[Rhodes22-list] Believe it or not radar story

[Stephen Staum]

I cannot think of a fixed gear craft of that ilk.  The thought occurred to 
me also re: the landing gear.  In severe turbulence a pilot might lower the 
gear to slow the aircraft and avoid structural damage.  I used to fly a 
Mooney which was a clean design and would often use the landing gear as a 
speed brake for approach or long decent in turbulence.  Just a thought.  SS

---- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jim Connolly" <jbconnolly at comcast.net>
To: "'The Rhodes 22 mail list'" <rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>
Sent: Saturday, February 05, 2005 8:18 PM
Subject: RE: [Rhodes22-list] Believe it or not radar story


>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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