That probably has something to do with the elasticity of the power lines (also that there is always some amount of slack in them), which however does not apply to a radio mast as in the article. The odds of the propeller entangling itself with the mast in just the right way to keep the airplane hooked, without destroying the mast, and staying that way until the pilot was rescued, are probably much smaller...
There's a similar scenario described in "How To" by Randall Munroe, where he asks astronaut Chris Hadfield if you "could land a plane by rolling it on it's side and catching the arrest hook on the cable hanging from a crane?" Chris is skeptical it would work, but answers seriously and references the frequency of small planes getting caught in powerlines & towers.
This particular plane has a top-speed of 100mph. It might be flyable down to 30mph… which would make such stunts far more possible than with faster aircraft today. Of course, you can do anything once; The real question is, “can you do it multiple times?”
30mph is unrealistically low, more like 45-50, which is already more than doubling the impact force. On top of that, they can only fly that slow straight and level. Banking increases the amount of lift you need to generate to maintain altude, as the lift is now pointing to the side instead of straight up.
Maintaining flight in a 90 degree bank is something aerobatics aircraft can do, but it's hard, requires a specific aircraft setup, and you're not doing it at approach speed. More like 100-150mph.
Very easy spin an aircraft when attempting to maneuver at low speeds, and that will invariably result in a crash as you need several thousand feet of altitude to recover. Such crashes are 99.9% fatal.
Rather than just rolling out the pilot pulled back sharply right around when when he got fully inverted, you see the nose quickly start to come around, and then a split second later the left wing stalls deeper at which point it enters a counterclockwise spin and impacts the ground after approximately a quarter rotation.
Thanks! Great additions to the story. My favorite is that one of the rescuers was a groundsman who had never been higher than 75ft up the mast!
It reminds me of the Mr Rogers line about "look for the helpers" - the folks who run towards trouble. Nicholas Rath, RNR. His name deserves to be remembered.
The writer also includes a nifty contemporary simile. Good stuff.
Slightly related but a fun thing to learn about was the flashing lights on powerlines (i'm nerdy so love hearing about stuff like this from people in the know).
You know those balls they have on powerlines that flash? Easy right? It's just a flashing light. That's what i always thought at least. Until someone pointed out to me that they sit on one line at a time with no earth and no battery, just a capacitor to store charge between blinks. So how do they create a circuit? There's only one wire!
Well since there's current flowing through the wire there's induction and you can wrap that wire in what is essentially half an AC transformer and create a whole new circuit at much lower voltage. In fact the blinking lights on powerlines internally just have two metal plates either side of the slot that goes over the line and clips in. From induction they leach power from the power lines despite there only being one wire and no earth in the whole system.
Which i find really cool and simple. You can take any high voltage power line and a metal plate and power a blinking light just by getting close to it!
I remember reading about an experiment years ago where computer chips that could be reconfigured programmatically (FGPAs? Not sure) were put through a genetic algorithm to see if it could come up with a circuit to do a task on its own. In one of the results, the circuit wasn't actually connected end to end so it took them a while to figure out how it worked - turned out the two halves were communicating through induction.
I think that same experiment had a configuration that would only work on one chip and not others it was copied to, because it accidentally relied on impurities in one of the components.
> You can take any high voltage power line and a metal plate and power a blinking light just by getting close to it!
Well, for high-voltage DC transmission lines (typically used for longer distances to minimize induction loss), you'd presumably need to try to power them via current leaking to the air instead of induction. I'm not sure how feasible that is.
Its not about current flowing through the wire, its the fact its an AC line so it has a shifting magnetic field. You can easily extract power from any moving mag field.
This is not that dissimilar to how transformers work. High-voltage lines are never physically connected to low-voltage lines. There's always a gap. The circuit in everyone's home ends at the local transformer.
Tangential - from the article referenced by the article:
> The pilot owes his preservation to the intrepid gallentry of these three men, who, while aline to the risks they ran, performed the rescue without hesitation for personal safety.
Aline means (according to a brief search): a cut of garment consisting basically of two A-shaped panels for the front and back, designed to give increasing fullness toward the hemline.
Is this a typo/transcription error or some out of date usage I'm unable to find a definition for?
If it's a typo of aligned, it makes sense but that's a strange (to me phrasing).
From the context I believe it means "to be aware of".
It's possible to do something incredibly dangerous because you aren't aware of the risks -- that isn't courage or bravery, that's just plain ignorance.
To make it even better, for one of them(from ground crew) it was their first time climbing 360ft on that mast.
Before that day, they never climbed beyond 73ft [1]. Because of this reason he (Rath) was awarded a gold medal while the other two received different (silver I presume) medals.
Not only that, one climbed onto and then into the cockpit to secure the pilot.
> ...a seaman of the Naval Reserve named Rath climbed up the inside of the mast until he reached the machine, and then crawled out to the plane to hold the pilot until help came.
I would imagine they'd lower him down a bit and then while someone held him, the others would descend. Managing 300 feet of rope up that high (and especially as the guy got lowered more) would be really difficult.
A modern rope for rock climbing is 50 to 60m, about 160 feet. Some climbers use thinner double/twin ropes that are twice that length. It can be a pain but isn't unmanageable if you take your time. I could see them doing it all at once using whatever reasonable rope they had at the time.
It's all about improvised office weapons and the scaffolding that moves with the building. CPA should set sail for the pointless megabuildings of Austin.
Readit News
https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/pilot-uninjured-after-plane-get...
And Florida 2021:
https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2021/09/24/florida-p...
Ontario 1986:
https://tessa2.lapl.org/digital/collection/photos/id/32617
Power lines seem surprisingly good at catching small aircraft without shattering them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fr1Jl1jwLDg
Maintaining flight in a 90 degree bank is something aerobatics aircraft can do, but it's hard, requires a specific aircraft setup, and you're not doing it at approach speed. More like 100-150mph.
Very easy spin an aircraft when attempting to maneuver at low speeds, and that will invariably result in a crash as you need several thousand feet of altitude to recover. Such crashes are 99.9% fatal.
Usually looks something like this (Warning: It's a crash, there's a fireball, but it isn't overly graphic): https://youtube.com/shorts/urTs-y7MiJE?si=ovfiC3ZvCgcFr5Nu
Rather than just rolling out the pilot pulled back sharply right around when when he got fully inverted, you see the nose quickly start to come around, and then a split second later the left wing stalls deeper at which point it enters a counterclockwise spin and impacts the ground after approximately a quarter rotation.
I'm not sure that's the quote. You can't after all eat your own head, even once.
It reminds me of the Mr Rogers line about "look for the helpers" - the folks who run towards trouble. Nicholas Rath, RNR. His name deserves to be remembered.
The writer also includes a nifty contemporary simile. Good stuff.
You know those balls they have on powerlines that flash? Easy right? It's just a flashing light. That's what i always thought at least. Until someone pointed out to me that they sit on one line at a time with no earth and no battery, just a capacitor to store charge between blinks. So how do they create a circuit? There's only one wire!
Well since there's current flowing through the wire there's induction and you can wrap that wire in what is essentially half an AC transformer and create a whole new circuit at much lower voltage. In fact the blinking lights on powerlines internally just have two metal plates either side of the slot that goes over the line and clips in. From induction they leach power from the power lines despite there only being one wire and no earth in the whole system.
Which i find really cool and simple. You can take any high voltage power line and a metal plate and power a blinking light just by getting close to it!
Induction is a fact about the physical world which I accept but have never truly understood.
I think that same experiment had a configuration that would only work on one chip and not others it was copied to, because it accidentally relied on impurities in one of the components.
Well, for high-voltage DC transmission lines (typically used for longer distances to minimize induction loss), you'd presumably need to try to power them via current leaking to the air instead of induction. I'm not sure how feasible that is.
> The pilot owes his preservation to the intrepid gallentry of these three men, who, while aline to the risks they ran, performed the rescue without hesitation for personal safety.
Aline means (according to a brief search): a cut of garment consisting basically of two A-shaped panels for the front and back, designed to give increasing fullness toward the hemline.
Is this a typo/transcription error or some out of date usage I'm unable to find a definition for?
If it's a typo of aligned, it makes sense but that's a strange (to me phrasing).
It's possible to do something incredibly dangerous because you aren't aware of the risks -- that isn't courage or bravery, that's just plain ignorance.
There's a comment on the article:
> While aline to the risks? No.
> While cognizant of the risks.
Deleted Comment
Down the page: British dictionary - a rare spelling of "align".
The garment is apparently A-line, not aline.
More photos of the wireless station: https://www.commsmuseum.co.uk/CoursesNonCHC/horsea.htm
Archaeological report, 2018: https://maritimearchaeologytrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2020...
Before that day, they never climbed beyond 73ft [1]. Because of this reason he (Rath) was awarded a gold medal while the other two received different (silver I presume) medals.
[1]. Link at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39512332#39513137
Apparently the standard one was bronze. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Medal_for_Lifesaving
> ...a seaman of the Naval Reserve named Rath climbed up the inside of the mast until he reached the machine, and then crawled out to the plane to hold the pilot until help came.
It is quite a story, though. I struggled to wrap my head around them carrying him off the building. With the detail of the rope, it made more sense.