http://www.abnormaldistribution.org We distribute thoughts Thu, 09 Sep 2010 05:53:40 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en In his note in RISKS-26.15, Peter Wayner refers to the article Simulator training flaws tied to airline crashes in USA Today, 31 August 2010 (WWW version), which claims to have shown that «Flaws in flight simulator training helped trigger some of the worst airline accidents in the past ... http://www.abnormaldistribution.org/2010/09/09/simulators-and-veridicality-in-airline-training-and-pilot-currency-checks/ David Learmount's semi-annual review of commercial air accidents has just appeared in Flight International (3-9 August, p34). There were three accidents to high-performance large commercial passenger jets: (1) a Ethiopian Airways Boeing 737-800 took off from Beirut over the sea at night and ended up in the ocean (25 ... http://www.abnormaldistribution.org/2010/09/03/fully-automatic-execution-of-critical-manoeuvres-in-airline-flying/ Time was, we thought that people, students, who wanted answers to questions, could come to our office hours, ask, and be answered. Then we thought that these people could pose these questions to bulletin boards and forums on the Internet, and get answers from all sorts of people, answers which ... http://www.abnormaldistribution.org/2010/09/01/the-internet-as-an-educational-tool/ On 20 August 2008, a MD-82 aircraft of the airline Spanair crashed on takeoff (TO) from Madrid-Barajas airport. The high-lift devices on the wing had not been properly configured to give the necessary lift on takeoff, and the aircraft was unable properly to lift off as planned. See Aviation Safety ... http://www.abnormaldistribution.org/2010/08/27/malware-and-the-august-2008-madrid-spanair-take-off-accident/ Recently, most commercial transport airplane manufacturers have been revisiting their FCOM procedures for “stall recovery” (actually, procedures avoiding that an approach to stall turns into a stall). This may be related to the spate of recent accidents in which commercial airplanes have been stalled: Colgan Air in Buffalo, Turkish Airlines ... http://www.abnormaldistribution.org/2010/07/28/understanding-aerodynamics-of-stalls/ Paul Marks of the New Scientist has a couple of good recent articles on the volcanic-ash problem for commercial aviation, one from today and one from last week. I talked about a simple calculation of this risk in my Risk course this morning, since it is topical, it shows practical issues ... http://www.abnormaldistribution.org/2010/05/28/risk-assessment-of-volcanic-ash-to-commercial-aviation/ The Times has written a blog-article on the proportion of the new UK government who went to Oxford (in fairness, I must point out that some proportion went to the Other Place, which is also rumored to be quite good). A perennial topic. I enjoyed reading the comments. But then ... http://www.abnormaldistribution.org/2010/05/17/oxford-up-there-again/ The Economist has of course a Briefing on the Effects of the Ash Cloud from Eyjafjallajökull on the political economy of flight, which informs its lead commentary in the April 24th 2010 edition, about this incident, entitled Earthly Powers. Both articles recount that the "safe level" of ash was determined by ... http://www.abnormaldistribution.org/2010/04/28/the-political-economy-of-volcanic-ash/ The ash cloud over Europe seems to have abated somewhat, and commercial air traffic is returning to the air. The German DLR organisation (equivalent to the US NASA) sent up test flights of a Falcon 20E on Monday and Tuesday 19-20 April, to measure what was up there. The report, ... http://www.abnormaldistribution.org/2010/04/22/flying-in-volcanic-ash-part-2/ The biggest political problem of the week seems to be that airlines have stopped flying in Europe, because of the ash cloud from the volcano Eyjafjallajökull. I must say that in Bielefeld it is wonderful to see the sky without the usual 15 or so condensation trails and the ensuing ... http://www.abnormaldistribution.org/2010/04/20/flying-in-volcanic-ash/