Magnetic Pole Shift Affects Tampa Airport 317
RFSSystems writes "I thought this was an amazing and rather rare phenomenon and wanted to share. 'The airport has closed its primary runway until Jan. 13 to repaint the numeric designators at each end and change taxiway signage to account for the shift in location of the Earth's magnetic north pole.' It appears that the shifting poles have begun to affect air travel in a somewhat modest way. Could this also be the explanation for the falling/dead birds this week?" I hope the gradualists are right, but scenarios for rapid magnetic pole shift are fun to think about.
Happens all the time (Score:5, Informative)
The airport I work at has a second set of signage from when the gradual shift occurs in cycles, making for a 10 degree change in the direction of the runway. Ie, here it will be runway 10-28 becoming runway 09-27. Has nothing to do with birds, happens every decade or so. Ten years after that, itll be back to what it is now.
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AFAIK the pole is heading off to a different direction this time.
It does wanter, and is "cyclic" in that it wanders all the time enough that it comes back to the same spot.
Anybody thinking they are going to predict it however is mistaken or at best, lucky if they guess right.
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It's not a perfect pattern, but mostly it wanders within a circular region. Since the signage only has to change when it wanders far enough to one side to make a significant difference, it will naturally require a small set of alternate signs which will be reusable under typical conditions.
Re:Happens all the time (Score:4, Informative)
Note that this is only true from the human's perspective. From the Earth's, it has actually traveled all the way to the other side and back, many times over.
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Re:Happens all the time (Score:4, Funny)
because measuring "true" cardinal directions is so simple, compared with measuring magnetic north.
Oh wait...
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Re:Happens all the time (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe because a magnetic compass will (almost) always work when the more advanced instruments don't?
How do you propose that pilots figure out what the "true" cardinal direction is as they approach the airport? While working through their landing checklist, monitoring other air traffic, weather, and everything else that has to happen before the wheels touch down?
I guarantee they don't have time to do a star-sighting.
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Re:Happens all the time (Score:5, Insightful)
Both.
The regulations are there for a very good reason. Every airplane needs a magnetic compass on board, because in all the years of using magnetic compasses, they aren't known for running out of batteries or needing to be rebooted at a critical moment or failing because a programmer fucked up and you just crossed time zones. Electronics can easily accommodate using mag north, magnetics cannot as easily accommodate using true north. So we use the system the simplest system can accommodate easily, and the more complex systems that are MORE than capable of adjusting for it do so.
Hobbyist planes are where professional pilots learn to fly, and most of them start out using a magnetic compass as their primary directional instrument (or at least use that as input to set a a directional gyroscope that's easier to read). That way, when the pro pilot is up there and the instrument panel suddenly goes dead in a puff of smoke, there's no reason to write off the lives of the passengers on board. The pilot knows where he's going, and this is due in part to the simple instruments that are on board, and in part to the fact that he's prepared in case this happens.
You learn to fly using shit that don't break, then you get to play with the fancy doodads later, but you never forget how to use the shit that don't break. People's lives depend on that.
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Its nothing at all to do with inertia.
It has a lot to do with a compass working long after your smartphone gave up because it ran out of battery, couldn't see any satellites, couldn't find any towers, and was disrupted by other instruments/radios in the aircraft.
You presume your tiny little experience with your silly little iphone applies in the far north, in third world countries, in the middle of god forsaken Nevada, and the South Pacific.
Its all about functionality, and knowing the runway alignment when
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Every tower has its own frequency. He has a book with him that he'll be looking in to get the frequency (or just ask the last tower he was talking to what to use for the next one, but that's inappropriate). Whatever he does to get the frequency for the tower of where he's going (whether memorization or looking it up) can hold the declination. It isn't hard.
I guarantee they don't have time to d
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And just remember that the inconvenience for the airport every 10 years won't put any lifes in risk. The inconvenience for the pilots every time they land will put several (every crew member and passenger) lifes at risk.
Also, I don't get the GP. The pilots like it the way it is, the airports aren't complaining either and nobody else ever see the numbers (except by curiosity). What is his problem with the current convention?
Regarding the birds (Score:2)
Happened in Falköping, Sweden to:
http://gfx2.aftonbladet-cdn.se/multimedia/dynamic/01365/05s21-pippidea-809_1365286l.jpg [aftonbladet-cdn.se]
But it was just a retarded truck driver who had drove them over.
People started to talk about fish, bees and some idiots about electromagnetic waves from phone antennas, UFOs, (US) government supposedly spraying barium, strontium and so on into the atmosphere showing pictures of planes with regular trails and saying "OMG OMG OMG!" ... Oh well. And the bees (actually) died from some Mon
I wonder (Score:3)
if we'll see a similar phenomenon with the bee population as we start moving into the warmer months ahead. Perhaps it's not just a cell phone boom that was to blame last year...
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Re:I wonder (Score:5, Funny)
Are you pondering what I'm pondering?
Why, yes, Brain! I do think it is a bad idea to eat tater tots that were saved in my pocket from this afternoon's lunch!
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I think so Brain, but where are we going to find rubber sheets and that much Wesson oil at this hour?
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Go get a shotgun, a case of birdshot, set up an optimal test and place a lot of small dark bird sized targets in a tree. Wait for dark. Fire a lot of shots into the tree. See how many you've hit come morning.
Yes some irresponsible gun owners can cause problems, but 1000's of birds over a few days in many locales just isn't going to add up to a few hoons.
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As some have postulated, it wasn't rednecks with shotguns, it was rednecks with damn big fireworks, big enough to startle/overstress the entire flock, who then proceeded to do what startled birds do, at night, and managed to slam into each other a few times.
Re:I wonder (Score:5, Interesting)
Sorry. But that is nonsense.
There are rednecks and fireworks everywhere in the USA on new years eve. Yet the massive bird death was strictly local.
The noise excuse is simply silly. It is not possible to create enough noise with a few big fireworks (or full sticks of dynamite) to kill bird over a 4 square mile area.
Can't be done, and if it could every city an town in the US would be littered with birds.
The most rational explanation is a large flock of birds, from somewhere possibly quite distant, were sucked aloft by a small un-noticed rural tornado or violent updraft and simply froze to death, and thawed upon landing.
Occam's razor applies to acts of nature.
Re:I wonder (Score:4, Informative)
http://io9.com/5725175/why-are-thousands-of-dead-birds-suddenly-falling-from-the-sky [io9.com]
They say it better than I could:
Not rare at all (Score:5, Informative)
Changing magnetic deviation due to movement of the magnetic pole goes on all the time. Runways are numbered according to their magnetic heading, plus or minus five degrees, and they have to keep them up to date, is all.
Two seconds of googling found this comment thread [airliners.net] discussing a different runway-renumbering from July of 2009.
Obviously not enough airplane geeks around here...
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Honestly the comments are more interesting then the article and infinity more informative as is the case with yours.
If I had mod points I would have given you a +1 informative.
To be honest until reading your comment I had never really given much thought about the runway numbering scheme.
Re:Not rare at all (Score:5, Funny)
How am I supposed to panic uncontrollably when level-headed people like you are around?
Seriously speaking, thank you (and people like you) for being around.
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Just don't ask him about convection changes in the earth's core; he'll freak out.
For the airplane geeks... (Score:2)
Why are we still using compass ?
With GPS and INS [wikipedia.org], the runways could be numbered in relation to ITRF [wikipedia.org]. Of course, continent drift means some renumbering will be needed, but that would be much less frequently.
Re:For the airplane geeks... (Score:4, Informative)
Because not every plane has a GPS or INS. (Certified) GPS equipment is still new and expensive for airplanes. INS is very large and heavy, and only used on large commercial jets.
And perhaps most importantly, a compass always works. If everything else fails, you still have that as a backup.
Re:For the airplane geeks... (Score:5, Informative)
Yup. The compass is one of the few instruments required in every aircraft in the US. Give me a tachometer, a compass, and an altimeter and I can navigate an airplane across the US.
GPS just recently came into the cockpit and the devices are expensive. People should realize that these are aviation instruments, so they need to be certified and are in turn expensive.
INS isn't in every aircraft simply because not every aircraft needs to be instrument-rated. Some people, like myself currently, only fly in VFR conditions. Removing these expensive instruments saves money, as you said.
Want to see a pilot bitch? Tell him he needs to buy something. For a great example of this search Google for the term "ADB-S requirement" and see the pilots moan about this new requirement. I should know, I'm one of them :D
Re:For the airplane geeks... (Score:4, Informative)
Huh, I have a military fighter aircraft grade INS with a 2 hour battery backup packed into a 3U rackmount box right next to me that indicates it weighs 17lbs. Yea, it was expensive (low 5-figures). So are aircraft.
Many aircraft cost in the mid-to-high 5-figures. Adding 10-20% to a private plane's cost, or double that if you want redundancy, seems excessive when the only benefit is some geek's sense of correctness. Adding 6U worth of rack equipment isn't exactly easy either - space can be quite tight up there as it is.
Re:For the airplane geeks... (Score:5, Informative)
The compass requires no electrical power.
I fly a Cessna 172S equipped with a Garmin G1000. It's a glass cockpit that makes life much, much easier, but I still have a few analog instruments: compass, attitude indicator, airspeed indicator, and altimeter. All of them function on principles in place on aircraft for many decades now, and provide a layer of reliability in case just about everything goes wrong. I can lose the entire electrical system and still be able to fly to the best landing site available, because the compass is based on the Earth's magnetic field, the attitude indicator is based on a vacuum-driven gyro (the vacuum pump is mechanical and run by the engine), the altimeter is based on the static air pressure, and the airspeed indicator is based on both the pitot tube and the static air pressure. (The engine spark is provided by magnetos that will keep providing spark as long as the engine is turning - no battery required.)
There are complications when flying at night, but that's why I carry a hand-held navcom radio and a couple of flashlights with me in my flight bag.
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Thanks for the answer.
Happens that I overlook the noncommercial flight angle.
With fly by wire aircrafts, no electricity means much bigger issues than no compass...
However it is sound to not have a mixed system with geographical north reference for airports and magnetic north reference for smaller aerodromes.
kaleth maks the point that INS are large and heavy. Is that true anymore ? Smartphones have gyroscopes and accelerometers now. Don't they have enough precision for flight use ?
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Flight is not generally as precise as many people think. Extreme precision is required on take-off and landing, and is not as critical in most other phases. In fact, intrument error traditionally provided a certain margin of safety in flight. Charts have for years now contained a warning regarding waypoints:
Basically, the planes fly so precisely using GPS coordinates, and espec
Re:For the airplane geeks... (Score:5, Informative)
Because they offer the best bang for the buck. Because pilots are trained to use them. Because they work. Because aviation is totally anal about "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". This is A Good Thing.
I'm learning to fly in Piper Cherokees, and I have a magnetic compass and gyroscopic heading indicator at my disposal. Both are accurate, but both have idiosyncrasies.
The magnetic compass is subject to errors when accelerating or decelerating on east/west courses. It also misbehaves when turning to/from north or south. The heading indicator slowly drifts as Earth rotates underneath it. On long flights you have to periodically re-set the heading indicator.
The pre-takeoff checklist includes setting the heading indicator to the magnetic compass, and verifying that both read correctly when you pull on to the runway. In the future Runway 01 (13 degrees) will become Runway 36 or Runway 02.
...laura
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If ground control says you are landing on runway 245, you already know the heading you have to approach the airport...
That would be runway 25, and you would know within 5 degrees the heading you have to approach the airport.
Re:Not rare at all (Score:4, Informative)
Runways are numbered according to their magnetic heading, plus or minus five degrees
Plus an alphabetic suffix such as "L" or "R" in the case of parallel runways.
Re:Not rare at all (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm a private pilot here in Tampa and I can actually see the runways from my parking garage here south of TIA (actually KTPA). They teach you this during your private pilot's course so it's known to all pilots that deviations occur and poles shift. Magnetic deviation is accounted for in your training and you use other tools to compensate.
In fact when I fly along I'll use a chart of known magnetic deviations in the area I am flying to find true north. I also have two instruments I can use - a heading indicator and an actual magnetic compass. We set the heading indicator, a gyroscopic-based instrument, using the compass while flying straight or on the ground. This will need to be adjusted as we fly along typically, it "creeps". We use the heading indicator over a magnetic compass because trying to fly accurately with a compass is like trying to balance a unicycle. it's not easy and you chase the dial. We also use GPS but the ultimate navigation instrument for a VFR pilot like myself is a set of eyeballs, we use dead reckoning using navigation landmarks noted on charts or known to us.
The pilots flying into KTPA will most likely be commercial pilots flying an instrument landing approach. This will not effect them much at all but the runway needed to be shut down so it could be repainted and fit into the FAA regulations. It's as simple as that.
Not sure why I added all that. Probably because no one else did.
Difficult to change, but not that rare. (Score:5, Informative)
Wikipedia subsection on the subject. [wikipedia.org]
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> Since it requires updating of all the charts that aircraft are required to carry (not to mention signage on the ground), it's often deferred as long as possible.
The signage on the ground and numbering/labeling on the computer equipment is probably a pain, but if I remember my aviation science class correctly, aeronautical charts are updated yearly and commercial aircraft are required to carry the latest, so that's not really a factor.
Re:Difficult to change, but not that rare. (Score:5, Informative)
Changes to stuff like this are introduced on a cycle once every 28 days - called an "AIRAC cycle". The AIRAC is synchronized all over the world, so all the systems, charts and the like on the ground and in aircraft can be updated accordingly. Obviously there is some lead time ahead to allow for publication, distribution and update of the information and depending systems.
Imagine if it was only once a year - every change affecting more than one airspace user or aviation service provider in the world would have to be introduced together. This would in consequence mean that you could only open a new runway, introduce a departure procedure or many more things on that date.
On top of this there's a notification scheme for distributing info like non-functioning equipment, temporarily closed runways (for which you don't change maps forth and back), procedures to adhere, info about an airshow and the like. This is called a NOTAM - short for NOtice To AirMen.
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Charts are generally updated more frequently than that, though not as frequently as the AIRAC information that Orion2 mentions. Usually, sectional and terminal area charts are updated every six months or so. As an example, the current LA sectional and TAC are good from 16 Dec 2010 to 30 Jun 2011, and are based on information current as of 18 Nov 2010 for airspace and 21 Oct 2010 for everything else.
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Charts are generally updated more frequently than that, though not as frequently as the AIRAC information that Orion2 mentions. Usually, sectional and terminal area charts are updated every six months or so. As an example, the current LA sectional and TAC are good from 16 Dec 2010 to 30 Jun 2011, and are based on information current as of 18 Nov 2010 for airspace and 21 Oct 2010 for everything else. All pilots are required to carry current charts with them when acting as a crew member no matter what thei
Re:Difficult to change, but not that rare. (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Difficult to change, but not that rare. (Score:5, Funny)
Actually somewhat common (Score:5, Informative)
Airport runway numbers are based off their magnetic headings with the last zero removed. So a runway that runs due south/north is 18/36 (i.e., it faces 180 degrees south and 360 degrees north - 0 isn't used). A runway that runs due east/west is 9/27. And so on. When there are parallel runways facing the same direction, the L, C, and R designations are used. A pair for parallel east/west runways are 9R/27L and 9L/27R.
So as the pole drifts this sometimes causes runways to have be renumbered. One previous example is Reagan-National airport [wikimedia.org] in Washington, D.C., where runways 1/19 and 4/22 were originally 18/36 and 3/21.
Re:Actually somewhat common (Score:4, Funny)
This has happened before, and it'll happen again.
So say we all.
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One previous example is Reagan-National airport [wikimedia.org] in Washington, D.C., where runways 1/19 and 4/22 were originally 18/36 and 3/21.
I think you mean 1/19 used to be 36/18. If runway 1 became 18 and 19 became 36 that would be one hell of a magnatic drift. :-)
They're generally referred to by "lower number/higher number", so 18/36 did indeed become 1/19.
Magnetic/Spin Axis Confusion (Score:5, Informative)
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Happens quite often (Score:2)
fun to think about? (Score:2)
no, i don't like getting irradiated by the cosmic radiation, thank you very much
we'll all be living in cement bunkers with no windows, eating mutant irradiated food farmed by farmers in radiation suits
and in geological time, a rapid N-S reorientation will still take what, decades?
and such a shift is still decades away, even if it starts accelerating dramatically, i think... gulp
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and in geological time, a rapid N-S reorientation will still take what, decades?
Don't know what 'geological time' means, exactly, but in human time they seem to be estimating 3000-5000 years for a excursion and twice that if it actually involves the core as well.
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utter rubbish, homo erectus lived through a few reversals just fine. There is no evidence whatsoever of reversal causing any kind of extinction, nor is the geomagnetic field the only thing that shields Earth from cosmic radiation. The solar wind interacts with the ionosphere to provide additional shielding, and that isn't going away.
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oh yeah, there's just that massive increase in cancer rates
what's the problem with a huge dent in our mortality, a big jump down in our life expectancy?
nothing to worry about with a massive increase in ambient radiation, nah...
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Not a valid concern, palaeopathology has confirmed that cancer was exceedingly rare in primates until the start of the industrial revolution. Progress gives you cancer, not cosmic rays.
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palaeopathology has confirmed that cancer was exceedingly rare in primates until the start of the industrial revolution.
Cancer tends to be an old person's disease. Not saying that the industrial revolution didn't introduce lots of new causes for cancer, but before then, primates who lived long enough to be chronologically old were pretty rare.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/28/health/28cancer.html?pagewanted=all [nytimes.com]
*most tumors are in soft tissue which doesn't preserve well
*people didn't live long enough for most cancers to be very prevalent.
"For both groups, the authors wrote, malignant tumors “were not significantly fewer than expected” when compared with early-20th-century England. They concluded that “the current rise in tumor frequencies in present populations is much more related to the higher life expectancy than primary envi
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It's entirely possible that a dramatic magnetic shift could cause disruption to electronic services, and I'm sure that if Facebook were down for days, there are millions of people who would just die.
Birds (Score:5, Funny)
The birds got confused by the discrepancy between runway numbers and magnetic north, couldn't figure out where to land, ran out of fuel, and crashed?
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No, they were dizzy from smelling the paint fumes from repainting the designators in their nests.
Why is renumbering necessary? (Score:2)
Sure, runways are numbered according to their compass heading, but the omission of the last digit tells me that it doesn't need to be all that accurate. That makes it unlikely that this number is used in navigation.
I'm no pilot, but the only actual function of the runway number I can think of is the visual identification (to make sure the pilot is lining up on the correct runway). What would go wrong if Tampa just kept using the number 18R/36L?
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The pilot of the Prussian Embassy's postal Autogyro would get confused.
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Now imagine if they can't see the runway.
If they're told to land on runway 24, and they're going by instruments oriented 24, and suddenly the runway is 25, they'll be shooting off it after too long.
Likewise, if they're told to land on runway 25, but they see 24 painted on the ground, they might be confused.
Basically, i'm betting the change is because they have to go by the RIGHT designation due to instrument assisted landings where visibility is poor, and therefore are updating the visual designations so th
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If they can't see the runway, it doesn't matter what is painted on it.
The lateral error is going to be far more significant than the angular error in any case.
If they can be told how to find the end of the runway, they can be told how to line up on it regardless of its name.
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If they can't see the runway, they're going to use ILS (instrument landing system), which is far more precise and is runway-specific. With appropriate equipment, it is technically possible to land in a true zero-visibility condition, and in some cases for the plane to land itself (including flare, touchdown, nose down, braking, and stopping), but regulations have certain minimums for landing specific to each airport and require the pilot to be in manual control below certain altitudes above ground level.
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Then there is Atlanta that has 4 parallel runways. So they couldn't use the L,R, and M. I think they 'lied' about the heading on two of them.
As an engineer, let me suggest... (Score:3)
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Or just build them on compass needles and it will take care of itself.
Or install digital readouts where the painted numbers are.
Or paint a giant colored spot instead of a number. "Flight 234 cleared to land on Runway Cerulean Left."
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Or paint a giant colored spot instead of a number. "Flight 234 cleared to land on Runway Cerulean Left."
Damnit Jim! I'm a pilot, not an interior decorator!
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As an engineer...
...for Microsoft?
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Build the runways on giant wheeled platforms on rails that can be reoriented to the magnetic field so that you never need alter the runways numbers.
And while you're at it, make one of the runways function like a treadmill, and end that debate once and for all. ;)
Gradualists are wrong (Score:2)
Sectional charts too (Score:2)
When I first started flying most of Florida was on or near the zero isogonic line (meaning that magnetic north = true north). http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://avstop.com/ac/fig8-7.jpg&imgrefurl=http://avstop.com/ac/8-2.html&h=312&w=467&sz=33&tbnid=3K2v1zfxl4_SBM:&tbnh=86&tbnw=128&prev=/images%3Fq%3Disogonic%2Blines&zoom=1&q=isogonic+lines&hl=en&usg=__nCfPrwsREvO8rbUJUiDGLqyEMuw=&sa=X&ei=fSomTeusGoO78gb-nLGLAg&ved=0CCgQ9QEwBQ This line r
Why use magnetic north? (Score:2)
Why do they use magnetic north and not true north?
That way they wouldn't have to renumber runways periodically and reprint maps and charts leading to confusion when someone has an out of date chart.
Most small plane pilots fly close enough to home that they just have to remember their deviation from magnetic north.
Larger private plane and commercial pilots already have electronic equipment that can show them true north.
They already use true north in areas where compass readings are unreliable by appending T
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Because when you're sitting in the cockpit, looking at your compass, you don't see true, you see magnetic. You are able to adjust aircraft compasses for the magnetic deviation (shown on nav maps, and flight charts).
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If you adjust your compass for magnetic deviation, then doesn't it show true north?
Big Deal (Score:2)
If "The Core" taught me anything, its that all we have to do is make a subway train to the core of the Earth, blow up some bombs, and we can restart the magnetic spin. How big a deal is magnetic north moving a few degrees? I bet that would only take a couple nukes at most!
Magnetic field reversals, earth's core, and death (Score:2)
Every once in a while (geologically speaking) the earth's magnetic poles will reverse! No one knows why. And the magnetic field protects us from solar winds and cosmic radiation, which would otherwise destroy earth. What keeps the field going? The earth's molten core. But it's cooling off slowly and one day the magnetic field will be gone and all life on earth will probably end. I propose the next environmental movement be to SAVE THE MAGNETIC FIELDS! ;)
"Based upon the study of lava flows of basalt th
Much Ado About Nothing (Score:4, Interesting)
The magnetic poles shift with time, eventually by a significant factor. Since runways are designated by magnetic heading (for example, Elmendorf's runway 06 means the runway is pointed roughly to 60 degrees, and Anchorage International Airport's runway 14 is pointed roughly to 140 degrees), every so often airport management has to redesignate the runways to match the approximate magnetic heading with which the runways are aligned. It's no big deal, and has been happening for as long as there have been runways. All of the speculation at the end of TFS about "...shifting poles finally starting to affect air travel..." and "falling birds" is alarmist nonsense.
True North (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm Canadian you insensitve clod. We use True North (coincidentally Strong and Free) for runway designations and thus are immune to drifting runway numbers. Let's hope desperately that the Earth's spin axis doesn't start moving!
Strangely... as the years go by, I AM feeling a growing desire to learn the Cyrillic alphabet.
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and don't forget the inability to pronounce the word "nuclear" correctly (Hint: It only has 2 syllables)
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"clear" is two syllables, too, though admittedly they're separated by a diphthong and by some definitions that doesn't make a second syllable.
Perhaps you meant "nuke-leer"? Somehow, I think it's more fitting that way, too.... :) (but no, I pronounce "nuclear" as 3 syllables".
Re:Hollywood knows what to do (Score:4, Funny)
"Nuke-lee-ar" is still three syllables. You don't say "new-clear", do you?
Sure you do! At the heart of every atom, you find its newklus.
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"it's New Queue Ler" -- Homer Simpson
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No, that was not the magnetic pole shifting. Stop watching movies like 'The Core.'
I hate this site sometimes, largely because I'm about to be blasted for saying this... but...
The Core is only partially terrible science.
PLEASE DON'T MURDER ME. Let me speak...
The magnetic field over the earth DOES in fact shift around, and it is, at least some of the time, due to changes in the core. Also it is assumed to cause bad things to happen.
So the premise of the film, being that the Earth's core is messed up and is causing us a bad time of it, isn't really all that flawed.
Now the laser-worm with
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Oh! You better let all the scientists know the reason the birds died, was, then.
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If you want to watch an awful movie about the magnetic pole shifting, you'll want to watch Absolute Zero [imdb.com]. It's truly awful, but enjoyable from beginning to end. Catch phrase throughout the movie: "Science is never wrong."
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Friends don't give friends chlamydia. -- The Pole.
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I don't know about Cryllic but in English we spell it "Claus"
Unless you're talking about The Santa Clause [imdb.com].
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I was flying into Des Moines airport shortly after they had to re-number the runways here. The controller cleared me to land on 31 Right, and I asked why it had changed, He explained about the pole shift, and I asked him if the instersecting runway (23) had changed? No it had stayed the same. I asked "Does that mean they will eventuallly be paralell?" (long silence) "We'll have to get back to you on that"
304 degrees changes to 305 degrees, the runway designation changes from 30 to 31. Meanwhile 231 degrees changes to 232 degrees, it remains Runway 23. I expect the controller had other things to do and trusted you to check /. for the answer one day.