600 FPM...Folks was freakin'

Fearless Tower

Fearless Tower

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Fearless Tower
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They usually come down at 1200fpm or faster when entering the traffic pattern.
 
Fearless Tower said:
More awesome overstatements by the media:

http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/16/travel/hawaii-near-collision-ntsb/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

In reference to the altitude conflict between two airliners last week. The media sleuths determined that "Flight-tracking websites show the United plane descended 600 feet in 60 seconds"

OMG! 600 FPM....that's some serious excitement:rolleyes2:
Click to expand...

The smallest time resolution of those flight tracks appears to be 1 minute. If the aircraft has descended 600 feet in 6 seconds then they would indeed have experienced weightlessness per the report and still be consistent with 600 feet loss in a minute. Faster than that and they'd have negative gees.

S = a*t*t/2

a = 32.2 ft/sec^2
S = 600 ft
yields t = 6.1 secs
 
Fearless Tower said:
OMG! 600 FPM....that's some serious excitement:rolleyes2:
Click to expand...

I initially had the same response. However, having had time to think about it, it was probably the initial push the crew made that got all the attention. If the crew got a little overzealous, they could have reacted to the TA by pushing a little harder than was necessary. And after they figured out what was going on, toned the descent down to a more reasonable level.

Still sensational reporting, IMO.
 
I was pretty excited when I got 300 fpm climb in the old 150.
 
In the Yankee I'd see ~200fpm climb, and be happy with it. Be well over a mile away before turning crosswind.
Why did I enjoy flying it so much?
 
bluerooster said:
They usually come down at 1200fpm or faster when entering the traffic pattern.
Click to expand...

ATC had me at 3500 AGL 5 miles from the airport this afternoon. I finally decided enough and asked for the decent...."descend pilots discretion, sorry " was the return.

I could see these guys pushing it over and dropping that in seconds if the TCAS was blowing up. That's what it's for.
 
Approach sometimes holds me at 4500 until I pass the end of their runway, leaving me 4000' agl, 4 nm from the field. I divert ~4 nm away and do two standard rate 360's to descend, then decelerate back towards the field so I can think about entering the pattern near flap speed . . .
 
I was going downhill @ 700fpm today but no one panicked . . . and CNN was not interested.
 
It was 600 feet in one update. MEARTS is a 12 second update. It was quite a push over.
 
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