I Can't Believe It's Not Beta

Beta's Alia aircraft appear to have flown more electrical air miles than anything else out there, and to the stable they added a version stripped of all four lift motors so as to retain only the cruise motor at the rear: apparently it's called an 'airplane' if you do this. But 'one airframe, two configurations' is an ingenious economic model and one that is encouraging should we be able to evaluate two forms of catamaran, which in one case is only able to cruise on water and in another is able to hover and fly in ground-effect by adding as few as two lift motors.

8/8ths Cirrus

I do this because (a) views spiked when I commented on the Air India crash and my gut instinct that it was a pre-meditated suicide ~ if only as I know from experience that life as an airline pilot is not all the cakes and ale it appears to be and (b) I once applied to join the Air Accidents Investigation Branch... a club I would never join if it would have the likes of me as a member.

But air crashes don't really jibe with the TikTok generation (us), who want answers same day, or at least prior our mid-morning cappuccino on the next. And so I shall throw my deer-stalker hat into the ring, if I may, because the above report from the most reliable of sources as this stage of the game suggests the accident happened after the emergency parachute was deployed. And here it is:

Note that it's on the ventral upper side, and unseen here once deployed it suspends the aircraft level using one cable as shown and a pair attached each side of the fire-wall ahead of the occupants.

Moving on to weather (a) the visibility was decidedly poor and driving thereabouts in a truck at the same time I was happy to be there and not in a light aircraft, for I've spent many hours negotiating murk in those circs and ~ not knowing whether or not you might be dead in the next ~ it was never pleasant. And (b) it was very windy, as the suspension of those heavy steel cables shows (and it helps to have spent teenage years living a stone's throw from one such pylon; they crackle a lot in fine rain too):

It was thus, as Poirot would say during the mise-en-scene, a decidedly grim day to have chosen to fly if ~ as is so often the case ~ it was to be pursued by determined efforts to stay in visual contact with the ground. Next to the route:

What would be really useful knowing is where the two on board were headed, if at all. If you're headed for some place north of here and have begun to have second thoughts then there is Leeds off to the north-east closest, and of course Manchester to the southwest... although both are largely devoted to commercial traffic, so that airports like Manchester's Barton would appear a safer harbour altogether.

The area though is key, and if you want to see the remains of a B-29 then these are the moors to visit. Any number of airliners in the past came to grief descending for either Manchester or Burtonwood, as you can see these two airliners doing prior to a left turn to line up with the south-westerly runway at the former. I've done so more than a few hundred times and it's invariably a bit of a butt-clencher watching that radio altimeter sprung into life by the high ground beneath.

More to the point though is the fact (a) just about where the aircraft is, is signed as being the highest motorway in England at 1220 feet: a regular pub-quiz question. And (b), that M62 appears on the left of the aircraft as it flies west, presumably in search of clearer weather (but not necessarily so, until we know more). All aircraft are piloted principally from the left seat ~ though helicopters the right, but they've always been on the spectrum ~ which is where you want to put any reliable means of finding your way around. To the extent the joke was IFR meant not Instrument Flight Rules, but 'I Follow Roads'.

Turning to the scene of the accident...

...it caught my eye principally for those drapes, which look like those the police use to shield cameras, except that in this case it appeared to have blown away. But no, mes amis, it is the deployable parachute of which we spoke. And so my first thought was maybe the aircraft had collided with the pylon itself? It appeared undamaged however, and the utility company reported no disruption to electrical supplies. Let us turn then to the aircraft itself:

I've seen lots of these and you can on what remains of that B-29 nearby: a blade of the (alloy) propeller contorted in a way that suggests it was running and possibly so at cruise RPM at point of impact. It's one for slo-motion analysis that we're unlikely ever to see, few people being as weirdly curious as me; but if as the report above suggests they merely dropped from the albeit uncomfortable height of a half-pylon, you'd think that the pilot might by then have silenced the engine. In that case, you'd see a blade simply bent backward like one of Uri Geller's spoons.

I don't want to go there, but life's not a box of kittens, and from this scant evidence it would appear that beside the empennage (tail feathers, effectively) missing, most of the upper part of the fuselage would appear to be too; although it may simple be crushed. Cirrus recommend anyway that parachutes be used only in extremis, viz. engine failure or uncontrollable flight, ideally from above 2000' to allow sufficient time for deployment.

We've nothing from Air Traffic Control to corroborate; but declaring an emergency if flying through murk perilously close to high ground is recommended by everyone but practised by few. Consider it a form of mental health for aviators: few want to admit to the issue, but many die as a consequence.

Given the evidence I'd suggest Colonel Collision, with the Cable, in the Mountains?

I mean, WTF? Well it's a cable-cutter, and fitted often to both top and bottom sides of helicopters precisely because of the number of times they've come to grief flying in such conditions as those on the Pennine hills yesterday morning. Few helo pilots have or require an instrument rating, which is why (a) they creep alongside roads in bad weather and (b) they kill celebrities who view them as safe*.

At speed cables make a clean cut... as hopefully do cable-cutters. Again however this is idle speculation in tragic circs, though as and when I pass myself you'd all be welcome to dance on my grave (see Ticketmaster) for all it matters. I do though want the AAIB to read this and beat their breasts for having lost one of the more entertaining air-crash investigators out there.

And if you like it, don't put a ring on it, but forward it to someone you love... it was Marcel Proust who said there was nothing so enjoyable as settling down to a coffee and sponge-cake with a newspaper and reading about death and destruction beyond the fragrant flower-beds of his garden in Paris.

* I was once tasked with flying Stevie Wonder in a turbo-prop from Heathrow to I remember not where. Suspicious of any aircraft with propellers instead of jets, he declined the charter at the last moment. "So who told him?" I demanded of the dispatcher.

One Way Ticket to the Blues

I didn't think people in the UK gave a second thought to the prospect of war, though recent surveys suggest increasing numbers of them do. Two developments over the weekend worth droning on about: first, the speed record for quads that is bouncing between individuals in Australia, Switzerland and South Africa was just broken again and second, the UK begins to manufacture the above drones on British soil because the factories in Ukraine ~ and I don't want to worry you unduly here ~ are a natural target for daily dive-bombing by Iranian-designed one-way drones.

What is interesting from my own point of view is whether egg preceded chicken viz. did record-breaking quads copy what was done in Ukraine, or did the latter (and the South Koreans, as per prior post) copy what seems to be the best possible design?

This last month though was the anniversary of the UK's '100-Year Partnership' that is a part of the £4.5 billion pledged already, which includes manufacturing munitions here... and these are munitions and not something estate agents use on mansions.

Among the things to ponder are whether '100-year' agreements are not as silly as the '1000-year' regimes that generally die in less than 10; whether calling the war 'illegal' matters in view of the fact 'legality' is merely an extension of power by other means; and whether the people of Britain have a say* in whether they want to join WW3? Can't we just watch highlights on catch-up, like Strictly Come Dancing?

* No, in a nutshell. We in Britain love doing stuff on the cheap and contracting other people to do the dying is economically and politically preferable. It's what Kipling called the 'great game' and while Kipling is out of favour, war is apparently not.

The Li ion's Share

Largely unheralded, a British first: the above train holding the record for the longest journey by a battery-powered train, at just over two-hundred miles. Eclipsing prior record by a country mile, despite that having been pursued in Germany (where the electric train was invented).

It has been plying its trade on a four kilometre shuttle from Paddington, and on its inaugural run it attracted any number of enthusiastic bystanders along the way tho' it set off at 05:30... which could only really happen in the UK too.

It's not an altogether new idea, such services having been pursued as early as the 1950s with trains (inset) that however used diesel to power ancillaries like heating. And that's not to be sneezed at, because 30% of the battery-power on the modern train is diverted to such services as in-seat power for the porn that passengers will be viewing on their smartphones.

The project uses refurbished carriages that were built forty years ago, which we're all familiar with in their un-refurbished state on railways in the north of England. Two takeaways however from all of this, and one being the fact that the endeavour stems from the work of one man ~ Adrian Shooter ~ who failed his Maths exam and thus his hopes of going to university.

The second is that there are more than one type of lithium ion battery, whose exact chemical composition has a bearing on safety, longevity and adaptability to a rapid charge.

You didn't know that ~ and nor did I ~ but we do now, don't we Gromit?

Self-Launching Boat

Well somebody's got to do it, and this is where we're going with it... and it dropped yesterday in a device near you.

Ed. the loathsome expression 'dropped' originates from the US and was adopted in the UK now that we cannot invent anything ourselves, let alone expressions. Here DJs, politicos and media types compete to see how often it can be used in a single sentence... a medical condition I call 'dropsy' ©

London Heathrot

London's principal airport ~ where I myself was based for six happy-ish years ~ as it looked altogether earlier when we'd be up there ourselves spotting aircraft. There were ponds, flower-beds, play-areas, roof-top piers and viewing galleries. Whereas in keeping with the times, now it's a shitty shopping mall with over-priced coffee-bars prior boarding boring airliners never having seeing light of day. Contributing to all this, I look back on my contribution as a minor SS officer might his war years.

Ed. he's a sad and bitter individual and best ignored.

Box Clever

Here's the new-build versus one that I attempted practically a year ago, dismissing it as a result as barely practical... for the use of pre-laminated tiling backer board is a game-changer, reducing the cost, part count and labour involved to a fraction of what went before.

This one is clued-up and glued-up, destined as it is to a life of testing: aren't we all?

By adjusting the template to feature three strips instead of four down the right side, however, a more open accommodation altogether can be assembled like that on the left in the montage.

Then we can sit in it and ride off into the sunset... our work done here, like Shane's.