Plane crash, longer days

[urbpan]

A commercial passenger jet in New York has apparently struck a flock of geese and crashed into the Hudson River. I can't believe the rotten luck that this has happened on such a brutally cold day. It sounds like there are a lot of injuries but the radio and tv (both of which are chattering in my ears) haven't said anything about deaths. It will be interesting to hear how this pans out. My local CBS station is running the feed from a New York station. They just now said everyone was safely removed from the aircraft. Phew! Get these people some cocoa, stat!

The days are actually getting noticeably longer. I came home with the beginnings of a gorgeous sunset as a backdrop. The tall buildings of the hospital area were bathed in pink light. Anyone planning any big holiday parties for Feb 2?

Usually when you walk on snow, the friction of your step melts it a little and crushes it flat making a bootprint. Today I was following a keeper, watching his boots, and they made holes in the snow, but the crushed snow didn't melt flat. Instead the empty tracks would fill from the sides with fine dry powder. I've never observed that before.

Anyway, be safe out there everyone, especially you lunatics in the midwest.

Comments

[txtriffidranch.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm planning a big blowout for February 2. Groundhog's Day and the thirtieth anniversary of the death of Sid Vicious?

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Wonderful! I probably won't be able to make it to Dallas then. Any Sid-specific events? May I suggest a Nancy-shaped cake with an inner layer of runny raspberry jam?

[txtriffidranch.livejournal.com]

Well, I wasn't really planning much, other than a quiet toast to the Patron Saint of Fuckups, but now you have me intrigued. At the very least, I'll have to check with my old friend Barry Kooda: his old band the Nervebreakers opened for the Sex Pistols at the Longhorn Ballroom, and the nicest thing he had to say about Sid was that the twit was too busy trying to get him into a fight to pay attention to playing. (Twelve years later, his and my friend Turner Van Blarcum had a similar encounter with Kurt Cobain, only Turner was smart enough to play Whack-A-Junkie when he had the chance.)

[propaddict.livejournal.com]

Bird strikes are no joke. Most of the jet drivers I know are far more worried about a wayward flock of seagulls taking them down than they are about a Mig getting the drop on them.

I've only seen the powder drop into bootprints (as I think you've described) happen once and it was a girl who's soles were sloped pretty radically so they were much narrower at the bottom than on the top.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Have we learned nothing from firing chickens out of cannons at planes?

[sin-agua.livejournal.com]

I'm hearing all passengers are "safe" and just a few were treated at hospitals for exposure and "secondary injuries." Amazing, considering how bad it could've been.

Yes the snow was very powdery here, too!

[greenminions.livejournal.com]

I'll be infinitely safer since tonight it will only be -5 when I leave work instead of -11 like last night.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

That's sick.

[greenminions.livejournal.com]

Tell it to my cat who I took to the vet when it was -15 this morning!

[roaming.livejournal.com]

I suppose if they could put some kind of netting in front of the rotating wing blades they'd have done it already?

[txtriffidranch.livejournal.com]

There, you have a double whammy. Firstly, netting impedes air intake into the engines. Secondly, any netting thick enough to stop birds like that would seriously impede the airflow, to the point of preventing the plane from taking off. Thirdly, most planes can handle one engine going, but this accident took out two. It's honestly easier to train pilots to watch for birds and react accordingly.

[propaddict.livejournal.com]

^^ What she said.

It's been done on many planes that operate in bush and bird-rich environments, but (to my knowledge) not with turbofans.

In the Nav, most of our helos have scrubbers on the front end to keep debris out of the intakes. I've flown seaplanes with grates on their intakes that (I think) would keep most birds out.

Problem is these airframes are sloooow and as aerodynamic as a brick tp begin with so the hit to their performance by adding these protections is small. For a big people mover, the engines would take a HUGE performance hit from reduced airflow AND the whole airplane would get a lot less efficient. That means less speed, less capacity, and less profit.

SO, we instead *try* to steer clear. Mostly it works, sometimes not.
Dual engine failure at low altitude leading to a ditch? Literally it is less than a1 in a million (flights) chance.

[urimancy.livejournal.com]

http://twitpic.com/135xa

Gah!

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Great picture!

[gemfyre.livejournal.com]

How are the geese?

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Finely minced, I assume.

[buboniclou.livejournal.com]

Your fellow zookeeper is a vampire, and thus does not create friction when he walks on snow. Obviously.

[bellelvsbeast.livejournal.com]

What's on Feb 2?? ;)
I kid I kid! :)

[ryebaby0.livejournal.com]

Our primary school has a party (probably because we're only 45 minutes from Punxy). Shadow plays, shadow predictions, groundhog cookies (don't go there - they are groundhog SHAPED cookies)Candlemas mentions, equinox stuff...a big hit. We do not discuss the reason the groundhog does not bite the guy's arm clean off, groundhogs being rather grumpy after having been crammed into a fake stump (it is heated, at least)and displayed for a field full of drunks....

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Groundhogs wouldn't make nice cookies. I'll spare you the recipes.

I've done plenty of woodchuck handling, and I've only been seriously bitten twice.

[elainetyger.livejournal.com]

I can't believe I missed it! Some volunteers from the ambulance corps I belong to staged at the waterfront, but no one was brought to our area. I was so busy trying to pack and get out the door, that I ignored all news sources and did not find out about it until my husband called me on the train to Boston to tell me he had watched some of the rescue from the windows of where he has been working this week.

Oh BTW your weather complaints are totally allowed. I wish the MIT Mystery Hunt were in Florida.