New airport tug puts the pilot in charge, reduces emissions

by Scott Carmichael on

Our friends at Autoblog discovered a pretty neat airport tug under development by auto parts maker Ricardo. Airplane tugs are normally only used to push a plane back from its gate, or when they need to tow the plane from a hangar to the gate.

In this new tug design, the plane is clamped to the truck, and then puts the pilot in charge of driving it to the gate. In a normal taxi situation, planes keep their engines on until they reach their parking spot. Of course, anyone who has flown will know that the destination gate is almost always occupied, forcing the plane to sit and wait for up to an hour.

All this time, the engines are still running, spitting out tons of emissions. With this new design, as soon as the plane is clamped to the tug, the main engines can be turned off. The new TaxiBot could save millions of dollars in fuel costs, while reducing emissions.

(Via: Autoblog)

The scale doesn’t lie, at least not in New York

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Thanksgiving is right around the corner, and we’re all dreading the thought of stepping on the scale the next day … and making all kinds of empty promises about jogging and losing weight and not eating like that again next year. Some of us we’ll even unleash a stream of profanities and accuse the device of lying. Out in Queens, however, a few scales have been tested, and they won’t be fooling anyone at turkey-time.

Inspectors from the Department of Consumer Affairs have verified that the 741 luggage scales at New York’s JFK and LaGuardia airports. On the first run, 92 percent were found to be in compliance, and following repairs, a re-inspection showed a 98 percent success rate. The remaining 2 percent? Don’t worry: they won’t be used until they’ve been repaired.

With the extra fees that can be triggered by hefty bags, this is a pretty serious issues, especially in a market where airlines are trying to pick up a little extra revenue and consumers have become sensitive to additional charges.

Feds are tired of making you wait in security line

by Tom Johansmeyer on

The government doesn’t want to make you miserable! Seriously. The Department of Homeland Security wants faster airport screening just as much as you do. That’s why it supports a program for screening approved, low-risk travelers coming to the United States to most international airports. The new approach has been tested for more than a year at seven airports, and screening time dropped from 10 minutes to only three.

To participate in this program, you need to be either a U.S. citizen or permanent resident — and more than 14 years old. There’s a $100 fee (which is probably worth it), and you have to submit to a background check. If you’re accepted, the customs process when you get back to the United States won’t be so bad. If all goes well, the program will eventually be open to foreigners who come from countries that have a sufficiently solid screening process.

Now, DHS, is there anything you can do to speed up all those logjams at domestic security checkpoints!

How did international visitors enter the U.S. this year?

by Tom Johansmeyer on

If you visited the United States from overseas, you probably hit the ground in one of 15 ports of entry. These top first stops accounted for 84 percent of all entries from overseas in the first eight months of 2009– up almost 2 percentage points from the same period in 2008, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. Traffic through the major ports is becoming slightly more concentrated. This doesn’t include visits from Canada and Mexico.

New York JFK, Miami and Los Angeles continue to be the top three ports of entry for overseas visitors. Through August, these locations accounted for 39% of all arrivals from overseas, an increase of a percentage point from last year. Miami was the only one of these three to post a year-over-year increase, and it was joined only by Orlando MCO, Philadelphia and Fort Lauderdale. Meanwhile, 11 of the top 15 ports of entry posted decreases in arrivals. This is hardly surprising, given that visits to the Untied States from overseas are down 9 percent so far this year.

Chicago was hit particularly hard, losing 18 percent of its entry traffic and moving into #7 on the list, behind Honolulu. Detroit lost 36 percent of its inbound visitor share, falling to #16 — after Boston, Philadelphia and Fort Lauderdale.

Another plane mishap in Africa. This time lava is the problem

by Jamie Rhein on

If you’ve ever seen a lava flow, you know that once the stuff cools and hardens, it’s hard to move. In the Congo, this has created a big problem at the airport in Goma. Back in 2002, when the Nyiragongo Volcano erupted, lava flowed onto the runway, thus shortening it. A shorter runway does not sound good. It’s not.

Today, this was proved true once more when an airplane flying from Kinshasa to Goma overshot the runway and landed on the lava instead. Ouch! According to the report, 20 people out of the 117 on board were injured.

This is not the first time that lava has created issues at the Goma airport. The last time was in 2007 when a cargo plane caught on fire after it hit the lava. This incidence caused 7 deaths.

As unusual as it is to hit lava on a runway, it’s probably more unusual for a plane to hit a bush pig. The plane hits a bush pig incident happened a week ago on in Zimbabwe. When this pig made it’s last oink, high drama ensued which included a couple of injuries that were caused when passengers fell into a ditch at the side of the runway.

As for the lava on the runway woes, hopefully this latest incident in Goma will help provide incentive to remove the rest of it.

When it comes to bush pigs on runways, pilots in Zimbabwe–and I guess elsewhere where bush pigs roam–are probably keeping their eyes on the lookout.

The photo taken by Julien Harneis from a helicopter shows the lava flow around Goma.