Category: Travel

Flight Ahead

Although, I’m an advocate of having people in control of machines it isn’t people that are opening new opportunities in transport. Technology is racing ahead and making the past illustrations of popular science magazines become a reality. I can do without the hype in the headlines of flying cars. Building expectations of one in every garage remains a 1950s dream or nightmare, dependent upon your point of view. Aside from that hot air viable new electric vehicles are in the works.

Heavier-than-air machine that do more than buzz around our heads are going to proliferate. The inevitability of this is open to question but if I was to assign a probability to it, the number would be close to one. If we stretch our minds back to an unobserved small corner of the planet in late 1903, a couple of diligent brothers flew a machine that hopped a short distance into the air under its own power. Many newspapers of the time didn’t bother to print this breakthrough story because wise and eminent scientists had told them that it was impossible for people to fly.

It’s clear, getting into the prediction business should be done with humility.

We have a dilemma. It’s so rare of us to turn away from advancing technology when we know it can be made. It’s even more irresistible when the economics scream out buy me. So, a ticket to ride in the realm of Urban Air Mobility (UAM) will need to be no more than a typical taxi ride. Given that a taxi ride from my home to Gatwick Airport is about £20 then that’s the mark to hit. True that short journey may not be commonplace by air at that price until around 2033, a decade away, but it will be irresistible when it comes.

This chapter in air transport, that is being written is as significant as that in late 1903. I know that’s a mega statement, but the signs do point that way.

Eventually, UAM will become a network of piloted and autonomous electric air vehicles operating between cities and major destinations like airports.

Now, a couple of solvable challenges stand in the way. One is the endurance and portability of the energy storage devices. The other is complexity and mastering the science and art of functional safety. There’s plenty of confident hyperbole to suggest that these two are short-term barriers to progress. I say they are not.

Weight is one of aviation’s biggest enemies particularly on small vehicles. Batteries are expensive, heavy and require tailored control. Autonomy or the semi autonomy, needed to make the economics click is challenging systems engineering orthodoxy. Both tasks require the meticulous diligence of the Wright brothers to get past. No fanfare or flashy investor can push them aside.

Making the absolute most of energy storage technology is essential. Finding the optimal configuration of batteries, transmission and control electrics means iteration and the tolerance of a good handful of failures. The engineering of what’s becoming a system of systems, with the complexity of vehicles and the complexity of traffic management, interacting at great speed demands extensive analysis and testing.

These tasks can be accomplished. Rushing them would be foolish. That’s difficult to resist when everyone wants to be first.

D minus PM

In the second decade of the 21st century we should be surprised that a British Prime Minister should behave as if he lived in the 19th century. Common problems, future collaboration and an alliance of decades are too important to jeopardise. Relations between Britain and Greece are of great importance. Today’s spat is foolish.

There’s a joke going around the social media. It asks the question: Why are the pyramids in Egypt? The answer being: Because they were too heavy for the British to carry-off. In other words, if they were smaller, they would be in the British Museum. That light-hearted quip highlights an inherited problem. Although, the same line could have been written about many imperial European countries. It was the fashion. Here British country houses were not properly dressed unless they had a sprinkling of ancient Greek artefacts. Those artefacts were often taken by the powerful. That’s our history.

The Parthenon is not any old relic. Its image is as heavily identified with modern Greece as it was with ancient Greece. As a symbol of western civilisation, it’s unmatched. Its sculptures are high points of classical Greek art.

Once upon a time, the argument was made that the Parthenon Sculptures were better protected by British Museum than they would be elsewhere. During the turbulent periods before the birth of modern Greece that argument was probably a fair one. Greek indepenence, helped by a famous British poet, became the start of the modern European State.

Lord Byron’s early death, at 36, was grieved both in Britain and Greece. His remains were returned to Britain where he was laid to rest. It was respectful to return to the great man to the land of his origins.

In 2023, Britain and Greece are friendly nations. We benefit immensely from the excellent relationship between the peoples of both countries. Thus, I can fully understand the Greek Prime Minister “annoyance” at being snubbed while in the country. The British Prime Minister being to busy to see his counterpart.

Athena is an ancient Greek goddess connected with wisdom. The Parthenon is a temple on the Athenian Acropolis. Well, there doesn’t seem to be much wisdom in Number 10 Downing Street. If there was, then such disagreements as there are over the future of the Parthenon Sculptures, would never have created the situation, we have this morning. It’s sad.

Politicians have a duty to address problems and not to run away from them for minor reasons. It’s only through dialogue that a solution will be found to the conflicting claims made about the Parthenon Sculptures. The day they return to the city where they belong will be one of great joy.

Duck

I take for granted that everyone knows the saying: “Red Sky at night Shepherd’s delight. Red Sky at morning Shepherd’s warning”. It’s not superstition. In the sense that calamitous events will descend on us because the rising sun happens to colour early morning clouds. It’s more the practical reality that British weather most often comes from the North Atlantic. So, clouds hovering in the West can be the signs of a cold front coming our way.

Being born in the countryside these ditties are bread and butter to me. Rural sayings about different times of the year, or nature in general endure, even in the mobile phone age. Now, up to date weather predictions, based on proven science are only a touch screen stroke away. Even so, memorable adages stick.

Last week, I heard a new one. New to me. A rhyming prognostic on the coming winter. This is not only a saying confined to rural areas. It adds to a long list of observations about the habits of birds.

This is not witchcraft. Birds’ behaviour can help us predict the weather, even if the means they use can be obscure. Our feathered friends are much more in-touch with nature than we can be.

“If the ice in November can bear a Duck. The rest of the Winter will be slush and muck”.

What’s going on with this traditional bird proverbs stumps me. OK, this suggest that a hard frost in November is an indicator that a warm, wet, and soggy winter is ahead. The duck as a measure of weight may be incidental. However, some ducks do migrate to find warmer places to overwinter. So, does the saying mean that because the duck is still here, it’s decided that the winter will be mild?

That’s contradictory to the presence of the thickness of ice needed to hold a three-pound bird. If a duck can stand on the ice and is happy with that situation. They are in the local park. Then that could mean a blast of cold air from the North before the year ends, has some meaning in terms of what happens next. What’s that got to do with slush and mush? I wonder.

Is this saying somehow linked to the past when hunting ducks was an annual event. Some strange observation that ducks are easier to hunt earlier in the winter. Or is that nonsense on my part.

This folklore saying about winter can be put to the test. Although we are close to the end of November, the frost has been hard enough to bear a duck. Not a huge duck but an average mallard.

If this means a mild winter, we’ll soon know. Maybe duck barometers will work as long-term predictors. Showing us a sign of coming foul weather. Ho, ho.

Divided

Away for a week. I’ve been in Canada. In Montreal. On return to the UK, I see the next step in the convolutions of the Conservative Party have littered newspaper column inches. If ever there was a thin man on tight rope balancing a can of worms on one arm and a broken bicycle on the other, then it’s the current Prime Minister.

I’m sure he never trained for the Cirque du Soleil. Maybe Rishi Sunak should take up traditional circus disciplines like the swinging trapeze and flying hand to hand. Certainly, he could make a living that way even if he doesn’t need the money. Circus or pantomime would be a good opening for a great number of pending unemployed politicians.

Suella Braverman’s second sacking as Home Secretary opens the opportunity for her to take to the stage. In her case the audience would know when to boo without any prompting. The world of the pantomime villain[1] might revive a flagging political career.

Nigel Farage, former leader of the UK Independence Party is off the jungle[2]. Most suitably he’ll be featured alongside comedians anxious to keep themselves in the public eye. The cartoonists are having a field day with this oddity.

Boris Johnson’s trying his hand with comedy too. His new position as a GB News broadcaster will be pandering to a small but loyal right-wing audience. That will not put him off, I’m sure. I wonder what kind of studio wallpaper will be his backing?

Others have gone to ground or are typing WhatsApp messages to a 101 groups all fighting to be the next star of the right. The Brexit brigade of the past is finding a natural home in entertainment. It’s one way of jumping ship before the poltical Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly (RUD) to come. This is a wonderfully inventive acronym for a complete disaster.

If I was to make a guess as to what Rishi Sunak might be attempting, it’s a rebranding the likes of which we haven’t seen since the chocolate bar Marathon changed to Snickers. I seem to remember that name change was a marketing curiosity. The British public didn’t understand it. After decades past the rebrand, the name Marathon was brought back. Is the Conservative Party that chocolate bar fallen out of favour and looking desperately for a retro-look?

Sweeping a decade of chaos under the carpet is a tall order. Even with the maxim that a week is a long time in politics. I don’t think the British public are so forgiving or forgetful. The roots of our problems are the results of poor political judgement and poor actions over a long trem of office.

No doubt the Conservatives will try to jerrymander, as much as slight of hand will allow them to get away with in the media spotlight. Voter ID rules will keep some potential voters at home come the next general election. Shifting the boundaries of some constituencies has benefits too. A pre-election bag of goodies is being put together to stiffen the resolve of wavering traditional conservatives. Expect Springtime give aways.

My overall sense is that major change is coming. Abraham Lincoln said, “a house divided against itself cannot stand,” and that applies more broadly than the reason it was said in the 1850s. The strands of conservatism that have been so politically successful in Britain are divided amongst themselves. Not just a few small gaps. Hulking great chasms exist between entrenched groups. That situation never goes well. Not for anyone.

[1] http://celebratepanto.co.uk/toptipsforvillainy/

[2] https://www.entertainmentdaily.com/tv/im-a-celebrity-nigel-farage-backlaash-from-celebrities/

Ticket to ride

The latest political rouse is not a new one. There must be a cabinet full of these tactics stashed away in Conservative party headquarters. In a desperate attempt to prepare prospective candidates for a forthcoming General Election we are going to see a lot of slight of hand. None of it will be magic. It takes blind ambition and the ability to deny yesterday’s plans in a heartbeat.

Most of the News about rail travel around here has been about industrial action. That said, at least one other issue has got people rallied in opposition over recent weeks.

Back in July a public consultation[1] was launched to consider how rail tickets are sold and how to improve customer service. The public were invited to comment on proposals which were made by rail operators across the country.

Now, that’s the interesting bit: proposals which were made by rail operators. So, they say. The reality is that rail operators would not have been able to make major proposals for change in customer services unless there was some kind of tacit agreement with the Department of Transport DfT[2]. This is reasonable because a great deal of public money is made available to the railways. Guidance on the issue is a matter for the Secretary of State for Transport.

One proposal was made that must have been known would spark protests. Not everyone uses local rail ticket offices, but their removal was never going to be a simple matter. Reigate has one. It’s not always open but when it is open the ticket office is immensely useful. Ministers when questioned about the unpopular move to close ticket offices windows defended this proposal.

Now, let’s jump to the outcome of the consultation and the decision made as a result. Through the 3-months after the closure of the public consultation period the issue was allowed to fester. As the post-party conference season weather limits doorstep campaigning so political social media activity is ramping up to take us through the winter.

The results of the consultation pointed to an obvious decision. This is particularly true because the issue of rail ticket office hours was not a new one, having done the rounds ten years ago.

So, what do we have? Conservative prospective parliamentary candidates claiming victory. Single handed they defeated an unpopular measure and listened to peoples’ complaints.

Honestly, am I being cynical? We must look back at where the recent public consultation came from and the fact that changes to railway ticket office opening hours were addressed in 2012, with the same result. Proposals dropped.

The way the roles of station staff have been used to stir-up controversy is a political ploy. Then to step-in to slap down wicked rail operators across the country is a rouse in my opinion. Will this issue of major changes to ticket offices come back again. Sure, it will but only after the next General Election.

[1] https://www.southernrailway.com/publicconsultation

[2]Not a new issue https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/changes-to-railway-ticket-office-opening-hours/changes-to-railway-ticket-office-opening-hours

Overhead

Massive intertwining skyscrapers. Towering masts. Flying cars. Pulp magazines in the 50s and 60s had it all. Beautifully illustrated in bold colours. Sharp lines and chiselled faces. Heroic poses and streamlined transports.

Visions of the future. Idealistic imaginations of a utopian society. Don’t we just love them. That is until someone builds them in our neighbourhood. Until the bulldozers turn-up unannounced on a Sunday morning to root out the trees. The birds flee the vicinity (except the pigeons).

You can blame the draftsmen of the past if you like. In our heads there’s a disconnect between the images on a set of drawings and what that might become in concrete and steel. Grand designs are but few. A great deal of the building and planning of the last 60-years can justly be called dreadful.

We have an outcry over brutalist architecture or a lament about a Victorian park that has been paved over. Has anyone ever walked through a public car park that inspired?

If you dream it, you can make it. Nice phrase but often stifled because current technology and thinking are way behind the curve. It could be said that this is one of the drivers that pushes technology forward. The realising of dreams but who’s?

Where does the flying car fit in all this fiction and near realism? New forms of air mobility are just about to start operating.

It’s a habit of our times to jump to an instant polarised opinion. Those open toed sandalled greenies will object. Those red necked, but reforming petrol heads will welcome. That sort of stuff makes nice headlines. It’s only a basis for the crudest dialogue. Anticipate conflict and then fuel it with prejudice. Please, let’s avoid that pointless waste of time.

My thoughts are that the potential of the greater use of airborne transport is a nuanced.

Electrification is a pathway to more environmentally sustainable ways of moving around. If this helps to reduce miles of fuming traffic jams that must be good. At its best, flying can get people from point to point without having follow roads set-down at the time of the horse and cart. Accepted that concrete may be poured to create a take-off and landing zone but compare that with road building and there is no comparison.

On the more concerning side, contrast that with cluttering the skies up with fast moving machines.

In HHGTTG there’s a tale about a shoe event horizon. When gloom causes people to look down and so then buy new shoes to cheer themselves up. So, the whole economy switches to shoe production and then collapses as a result. The association with salvation coming from looking-up is there in the wit of Douglas Adams. We look up to cheer up.

If looking up, as I do at home, to see high altitude vapour trails crisscrossing the sky, my thought is – I wonder where they are going? On the days when a light aircraft crosses the town, to or from our local airfield that doesn’t bother me. Even a noisy police helicopter keeping an eye on the traffic. That’s fine because they are solely there for our safety and security.

What will be the public reaction when we look up to see half a dozen new urban mobility vehicles buzzing past overhead? Perhaps we’ll accept new flying machines if it’s for a public service, an ambulance, fire services, police, or even newsgathering. Brightly coloured in emergency orange.

A public flying taxi service might raise a few eyebrows. A flashy private flying car, now that might be another matter altogether. There you are on a hot summer evening, in the garden, having a pleasant barbeque with friends and whiz a flying car swoops over the treetops. The passengers have their mobile phone out filming their trip. This is when fist will be raised skyward. It’s a time when you hope the next-door farmer hasn’t got a shotgun.

Today, a few pilots do get prosecuted for misbehaving when low flying private helicopters. Not often, it’s true. This happens with less than 1500 helicopters registered in the UK. What would happen with, say, 10,000 private flying cars? I wonder.

Scary 2

My list is still open for horror in aviation. I’ve opened the door to action movies with elements of horror. I’m excluding war movies and fighter pilot romps. A dramatic scene must have a moment of suspense when everything hangs on a thread. It could be a hide behind the sofa moment or felling that all is lost, and the faint light of hope is dimming. I was tempted to include zombie movies only to quickly come to my senses and say – no. I’ve avoided Snakes on a Plane. One, because I haven’t seen it. Two, because it’s write-ups suggest that it’s too ridiculous for words. Although, it’s not impossible. It’s even happened on general aviation flights.

Here’s five more movies, ancient and modern in my private list.

There’s an adaptation of the book No Highway. With actors James Stewart and Marlene Dietrich in the movie you would have thought it would have been a big smash. No Highway in the Sky is pedestrian, but the tension comes from us knowing that metal fatigue is real. Why don’t they believe it? We know the history of the first commercial jet, the Comet aircraft.

The original Flight of the Phoenix is a great suspense movie[1]. It’s not so much horror as intensely griping. Frightening in the sense that it tells us something about the good and bad of human behaviour. The constant battle between despair and what can seem like hopeless optimism in the face of terrible odds. Through gargantuan effort, crash survivors stranded in a desert survive.

There’s something especially frightening about aircraft crashes and danger in the cold white wastes of the poles. Again, passengers and crew struggle to stay alive in freezing weather in the desperate hope of rescue. Stranded, death visits the unfortunate survivors. Ordeal in the Artic[2] is a chilling movie of 1993 based on real events in 1991.

Final Destination has simple plot[3]. A student has a premonition, he and his friends get thrown-off a flight to Europe and then when they are back in the terminal there’s a fatal crash. They cheat death. But that’s not the end. That set-up is the ultimate scary imagining. It’s the what if? It’s the question survivors of aircraft accidents must ask – why me?

The 1955 British movie The Night My Number Came Up[4] plays on a similar theme but this time a nightmare before a planned journey. A bad dream of an aircraft crash. Will it happen just as the dream predicts. You must watch to find out.

Generally, in films there’s so much pure aeronautical nonsense on display. Commercial aircraft do not fall out of the sky when struck by lightning, flight crews do not lose control at the first sign of trouble, fuel doesn’t explode for no reason and the worst of weather doesn’t signal game over.

That said, there’s an inherent claustrophobic feeling inside an aircraft fuselage. It’s like a locked room drama. Passengers are isolated from the outside world. They are dependent on pilots, engineers and air traffic controllers all doing their jobs right. There’s the potential for this set-up to be the stage for an excellent dramatic horror movie. Tales of bravery, camaraderie, and sacrifice can all spring from the most dreadful of events. Unfortunately, so many movie makers make a mess of these situations.  

[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059183/?ref_=ttls_li_tt

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordeal_in_the_Arctic

[3] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0195714/

[4] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047278/?ref_=ttls_li_tt

What do you think?

A bill poster looked down at me. In big bold letters the word “Good” was the main message. It was the fact that a local college had been graded as good. They clearly wanted everyone to know that an inspection had gone well. Afterall, the rent of street posters is not cheap.

So, for all the efforts of all the staff, and the whole educational institution their work was summed up in one simple word. Four colourful letters displayed to passers-by. To be categorised as “Good” is read as having crossed a line. It’s a positive statement and a long way from – fail. Equally, it’s a mile off – excellent. The trouble is that “Good” is such a bland word. We have such a wide spectrum of use for that word that it’s difficult to know what it means.

One wonderful comedy sketch is that of Statler and Waldorf in the Muppets[1]. The two argumentative elderly men master the art of heckling. They start by saying: “that was wonderful” and then “it really wasn’t that good”, then keep on going until they get to “that was terrible” before they sign off.

It’s a nice reminder of a range of opinions being like shifting sand. In the range of one to ten the word “Good” is smack bang in the middle. Probably the most inoffensive classification.

If you are like me, you will have experienced a stream of e-mails asking for an opinion. Surveys are the number one marketing tool. To lure us they often have prize draws or the prospect of a giveaway.

“As a valued customer we welcome your feedback”. “We wondered if you could spare 5 – 6 minutes?” In theory, the fact that a business is interested in feedback is a positive. I like to know that a restaurant or airline is taking customer feedback. The hope is that feedback assists businesses in improving and developing their services.

However, an invitation to “share your thoughts” is reduced to box ticking. It’s almost as if we are still in the world of computers run on punched cards. These electronic surveys are constructed for the processor rather than that of the user.

They are quite checky too. Tick a particular box on a survey and another one comes up to ask – why do you feel that way? It’s almost as if you are required to justify a freely given opinion and threatened with being ignored if you don’t.

For all the above customer surveys have been a part of the landscape for since the early days of the internet. Categorisations put a stamp on what we think. It’s crude. Sometimes it’s merely a set of five stars with a request to choose one. Cantankerous opinions are mixed with indifferent answers. The aggregation of a pile of data can make the results as bland as tasteless soup. This can then be pasted into company reports. Thus becoming more of a security blanket rather than real feedback.

Let’s end on a positive note. This is a subject where Artificial Intelligence (AI) can contribute. Instead of box ticking why not have a dialogue with customers. Ask them what they really think. Imagine an animated AI version of Statler and Waldorf. Now, that would be fun.

[1] https://youtu.be/NpYEJx7PkWE

Wolseley

In the early 1960s, there was a wonderful appreciation of Italian design. Car manufacturers looked for stylish Latin lines to package their popular models. The public were up for this, and some models became iconic. The BMC[1] Mini is often thought of as Italian in design even though it’s not.

In amongst the popular cars of the 1960s, were some that faded into the background and, although cherished at the time, now don’t star much in classic car magazines or shows. My childhood memories are pepper dashed with images of a standard family saloon. In fact, a luxury version of a car that was a workhorse of the BMC line.

It looked like two cardboard boxes lumped one on top of the other. The “style” was added by understated fins at the rear and a chrome grill that looked like a big carp mouth. Contrary to so much Italian design, aerodynamics was not a consideration. The classic four in-line 1600cc engine had the job of pushing this brick through the air.

For my family the advantage, in the pre-seatbelt era, was wide seats capable of taking parents and four boys without difficulty. Tones of junk could be carried in the boot. The “luxury” came from these seats being robust leather. Sweaty in the summer and cold in the winter. The walnut venerer dashboard and Smiths instruments tried to distinguish the model.

I’m recalling this shiny black Wolseley 16/60[2], because it was so much part of our families’ excursions around Somerset, Dorset, and Wiltshire that it really was part of the family. Sundays were reserved for visiting the uncles, aunties, and cousins. Trips to the Weymouth beach or the pantomime in Bournemouth were great motoring adventures. Studland bay was our best day out. Slowly weaving up and down rolling hills. Peerling out of the windows as the countryside drifted by.

In the early days there was the need to get back to milk the cows or set-off after the work was done. This made the day busier than most. Pre-packing the car for every eventuality we set-off with anticipation and excitement. Although there was less traffic on our country roads in the 60s, there was enough to create jams on hot sunny summer days. My mum and dad must have had fun keeping an eye on squabbling boys, bored with playing I-Spy. Return journeys were easier as we all snoozed.

I can close my eyes and clearly see a couple of those return journeys late at night. After all the excitement of shouting our hearts out: “look behind you” a dozen times my brothers slept until we got close to home. It must have been so tiring motoring through the wind and driving rain to be confronted by a flood about a mile from the farm. River waters spilled over the road. Easily a couple of feet deep.

That’s how it was late in a winter evening. I can distinctly remember my dad, in his best clothes pushing the lumbering Wolseley through a flood with us sitting high and dry. Headlight beams shining on the turbulent water. I never heard a bad word coming from him but I’m sure if I was faced with that situation the air would have turned blue.

The family’s Wolseley 16/60 was a gateway to other worlds. The marque has long since gone. Nevertheless, my memories of that car are etched into every corner of my childhood.

[1] British Motor Corporation (BMC)

[2] https://www.wolseleyownersclub.com/wolseley-cars/farina-design/wolseley-16-60/

Tip

You may think it was a bit of a joke. Certainly, some of the holiday makers around me thought the cabin crew were joking. I was at the back of the aeroplane and so one of the last passengers off.

We arrived at London Gatwick’s North Terminal at about 9:30 pm on a Sunday. Passengers were keen to get off and get home. That said, the amount of sizable luggage in the aircraft cabin overhead bins and maybe the sleepiness of one or two people meant the long line down the aisle was moving slowly and intermittently. The process was civilised but at a snail’s pace as it seemed from the back.

When you hear a request to hurry-up otherwise the plane will tip up it does instil some urgency. That and one or two questions. It also made me think; could that really happen in this situation? I was standing next to the cabin crew at the back, and I can attest to their concern being real. Being at the terminal gate there was only the front door open to exist the aircraft. When we got on-board the aircraft both the front and rear doors were available.

The Boeing 737 MAX-8 is a not an overly long aircraft. That said, under certain unfavourable conditions it can tip. In fact, there are longer versions of both the Boeing and Airbus single aisle aircraft that pose more of a challenge in this respect. There is much stretching of popular aircraft types to increase passenger capacity.

At the same time as we were deplaning[1] (ghastly word), the ground crew were unloading our luggage. As a result of all this movement of passengers and luggage it is possible to have too much weight at the back of the aircraft. Yes, you could blame it on masses of carry-on bags obstructing the aisle on a full aircraft, but it also takes the front passengers to have got off quickly. There are more passenger seats behind the aircraft wings than there are in front. On a cool Sunday evening when the airport’s public transport options are limited there’s an incentive to rush-off from the front. As the deplaning continued there was a sense that something was happening underfoot.

Does it happen? Do aircraft tip up? Yes, they do[2]. It’s not an attractive sight. I have no idea what the procedures are if it does happen. It certainly would be a shock for those on-board. Anyone in the vicinity of the aircraft would have to watch out too. In these unplanned events, there is a hazard to ground crew that can result in injury.

This sort of event happens more often in the air cargo world[3]. While these events maybe comical to witness, they are no joke for airlines. The possibility of damage and the disruption to aircraft operations can be significant. Nose wheels coming off the ground don’t always result in an aircraft tip, but this is not somewhere any crew responsible would want to go.

Weight and balance issues are real. Each aircraft will have weight and centre of gravity limits established at the time of aircraft certification. Aircraft operators will have procedures[4] that fully consider loading and unloading. That said, as we can see, miscalculations do get made.

[1] https://grammarist.com/spelling/deplane-or-disembark/

[2] https://youtu.be/JTDSS8unwQM

[3] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/747-plane-tips-backward-airport-cargo-doha-qatar-fars-air-qeshm-a8829896.html

[4] https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Advisory_Circular/AC_120-27F.pdf