Video: Cessna 310 Ditching off Hawaii

http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/08/us/hawaii-plane-emergency/

Anyone got a way to capture this video into a format I can play in a Powerpoint presentation?

Never try it by myself:

http://www.presentationtree.com/articles/youtube.html

Unfortunately, this isn't a YouTube video

If you use Firefox as your browser, use the "Downloadhelper" Firefox extension available at: http://www.downloadhelper.net/

It will download the video and convert it to different formats. I don't know which format you need for Powerpoint.

I tried the link; there is a mp4 format commercial first, and the video of the plane ditching is .flv format.

good luck

The same method is used to download both youtube and CNN video.

Btw, I just capture that viedo by using Firefox + DownloadHelper extension. It is 5,950,733byte in size.

I just tried converting it to windows media format. It converts fine; but there is a logo of the download helper program in the upper left corner of the converted video because I am using the free version. The wmv version is 8683 KB.

The SUPER © program mentioned on the above url probably will do it without the logo as it is a GUI Freeware front-end for other Freeware, it is a 39M download at:
http://erightsoft.podzone.net/GetFile.php?SUPERsetup.exe

Unfortunately my PCs are not available for testing installation right now.

The raw video is available here, along with a download link:

http://cgvi.uscg.mil/media/main.php?g2_itemId=1427564

Thanks, thought that seems to be missing parts.

In any case, a friend sent me the file converted and ready to use. Thanks for all the suggestions.

I wonder what happened? Did he just over-estimate his aircraft's fuel capacity? Headwind?

Sue

Story will come out in the investigation

Well ... i gotta say that was very nice landing. I was expecting something a bit rougher. He did an excellent job of staying calm and keeping the aircraft straight and level.

I was kinda' wondering to myself ... what if he had just departed from Catalina Island? That would have shaved roughly 22 miles off the trip, compared to the flying distance from California [I didn't check where he departed from - maybe that was the problem]. He was only 13 miles short of the island of Hilo - probably would have made it. I'm not sure if they have fuel at Catalina normally. But it seems like you could ferry some spare supplies out there.

Just joking really - but it does make you wonder :-)

Pete2

Sue,

I am a pilot (Instrument Rated). That guy broke about 17 flying commandments, and a MINIMUM of one FAA law.

Let's lookit what is not being said in the news...

The fargin Cessna 310 (depending on the type of Cessna 310) has an advertised range of between range between 640 to 1955 miles.

File that away a minnit.

Now... Guess how far it is from Monterey, CA to Hilo, HI...

It is 2300 miles!

YIKES! The stoopid dingleberry is lucky he made it half-way!

What was he thinking?

That plane burns 28 gallons an hour while it is in the air. It cruises at 178knots. If you do THAT math, the dang thing has a range of 640 miles!!! Mebbe you can trim it up, maximize your cruise fuel expenditure, try for tailwinds (wrong way to try, BTW), and get a coupla hundred miles added.

There's more. The FAA (Federal Aviation Rule) says that when you do cross-country flights, you are REQUIRED to have a minimum of 10% of your fuel still on board when you reach your destination. (FAR 121 calls for a 10% International Contingency Fuel from point A - B.) That is not a suggestion. It is a bloody LAW.

This foo' never had a chance. It is absolutely amazing that for all the things he did wrong, he still got that far before destroying the airplane.

He really should have expected to crash AT LEAST 345 miles from shore.

I can guaran-dang-tee you one thing: That boy will be a LOOOONG time before he is allowed to touch another plane. The FAA has sharp fingernails, no error.

And making it necessary to send out several other aircraft, a rescue team, and so on costs big bucks.

It wasn't even his plane.

Some several Somebodies are really, REALLY annoyed.

One mo' thang... as any pilot will tell you, it is desperately important to keep track of where you are. Tain't hard to do this at all, BTW. Easypeasy.

One MAJOR reason to keep track of where you are and how long you have been flying:

You can tell long before you reach the Point Of No Return whether you are gonna make it.

If you are NOT gonna make it, you are REQUIRED to turn around before the PONR. I fergit the FAR number on that one, but it is a no-brainer...

He wasn't flying under part 121 (Air Carrier). He would have had a Special Flight Permit (Ferry Permit) and ferry fuel tanks.

What we don't know about this is exactly how much fuel the 310 carried during that flight. That Cessna official range of "640 to 1955 miles" is based on how much fuel Cessna provided for in the way of permanent fuel tanks. Some aircraft not normally suitable for trans-pac will carry additional fuel in bladders inside the aircraft.

However, regardless how much fuel he carried, it wasn't enough. FAA & NTSB will be asking some very hard questions.

Walt's point about the pilot not turning around prior to PONR is absolutely right. Maybe the winds picked up after PONR -- maybe this, maybe that. We don't know what we don't know.

During my first squadron tour, we would take-off with ~60,000 lbs of fuel. Squadron requirements were to plan to be overhead the field with 8000 lbs prior to landing, which is more than the FAA minimum. There were additional rules regarding dipping the tanks, calibrating fuel gauges, yada yada yada which could make it okay to get back with 6000 lbs overhead, but the one time a crew came back with 4000 lbs, an a**chewing followed. The crew knew exactly how much fuel was in each tank, but they came back below minimum fuel so -- okay, an a**chewing is maybe too strong, the pilot got a slap on the wrist and was told to not do it again. But he landed back home and the plane was just fine.

After the investigation, this pilot/company will probably get more than a slap on the wrist from FAA. I wonder how many times they've done this and gotten away with it.

While I agree that he SHOULD have had a Ferry Permit...

Dunno if he did.

IF he did, sumbody checked off on range... and the PONR was ignored anyway.

LOTTA lotta questions gone be axed.

Spot on alla way, bro.

What a waste of a purty airyoplane. Not that I could afford to fly the dang thing. 28 cotton-pickin' gallons per hour.

Gawd. I'd have to sell my sister into a Turkish brothel just for a weekend flight.

Sell your sister into an Italian brothel - you will realize a greater return on investment....

No permit, no flight plan.



We call it ETP (Equal Time Point) now so as not to scare the pax.

Here's his FlightAware track and info: http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N23BT/history/20111007/1300Z/KMRY/PHTO

More here: http://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=139011

Okay, I was right. I looked up the normal Cessna 310 range and the distance to Hawaii, and they added up the wrong way.

It's a good thing he wasn't carrying passengers!

But what's this about in the report? "A 65-year-old pilot calmly flew his twin engine airplane just inches from the water in the Pacific for more than an hour and a half before landing in the water after realizing he was running out of fuel."

Sue

Susan,

This has to do with something called 'ground effect.' Can't get to my flight manuals/books right now, but this Wiki explanation is pretty good. He was doing the right thing at that time.

"As it pertains to fixed wing aircraft, "ground effect" refers to the increased lift and decreased drag that an aircraft airfoil or wing generates when an aircraft is about 1 wingspans length or less over the ground (or surface). This often gives light aircraft the feeling that they are "floating", especially when landing.

When an aircraft is flying at an altitude that is approximately at or below the same distance as the aircraft's wingspan there is, depending on airfoil and aircraft design, an often noticeable ground effect. This is caused primarily by the ground interrupting the wingtip vortices and downwash behind the wing. When a wing is flown very close to the ground, wingtip vortices are unable to form effectively due to the obstruction of the ground. The result is lower induced drag, which increases the speed and lift of the aircraft while it is in the ground effect.

A wing generates lift, in part, due to the difference in air pressure gradients on the wing surfaces: both upper and lower. During normal flight, the upper wing surface experiences reduced static air pressure and the lower surface comparatively higher static pressure, these air pressure differences also accelerate the mass of air downwards. Flying close to a surface increases air pressure on the lower wing surface, (the ram or cushion effect) improving the aircraft lift to drag ratio. As the wing gets lower the ground effect becomes more pronounced. While in the ground effect, the wing will require a lower angle of attack to produce the same amount of lift. If the angle of attack and velocity remain constant, an increase in the lift coefficient will result, accounting for the "floating" effect. Ground effect will also alter thrust versus velocity in that reducing induced drag will require less thrust to maintain velocity.

Low winged aircraft are more affected by ground effect than high wing aircraft. Due to the change in up-wash, down-wash and wingtip vortices there may be errors in the airspeed system while in ground effect due to changes in the local pressure at the static source."

What Bill_G said plus the wind is slowed near the ground due to drag (hence the waves on water). He may have also been seeking the wind shadow in the lee of the Big Island.

Okay, thanks for the explanation. I was wondering if he had a water-skier back there that he hadn't mentioned to the Coast Guard...

Sue

The same "ground effect" applies in the water if you are swimming close to the bottom, fluids being fluids after all. A friend tipped me off to this and it helped me pass my Divemaster test in fine style.

Wonder if he'da made it if he went ground effect from the beginning?

I dunno if I could pay attention that long...

That is an interesting thought. Have spent hours low altitude, but that was with a crew and at 400 feet. Gets exciting at 200 feet for any length of time.

Hello folks, this wasn't quite the way I imagined introducing myself to the forum. I've been a long time reader, but just joined up officially.

My name is Fred and I'm also a pilot, heck it's even what I do for work (air carrier)...so I have an opinion or two of my own when things go wrong with pilots and airplanes.

First off I don't know the pilot involved in this, nor do I know or work for the same company, nor have I ferried airplanes.
But I have been flying for over a decade, am a flight instructor, and have flown both North and South of the border of the US.

And, in my opinion this flight was most certainly on a flight plan (either Defense VFR [visual]or IFR [instrument])since he was planning on crossing 2 ADIZ's (Air Defense Identification Zone), the first when he left the lower 48 and the second approaching Hawaii...and it's one of those pesky rules the FAA has in place as part of securing the national airspace. The boys in sage jumpsuits that burn jet fuel in a most spectacular fashion will probably come up an look at you up close and personal and escort you to some airport where a friendly government representative will ask, "What's up?", if you're not.

Also it was probably an instrument flight plan, since when you look at that flight aware track he was at 6,000 ft for most of it, which means it was the appropriate altitude for a west bound aircraft on an instrument flight plan, as per FAR 91.179.

Looking at the company web site, they seem to deliver lots of aircraft all over the world...so I would give them the benefit of the doubt that they did in fact have all the proper permits regarding ferrying this aircraft.

Now it's easy to sit in a comfortable chair on the ground and arm chair quarterback the result, but if you don't have the appropriate experience it really doesn't result in much...kinda like 2 blind guys arguing about what the color blue looks like.

I put fourth that it is very difficult to know your exact position when out over the water with absolutely no reference points what so ever, course with GPS it does actually become easier as long as you know what it's actually telling you and can interpret that into usable information as regards to your position, where you're trying to go, how much time, and fuel required, while factoring in weather, winds, etc..

This wasn't some 1 hr flight around the pattern, or even a 2 hr cross country, but a true intercontinental style flight where he was airborne for 12 hrs and 38 min. Everyone knows how fast the weather can change in an hour, let alone half a day later.

So given that I believe this was an instrument flight plan, he would have been required to have enough fuel to get to his destination, plus 45 min if the weather was forecast to be better than a 2,000 ft cloud ceiling and 3 statute miles visibility within 1 hr prior and 1 hr after his flight planned eta. (Estimated Time of Arrival). If the weather was forecast to be below he'd need an alternate airport, in which case he'd need the fuel to get there as well, and then the 45 min reserve. FAR 91.167

So if you're burning 28 gal/hr, 14 per side as it's a twin engined airplane, 7 gal/side gives you 30 min, so 10.5 gal/side or 21 gal total is all he would have been legally required to land with if the weather was good. Not much after you've burned over 350 gallons to get across the Pacific, and it doesn't leave you much room to play with if the weather/winds change after you cross your calculated point of no return.

And, it would have all been legal...possibly not smart but legal.

So the flight plan probably looked good, otherwise the FAA wouldn't have signed off on it (ferry permit), the Flight Service Station briefer (folks who file the flight plan for you) would probably have questioned the pilot if he'd said he wanted to fly for 12+ hrs but didn't have the fuel,or if the company had a dispatcher they wouldn't have signed off on it, and I don't know any old pilots who try and cross an ocean on a wing and a prayer, hoping for the best.

All that said, he obviously came up short and we won't know the reason until after an investigation by the experts...everything else is just speculation and depending on the tone throwing dirt.




Another point, which might be best discussed in it's own thread.

Why have some people become so obsessed with trying to recoup the cost of a rescue effort, I mean the folks at the Coast Guard are working and training anyway so it's not like that expense doesn't already exist, or go way up just because it's for real instead of training.

When you press that button on your PLB, should you be thinking about how much it's going to cost, or how about when you call the fire department, police, where does it begin/end?

Haven't we decided as a society that it's beneficial to all of us to have these services available to everyone, no matter if you could never afford to pay for it on your own?



So after all that, hope you guys don't think to badly of me.

Thanks for the explanation, Fred! Since he was flying into the prevailing wind, I wondered if that made him use up more fuel than he anticipated.



It's not the cost of the effort as much as the increasing idiocy of some of the people who cause the problems. Personally, I find it very irritating that so many people put themselves in situations with absolutely no thought or planning or even recognition that it could be dangerous. As long as they have their cell phone, they think they have everything covered.

Military, Coast Guard, fine. Our taxes have gone for worse things than that, but many searchers (including SAR) have been injured and killed going after idiots who should have known better, and THAT'S what I object to.

Sue

Welcome to ETS, Fred! Thanks for providing us with some useful info on this event.

I think you raise a very worthwhile point. When I was doing SAR, we frequently called on the Air Force at the local base (Davis-Monathans) and we always received extensive and effective support. It was always charged to training; the pilots loved SAR missions, because they were a lot more challenging than their normal runs.

Most police organizations have something in their charter or mission statement something about preserving and protecting human life. It seems to me that SAR fits in very nicely there.

Sue, I don't know about "the increasing idiocy" thing. There were plenty of frivolous or (in hindsight) unnecessary operations back in the 60s or 70s. They just didn't usually receive as much publicity and notice as nowadays.

The thing is, you simply do not know at the beginning of an operation whether it will be frivolous or not. There are unfortunate instances where SAR people decided on a slow response and it turned out to be a bad decision.

It is true that SAR people have died on operations. Does it make any difference whether the operation was required or not? One is just as dead. And, yes, as a matter of fact, I have attended the funerals of SAR people who died in the line of duty.

Please remember that really blatant misuse of SAR can result in costs to the party requesting rescue. There was a case just last week at Grand Teton NP where people were presented with a bill. These situations are fortunately very rare.

Thanks for the welcome!

Sue, you can think about an airplane having 2 speeds that need to be dealt with.

First is airspeed, ie the speed of the air across the wings of the aircraft, and it's the speed that determines if you can fly or not.

Secondly is ground speed, which is just as it sounds the speed which you are going across the ground, and it's the speed that determines how quickly/slowly you get to where you are going.

For example, if you are in a small slow airplane like a Cessna 172 which can fly around 40ish kts or so with flaps extended, you can point that airplane into a 40 kt headwind, thus retaining your airspeed but your ground speed will be 0, so your effectively hovering in a static position over the ground because you have no ground speed.

So that's the long way of answering that yes you will burn more fuel when flying into the prevailing wind, when compared to a no wind situation.

Edit: But you can calculate your ground speed, from airspeed and knowing the wind speed, or if you're lazy look at your GPS. However winds aloft are forecasted, and sometimes they're higher than expected, and sometimes slower.
You make the plan as best you can, with acceptable margins of safety, for some that's legal mins, for other's it much, much more. But in the end you have to see what's actually happening once you get airborne and make adjustments accordingly. However once you're over the ocean, your options become very limited. [End Edit]



I agree that some folks that put themselves into a bad situation wouldn't need rescuing if they had thought a bit about what they were doing, however I feel they do deserve to be helped if it's available without the fear of going into bankruptcy.

It wasn't so much discussed in this thread until I brought it up, however this mentality seems like it's gaining traction from what I've heard/read/seen from friends, TV, etc... and I find it troubling. Of course I'm not condoning that SAR folks go beyond reasonable risks to save somebody who's gotten themselves into trouble, but I'll leave that risk calculation to those who know more than me.

So you don't want to just kick them over the cliff, huh? Then what about just leaving them there with a map? No? Remove them from the area by duct-taping them to the skids?

Sue

Welcome Fred!

Yes, there are a lot of idiots in the world, and yes, as a volunteer SAR person I sometimes find it irritating.

Yet at the same time, here on the "equipped" forum, I've seen a lot of comments about the advisability of carrying a PLB, SPOT, EPIRB, cell or sat phone. But relatively little discussion about when it is appropriate to use these devices, and when one should attempt to self rescue. As prep people we need to make sure we have our own (glass?) house in order before throwing too many stones.

In any case, the overall cost to the public of these rescues is often much less than many think. As has been pointed out, the military folks get paid whether they are flying contrived training missions or real life SAR missions. The bulk of the 'boots on the ground' for SAR are volunteers. We do it for free, because we want to, and we buy our own personal gear. In many cases, we raise money to buy group rescue gear. A few expensive high profile SAR missions get a lot of publicity, but the bulk of SAR work is a bargain for the public.

While I do find the idiots annoying, I believe education is the best approach.

I think rather than "idiocy" it would be more realistic to talk about "inexperience" which seems to be what most victims have in common (in my experience). Many people today have little or no experience with the outdoors, and it shows when they are suddenly thrust into the woods.

This sorta segues into my point:

"Edit: But you can calculate your ground speed, from airspeed and knowing the wind speed, or if you're lazy look at your GPS."

My basic cowardice ( ) would have me CLOSELY checking my GPS as I came anywhere even NEAR the PONR <-- I am an old fart, so I'm gonna stick with that term... it is very clear.

The wetness of the cockpit this morning seems to attest this guy had the insidious "get-home-itis" disease.

When I stated (and now restate) that knowing your position way out in the middle of the ocean is "easypeasy" stands.

You look up your GPS reading at 45 minutes from your calculated-before-you-took-off PONR position and see if you have reached it.

Here is where basic cowardice triumphs over "get home-itis":

You KNOW (it is written on your tablet) where you are supposed to be per your GPS at that mark. Do the numbers come close to matching?

If yes, bash on and have a nice flight.

If you are not there, turn your butt (and the plane) around to try tomorrow.

Refilling the tanks is a damn site easier that fishing for the plane.

Fred... everything you said was accurate. Nevertheless, by cold definition, this guy did NOT do due diligence in the "where the hell am I now that I am 45 minutes short of the PONR?" arena.

If the (previously "prayer-wheel" calculated in no-stress comfort back on the ground) numbers on his lap pad do not marry those of the GPS...

I ain't an idiot, and I am not a commercial pilot. But forty-FOUR minutes before PONR, I would KNOW if I was going to make it or not. With reserve fuel per the FAA and common sense.

One of my fave "get home-itis" experiences is watching the twin Beech crash on the I-95 overpass a quarter of a mile short of the Boca Raton runway... After the guy FLEW OVER THE AIRPORT AT LANTANA NOT TEN MILES AWAY.

Flying a lot can make [some] people overconfident and willing to gamble it all for a small amount of convenience.

Tell me that ain't so, and tell me that guy ain't guilty of it.

I would say that appropriate use is when your options are very limited. Too many people are using them when things just get inconvenient due to poor planning.



This is America -- we don't do education.

It's a wonder the corn maze people didn't ask for an aerial pickup.

Sue

Well, I'm of the opinion that the point of no return doesn't guarantee a successful outcome but is your absolute last chance to turn around if things don't add up. After you cross it, you are committed no matter how things change with the fuel/wind etc.., because you won't make it.

So if things look alright 45 min prior and then again as you reach it, but then change for the worse 5 to 10 min later you're committed because now you can't go back because it's closer to continue.

And I bet that's a lonely feeling out over the ocean, by yourself when you know you're gonna get wet and you're 5 plus hours from land.

We don't know what happened, therefore it's impossible to know what he may or may not be guilty of.

Not necessarily -- If the winds pick up after PONR, it may still be shorter in terms of time and fuel burn, to turn around and fly with the wind to an airfield that is behind you.

Modern GPS receivers are very good at doing the math to compute various options. For a relatively slow general aviation aircraft, a change in wind velocity from what was planned can play a huge role in go/no-go decisions mid-flight.

IMO (we'll need to wait for the incident report to find out for sure) the reason he put the aircraft in ground effect was to reduce the headwinds at higher altitude.

Not over the ocean!

Sue

Flying with the wind always increases your ground-speed.

Time-distance/fuel remaining calculations begin shortly after take-off. Normally however, the winds at altitude are planned and if you are iffy on fuel remaining it's a no-go.

When the guys I work with need to take a plane to Hawaii, the question is whether Midway Island is open or are they going through Cold Bay, Alaska direct to Honolulu. The winds are very rarely adequate to support a direct flight from California to Hawaii.

As a dispatcher, we got upper level wind updates constantly via ACARS (Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System) from various Air Carriers every 7 minutes. Not much info at his altitude.

Agreed, I was just illustrating that just because everything is fine up until your PONR it doesn't guarantee a successful crossing it just means you're committed to continuing, and if things change in either direction it will obviously change your PONR as well...but at some point it will be to late to turn back.

There could be all kinds of other factors, maybe the engines weren't performing per book spec, maybe the mixture was improperly adjusted either manually or by computer if fuel injected, maybe there was a clog in some or multiple fuel lines either from the probable ferry bladders onboard to the normal tanks, or maybe in the normal fuel system itself, maybe they weren't actually topped off all the way, maybe there was a leak by the fuel caps, maybe the fuel cap wasn't sealed properly, maybe there was a crack in a fuel tank or in a line, maybe the wind was stronger than expected, maybe the flight plan wasn't done properly, maybe, maybe, maybe...

There's just too many factors that are unknown, so we wait and hopefully learn what happened to learn from it.

Fred --

The bolded part... I did not go into the possibility that AFTER you have DYDD at the 45-minute to PONR point... and then AGAIN at the PONR point... that the wind could suddenly pick up right into your windscreen and ruin all your planning.

Here's why:

Using your own example above, any pilot (thass you and me, too) should be checking position regularly. So let us posit the very, very, very UNlikely happenstance that 10 minutes after you reach the PONR, suddenly the wind begins to blow right into your front window.

Think about it... really. **IF** that semi-instantaneous kamikaze wind is suddenly blowing right in your cockpit at 10 minutes after PONR...

...you say to yourself: "Self? Guess what? There is a sudden and awful headwind. Your new calculation of groundspeed shows you cannot make it to Hawaii!! What to do, what to do? Hmmm... with a tailwind, I can cover a LOT more ground. That means even though I am a tad past PONR, (which was calculated as having the legally required fuel reserve of 45 minutes upon landing at destination) I can turn around and use that TAILWIND to safely get back to try again tomorrow."

That is why I did not cover the bolded eventuality.

You seem to be saying that in spite of your new calculations showing you are gonna get a wet butt by continuing on INTO the headwind (if there ever was one, but we won't go into that), you gotta do it.

I respectfully disagree, bro.

You turn your butt around, and use that dirtyrottenevil wind to blow your butt and plane alla way back to California.

OK... let us go straight to the sublime... you are 90 miles from Hawaii. Suddenly, outa fargin nowhere, the wind hits 100kts right in your face, and stays there. NOW you cannot make it.

That is about how far you have to reach to validate the "sudden, unexpected headwind-as-cause" excuse.

The PONR changes (BOTH ways) due to unexpected winds. You can turn around -- with that nice new tailwind -- and fly all the way back. But staying with "get home-itis" will get you wet.

Excellently put, Russ & Fred. I see Russ picked up on the shift of planned vs actual PONR also.

And Fred, your whole penultimate (did I actually use that word?) paragraph is Gospel.

Any dumping on the guy by me is dependent not upon wind, but my (very possible) "jump to conclusion" about "get home-itis" and (also very possible) non-figuring/ignoring of PONR by the pilot.

You have rightly brought up a lot of the myriad little bitsy things that coulda snuck in to possibly explain the unfortunate flight ending.

I wonder what the final answer is gonna be.

(*snicker*)

Youse guys can see Unca Chicken-Liver prolly woulda tried about six times afore he made it.

Hey! Click the middle sig line! I am all a-twitter: The Deputy Directory of Counterintelligence and Security Countermeasures in the Pentagon sent me a note:

"Ripping good yarn! I especially was impressed by your narrative of naval battles. You created comprehensible pictures of what was undoubtedly chaos on and in the water."

DANG!!!

I'd just like to point out that today the quality of weather service is more than adequate to provide info about what kind of head or tailwind to expect. Not with 100% accuracy, but those services ARE plenty good enough that you NEVER should be caugth by surprise by an unexpected headwind.

The needed weather info is there, but is it available in a format, way and form that a particular pilot can relate to? There is still much work to be done when it comes to this kind of weather service.

In a perfect world the winds at your flight level would enter your ground speed calculations automagically. I've seen some proprietary systems where they have this kind of functionality (Jeppesen flight planner, although the user interface for this function was possible one of the worst possible I've ever seen). Proprietary also meant that the system was tied and locked to a particular weather service provider. There's nothing wrong with that particular w.s. provider, but we can't accept that kind of proprietary tie-in.

I'm not a pilot, but I am a weather forecaster that has transformed into something between a geographer and IT consultant. I am working on developing exactly the kind of services and infrastructure for this kind of services for our military.

about the weather...
A friend of mine flies with a portable Garmin receiver (similar to the GPSMAP 696) that he sets above the panel on whichever aircraft he's flying. Not only does it do all the air navigation you expect in a receiver of this type, but it also receives XM WX™ Satellite Weather broadcast.

If I flew transpac ferry flights for a living, I would definitely invest in a portable nav system, independent of whatever aircraft I was flying. It could/would keep me informed of current events (weather) as well as assist in doing all the navigation and contingency planning.

"A friend of mine flies with a portable Garmin receiver (similar to the GPSMAP 696) that he sets above the panel on whichever aircraft he's flying. Not only does it do all the air navigation you expect in a receiver of this type, but it also receives XM WX™ Satellite Weather broadcast."

Wow. What a neato thing!

Does anyone use a prayer wheel anymore?

Maybe the 310 pilot did?

All well and good, and I'm sure it's a nifty gadget. But does it include upper wind (actual fligth level wind) in the ground speed/fuel consumption/range calculations? I doubt it - but I would be very happy if you could prove me wrong.

The info you questioned is readily available online at http://www.xmwxweather.com/aviation/.

snip unsnip

As for whether it includes weather in its "ground speed/fuel consumption/range calculations", I doubt it. Some things like fuel consumption are aircraft specific so I would not expect a portable unit to do that. Some things are easily computed though if you have the input. This nifty gadget can get you those numbers without having to use fuel to find out for yourself.

I want one of them suckers.

There is a gap between what information that is "readily available online" and what pilots, commanders, soldiers and (naval/land/air) officers actually are able to relate to. More often than not this gap hinders the flow of information from the services to the people that actually need that information.

Realizing why this gap exist can be rather hard when you have a comfortable desk job with all the time in the world to research new services (like I do). Fortunately I meet regulary a bunch of personell that tells me their point of view in rather blunt and unofficial terms.

It's not about being to lazy or incompentent to check information "readily available", but it has A LOT to do with having to perform the job you're supposed to be doing, which leaves little or no time to fiddle around with "new and promising" web services, punch numbers manually or scrutinize obscure map plots.

I'll look into this nice and nifty device. I'm sure it's a step in the right direction. I also don't think it goes far enough in that direction.

Yes, fuel consumption, air speed and so on is airplane specific. But unless you fusion that specific information with forecast wind at the level you'll be flying there is still a gap between the raw information (upper level wind) and the answer needed (how far can I fly/how much fuel do I need today?).

In the end it's just another tool to help the pilot keep flying. It won't fly the plane or make important decisions; it can only provide information in a useful format so a pilot can make a (hopefully) better informed decision.

What we have here is the preliminary data.

http://www.faa.gov/data_research/accident_incident/preliminary_data/media/F_1011_N.txt

What we don't have is an initial or final report fom the accident investigators. Initially, it appears to be an error in estimating fuel requirments. But, initial assumptions are often wrong.

If you look at the flight-aware track, what possibly could have killed his estimate was his (unplanned?) climb from 6,000 ft up to 11,000 ft. Your aircraft will burn the most fuel during takeoff and climb. In most aircraft, your climb speed is typically less than your cruising speed. Granted, fuel burn is less once you get to the higher altitude with a normally-aspirated engine, but so was his airspeed/ground-speed. I imagine winds aloft would have been somewhat higher at 11,000 ft too. I somehow doubt he planned for either of those when flight planning.

As to why he climbed, only he (and the controllers he might have been talking to) can say - maybe it was weather or just "Maybe I can conserve more fuel up here". The chosen altitude would have been incorrect for his direction of flight (even-thousand heading 180-359, odd-thousand 360(0)-179 degrees), which makes it more mysterious.

Spinnr -- Can you post the link to the flight-aware track?

Doggone! Dang perceptive of you, HTMLSpinner. I'da missed the "Odd People Fly East" thing relative to his 11,000-ft alt.

Well, if he's gonna be at wrong alt, mebbe when he got up there he did not lean out his engines...

Coulda been watchin' Oprah, y'know.

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N23BT/history/20111007/1300Z/KMRY/PHTO - You may need to be registered to view it.