Benjamin A. Gorman
“Come on, don’t lag behind.”
I rushed into the Eastern terminal and caught up to my grandfather.
“Grandpa, this is such a giant building!”
“Yes . . . .It is only one of many here at the airport. Each major airline has its own terminal and share it with smaller airlines. International flights go in and out of another building here at J.F.K. Airport.”
This morning we were heading for the check-in counter which seemed like a mile away. As we got in line, I realized that it was probably the two over-stuffed suitcases that I had half carried, half dragged that made the check-in desk seem so far away.
“We’ll check the baggage, get our seat assignments and boarding passes; then we can relax before getting on the plane,” Grandpa said. “We have an hour before the plane takes off at 10:30.”
I was excited; I had never been to Florida. Now, I was going to live there . . . forever. Mom had always wanted to take me to Disney World, but never had the money. With her gone, Grandpa was taking me to live outside Miami. Wonder what school is like there?
We left the desk and walked toward Gate 42.
“Put your carry-ons on the belt,” the security guard said.
I did and then followed Grandpa through this “funny” doorway. “What’s that for?” I asked.
Grandpa answered, “Its an X-ray machine to check if anyone is carrying metal objects that aren’t allowed on the plane.”
“Like guns?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said sadly and I thought he added, “What a world.”
“38, 39, 40, 41 . . . Gate 42, here we are,” I announced. We entered the passenger boarding area and sat down. “Have you flown a lot, Grandpa?”
“Yes, during the war, World War II, I was a bombardier in the Navy on a SBD Dauntless dive bomber in the Pacific. It was a ‘prop’ plane used before jets and we often had to take off from dirty runways. Even major international airports were hardly more than large grass fields with terminal buildings and hangers. It was the war that showed that the heavier planes needed concrete runways to support their weight in all kinds of weather.”
“Did you know the Wright brothers?” I asked.
“No,” he said with a laugh. “They were before my time, but not much. But I do remember Charles Lindberg, ‘Lucky Lindy’, they called him. I was ten years old in 1927 when he made his one-man New York-to-Paris non-stop flight in a little over 33 hours. He became a hero with his plane, the ‘Spirit of St. Louis’; the plane is in the Smithsonian Museum of Air and Space in Washington, D.C.”
“Before the war,” he continued “I remember pilots, ‘barstormers’ they were called, in old World War I planes touring and offering joy rides for a dollar from a field in Hamden where I used to live. Flying circuses used to come to town also; they did loops, made parachute jumps, dropped bags of flour on cars in make-believe bombing runs, and shot at balloons from the air. Some aerobatics.”
“Eastern 810, now ready for boarding,” an announcement interrupted. We got up and walked into a hallway which was connected to our plane. I looked left and could see into the cockpit . . . rows and rows of dials, lights and switches, even on the ceiling.
“That’s called the flight deck,” grandpa said.
We walked past at least thirty seats before finding ours. “Is it safe to sit next to the window?” I asked.
“Of course . . . the pilots are just as concerned about a safe trip as anyone. You know that they are retested every six months at the Flight Training Center, in Denver, Colorado. The training takes place in a flight simulator . . . a boxy contraption on spider like legs—actually hydraulic legs that flex to give the real feel of flight. Inside is a fully instrumented flight deck and a TV tube, run by a computer; it shows the outside world as the pilots would really see it. Don’t worry they won’t let anything happen to this three million dollar aircraft or us.”
He paused and said, “we are ten times safer than if we drove to Florida”.
A seat belt sign lit up and I adjusted the belt, I could feel the plane begin to move.
* * *
After reading the story, answer the questions below. Choose the best answer from the choices given.
1. The Travelers’ flight to Florida was?
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____
A. In the morning
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____
B. At night
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C. On Thursday
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____
D. Left Gate 810
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2. How old is Grandpa?
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A. 72
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B. 73
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C. 74
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____
D. not given
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3. Lindberg’s “one man” flight means that?
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____
A. He flew non-stop.
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____
B. He was the only one ever to do it
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____
C. He flew solo
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D. He was the only man on the plane
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4. Grandpa saw the Flying Circus or air show?
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A. At his home in Florida
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B. Between the wars
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____
C. In the Pacific
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D. In St. Louis
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5. Which of the following is
not
true about the flight simulator tests?
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____
A. Pilots take them every six months
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____
B. They feel like real flights
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____
C. The simulator never leaves the ground
____
D. The flight deck is not real
Safety
. . . .Clear for landing.
The chances that a student has or will take an air trip are enhanced by the fact that American airlines carry over 150 million passengers each year. The trip may be made on a Boeing 747 airplane that is 228 feet long and can carry 490 people at speeds of 625 miles an hour. Cruising at an altitude of 30, 000 feet, familiar landmarks will rapidly diminish in size until they are small specks and the land will stretch out to a distant horizon. What should be the concerns of the air borne traveler?
“Twice in the next two hours I awoke to find the aircraft thirty degrees off course and five hundred feet low. It became painful to stay awake. The aircrafts strange antics did not disturb the passengers, as they were all asleep as well.” This report is from a commercial pilot.
Between 1980 and 1984, 261 fatigue-related pilot errors were reported. The figure increased to 488 between 1984 and 1987. The errors can be major such as: flying off course and at the wrong altitude, landing without clearance or on the wrong runway, and making incorrect fuel calculations. Some experts blame the Federal Aviation Administration regulations for allowing pilots to fly too many hours; longhaul pilots can fly 16 hours a day or longer in some cases. Flying times differ from airline to airline and any reduction of flying hours would cost the airline money.
In 1979, a replacement engine that had been improperly mounted on the wing of a DC-10 broke free on takeoff from Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, causing a crash that killed 275.
On April 28, 1988, an Aloha Airline 737 landed miraculously in Maui, Hawaii, after an 18 foot section of the fuselage tore away while the plane was traveling 330 mph at 24,000 feet. One flight attendant was killed and 61 passengers were injured many by chunks of metal and insulation that kept peeling off during the frightening descent.
During the same month, the FAA launched a special inspection of all jets operated by Continental and Eastern airlines in response to recurring accusations that their parent company, Texas Air Corp, was cutting corners on maintenance because of its financial troubles. Forty-three of Eastern’s planes were taken out of service to correct problems.
The Boeing 737 is the workhorse of many airlines. The 737 fleet exceeds 1,500 jets worldwide, has carried more than 1.7 billion passengers and flown more than 10 billion miles. The problem is one of age; it is a tired fleet. The average U.S. jet liner is more than twelve years old.
Airline maintenance has become a sophisticated science when practiced at its best on today’s increasingly complicated aircraft. The Boeing 747 contains 4.5 million removable parts and 135 miles of electrical wiring. Mechanics have become specialists often inspecting many marts without removing them with technology borrowed from the medical profession. Yet airline maintenance has been accused of being sloppy and problems were left unsolved because supervisors overruled the mechanic. Pilots have flown when the instrument panel lights were out by using a flashlight. In one case, a pilot was grounded for refusing to fly a plane because the altitude alert system was not working. Some pilots claim that the limits of safety are being challenged; the airlines cut back maintenance in order to maintain profits, on time schedules and the cheaper fares.
Most air accidents are chain reactions involving the links of the system: pilots, weather, air-traffic controllers, airports and its facilities, and the airplane itself. Statistics indicate that air travel is safer. Fatalities in U.S. commercial airline accidents declined from 2,669 in the years 1970-1978 to 2,000 in 1979-1987. The total flight hours increased by one-third during that time. The majority of accidents are attributed to pilot and controller errors and to bad weather. Mechanical faults accounted for about one-third of the mishaps. Although every four years a crew of 180 mechanics tears a plane apart, strips off its paint and examines every moving part and structural component.
All air traffic is carefully regulated. The U.S. government’s Department of Transportation through the National Transportation Safety Board supervises the safety of air travel. The Federal Aviation Administration requires recurrent training every six months for airline pilots to keep their skills honed. With computer technology, flight simulators provide realistic training exercises. Frequent weather reports, radio and radar communication, and advanced instrumentation have helped to make the airlines a safe way to travel. Safer than the bicycle. More Americans were killed on bikes in 1979 than in U.S. air-carrier accidents in the four previous years.
Another analysis reveals that air transportation has brought other problems. More and more people are flying and the airports are jammed with air traffic, and people coming and going. Since airline deregulation, the number of passengers have doubled but no new airports have been added to the existing 10,000 airports and small landing fields in the U.S.
Airplanes may circle overhead for hours awaiting clearance to land. Yet proposals for new construction of airports or runway extensions are met with protest by area residents. They do not want to live with the roaring, earth-shaking noise of large jets taking off and landing. Some large airport facilities are miles from the city that you may want to visit and just getting into the cities may take longer than your flight to the airport.
These are some of the concerns that the airplane has given to our society. In an open-ended discussion, students may list the benefits of air travel, also the problems that the airplane has brought. This can be expanded by having students look for news articles dealing with airline travel, airports and economic concerns. What is the balance between the romance of flying and economic factors? For our students, air travel and its challenges are a central part of American life. The technology wrought by the dreamers of aviation’ s past has given us the wonderful ability of human flight. We must be ready to call upon our imagination and science as we will continue to take to the sky.
Technology is as much a part of our environment as trees and buildings. It can solve some problems and will seem to cause others. Yet our society will progress and change. And what of the future of aviation? Orville Wright’ s response to that question was, “I can not answer except to assure you that it will be spectacular”. As long as we permit the extravagance of our imagination, it will be.
Activity One
. . . ..Preflight Checklist
An airplane in straight and level flight is acted on by four forces: Lift, Thrust, Weight and Drag.
Label the drawing correctly.
As air moves past the wing, the pressure is increased on the bottom and decreased on the top surface.
Finish the drawing (fig. A) by adding the airflow lines and indicate the low (L) and high (H) pressure areas.
(figure available in print form)
Figure A
The airflow makes a circular pattern around the wing and effects the flow at the end of the wing. The circulatory flow increases the flow speed above the wing and adds the upward force—lift.
Draw three lines to show the circular airflow on figure B.
(figure available in print form)
Figure B
Figure C is a combination of the air flows in Figures A and B. As the wing moves through the airflow, lift is produced because the airspeed is
lower.
(figure available in print form)
Figure C
As the wing moves into the air, the angle between the wind flow and the wings is called the “angle of attack”. The pilot controls the angle of attack with the elevators on the tail section of the plane. If the air can not flow smoothly over the wing’s upper surface, there will be a loss of lift and the plane will stall. Figure C shows a level flight. You, as pilot, draw a wing in Box 1 that shows that you want to climb and in Box 2, one that shows descent.
(figure available in print form)
Box 1 Box 2
Activity Two
. . . ..Flight Number
Directions Select from the answer column at the left the word which best answers each of the statements at the right. Put the number of the word in the proper space in the magic-square box. If your answers are correct, they will form a magic square. The total of the numbers will be the same in each row across and down to form a magic flight number.
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1. Angle of incidence
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A. Upward force
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2. Stall
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B. Loss of lift
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3. Weight
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C. Like a circle
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4. Angle of attack
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D. Elevators control
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5. Thrust
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E. Backward force
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6. Drag
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F. Moving air
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7. Circular
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G. Forward force
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8. Airflow
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H. Air pressure above the wing
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9. Lift
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I. Gravity
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10. Low
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11. Airfoil
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12. High
(figure available in print form)
The magic flight number is _____
Activity Four
. . . ..Aviation Firsts
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1. Number in order, 1 to 16, from the earliest to the latest.
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2. Put the number on the time line at its correct year.
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___ First U.S. designed and built jet fighter, 1944.
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___ First airmail service, 1918.
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___ First commercial flight to Europe by Pan Am in 1939.
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___ Amy Johnson solos from England to Australia in 19 days, 1930.
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___ First plane to take off and land vertically (VTOL), 1954.
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___ First flight of over 2 hours, 1908.
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___ First solo flight across the Atlantic by Lindbergh in 1927.
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___ First solo flight around-the-world by Wiley Post in 7 days, 18 hours, the year 1933.
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___ First Hawaii to California solo by Amelia Earhart in 1935.
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___ First transcontinental flight, 191
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___ First jet airliner service at speeds of 490 mph, 1952.
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___ Charles Yeager’s first super-sonic flight in 1947; “broke the sound barrier” by flying the speed of Mach 1.
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___ Wright brothers first successful flight.
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___ Anglo-French Concorde was introduced with cruising speeds of twice the speed of sound, 1969.
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___ First transatlantic commercial jet crossing, 1958.
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___ 490 passenger Boeing 747 introduced, in 1965.
Activity Three . . . . . . Pilot to Tower
(figure available in print form)
The altimeter measures the height of the aircraft above a certain ground level or altitude.
If your altimeter is the three-pointed type as shown at the left, the correct way to read the altimeter is to first glance at the smallest hand (10,000 feet hand); next read the middle hand (1,000 ft. hand); and last read the large hand (100 ft. hand).
Check your ability to read altitude quickly by recording the readings of the six altimeters shown. Allow Yourself 2 minutes.
1. _____
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2. _____
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3. _____
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4. _____
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5. _____
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6. _____
(figure available in print form)
a b c d e
(figure available in print form)
a b c d e
(figure available in print form)
a b c d e
(figure available in print form)
a b c d e
Every job in the airline industry requires special skills. Try this test for Air Traffic Controller. Each exercise has two sets of symbols. The first set has three symbols. The second set has two and a? Choose ONE of the five symbols below each set that should go in place of the question mark.
Answers:
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1. ___
-
2. ___
-
3. ___
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4. ___
