Posted on 02/14/2020 8:05:07 PM PST by texas booster
Airline company Widerøe has in its almost 90 year history never experienced this kind of weather.
The past months have seen extraordinarily rough weather along the north Norwegian coast. Early this week came another extreme. The air pressure dropped to a level not seen in several decades.
According to the Norwegian meteorological institute, the air pressure across major parts of the region was below 940 hectopascal, a level that makes flying unsafe.
The Widerøe company that serves most of the regional routes put almost its whole aircraft fleet on the ground.
"Our smallest aircraft type Dash 100, 200 and 300 can not fly with pressure lower than 948 hectopascal,"
More than 2,000 passengers were affected by the weather conditions. Only on Tuesday afternoon did the pressure return to a level that allows aircraft to operate normally.
The low pressure also resulted in high waters levels along the Norwegian coast. In Tromsø, the north Norwegian town, the sea water was on Tuesday 354 cm higher than normal, the Meteorological Institute informs.
(Excerpt) Read more at thebarentsobserver.com ...
Commence Operation Vacu-Suck!
Billibars? Where Bill goes to ditch Hill for a few hours?
Well, that really sucks!
That’s what I wanted back in the ‘70s. I didn’t get it either. :)
Flew commercial Dash 8s dozens of times in California Central Valley, but never had that feeling. From what I heard from regional pilots, overhead wing aircraft are tougher to land. Perhaps giving a passenger the experience you mention. Used to love our company Aero Commander, another overhead wing turboprop.
One thing that wasn’t mentioned here...right now, at the South Pole...some of the highest temperatures ever noted, are being observed on a daily basis.
If you ask me...this is all part of the Milankovitch Cycle business.
I dont understand why they would be limited. 940 hp is, as others pointed out, 13.6 psi. This corresponds to an altitude of about 2500 ft. So the low pressure would simply be similar to landing or taking off from a mid level airport. Heck there are airports scattered throughout the rocky mountains much higher. So if it isn’t beyond the capabilities of the aircraft, why can’t they fly with that low of a base pressure? Maybe it has something to do with instruments? Maybe they simply can ot dial in enough correction to calibrate their altimiters to that pressure at that altitude? Thus they wouldn’t have an accurate altitude reading - something that tends to make pilots flying IFR a little upset....
In the tropics, low pressure is always associated with high winds and heavy rain.
Does low pressure mean high winds and frozen precipitation in the Arctic?
Pretty sure it’s same as hurricane storm surge. Combination of low pressure water bulge and wind driven water pile up.
So I looked it up as I don’t know the metric system in this regard and since no one else mentioned it: 940 hp is 27.76 “ Hg! That makes me realize I never tried twisting an altimeter setting knob as far as I could before. The article mentioned that an hp setting which converts to 28.00” being the lowest setting.
Interesting - throws off their altimeters.
I wonder who was the first person to figure that one out? And how?
I watch some of the recreations of airplane accidents (they use some sort of graphic software, and often with the pilot to tower comms). Pretty interesting stuff.
I recall one comment on one of them said something like “Sadly - most airplane procedures and rules are written in blood.”
Lots of the videos end with something like “After this incident it was required that at least one of the pilots have at least 100 hours of flight time on the specific type of aircraft they are flying.)
Hail Mel!
Um, Tidal range is 10.5 ft for Tromso. (3.2m)
Somebody playing fast and lose with da numbers I think.
The plane will fly fine, it’s either the altimeter won’t accept a setting that low or the performance data hasn’t been written for a setting that low. It’s not a problem with the aircraft actually flying.
I had never seen the cause of the vacuum of space. Thanks!
It was the vibration that got to me more than anything. It bothered my ears.
So, is one hectopascal one milibar?
American routinely have pressures
<930 milibars
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