As you walk out of your front door on the way to the airport, the thing many people dread seeing is dark, scary skies all around them This signals rain or thunderstorms may be in the area; a thing that many fear when flying. Yet there is no reason to fear. Airplanes are built to fly in rain and can even survive a flight through a thunderstorm if necessary.
Today, a majority of airplanes, and all commercial airplanes, carry an instrument system that can be used during IFR, or Instrument Flight Rules. These instruments allow the pilot to see what the airplane is doing even when he cannot get a visual of the horizon. The video included here shows these instruments, and what the pilot is seeing as he begins his approach to an airport and eventually pops out below of the cloud deck. You can tell that by using GPS and other instruments, the pilot is aware of his position relative to the ground and anything around him, just by looking inside the plane.
Another thing that fears many first time flyers, or even those who have been flying for their whole life, is the concept of taking off or landing on a wet runway. The threat of an airplane hydroplaning on a wet runway is almost non-existent. Airpower runways are created so that when rain falls, it will flow off of them. Many runways are surrounded by grass which allows for better flow of water off the runway and into the grassy areas.
When it comes to landing on a wet runway, the pilot is not going in blind. As nearly 100% of modern commercial airports have an air traffic control tower, he is getting information before he lands. Pilots report to the tower with what is called PIREPS, or pilot reports. They will call up the tower after a landing and tell them if based on their judgment the runway is poor, good, average, etc. This in term allows for the next pilot to judge his braking action and the motions he takes to land based off the previous pilots pilot report. In regards to thunderstorms and airplanes, it is 100% safe for an airplane to be struck by lightning. In fact, it happens every day! Airplanes are build to be able to take a lightning strike without causing a massive surge and taking out the airplanes flight control systems. The worst that would probably happen in the event of a lightning strike would be the lights in the main cabin would flash for a few seconds when the initial strike is received. The other threat of thunderstorms is wind shear or downdrafts. However, airports and planes have systems to avoid this as well. Modern airplanes have a shear avoidance system, which shows the planes relative location on a map and an alert when an area of intense shear or downdraft is recognized so the pilot can stay away from the area.
So next time it's a gloomy day on your flight, don't fret it. Smile, get on the plane, and worry more about the little kid kicking your chair than the weather outside of the airplane.
JHWellington. "TBM850 Landing HPN -- Hard IFR" Youtube. Youtube, 28 May 2009. Web. 11 Nov 2011.
This video uploaded to Youtube features the pilots of a TBM850 attempting to land during horrible weather conditions that pilots call IFR. In the video, the visibility is no more than a quarter of a mile, if that and they are flying through fog and precipitation to land on the airport runway which is light up.
The pilots in this video demonstrate my idea that airplanes are safe in hazardous weather by completing a safe landing even with the horrible weather conditions. It shows the airplane flight instrument systems that they use, and what the pilots are looking at outside the airplane. This view demonstrates why they have to look inside the airplane and relay on the instruments to get them safely to their destination without incident.
Fear of Flying Help. "FEAR OF FLYING IN BAD WEATHER: RAIN" A Flying Attendant's guide to overcoming
Your Fear of Flying. 2009. Flying Fear. 11 Nov 2011. <http://www.flyingfear.net/articles/fear-of-flying-in-bad-weather-rain.html>
This article provides information on how runways deal with rain, by saying that airplanes built to flow off any water that is present. It also reports on how pilots get information before a landing on the condition of the runway via air traffic control so that they know how to better land their own airplane.
This article, which is apparently written by a flight attendant, is an excellent source of information to relate to my blog. It shows the readers that the pilots are not going in blind and that they actually get information from other pilots to use in their judgment on a landing. By showing the safety steps that are in plane, I can demonstrate how flying in bad weather should not be a fear at all.
NASA. "Onboard Windshear Warning Systems." No date. Online image. NASA.gov. 11 Nov 2011.
<http://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/images/content/69988main_Windshear-fig6.gif>
The image provided by NASA shows how an airplane onboard wind shear warning systems works. The airplane sends off a radio signal which when it hits the precipitation in the storm bounces back to the aircraft showing the pilot not only where the rain is located, but how heavy and what type of winds are inside the storm as well.
NASA provides a great visual representation to include by showing how exactly the system works. With the image, I'm able to show my readers just how the system helps the pilot and what it does exactly. The only bad part about the image is the massive amount of text included on it, which some readers may not want to waste time reading unless they are really interested in it.
No comments:
Post a Comment