Flight plans?

[Deer RudolF]

It’s just that the northern lights themselves, which are also ionized gas, cannot have any effect on electronics. And I just don’t yet understand how it is possible to connect the northern lights and changes in the earth’s magnetic field. Northern lights just happen when something happens in the sun, but not on the ground. And another interesting fact: the earth’s magnetic field can change its poles, north to south, the last time this supposedly happened about 780 thousand years ago. Theoretically, this could happen in a quiet apoclypse.🤓

[Raphael van Lierop]

2 hours ago, Deer RudolF said:

It’s just that the northern lights themselves, which are also ionized gas, cannot have any effect on electronics. And I just don’t yet understand how it is possible to connect the northern lights and changes in the earth’s magnetic field. Northern lights just happen when something happens in the sun, but not on the ground. And another interesting fact: the earth’s magnetic field can change its poles, north to south, the last time this supposedly happened about 780 thousand years ago. Theoretically, this could happen in a quiet apoclypse.🤓

The northern lights (aurora borealis) are the outcome of the earth's magnetic field being "pushed" closer to us by virtue of (typically) solar activity (radiation, solar storms, etc.). Major disturbances to earth's magnetic field, in the form of a CME, can have an effect on electronics (which is well documented). Refer to the Carrington Event for reference, and there are much more recent documented events (though smaller in scale, ex. Quebec in 1989).

So, don't think of the aurora as affecting technology. Think of the aurora being an outcome of the same thing that is affecting technology.

[Laxgoalie]

It's always fun to speculate, but IRL neither of those large transport category aircraft in TWM or PV is landing at FA. The minimum runway length of around 4000 ft mention for the A318 is the landing distance. For all fixed wing aircraft the takeoff distance is substantially longer than the landing distance (there are many more ways to dissipate the energy of an object than accelerate it). The runway in FA might be just long enough to land, but unless the aircraft was planning on taking off with almost no fuel and empty this airport is unusable. See the reference below where a DC8 managed to stop on a 4600ft runway (despite it's published landing distance of 6500 ft) and they had to strip the plane and leave only minimum fuel on to be able to takeoff and fly 5 minutes to the airport they were supposed to land at.

It's also more than a little hazardous to land a any aircraft at FA considering the lights that poke up from the center of the main runway and the PA system pole right on the edge of the main runway. Even the modeled DHC2's would have some difficulty not hitting it when landing without being perfectly on center line. There is also no way a large aircraft with a 100+ ft wingspan would be able to taxi off the runway to the terminal as there are PA poles all down the assumed taxiway.

Maybe the devs thought it just looked cool and it's a fun way to have a reward for climbing up TWM or hanging out in PV?

https://offbeatoregon.com/1802a.massive-jet-lands-at-tiny-country-airport-by-mistake-481.html

[Kranium]

This thread reminded me of some comedy act I remember. Something about a panicking passenger on an airplane, after one engine went out. One passenger to another:

 

"How far can the plane go on with only 1 engine!!??!!"

 

"All the way to the scene of the crash. Which is lucky, because that's where we're headed. I bet we beat the paramedics there by a half hour."

[Leeanda]

My experience with airplanes is strictly limited to flyovers /local airshows.... Boy those spitfires and red arrows are loud...

But once at my local airfield we had a concorde .I was extremely surprised because it's only a small place and usually just for flying lessons..

I looked up the runway length this morning and found it was 3444 foot long,which to me still seems too short for such a big plane..

That crack as it flew by was just deafening but so awesome...   Whether it's as big as the pv plane I don't know..

[Leeanda]

Apparently the concorde is the same length as a boeing 747. At 202 feet......Just a narrower fuselage..  

Edited June 15 by Leeanda

[ThePancakeLady]

Yeah, I am just going to stick to my own internal story- the small planes were puddle jumpers coming over from the mainland or headed back to the mainland from FA. And FA is a small local private airport, not meant for large passenger flights, but for bringing in tourists, corporate overlords checking on their logging and mining and infrastructure investments, or bringing in workers for all of those things. The big planes just happened to be flying over the island or near the island, and the first flare took out their controls, and they lost navigation abilities and pilots were unable to bring the planes safely down. The debris and human corpses that wash up along the shorelines (beachcombing) may be all or in part coming from other planes that went down into the sea and then cracked open as they sank or when they hit the bottom. 

But that's my own story, and "reality" doesn't matter as much to me, since the game is science fiction, not a true-to-life simulation.

Edited June 16 by ThePancakeLady
typonese, as always

[Leeanda]

Oh I'm leaving the science stuff to those who know what they're on about lol..   but it is interesting 

Rudigers victims was just a daft theory..

I think they were just off on a skiing holiday considering the clothes and books in the luggage.

Edited June 15 by Leeanda

[Glflegolas]

Forsaken Airfield is definitely an airstrip, not a full airport. 

Using screenshots, I measured the main runway [04/22] to be around 507 meters long and 37 meters wide. For an STOL aircraft, landing on runway 22 or taking off from runway 04 wouldn't have been too bad, as that would take aircraft over Shoulder Lake. Landing on runway 04 or taking off from runway 22 might have been tricky, though, given the mountains not far away  

What looks like a second runway [16/34] has probably been turned into a taxiway, judging by the pole-mounted lights mounted next to it. It measures 322 meters long and 18 meters wide. The airplane parked on that taxiway has a wingspan of 15 meters. That runway was probably decomissioned into a taxiway because of the cliff very close to that runway's southeastern end. Takeoff could only have been done on runway 34, and landing on runway 16.

[Leeanda]

8 minutes ago, Glflegolas said:

Forsaken Airfield is definitely an airstrip, not a full airport. 

Using screenshots, I measured the main runway [04/22] to be around 507 meters long and 37 meters wide. For an STOL aircraft, landing on runway 22 or taking off from runway 04 wouldn't have been too bad, as that would take aircraft over Shoulder Lake. Landing on runway 04 or taking off from runway 22 might have been tricky, though, given the mountains not far away  

What looks like a second runway [16/34] has probably been turned into a taxiway, judging by the pole-mounted lights mounted next to it. It measures 322 meters long and 18 meters wide. The airplane parked on that taxiway has a wingspan of 15 meters. That runway was probably decomissioned into a taxiway because of the cliff very close to that runway's southeastern end. Takeoff could only have been done on runway 34, and landing on runway 16.

Good work there...  What did you use as a guide though?   I haven't spent much time there so if there's markers I wouldn't have seen them..

[Glflegolas]

A guide? For the runway numbers? Those are to do with which way the runway is facing.

I.E. runway 04 has a heading of around 40 degrees. 22 has a heading of 220 degrees. 

I got the headings from the x/y coordinates (debug screenshots) and a bit of trigonometry.

[Leeanda]

9 minutes ago, Glflegolas said:

A guide? For the runway numbers? Those are to do with which way the runway is facing.

I.E. runway 04 has a heading of around 40 degrees. 22 has a heading of 220 degrees. 

I got the headings from the x/y coordinates (debug screenshots) and a bit of trigonometry.

Sorry..I meant the distance of the runways. I  should have explained myself better..  

[Kranium]

10 hours ago, Leeanda said:

My experience with airplanes is strictly limited to flyovers /local airshows.... Boy those spitfires and red arrows are loud...

One cool experience I've had on an airplane was when I lived outside of a city with a major airport. We had a place on sort of a mountainside facing into a wide valley which led to the city/airport, and it was a route planes sometimes used along their approach. I've been able to look out the plane's window at my own house, literally at eye level. Was always a cool sensation haha.

 

More to the point of the thread, it's quite possible the planes were trying to glide to the FA airstrip for an emergency landing. There wouldn't be any other options besides trying an ocean landing, and water landings are extremely dangerous at the best of times. Even if the airstrip wasn't rated for their plane, it would be on their charts, and thus an option.

 

I have friends out east who own a large farm. Their parents used to have a small airplane, for pleasure. They had their own airstrip, which is nothing more than a wide gap in one of their vineyards which they keep flat & the grass cut short. (yes, grass, not paved) That air strip shows up on all air charts to this day, so long as they keep it maintained as such, even though it's private. They still keep that grass strip as-is, and they have to notify authorities if they "retire" it (NAV Canada, IIRC) so they can keep official aeronautical charts up-to-date. This is of utmost importance, for emergencies.

 

What happens in game lore, in my mind, is a Gimli Glider kind of situation, for all airborne craft at the time the Event occurs.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider

 

Quote

Air Canada Flight 143, commonly known as the Gimli Glider, was a Canadian scheduled domestic passenger flight between Montreal and Edmonton that ran out of fuel on Saturday, July 23, 1983, at an altitude of 41,000 feet (12,500 m), midway through the flight. The flight crew successfully glided the Boeing 767 to an emergency landing at a former Royal Canadian Air Force base in Gimli, Manitoba, which had been converted to a racetrack, Gimli Motorsports Park. It resulted in no serious injuries to passengers or persons on the ground, and only minor damage to the aircraft. The aircraft was repaired and remained in service until its retirement in 2008. This unusual aviation incident earned the aircraft the nickname "Gimli Glider."

 

Later, this exact incident was attempted by other pilots in a flight simulator. They all crashed.

At the time it was the longest un-powered glide ever for a large commercial aircraft. I believe it's been surpassed since only once or twice.

Edited June 15 by Kranium

[Leeanda]

12 minutes ago, Kranium said:

One cool experience I've had on an airplane was when I lived outside of a city with a major airport. We had a place on sort of a mountainside facing into a wide valley which led to the city/airport, and it was a route planes sometimes used along their approach. I've been able to look out the plane's window at my own house, literally at eye level. Was always a cool sensation haha.

 

More to the point of the thread, it's quite possible the planes were trying to glide to the FA airstrip for an emergency landing. There wouldn't be any other options besides trying an ocean landing, and water landings are extremely dangerous at the best of times. Even if the airstrip wasn't rated for their plane, it would be on their charts, and thus an option.

 

I have friends out east who own a large farm. Their parents used to have a small airplane, for pleasure. They had their own airstrip, which is nothing more than a wide gap in one of their vineyards which they keep flat & the grass cut short. (yes, grass, not paved) That air strip shows up on all air charts to this day, so long as they keep it maintained as such, even though it's private. They still keep that grass strip as-is, and they have to notify authorities if they "retire" it (NAV Canada, IIRC) so they can keep official aeronautical charts up-to-date. This is of utmost importance, for emergencies.

 

What happens in game lore, in my mind, is a Gimli Glider kind of situation, for all airborne craft at the time the Event occurs.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider

 

At the time it was the longest un-powered glide ever for a large commercial aircraft. I believe it's been surpassed since only once or twice.

Sounds cool lol...  I can see my house from here isn't something most can say in a plane😁 

I never even thought of a large plane gliding as such.. more nosediving..

[Laxgoalie]

Yes it’s a little counterintuitive but those large aircraft with turbofan engines have a substantially better glide ratio than a small prop aircraft. A piper arrow has the gliding characteristics of a bag of mud.

[Pyroxene]

Actually, gravity anomalies and solar anomalies are very interesting to study. I occasionally read the book "Exploring earth science" by Stephen Reynolds and in that book those anomalies are explained, along with plate tectonics and the mineral composition of the Earth.

[Leeanda]

Kind of like dropping a pen from a tall building,it'll drop like a rock.. 

[Pyroxene]

10 hours ago, Leeanda said:

Kind of like dropping a pen from a tall building,it'll drop like a rock.. 

F= m1 x M2 / r^2

[Leeanda]

46 minutes ago, Pyroxene said:

F= m1 x M2 / r^2

Umm...  Yep?😁

[Pyroxene]

1 hour ago, Leeanda said:

Umm...  Yep?😁

That's Newton's mathematical formula for gravity.

[Leeanda]

2 hours ago, Pyroxene said:

That's Newton's mathematical formula for gravity.

Thank you...  It's been 40 years since I was at school, a very long time to forget😊

[CandyRacks]

Well... We know Great Bear gets its supplys from mainland. The Summit plane is a cargo plane carring said supplys. It also bears the logo of Great Bear Island. Id say its a save guess that the Summit plane was headed to Great Bear (probably forsaken Airfield) on its routine supply delivery.

[ManicManiac]

"Grizzly Air..." does feel like a Canadian Airline to me.

[ThePancakeLady]

8 minutes ago, ManicManiac said:

"Grizzly Air..." does feel like a Canadian Airline to me.

Or Alaskan- Alaska is pretty well known for both Grizzlies and Polar Bears.

[_Timothy Treadwell and  Amy Huguenard_enter_the_chat_]

[ManicManiac]

Fair point, of course.