Water on the Runway

One environmental factor that has an effect on aircraft performance is water, more specifically water that is found on the runway. The main concern whenever you have water on a runway is the possibility of hydroplaning. This causes the wheels to lose contact with the ground. When this happens you can lose all of your ability or some of your ability to brake or turn. another concern when water accumulates on the runway is the possibility of it turning into ice if the temperatures were to drop low enough. 



Some runways have grooves in them that work to drain the water, but a lot of them do not have those grooves. knowing the pressure of your tire can help you know the speed at which your plane will start hydroplaning. At the end of the day, the best thing you can do is just be aware that the water is present and do whatever you can to minimize its effects, like landing into the wind.

Refrences

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). (2016). Pilot’s Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge (PHAK). Retrieved https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/handbooks_manuals/aviation/phak/

Zhu, X., Pang, Y., Yang, J., & Zhao, H. (2020). Numerical analysis of hydroplaning behaviour by using a tire–water-film–runway model. International Journal of Pavement Engineering, 1-17.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ethics in Aviation

Image
Merriam-Webster defines ethics as, “the discipline dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation.” In aviation, the good and the bad have serious consequences. The good is what is helpful to others and taking care of others. The bad is what is inherently dangerous to others. You see just about any job within the aviation community, your choices have a ripple effect on people that you may never meet, or you may only briefly meet. People essentially put their lives in our hands, if we make a mistake or act poorly this could, worst-case scenario, cause a plane to crash. It is for this reason that it is imperative that all those who have chosen the aviation industry as their profession need to have and understand good ethics. You may be thinking, there are a lot of people within the aviation industry, how do we ensure that they all have good ethics. There is no perfect solution to this, but the good news is that ethics can be taught and learned. We need to be ingrain...
Read more

Aircraft Ignition System

Image
 The ignition system consists of magnetos, spark plugs, high tension leads, and the ignition switch. The magnetos are not attached to the electrical system in the aircraft, instead, it uses a magnet to create an electric current that will ignite the spark plugs, as long as the crankshaft is moving.  Most aircraft have two magnetos that work independently of each other. Each magneto is connected to one of the two sparkplugs in each cylinder. Having two sparkplugs as opposed to one assist in the combustion process with the fuel-air mixture. There are a few things that could go wrong with the ignition system. The magneto could go out, there could be a problem with the wire that connects the magneto to the sparkplug or the spark plug could be firing improperly. This could impact the engine power output. The good news is that since there are two magnetos and two spark plugs per cylinder if one side fails during flight you can still rely on the other side. Despite this, if you k...
Read more