“Sunday Mornin’ Coming Down”
(pagemonkey’s weekend web report)
February 8th, 2009

This week, SMCD is about a mature straight dude who has proven himself in the face of true danger, perhaps he can serve as a bit of an inspiration.

First, special thanks to some of my favorite websites: Air Disaster and Jet Photos, two (or too) fabulous aviation websites.

January 15th was an odd day for me personally - in my little circle of friends, I’m the aviation buff and normally the one who breaks the news of air incidents.

US Air’s flight 1549 was taking off that day at the same time I was locking my front door on my way out, and had already suffered from it’s bird dinner by the time I ran into Sam downtown. (Photo: Airbus A320 N106US © Mark Thompson)

We’ve grown accustomed to the modern jet engine (like the CFM56, the powerplants on that US Air jet) and perhaps have come to take their ruggedness and reliability for granted.

They’re powerful, and designed to fly longer distances between “serious” maintenance events than the average car will travel in its entire useful life.

But that gaping 68″ maw simply can’t tolerate a 10lb bird.

In many respects, 1549’s bad day represents the “perfect” accident. The 10 year old airframe itself was in good shape, the weather was reasonable that afternoon, the engines did what they were designed to do (merely drop dead instead of becoming shrapnel) and the pilot in command kept his wits about him all the way to splashdown.

Modern jetliners are as strong as they need to be, but not any stronger because of weight considerations; they are designed to withstand tens of thousands of take-off and landing cycles and the pressurization in between those events, but are not designed to withstand crash landings or water landings.

Such a landing is way outside the expected flight profile.

It’s incredibly hard on the aircraft - parts of the airframe which were never designed to support weight are subjected to huge loads, and abnormal stress is put on parts which are light and delicate. But it can be done, if the pilot has been trained and keeps his cool.
(Photo: Janis Krums, taken on his iPhone)

“We’ll be in the Hudson”

That Sully’s AirBus didn’t break apart upon contact with the water isn’t a miracle, and it’s not because the A320 is a well built airplane. It’s because Sully put it down “just so” without error, in a situation where getting it right the first time was absolutely essential to having even a slight chance of living to tell about it.

Because both engines were out, Sully had almost no control over airspeed and many of the airframe’s systems were operating in crippled modes, relying on backup battery power only. Even so, he got the angle and alignment correct with almost no time to plan.

(Photo: Wiki / US Air Academy)

Chesley Burnett “Sully” Sullenberger III earned his pilot’s license at the age of 14. He graduated from the US Airforce Academy in 1973 receiving the Outstanding Cadet in Airmanship Award and flew F4 Phantoms from 1973 until 1980. His commercial career started in 1980 with Pacific Southwest, an airline later absorbed by US Air.

Oddly, the Sullenberger story is one of the things which makes me a nervous flyer. There are many pilots with similar skill and credentials, but unfortunately a lot of them have left commercial careers and now fly for private concerns because they’ve grown tired of the political games and dicking about with pay that every commercial carrier has been engaging in.

And just how often does one need a Sully on the flight deck? Hopefully never - every flight should be routine. But if you want an answer with some experience behind it, ask the passengers of flight 1549.

Sadly, it’s impossible to ask passengers of some other flights whether or not they could have benefited from having someone like Sully at the controls. Statistics never return calls.

~ pagemonkey