CNN says you can flame out a jet engine flying through hurricane

Why don't planes carry an anchor on the nose with a bunch of rope on it so they can drop it and fly it like a kite without the engines on in the hurricane? Checkmate!
 
IBTL

Yep. Honestly, we need a free media and free speech, but these guys don't make it easy for themselves..... the news really is kind of a joke. If you ever tune into BBC or check AP or Reuters it's refreshing to not be getting all that flashy clickbait nonsense and just more direct reporting. This gem below is Michelle Kosinski canoeing around in 3 inches of water pretending the street is flooded.. Matt knew how ridiculous it was and talked about it, but then you have Katie Couric murmuring "the best laid plans" so they all kind of knew they were caught and just went with it

This all comes back around to CNN, Michelle Kosinski is now a senior diplomatic correspondent for CNN. Just now this past winter 2018 she retweeted a fake DPRK account... with something as open and ungoverned as twitter it really would stand for these guys to do some proper vetting and get the story right. They'd restore the public's trust in them. Many of our Bernie bro friends gave up on traditional media ages ago (so it's not just a conservative R v L thing), getting their news from infotainment like Daily News, etc.. frankly, despite shows like that having a very clear political spin and agenda, I do feel like at least the "reporting" that is done by Oliver, Stewart (I'm dating myself), Trevor Noah, etc., was/is at least fairly accurate and factual, if biased.. but not blatantly false.

Imagine, if they can't vet basic things (flux capacitors on planes, only propeller planes capable of handling 75 mph winds, pretending to be blown over by wind, canoeing in 3 inches of water, etc.) then how can we expect them to get the remarkably complex inner workings of the economy and our government right?

 
Of course you can flame out an engine in a hurricane. That is what the flux capacitor is for. Duh!?
 
....cnn says a lot of stuff.
 
ARFlyer said:
Jeff Masters, Weather Underground Head Dude, got a front row seat to NOAA almost loosing a P-3 in Hugo.
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I love to Janice's question about the parachute!

I found it interesting in the article that they indicate the airplane is only rated for 3 G's, and yet they took almost 6 and survived. Are these airplanes reinforced in any capacity? and if not, does that mean that theoretically any transport category aircraft can make it through a hurricane?

Also, I'm surprised that they were unable to climb over 7,000 feet. I would think that with three engines still turning they be able to climb higher..

I understand we gave this CNN reporter a thrashing, but I do wonder if with all the water in the air if a piston engine is actually more reliable in situations like this
 
don't laugh at this question, but has a submarine ever been used to poke up to the surface of ahurricane and grab some surface readings? Honestly, submarine seems like it might be the safest place to be...
 
Tantalum said:
don't laugh at this question, but has a submarine ever been used to poke up to the surface of ahurricane and grab some surface readings? Honestly, submarine seems like it might be the safest place to be...
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Dunno. My nephew is on a sub and I could ask him if he has ever heard of this, but I think they have better things to do. I also figure they'd prefer to be deep, rather than get shallow and into all those swells. They might be able to float probes, or whatever, above them but they'd have to be equipped well ahead of time since they stay out for long periods on patrol. I'd think that a remote submersible would be way cheaper, and dropping probes from an airplane might be cheaper yet.
 
Tantalum said:
don't laugh at this question, but has a submarine ever been used to poke up to the surface of ahurricane and grab some surface readings? Honestly, submarine seems like it might be the safest place to be...
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NO. A submarine underwater is the best place to be. On the surface, a submarine, with its round hull, rolls in a rather dangerous way. You would sooner send a surface ship out there than a submarine.

My first boat was the USS Sculpin, SSN-590. When it was decomissioned, we had to move from Groton CT to Norfolk, VA. Because the boat was so old and they deferred some inspections, we were not allowed to dive. As we were coming south, there was a hurricane coming north and the sea state was building. It was not a fun ride.

I also remember that because we were leaving Groton for the last time, there was a problem getting some supplies. At sea for Saturday midrate (midnight meal), the boat served pizza, every week for 28 years. This was the last time the boat would be at sea, the tradition was NOT going to be broken now. Unfortunately, there was no pizza sauce and no mozzarella cheese, so the cooks had to improvise. The pizzas were made up in sheet pans with ketchup and american cheese and me, being the new nub on board had to serve that to the crew. It was pretty awful. Fortunately, the sea state was still getting worse and about 10 minutes into the meal, we took a double roll. Think of rolling left 30 degrees, then right 30 degrees. A double roll goes 30 degrees over, but halfway up a wave, then you slip into the trough and roll 40-50 degree over. In the galley, I heard "wham, wham, wham, wham" as the stacked up sheet trays of pizza slid off the counter and hit the deck. There was great relief that the tradition had been kept, but now it was over and we could break out the sandwich meats and eat something better.

No, no submarine is going to surface in a hurricane if they can avoid it.

TM2/SS sends
 
After reading through this thread, and specifically Engineer Ted's post(s), it seems that it is possible to have a flameout on a turbojet/fan flying through a hurricane, and it is much less likely, due to mechanical orientation, to happen to a turboprop in the same weather conditions. But the news show was totally wrong, right?
 
Ted DuPuis said:
Alright, turbine engine engineer here with a few clarifications.

On a turbofan/turbojet engine, crosswinds tend to have a bigger impact on inlet pressures at the nacelle inlet. This can be how some of the crosswind limitations may be applied, and it's something that we have to test for during certification, basically making sure that the inlet pressure doesn't get low enough for a compressor stall which is a bad thing. Turbofans tend to be more susceptible to compressor stalls and there are a lot more systems involved in most of them to try to prevent them... various pressure relief valves, bypass valves, and variable geometry vanes on the stators for the compressor.

Turboprops tend to be different in terms of design, enough such that compressor stalls can happen, but they pretty much don't. I think some of this has to do with not needing optimization for higher speeds like you do with a turbofan, and probably also something to do with not having a turbofan in front of the compressor. The propeller behaves differently than a fan (even though its function is essentially the same) and probably makes for more uniform air pressures in front of the compressor.

With that said, the issues are during lower speeds and crosswind landings especially. The winds of a hurricane may be shifting a lot, but you're still moving forward at a significant speed. That report is just a load of crap by someone who doesn't have a clue what they're talking about.

The hurricane hunter aircraft are fortified, but to my knowledge they aren't doing anything to change the overall behavior of the engine, it really has to do with making the plane itself tougher against hail etc.

Oh, hail. That's the biggest reason I could see for using turboprops vs. turbofans. The props tend to be tougher, and easier to make tough against hail. Turbofans need to be tested against hail ingestion, but it's not the same.

This is why I don't watch or listen to the news.
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I just read an article on the hurricane planes; the pilot claims that the airframes are not modified!
 
Peter Anderson said:
You would think after spending a full year covering the mh370 missing plane they would know how one works!

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
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They have been relying on Scary Mary, so they have very few facts to work with.
 
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
At what weight?
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Exactly. Where the weight is located is very important too. Put a bunch of torpedoes or depth charges in the P-3 and the proportion of the weight in the fuselage changes substantially. That drives wing bending moments, and...
 
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
At what
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Article didn't say, but 6 Gs on an unmodified frame rated for 3 is impressive..

If these really are unmodified that implies that really any plane could make it through one

Hell, Cirrus allows 3.8+ G.. and in reality probably more with >7000 delivered and no in flight breakup. Hell the Bonanza G36 has dual spars and 4.4+ G max max load..... so who's up for an eyewall penetration??
 
Tantalum said:
Article didn't say, but 6 Gs on an unmodified frame rated for 3 is impressive..
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Well... If it REALLY was 6G, and they are at 1/2 gross, then there would be pretty much no excess load on much of the structure (there are some exceptions like motor mounts.) Weight matters.
At 6G you also have the issue of greying out.
 
bobmrg said:
A little research is in order before poking fun at CNN:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Airways_Flight_242

Never flew through a hurricane, but it was SOP to turn on the igniters in a 20-series Lear when flying through heavy rain.

Bob Gardner
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That crash happened 4.5 miles due west of my (then) home. The hailstorm was really bad and left a 2" layer of hail on the ground that took hours to completely melt. In 53 years, it's the only one like that I remember. Where I'm going is that it was more a hail event than a rain even that took down the airplane. The airliner glided right over my current home airfield (Cartersville, GA) on the way to the crash site. Presumably the airplane was IMC at the time. Another "survival" opportunity would have been to belly in in one of the large agricultural fields it overflew (I assume IMC). Unfortunately, the airplane flew about 10 miles too far South and was over heavily forested areas when the pilots ran out of altitude.

We could see the smoke column from the road in front of our house, and there was a tremendous amount of emergency vehicle activity that came down our road. The crash site brought out some of the bad behavior you hear about. Despite public warnings, a lot of people went over there in the hours after the crash and grabbed "souvenirs". Kids came to school the next day or two and bragged about it.
 
Tantalum said:
Article didn't say, but 6 Gs on an unmodified frame rated for 3 is impressive..

If these really are unmodified that implies that really any plane could make it through one

Hell, Cirrus allows 3.8+ G.. and in reality probably more with >7000 delivered and no in flight breakup. Hell the Bonanza G36 has dual spars and 4.4+ G max max load..... so who's up for an eyewall penetration??
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A number of years ago, there was a grey USN P-3 that just about broke apart as well, as many of us might remember. I never read the official report, but rumor was something along the lines of an unintentional departure from controlled flight, possibly a developed spin at some point, and in the ballpark of 7+ G's during the recovery on the backside. From the pictures I saw, it was in pretty rough shape, but they landed it. I think the P-3 is a pretty tough airframe, at least based on these two data points.

As a side note, we "penetrated" Florence this afternoon heading back home. Sucked every last drop of O2 out of my mask up at FL400, but it was a pretty smooth ride through the very tops of the buildups. Surprisingly, the winds aloft were quite light.....no more than 25 knots, basically a pure crosswind, and for the most part, less than 10 knots. No way would I have wanted to do it at 7-10k like the hunters do, and that's today, with her being a TD now. Those guys have some pretty big balls.
 
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Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
Well... If it REALLY was 6G, and they are at 1/2 gross, then there would be pretty much no excess load on much of the structure (there are some exceptions like motor mounts.) Weight matters.
At 6G you also have the issue of greying out.
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Still an impressive load, esp for an unmodified plane. I bet it was a momentary jolt, not sustained. But I assume they were well over 50% gross. The max weight is around 140K lbs, and the empty weight is around 77K lbs... so even empty it weighs more than half max gross, and they dumped 50K in fuel after the incident. So, some very conservative math suggests the following

+70,000 empty
+55,000 fuel (they probably left with 60K, which is max, and dumped 50K they said, so they probably had around 55K during the event)
+5K for people and equipment (which I believe is way too conservative)
=130,000 lb weight during event.. or 92% of gross. 6Gs should have been lethal. I believe they were still near max gross because they could hardly climb to 7K on 3 engines... which is surprising given that they have a ceiling of 28,000 ft and these Orion sub hunters often loiter on just two engines on patrol

..even if they were at just 50% weight, like you said other things like engine mounts, etc., would still be going well beyond design load, perhaps that's part of the reason #3 flamed out?

Anyway, just surprised that an allegedly unmodified plane (stackexchange, wikipedia, other sites all say they're not structurally modified) can take such an impressive pounding, especially when the P3 is based originally on a civilian design, the L188, which had a series of inflight breakups when they first entered service.. so it's not like something that was designed for military abuse from the get-go. It's like taking a Q400, putting some radars on it, etc., or, for that matter, what Boeing did with the 737 P8

bobmrg said:
A little research is in order before poking fun at CNN
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I doubt he was taking a data point from that accident. Any turbine if ingesting enough water will go out, I believe it is SOP in many places to go to IGN when in heavy heavy precip. Propellers may help keep water out of the intake, but the implication that props are "old school" is bogus. And it is immaterial to the reporting.. it's again evidence of the need to sensationalize every story "THESE STORMS ARE SO BAD THEY NEED OLD SCHOOL PROPS!!!!!" <- we've all seen the 767 video taking off in some bonkers precip.. there are many vids on youtube of turbine aircraft in precip or engine testing in heavy rain. I'm pretty sure you could just as safely plow a 777 through a hurricane eye wall at 1,500 (hell, they wouldn't have a deicing boot to loose!)
 
35 AoA said:
A number of years ago, there was a grey USN P-3 that just about broke apart as well, as many of us might remember. I never read the official report, but rumor was something along the lines of an unintentional departure from controlled flight, possibly a developed spin at some point, and in the ballpark of 7+ G's during the recovery on the backside. From the pictures I saw, it was in pretty rough shape, but they landed it. I think the P-3 is a pretty tough airframe, at least based on these two data points.

As a side note, we "penetrated" Florence this afternoon heading back home. Sucked every last drop of O2 out of my mask up at FL400, but it was a pretty smooth ride through the very tops of the buildups. Surprisingly, the winds aloft were quite light.....no more than 25 knots, basically a pure crosswind, and for the most part, less than 10 knots. No way would I have wanted to do it at 7-10k like the hunters do, and that's today, with her being a TD now. Those guys have some pretty big balls.
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Why in Lord’s name would you fly through the tops of the build ups at FL400 ??? It’s simple to go around at that altitude...
 
bobmrg said:
A little research is in order before poking fun at CNN:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Airways_Flight_242

Never flew through a hurricane, but it was SOP to turn on the igniters in a 20-series Lear when flying through heavy rain.
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Watch the video again. What the CNN reporter said was, "If you get a jet with the wind blowing the wrong way, you could get a flameout. It doesn't happen with the propeller planes ... [deer-in-headlights pause] ... as much." o_O

Maybe he thinks that in an extreme tailwind, air gets shoved backwards through the engine ... ? :confused:

Let the fun-poking resume. :rolleyes:
 
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Kritchlow said:
Why in Lord’s name would you fly through the tops of the build ups at FL400 ??? It’s simple to go around at that altitude...
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As wide spread as it was, not really.....the wall, if you will, was hundreds of miles across, and if we deviated completely around it, we are talking an entire other leg of flying. That was actually what I expected we would do, but real time, based on center reporting nothing significant along our route, and the dozens of airliners I could see on radar pushing through below us, it became apparent that it wasn't as bad as I had expected. I'm not a meteorologist, but my impression was that once those cells move overland and dump all of their energy and moisture (as these had by then), you still have some pretty big buildups that are probably still surviving for a little while, more on inertia, than they are actual on actual convective activity. The same could absolutely not be said about the bands that were still rolling in from offshore to the extreme southeast of our track. Those would have been really unforgiving. It was an interesting experience though.

Funny thing was the forecast from the navy wx folks said the tops would be FL300 and below so we filed for 310. About 50 miles out, looking through the HUD, the velocity vector was way above the tops, so I figured "nice, looks good". About 20 miles out, the geometry changed and I could tell that wasn't going to work. Requested 350, a few mins later 370, a couple more minutes 390, and then finally asked for and got 390 block 400. As you eluded to, I am not super excited about going through wx like that if convective, but given the minimal convection, I was mostly worried about icing, which would be the thing that the airliners I mentioned seeing below us are much more capable of dealing with than we are. Better to be well above the freezing level (that day anyway), than trolling around right in the heart of it, with all the precip. Pretty helpful controllers that day I might add!
 
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Ted DuPuis said:
Alright, turbine engine engineer here with a few clarifications.

On a turbofan/turbojet engine, crosswinds tend to have a bigger impact on inlet pressures at the nacelle inlet. This can be how some of the crosswind limitations may be applied, and it's something that we have to test for during certification, basically making sure that the inlet pressure doesn't get low enough for a compressor stall which is a bad thing. Turbofans tend to be more susceptible to compressor stalls and there are a lot more systems involved in most of them to try to prevent them... various pressure relief valves, bypass valves, and variable geometry vanes on the stators for the compressor.

Turboprops tend to be different in terms of design, enough such that compressor stalls can happen, but they pretty much don't. I think some of this has to do with not needing optimization for higher speeds like you do with a turbofan, and probably also something to do with not having a turbofan in front of the compressor. The propeller behaves differently than a fan (even though its function is essentially the same) and probably makes for more uniform air pressures in front of the compressor.

With that said, the issues are during lower speeds and crosswind landings especially. The winds of a hurricane may be shifting a lot, but you're still moving forward at a significant speed. That report is just a load of crap by someone who doesn't have a clue what they're talking about.

The hurricane hunter aircraft are fortified, but to my knowledge they aren't doing anything to change the overall behavior of the engine, it really has to do with making the plane itself tougher against hail etc.

Oh, hail. That's the biggest reason I could see for using turboprops vs. turbofans. The props tend to be tougher, and easier to make tough against hail. Turbofans need to be tested against hail ingestion, but it's not the same.

This is why I don't watch or listen to the news.
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I know from V speeds that in turbulence one wants to fly at a slower airspeed, to reduce loading on the wings, etc.
It that also a consideration regarding the airplanes they use for this? That they can be flown at a slower airspeed?
 
LongRoadBob said:
I know from V speeds that in turbulence one wants to fly at a slower airspeed, to reduce loading on the wings, etc.
It that also a consideration regarding the airplanes they use for this? That they can be flown at a slower airspeed?
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I am not a hurricane hunter so I don't know the technical reasons behind their decisions. That said it would make sense that you wouldn't want to go through it too fast for aircraft loading reasons and also to have enough time to get the data you're looking for.
 
Not so sure this isn't true, depending on the type of Turboprop. The flame out can happen with turbulence, wind shear, but also with water ingestion if it is severe enough, think Hurricane. What is different between a jet engine and some if not most turboprops is they don't ingest the water. You have an inertial separator whose job is to divert the water, ice or FOD away from the engine, and in the case of the PT6, the air actually flows backwards into the engine, the water doesn't make the turn and is ejected out of the intertial separator. That is also why you don't really hear about turboprops flaming out from a bird ingestion, between the bird blender on the front and the IS, the bird is not making it into the important part of the engine, at least not the modern designs. Some of the older TP's had intakes straight into the engines and would also be susceptible.
 
LMAO. This actually sounds very similar to some of my office workers.
 
Greg Bockelman said:
All of this is true. But that wasn’t really the context of the news story.

The point being that a turbine engine is turning a prop instead of a fan and is susceptible to the same issues.

I am sure the hurricane hunters have been fortified to an extent for their mission but it is still a turbine engine running the show, so to speak.
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I know inertial separators are for ice, but i'd think their design would sling out quite a bit of water. Or they could be designed to do so, making them less susceptible to flame out from excessive water ingestion.

Water can make a jet flame out, I believe turning on the igniters is SOP in many when entering heavy precip
 
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