and goes around, it’s a horribly unsafe move. The reality? It’s far safer than continuing to try a landing that shouldn’t happen. Take a look for yourself.

Where can I start with this steaming pile of crap? How about the opening line . . .

Last December, Howard Kronberg was a passenger on a flight about to touch down at the airport in Newark, New Jersey when he feared his life was over. “It’s a catastrophic accident waiting to happen.”

Oh good, so a passenger with no flying experience knows that it’s a horribly unsafe maneuver? Please. As tempting as it may be, I can’t say I fault this guy for thinking that. A go-around can be a scary thing if you don’t know what’s happening. So who can I fault? The AP for putting this garbage on the air.

Go-arounds are a normal part of flying. If there’s any question that landing on a runway would be unsafe, then the best possible move is to go around and try again. This can happen because another plane doesn’t clear the runway fast enough, the plane comes in too fast or too high, or maybe the weather is too bad at the moment. In these cases, it’s a safer move to go around than to try to get on the ground.

I find it incredible that the report states that some controllers say that going around makes a mid-air collision more likely, yet there’s no source on that at all. In fact, the only controller they interview says it’s “the safe route out.”

I’ve been through more than one go-around in my life, and I’ll admit that it can be a little tense since you don’t know why it’s happening. But just remember, pilots don’t want to go around either. The sooner they land, the sooner they can go home (or to the hotel). So if you’re going around, there’s a good reason for it, and your pilot is keeping you safe.

Pieces like these hold absolutely no value other than to scare people with something that isn’t unsafe. I wish there was some stronger oversight at the AP, because this report never should have seen the light of day.

A nice side benefit of attending JetBlue’s press conference yesterday was that I had the opportunity to meet Ian Gregor, Communications Manager for the FAA’s Western-Pacific Region. We started talking shop, and soon enough I realized that there was something worth writing about here.

LAX has recently started using Continuous Descent Approaches (CDA) for some flights arriving from the East. What, that’s not exciting to you?

Ok, let me explain exactly what that means. Better yet, let’s go with an image here.

Just about everyone is used to the stepped approach that has been the standard for some time (and I’ll guess nobody has experienced the drunken pilot approach). You know the feeling. The pilot reduces thrust, you start to descend, then he increases it and you start to flatten out. This goes on for quite some time until you end up on the ground. It’s like going down stairs, whereas the CDA is like going down a ramp. When the aircraft gets ready to descend, the pilot cuts power and the plane maintains a constant rate of descent all the way until touchdown.

That means no more powering up along the way and no more ear-busting changes in pitch of the aircraft. As you can imagine, that helps reduce noise (since the engines don’t spool up) and it helps reduce fuel usage. Good news for everyone, right? Why wouldn’t they have done this before?

Well, it’s not like there’s unlimited room to pull something like this off. You need to make sure that during your continuous descent, you don’t happen to get in the way of, oh, say, airplanes coming from Ontario or one of the other many airports in Southern California.

That’s why this can only be implemented for landings from the East. If you come from the North and West, you usually have to make that turn around downtown LA to come in. There just isn’t enough room to make this work out there. The good news, however, is that half of the arrivals at the airport come from the East. Although only half of those are using CDA right now, the other half will be soon enough.

This procedure was first tested in Louisville, and there was a “34 percent reduction in nitrogen oxide emissions below 3,000 feet, and a 30 percent reduction in aircraft noise within 15 miles of the airport. UPS aircraft flying this approach also save between 250 and 465 pounds of fuel per flight.” Sounds good to me. Maybe this will get some of those testy airport neighbors to stop whining so much.

They’re also rolling this out in other airports, so next time you come in for landing, see if you notice any difference.

I’ve just survived what may possibly have been the first tornado warning I’ve ever endured living in LA. And yes, I grew up here. I’m not quite sure why they’d bother doing that because none of us have any clue what we’re supposed to do if there’s a tornado nearby. It’s not like we have basements here.

I swear I’m not just hear to tell you about the weather. I’m actually trying to figure something out, so hopefully someone can enlighten me.

The airports here have been operating in reverse configurations all day today (eg landing over the ocean and taking off over land at LAX). Here at home on the west side of Long Beach, that means we can see landings heading to runway 12 instead of the usual departures from runway 30. You know what? This isn’t going to make sense to 99% of you. Let me throw down a map here. We live west of the airport.

Anyway, I was out walking the dog a little after 530p when I saw an Airborne Express 767 fly overhead lined up for runway 7L. He throttled up and ended up going around before landing on 12. This seemed really odd to me, because I’ve never seen a large jet operate on those smaller runways. I’ve only seen them on 12/30. So, I went back and listened to the tower archives on liveatc.net to see what was going on.

Here’s the conversation that occurred:

ABX1753: Tower, Abex1753 Heavy, we’re trying to get on runway 12 here
LGB Tower: Abex1753, Long Beach Tower, runway 12 cleared to land
ABX1753: Cleared to land runway 12, Abex1753

Then a couple minutes later . . .

ABX1753: Are we cleared to land runway 12?
LGB Tower: Abex1753 Heavy, you’re lined up for runway 7L right now
ABX1753: Ok, we’d like to go around for 1753

Needless to say, the tower cleared him to execute a missed approach, and that’s what I saw. Now I’ll get to the point . . . how the heck does that happen?!? Shouldn’t an aircraft know with which runway it’s lined up? I mean, even a simple compass could tell you that you’re lined up at heading 070. Can someone explain this?

Once again, it’s my least favorite time of the year . . . the end of Daylight Saving Time here in the US. Sure, there are good things about it. It was nice driving to work in the daylight this morning instead of the darkness I drove through last week, and having that extra hour in the day yesterday was fine as well. But when I leave work tonight and it’s dark outside, I’ll remember why I hate this day so much. I love summer, and this is the day that I’m reminded that winter is right around the corner. It’s time for me to start counting the days down until Daylight Saving and baseball return in March.

As you can imagine, airline schedulers see Daylight Saving Time as yet another headache. Domestically, yes, it’s a pretty simple process. Arizona and Hawai’i, the two states that don’t observe Daylight Saving Time, see all their flight schedules shifted one hour when the time changes, as shown below.

That’s easy enough, but the international world makes it a lot harder. You always have this problem when traveling between the northern and southern hemispheres since the seasons are reversed. Right now, for example, LA and Auckland are only three hours apart, but in March when the US springs forward and New Zealand falls back, the difference will be five hours. Most of Asia does not have Daylight Saving Time either, so twice a year, they see times shifting as well.

But this year is a special kind of year since the US changed when it observes Daylight Saving Time. See, until now, the US and the EU changed clocks on the same date, so everything was fine. [EDIT 11/6 @ 847a: I was wrong, there used to actually be a one week lag in the Spring, so this year it has just expanded in size.] But this year the US moved Daylight Saving up a couple of weeks in March and back a week in October/November, so now there are a few weeks, including last week, where times are really messed up in the extremely busy transatlantic market.

At most airports, that’s no big deal, because there’s room to move. But at congested airports like London/Heathrow or Frankfurt, the airlines don’t have slot flexibility so I assumed they’d have to just change around their flights in the US. But what about when that involves flights at New York/JFK or Chicago/O’Hare, also congested airports? This gets very tricky and the result is a hodgepodge of schedule changes for some airlines.

International carriers almost exclusively appear to change their US departure and arrival times by one hour during this period, as you might expect. So a flight that leaves London at say, 430p and arrives LAX at 730p would have arrived at 830p for last week only. US carriers, however, don’t seem to treat it the same way all the time.

Looking at American, for example, most flights do appear to change flight times in the US whether it be an arrival or departure. But the London to Chicago flights all change their London departure times in order to keep connections in the US. To make things even more confusing, the return flights from Chicago actually change their Chicago departure times. Look at JFK, however, and the London flights change both their US departure and arrival times. As you can imagine, arriving into the US an hour later means missed connections and longer waits for the next flight.

Delta deals with this by changing their non-US flight times. So, US connecting times remain intact. But this begs the question . . . how do they get Frankfurt to let them change times for a week? If anyone has more information on this, let me know in the comments section.

If you’ve flown on an Airbus narrowbody (A318/A319/A320/A321) or an A330, you’ve definitely heard the sound that makes you think something is horribly wrong, especially if you’re sitting near the wing. As you wait to take off, you look out the window expecting to see this:

But don’t worry, it’s not actually a ninja repeatedly kicking a seal in the head, nor is it a dog that got loose in the belly of the plane . . . it’s just the Power Transfer Unit (PTU).

First, here’s a little background. These aircraft each have two separate hydraulic systems. Those hydraulic systems power some pretty important things, like flight controls. Each of those systems is powered by an engine-driven pump. One is on the left side while the other is on the right.

When both pumps are working, there’s no need for the PTU, but when only one pump is working, the PTU enables a single pump to also power the hydraulics on the opposite side. It’s most common to hear this while taxiing, because you’ll often taxi with one engine to save fuel. When both engines are running, all sounds normal.

So next time you hear the noise, just remember it’s nothing bad. Now you can reassure your fellow passengers that all is well. (Cue “The More You Know” music.)

For more info, read this article.

I’ve had friends come back from vacations with harrowing stories about turbulence so bad they thought the wings were going to fall off. Of course, it didn’t happen, and it’s extremely unlikely that it could happen.

I came across this video this morning which is a 3:35 piece of the PBS series “21st Century Jet” about the 777 showing what kind of testing they did on the 777 wing.

As you can see, they bent that wing up more than 24 feet from level and only then did it break, at more than 150% of the strongest force that could expected in flight.

And this isn’t the only wing testing they do. They also flex the wings up and down for long periods of time to simulate sustained periods of turbulence.

I can’t believe that this has actually turned into such a huge thing.

The question of the month appears to be this. If you put an airplane on a treadmill and get it going really fast (working up a heck of a sweat, mind you), will it eventually take off?

Upgrade: Travel Better points out that David Pogue of the New York Times even picked this one up a few days ago (and that’s where this picture came from, though the headband addition was mine). So what’s the answer?

No, it won’t.

Now I’m amazed at how many conflicting opinions there are on this thing, because it seems very basic to me. Let’s say you get that treadmill humming in a really big gym (with no wind around) and the plane has full takeoff power going. Those wheels are racing on the treadmill, but it doesn’t matter what the wheels do here. Aircraft get lift from air passing over the wings, and in this case, there isn’t any.

If there’s no wind in the area and the plane isn’t moving through the air, then there will be no air passing over the wings. It’s that simple. Now if there happens to be a 200 knot headwind, you’re going to get airborne whether your engines are on or not, but I’m assuming that’s not part of the question here.

Ever wondered why airplanes take off on different runways at different times? Well, they always want to take off into the wind. The reason for that is once again that ground speed doesn’t matter - it’s airspeed that does.

For simplicity’s sake, let’s say you need 100 knots of airspeed to get off the ground (meaning the air is moving over your wings at 100 knots). If the wind is blowing 10 knots down the runway and you take off into it, you only need to be going 90 knots on the ground, because 90 knots plus the 10 knots that the air is already moving will get you where to need to be.

Conversely if you took off the other way, you would need to be going 110 knots because you’ve already got 10 knots at your back. Only when you get to 110 knots on the ground would you have 100 knots of airspeed.

On that treadmill, air is not moving over the wing at all so it’s not taking off.

Airline operations are no simple thing. Almost everyone has had that painful moment sitting in one airport with clear blue skies while being told that the flight is delayed due to weather . . . or crew . . . or maintenance . . . or, well, you get the idea. Though you may like to believe otherwise, the airline really isn’t lying to you. The operations are so complicated and interwoven that one small problem can have impacts far down the line. It’s very difficult to make changes to the entire schedule so that it becomes an orderly change.

Customers fly into Keflavik from the US/Canada overnight and arrive in the morning. Then they send the fleet to a variety of European destinations where they promptly turn around and come back to Keflavik in the afternoon. Finally, those planes head out to the US in the evening and start the whole thing over again.

US Airways announcement today that they’re adding winglets to their 757s made me think it’d be a good time to repost an old piece I wrote on winglets back on the PriceGrabber Airline Discussion Forums back on July 19. So, with a few updates, here it is . . .

Chances are good that if you’ve flown on a 737 or a 757 lately, you’ve seen some abnormally large pieces of metal sticking straight up off the end. These things, called winglets, look pretty funny if you’re not used to seeing them, but airlines are installing them like they’re going out of style. Why? Yup, you guessed it - they save fuel.

The real problem here is called a wingtip vortex. As airplanes fly through the sky, they obviously disturb the air. At the edge of the wing, drag is created becuase the shape causes the air to swirl around in a funnel shape. And when drag is created, it destroys efficiency.

Aircraft manufacturers realized that if you could reduce these disturbances, you could increase fuel efficiency and therefore range. Airbus was the first commercial manufacturer that I can recall to start tackling the problem with wingtip fences. These extend both above and below the wing and have been used on the A300/A310/A320 families. (A320 at left)

Boeing first got into the game with the 747-400 when it came out in the late 1980’s. They installed winglets, which just go above the wing (though most people use “winglet” as the generic term for wintip fences as well). These winglets weren’t very large, but they had the desired effect or reducing the amount of drag created in flight. Most recently, Boeing has moved toward the “raked wingtip” design. This is essentially a horizontal winglet. The 767-400 was the first Boeing aircraft to receive the raked wingtip, as shown at right.

Now, third parties have started to create after-market winglets that airlines can install themselves. The most popular of these is the Aviation Partners Boeing winglets for the 737s and now the 757s. They are blended, which means they curve directly into the end of the wing. These winglets may be really tall and funny looking, but they enable planes to fly further on each tank of gas. This is good for the environment, it saves money, and it extends the range of each plane, and that’s why US Airways is installing them now. It allows them to carry a full load year-round between Phoenix/Las Vegas and Hawai’i as well as from the East Coast to Europe.

So what’s the next evolution of winglets? Well, it may actually not involve winglets at all. Boeing has found ways to incorporate the drag-reducing technology into the wing itself. The new 787 has a pretty radical looking wing design, and the assumption is that winglets won’t be necessary. Look at this picture on the right to see the amazing curvature that you’ll find in the wing. This new wing along with other fuel saving features mean the 787 should see fuel savings around 30% over the 767 it replaces.