Destructive Wind

     Weather is a very powerful and destructive force that has a huge effect on aviation. Not only can wind damage aircraft when flying they can do major damage on the ground as well. Pilots as well as ground crew have to follow certain protocols to keep the aircraft safe. 

    These high winds are formed when there is uneven heating of the earth from the sun (Kirmayer, 2019). As the sun heats the earth air will rise and lower (Kirmayer, 2019). By doing this it creates high and low pressure areas that surrounding air must move into, which results into what we call wind (Kirmayer, 2019). With high wind forces it creates turbulence which is a change in pressure and velocity flow. This makes an aircraft difficult to fly and even worse land. 

 While an aircraft is on the ground high winds can lift an aircraft right off the ground. There are a few things that ground crew can do to help prevent structural damage from high winds. The first is mooring of the aircraft. This will help prevent the aircraft from blowing away and slamming on the ground. The second way is to park the aircraft facing the oncoming wind and putting gust locks in. These locks help prevent structural damage from flight controls banging around due to the wind. The last resort to keep the aircraft safe is parking it in a hanger or flying it to another airport. 

    

    Flying on an aircraft when landing with a huge cross wind is very intimidating and scary. I have also seen flaps, rudders and elevators completely destroyed due to high winds. High winds can be very dangerous and we all must follow the correct procedures when flying or working on our aircraft.



References:

Jessen, Janelle. High Wind Flips Plane. 2014, hl.nwaonline.com/news/2014/jul/30/high-wind-flips-plane-20140730/

Kirmayer, Andy. How Are Winds Formed. 2019, sciencing.com/winds-formed-5145233.html.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pollution in Aviation

Image
    Whenever you hear the word pollution and aircraft in the same sentence you might think of burning fuel. However, this is just one of the many different types of pollution found at airports. I believe that there should be four main category's when discussing aircraft pollution.  Air pollution (fuel consumption) Noise pollution (sound) Water pollution (liquid contaminants) Solid Pollution (Solid Waste)     These are the four main categories that come with running an airport. Even though air pollution has the biggest impact on the overall environment due to the hundreds of thousands of gallons of fuel burned a day, the category that is hardest to control as an airport manager would be water pollution. Whenever an aircraft forms ice around any part of the structure it will need to be deiced before take off. This de-ice fluid consists of glycol which is very bad for the environment. As the World Health Organization states " Laboratory tests exposing aquatic organisms to stream
Read more

Air Traffic Control Provisions

Image
      Have you ever wondered who controls the traffic in the air when you fly? Just like traffic lights and signs when you drive there must be some way to direct traffic in the air. The way this happens is through Air Traffic Controllers (ATC). These individuals are usually in towers so they can see the whole airport to direct traffic on the ground as well in the nearby airspace (ATC, 2021).      The way they communicate with each other is through radio devices on the aircraft. There are usually two different types that are commonly used, known as Ultra High Frequency (UHF) or Very High Frequency (UHF, 2002). These two different types of communication help them translate information to manage the traffic on the sky and ground.     There are many different ATC entities, the two I will go over will be The North Atlantic Track system (NAT) and North Pacific Route System (NOPAC). Both ATC's control different airspaces. The NAT controls the busiest airspace which links Europe to North A
Read more