maa@ssc-bee.UUCP (Mark A Allyn) (02/26/86)
(I am re - posting this because I don't know if I posted the original correctly) I am presenting this idea to the net to get any reaction to it both positive and negative. I am especially interested in reactions from those in the travel business, those familiar with weather and meterology, especially fog conditions. As those in the Seattle area are aware of, there was severe fog during the weeks prior and during last Christmas (1985) that virtually shut down Seattle Tacoma Airport as well as other airports for nearly two weeks and upset travel for thousands of people. During this crisis, I was made aware, during discussions with friends of mine, that the Brittish, during World War II, had a system called Operation FIDO. The Brittish, at that time, suffered from severe and frequent fogs. Operation FIDO consisted of employing several large gasoline burners placed alongside the runways of airports. hat were used to raise the fog cieling by heating the air in the vicinity of the runway and causing circulation. An idea has come to my mind that a similar approach could be done at airports like Sea Tac today in order to minimize disruption to travel by fog. My proposal would be to construct deflectors at periodic intervals along the parimeter of the runway sections of airports; deflectors similar to those used to protect roads and hanger areas from jet blast. In the event of fog, a number of aircraft, preferably jets, whose exhaust is hot, would back up to the deflectors and run their engines, thereby hopefully causing the same effect as that accomplished by Operation FIDO. I realyze that running jet engines like this may cause fewer flying hours until the next FAA mandated maintenance checkup, but I think that there can be ways around this. Examples would include the airport re-imbursing the airline for the lost engine time or changing the FAA rules slightly to allow this kind of operation to be exempted from the engine time between maintenance. Please 'bounce this around a little' and give me feedback, both positive and negative. I intend to write a proposal and present it to the Port of Seattle to be implemented as a plan of action in the event the airport is affected by fog conditions. I desperately need ideas on this in order to substantiate my position. Feel free to call me if you don't want to post on the net. Thank you very much in advance!! Mark A. Allyn Boeing Aerospace !uw-beaver!ssc-vax!ssc-bee!maa Phone 206-773-3437 (work)
LShilkoff.ES@XEROX.COM (03/04/86)
I can see one negative on the proposal in that running a turbojet engine at high RPM's for an extended period of time on the ground could have a detrimental effect on the life of the engine. Typically, an engine is not run on the ground at high levels for but a minute or two since take-off occurs shortly thereafter. The ground is a very dirty area for a turbo jet engine and the particles drawn into the engine could drastically reduce it's life. Perhaps something other than an aircraft can be used. Larry
CMP.WERNER@R20.UTEXAS.EDU (Werner Uhrig) (03/04/86)
Mark, sounds as if you got stranded 'once-too-often' ((-: seriously, I haven't the "foggiest" idea if what you propose is economical and feasable from a safety viewpoint. It's one thing to do under wartime emergency needs, but for a civilian environment? I doubt it. ---Werner -------
king@kestrel.ARPA (Dick King) (03/11/86)
From: LShilkoff.ES@XEROX.COM Newsgroups: net.aviation Date: 4 Mar 86 18:46:00 GMT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU I can see one negative on the proposal in that running a turbojet engine at high RPM's for an extended period of time on the ground could have a detrimental effect on the life of the engine. Typically, an engine is not run on the ground at high levels for but a minute or two since take-off occurs shortly thereafter. The ground is a very dirty area for a turbo jet engine and the particles drawn into the engine could drastically reduce it's life. Perhaps something other than an aircraft can be used. Larry Why not use engines that are at the end of their useful life? There must be a time when an engine still works but is deemed too old (or unreliable for some other reason) to fly! -dick
markb@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Mark Biggar) (03/11/86)
In Arthur C. Clarke's semi-autobiographical novel "Glide Path" he
describes this system and said it was only used 2 or 3 times because the
turbulence caused by the heating of the air made it almost impossible
to land a plane of the strip.
Mark Biggar
{allegra,burdvax,cbosgd,hplabs,ihnp4,akgua,sdcsvax}!sdcrdcf!markbdaver@felix.UUCP (Dave Richards) (03/14/86)
In article <491@ssc-bee.UUCP> maa@ssc-bee.UUCP (Mark A Allyn) writes: > Operation FIDO consisted of employing several large >gasoline burners placed alongside the runways of airports. hat were used >to raise the fog cieling by heating the air in the vicinity of the >runway and causing circulation. > >My proposal would be to construct deflectors at periodic intervals >along the parimeter of the runway sections of airports; deflectors >similar to those used to protect roads and hanger areas from jet >blast. In the event of fog, a number of aircraft, preferably jets, >whose exhaust is hot, would back up to the deflectors and run their >engines, thereby hopefully causing the same effect as that accomplished >by Operation FIDO. > >Mark A. Allyn I think Mark's heart is in the right place and he has a good idea, but I think it needs a little massaging to get the maximum benefit. 1. While jet engines do produce large amounts of heat, they are primarily designed to produce large quantities of thrust. To use a jet engine burning jet aviation fuel as a heater is pretty expensive. Especially when the engine is attached to an aircraft with a value in the 100 million dollar range. That's a lot of fuel, and a lot of real estate sitting around depreciating. 2. Jet engines are noisy. A few of them sitting around idling is one thing, but if we're talking about several running for long periods at high power settings, then we're talking about people complaining (and rightfully so!) if they live within about a mile or two of the airport. 3. How would the aircraft be tethered to prevent it from racing around, terrorizing the neighborhood? Remember, we're looking at somewhere between 10,000 and 100,000 pounds of thrust for most of these aircraft. I don't know how long brakes will be reliable at these loads. A pilot would probably be required in each cockpit at all times, just in case. (or at least someone able to steer the plane, shut down the engines, etc.) Those wages add up to more expense. 4. I question the usefulness of clearing the fog *right at the runway*. While this might help planes taxi, what good does it do right after takeoff or on final approach? Isn't that where the most vision is needed? Of course if there's wind, and it's going right down the runway then you'd have sort of an "alley" of vision stretching out the final path. Any wind other than straight down the runway will negate the whole effect. This last problem is the only one that I think is at odds with the basic idea, and I don't have an answer. But, never being one to criticize without an answer of my own, I propose the following: Implement the idea, but use multiple large heating units. Permanently installed, they could run on natural gas or heating oil, either one of which would cost hundreds of dollars less per minute than using jets. Of course no matter what, it's never cheap to heat the whole outdoors! (anyone who's ever had a parent and a house with a door knows that!) Foggily, Dave "Ramjet" Richards PS. I don't see any validity in allowing jet engines used in this way to have the time subtracted from their inspection/maintenence schedule. The engine doesn't care whether it's pushing an aircraft or sitting on the ground, it has the same load at a given power setting either way. As a matter of fact, it may even run hotter because it's not getting the extra cooling over the outside by moving through the air at hundreds of miles per hour. Now that I think about it, that may kill the whole idea right there! D.R.
root@BANG.UUCP (03/14/86)
Its lunacy to consider that owners/operators of Jets are going to agree that they should crew an aircraft and run it for long periods of time on the ground. Besides the salaries involved, the expenses are enormous just in operating costs, let alone the loss in operating revenue from having the aircraft just sitting on the ground. You are talking about multi-million dollar space heaters with operating costs in the thousands for the large ones and 400-800 an hour for the smallest (Lears and Citations). In any event the results would be marginal at best. A better choice might be by using technology to circumvent the problems associated with the fog. Currently a CAT-III approach allows a landing in practically 0/0 weather. Merely sophisticated avionics, appropriate crew training and reasonable geography are required. The system is in use now. Certainly a more reasonable choice than the altruistic and feeble attempts to clear the skys.. Bret Marquis bang!bam@NOSC.ARPA (sdcsvax, ihnp4) bang!bam
hqb@gatech.CSNET (hqb) (03/15/86)
Concerning all the suggestions to use jet engines/heaters etc. to burn off
the fog: Hasn't this been done at Orly (sp?) airport in France? I seem
to remember reading something about experiments along this line being
conducted there - apparently they have a truly *awful* fog problem.
echo --
Henry Bibb
School of Information & Computer Science, Georgia Tech, Atlanta GA 30332
CSNet: hqb @ GATech ARPA: hqb.GATech @ CSNet-Relay
uucp: ...!{akgua,allegra,rlgvax,sb1,unmvax,ulysses,ut-sally}!gatech!hqb
--
Henry Bibb
School of Information & Computer Science, Georgia Tech, Atlanta GA 30332
CSNet: hqb @ GATech ARPA: hqb.GATech @ CSNet-Relay
uucp: ...!{akgua,allegra,rlgvax,sb1,unmvax,ulysses,ut-sally}!gatech!hqb