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Air France 447 Thoughts

by philg

Friends have been asking for my thoughts on how Air France 447 crashed. Without the flight recorder and cockpit voice recorder it will be tough to know. Here’s a guess..

  1. it was the middle of the night and bumpy; the airplane is on autopilot, just like any other airliner in cruise flight
  2. some of the airspeed and attitude instruments disagreed slightly, either because one was defective or conditions were so turbulent that readings differed substantially on the left and right sides of the airplane
  3. the avionics did what they always do in this kind of situation… disengage the autopilot and dump the airplane back into the pilots’ laps: “I can’t determine what’s going on, despite my massive electronic brain, so you try to figure out what to do with this airplane.”
  4. the airplane immediately started pitching and rolling from the turbulence, thus presenting the tired and startled pilots with an “unusual attitude recovery” challenge
  5. the pilots failed to meet the challenge and their control inputs were not helpful in stabilizing the airplane
  6. the airplane came apart from being oversped, overstressed, etc.

How could this happen? Those same pilots would have had unusual attitude training in a Cessna 172 and they did fine. There are a few important differences between a Cessna 172 and an Airbus. The unusual attitude training was 20 minutes into a flight during the daytime. The pilots were prepared for it. It takes a long time to push the Cessna 172 over its speed limit or beyond its stress limits. Pushing the nose down on a jet, by contrast, builds up airspeed at a frightening pace. The Cessna is very tough to spin and can be easily recovered from a spin. A multi-engine jet need not demonstrate spin-resistance or spin recovery. The assumption is that the plane will spend its entire life within a normal envelope of flight attitudes and airspeeds. The Cessna 172 is built to withstand nearly 4Gs and can handle more at the cost of some bending. An airliner is designed to withstand 2.5Gs and the Airbus planes have sometimes had trouble even meeting that standard (if you built an airliner as strong as a four-seat airplane you wouldn’t be able to carry as many passengers).

This explanation of the problem does not require the plane or pilots to have done anything unusual. The Airbus had some sort of problem with its very complex set of sensors, gyros, and computers. That is a very common occurrence on a plane that has three of everything. The autopilot tripped off in response to a failure or disagreement. This is normal behavior, though much more common in light airplanes than in jets. A couple of pilots who were tired and deprived of a natural horizon by the darkness, open ocean, and clouds, turned out not to be heroes, at least not this time.

There is probably more to it, but this is my best guess.

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Opportunity in the demise of Boston Globe

by philg

The New York Times Company has been flailing about trying to salvage its $1.1 billion (1993) investment in the Boston Globe. Problems have included a collapse in the market for print advertising here in New England, competition from online sources of information, and difficulties in negotiating with 13 separate unions (see Mancur Olson for how a company with more than one union is typically marked for death; each individual union has a stronger interest in its own members’ compensation than in the continued existence of the company).

Perhaps there is opportunity here. The New York Times is already distributing a hardcopy paper in Boston, i.e., the New York Times. All national papers have the ability to insert custom ads for one region’s printing. So even without the Globe the NYT has the ability to sell ads, print a paper, and distribute it to homes. The only thing that is lacking is a staff to prepare a daily “Boston Wrapper”. The truly local stories in the Globe could easily fit into one printed section… plus two more pages for comics! Instead of calling this a “supplement”, implying that it is added to the paper as an afterthought, have it be a wrapper that is the first thing seen by a reader. The New York Times front section would then be in the middle.

Freed from the responsibility to cover national and international stories, a staff of reporters in Boston could produce perhaps the nation’s best local coverage of city and state politics and government, of important research at regional universities and companies, and of our beloved sports teams. Given that the wrapper would be the first thing that people saw when the paper was on a newsstand there would be much more pressure than currently to find interesting and relevant local stories.

Opinion could also be written with more authority. Currently the Globe writes a lot of editorials on issues of national annd international importance, with the implicit claim that it has weighed the issues on all sides and is, for example, recommending something that will be best for all Americans or sometimes even all humans on Planet Earth. Who are we kidding? Boston is a provincial backwater by U.S. standards. Do wise Latina women make better decisions than white males? How should we know? We have only half as many Latinos in Massachusetts compared to other states (source). Did Barack Obama’s apology to the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims have the desired effect? Very few of those Muslims live in Boston so we’d be guessing.

The editorial page of the Boston Wrapper could unapologetically offer opinion from a New England perspective. Was it good to cancel the new presidential helicopter ($400 million each for a machine that is virtually identical to one made in Europe for $30 million)? Absolutely; it wasn’t being built in New England. Is it important to improve diplomatic relations with Dubai? Yes; Harvard university has a lucrative relationship with the Emirate (more).

How to start? Start distributing the Boston Wrapper/NYT to every household that currently gets the Globe. Survey the readers periodically. As soon as more than half of the readers say that they find the Boston-wrapped NYT more useful than the Globe, stop printing the Globe.

If successful in Boston, the Times could extend the approach to other cities and eventually turn the death of the Globe into a template for extracting huge profits from the collapse of other cities’ local papers.

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Black Wave: a book worth $1 million

by philg

Have you been considering saving up some money, selling your house, and retiring to a 55-foot catamaran for a round-the-world trip? If so, reading Black Wave by John and Jean Silverwood should save you approximately $1 million. The Silverwoods and their four children, aged 4-15, take the dream trip, which starts with crippling seasickness in huge storms to and from Bermuda. Phase II is dodging low-lives and pirates in the Caribbean and on the Pacific side of the Panama Canal. Phase III is waiting in Tahiti for parts to fix the new-in-Panama generator. Phase IV is smashing into a coral reef (Manuae/Scilly) a few hundred miles west of Bora Bora. The Emerald Jane had a GPS, up to date charts, two experienced adult sailors, two vigilant teenagers, and reasonably good weather. Nonetheless, they hit the reef, which quickly shredded the hulls.

A layperson might think that a shipwreck should be manageable because one can always escape in the life raft. If the problem is that one’s sturdy fiberglass boat is being pounded to pieces by surf on a coral reef, of what value is a flimsy life raft? Things get worse very quickly when the 80′ mast of the Emerald Jane comes down on John Silverwood’s leg.

Thanks to the fact that this happened in 2005 and the Silverwoods carried an EPIRB, we’re able to read about the experience and the husband’s life is saved by a French Navy helicopter evacuation. Most people would conclude from this book that the open ocean is not to be messed with, or at least not in a ship smaller than a Coast Guard cutter (200′ to 400′ long (though of course ships of this size sometimes get into trouble and need to call for the helicopters, most notably in Alaska)).

More: read the book

[The pricing of this book is rather odd. The Kindle edition is only $2 cheaper than the hardcover, which includes some nicely printed color photos. The book on 6 audio CDs is $19. The book in MP3 format on a single audio CD is $23 (i.e., they charge you more when their production cost is lower). I would recommend the hardcover because the book makes a nice gift for any friend who likes to sail.]

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Congestion Pricing and the California Budget Deficit

by philg

I’m just back from six days in the San Francisco Bay Area. Every car trip, mostly up and down the East Bay and to Napa, took roughly twice as long as it would have without traffic (e.g., Napa to Oakland Airport was just over 2 hours). Going 20 mph on a highway gives a person a lot of time to listen to the news and the news was mostly about California’s $25 billion annual budget deficit.

When a business needs to get more cash it looks at its assets and what they can produce. Perhaps the company has teams of skilled employees who could make something more lucrative than the current product. Perhaps the company has a manufacturing plant that could be leased to a startup in a new industry.

What could the State of California do? The “teams of skilled employees” idea is out, given that state workers are paid vastly higher wages and benefits than their private-sector counterparts. With such high labor costs, it seems very unlikely that a state agency could compete with a private firm on any projects of significance. The state runs a variety of schools. The primary and secondary schools are uncompetitive in performance with startup charter schools, so there would be no way to lure tuition-paying students from other countries or states. The universities could produce some cash from out-of-state tuition, but even Harvard can’t make an annual profit of $25 billion.

What does the state control that has a lot of value? Highways! The State of California owns highways that connect people with their friends and their jobs. The same highways connect manufacturing plants with raw materials and customers. It would seem that the most logical place for the state to try to raise money would be by charging congestion fees for the use of these roads. No private company is going to be in a position to compete with the state, at least not for many decades. Businesses and individuals that pay congestion fees may well feel that they’ve gotten their money’s worth, something that apparently the citizens of California do not feel about their taxes (they recently voted not to pay more).

It struck me as odd that the idea of using congestion fees to close the budget gap was never mentioned once during all of the hours that I listened to Californians discuss their intractable budget woes.

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Diversity on the Supreme Court

by philg

The nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court has sparked a debate over diversity on the Supreme Court.

Let’s look at Sotomayor’s life story: went to college, went to law school, became a government employee drawing a paycheck (source). This is remarkably similar to the life story of other senior government officials as well as politicians. No part of her story includes “was at risk of losing capital due to a change in government regulation” or “was at risk of losing job due to downturn in economy.”

Given that a large number of Supreme Court cases involve business disputes, important diversity on the court would be attained by adding a Justice with some experience in business. A lawyer, regardless of race or sex, who had started a dry cleaners and navigated the regulations associated with hiring a couple of employees would have a radically different experience to draw upon than the current Justices.

Consider George McGovern, one of the towering figures of 20th Century American liberalism. After a life in politics, he purchased a hotel. In a 1992 article, “A politician’s dream–a businessman’s nightmare”, he wrote “I also wish that during the years I was in public office I had had this firsthand experience about the difficulties business people face every day. That knowledge would have made me a better U.S. senator and a more understanding presidential contender.”

He added “I also lived with federal, state and local rules that were all passed with the objective of helping employees, protecting the environment, raising tax dollars for schools, protecting our customers from fire hazards, etc. While I never doubted the worthiness of any of these goals, the concept that most often eludes legislators is: `Can we make consumers pay the higher prices for the increased operating costs that accompany public regulation and government reporting requirements with reams of red tape.’ It is a simple concern that is nonetheless often ignored by legislators.”

More recently, McGovern authored a Wall Street Journal Op-Ed opposing the Democratic Congress’s current plan to make it easier for unions to organize workers. His sojourn in the business world changed his perspective to the point where he would no longer fit neatly into either the Republican or Democratic party.

There are plenty of Americans with experience in both law and business. Why shouldn’t we have one of them on the Supreme Court?

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New Steinhart Aquarium in San Francisco

by philg

Out here in San Francisco for Wordcamp 2009, I was excited to visit the Steinhart Aquarium in its new home in Golden Gate Park. The old aquarium was a serviceable Victorian-style institution, with most of the tanks being a standard size. The new aquarium occupies the lowest level of the $500 million (source) California Academy of Sciences building. How does the experience differ from the old version?

Noisier.

Aquariums attract screaming kids. Concrete walls and ceilings reflect screams, as does an acrylic aquarium. Standard acoustical treatment would involve two-inch fiberglass insulation covered in fabric stuck on the walls. As these are standard building supplies, the cost is minimal. Why the architects of this $500 million building didn’t think of sticking some acoustic tiles on the ceiling is hard to, uh, fathom.

How about the rest of the building? Most of it is given over to big photos and signs. Imagine a book or Web site about the environment printed out really big and mounted vertically. Instead of sitting in a chair reading this book or site, you stand around with other tourists reading text and looking at still photos. It is difficult to understand how the new building is more effective educationally than the old (paid-for) one.

Your cost for this experience? $25 per adult.

[The building is supposed to be a showcase for environmentalism, yet nothing could be more destructive to the environment than tearing down a perfectly functional building and replacing it with one the same size. Had they remained in the old building, the California Academy could have completely funded Tesla Motors’s new electric sedan factory and still had $200 million left over to pursue other projects to promote energy conservation.]

[Another way to help understand what it means to spend $500 million on a 400,000 square foot building in the middle of an open field just a couple of miles from an Interstate highway is to look at the recently completed New York Times headquarters in Manhattan. The design is by Renzo Piano, coincidentally the very same architect of the California Academy. It was built in New York City, presumably requiring payoffs to unions, politicians, and the Mafia (NYC has for decades been the most expensive place in the U.S. for doing construction and the logistics simply to get materials to the site are daunting). The Times building is 52 stories high and contains more than 1.5 million square feet of space. It cost $600 million.]

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To improve airline safety, give all pilots the same schedule

by philg

Friends have asked about the crash of Colgan 3407, stalled by a very junior captain and a moderately junior first officer. How could two experienced pilots have made the kind of mistake that befalls rusty Private pilots in a little four-seater? Evidence suggests that both pilots were fatigued and one was sick. The captain had failed quite a few check rides, but the first officer had 1600 hours before she joined Colgan and held a current flight instructor certificate. She probably built up most of those 1600 hours saving students from their mistakes. Sick and tired, evidence suggests that she could not save the captain from his mistakes.

Politicians have focussed on the low pay for regional airline pilots. I think that AIG, Wall Street, and our public school systems demonstrate that paying employees more does not necessarily generate higher performance. Working for $19,000 per year and living with mom doesn’t sound very glamorous, but there are plenty of people who want to do it. Paying Rebecca Shaw more would not have saved the airplane and its passengers.

What could have saved the airplane? Well rested pilots.

Most airlines have a seniority-based system for everything, including, critically, scheduling. A senior pilot at a major airline might be able to arrange his schedule so that he need only work 8 or 10 days per month. He will be able to choose his home base so that it is close to his actual house. The senior pilot will have a short commute and 20-22 days per month of rest.

The junior pilot, by contrast, gets the trips and the schedule that the senior pilots don’t want. The result may be 22 days month of 16-hour days (measured not by flight time but by hotel room to hotel room). A typical 16-hour day may include a 6-hour stop at an airport where the airline does not have a base and therefore there will be nowhere for the pilot to rest. He or she will be sitting near a gate, in uniform, reading a book, trying to shut out the noise of thousands of passengers walking by and hundreds of public address announcements.

Note that the least experienced pilots at an airline are getting the least rest. The most experienced crews are getting the most rest. I.e., the crews that really need to be sharp to do the job are the ones who are flying while tired.

The seniority system for pay and schedule increases commuting time. Suppose that an experienced Boeing 737 captain lives in New York and flies for an airline with a New York base. His wife gets transferred to Los Angeles and he follows her. His airline doesn’t have a base on the west coast. You’d think that he would quit and join an LA-based airline flying Boeing 737s, right? Doing so would cost him a 70 percent cut in pay and a 50 percent increase in hours worked. Having lost all of his seniority, he would start as the most junior first officer at his new employer. It might take him 15 years to work his way back up to captain. What will he do? He can fly free on any airline, so he’ll keep his job in New York and start every 4-day trip with a 6-hour flight from Los Angeles, possibly followed by a night in a “crash pad” (2BR apartment shared with 10 other pilots).

Does it have to be done this way? No. NetJets and many other corporate jet operators have the same schedule for all of their pilots. In the case of NetJets, it is 7 days on and 7 days off.

A few simple ideas for improving airline safety and giving the future Rebecca Shaws a chance to save the passengers:

  • require that airlines come up with a scheduling system that gives an equal amount of work and rest to all pilots (the average amount of work done by pilots would not change, so this should not cost the airlines anything extra)
  • require that airports served by commercial airlines build crew rest lounges that pilots from any airline can use for naps, etc. (airports collect a hefty tax on every passenger who goes through, so this should not break their budgets)
  • come up with a procedure whereby pilots can move from airline to airline without having to start over at the bottom of the pay scale (there will no longer be a “schedule scale” so we don’t have to worry about that), in order to discourage long-distance commuting

[Note that the typical tiny airport in the U.S., which the average person would call an “airstrip”, and which may not have any full-time staff, will have a comfortable lounge in which visiting pilots can rest. There will be sofas. There may be recliner chairs. Some of these small airports for private planes even have small bedrooms for naps. How come the guy flying a four-seat prop plane has a better place to rest than the pilot of a 150-passenger jet?]

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