[Rhodes22-list] Believe it or not radar story

Sat Feb 5 21:19:08 EST 2005

Thanks,

I have my doubts about the performance as described of radar with ice too.

I do know you can land a big plane on ice with luck, training, and the right
landing gear.  I think the NY Air National Guard flies C-130s with skis.  We
had visitors one time on my ship who flew into an ice camp near the Pole we
surfaced next to in a ski-equipped DeHaviland Twin Otter (I think) about the
size of a 15-20 passenger regional plane.

Jim Connolly

-----Original Message-----
From: rhodes22-list-bounces at rhodes22.org
[mailto:rhodes22-list-bounces at rhodes22.org] On Behalf Of brad haslett
Sent: Saturday, February 05, 2005 8:41 PM
To: The Rhodes 22 mail list
Subject: RE: [Rhodes22-list] Believe it or not radar story

Jim,

I smelled a rat on that myself but try to keep quiet on things I really do
know something about, unlike boats and trucks.  Here's a couple of links for
more info.

http://www.aycsnetwork.com/lostsquadronp38.htm

http://lost-squadron.org/index2.html

Do your own Google search on "the lost squadron" and you'll get several
different answers.  The story I've heard for over 30 years is they got lost,
got low on fuel, and landed.  Period.  Frankly, I don't think they had radar
altimeters in 1942.  Anybody got a spare hundred ya don't need?

Brad

Brad

--- Jim Connolly <jbconnolly at comcast.net> wrote:

> I am the skeptical sort, but these are the questions I have:
> 
> How did a propeller plane land safely with landing gear in flying 
> position (i.e., up)?
> 
> Alternatively, I cannot think of any large aircraft (with a 
> loadmaster) with fixed landing gear of that vintage, can any of you 
> pilots?
> 
> Jim Connolly
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: rhodes22-list-bounces at rhodes22.org
> [mailto:rhodes22-list-bounces at rhodes22.org] On Behalf Of Mark Kaynor
> Sent: Saturday, February 05, 2005 10:27 AM
> To: 'The Rhodes 22 mail list'
> Subject: [Rhodes22-list] Believe it or not radar story
> 
> I just received this on the Tayana list and thought you lot might 
> enjoy it - it's an interesting read.
> 
> Mark Kaynor
> R22 "Raven" 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bruce [mailto:bcp at pappalini.com]
> Sent: Saturday, February 05, 2005 8:56 AM
> To: Tayana Owners Discussion List
> Subject: [tayana] FW: Believe it or not radar story
> 
> Okay, I know you guys are always up for a good story.
> On the Baba listserv, there has been a lot of discussion about radar.
> This story came out of that. 
> Enjoy.
> --Bruce
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> Sent: Saturday, February 05, 2005 12:15 AM
> Subject: Believe it or not radar story
> From: "Steven Hodge"
> Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2005 07:57:47 -0800
> 
> Well, heck, ok now that my arm is twisted.   I have
> heard this story from 3
> independent sources, on different continents in
> fact.   After WWII the U.S.
> was returning aircraft from U.K. and Europe.  The shortest distance is 
> a great circle route and this typically took them right over the 
> Greenland Ice Sheet.  A plane got caught in a storm over the ice sheet 
> so they forged on ahead, confident in the fact that their 
> newly-developed radar altimeter would keep them well away from the 
> surface.  Sure enough the measurements indicated they were thousands 
> of feet up.
> 
> Little did they know at the time--no one knew--that the particular 
> frequency band used for radar altimeters would penetrate cold ice (ice 
> that is well below the freezing point and contains no liquid water), 
> and, in fact, penetrates it quite well.  The reflection they were 
> using was from the bottom of the ice sheet, not the top.  And the ice 
> sheet is about 3000 m thick at the highest point of Greenland, so like 
> I said they thought they were thousands of feet up.
> 
> Well the storm was buffeting the plane around a lot, visibility was 
> zilch, and they were going right into a strong headwind.
> The cockpit crew was also
> exhausted from long hours of flying.  It eventually dawned on the 
> cockpit crew that the loadmaster was standing out in front of them in 
> the howling wind, giving them the "cut-throat" signal that it was ok 
> to kill the engines.  The cockpit crew thought they were dreaming or 
> hallucinating, but eventually the loadmaster was able to convince them 
> he was for real, and they responded and cut the engines.
> 
> The Greenland ice sheet is a huge dome, with most of the area being 
> essentially flat with most of the drop off near its edges.  It turns 
> out the pilot had unknowingly gradually flown right onto the surface 
> of the ice sheet, not being able to distinguish the bumpy sastrugi 
> surface from the wind buffetting.  The combination of extremely strong 
> head wind, slow-flying aircraft, and bumpy surface had in fact slowed 
> the aircraft to a stop and the crew out back had thought the pilot has 
> simply decided to land and stick out the storm, so they were merely 
> doing what any good crew would do at that point.
> 
> None of the stories, by the way, give any indication of what happened 
> after that.  I presume they were able to take off again once they 
> realized their situation.  However, it is known that there are 
> aircraft buried in the Greenland ice sheet, and, in fact, some years 
> ago (10 or so?) there was a big effort by some aircraft buffs to 
> locate them and dig them out.  I do not know the results of that.
> 
> Early ice-penetrating radars were in fact nothing but slightly 
> modified aircraft radar altimeters.
> 
> When liquid water is present in ice, which is the case for temperate 
> glaciers, the RF energy is scattered to oblivion by the cavities of 
> liquid water.  In technical jargon, that is because ice and water have 
> a difference in dielectric constant of about 80x.  It was not until 
> the early 70's that we (colleagues and myself) were able to develop an 
> alternate radar technique to allow measuring the depth of temperate 
> ("wet") glaciers.
> 
> Steve, Panda 40 Alcyon
> 
> 
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