cool use of technology

[piranha]

the paramour found this (since zie reads slashdot while i am too out of it to do that these days); i'm just flogging it:

steve fossett (who is famous in aviator circles for holding a number of records, including flying a plane around the world without refueling) went missing in a single-engine plane in the nevada desert. digitalglobe (who supplies much satellite imagery for google earth) went and got high resolution images of the area. amazon is making those available for people to look at through its mechanical turk. now anyone who cares from anywhere in the world can try and find a missing airplane in nevada.

i think that rocks. and i'm hoping it'll turn out better than a similar search for computer scientist jim gray who got lost at sea earlier this year (he was never found AFAIK). fossett has been missing for 6 days, but he's known to be a survivalist, so all isn't lost yet.

p.s.: dear fellow aviators: file a fucking flight plan and stick to it.

Comments

[erik]

Here's the thing about the flight plan:

Whenever there's a light plane accident, the news always breathlessly reports that the pilot didn't file a flight plan...as if it was a huge deal.

But it's not. Almost no flight plans are filed for light aviation flights. Because for most light aviation flights, the flight plan is "I'm going to get up in the air and fly around a while," or at the most specific "I'm going to [other airport]." And in fact Fossett's plan was to get up in the air and scout around for a location for this other project he was working on. No flight plan you could possibly file would give an ounce of help.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I was going to say pretty much the same. His whole purpose, as I read it, was to wander around looking. He could have filed a flight plan giving the area where he would be wandering, and finding him would pose exactly the challenge that it now does.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

are you a pilot? have you ever looked for somebody who was lost in a plane?

i am, and i have. and no, knowing the general area where somebody went doesn't pose the same challenge; how can you even think that? the area of a circle is larger than the area of a section of the circle. a section is faster to search than a circle unless one has unlimited search power (which nobody ever has). instead of flying over many square miles where he never went and never intended to go, the limited search force could fly only over the area where he might actually be. it would still be a bitch to find him, and they might not do so in time, but at least it wouldn't be totally random and have a higher chance of success.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

No, I'm not a pilot, although I was basing my response on something a pilot said about this. Certainly, you know more about this than I do firsthand.

A flight plan would have helped if he knew "where he intended to go," but did he? The most cautious thing, of course, would have been for him to plan to cover a particular specific area, file that flight plan, then cover just that area, no matter what else occurred to him in flight; repeat until all possibilities were exhausted. But I can understand why an adventurous person might not do that.

risk assessment

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

*nod*. yes, that would have been the smart choice. he wouldn't have had to come back in to file a different plan, he could have called in a change over the radio. i've changed my mind while flying often enough (and in a glider you go where the lift is, which can make your course much more erratic than in a powered aircraft). but you tell your team; you tell somebody. i had that hammered into my brain, and i really am glad for it. i've not been in danger of dying (well, no more than anyone who flies), but i have landed out and have had to wait for the team to get me -- not telling them approximately where i was would have meant much longer wait times.

and i think you're right, an adventurous person might not be inclined to think like that, even though he was a glider pilot as well. i don't know why i am surprised at the stupid things even experienced people do on impulse, it's not like i myself am free from instant idiocy attacks. i was talking with the paramour about this after posting, and we thought that maybe his risk assessment was skewed by some of the amazing things he had done -- once you fly solo around the world, puttering around in a citabria in nevada might just not seem like a big deal.

flight plans

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

i don't get my information from the news, and this isn't something i am arguing from my armchair; i am arguing it from actual experience. the news seem to think VFR flight plans are some sort of tracking device, which they're not. but they are a device by means of which searching for you becomes easier than if you hadn't bothered. and it _is_ a huge deal. have you ever looked for someone who was lost in a plane? i have. it is incredibly hard even if you know the route. anything that makes it easier is a good idea in my book. maybe the fact that i started out flying gliders (which land out in unknown territory all the time) has informed my attitude, but i am certainly far from alone.

VFR flight plans are not required by law, but i was taught to file one, and certainly did, and so did plenty of other GA pilots at the airports from which i flew. many larger airports require them or you are not allowed to land there. i have no doubt that pilots in podunkville in the middle of nowhere might not bother. but in new jersey with its busy airspace we didn't just "fly around" -- even if we did, we would give an approximate plan, and if we changed our mind we would call in. and i am damn glad i got that type of training because i actually think it is a good thing.

this was quite hard for me because i am not a "plan" kind of person, but i understood the logistics, and so i did it -- it was never my airplane either, which contributed to that. "i am going to [other airport] and plan to arrive there around hh:mm" _is_ a flight plan for this purpose. if you actually file it with ATC, you give some extra info such as what type and colour your plane is, how much fuel you carry, and how many passengers are onboard (and then you let them know when you actually took off). it's not an onerous task, but i wouldn't rag on people if they didn't file with ATC, as long as they left some information of that kind at the airport from which they're taking off, or just with a friend who's expecting them at the other end. it needn't be formal. i've heard some throwaway comments from cowboy pilots about how you don't plan your car trip to the supermarket either, but the analogy stinks; flying a plane is really never like driving your car to the supermarket. and even so -- when i leave the house to drive to the supermarket, i'll say to the paramour "i'm going to food country, back in a few". it saves zir some worry. it hurts nothing.

i thought flight plans were great for myself, nevermind for somebody who might have to search for me. they encouraged me in working out an good route, preparing to avoid hazardous or boring areas, and reminded me to write down radio frequencies and the like which would be cumbersome to fiddle with once in the air. even at times when i was just flying around it was good prep; made me a safer pilot.

i know part of why i feel that way is that i was a new pilot. it's pretty well known that pilots in general enter a couple of danger zones during their career where their confidence can betray them, and people are warned about that all the time. looks to me like fossett fell prey to that (and not very surprisingly, considering he was an adventurer and did lots of things in airplanes that few others would ever do). if he was planning to just scout around, he could still limit the area instead of leaving it wide open. it makes a big difference whether one has to search a cone or a circle. he might have known the area like the back of his hand and with his experience he certainly didn't need a plan for all the reasons a new pilot does -- but that also means he must have known how very hard he would be to find if something happened. he was a glider pilot; he knew. it wasn't smart to neglect that possibility.