Cebu Pacific Planes: Addicted to Concrete?

With their propensity to overshoot even 10,000-ft. long runways, are Cebu Pacific planes for all intents and purposes addicted to concrete? 

By: Ringo Bones 

The term “addicted to concrete” is often aimed at post World War II planes – especially jet-propelled types – that can no longer safely land on 5,000-ft. long concrete runways that became standard at the height of World War II. Should modern planes that that have a propensity to overshoot modern airport runways, especially those 10,000 feet long runways, be called addicted to concrete? Well, this actually happened back in June 2, 2013 at the Davao International Airport when a Cebu Pacific Airbus A320-200 as in Cebu Pacific Flight FJ971 overshot its assigned runway and disrupted the airport’s schedule during the first day of classes in the Philippines making 45 irate passengers sue the budget airline company not only for mental distress but also for having their travel itinerary disrupted. 

All flights out of Davao International Airport were temporarily cancelled for a few days since the Cebu Pacific Flight FJ971 mishap on 9 p.m. of June 2, 2013. Even though Col. Leopoldo Galon, chief of the military’s 5^th Civil Relations Group have stated that the crew of Cebu Pacific Flight FJ971 did all that was humanly possible to avoid wallowing into the non-concrete portion of the Davao International Airport after the runway lights suddenly went out around 7:10 p.m., frequent fliers who experienced Cebu Pacific’s “amenities” have often less-than-diplomatic words to say about the budget airline company’s shortcomings. 

It wasn’t just the Cebu Pacific runway overshot incident back in 2011 when a Bombardier type twin engine prop plane plowed into the non-concrete portion of the runway of an airport in the Western Palawan province of Puerto Princesa. Frequent flying Filipino hi-fi enthusiasts who have to buy their hi-fi gear in Hong Kong or Singapore to the lack of hi-fi stores in the Philippines during the 1990s who are “unfortunate” enough to fly in a Cebu Pacific operated plane often complain of ear-ache probably due to insufficient cabin pressurization. Even though I too experience similar ear related anomalies while flying Cebu Pacific, such ear problems was inadvertently absent when I hitched on a Philippine Air Force C-130 plane bound to Manila from Cebu when I watched an Avril Lavigne concert back in March 30, 2005 or when my commandant and I flew a “loaned” F-20 Tiger Shark from Northrop to the Philippine Air force to 50,000 feet during my ROTC days. Cebu Pacific needs to reevaluate the quality of their service given that tourism in the Philippines is growing year after year. 

Remembering Wiley Post’s Solo Around the World Flight

Even though it happened 80 years ago, how many were old enough to have seen and remembered Wiley Post’s first solo flight around the world?

By: Ringo Bones 

I wondered how many people ever tried a solo around the world flight with all the attendant dangers of sleep deprivation while flying a plane. But 80 years ago, an adventuring aviation pioneer named Wiley Post did the impossible and managed to circumnavigate the globe while flying all alone on his modified stripped-down plane. And I, too, now wonder if other folks will be remembering the 80^th Anniversary of Wiley Post’s solo flight around the world? 

Back in July 1933, Wiley Post, piloting a modified and stripped-down Lockheed Vega monoplane named the Winnie Mae, completed the very first solo flight around the world. Landing only 11 times, he completed the 15,596-mile trip; starting and finishing at New York in just seven days and 18 hours. One of the other “newfangled” gears that made Wiley Post’s solo round the world flight was the autopilot. An early version of the aircraft autopilot system was developed by the Sperry Gyroscope Company where one of the early prototypes was used by Post in his solo flight around the world in 1933. 

Even though in aviation – as in being an airplane pilot – is where binocularity, or two-eyed vision, would seem to be indispensible; Wiley Post, the famous airplane pilot of the 1930s whose signature white eye patch over his left eye was almost a trademark, was such a rare exception. Though he might not be able to appreciate it if someone made a biopic about him in 3-D! 

Another thing which will be forever be remembered of Wiley Post was his custom pressure suit which was developed by B.F. Goodrich back in 1934 which was to protect Post under near space conditions when he sought to break an airplane altitude record of 47,352 feet. Strangely, the B.F. Goodrich’s Wiley Post pressure suit was eventually used in the movie Man From Mars a few years later.  

Remembering Juan De La Cierva And His Wonderful Flying Machine

It might be something new for the most of us but does anyone know that a little over 90 years ago, a Spanish aeronautical engineer invented a very unique flying machine unseen since the start of World War II?

By: Ringo Bones 

A little over 90 years ago, a Spanish aeronautical engineer invented a novel flying machine now largely confined to some dusty esoteric corner of some air and space museum. It was called an Autogiro or gyroplane and in honor of the 90^th Anniversary of Juan de la Cierva’s successful first flight, I could give a little information about it here. 

Juan de la Cierva, inventor of the Autogiro was born at Murcia, Spain back in September 21, 1895. His father was a noted lawyer and statesman. Juan de la Cierva though elected a member of the Spanish Parliament in 1919 and again in 1922, devoted his energies almost entirely to the invention and development of the Autogiro. 

He was educated at Escuela Especial de Ingenieros de Caminos, Canales y Puertos at Madrid, where he spent six years and studied the on his own the works of F.W. Lancaster and N, Joukowski on theoretical aerodynamics. He entered a competition for military airplane designs for the government and built a biplane bomber with three engines, using an airfoil section of his own design, developed mathematically. Tested in May 1919, the plane crashed when the test pilot stalled it. 

Cierva turned to rotary wing design after this experience, as a solution to the problem of safety. His first three machines were failures, but with the change made in the fourth machine, from rotor blades rigidly fixed to the hub to blades freely hinged, the first successful Autogiro became a working reality. It was flown for 200 yards on January 19, 1923, and three public flights were made on January 21, 1923 – the longest being a complete circuit of two and one-half miles in about three and one-half minutes. 

Also known as “gyroplanes” and with the exception of von Baumhauer’s experimental model, from 1923 to 1939 the only single-rotor machines that flew were Juan de la Cierva’s Autogiro or gyroplanes. These were not helicopters because they couldn’t take-off vertically, or could they sustain flight without forward or descending airspeed. The rotor was tilted backward and was turned by the airstream passing through it. In the gyroplane there is no torque to be counteracted in flight, except for the slight friction in the bearings between the rotor hub and the mast. Therefore, there is no need for counteracting means or counter-rotating rotors. However, one of the first of de la Cierva’s concepts of the gyroplane from 1920 included the use of counter-rotating rotors, principally to overcome the lateral overturning forces on a rigid rotor on forward flight and to cancel gyroscopic effects that may hinder the proper operation. 

By 1925, he had solved most of the problems of the Autogiro and in that year the Cierva Autogiro Company, Ltd., was formed in England, with Cierva acting as its technical director; Cierva also collaborated closely with the Autogiro Company of America after its foundation in 1929. On September 18, 1928, he flew one of his machines across the English Channel. And in 1930 he flew an Autogiro from England to Spain, giving a number of flying demonstrations in his native country. He demonstrated the Autogiro at the National Air Races in Cleveland, Ohio in 1929 and also visited the United States in 1932 and 1933. 

Cierva received numerous honors for his aeronautical work, including the Daniel Guggenheim Gold Medal for 1932, the Elliot Cresson Medal of the Franklin Institute and, posthumously, the Gold Medal of the Royal Aeronautical Society of Great Britain. During the last year and a half of his life, he supported General Franco in the Spanish Civil War. Cierva was killed in a crash of an air liner at Croyden, England, on December 9, 1936. Sadly, virtually all Autogiro and gyroplane production and experimentation had all but ceased by the start of World War II. 

Did American Airline Companies Kill The Super Sonic Transport?

Even though such aircraft are notorious for being not environmentally friendly and abysmally expensive to operate – but did the American airline companies been out to kill the super sonic transport program from the very start?

By: Ringo Bones 

Before being retired back in 2003, most of us probably still harbor the impression that it was the horrible accident of Air France Flight 4590 where an Air France Concorde flight tragically crashed back in July 2000. Some could say it was the post 9/11 “fear-of-flying” that eventually killed off the Concorde – the only supersonic capable civilian transport plane that was part of the 1960s super sonic transport program started by both the United States and leading European economic superpowers back then. But does anyone still know that as far back as the late 1960s, American airline companies already harbored a disdain for civilian super sonic transport programs like the Concorde? 

A few years before the Concorde’s maiden flight at Toulouse, France back in 1969, American airline companies were already concerned over declining profits and were already committed – at the time – to the purchase of 5-billion US dollars’ worth of wide-bodied subsonic jets, they were in no mood to pledge additional billions in super sonic transport orders. Back then, American airline companies cancelled their options for the Concorde and left the Anglo-French combine with only 16 orders. Remaining customers back then, at almost 50-million US dollars per plane were Britain, France, The People’s Republic of China and Iran. Eventually, only Britain and France maintained a fleet of Concorde planes as part of their national flag carriers when the civilian super sonic transport entered regular service. 

Though designed in the 1960s, the Concorde still looks fresh long after its retirement into a museum piece ten years ago – even long after the other design fads of the 1960s have worn into a cliché. And it was only after a few years it debuted in the 1976 Paris Air Show – while competing with the then Soviet Union’s version of the civilian super sonic transport, the Tupolev TU-144 – that the Concorde entered into full commercial service. 

But in truth, the Concorde is abysmally expensive to operate in comparison to typical subsonic jumbo jets. It takes three times the maintenance cost of a Boeing 747 and burns 50% more fuel despite carrying only 100 passengers to the 747’s 400. And during the austere fiscal environment of the post Operation Desert Storm early 1990s, Air France and British Airways, the only airline companies that operated the plane, have taken to using gimmicks to fill the seats. It wasn’t until the Clinton era economic boom of the mid to late 1990s that the romance of mere civilians with a little extra cash can safely break the sound barrier while sipping champagne and eating caviar while being pampered like royalties – until the tragic crash of Air France Flight 4590.  

Charging Passengers By Their Weight: Fairest Way To Fly?

Even though this is how fledgling airline companies did business when they first set up shop during the 1920s should airline passengers be charging their passengers according to heir own weight and how heavy are their baggage are? 

By: Ringo Bones

Believe it or not, during the dawn of the airline industry when passenger planes were no more than converted World War I era multi-engine biplane bombers, passengers were first asked to stand on a weighing scale with their carry-on baggage and were charged according to how heavy they are. Fast forward to 2013, Samoa Air CEO Chris Langton recently gained unintended fame after he decided to charge passengers by how much they and their baggage weigh – i.e. by the weight airfare billing – as opposed to by seat class that had since been de rigueur way back when airline companies started using the Douglas DC-3. Given that the law of physics has made practical aviation a weight-sensitive endeavor, isn’t it more pragmatic to charge airline passengers by how much they and their baggage weigh as opposed to seat class? 

Actually it was back in November 2012 that Samoa Air started charging passengers by how much they and their baggage weigh because the small airline company flies just three small planes in their fleet and these type of planes require more fuel – thus increased operating costs – the heavier their passengers and loads are. As a way to avoid running their airline company to the ground financially, Samoa Air introduces surcharges for passengers weighing more than 72 kilograms. In Samoa Air CEO Chris Langton’s experience of running his own airline company – and it is also proven by the existing laws of physics – airlines primarily run by weight (passengers and baggage / cargo) and not by seating class. 

So is charging passengers by how much they and their baggage weigh the fairest way to fly? Many frequent fliers on Samoa Air’s routes are quite skeptical – given that most of them are rather the burly American tourist types who normally weigh over 80 kilograms and Samoans who have grown heavier as they integrate into a rather sedentary urban lifestyle as they go to work in the tiny South Pacific island nation’s major urban centers. The Western style meat based diets are not helping matters either for the native Samoans who are the likely passengers of Samoan Air’s “by the pound” – as opposed to by the quid according to seating class- airfare billing. I wonder if Virgin Galactic’s space tourists’ fares will be based on the passenger’s weight.