Airport Security Increase after 9/11

15 years ago, Airport security was a very simple process. It consisted of a stroll through a metal detector to find weapons. Before 9/11, you could have pocket knifes on planes as long as they were less than four inches long, or you could have scissors. The security has changed drastically changed. Little did we know that taking off a belt or emptying our pockets would be the easiest thing we would have to do. Unfortunately, going through airport security is no longer an easy task. After reading a few articles there were 9 main things that were changed.

1. Specific ID required; ID name must match name on ticket
2. Shoes must be removed at checkpoints
3. All baggage, carryon and checked, must be screened
4. No liquids (above 3.4 ounces) allowed through checkpoints
5. Special items must be pulled from luggage (laptops)
6. Jackets, outwear must be removed
7. Body scan machine screening
8. Enhanced pat-downs
9. No more non-ticketed visitors allowed at airline gates

Because of all this, you can no longer show up to the airport 20 minutes before your flight. You can no longer make any jokes of terrorism, bombs, planes crashing, etc. Now, if TSA hears you making a comment like that, you probably won't be flying anytime soon. They have upped the security in airports along with increases in TSA agents and Sky Marshals.

http://www.farecompare.com/travel-advice/9-ways-security-has-changed-since-911/#/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airport_security_repercussions_due_to_the_September_11_attacks

http://www.bustle.com/articles/109828-5-significant-ways-flying-has-changed-since-911-for-better-or-for-worse

Supersonic Airfoils

What makes a supersonic airfoil different than a typical one? Well that would be the shape and how it works. A typical subsonic airfoil, one that is used below the speed of sound Mach < 1, has a blunt leading edge and is meant to create a pressure difference using the velocity difference created from the shape. Subsonic airfoils typically do not include compressibility effects from the air, which is a safe assumption when the percent error at around a Mach number of 0.3 is around 5%, though some more recent subsonic airfoils have taken that into consideration. Below is a picture of how airfoils have evolved over time starting with the Wright's in 1908.

The problem with these airfoils is that when they travel at supersonic speed of Mach > 1 they start to exhibit compressibility effects such as shock waves. With a blunt nose a detached normal shock wave will form out in front of the leading edge which causes incredible drag and high temperatures and pressures. Richard Whitcomb came up with the supercritical airfoil design which improves aircraft performance in near sonic conditions as seen below. The supersonic airfoil looks very different because it has a sharp point in both the leading and trailing edges. These sharp points produce an attached oblique shock wave which has much less drag than a detached normal shock wave. The air compresses across this oblique shock wave then it goes over the top corner and into an expansion wave where the pressure drops and then the trailing edge also has an oblique shock trailing behind. 

Here below is a diagram taken from my compressible flow textbook. Area 1 is the free stream flow that is greater than the speed of sound, which varies with temperature and substance. Area 2 is behind the oblique shock wave with the high pressure. Area 3 is behind the expansion wave and has a lower pressure. Since this is a symmetric diamond airfoil at an angle of attack of zero degrees there will be no lift but there will still be drag from the pressure difference from areas 2 and 3. Supersonic airfoils do not have to be symmetric or a perfect diamond, different side lengths and angles will produce asymmetry that can cause lift, also an increase angle of attack will create more lift. 

Unfortunately no one wants to spill the beans on the specifications of the supersonic airfoils in use today for aircraft but they all must deal with the shock waves that form. If you ever look at the SR-71 you'll notice that the leading edges are all pointed and sharp, now you know why.

Worst People to Sit next to on a plane...

If you read my blog about getting stuck in the airport, you know I had a pretty terrible first fly experience. I also had the wonderful opportunity of sitting next to some pretty unpleasant people. This got me thinking about all of the types of people that could be unpleasant to sit next to.

10 WORST PEOPLE TO SIT NEXT TO ON A PLANE:

1. People with BO
Let's be honest, body odor there are some people that just smell like they have never showered or really need deodorant.

2. People that don't stop talking/talk loud on the phone
There are just some people that don't get the hint that when you put in some headphones you aren't interested in talking. There are also some people that decide to call everyone they know while on the plane and talk very very loudly.

3. People who snore/use you as a headrest
I really have nothing against people who sleep on planes, but this was one of the top complaints while reading about it! They complained mostly about people who snore immediately after falling asleep or using your shoulder as a pillow.

4. People who should probably have bought two tickets
A huge complaint while reading was people being frustrated they didn't have enough room. I had a personal experience with this problem. The man sitting next to me was very overweight and squished me the whole ride. It was very hard to get comfortable when the man was taking up half of my seat as well.

5. People who are nervous flyers
Passengers complained about people that clench armrests or they're arms. People have been thrown up on by nervous flyers or had to listen to them freak out about the plane crashing. Everyone seemed very annoyed about having to calm these people down the entire flight rather than relaxing

6. People who Over Pack
There are some people that just can't narrow down their closet and decide to hog the overhead compartments. These are normally the people carrying shopping bags, multiple rolling suitcases, bulging laptop bags, etc. There is no way to share an overhead compartment with these people.

7. Families with young kids/Families spread out all over the plane
Obviously not all families on planes are terrible. Unfortunately, you have some families that just ruin a flight for everyone. From having kids kick the back of your seat to screaming babies, you can't enjoy this flight. There were also complaints about families that don't buy their tickets together in advance and are yelling across the plane at each other or try to make you switch seats so they can sit together.

8. People with tiny bladders
People complained a lot about people who go to the bathroom frequently. They were mostly annoyed when it was a person sitting in a window seat that keeps taking free water and goes 4-5 times every half hour.

9. People that need to get a room
People were annoyed having to watch couples inappropriately show their affections for one another.

10. People who get drunk
There are some people that don't realize when enough is enough. People complained about drunks the most when they started to unload all their life problems and use their row buddies as their personal therapists.

These are just some of the people passengers have had issues with. There are always obnoxious people that fly on a plane with you, but hopefully you get lucky and get nice row buddies! Just remember it could be worse!

Random Facts!

If your like me, you like knowing random facts about random things that maybe you will use in a game of trivia! This seemed like a perfect opportunity to learn some random facts about airlines, planes, food, etc. I decided to look up a few different sites and share some of my favorite facts with you from each site!


Site 1:

http://www.flightcentre.com.au/travel-news/travel-news/25-interesting-fun-aviation-facts-never-knew/

Did you know...

 An aircraft takes off or lands every 37 seconds at Chicago O'Hare's International Airport

JFK Airport in New York was originally named Idlewild Airport

The Boeing 747 wing-span (195 feet) is longer than the Wright Brothers first flight of 120ft

At any given hour there are over 61,000 people airborne over the USA

By American Airlines switching a pilots paper manuals to iPad they will save  $1.2 million in fuel

Pilots and co-pilots are required to eat different meals in case of food poisoning

About 1/3 of your taste buds are numbed while flying. Maybe that meal was not bland after all?

Site 2:

http://facts.randomhistory.com/airplane-facts.html

About 1 in 5 people have some of fear flying, or “aviophobia.”

Plane exhaust kills more people than plane crashes. Approximately, 10,000 people are killed annually from toxic pollutants from airplanes

In 1986, a plane called Voyager flew all the way around the world without landing or refueling.

In 1947, Chuck Yeager became the first person to fly faster than the speed of sound.

In 2002, a man tried to smuggle two pygmy monkeys in his underwear onto a plane. He was sentenced to 57 days in jail.

A woman from Stockholm, Sweden, attempted to smuggle 75 live snakes onto an airplane by placing them in her bra.  She also had six lizards under her shorts.

A woman tried to smuggle a baby tiger onto an airplane by sedating it and then placing it in a suitcase with stuffed toy tigers. However, her plan was foiled when the X-ray in the security check showed that one of the “stuffed toys” actually had bones

A 66-year-old man tried to smuggle cocaine on a plane—via a cast made out of the drug. He had even purposefully broken his leg in case airport authorities X-rayed it. He almost got away with his crime, but when authorities found other sources of cocaine hidden in his luggage, they decided to also test the cast.

The air on airplanes is filtered by the same technology that filters air in hospitals, so while the tray table may harbor germs, the air is clean.

Site 3:

https://confessionsofatrolleydolly.com/2013/05/31/top-50-useless-aviation-facts/

A man once wore 70 items of clothing in a Chinese airport to avoid the baggage charge

Air travel is the second safest form or transportation. Only the elevator/escalator is safer, although it would take quite some time to travel 1,000 miles on an escalator.

The reason why the lights are turned off during takeoff and landing is for your eyes to adjust to lower levels of light. If there’s an accident and they have to activate the emergency slides, studies have shown that you will be able to see better and therefore be able to evacuate more quickly and safely

Only around 25% of first class passengers pay full fare. The rest are upgrades, frequent fliers and airline employees.

Only 5% of the world’s population has never been on an aeroplane

Plane Crash Stats

I know plane crashes can be a hard thing to talk about, but I have always had really bad luck. I wanted to know how often fatal plane crashes really occur and decided this site seemed to have pretty recent research.

According to this site, the odds of being killed on a single airline flight is 1 in 29.4 million. This number made me feel a little better. However, only 24% of people survive a fatal crash. That number seemed a little more nerve wracking.

The 9 most recent airplane crashes were listed as dates ranging from June 3rd, 2012 - November 1st, 2015. None of these crashes were American Airliners. 7 out of the 9 crashes occurred while in route to their destination while the other two occurred during the landing and approach.

Causes of Fatal Crashes:
53% - Total Pilot Error
32% - Pilot Error
20% - Mechanical Failure
16% - Pilot Error (weather related)
12% - Weather
8% - Sabotage
6% - Other Human Error
5% - Pilot Error (mechanical related)
1% - Other Cause

Crashes with 19 or more passengers: 
Year/# of Fatal Crashes/# of Fatalities
2015/3/428
2014/6/931
2013/7/266
2000/21/1029
1990/20/618
1989/35/1690
1972/41/2347

North American Commercial Airline Accidents:
Airline/Million Flights/Fatal Events/Last Fatality/Accident Rate
American Airlines/16.51/5/2001/+5%
Delta Airlines/16.03/1/1996/-1695%
Southwest Airlines/18.15/0/none/-1915%
United Airlines/12.87/3/2001/-517%
US Airways/11.91/3/1994/-200%


This information was lat updated: February 18th, 2016
http://www.statisticbrain.com/airplane-crash-statistics/

Airport CEO

Apoapsis Studios, a Swedish indie game developer, is currently working on creating an in depth airport management game.  This game, Airport CEO, will be their first.  This game features you as the CEO of a new airport where you will be responsible for building out the infrastructure, staffing your business, dealing with airlines, and keeping your customers happy.

This game is in a similar vein with other "Tycoon" style simulation games such as RollerCoaster Tycoon.  You are tasked with maintaining relationships with airlines by meeting contract agreements; keeping passengers feeling safe and happy by maintaining short wait times, providing entertainment, and enforcing strong security practices; as well as keeping employees happy as disgruntled employees lead to processing errors, slip-ups with security, and increased wait times for passengers.

As you progress further and your airport grows, you can create new departments to help you manage all of the data you have such as an accounting department to help you make financial decisions for your business, an HR department to help hire the optimal employees and maintain employee happiness, etc.

Airport CEO is still in early development with a crowd funding effort to be made to help fund the development.  Ultimately, it seems like an interesting concept aimed at people who enjoy simulation/management style strategy games with an interest in aviation.

http://airportceo.com/

Drone Law

As my last post was about drone delivery systems and one of the points I made was about the risk of people shooting down the drones, I felt compelled to expand on this when this morning I stumbled upon this article.  The Federal Aviation Administration has stated that the act of shooting a drone out of the sky is a federal crime.  As such, the maximum penalty for such an act is a twenty year prison sentence.  This decision is based in an existing law that rules it a federal crime to damage an aircraft.  As drones are still aircraft, albeit unmanned ones, the FAA says that damaging a drone is akin to damaging an aircraft and is therefore a federal offense.  The specific law being referred to by the FAA is Title 18 Part I Chapter 2 Section 32 which states

"Whoever willfully sets fire to, damages, destroys, disables, or wrecks any aircraft in the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States or any civil aircraft used, operated, or employed in interstate, overseas, or foreign air commerce shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years or both." 

Under this same law, a person could receive up to a five year sentence for "threatening a drone or a drone operator".  However, there is yet to be a court precedent set to determine the legitimacy of this application of the law, but there appears that there is a strong case for it.

Jet Turbine Basics

Have you ever wondered how a turbofan engine works? Well no need to wonder anymore, there are 4 simple steps in a jet turbine: suck, squeeze, bang, and blow.

The biggest part of the jet engine is the fan which sucks the air into the system. A Pratt & Whitney fan can suck 2600 pounds of air per second or enough to empty a 4 bedroom house in less than half a second. The intake air is separated into 2 streams, primary air and bypass air. The primary air is about 15% of the total intake from the fan, this goes into the next step, squeeze.
The primary air enters the compressor which increases the pressure by 30 times and increases the temperature by over 1100 degrees after the second stage of compression.
After compression the next step, bang, or combustion takes place. This combustion is a fuel and compressed air mixture which then expands and increases the temperature even greater for the next stage, blow. Below is the Pratt & Whitney F100 turbofan engine for the F-15E

During this stage the turbine takes the energy from the combustion and converts it to mechanical rotational energy that drives the shaft of the compressors and fan. The turbine also pushes out the exhaust creating thrust. However, the majority of the thrust produced in a turbojet engine comes from the 85% of air that did not go through all those stages, the bypass air. In the PW4084 engine the bypass air accounts for 90% of the thrust produced. This bypass air only needs a small amount of compression to create a large amount of thrust, it also greatly helps to cool the engine.

A turbojet on the other hand has all the air from the fan go through the compressors and turbine. At subsonic speeds the turbofan is more efficient than the turbo jet but since it has a larger fan it has a larger frontal surface area and creates more drag.

Propeller naming convention

     One way manufacturers specify their props is to use a standard naming convention. You might see a prop listed as a 7x4 for example. 

     The first number is the diameter of the propeller (commonly in inches or milimeters) and the second number relates to the pitch of the blade also measured in a unit of length. This may seem a bit unusual to have an angle defined as a length but what this means is how far forward the propeller will go in one full revolution. To picture this imagine the propeller is immersed in something like jello, as the propeller turns it cuts through the jello and screws itself forward. The distance it travels is related to the angle of the blade thus a distance is given for the pitch. A higher pitch blade has a steeper angle and vice versa. 

     The blade tip moves faster than the root so to avoid creating larger loads on the blade, the tips are of less of an angle. If your highest load is at the tip then it acts as a lever and creates an amplified stress at the root. To get more thrust with less pitch just increase the blade length which also decreases the torque on the motor.

Why are wing tips curved up on commercial airliners?

The curved part of the wing tip is called a winglet a term used by Richard Whitcomb, a well known aerodynamicists that worked for NASA nasa.gov/richard_whitcomb, who refined the concept. These winglets are in place to help reduce the drag. More specifically the induced drag caused by the wing tip vortices that are created by the pressure difference between the top and bottom surfaces of the wing.

Airfoils create lift by creating a pressure difference on the wing from the difference in velocities on each surface. According to Bernoulli's principle a high velocity will create a low pressure and a low velocity has a high pressure, the airfoil creates this velocity difference because of its shape making air over its top faster than its bottom, thus creating lift. Anyone familiar with the concept of equilibrium will understand that air at high pressure will want to move to an area of lower pressure, this movement is what happens at the wing tips of aircraft as seen in the above picture. This movement creates what is known as a vortex which increases the pressure on the top of the wing which is undesirable to create lift. 

The way these winglets cut down on the drag is to disrupt or block some of the movement of air from the high pressure side to the low pressure side and thus creating a smaller vortex and less induced drag. 

There are other ways to reduce induced drag such as an elliptic lift distribution which is derived from the Kutta-Joukowski theorem based on lift from circulation, a concept you'll need to read the book to fully understand. After all the derivations it was found that the elliptic lift distribution provides the least amount of induced drag. To create an elliptic lift distribution you can create an elliptic planform as seen below. This, however, is hard to manufacture and thus expensive. An alternate option that is close is to taper the wing, so the point in which the wing attaches to the fuselage is the root chord and the end of the wing is the tip chord length and in case you were wondering the ideal ratio is tip/root of about 0.3. Most commercial airliners use a tapered wing with winglets. Winglets have been around since the 1950's but due to the increased cost of fuel they became popular again in today's industry. 

Delivery Drones

Unmanned, aerial vehicles, otherwise known as UAVs or drones, have a myriad of uses.  From recreation to war, the uses of this technology is endless.  One particular use of these drones that has caught my attention is the possibility of their use as a package delivery system.  Of the programs researching this possibility, Amazon's Amazon Prime Air is probably the most well known.

Amazon Prime Air is a service Amazon is aiming to bring forth that could revolutionize the way we shop.  It offers delivery times of thirty or fewer minutes.  This means that for many people, it could soon be faster to order a product online and have it delivered to their doorstep than they could accomplish driving to a store, purchasing the same product, and driving home.  This combined with the added convenience and multitude of other benefits could be huge for consumers.

As far as safety is concerned, two main focuses are being employed by Amazon: keeping drones out of manned airspace, and their own "sense and avoid" technology.  The drones will be flying at fewer than four hundred feet in the air so as to not interfere with any manned aircraft.  Additionally, they have developed a "sense and avoid" technology with which to detect obstructions or other airborne vessels and actively avoid them.  They have also stated "We will not launch Prime Air until we are able to demonstrate safe operations."

One of the largest obstacles to this endeavor is not a technological one.  It is the lack of regulation and law regarding this, as it is such a new field.  Problems include the entire legality of the situation such as air rights (people's rights to the airspace above private property).  Other problems include loss prevention from new problems such as people "hunting" these drones due to privacy concerns or in order to steal the contents of the package.

Delivery drones still have a long way to go before they become common-place, but they are an exciting, up-and-coming technology with the potential to have a big impact on consumer culture.

http://www.amazon.com/b?node=8037720011

It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane—It’s the Goodyear Blimp!

     The Goodyear Blimp is a familiar sight at sporting events and parades. Soaring high above the crowds, the blimp catches a bird’s eye view of the action below and offers a unique perspective to those watching the event on television; meanwhile, the people who witness the blimp in person feel the excitement of seeing an aircraft which, although very familiar, dates back to a time before the invention of heavier-than-air flight.


Left: The Defender with illuminated sign (ca. 1930). Right: The modern Goodyear Blimp ("Explore")

     The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company began producing airships in 1917 for the US Navy (“Explore”). The company sought to build a hangar near their company headquarters in Akron, Ohio; their search resulted in the construction of Wingfoot Lake Airship Base, which, as stated in the article “Explore the Blimp’s History,” was known as “’The Kitty Hawk of Lighter-Than-Air.’” This air ship base holds the distinction of being the United States’ oldest center for airship production (“Explore”). The Goodyear Blimps began their advertising career during the 1920s. While other pilots and aircraft entertained with trick flying and wing walking, the Goodyear Blimp flew overhead as a massive advertisement in the sky (“Explore”). The 1925 Goodyear Pilgrim was the first helium airship with a non-rigid structure (“Explore”), meaning that the body of the airship was shaped by air and not an inflexible frame. The beginning of the 1930s brought the advent of illuminated advertisement. The Goodyear Blimp Defender was outfitted with a Neon-O-Gram, a series of neon-tube panels which, when lit up, spelled Goodyear. This was the first time that such a sign was affixed to an airship (“Explore”). During World War II, Goodyear once again assisted the US military by constructing and providing airships to the Navy; the airships escorted Navy ships across open water by keeping a watchful eye from above (“Explore”).

     In the 1950s, the Goodyear Blimp made its debut in the television industry. The blimp’s first live broadcast occurred on New Year’s Day, 1955 at the Tournament of Roses parade; this marked the first time that an aircraft televised an event live concurrently with national television (“Explore”). Needless to say, the phenomenon caught on, and the Goodyear Blimp quickly gained in popularity. More and more sporting events were televised, including the first Super Bowl in 1967, and the Goodyear Blimps continued to make appearances (“Explore”). Goodyear unveiled Skytacular, a moving image sign, on the Mayflower blimp in 1966 (“Explore”); the new technology opened many more options for advertising. The Goodyear Blimp made its first appearance outside of the United States in 1972 with the blimp Europa (“Explore”). In the following decade, the Goodyear Blimps covered their first World Series (1980) and their first Olympic Games (1984) (“Explore”). Further modifications were made to the blimps in later years; in 1996, for example, LED technology was incorporated into the blimps’ signs for the first time, allowing for thousands of colors and high-resolution images (“Explore”).

     The Goodyear Blimps are best known for their coverage of sporting events and parades; however, the blimps continue to play an important role in the community as well. During the third game of the 1989 World Series, a 6.9 magnitude earthquake struck San Francisco; the Goodyear Blimp which was broadcasting the event quickly switched duties and began surveying the damage and looking for victims (“Explore”). In 1992, the Goodyear Blimp Stars & Stripes assisted with Hurricane Andrew recovery efforts by broadcasting messages in English and Spanish on the sides of the blimp (“Explore”).

     The Goodyear Blimps are magnificent aircraft which are reminiscent of another era. Although airplanes and other heavier-than-air aircraft dominate aviation today, the Goodyear Blimps continue the tradition of lighter-than-air travel.

Works Cited

“Explore the Blimp’s History. Relive History. Goodyear Blimp, n.d. Web. 17 April 2016. http://www.goodyearblimp.com/relive-history/#page/3

An Abbreviated History of Air Force One

     Air Force One plays an important role as one of numerous forms of transport for the President of the United States. The plane acts as a mobile symbol of the American presidency and bears the American flag, the presidential seal, and the name of our country (“Air Force One”, 1600 Penn). Today, this plane is a standard piece of equipment, but its inception occurred just under 75 years ago

The Flying White House, aka, Sacred Cow (Air Force One)

     The history of Air Force One began with President Franklin D. Roosevelt. By World War II, aviation technology had evolved to the point where transportation by aircraft was becoming more widely accepted and utilized. President Roosevelt flew to the Casablanca Conference in 1943, making him the first president to use air transportation during his presidency (Douglas). This trip made many people nervous for a variety of reasons. Not only was the president flying in an airplane (a dangerous enough prospect, considering there was a war going on), but he flew on an airplane which, although owned by the Navy, was not under the operation of the US military (Douglas). To remedy this problem, it was decided that a plane would be made specifically to transport the president. The first presidential plane was a Douglas VC-54C Skymaster, which was specially equipped with increased fuel capacity, office and conference areas, and an elevator, among other modifications (Douglas). This plane was known as The Flying White House; however, most people called the plane by its nickname, the Sacred Cow, because there was so much security and attention given to the aircraft (Douglas). President Roosevelt used the plane to fly to the Yalta Conference; however, this was the only flight Roosevelt would take on the Sacred Cow. The plane’s service to the United States continued under the Truman administration. The National Security Act of 1947, which President Truman signed aboard the Sacred Cow, created the US Air Force as an official branch of the US military (Douglas).

Columbine II (Moore)

     The next presidential plane was the Douglas VC-118 Independence, which was used by President Truman during his later years in office. Following this aircraft was the Lockheed C-121 Columbine II, which was used by President Eisenhower. During a flight over New York City in 1953, Eastern Airlines Flight 8610 almost collided with Air Force Flight 8610; it was unknown at the time that the Air Force plane was in fact the presidential plane and that President Eisenhower was aboard. In order to prevent such errors in communication from happening again, the presidential plane was officially designated “Air Force One” (Moore). Eisenhower utilized a few smaller planes as well, including Columbine III (Thompson). These planes would be the last presidential planes to have propellers.

     In 1962, Air Force One entered the jet era. A Boeing 707-320B aircraft was provided for presidential use. Named Special Air Mission (SAM) 26000 (Thompson), this Air Force One had a long term of service and was responsible for the transport of Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, H.W. Bush, and Clinton (Boeing). Jackie Kennedy decided on the blue and white paint scheme and the addition of the American flag and “United States of America” to the exterior of the plane (Boeing). The new design offered more space and comfort than any of the previous presidential planes. During its 36 years of flying, the plane witnessed great successes and horrible tragedies, including President Nixon’s visit to communist China and President Kennedy’s assassination (Boeing). A second Boeing VC-137C, called SAM 27000, was added to the presidential fleet in December 1972 (Boeing). 

Air Force One today ("Air Force One", 1600 Penn)

     Today, the Air Force One fleet consists of two Boeing 747 jetliners, named SAM 28000 and SAM 29000. These planes are equipped with specialized communication and navigation equipment and are customized to serve as a comfortable living and professional space (“Historical Snapshot”). A new plane may soon be added to the list of Air Force One aircraft; an announcement in January 2015 stated that a Boeing 747-8 would be commissioned as the next Air Force One (Thompson). This plane will bring new technology and capabilities as the first presidential aircraft commissioned in the twenty-first century.

     The fleet of presidential aircraft hold a special place in aviation and American history. Although the name “Air Force One” can be applied to any Air Force aircraft which transports the president (“Air Force One”, 1600 Penn), these presidential planes are unique in that they are made specifically to serve our Commander in Chief. Whether a propeller-driven aircraft or a sleek jetliner, Air Force One flies as an emblem of our government and our country.

Works Cited

“Air Force One.” 1600 Penn: History & Grounds. The White House, n.d. Web. 16 April 2016.     https://www.whitehouse.gov/1600/air-force-one

Air Force One. The White House Museum, n.d. Web. 17 April 2016. http://www.whitehousemuseum.org/special/AF1/

Boeing VC-137C SAM 26000. National Museum of the US Air Force, 01 October 2015. Web. 16 April 2016.

Douglas VC-54C “Sacred Cow.” National Museum of the US Air Force, 01 October 2015. Web. 16 April 2016. http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/Visit/MuseumExhibits/FactSheets/Display/tabid/509/Article/195813/douglas-vc-54c-sacred-cow.aspx

“Historical Snapshot.” VC-137C Air Force One. Boeing, 2016. Web. 16 April 2016. http://www.boeing.com/history/products/vc-137c-air-force-one.page

Moore, Jim. “The First Air Force One.” Online video clip. First Air Force One Flies Again. AOPA, 24 March 2016. Web. 16 April 2016. http://www.aopa.org/News-and-Video/All-News/2016/March/24/First-Air-Force-One-flies-again

Thompson, Mark. See Air Force One’s Transformation Over 70 Years. Time, 29 January 2015. Web. 16 April 2016. http://time.com/3687741/air-force-one-obama-boeing-history/

Aviation Secrets at Area 51

     Aliens, UFO’s, government cover-ups: all of these are commonly associated with the top-secret testing facility known as Area 51. Located in the Mojave Desert northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada (Pedlow, 71), Area 51 has fascinated alien enthusiasts for decades due to the shroud of secrecy around the base. In 2013, the CIA officially acknowledged the existence of Area 51 and released documents detailing some of the projects conducted there. The existence of aliens or flying saucers is still up for debate; however, the government was indeed developing and testing aircraft at Area 51 which were unlike anything this world has ever seen.

     The world which emerged at the end of World War II was entirely different from the world which had entered the war. Many of the European countries were in shambles, and the United States and the Soviet Union had gained superpower status. In addition, nuclear warfare had entered the stage. With tensions still high from World War II and the threat of nuclear war on the horizon, the era known as the Cold War began. The United States sought to gather as much information as possible on the U.S.S.R. and their allies; however, since they could not send in ground forces without sparking a war, they used more covert tactics, including spies and reconnaissance aircraft. In order to be effective, reconnaissance planes had to avoid enemy fire and appear invisible on radar, and the military believed that high-altitude technology was the key to success (Pedlow 20). The search for an aircraft design began. Clarence L. (Kelly) Johnson of Lockheed Aircraft Corporation designed a plane known as the CL-282 which would be capable of reaching an altitude of 70,000 feet. He utilized many design techniques of gliders in his model, such as removable wings and tail and the absence of landing gear (Pedlow 24). The Air Force rejected Johnson’s design because it did not meet military standards. [General Curtis E. Lemay, the commander of the Strategic Air Command, was noted to have said that “he was not interested in a plane that had no wheels or guns” (Pedlow 25)]. Despite the rejection by the military, the CIA saw promise in Lockheed’s design. The CL-282 was officially authorized as a CIA project in 1954 (Pedlow 49) and became known as the U-2 project, one of the most famous spy plane projects in U.S. history.


U-2 Spy Plane (Richelson)

     The development and testing of the U-2 was completed under strictest secrecy, for in order to obtain an advantage over the Soviets, the new technology had to remain highly classified and out of enemy hands. Groom Lake, Nevada was chosen as a base to test the U-2’s and train pilots; the site had been previously used by the Army Air Corps to train pilots in aerial gunnery during World War II (Pedlow 69). The CIA negotiated with the Atomic Energy Commission, who owned a large area of land adjacent to the Groom Lake base, to purchase Groom Lake as well as a portion of land known as Area 51 (Pedlow 69). The site provided exactly what the CIA had been hoping for: plenty of space to conduct test flights and seclusion from prying eyes. Area 51 went by numerous names, including Paradise Ranch, a name coined by Johnson to increase the appeal of the site (Pedlow 70). Operations at the base began in the summer of 1955 (Pedlow 70).

     Top-secret work at Area 51 continued for decades. The base tested numerous other classified aircraft, including the A-12 OXCART, another high-altitude photoreconnaissance plane which was the successor to the U-2. These aircraft proved to be invaluable assets to U.S. intelligence operations. Both the U-2 and the A-12 were used to photograph enemy territory in search of missile launch sites and other sites which were of importance. The photography equipment as well as the aircraft designs for these two planes were revolutionary in the field of aviation. The OXCART, for example, was capable reaching a speed of Mach-3—three times the speed of sound! (Jacobsen). The secrecy of and tight security around Area 51 sparked the public’s interest, and sightings of alien aircraft began to spread like wildfire. The public’s imaginations went wild, creating an entire culture around the base which continues to this day. Some of the UFO sightings may have been top-secret aircraft. As described in the LA Times article, the OXCART had a radically designed fuselage which resembled the disk shape of flying saucers; this, combined with the aircraft’s high speed, would have appeared to the casual observer as a plane from another world (Jacobsen) because very few people knew that that level of technology even existed, let alone was fully operational. No one can say for sure whether visitors will have extraterrestrial encounters at Area 51, but it is now certain that the aviation history of the site and the advancements made there are truly extraordinary.

Works Cited

Jacobsen, Annie. “The Road to Area 51.” Entertainment. Los Angeles Times, 2016. Web. 16 April 2016. http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-mag-april052009-backstory-story.html

Pedlow, Gregory W., and Donald E. Welzenbach. Central Intelligence Agency. The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance: The U-2 and OXCART Programs, 1954-1974. Washington, DC: History Staff, 1992. Approved for Release: 25 June 2013. Web. 16 April 2016. http://www.foia.cia.gov/sites/default/files/document_conversions/2/DOC_0000190094.pdf

Richelson, Jeffrey T., ed. "The U-2, OXCART, and the SR-71." U.S. Arial Espionage in the Cold
War and Beyond. National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 74, 16 October 2002.
Web. 16 April 2016. http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB74/

Unaccompanied Minors

Because United almost didn't let me on the plane because I didn't look old enough, I decided to look up age restrictions for popular airlines.

American Airlines:

0-5 Children under 5 years of age may not travel alone under any circumstances.
5-7 Can only travel on nonstop or direct flights. They can’t travel on certain flights on smaller aircraft when a flight attendant is not required.
8-14 Can travel on any nonstop or direct flight, or any connecting flight through Charlotte, NC (CLT), Washington Reagan, D.C. (DCA), Dallas Forth Worth, TX (DFW), New York, NY (JFK and LGA), Los Angeles, CA (LAX), Miami, FL (MIA), Chicago, IL (ORD), Philadelphia, PA (PHL) and Phoenix, AZ (PHX).
15-17 Children in this age range don’t have to use the unaccompanied minor service, but it’s still available to them. When traveling alone, children 16 years of age and older can book online, to book children 15 years of age, you’ll need to call Reservations.

Children 2-14 years old can travel as an 'accompanied minor' with someone 16 years or older

You have to be 15 years old to sit in the emergency exit row.

Southwest Airlines:

Children ages 5 through 11 traveling without an accompanying Passenger age 12 or older must travel as an Unaccompanied Minor (UM) on Southwest Airlines.

Children ages 12 through 17 traveling without an accompanying Passenger age 18 or older are considered Young Travelers (YT) on Southwest Airlines.

You have to be 15 years old to sit in the emergency exit row.

Delta:

4 years of age and younger: Not permitted to travel alone. Must be accompanied by a passenger at least 18 years of age.

Delta provides special services for children who are flying by themselves. Children 5-14 years of age traveling without an adult (18 years plus) are considered an Unaccompanied Minor (UMNR) and must participate in the UMNR program.

Unaccompanied Minor (UMNR) service is mandatory for ages 5-14. Children ages 15-17 are not required to have unaccompanied service; however, we will provide the service if requested. The UMNR service fee will apply.

You have to be 15 years old to sit in the emergency exit row.

United:

Children younger than 5 years of age are not accepted as unaccompanied minors.

Children 5 to 15 years of age who are traveling alone must use our unaccompanied minor service. A service charge will apply.

Unaccompanied minor service is not available for children over age 15. Children ages 16 and 17 may travel alone on any United- or United Express-operated flights.

You have to be 15 years old to sit in the emergency exit row.

Overall, most sites suggest similar age restrictions. They all have the same age limit for sitting in an emergency exit row, which means the staff in charge of boarding my plane thought I could be younger than 15.

Why do aircraft have swept wings?

Modern planes fly farther and faster than most could have ever imagined when the first aircraft were designed in the early 20th century.  As late as 1935, the fastest aircraft only approached about 250 mph, and a large obstacle was the drag that aircraft experienced at higher speeds.  As more powerful engines were developed and the thrust capabilities became much higher, aviators began to notice that as aircraft approached about 3/4 of the speed of sound, the drag on the aircraft became exponentially higher.  The drag became such a barrier that few engines could provide enough thrust to increase speed even incrementally, and it became apparent that the wings were largely responsible for the impediment.



Increasingly swept wings from left to right. 

The problem is due to the aerodynamic properties of subsonic flight.  With any projectile, the craft can only travel by displacing air around is body, which at low speeds encourages aerodynamic designs that allow air to flow around its shape easily, such as rounded edges.  In cars, this leads to designs that look like bullets, but airplanes can only fly by displacing air downwards, requiring it to have a certain amount of aerodynamic inefficiency.  Wings are effective at creating lift, but approaching the speed of sound, this lift is negated by the drag.


How swept wings displace air versus straigh wings.

When wings displace air quickly, it creates momentary high pressure regions in front of the wing and low pressure regions behind the wing.  When these regions equilibrate, a shockwave is propagate on the wing and create drag and instability.  The combat this, airplane designers began to focus on making extremely thin wings, but the Germans instead relied upon trying a new wing design that was more aerodynamic while still creating lift:  swept wings.


The difference in lift given by swept and straight wing designs.

In the aftermath of WWII, the allied forces found these designs and immediately recognized their value.  Unlike straight wing configurations, swept wings experience much less drag at the same speed by allowing the air to flow over the wings without causing such drastic changes in air pressure.  Because of this, the efficiency of aircraft at high speeds is much greater with swept wing designs, leading to its proliferation in aircraft today. 

Million Dollar App

The TSA uses an iPad application that randomly chooses 'left' or 'right', deciding which pre-check line a passenger must use.  This program is designed to increase safety by preventing "predicting which of the Transport Security Administration's pre-check lines might make you more likely for a random check."  This was the end of the story until one man decided to find out what the cost of this application was.  To do so, he filed a FOIA request to discover for how much money the contract was.

$1,4444,315.

Granted, this price was for the entirety of the contract which encompassed a few projects.  According to the TSA, the "total development cost" of the application was $47,400.  The "total development cost", however, may not accurately portray the cost of the program to the TSA as "total development cost" implies the cost to build the program, not the price of it.

Even giving the benefit of the doubt to the TSA and accepting that $47,000 was the final price for the product, this price is still absurd.  Given that a randomizer would rely on a random number generator and random number generators are covered in introductory programming courses, a freshman-level programmer could make a similar application.  In fact, to prove how simple of an application this was and how ridiculous of a price even $47,000 was, former IBM developer Sandesh B. Suvarna built an application with the same functionality for both Android and iOS platforms in only four minutes.  He even went so far as to post a video of him doing so to YouTube: How to build a $1.4Million dollar app within 4 minutes.


https://kev.inburke.com/kevin/tsa-randomizer-app-cost-336000/?lobsters
http://www.cnet.com/news/youll-never-guess-how-much-the-tsas-randomizer-app-cost/
http://www.cnet.com/news/former-ibmer-shows-you-can-build-tsas-randomizer-app-in-4-mins/

Jets are cool

The jet propulsion engine is one of the most exciting innovations of the 20th century, providing the thrust needed to make aircraft fly faster and farther than ever imagined.

A jet engine is designed based on an understanding of Newton's third law:  Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.  By propagating a force in one direction, an equal and opposite force will propagate in the opposite direction, such as when riding a skateboard a person pushes themselves forward by pushing the ground backwards.  In the same way, a jet engine propels itself forward by pushing a blast of air behind it.


A jet engine in action.

The engine accomplishes this through a process of compressing and igniting air.  For a standard jet engine, there are 4 main components:  a fan, a compressor, a combustor, and a turbine.  First, the fan draws air into the engine in large quantities, which the compressor then compresses to a very high pressure.  With the gas at such a high pressure, it is injected with highly explosive fuel and ignited to release huge amounts of energy.  With the high pressure gas now extremely hot, it quickly evacuates out of the back of the combustor and is forced through a turbine, which it spins.  The turbine is connected to the fan, and allows it to continue to turn and bring more air into the engine.  Finally, the air escapes the turbine and exits the engine to rapidly expand and cool, pushing the aircraft forward.

Jet engines arose as superior to propeller aircraft due to a mechanical limit of propellers.  As the tips of propellers reach the speed of sound, the added thrust becomes smaller and smaller, meaning that to attain greater speeds an entirely new system of propulsion must be used.

Although the theory behind jet propeled engines was understood for centuries, the first functional jet engines were not used until 1939, when the German engineer Hans von Ohain developed the first jet-powered aircraft.  Although the jets were far superior to the technology employed by allied air forces, the jets were not available for battle use until 1944, too late to turn the tide of the war.  In the aftermath of Germany's defeat, recovered German jets were discovered by the allied forces and used to produce their own jet engines for military use.


The Heinkel He 178, the first jet.

Although jet engines struggled with efficiency for a long time, in the 1970's high-bypass turbofan jet engines were invented and the efficiency began to rival that of propeller engines.  Today, jet engines are standard on almost all aircraft besides small consumer craft.

Bombing of Dresden

On February 13-15, 1945, allied British and American air forces bombed Dresden, Germany. Targeting a famous hub of culture and history in Germany, the bombing of Dresden has gained intense notoriety because of the incredible devastation it caused in comparison with the tactical gains.


Dresden's location within Germany.

The bombing was undertaken as an effort to assist the Soviet advance from the Eastern Front pushing toward Berlin.  Germany had recently failed in its efforts to stymie the Allied forces in the West, and with the Battle of Bulge already unsuccessful, Germany moved its defenses to try and slow the Soviet advance.  With the opposite front now vulnerable, it was reasoned that sacking German civilian and industrial centers in the South could cause a huge amount of chaos and divert attention from resisting the Soviets.  Winston Churchill decided that targets must be chosen to cripple German infrastructure, and pressured his officials to draw up plans for bombing.  To this end, Dresden was chosen as a target because of its war industry and the number of refugees that had collected to escape the Soviet advance.  It was reasoned that a devastating blow could force Germany to surrender more quickly.

The raid began on February 13th, with several waves of bombers seeking to utterly destroy parts of the city.  The first wave dropped flares to light up the target area, and the second wave dropped heavy explosives to destroy roofs and rupture water lines, which would make the city unable to effectively combat fires.  This allowed incendiaries to be dropped, about 200,000 incendiaries in all, which burned the city uncontrollably.  The next two days, American bombers devastated what areas had been left unharmed by the British RAF, as bad weather diverted some US bombers from other cities toward the civilian areas in Dresden.


A devastated portion of Dresden.

The aftermath of the raids was apocalyptic, with large parts of the city completely wasted, and as many as 25,000 (almost entirely civilian) casualties.  Although large civilian casualties were not new to the war, the bombing of Dresden became notorious after it became apparent that it was not as crucial of a military target as originally claimed.  In fact, it later surfaced that a large reason the city was chosen was because it was a prized cultural treasure in Germany, and also because it would target refugees fleeing the Soviet advance.  It became a point of German propaganda that the attacks were simply senseless violence against innocent civilians, and the lack of significant military targets seemed to support this idea.

Even so, the raids did accomplish their goal of forcing Germany's hand, with Germany formally surrendering on May 8, 1945.  At least part of the motivation to surrender was the evaporation of civilian support for the war effort, likely a consequence of intense destruction of Dresden.  Even if the raids were unjustified, they seem to have been effective.  Debate continues to this day about the necessity of the raids.

It's Raining... CATS?!

            Being a proud and unabashed cat-lover, I couldn’t resist writing a blog post about them when I found an article tying cats to aviation. You might say that I was overjoyed at the discovery! Contrary to what dog-lovers say, cats are better than dogs in nearly every way. Granted, I may be a bit biased, but hear me out: do dogs bathe themselves? No. They let themselves get nasty and stinky, forcing their owners to clean them if they don’t want them to eventually smell like a sewer. Do dogs respect personal space? NOT AT ALL. They follow you everywhere (super annoying) and to add extra insult, they LICK YOU from time to time. So disgusting. Cats, on the other hand, respect personal space but still want to spend time with their owners, yet in realistic time periods, just like normal human interactions. Also, can dogs learn how to poop in a box? NO. They force their owners to clean up after them. And oftentimes they poop in their neighbors’ yards, which poor people like me end up STEPPING IN when they’re just trying to enjoy a nice summer day. Also, cats have been proven to be more intelligent than dogs. They can make a large variety of sounds to attempt to communicate different emotions to their humans and to each other, whereas dogs are capable of producing just a few noises. This is just one example of many saying that cats are much smarter. But I digress. The most important thing I want to stress (the point relating to the article I found) is that in many areas of the world, the common cat has a serious and pivotal ecological impact (which you can’t really say about the common dog). In the 1950s, a small town in the country of Borneo (an island in southeast Asia’s Malay archipelago) had a severe malady. And the only prescription, the only hope, the only cure? Cats. Only cats.

Borneo is boxed in red in map above.

           

            In the early ‘50s, the Dayak people of Borneo had a very serious problem. They began to experience an outbreak of Malaria due to a swarm of malaria-infested mosquitos. Many people were dying, and they were nearly helpless to defend against the disease. Upon hearing about this situation, the World Health Organization stepped in to attempt to save the Dayaks. They sprayed the chemical DDT (an insecticide) around the village. The mosquitos died, and the village appeared to be saved. However, after a short while, bad things started happening. The thatched roofs of the Dayak houses started caving in. Why? Because the DDT had killed a parasitic wasp that ate thatch-eating caterpillars. This was the least of the Dayak’s concerns, though. In the weeks after the DDT treatment, sylvatic plague and typhus started breaking out in the village, once again killing large numbers of villagers. Why? Once again, because of the DDT. It had killed the gecko-lizard, which was the main staple of the diet of the local feral cats. Thus, the cats also died. This allowed rats to run rampant in the village, and they were the carriers of the sylvatic plague and typhus. This created a new problem for the WHO, so they convened and came up with a solution for the rat problem—Operation Cat Drop. They loaded cats into planes (some reports indicate that there may have been as many as 14,000 cats involved) and they flew them to Borneo. When they arrived at the Dayak village, they grabbed the cats and parachuted them to the ground. The Dayaks turned the cats loose, and by all accounts, they seem to have decimated the rat population, saving the village.

            There are several variations to this story, but the main premise would seem to be historically accurate. So if you’re not a cat person, just keep these things in mind. Not only are cats flat-out awesome, but they save lives. Case closed.

            And now, for your viewing pleasure, kittens: