May 25, 2021 The Most Interesting Conversations

The Liberty Gazette

May 25, 2021

Ely Air Lines

By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Linda: If you haven’t tried the Clubhouse app yet, check it out. It’s finally available for Android users, too. I joined awhile back and am thoroughly enjoying live audio conversations with NASA engineers, authors and publishers, historians, and fellow pilots. There’s something for everyone in the Clubhouse. Hands down, my favorite club is “Small Steps and Giant Leaps,” which they call, “Your home for talks on human exploration of outer space.” Fans and members of the aerospace community tune in for astronaut interviews, discussions about other planets, and debates between CEOs and scientists on everything from astrobiology to asteroid mining. The club’s founder, Alder Riley, is keen on discussing the technology and social implications of spreading humanity to the stars. When he’s not hosting these thought-provoking chats, he’s building factories the size of vending machines that can 3D print, computer-machine (CNC), and laser cut. His plan is to place these factories in every town on the planet, and eventually ship them to the Moon and Mars “so creativity isn’t bound to Earth.”

Meanwhile, Alder opens these fascinating rooms in his club on Clubhouse, from three to five a day, all published on his schedule in the app. Anyone can listen in, and even chat with astronauts and engineers who are right now working on the Mars projects. 

Recently, in the “Space for All Nations” club, I received some enlightening knowledge from Axel Tricaud, a disabled space engineer who spoke on adapted spaceflight for para-astronauts. He’s a pilot and a deep-sea diver as well, encouraging others with disabilities.

Past, present, and future are all represented on Clubhouse. Another of my favorite clubs is “The Tudor History Club.” Wednesday last week marked 485 years since the execution of Anne Boleyn, the second wife of King Henry VIII. The team of hosts is made up of British historians, and for this special occasion, they met at the Tower of London to produce an hour-long live audio tour. By the way, this is all free. 

I don’t think I was the only one in the audience who felt moved by the respectful way in which the tour was spoken. The four tour guides placed themselves at various locations in and around the tower. They described the scene from where they each stood, and then shared the history of the day in detailed moments – what they saw, and what Queen Anne would have seen as she walked to the scaffold. They painted the picture of the historic, heart-wrenching time so well, it was almost like being there in 1536, remarkably reproducing the sadness of her execution. 

The Tower of London has a brutal past and should be experienced with reverence. So I don’t mean it lightly when I mention how close both Heathrow and London City Airport are to the tower. What a great job these ladies did creating the atmosphere. The essence of the story was present, despite jets flying low overhead and a helicopter from nearby London Heliport. 

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

May 18, 2021 Critters Lodge

The Liberty Gazette

May 18, 2021

Ely Air Lines

By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Linda: It was time for our semi-annual short trek north to Centerville, to our favorite fly-in. Having been weather-delayed by a week, it became a beautiful Mother’s Day event shared with moms, dads, kids, and grandparents from all around these parts, everyone enjoying a perfect family weekend camping with airplanes. Experimental and factory-built aircraft, Cessna, Piper, Grumman, Van’s RV, Beechcraft, and others descended on Beverly and Wendall Dillard’s airplane ranch called Critters Lodge.

Okay, so the weather wasn’t perfect, but it was flyable, if you don’t mind a few potholes in the sky. Ceilings were about 1,500 feet, meaning there was that much room between the ground and the base of the clouds. No nosebleed flying for us that day! But it was also rather gusty. Winds at some airports were reported at 11 knots, gusting to 24 or so. That’s not a problem if you’re landing and taking off straight into it. But if you have a 90-degree crosswind trying to blow you away from the runway, there is that “maximum demonstrated crosswind capability” of the airplane of which one must be mindful. There’s a saying about that. It has to do with becoming a test pilot. 

A number is derived from whatever the wind is doing the day the airplane is flown for FAA certification. That number signifies the airplane’s maximum demonstrated capability to handle crosswinds. Pilots who test that edge are venturing into undocumented territory. If you want to land the airplane in more crosswind than demonstrated at certification, you become, in essence, a test pilot. 

So, there we stood at the hangar, discussing the plan on the ground, which is the right place to talk, as opposed to after you’ve taken off. We considered that the grass runway at Critters Lodge is enveloped by a forest of tall trees and there are campers and airplanes parked along the sides of the runway. The runway is oriented northeast-southwest. While there is no weather measurement system there, we could estimate it would be similar to what was blowing around our region at that time. The wind was coming from the southeast, which would be about a 70-degree crosswind, possibly gusting to 24 knots. We agreed to go, but we would carry extra speed on final and be ready to go around if we hit a gust at treetop level, which is where the wind’s flow would be disrupted. Our 80-knot final got us there with no problems, and we were guided to our parking spot. 

Unfortunately, Beverly and her amazing cooking team had to throw out some of the food from the weekend before. Potatoes and “fluffy” desserts that wouldn’t keep in a freezer couldn’t be saved. But the brisket was ready for hundreds of hungry pilots and friends, and it was just like old times. Speaking of which, we met some new folks, including a retired businessman from Scotland and a former Hollywood stuntman who now teaches people to fly at the Tyler County Airport near Woodville. 

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

May 11, 2021 Ingenuity

The Liberty Gazette

May 11, 2021

Ely Air Lines

By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Linda: Have you been following the reports from Mars? It’s almost like living in 1903 with exciting reports of “first flight”. The only difference is, now it is our (NASA’s) mission to prove flight is possible on another planet. 

Seven months after leaving Earth, Ingenuity, NASA’s four-pound helicopter drone strapped onto the Perseverance rover, landed on Mars. And what’s the big deal about a drone hovering around Mars? Plenty. This ain’t your kid’s playground drone. These drones are changing how scientists explore planets. Cutting loose from the ground-bound land rovers will enable scientists to study locations that rovers cannot reach, like over cliffs and hills and fields of large rocks that would stop a rover. 

From its first hover and rotation, proving not just flight, but controlled flight, to its fourth flight at the end of April, when Ingenuity traveled 872 feet horizontally and 16 feet vertically, for two minutes, we now know extraterrestrial flight is possible. Beyond Mars, NASA plans to launch Dragonfly, another drone helicopter with an amazing mission – a trip to Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, in 2026 or 2027. With each new accomplishment comes learning, and the knowledge gained from Mars will help the engineers who are building Dragonfly.

The Earth’s atmosphere is considerably different from that around Mars, and from Titan’s. Mars’ atmosphere is just one percent that of Earth’s. But Titan’s atmosphere is about 60% thicker than ours. Consider that in order to fly, an aircraft (whether it’s a drone or a Boeing 787) needs to generate lift. This is accomplished mechanically either by propellers or jet propulsion or some combination. Air moves around an airplane’s wings, or around a helicopter’s rotors, to produce this lift. The amount of lift you get depends on the density of the air and how fast it moves over the wings or rotors. Denser air creates more lift at a given airspeed than less dense air, so in a less dense atmosphere, like Mars, more effort is required to create lift. Therefore, Ingenuity’s rotor blades are very long compared to its mass and spin much faster than they would have to on Earth. 

Right now, Ingenuity is helping to find the best locations for Perseverance to drive around on Mars and find soil samples. They’re looking for signs of fossil life in a dried-up river delta. 

Meanwhile, on Earth, the FAA is updating aviation navigation charts, adding more little magenta rocket icons to the growing number of space launch areas as more private businesses enter the industry to exit the atmosphere. 

While subscribing to NASA’s news can keep you up to date, my favorite avenue for insight is the app Clubhouse, where I can hear the very engineers who built Ingenuity and are building Dragonfly, and who are actively working the Mars project. I tap to listen live as they talk enthusiastically about exploring Mars, the challenges involved in bringing back samples, and their ideas about Titan. It’s like sitting in the lunchroom at NASA and getting in on all the good stuff.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

May 4, 2021 Notorious Airports

The Liberty Gazette

May 4, 2021

Ely Air Lines

By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Mike: I read the headline, The Ten Most Dangerous Airports in the World, and I roll my eyes. There are challenging airports, no doubt, but what in that writer’s opinion makes an airport THE MOST DANGEROUS? 

I love writing descriptive prose about what pilots see, what factors contribute to their judgement, and how they handle unusual situations. A Hawker student once said to me, “You really like to make people think outside the box,” and it’s true. The aviation life is filled with if this—then what? My job is preparing pilots to handle stressful situations. All professional pilots go through regular training to cover as many different contingencies as possible, so there should be no dangerous airports. 

Actually, the most dangerous airport could be the airport they know the best, the one with which they are the most comfortable. Complacency is one of the biggest problems facing pilots. The system, training, and the standard operating procedures pilots follow are in place to combat this. But letting down one’s guard even a little can lead down a path where more mistakes can contribute to a tragic situation. Comparatively, when landing at a so-called dangerous airport, pilots are on high alert, paying closer attention, resulting in fewer mistakes. 

During the summer flying season in Antarctica for instance, large jets and turboprops land on runways plowed out of the snow. In some instances, the airplanes land on glaciers that may or may not have monstrous crevasses a thousand feet deep underlying a blanket of snow. There are procedures for the pilots of these aircraft to mitigate most of those dangers. They are always ready for the possibility of going around and not landing. They don’t commit themselves to fate.

I’ve flown into my share of interesting places, like La Carlota Airport, a/k/a General Francisco de Miranda Air Base, right smack in the middle of Caracas, Venezuela’s east side. Because it sits in a black hole in a mountain valley with tall buildings on all sides, it was only open during daylight. Landing there required a well-thought-out plan in case we needed to abort and go around. The same was true of takeoffs. My favorite image wasn’t the awe-inspiring view out the window. It was glancing at my co-pilot’s eyes getting wider as we descended below the balconies and terraces of those buildings and hillsides on their first flight there. 

Similarly, the approach into Hong Kong’s Kai Tak airport had airliners pointing the nose at a checkerboard painted on the side of a mountain. Just before reaching it, they turned sharply to line up with the runways, nearly scraping the tops of buildings as they landed in extreme crosswinds. The operations produced a highly technical workload, but for all the difficulties, the few incidents that happened were primarily caused by mechanical problems. Eventually, a new airport was built further from the city, and Kai Tak was closed. 

I don’t regard any airport specifically as dangerous, and all airports deserve the pilot’s full focus. 

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com