Archive for April, 2010

Tragedy in Smolensk: A Terrible Echo Of Poland’s Past…

Filed under: Aviation, Government, Military, Technology — 4 Comments

April 15, 2010

Three hypotheses in Smolensk disaster

Gazeta Prawna (English Translation)

… Russia’s Ekho Moskvy radio reported that experts take into account the three hypotheses disaster: bad weather, pilot error and equipment failure…

…In one of the recorders is a record of the flight, including information on changes in height and thrust. This data is crucial to determine how the aircraft approached for landing.

From the account of witnesses that when the final attempted touchdown, the airplane first accosted the left wing of the measuring 50 meters antenna seeker of the runway, then a tree, and fell to the ground.

The second black box calls are recorded conversations of the crew and flight controllers. Yesterday Russian Ministry of Transport announced that one of the black boxes is slightly damaged.

Tape recording flight data has moved most likely due to shock – an intergovernmental committee gave the Moscow airport. Not clearly stated whether the audio recorder was damaged.

We have our own investigative hypotheses on the causes of the disaster. But I do not want to share them now. We work together with the Russians – he told us yesterday morning prosecutor Christopher Parulski. And he added that prosecutors and technicians begin mining was “very valid”…]

Pilots of Poland’s Tu-154 Had All Chances to Avoid Crash

The experts investigating the crash of the Tu-154 jetliner of the Polish president came to conclusion that the pilots of the plane could avoid the tragedy before the very last moment, RIA Novosti reports with reference to a source close to investigation.

The pilots had a chance to avoid the crash, but they made a fateful error. The commander of the airplane decided to land the Tu-154 despite the warning about poor visibility in the area of the Severny airdrome. The pilots neared the landing strip, but the crew decided that the plane would not touch down the landing site, experts said.

“The commander made the fateful error at this moment. He turned on the afterburner, made the plane swing to the right and tried to gain altitude turning the plane. As a result, the liner brushed against tree tops, the aircraft went out of control and crashed,” the expert said.

“If the pilot had not turned the plane when gaining altitude, the tragedy would not have happened,” the expert added.

Source: Pravda.Ru

The pilots knew the ending

Gazeta Prawna (English Translation)(Emphasis mine)

Captain presidential Tupolev Tu-154 has only one landing attempt at Katyn. Preliminary analysis of recordings from the black boxes indicate that the pilots were aware that they would perish.

It was the wrong approach, which ended in disaster – says, “DGP” Krzysztof Parulski, the chief military prosecutor, who coordinates the work of Polish prosecutors in Russia. He adds that the records have already read black boxes indicate that the pilots just before the disaster to understand that the pitch.

The crew was aware of this – he says Parulski. Were the pilots talking before the crash with someone from the passengers? We have no evidence that such a conversation took place. But the recordings of the cockpit we have carefully analyzed – told us the head of the military prosecutor’s office.

Russian experts explain how the crash. In their view, Arkadiusz Protasiuk captain paid no heed to warnings of bad weather and decided to land. Only Approach for landing the pilots noticed that the plane fails to reach the landing point. This moment led to a fatal error. Pilot increased string and do not know for what reason, upheld the right plane. At the same time tried to soar to the top.

As a result, the aircraft caught on the tops of the trees, and the pilot lost control of the machine – he told Russian agency RIA Novosti one of the experts investigating the cause of the disaster. Did the pilot was able to avoid the breakdown to the ground? The expert says that if he simply gaining height in a straight line, there would be a chance.

The Russians have argued from the beginning that it was the fault of the pilot. But it also said that he did not know Russian. And he knew it very well. He did not know the airport – and yet he was the second pilot, who flew three days earlier with Prime Minister Tusk to Smolensk. Well knew the airport Siewiernoje.

The Russian side gave the Poles a third black box found at the crash site. Today we reached the Polish. In Russia, are continuing work on deciphering the record of the other two. Polish and Russian specialists synchronized recording conversations with the pilots’ conduct of the flight data. Identify the sounds and noises in the cockpit – said Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov. He added that until the crash Tu-154M engines worked smoothly.

Polish military prosecutors will deal with one more fact. Examine the authenticity of amateur video recorded shortly after the disaster the government plane. At the end of the film can hear noises like gun shots and shouting “flee away”.

Prosecutors will try to see if someone actually shot immediately after crashing plane. It is not unlikely that it gave the Russian militiamen fired into the air to disperse onlookers. Under the influence of fire could also fire a cartridge of seven guns of the BOR, who flew with the president. In Smolensk still extracted fragments of the aircraft, which are stuck deep in the earth.

Experts have identified the last 20 pieces of bodies. In total, identified remains of 64 victims of the disaster.

Original Link (Polish)

“The final decision belongs to the pilot”

GRZEGORZ Pietruczuk to land in fog without ILS – Control Tower can not advise. Specify the specific meteorological conditions and whether the pilot is allowed to land or not. If these conditions are below the minimum standards for the airport, it is closed. If not, the pilot decides: to land or fly to the aerodrome.

Gazeta Prawna (English Translation)

TALK – JĘDRZEJ BIELECKI:

Is the weather conditions at the airport in Smolensk Presidential permit to land the aircraft?

KPT. GRZEGORZ Pietruczuk *:

Fog means visibility is less than 1000 meters. The airport, in contrast to most Western, there is no ILS guidance systems. Therefore, weather permitting standards for landing aircraft are tightened. While planes can land normally when visibility exceeds 800 m and cloud ceiling is higher than 60 m, in this case approaches according to two NDB beacons have visibility of at least 1800 m and cloud ceiling had to be greater than 120 m.

What the pilot sees in the fog, which is not available to the ILS?

It has a glass milk. NDB-type devices are not very precise. Deviation from the axis of the belt can reach 100 – 200 m. The facts can only evaluate when going down below the ceiling and see the lights and airport approaches. It is possible that misjudged the flight altitude. It may happen that the pilot or control tower, badly interpret the pressure under which it is set.

Boeing and Airbus is much better in such situations?

No, in principle, the measuring devices operate on the same principle.

Mr. flies airplanes for over 20 years. Is it so happened that you did not obey the commands of the control tower?

There I happened to land without permission.

The Russians, however, contend that the pilots repeatedly advised that the machine sent to another airport.

But the control tower could not handle. Specify the specific meteorological conditions and whether the pilot is allowed to land or not. If these conditions are below the minimum standards for the airport, it is closed. If not, the pilot decides: to land or fly to the aerodrome.

Maybe Capt. Protasiak was under considerable pressure to land at any price to make it in time for the ceremony? “

These are not mere flights of course. We are under pressure to fit in a timely manner. We know what level we are passengers on board. However, our pilots are trained so as to not yield to such pressure.

But when you refused landing in Tbilisi and flew to Azerbaijan, President Lech Kaczynski called Mr. fearful. Protasiuk did not have enough courage to face such pressures?

When we flew to Tbilisi, I was captain of the flight, my Arek II pilot. Time was of the same opinion as me. This was an excellent pilot with extensive experience.

Is a second government Tupolev should now be grounded?

I repeat: I think these are good machines. If we buy new, for example because of the range. So that no one had to land after flying fuel across the Atlantic. Would also be important to replace Yak-40 aircraft. They are very interconnect technology.

*Grzegorz Pietruczuk , pilot 36., remote 36th special regiment, who in August 2009 refused to inlet the airspace of Georgia

Original Link (Polish)

Plane crash in Smolensk: around the airport “North” long not cut down trees

(English Translation)(Emphasis mine)

From early morning in Smolensk taxi drivers wondered why tightly closed motorway Moscow – Minsk? That was a terrible crash with the plane, which flew the Polish delegation and Polish President Lech Kaczynski, was not yet known.

The accident happened near the village of Pechersk. The latest data on board the plane were 96 people, all of them died. On board was the President of Poland Lech Kaczynski and his wife.

The plane crashed on landing. It says a source from the MOE, the plane hit a tree and broke into pieces. Начался пожар. The fire started. As a result of a terrible accident, everyone in the plane were killed.

The key question: Could the “North” to take the plane, because last year the regiment was disbanded and the aircraft transferred to military airfields Orenburg-2 and Taganrog. Battle flag and the honorable name of the regiment transferred to the air base formed by the 1 st level, which is located at the airfield Orenburg-2.

According to people living in close proximity to the airfield for several years now there are not clipped trees that grow along the runway and prevent review. Earlier, when the airfield was stationed Aviation Regiment, pruning performed regularly. Dispatching booth is empty, position lamps are broken.

But officials argue that the “North” could take any aircraft. Smolensky rescue, consisting of the rescue of Civil Aviation said: “North” – a military airfield, he was landing and taking off Ilyushin Il-76 military transport aircraft.

Of course, the Tu-154 – could land on this airport, as for military aircraft requirements to cover the runway is higher than for passenger aircraft. Prevented the pilot, apparently, still weather conditions.

Source of Airborne Veterans Club, the officer commented on the situation: “Aerodrome” North “- is one of the best airports in Russia. This airfield – dual purpose and can be used as a military and as a civilian. If it could easily land, for example, heavy, about 80 tonnes of IL-76, a light aircraft TU-154 also could do it all without any problems.

Of course, the call will be the final cause of experts. And they still have a long run. In my outsider view – it is only the human factor. If he was in a hurry and ordered him not to wait until Minsk or Moscow, and sit in Smolensk, the pilot was obliged to fulfill the order. But this is only speculation. “

At the scene of an accident left Shoigu and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. According to an anonymous source from the MOE, in place of the tragedy brought a stretcher and black bags. But before the arrival of Shoigu and Putin they not removed all of the corpses. When an accident damaged the road surface, asphalt reversal. Brigades of workers to sweep the sand and urgent repairs of the road to go there somehow could get through. Around cut down trees.

In fact the collapse of the Investigative Committee of the Smolensk region instituted criminal proceedings under Part 3. 263 ”Violation of safety rules negligently caused the death of two or more persons”, – told reporters. At the scene working task force.

Recall that the TU 154, en route flight Warsaw – Smolensk, with the Polish president and other top officials of this country on board, crashed today on April 10, at 10 hours 50 minutes Moscow time. Just crash died, according to various estimates, from 96 to 132 people (the death toll to be confirmed). Survival was unable to none.

A senior delegation flew to the memorial event – to honor the memory of 20 thousand Polish officers were shot by the NKVD in 1940. Including thousands of Poles were executed in the Katyn forest near Smolensk.

Original Link (Russian)

For 3-5 seconds the crew knew that the disaster occurs

Three to five seconds. That could take a long while, through which the presidential aircraft, the crew was already aware that it comes to disaster – said the Chief Military Prosecutor Christopher Parulski, who is in Smolensk. The colonel pointed out that the body has already identified three victims of the disaster on April 10. In sum, it is known the identity of 61 bodies.

Radio Muzyka (English Translation)(Emphasis mine)

Military prosecutor Colonel Zbigniew Turnip told Gazeta Wyborcza that the black boxes of records that just before the crash the pilots understood that the pitch. He admitted that the tip of the footage “was dramatic,” but would not say whether the passengers knew that the machine was going to hit the ground.

Parulski estimated that moment when I understood now that the crash occurs, it could be three to five seconds on the assumption that the speed of an airplane landing is 150-180 meters per second.

Chief Military Prosecutor announced that the remains were found nearly all of the presidential delegation. In Moscow, the body has identified 61 people – the identification is confirmed DNA tests. The crash site has already removed half of large parts of the aircraft and the terrain is still meticulously searched.

6.9. Radio Altimeter RV-5

6.9.1. General Information

RV-5 radio altimeter is used for absolute altitude measurement in a range of 0-750 m and for alerting about reaching the preset altitude.

Altitude indicator is UV-5 device mounted on the instrument panel. On a flange of the device there is (altitude preset) knob with a yellow alarm light built in it and the (control) button with the red alarm light built in it.

Rotation of the knob tunes preset altitude reaching alert system, the value of presetting altitude is counted by the yellow triangular index moving on a scale.

When the aircraft reaches the preset altitude the yellow light illuminates and 400 Hz sound signal is simultaneously heard in pilot’s headphones during 3-9 seconds

If the button is pressed on the operational radio altimeter, control height 15 +/-1,5 m is set up on the indicator. After releasing the button the device will show absolute flight altitude (or H=0 if on the ground).

RV-5 radio altimeter is switched on and its supply circuit is protected by the radio altimeter circuit breaker located on the switchboard.

6.9.2. Radio Altimeter Pre-Flight Check

Switch on RV-5 power supply by circuit breaker. The red alarm light should illuminate, and the altimeter needle should move aside 750 m figure and overrun the scale black sector. After radio altimeter warms up the red light should extinguish, and the needle establish on 0 +/-0,8 m indication.

Set the yellow triangular index to 10 m indication by knob.

Press and hold the button. This should establish the needle on the control altitude value of 15 +/-1,5 m.

Release the button. The arrow will move to zero. When the needle passes through 10 m indication, the

altitude alerting system will turn on – the yellow alarm light on altimeter’s face will illuminate and the sound signal will be heard in pilot’s phones.

6.9.3. Radio Altimeter Operation in Flight

Before take-off, it is necessary to:

- Switch on the circuit breaker. RV-5 will be ready to use in 2 – 3 minutes;

- Rotate the knob to preset the value of decision height to be signalled. Radio altimeter will work in flight the following way:

- When the aircraft reaches altitude of more than 750 m the needle on the UV-5 face will go to the black sector of the scale and will stay there all the time of flight until the aircraft will descend below 750 m; at the moment when the arrow passes the yellow preset decision height index, the yellow alarm light on RV-5 will illuminate and then extinguish, the sound will be heard in pilot’s phones;

- When the aircraft reaches altitude of 1200 m and above, the red alarm light which is built into the

button will illuminate, the light will extinguish when the aircraft descends below 1200 m;

- At altitudes 750 m and lower the needle will show absolute flight altitude, and at the further descent radio altimeter will signal reaching of the decision height.

Attention! At bank and pitch angles more then 30°, RV-5 indications should not be trusted!

- After landing, switch off the radio altimeter;

- If the radio altimeter fails in flight at heights below 750 m AGL, the red alarm light – a signal of the altimeter malfunction – will illuminate. In this case it is necessary to switch off the radio altimeter.

Source: FLIGHT MANUAL – AIRCRAFT YAK-18T ENGINE – M-14P (PDF)

Radio Chatter – International Aviation Forums

Comment: But no one would expect the flight crew to divert from an open airport without at least shooting one approach. It is not compromising safety to shoot an approach in poor visibility if the crew follows the approach plate, observes the minimums and executes a missed approach is they cannot see the runway.

Response: Actually, the days of the “look see” are long gone : Nowadays,either you are above the minima, and you can start an approach , or you ain’t and there is no legal justification for you to be on that approach.

From the videos of the crash site, in particular one minutes after the crash, one could estimate the visibility at just around a thousand meters.

That doesn’t seem enough for a non-precision approach. Moreover, reading some of the comments on AvHerald, there is one from an “ex-soviet pilot”, apparently with some TU-154 experience and he writes that : “If (they) had no ILS app, (they) used GCA (minima 100m x 1500 m) or 2 NDBs (120 m x 1800 m) ; if it was no meteo observer on inner marker (1 km from RW), minima was going up to 200 m x 2500 m. “

Unless there were rolling fog patches (after all, the wind was some 5 to 10 kt), I really don’t see how they could have had those required visibility values.

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These latest reports (Russians ATC’s break protocol at last moment, giving out vectoring instructions), sound like the Russian ATC’s started yelling “YOU’RE TOO LOW. YOU’RE TOO LOW”, and the Pilots had no time to correct.

Another factor COULD be that if the pilot had dumped fuel [i.e. burn off], he could have altered the CG of the plane and not had time to balance out the tanks. This could add to problems controlling the aircraft at lower speeds, or attempting quick recoveries.

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Smolensk is equipped with landing system allows the machine to enter the 60h800.

Поляки зацепили деревья в 2,5 км от ВПП.

Poles hooked trees in 2,5 km from the runway.

On board are two sets of radio altimeters, and there is a concept (the erection within the law) as the CDF (the height of decision)

According to Interfax the police department of the Smolensk region, the airport “Northern” had been closed due to fog,

Airport North – military airfield, and, according to experts, his condition is far from ideal.

Там нет ни пассажирского терминала, ни специальных диспетчерских служб, которые способны заводить на посадку гражданские авиалайнеры.

There is not a passenger terminal, or special dispatching services, which can start on the landing of a civilian airliner.

7 апреля, когда на аэродром прибывали премьер-министры РФ Владимир Путин и Польши Дональд Туск, на аэродром были привезены специальные мобильные радиолокационные станции, которые помогали завести на посадку их лайнер.

April 7, when the airfield came Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Poland’s Donald Tusk, the airfield had been brought special mobile radar stations, which helped make the landing of their ship.

Кроме того, 7 апреля стояла хорошая солнечная погода, в отличие от сегодняшнего густого тумана.

In addition, on April 7 was a good sunny weather, in contrast to today’s dense fog.

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Belarusian air traffic controllers warned the plane of the President of Poland of the bad weather conditions in Smolensk

Белорусские диспетчеры информировали пилотов польского самолета Ту-154 о неблагоприятных условиях посадки в Смоленске, однако экипаж принял решение следовать до места назначения, сообщил агентству “Интерфакс-Запад” представитель белорусских авиационных властей.

Belarusian dispatchers informed the pilots of the Polish Tupolev Tu-154 landing on the adverse conditions in Smolensk, but the crew decided to follow to the destination, told Interfax-West “, the representative of the Belarusian aviation authorities.

“Незадолго до выхода из зоны ответственности белорусских авиадиспетчеров к ним обратились российские коллеги с просьбой передать на борт информацию о плохих метеоусловиях посадки в Смоленске.

“Shortly before leaving the zone of responsibility of the Belarusian air traffic controllers asked him to Russian colleagues to transmit to the board about the bad weather, landing in Smolensk.

Белорусские диспетчеры передали на борт Ту-154 информацию о том, что видимость в порту прибытия составляет 400 метров, но польские пилоты приняли решение следовать в Смоленск”, – отметил собеседник агентства

Belarusian dispatchers sent on board the Tu-154 information that the visibility at the port of arrival is 400 meters, but the Polish pilots had decided to follow in Smolensk, “- noted.

Он уточнил, что самолет Ту-154 вышел из зоны ответственности белорусских диспетчеров в 09:22 местного (в 10:22 мск), а катастрофа произошла спустя 36 минут после того, как борт покинул белорусскую зону ответственности.

He clarified that the Tu-154 went out of the zone of responsibility of the Belarusian dispatchers At 09:22 local (at 10:22 Moscow time), and the accident occurred after 36 minutes after the board left the Belarusian area of responsibility.

Source: Interfax

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Why the FAC did not respond to warnings that the manager has fallen below the glide path?

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crew total flight time in hours :

- (captain) kpt. pil. Arkadiusz PROTASIUK – total time: 3528h (on Tu-154M – 2937h)
- (first officer) mjr pil. Robert GRZYWNA - total time: 1939h (on Tu-154M – 506h)
- (navigator) por. pil. Artur ZIĘTEK – total time: 1069h (on Tu-154M – 59h, as navigator)
- (flight engineer) chor. Andrzej MICHALAK – total time 330h

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Air Force: the crew of the Tu-154 did not follow the instructions given flight controller terminal

Первый замначальника главного штаба ВВС генерал-лейтенант Александр Алешин заявил, что экипаж самолета Ту-154, на котором в Смоленскую область летела польская делегация во главе с президентом Лехом Качиньским, несколько раз не выполнил указаний руководителя полетов аэродрома Смоленск.

The first deputy chief of the Air Staff Lieutenant-General Alexander Aleshin said that the crew of the Tu-154, which in the Smolensk region was flying the Polish delegation headed by President Lech Kaczynski, on several occasions failed to comply with guidance head operations airfield Smolensk.

«На удалении 1,5 км группа руководства полетов обнаружила, что экипаж увеличил вертикальную скорость снижения и начал снижаться ниже глиссада.

“At 1,5 km distance flight management team discovered that the crew increased vertical rate of descent and began to descend below the glide slope. Руководитель полетов дал команду экипажу о переводе самолета в горизонтальный полет, и, когда экипаж не выполнил указаний, несколько раз отдал команду на уход на запасной аэродром.

The head flight crew gave the command to move the aircraft in level flight, and when the crew failed to comply with instructions, several times he gave the command to the alternate.

Тем не менее, экипаж продолжал снижаться», – сказал Алешин.

Nevertheless, the crew continued to decline “, – said Aleshin.

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В свою очередь глава МЧС Серей Шойгу сообщил, что траектория полета польского самолета свидетельствует, что отклонение от взлетной полосы было не только по высоте, но и по ширине.

The head of the MOE Serey Shoigu said that the trajectory of the Polish aircraft shows that the deviation from the runway was not only in height but in width.

По курсу – это понятно, а по ширине – как-то странно звучит.

At the rate – this is understandable, but the width – a strange sound.

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Still safer to fly in Russia with Russian pilots …

Prior to December 2009, a Russian navigator always flew aboard with the Polish Air Force when entering Russian airspace? Can anyone confirm this was standard procedure?

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В Аэрофлоте была очень похожая в 1981 году катастрофа Ту-154Б-2 а/п Норильск (Алыкель)

In Aeroflot was very similar in 1981, Tu-154B-2 a / n Norilsk (Alykel)

Там проблема с расчетом посадочного веса и с центровкой самолета.

There, the problem with the calculation of landing weight, and centering the aircraft.

Перед заходом на посадку экипаж рассчитал посадочный вес и центровку с ошибкой.

Before calling on the landing, the crew calculated landing weight and alignment with the error.

Фактическая центровка составляла 16-17% САХ (расчетная – 20,5% САХ) и была предельно передней, а посадочный вес – 80 280 кг (рассчитанный – 78 000 кг).

The actual alignment was 16-17% MAC (estimated – 20,5% MAC) and was extremely forward and landing weight – 80 280 kg (calculated – 78 000 kg).

Из-за этой ошибки скорость снижения по глиссаде была выбрана неверно, на 5 км/ч меньше требуемой (265 км/ч вместо 270 км/ч).

Because of this error rate reduction on the glide path was chosen incorrectly, at 5 km / h less than the required (265 km / h instead of 270 km / h).

Заход на посадку выполнялся в директорном режиме с использованием автомата тяги.

The approach procedure being performed in-director mode, using automatic traction.

При входе в глиссаду вертикальная скорость увеличилась до 6-7 м/с.

When you enter the glide path vertical speed increased to 6.7 m / sec.

Отклонением штурвала скорость была уменьшена до 4 м/с.

The deviation of the wheel speed was reduced to 4 m / sec.

Самолет прошел ДПРМ на 18 м выше глиссады с вертикальной скоростью 3 м/с.

Airplane passed LOM at 18 m above the glide path with a vertical speed of 3 m / sec.

Для сохранения расчетной траектории снижения Vв была увеличена до 5 м/с, что вызвало уменьшение тангажа и увеличение поступательной скорости до 275 км/ч.

To save the calculated trajectory to reduce ve been increased to 5 m / s, which caused a decrease in pitch and increase in forward speed to 275 km / h.

Автомат тяги отреагировал уменьшением режима работы двигателей почти до малого газа.

Autopower reacted decrease engine operating regime nearly idle.

Это привело к возникновению пикирующего момента и быстрому увеличению вертикальной скорости до 8 м/с.

This resulted in a diving moment and the rapid increase in the vertical velocity to 8 m / sec. В 2

км от торца ВПП самолет находился на 10 м выше глиссады (Vпр=273 км/ч, Vв=5,5 м/с, H=120м).

At 2 km from the end of runway the aircraft was 10 m above the glide path (Vpr = 273 km / h, ve = 5,5 m / s, H = 120m).

КВС попытался вернуться на глиссаду отклонением на кабрирование руля высоты (21º).

FAC tried to return to the glide path deviation in pitch up the elevator (21 º).

Однако из-за уменьшения эффективности руля высоты при отклонении на угол более 20º самолет практически не изменил траекторию.

However, due to decreasing efficiency of the elevator deflection at an angle of more than 20 º plane almost did not change the trajectory.

На высоте 90 м вертикальная скорость возросла до 7 м/с и самолет просел под глиссаду.

At a height of 90 m vertical speed increased to 7 m / s and the plane sank under the glide path.

КВС отклонил руль высоты в положение максимального кабрирования (29º).

FAC rejected the elevator to the position of maximum pitching (29 º).

Траектория движения практически не изменилась.

Trajectory was virtually unchanged.

На высоте 55 м КВС перевел двигатели на взлетный режим, дав команду об уходе на второй круг.

At a height of 55 m FAC translated engines on take-off mode, allowing the team to withdraw in the second round.

Самолет продолжил снижение (по более пологой траектоии) и жестко приземлился с вертикальной скоростью 4-5 м/с на скорости 275 км/ч в 470 м от ВПП на заснеженное поле, проскользил, разрушаясь, по мерзлому грунту около 300 м и затем столкнулся с насыпью.

The aircraft continued to decline (by more than a shallow traektoii) and landed hard with a vertical velocity of 4-5 m / s at a speed of 275 km / h at 470 m from the runway at the snow-covered field, skidded, destroy, on the frozen ground about 300 meters and then collided with bulk.

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I’m not aviation expert, but it looks that some ‘well known facts’ do not fit to strict logical path.

1. Pictures in Picasa album have coordinates.

2. First birch tree top was cut approx at 2.5 km distance from runway.

3. Tower operator states, that he noticed deviation from glide slope when a/c was at 1.5 km distance from runway.

4. Is that logical ? At 2.5 km. plane had to be about 130 metres high on 3 deg. glide slope. What is expected descent rate – 5 m/s ? It translates to 26 sec. to descend and forces me to expect that warning must have been issued at least 10-15 sec. earlier.

Also to cover distance 2.5-1.5 km= 1km with 300 km/h approach speed there is another 11 sec required.

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Comment: Russia’s ATC system is really weird and highly illogical in the way it works. Per Russian operations, when an aircraft lands at an airport, its altimeter is to read “0″ (meters, feet, etc) regardless of the actual airfield elevation. Why they stupidly decided on this system, I’ll never know.

Response: I would not call it stupid at all. Actualy it has quite some logic. When you touch down, you are at 0 feet, unlike landing at an airport and your altimeter still reads 1,543ft. Heights are measure based on field elevation, instead of sea level.

In reality some US carriers also have operated this way, AA matter of fact being the biggest for many decades operated using QFE instead of QNH.

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Comment: In any case, the RA would have given the correct height readout, and if the bug was set correctly for the MDH, also give an aural and visual warning of descending below MDH.

Response: Wrong. The radio-altimeter is not used in a non-precision approach, mainly because the height reference at a distance of 2 Nm from the threshold – which the average 600 ft MDA amounts to – is unlikely to be equal to the reference point of the runway. So your statement is wrong.

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A bit more precise data and calculation. I have used Goggle Earth distance and elevation information. Goggle data errors should not be significant because I am using only the difference of that data for nearby points. Reference points were established according to Picasa composite and other available pictures.

We are comparing what Picasa composite has called point 1 and point 7. In point 1, if we assume reasonable height for that fence (1.2 m), then the height of that tree is now 4.2 meters. According to Goggle, terrain elevation at that point is 238m. So, the first tree cutting point is at 238+4=242m elevation. Dirt road in picture 7 is at elevation 250m. If the man in red 1.8m tall, then all trees in that picture were cut at 7.2m height above the level of the road.

Which means that trees were cut at 250+7=257m. That means that in, approximately, 295m of horizontal distance we have increase in elevation of 257-242=15m, or 5% climb.

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Comment: In articles and based on what ATC reported (so far) the plane was much lower on approach then it should be – 8m vs 60m. During the approach the crew stopped reading back, the aircraft subsequently impacted ground. Polish officials confirmed, that the airplane was on its first approach to the Air Base, when it impacted the trees

Response: From the two excerpts above, as it is not really usual for ATCOs to monitor approaching airplanes paths – and have the equipment to do so – it looks as if the airplane was on some sort of GCA (ancestor to the PAR) let down. That’s in all probability the meaning of the reported ATC’s insistence on “read-backs”, first difficult as the crew had poor command of Russian, and which ceased prior to the final descent.

If I go further into that possibility, one has to know that particular problems are posed by GCA / PAR approaches : Total instrument flying with very little situational awareness (however good the ground operator is) as one only relies on instructions from the operator, and most importantly, the transition from instrument to visual flying is certainly not a given and requires from the pilot quite some discipline and a good anticipation of the final approach “picture”. In that respect, two dangers should be well considered and prepared for :

1/- Concentrating on heading and sink rate and forgetting the speed…impending entry to stall with an increasing vertical speed as a result

2/- Seeing the runway / threshold, but due to the positive attitude of 3 to 5 °, try to keep the picture in the middle of the windshield, therefore plunging short of the runway.

The problem is that civilians pilots rarely see that sort of approach (here in France, we have a few mil/civ airports where we can practice that skill, Brest being the fav. (When I say “civilians”, I also refer to pilots that stay, through their functions, mostly inside the civilian aviation realm)

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Comment: Contrary to what several people here have said, this was a low speed impact

Response: I quite agree, with the photos I’ve seen so far.

On board Presidential plane were not secret documents

Military Counter-Intelligence Service shall ensure that no senior military commanders at the time of accident did not have the documents covered by state secrecy or official. On board the TU-154M saamolotu were not been any material kryptograficzne.SKW issued a special statement on the matter.

Military counterintelligence stresses that military procedure excludes the uncontrolled disposal of confidential information. Service after the disaster, which is in the morning on April 10 addressed the protection of the media that could contain other information, not a duty of professional secrecy or nationality. The crash of the plane TU-154M Government lost all command of the Polish armed forces: Chief of Staff and commander of all types of weapons. (IAR)

TU-154M – interior and cockpit photos – TU5 – Universal – FMS UNS-1k and GPS.

The pilots knew that the pitch

Gazeta Prawna (English Translation)

Captain presidential Tupolev Tu-154 has only one landing attempt at Katyn. Wstępna analiza nagrań z czarnych skrzynek wskazuje na to, że piloci zdawali sobie sprawę, że zginą. Preliminary analysis of recordings from the black boxes indicate that the pilots were aware that it will perish.

- It was the wrong approach, which ended in disaster – says, “DGP” Krzysztof Parulski, the chief military prosecutor, who coordinates the work of Polish prosecutors in Russia. Dodaje, że z już odczytanych zapisów czarnych skrzynek wynika, że piloci przed samą katastrofą rozumieli, że się rozbiją. He adds that the records have already read black boxes indicate that the pilots just before the disaster to understand that the pitch. – Załoga miała tę świadomość – mówi Parulski. – The crew was aware of this – he says Parulski. Czy piloci rozmawiali przed katastrofą z kimś z pasażerów? Are the pilots were talking before the crash with someone from the passengers? – Nie mamy dowodów, by takie rozmowy się toczyły. – We have no evidence that such a conversation took place. Ale nagrania z kokpitu samolotu będziemy jeszcze dokładnie analizować – powiedział nam szef wojskowej prokuratury. But the recordings of the cockpit we have carefully analyzed – told us the head of the military prosecutor’s office.

Rosyjscy eksperci tłumaczą, w jaki sposób doszło do katastrofy. Russian experts explain how the crash. Ich zdaniem kapitan Arkadiusz Protasiuk nie zważał na ostrzeżenia o złej pogodzie i podjął decyzję o lądowaniu. In their view, Arkadiusz Protasiuk captain paid no heed to warnings of bad weather and decided to land. Dopiero przy podchodzeniu do lądowania piloci dostrzegli, że samolot nie zdoła trafić w punkt lądowania. Only Approach for landing the pilots noticed that the plane fails to reach the landing point. Ten moment doprowadził do śmiertelnego błędu. This moment led to a fatal error. Pilot zwiększył ciąg i nie wiadomo z jakiej przyczyny przychylił samolot w prawo. Pilot increased string and do not know for what reason, upheld the right plane. Jednocześnie próbował wzbić się do góry. At the same time tried to soar to the top. – W rezultacie samolot zaczepił się o wierzchołki drzew, po czym pilot stracił kontrolę nad maszyną – opowiadał rosyjskiej agencji RIA Nowosti jeden z ekspertów badających przyczyny katastrofy. – As a result, the aircraft caught on the tops of the trees, and the pilot lost control of the machine – he told Russian agency RIA Novosti one of the experts investigating the cause of the disaster. Czy pilot mógł uniknąć rozbicia się o ziemię? Did the pilot was able to avoid the breakdown to the ground? Ekspert twierdzi, że gdyby zaczął po prostu nabierać wysokości po prostej, istniałaby szansa. The expert says that if he simply gaining height in a straight line, there would be a chance.

Rosjanie od początku twierdzili, że była to wina pilota. The Russians have argued from the beginning that it was the fault of the pilot. Ale mówili też, że nie znał rosyjskiego. But it also said that he did not know Russian. A znał go znakomicie. And he knew it very well. Że nie znał lotniska – tymczasem to on był drugim pilotem, który leciał trzy dni wcześniej z premierem Tuskiem do Smoleńska. He did not know the airport – and yet he was the second pilot, who flew three days earlier with Prime Minister Tusk to Smolensk. Świetnie znał lotnisko Siewiernoje. Well knew the airport Siewiernoje.

The Russian side gave the Poles a third black box found at the crash site. Dzisiaj dotarła do Polski. Today we reached the Polish. W Rosji wciąż trwają prace nad rozszyfrowaniem nagrań z dwóch pozostałych. In Russia, are continuing work on deciphering the record of the other two. – Polscy i rosyjscy specjaliści synchronizują nagrania rozmów pilotów z danymi przebiegu lotu. – Polish and Russian specialists synchronized recording conversations with the pilots’ conduct of the flight data. Identyfikują dźwięki i szumy w kokpicie – powiedział rosyjski wicepremier Siergiej Iwanow. Identify the sounds and noises in the cockpit – said Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov. Dodał, że do momentu katastrofy silniki Tu-154M pracowały sprawnie. He added that until the crash Tu-154M engines worked smoothly.

Polscy prokuratorzy wojskowi zajmą się jeszcze jedną okolicznością. Polish military prosecutors will deal with one more fact. Zbadają autentyczność amatorskiego filmu nagranego tuż po katastrofie rządowego samolotu. Examine the authenticity of amateur video recorded shortly after the disaster the government plane. Pod koniec filmu słychać odgłosy przypominające strzały i okrzyk „uciekajcie stąd”. At the end of the film can hear noises like gun shots and shouting “flee away”.

Prokuratorzy będą próbowali sprawdzić, czy rzeczywiście ktoś strzelał zaraz po rozbiciu się samolotu. Prosecutors will try to see if someone actually shot immediately after crashing plane. Nie wykluczone, że to rosyjscy milicjanci oddali strzały w powietrze, by rozpędzić gapiów. It is not unlikely that it gave the Russian militiamen fired into the air to disperse onlookers. Pod wpływem pożaru wystrzelić mogły też naboje z siedmiu pistoletów funkcjonariuszy BOR, którzy lecieli wraz z prezydentem. Under the influence of fire could also fire a cartridge of seven guns of the BOR, who flew with the president. W Smoleńsku wciąż wydobywane są fragmenty samolotu, które utknęły głęboko w ziemi. In Smolensk still extracted fragments of the aircraft, which are stuck deep in the earth.

Biegli zidentyfikowali do wczoraj 20 fragmentów ciał. Experts have identified the last 20 pieces of bodies. W sumie zidentyfikowano szczątki 64 ofiar katastrofy. In total, identified remains of 64 victims of the disaster.

Original Link (Polish)

http://www.gazetaprawna.pl/wiadomosci/artykuly/413702,piloci_wiedzieli_ze_sie_rozbija.html

Comment

Poles 2nd Katyn: Glory To The Heroes! Hail Their Memory!

Filed under: Aviation, Military, Politics, Technology — Leave a comment

April 13, 2010

UPDATE

Black boxes reveal two landing attempts, not four

Contrary to initial reports, an examination of the Tu-154′s black box flight recorders revealed that the crew made two, not four attempts at landing

Three black boxes have been recovered from the wreck of the presidential plane which crashed in Smolensk on Saturday. Two flight recorders have already been examined, the third will be sent to Moscow today for examination.

“We’ve got two recorders: a voice recorder and a flight parameters recorder. The Aviation Committee in Moscow has examined them and will soon publish a report on what happened on board of the plane just before the crash,” said Col. Zbigniew Rzepa, who, along with five Russian experts, is investigating the black boxes in Moscow.

Rzepa added that the boxes are slightly damaged but only on the surface. The recordings are intact, which means that the reconstruction of pilots’ conversations with the air traffic controllers will be fairly easy.

The initial examination of the two black boxes showed that the crew had been advised not to land but ignored the warning and made two attempts to land. The flight recordings also reveal that Polish pilots, who communicated with the air traffic controllers in English and Russian, did not report any technical problems with the craft. The pilots also contacted the crew of two other planes which were in the vicinity.

Today the committee will examine the conversations recorded in the pilots’ cabin.

### end update ###

…Instead of diverting, as advised, the pilot of the 20- year-old plane tried and failed to land at least once, before clipping trees and plunging into a forest.

Air traffic controllers watched their screens with growing unease as the Soviet-era Tupolev descended into the fog that hung like a shroud over the military airfield at Smolensk in western Russia.

The controllers had already issued several warnings not to attempt a landing because of the danger posed by visibility close to zero. They wanted the plane to divert to Moscow or Minsk, the Belarus capital.

But the plane carrying a Polish presidential delegation to commemorate the Soviet massacre of Polish officers in the Katyn forest seven decades ago came in to land regardless.

“At a distance of 2.5km [1.5 miles] the head of air traffic control ascertained that the crew had increased the speed of the descent,” said Alexander Alyoshin, of the Russian air force.

“The head of the air traffic control group gave a command to the crew to put the aircraft into the horizontal position and when the crew did not implement this order, several times gave orders to divert to an alternative airport.

“Despite this, the crew continued the descent. Unfortunately this ended in tragedy.”

Russia Today and other television stations reported that even before the first attempt to land, the pilot had been dumping fuel — indicating some form of mechanical problem — so by the fourth attempt there was no alternative but to put the aircraft down…

Original Report - Times Online

Smolensk Air Base

QNH vs QFE Altitude?

‘Russia engineered air crash that killed President Kaczynski,’ claims Polish MP

Daily Mail UK

The Russian government prevented the Polish president’s plane from landing four times to divert him from a ceremony to mark the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre, according to an MP.

Artur Gorski said the Russians ‘came up with some dubious reasons’ that the aircraft couldn’t land because they feared President Leck Kaczynski’s presence would overshadow a similar event hosted by the Russian prime minister a few days before.

And their alleged plan ended in disaster when the Polish pilots made one final and disastrous attempt to land, killing Mr Kaczynski, his wife, and 94 others on board the plane.

‘One version of events says that the plane approached the airport four times, because every time the Russians refused it permission to land – they wanted to send the plane with the president to an airport in Moscow or Minsk,’ Mr Gorski claimed in an interview published in the newspaper Nasz Dziennik.

‘They came up with some dubious reasons: that there was fog over the airport, and that the navigation system didn’t work as it was under renovation, and that airport had a short landing strip.’…]

President Kaczynski’s last speech

Below is the text of the speech which Lech Kaczynski, who died on Saturday, was going to deliver at the 70th anniversary ceremony of the Katyn massacre.

“Dear Representatives of the Katyn Families. Ladies and Gentlemen. In April 1940 over twenty-one thousand Polish prisoners from the NKVD camps and prisons were killed. The genocide was committed at Stalin’s will and at the Soviet Union’s highest authority’s command.

The alliance between the Third Reich and the Soviet Union, the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact and the Soviet attack on Poland on 17 September 1939 reached a terrifying climax in the Katyn massacre. Not only in the Katyn forest, but also in Tver, Kcharkiv and other known, and unknown, execution sites citizens of the Second Republic of Poland, people who formed the foundation of our statehood, who adamantly served the motherland, were killed.

At the same time families of the murdered and thousands of citizens of the eastern territory of the pre-war Poland were sent into exile deep into the Soviet Union, where their indescribable suffering marked the path of the Polish Golgotha of the East.

The most tragic station on that path was Katyn. Polish officers, priests, officials, police officers, border and prison guards were killed without a trial or sentence. They fell victims to an unspeakable war. Their murder was a violation of the rights and conventions of the civilized world. Their dignity as soldiers, Poles and people, was insulted. Pits of death were supposed to hide the bodies of the murdered and the truth about the crime for ever.

The world was supposed to never find out. The families of the victims were deprived of the right to mourn publicly, to proudly commemorate their relatives. Ground covered the traces of crime and the lie was supposed to erase it from people’s memory.

An attempt to hide the truth about Katyn – a result of a decision taken by those who masterminded the crime – became one of the foundations of the communists’ policy in an after-war Poland: a founding lie of the People’s Republic of Poland.

It was the time when people had to pay a high price for knowing and remembering the truth about Katyn. However, the relatives of the murdered and other courageous people kept the memory, defended it and passed it on to next generations of Poles. They managed to preserve the memory of Katyn in the times of communism and spread it in the times of free and independent Poland. Therefore, we owe respect and gratitude to all of them, especially to the Katyn Families. On behalf of the Polish state, I offer sincere thanks to you, that by defending the memory of your relatives you managed to save a highly important dimension of our Polish consciousness and identity.

Katyn became a painful wound of Polish history, which poisoned relations between Poles and Russians for decades. Let’s make the Katyn wound finally heal and cicatrize. We are already on the way to do it. We, Poles, appreciate what Russians have done in the past years. We should follow the path which brings our nations closer, we should not stop or go back.

All circumstances of the Katyn crime need to be investigated and revealed. It is important that innocence of the victims is officially confirmed and that all files concerning the crime are open so that the Katyn lie could disappear for ever. We demand it, first of all, for the sake of the memory of the victims and respect for their families’ suffering. We also demand it in the name of common values, which are necessary to form a foundation of trust and partnership between the neighbouring nations in the whole Europe.

Let’s pay homage to the murdered and pray upon their bodies. Glory to the Heroes! Hail their memory!” (mg)

Official List of persons whose names appeared on the list of on-board the presidential plane from Warsaw to Smolensk:

Mr. Lech Kaczynski, Polish President

Mrs. Maria Kaczynska wife of Polish President

OFFICIAL DELEGATION

1st Mr Ryszard Kaczorowski, former president of Poland in Exile

2nd Mr. Krzysztof Putra

3rd Sejm Marshal Mr. Jerzy Szmajdzinski

4th Sejm Marshal Krystyna Bochenek Deputy Senate

5th BAHR Jerzy Ambassador of the Russian Federation

6th Mr. Wladyslaw STASIAK Chief Presidential Chancellery

7th Mr. Aleksander Szczyglo Head of the

8th National Security Mr. Jacek Sasin Secretary of State, Deputy Head of the Presidential Chancellery

9th Mr. Paul WYPYCH Secretary of State in the President’s Chancellery

10th Mariusz Handzlik Undersecretary of State at the Presidential Chancellery

11th Mr. Andrzej Kremer, Undersecretary of State in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the

12th Mr. Stanisław Komorowski, Undersecretary of State in the

13th MON Mr. Tomasz Merta Undersecretary of State in the Ministry of Culture

14th Gen. Francis Gągor Chief of General Staff of the Polish Army

15th Mr Andrew CARRIER Secretary ROPWiM

16th Mr. Maciej Plazynski President of the Association “Polish Community”

17 Mariusz KAZANA MFA Diplomatic Protocol Director

PARLIAMENT REPRESENTATIVES RP

1st Mr. Leszek Deptuła deputy to the Sejm

2nd Mr. Gregory Dolniak deputy to the Sejm

3rd Ms. Grazyna Gęsicka MP in the

4th Sejm Mr. Przemyslaw Gosiewski deputy to the

5th Sejm Mr. Sebastian KARPINIUK deputy to the Sejm

6th Ms. Izabela Jaruga – Nowacka Member of Parliament of the Republic of Poland

7th Mr. Zbigniew Wassermann deputy to the Sejm

8th Ms. Alexander Natallia – WORLD Member of Parliament

10th RP Mr. Arkadiusz Rybicki deputy to the Sejm

11th Jolanta Szymanek – Deresz Member of Parliament

12th RP Wiesław WATER deputy to the Sejm

13th Mr. Edward Wojtas deputy to the Sejm

14th Janina FETLIŃSKA Senator

15th RP Mr. Stanislaw ZAJAC Senator RP

ACCOMPANYING PERSONS

1st Mr. Janusz Kochanowski, the Ombudsman

2nd Mr Sławomir Skrzypek, President of the Polish National Bank

3rd Janusz Kurtyka President of the Institute of National Remembrance

4th Janusz Krupski Director of the Office for War Veterans and Repressed Persons

REPRESENTATIVES Churches and Religious Affairs

1st Fr. Bp. Maj.-Gen. Tadeusz Ploski Ordinary

2nd Polish Army Archbishop Brig. Miron Chodakowski Orthodox Polish Army

3rd Ordinary Fr. Col. Adam Pilch Evangelical Chaplaincy

4th Field Fr. Lt. Col. John OSIŃSKI Ordinariate of the Polish Army

Katyn Families REPRESENTATIVES AND OTHER ASSOCIATIONS

1st Mr. Edward Duchnowski Secretary General of the Union of Soviet persecutions

2nd Fr. Monsignor Bronislaw Gostomski

3rd Fr. Joseph Joniec Parafiada

4th President of the Association Fr. Zdzislaw KING Chaplain Warsaw Katyn Families 1987-2007

5th Fr. Andrew Kwasnik Chaplain

6th Federation of Katyn Families Pan Tadeusz LUTOBORSKI

7th Bozena Łojek President of the Polish Foundation Katyn

8th Mr. Stefan Melaka Katyn Committee Chairman

9th Mr. Stanisław Mikke Vice ROPWiM

10th Mrs. Bronislaw Orawiec – Löffler

11th Ms. Catherine Piskorska

12th Mr Andrew SARIUSZ – SKĄPSKI President Federation of Katyn Families

13th Mr Wojciech SEWERYN

14th Mr. Leszek Solski

15th Ms. Teresa Walewska – PRZYJAŁKOWSKA Foundation “Golgotha of the East”

16 Ms. Gabriela

17th Zych Ewa Bąkowska granddaughter Brig. Mieczyslaw Smorawinski

18th Mrs. Maria Borowska

19th Mr. Bartosz

20th BOROWSKI Dariusz MALINOWSKI

REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ARMED FORCES RP

1st Gen. Bronislaw KWIATKOWSKI Operational Commander Armed Forces

2nd Gen. pil. Andrew Błasik Polish Air Force Commander,

3rd Maj.-Gen. Tadeusz BUK Commander of Land Forces of Poland

4th Maj.-Gen. Vladimir POTASIŃSKI Commander RP

5th Special Forces Vice Admiral Andrzej Karweta Commander Navy

6th Brig. Kazimierz GILARSKI Commander Training Centre

Lech Kaczyński

Lech Aleksander Kaczyński (Polish pronunciation: [ˈlɛx alɛˈksandɛr kaˈtʂɨɲskʲi] ( listen); 18 June 1949 – 10 April 2010) was the President of the Republic of Poland from 2005 to 2010, a politician of the party Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (Law and Justice, PiS). Kaczyński served as Mayor of Warsaw from 2002 until 22 December 2005, the day before his presidential inauguration. He was the identical twin brother of the former Prime Minister of Poland and current Chairman of the Law and Justice party, Jarosław Kaczyński.

On 10 April 2010, he and his wife Maria Kaczyńska died when a Polish Air Force Tupolev Tu-154 crashed while attempting to land at Smolensk-North airport in Russia. There were no survivors on the plane, which was carrying senior Polish government officials on a trip to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre.

Kaczyński was born in Żoliborz, Warsaw, the son of Rajmund (an engineer who served as a soldier of the Armia Krajowa in World War II and a veteran of the Warsaw Uprising) and Jadwiga (a philologist at the Polish Academy of Sciences). As a child, he starred in a 1962 Polish film, The Two Who Stole the Moon (Polish title O dwóch takich, co ukradli księżyc) with his twin brother Jarosław.

Lech Kaczyński was a graduate of law and administration of Warsaw University. In 1980 he was awarded his PhD by Gdańsk University. In 1990 he had his habilitation in labour and employment law. He later assumed professorial positions at Gdańsk University and Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw.

In the 1970s Lech Kaczyński was an activist in the pro-democratic anti-Communist movement in Poland, Workers’ Defence Committee, as well as the Independent Trade Union movement. In August 1980, he became an adviser to the Inter-Enterprise Strike Committee in the Gdańsk Shipyard and the Solidarity movement. During the martial law introduced by the communists in December, 1981, he was interned as an anti-socialist element. After his release from internment, he returned to trade union activities, becoming a member of the underground Solidarity.

When Solidarity was legalized again in the late 1980s, Lech Kaczyński was an active adviser of Lech Wałęsa and his Komitet Obywatelski Solidarność in 1988. From February to April, 1989, he participated in Polish Round Table talks.

Kaczyński was elected a senator in the elections of June 1989, and became the vice-chairman of Solidarity trade union NSZZ Solidarność. In the 1991 parliamentary election, he was elected to the parliament as a non-party member. He was, however, supported by the electoral committee Center Civic Alliance, closely related but not identical to the political party Porozumienie Centrum (Center Agreement) led by his brother. He was also the main adviser and supporter of Lech Wałęsa when the latter was elected President of Poland in December 1990. Wałęsa nominated Kaczyński to be the Security Minister in the Presidential Chancellery but fired him in 1992 due to a conflict concerning Jan Olszewski‘s government.

Lech Kaczyński was the President of the Supreme Chamber of Control (Najwyższa Izba Kontroli, NIK) from February 1992 to May 1995 and later Minister of Justice and Attorney General in Jerzy Buzek‘s government from June 2000 until his dismissal in July 2001. During this time he was very popular because of his strong stance against corruption…

He was married to economist Maria Kaczyńska from 1978^[24] until their deaths. They had one daughter, Maria.

Source Wiki

First Lady returns to Poland

The plane containing First Lady Maria Kaczyńska’s coffin has arrived in Warsaw.

The CASA military aircraft touched down at 10.40 CET at Warsaw’s military airport and the coffin, draped in the Polish flag, was met by Marta Kaczynska, daughter of the Lech Kaczynski and First Lady Maria and the late president’s twin brother, Jaroslaw Kaczynski.

At Moscow’s Domodedovo airport a farewell ceremony was attended by the First Lady’s brother, Konrad Mackiewicz, Polish ambassador to Moscow Jerzy Bahr, ministers in the Presidential Chancellery Andrzej Duda and Bozena Borys and representatives from the Russian Government.

Maria Kaczynska’s body was identified yesterday from an inscription on the wedding ring given to her by her late husband, Lech Kaczynski.

Her immediate family are waiting at Warsaw’s military airport to greet the coffin.

The body of Mary Kaczyńska will be transported to the Presidential Palace where it will be laid to rest alongside her husband.

CNN Video (Crash Site Unprotected)

Press Release of Senator Lugar

Lugar statement and resolution honoring Poland President

Monday, April 12, 2010

U.S. Sen. Dick Lugar made the following statement for today’s Congressional Record as he introduced a resolution Honoring the lives of President of Poland Lech Kaczynski, his wife, and 94 others who perished on April 10, 2010, in a plane crash while en route to memorialize those Polish officers, officials, and civilians who were massacred by the Soviet Union 70 years ago.

STATEMENT BY SENATOR LUGAR ON THE DEATH OF POLISH PRESIDENT LECH KACZYNSKI

AND OTHER OFFICIALS IN WESTERN RUSSIA

Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, I rise to honor the lives of President Lech Kaczynski, his wife, and 94 others who perished in a plane crash on April 10, 2010. President Kaczynski was a steadfast supporter of advancing freedom and prosperity in Poland and throughout Central and Eastern Europe and was a close friend of the United States. It is with tragic irony that this devastation has occurred at a time of solemn remembrance of the massacre of Polish officers and civilians in the Katyn Forest and elsewhere 70 years ago. Together with the Polish nation and friends of Poland worldwide, I mourn this unbelievably tragic loss. With these sentiments in mind, I am introducing this resolution honoring the lives of President of Poland Lech Kaczynski, his wife, and 94 others who perished on April 10, 2010 in a plane crash while en route to memorialize those Polish officers, officials, and civilians who were massacred by the Soviet Union 70 years ago.

The resolution reads:

111TH CONGRESS

2D SESSION S. RES. Tba

Honoring the lives of President of Poland Lech Kaczynski, his wife, and 94 others who perished on April 10, 2010, in a plane crash while en route to memorialize those Polish officers, officials, and civilians who were massacred by the Soviet Union 70 years ago.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

Mr. LUGAR submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on.

RESOLUTION

Whereas, on April 10, 2010, the President of the Republic of Poland Lech Kaczynski, his wife Maria, and a cadre of current and former Polish statesmen, family members, and others departed Warsaw by plane to the Russian region of Smolensk;

Whereas the purpose of the delegation’s visit was to hold a ceremony in solemn remembrance of the more than 22,000 Polish military officers, police officers, judges, other government officials, and civilians who were executed by the Soviet secret police, the NKVD, 70 years ago, between April 3 and the end of May 1940;

Whereas more than 14,500 Polish victims have been documented at 3 sites in Katyn (in present day Belarus), in Miednoye (in present day Russia), and in Kharkiv (in present day Ukraine), while the remains of an estimated 7,000 Polish victims have yet to be precisely located;

Whereas the Soviet Union failed to acknowledge responsibility for the massacres until President Mikhail Gorbachev’s statement on April 13, 1990;

Whereas, on April 7, 2010, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin became the first Russian or Soviet leader to join Polish officials in commemorating the anniversary of the murders;

Whereas the plane carrying the Polish delegation on April 10, 2010, crashed in Smolensk, tragically killing all 96 persons on board, including President Kaczynski, his wife, and other current and former Polish statesmen;

Whereas President Kaczynski was a steadfast proponent of consolidating freedom and prosperity in Poland and advancing them throughout Central and Eastern Europe and was a close friend of the United States of America; and

Whereas the deep friendship between the Governments and people of Poland and the United States is grounded in our mutual respect, shared values, and common priorities on nuclear nonproliferation, counterterrorism, human rights, regional cooperation in Eastern Europe, democratization, and international development: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the Senate—

(1) recognizes the terrible tragedy that tookplace on April 10, 2010, when an aircraft carrying a delegation of current and former Polish officials, family members, and others crashed en route from Warsaw to Smolensk to memorialize the 1940 massacres, killing all 96 passengers;

(2) honors the life and legacy of the late President of Poland Lech Kaczynski and the lives and legacies of all Poles who perished in the plane crash on April 10, 2010;

(3) honors the lives and legacies of the more than 22,000 Polish government officials, military officers, and civilians who were executed by the NKVD70 years ago, between April and May 1940;

(4) expresses deep sympathy for the surviving family members of those who perished at the hands of the NKVD in 1940 and for the surviving family members of those who perished in the tragic plane crash of April 10, 2010;

(5) supports the people of Poland as they restore leadership in the institutions of the Government of Poland that were impacted by the crash of April 10, 2010; and

(6) requests that the Secretary of the Senate transmit an enrolled copy of this resolution to the Ambassador of Poland to the United States.

# # #

Note — NOT CONFIRMED

Polish military use QFE and heights in meters ?

Instruments in the cockpit Tutki in miles and feet ?

The pilots decided: Landing!

Pilots run out of 10-15 m height – say about the disaster in Smolensk Korocznin Alexei, a former fighter pilot and the chief power engineer Siewiernyj airport. Everything indicates that the master Presidential Tu-154 itself decided to land

Gazeta – Marcin Wojciechowski, Smoleńsk (English Translation)

Tu-154 flew from Warsaw to Smolensk on the rate of 8 thousand. m. 50 km from the airport, which for nearly 10 minutes before landing, the crew informed the control tower that the Smolensk is dense fog. It was suggested that flew up at the airport in Minsk, possibly in Moscow.

- The pilots were eager to land, which repeated a few times on the radio. Speculation that someone they have forced to seem to me to be without foundation – said the airport worker who knows the content of the conversations with the tower crew.

In accordance with the provisions of the commander alone decides whether to land, and does not need to consult with anyone – even if the board is the head of state. Was it so in this case, we do not know. On board were the Chief of General Staff of the army and head of the Air Force. Did the pilot consulted with them, it is not known. The Russians have already informed that the cause of the disaster was certainly not fault the machine.

Tower in Smolensk, which is half the military airport, half civilian, is entitled to teach anything civilian planes, and treated as such, the flight journey president. – Maybe they just something to suggest – says General Alexander Aloszyn, deputy head of staff of Russia’s air force. Therefore, the auditors accepted the decision of Polish pilots, though half an hour before the crash sent to Moscow, Il-96 military wiozącego to Katyn officers of the Russian Federal Protection Service (equivalent to BOR).

Inspectors from the airport talking with pilots in Russian, but as he told us one of the military experts, it’s extraordinary. Our pilots are familiar with and English, and Russian.

Presidential plane circled the airport three times, but experts think it is nothing extraordinary. – The pilots in this way become acquainted with the topography, or designate a correct course, which stores the autopilot – Korocznin says. It helps them and then help guide the machine on the belt, adjust the flight manual.

The problem that day was a thick fog. Hour and a half earlier in the Smolensk government land Yak-40 with journalists. – Fog then has been much less – says the airport staff. Before landing, the airplane became the president of extremely small and dense. – I think the pilots should definitely not be approached for landing in such conditions – the correspondent adds.

Despite the mist, everything went well for a distance of about 1.5 km from the airport. Then the plane for a very reduced level, touching the mast radar station and the first batch of trees. The pilots tried to deduce the machine, but failed, because it has already begun to disintegrate. Touched by another tree at a height of several meters and fell to the ground. – The pilots had to be excellent professionals – says Korocznin. – Reducing the machine smoothly, even to the nearest jeweler. They just ran out of height. If they flew 10-15 m above the landing would be successful. Their skill is also evidence that the machine crashed down right away, not collapsed immediately and not broken, but it cracked like a piece.

According Korocznina there was no deviation from the trajectory of nearly 150 m left, as stated, inter alia, Minister of Russia Sergei Shoigu emergency. – It’s a collision with the trees – explains Korocznin. The pilot probably tried to pick up the machine, claiming the right wing, and so blown off to the left, but already falling, and not in flight. – The plane was flying a good course. Pilots were the masters. The problem is that they should not land in the fog – Korocznin stresses.

Yesterday it was possible to enter the crash site. Hidden away all the human remains and personal effects, by which the victims are identified. Were just some of the elements of an aircraft which studied in detail by experts throughout the day. They are scattered over a kilometer in length. The work also involves specialists from Polish.

Rescuers describe every item in detail and pack in special bags. Among the personal items are books on Katyn, which they were carrying with them flying at the Saturday ceremony, credit cards, cell phones, documents, etc. This helps to identify the bodies, which are either torn apart or burned. He carefully collected the clothes of the victims, uniforms.

Black Box Tu-154 are already tested in Moscow. Russian experts do not want them to move without the presence of Polish specialists to avoid any suspicion that something may be hidden. – Cooperation with the Russian side is very well arranged. We really appreciate the heart and help in all areas – said Ambassador Jerzy Bahr.

Jak leciał Jak-40

Half hours by plane landed in Smolensk President Government Yakovlev Yak-40, thirteen journalists on board, among whom I was. The flight began with the adventures. Even before the launch in Warsaw, the pilots discovered the flaw and decided to change the machine. We had to get out of it, even though we were already buckling seat belts. I thought it exhausted the limit of the air of unpleasant events that day.

As 40 approached for landing in Smolensk without complications. Fog was less than half an hour later, but it was. I had the impression that the plane lands rapidly from a great height. In the end nothing could be seen, because we flew completely in the clouds. Just before the runway it became clear the plane and gently struck the wheels on the ground. After leaving the aircraft, the pilots were happy.

Airport workers in Smolensk told me yesterday that the landing-40 What was not so perfect, but it is easier to control when the weather is difficult, because it is lighter. In addition, famous for the possibility of gliding in the air, even in the event of engine failure. Machine five times heavier – as Tu-154 – is much more difficult to pilot.

The Polish accident: circumstances

… Smolensk airport has no precision approach aids, and meteorological observations provided there do not meet ICAO specifications. For example they can provide estimated visibility from the control tower, but not runway visual range. There were no special arrangements made for the presidential flight, according to our sources.

Three days earlier (7 April) the same aircraft had flown the identical trip carrying the Polish Prime Minster, so the crew of the presidential flght should not have faced any unknowns…

…When it closed as a military base in October 2009, Smolensk Severny had surveillance radar and a Russian RSPB beacon, almost identical to the western military aid TACAN (tactical air navigation), which operates in an overlapping frequency band. RSPB, like the civilian VOR/DME, offers bearing and range from the beacon, but slightly more accurately than its civil counterpart. It is still, however, not a precision approach aid.

The status of the RSPB and the airport surveillance radar on that day is not known at present, but if surveillance radar were available the crew could have been provided with non-precision lateral and range guidance on the approach to the runway, which in this case was runway 26. Reports suggest that ATC was providing vectoring guidance, but what kind is not clear…

Sunday Romanticism And Counter-Enlightenment: Every Picture Tells A Story

Filed under: Arts, History, Photography, Society, Travel — 1 Comment

April 11, 2010

Sunday Poem

To Virgil

Master, since it is the time of year for periwinkles,
If you like, parting the branches every night,
Never rousing up the echoes with rash footsteps,
We shall steal off into this wild valley in a mood
Of hushed reverie— just the three of us, two lovers
All alone— to spy on the secret solitude.
In the somber clearing, where the tree with its gnarled torso
After dark assumes a monstrous human form,
We shall leave the spent fires under the laburnum
With no shepherd there to keep the embers warm;
And, our ears extended for their muffled singing, keenly,
In the moonlit shadows, through the bushes, as we wait,
We may see the stealthy dancing of the satyrs
Which Alphesiboeus used to imitate.

Victor Hugo – From Les Contemplations (1856)

Romanticism is a complex artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Western Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution. In part, it was a revolt against aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment and a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature, and was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature, but had a major impact on historiography, education and natural history.

The movement validated strong emotion as an authentic source of aesthetic experience, placing new emphasis on such emotions as trepidation, horror and terror and awe—especially that which is experienced in confronting the sublimity of untamed nature and its picturesque qualities, both new aesthetic categories. It elevated folk art and ancient custom to something noble, made of spontaneity a desirable character (as in the musical impromptu), and argued for a “natural” epistemology of human activities as conditioned by nature in the form of language and customary usage.

Romanticism reached beyond the rational and Classicist ideal models to elevate a revived medievalism and elements of art and narrative perceived to be authentically medieval, in an attempt to escape the confines of population growth, urban sprawl, and industrialism, and it also attempted to embrace the exotic, unfamiliar, and distant in modes more authentic than Rococo chinoiserie, harnessing the power of the imagination to envision and to escape.

The modern sense of a romantic character may be expressed in Byronic ideals of a gifted, perhaps misunderstood loner, creatively following the dictates of his inspiration rather than the mores of contemporary society.

Although the movement is rooted in the German Sturm und Drang movement, which prized intuition and emotion over Enlightenment rationalism, the ideologies and events of the French Revolution laid the background from which both Romanticism and the Counter-Enlightenment emerged. The confines of the Industrial Revolution also had their influence on Romanticism, which was in part an escape from modern realities; indeed, in the second half of the 19th century, “Realism” was offered as a polarized opposite to Romanticism.

Romanticism elevated the achievements of what it perceived as heroic individualists and artists, whose pioneering examples would elevate society. It also legitimized the individual imagination as a critical authority, which permitted freedom from classical notions of form in art. There was a strong recourse to historical and natural inevitability, a zeitgeist, in the representation of its ideas.

In a basic sense, the term “Romanticism” has been used to refer to certain artists, poets, writers, musicians, as well as political, philosophical and social thinkers of the late 18th and early to mid 19th centuries. It has equally been used to refer to various artistic, intellectual, and social trends of that era. Despite this general usage of the term, a precise characterization and specific definition of Romanticism have been the subject of debate in the fields of intellectual history and literary history throughout the twentieth century, without any great measure of consensus emerging.

Arthur Lovejoy attempted to demonstrate the difficulty of this problem in his seminal article “On The Discrimination of Romanticisms” in his Essays in the History of Ideas (1948); some scholars see romanticism as essentially continuous with the present, some see in it the inaugural moment of modernity, some see it as the beginning of a tradition of resistance to Enlightenment rationalism—a Counter-Enlightenment—and still others place it firmly in the direct aftermath of the French Revolution. An earlier definition comes from Charles Baudelaire: “Romanticism is precisely situated neither in choice of subject nor exact truth, but in the way of feeling.

Many intellectual historians have seen Romanticism as a key movement in the Counter-Enlightenment, a reaction against the Age of Enlightenment. Whereas the thinkers of the Enlightenment emphasized the primacy of deductive reason, Romanticism emphasized intuition, imagination, and feeling, to a point that has led to some Romantic thinkers being accused of irrationalism.

Source: Wiki

The photograph that defined the class divide

Guardian – By Ian Jack

In 1937, five boys were famously snapped standing outside Lord’s. But who were they, what were they doing there – and what happened to them? The answer is surprising . . .

…Some things will never be known. We can’t know if the man with the camera asked the local boys to take up their position or if they just happened to be there; or if they jeered or sniggered at Dyson and Wagner; or if the photographer instructed Dyson to look slightly away from his lens; or if the moment made Dyson and Wagner acutely conscious of their appearance – their top hats, waistcoats, floral button-holes and canes. The photographer took pictures from at least two positions. At one point, according to later evidence, he asked the local boys to “stand a bit closer”. Dyson gripped the top of a stone bollard; Wagner continued to look away. The camera caught a stance that suggested majestic indifference to the poorer boys at their side, as though these boys were subjects as well as spectators.

The News Chronicle published the picture the next day on the front page, under the headline “Every picture tells a story”. A one-line caption identified only the event and location. According to Peter Wagner’s sister, when the Wagner family first saw it, “we probably laughed because they [the boys] both looked so fed up”. But in the years that followed, her amusement faded. Late last year she told me that the picture was known “for all the wrong reasons”. Like several others connected to it, she referred to it quite tetchily as “that photograph”; which is what happens when a loved one is transformed over seven decades – in newspapers, in magazines, on book jackets – into an anonymous symbol of arrogant privilege.

There are three popular misconceptions about the Lord’s photograph: that it shows Etonians; that it was taken by the celebrated documentary photographers Bert Hardy; and that the other boys in the picture are “scruffs”, “toughs” or “urchins”.

The Eton mistake crept in early; in August 1937 Life magazine in New York published a slightly different version of the same scene that identified the top-hatted boys as Etonians – a forgivable American ignorance of the small differences in dress code between the two schools. Neither the News Chronicle nor Life named the photographer, but he almost certainly took both shots. His name was Jimmy Sime and his career with London’s Central Press agency ran from 1914 to the middle 1960s. By 1937 he had covered all kinds of news events – Emmeline Pankhurst’s arrest, strikes, ship launches, statesmen at their desks. The Eton-Harrow match must have seemed a routine and unpromising assignment, but it yielded what became by far his most famous picture.

It surfaced again in Picture Post in 1941 – the year that Bert Hardy joined the magazine, which may help explain the idea that Hardy took it. This time it prefaced a piece calling for a reform of English education by AD (later Lord) Lindsay, then master of Balliol.

According to Lindsay’s opening sentence, the thing “most obviously wrong” with English schools was that one kind catered for the poor and another for the rich. None of the five boys or their schools was identified; the caption addressed the author’s argument rather than the picture’s subjects, stating: “Between the two groups is a barrier deliberately created by our system of education. Our task is to remove the barrier – to bring the public schools into the general scheme.” The News Chronicle’s headline, “Every picture tells a story”, had merely been suggestive. From Picture Post onwards, nobody could be in any doubt of the story being told. England was still hopelessly divided by class.

It seemed in the 30 or 40 years after the war that this was a problem on its way to being solved. Some of Picture Post’s vision of the post-war future had been realised: sharp class boundaries began to soften, social elites felt threatened, state schools sent increasing numbers of students to expanding universities. In the 70s, wealth was more equally distributed in Britain than ever before or since.

But then, neo-liberal economics intervened in the transformative epoch begun by Thatcher and continued by Blair, and the consequent disparities revived the old concerns. When the publisher Routledge wanted a cover image in 1993 for Michael Argyle’s The Psychology of Social Class, Sime’s picture, now getting on for 60 years old, was the image it chose. Five years later, Yale University Press did the same for David Cannadine’s Class in Britain, and by cropping poor Wagner out of the frame, made Dyson look singularly haughty.

Newspapers, needing to humanise feature articles about class division, turned to it eagerly. In 2008 and 2009, to pick two random years, Sime’s picture accompanied a Guardian feature on modern educational inequalities, a Sunday Telegraph column headlined “That old class system is still manufacturing bourgeois guilt”, and a piece in the Daily Telegraph arguing for wider access to Eton, mistaking Wagner and Dyson once again for Etonians…]

From a Songbird, New Insights Into the Brain

Málaga celebrates Paul and Jane Bowles

Week-long series of events marks centenary of birth of ‘The Sheltering Sky’ author

EL PAÍS – JAVIER RODRÍGUEZ MARCOS – Málaga

Málaga has just finished hosting a week-long celebration of the lives and work of Paul and Jane Bowles in commemoration of the centenary of the birth of the author of The Sheltering Sky.

The week was marked by a series of events, including the presentation of three new books about the couple, along with readings of their works, a special screening of Italian filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1990 version of The Sheltering Sky, and the unveiling of a commemorative plinth at the city’s main cemetery, where Jane Bowles was buried. She spent the final years of her life in Málaga, dying there in 1973.

Jane Bowles was considered a writer’s writer, and her limited output was for many years out of print. Her novel, Two Serious Ladies, was published in 1943. The extreme rarity of the book, once it went out of print, has augmented its legend. When a London publisher wanted to reprint it in the early 1960s even Jane Bowles was unable to supply him with a copy.

Her collected works included the novel, a play called In the Summer House, and seven shorter pieces. Each dealt in some way with conflict between the weak and the strong, and the outcome was usually a draw.

Jane Bowles numbered among her admirers Truman Capote, who wrote an introduction to her collected works. Tennessee Williams, who spoke of her novel as “my favorite book,” and British writer Alan Sillitoe, who called it “a landmark in 20^th-century American literature.”

Jane Bowles was overshadowed by her husband, whom she had married in 1938. He first visited Morocco in the early 1930s, and it changed his life. “As a result of this arbitrary action,” he wrote later, “my life was permanently altered.

“If Morocco had been then as it is now, I should have spent the summer and gone away, probably not to return. But Morocco in 1931 provided an inexhaustible succession of fantastic spectacles.”

Entranced by what he perceived to be the transcendental nature of North African life as well as by a society tolerant of homosexuality, Paul Bowles produced his first musical compositions.

After traveling around Europe and North Africa, Paul Bowles moved to Tangier in 1947, with Jane joining him a year later. The pair would spend the rest of their lives in the city, although Jane Bowles’ poor health, due to her alcoholism, saw her receive medical treatment in London and the United States, and finally, in a Málaga hospital.

Paul Bowles had moved to Tangier after receiving a commission to write a novel. Until then, he hadmade a living writing music and reviewing books and music.

The success of The Sheltering Sky, published in 1949, established Paul Bowles’ reputation, and the couple became an institution in Tangier, to be visited over the years by the wealthy and famous who passed through the city.

He described The Sheltering Sky as “an adventure story in which the actual adventures take place on two planes simultaneously: in the actual desert and in the inner desert of the spirit.”

The novel was on the New York Times bestseller list for 10 weeks following its publication in 1949. The initial critical response to the novel was mixed: it was called “gripping,” “puzzling” and “strange.”

Bowles denied that his works were autobiographical but was resigned to the fact that no one else agreed with him. Indeed, the idea of resignation to fate was central to much of Bowles’ work.

Though he traveled widely, Paul Bowles always returned to his beloved Tangier. Following his wife’s death in 1973, he became increasingly reclusive. In his book The Pillars of Hercules, Paul Theroux paints a poignant picture of an aged and ill Paul Bowles: an American in an Arab city, still enjoying the illicit pleasures of kif and hashish jam but with one eye firmly on the past.

“His world had shrunk to these walls,” writes Theroux, “But that was merely the way it seemed. It was an illusion. His world was within his mind, and his imagination was vast.”

Several Spanish publishers are taking advantage of the centenary of Paul Bowles’ birth to bring out new editions of the couple’s work in Spanish.

Volcanoes on Venus Could be Alive & Ready to Erupt

Art for obsolete nobles

EL PAÍS – FÉLIX DE AZÚA

During the Renaissance, it was not necessary to smash every city in Europe with the new siege artillery, in order to induce the good burghers to tear down their city walls. Only one or two cities needed to be bombarded, for all the others to realize that city walls were now mere ornaments.

We might say the same of ourselves, having seen the aftermath of the atomic bomb. It was enough to flatten Hiroshima and Nagasaki. No more bombs have gone off in populous places. It has not been necessary. After those two warnings, conditions changed. It was now obvious that the dream might come true, of a world free of human beings. Until Hiroshima, massacres could be only partial; now Judgment Day was no longer a Biblical myth. The consequences have been gigantic, and are only partially visible in terms such as “absence of God” and “end of history.” In a world where the extinction of the human species is a possibility, life cannot be the same.

In the superb exhibition that opened recently in the Prado Museum, entitled El arte del poder (or, The Art of Power), we see some of the finest pieces from the Spanish Royal Armory, and portraits showing off these same suits of armor. The wonderful steel-and-gold helmet that the Negrolis made for Charles V, the Medusa buckler also by the Negrolis — everything here is a real masterpiece.

But this ingenious work, this wealth of noble materials, had no use in war. The day of cavalry in suits or armor was long past. The cannon that decided battles such as Crécy in 1346 and Agincourt in 1415 were sonorous warnings. By the 16th century the new firearms easily perforated thin steel plate, and it was just at this time that the craze began for ornamental suits of armor, the spectacle of a fantastic chivalry in the trappings of medieval poetry, for merely symbolic use. We might say that these works formed part of the propaganda of the great monarchs, though they were seldom seen outside the palaces of the crowned heads who collected them.

The obsolescence of armor had some almost imperceptible aftershocks. One was the appearance of a new sort of equestrian portrait. In his portrait of Charles V at the battle of Mühlberg, Titian created a whole world to surround this armored king who, though belonging to the obsolete world of chivalry, is still the most powerful on the planet. He is placed in a soft meadow near a dense oak wood, in a romantic half-light that might be dawn or dusk. Perhaps the painter meant to suggest that the Lutheran sun was setting.

Until that time, equestrian portraits had never been wrapped in a world of their own. The type had crystallized in ancient Rome, and those of medieval condotierri, from Gattamelata to Paolo Savelli, had always stood alone in a hostile world. But now the armored warrior on his rearing horse moves in a pastoral ambit, like the nymphs of Poussin.

Firearms had democratized war. Bureaucracy had begun to weigh upon the shoulders of the monarch, and personal valor was now of less importance than the administration of the treasury. “Since the appearance of machines that killed from afar, individual valor was seen to be less relevant,” writes the mocking and melancholy Burckhardt.

Achilles despised those who did not fight hand to hand. Greek warriors of the heroic age could hardly conceive any other kind of fight. Apollo, the most perverse of the Olympian gods, is the one who kills from afar, be it with the plague he inflicted on Thebes, or with the arrows of the archers, his despised protégés. If the god who kills from afar can bring down the noble warrior with a cheap shot, then the right way to portray that warrior is in a twilight meadow, with armor of bronze and gold — the melancholy figure of a pastoral poem.

The study of behavior may allow it to change?

LEMONDE.FR – Hubert Guillaud (English Translation) (Link Above w/English Video)

To Dan Ariely , who popularized the theory of behavioral economics , author of international bestseller Why did I decide (blog ), the economic crisis of 2008 is proof that our decisions even in matters of money, are not all rational, as he claims long time. But if the rational approach to the market can not protect us from ourselves, what model do we use it, it asks Karen Christensen in Business ?

Err is human: PROGRESS NEEDS TO BE BETTER MANAGED

“The rational model is workable. It is not perfect, but it is the best model we have “, acknowledges the researcher. “However, what would our highways if they had been designed by economists rational? We would have no emergency lane because we would not have needed to pave a road where nobody was supposed to drive. We would have no lines to demarcate lanes or speed limits if people were as rational being would believe. “If there is only one way to be rational, there as much to be irrational. And our irrationalities lead to numerous problems that evolve over time and by what technologies are used and that the company constantly tries to address. To answer the speed of our cars, we have designed airbags, safety belts and speed limits. At the mobile phone, we need new rules to tell people not to drive by calling …

Nous ne sommes pas rationnels. We are not rational. “The fact is that we may do a lot of decision errors, and, as we invent new technologies, new financial instruments or other means immersing ourselves in trouble, we generate more risks. Progress still needs to be better managed, better managed. “As we make mistakes, we must think about how to prevent them, how to limit them.

The director of the Research Group on e-rationality of MIT , we do not know what we want as we do not see it in context. And this relativism has an impact on our decision making process. For example, we compare ourselves constantly to others, like sea elephant sea elephants want to be bigger than the others, because when you are the biggest, you attract more females. But as the species has become larger, it has also experienced numerous health complications, which partly explains his disappearance …

IDENTIFYING THROUGH OUR LIMIT FOR

For Ariely, through our worst based on the power of our habits. “When we face a new environment, we constantly make decisions. They can be made in a thoughtful way or not, they can be made on the basis of real information or not, but when we are again faced with this environment, we remember what we did last time. We do not necessarily remember why, but we tend to repeat our previous decisions again and again. “In a supermarket, you try a fruit juice at half the price for a while. Then you go back because you’re used to it, even if its price is not as advantageous.

Our second is through our inability to manage our conflicts of interest. Imagine yourself as a doctor with two treatments for your patient, Plan A and Plan B. Plan A is better for the patient, plan B is better for you. Can we look at these two options objectively? No, says Ariely, provided we can rationally want to be. “All we can do is try to eliminate situations that promote conflict of interest.” To him, we must work to reduce conflicts of interest in our financial systems, our health systems and politics. Enhancing our understanding of human nature, its strengths and weaknesses, we find ways to limit the cost of its weaknesses.

We all suffer from the syndrome of false planning: it is to promise to ourselves to finish anything in a given time, what we do rarely. Thus, when we expect to return home earlier, there is always a reason to delay that we have not taken into account … For an hour out of work would be required to leave earlier! , says. The same is true for our personal finances: we do not know estimate unexpected expenses. But if you look over time, they represent about 20% of our budgets. If they are properly analyzed, it might be better managed, the researcher suggests …

The groups have attributes that minimize their ability to make sound decisions, related to authority and conformity in particular. Dan Ariely and his colleagues had created a few years ago a software “antigroupware (. pdf) , to try to remove the maximum effects of these groups. With this software, people made decisions anonymously without anyone being able to know their vote: you could not vote or give your vote to someone that you thought most likely to make the decision because the more you aware of the problem example. Taking such measures may allow the potential of a group to flourish. “What we need in any case it is a massive intervention that promotes the benefits of groups, no hidden costs.

“Of course, this is a difficult mission to say that we can change how we think without stopping.” Many of our intuitions are wrong, he reminded TED 2009 . But it remains difficult to test the validity of intuition and more to believe or accept that it may be false. Yet again, most things that we think are not rational.

Sunday Museum Visits

The homes of Victor Hugo

(English Translation)

The City of Paris preserves the two places where Victor Hugo lived the longest.

The apartment on the second floor of the Hotel de Rohan Guemenee, upVosges in Paris he rented for sixteen years (1832 to 1848) and Hauteville House, where he gained one house lived for fifteen years of exile in Guernsey (from 1856 to 1870).

The museum, Place des Vosges was founded in 1902, the centenary of the birth of Victor Hugo, at the initiative of Paul Meurice (1818-1905), longtime friend and ardent supporter of Hugo and his work, and thanks to the generous donation he made while at the City of Paris. First museum monographic literature, the Maison de Victor Hugo holds the funds of manuscripts and graphic works of Victor Hugo’s largest with the National Library of France.

Hôtel de Rohan-Guéménée
6, place des Vosges
75004 Paris
Tél. : 01 42 72 10 16
Fax. : 01 42 72 06 64
Open from 10h to 18h Tuesday to Sunday except Mondays and holidays. Entrance free permanent collections.

Hugo House Museum

The Hôtel de Rohan

Guéménée, Place des Vosges

Victor Hugo was thirty years old when he moved into the 2^nd floor of the Hôtel de Rohan–Guéménée with his wife Adèle Foucher and their four children: Léopoldine, Charles, François–Victor and Adèle.

By this time, he had already written the play “Bataille d’Hernani” and enjoyed widespread success with his novel The Hunchback of Notre-Dame.

A living and writing place

In the function rooms overlooking the former Place Royale (today Place des Vosges), he received visits from Gautier, Vigny, Lamartine, Sainte-Beuve, Dumas, Mérimée, the Devéria brothers, Nanteuil, David d’Angers, amongst others. There, he wrote some of his major works:

Marie-Tudor, Ruy Blas, The Burgraves, Les Chants du crépuscule, Les Voix intérieures, Les Rayons et les Ombres, a large part of Les Misérables, the beginning of La Légende des Siècles and Contemplations.

Over this period, he met Juliette Drouet, he became a Fellow of the French Academy, a pair de France (member of the French Peerage) and was a member of the Legislative Assembly, he also lost his daughter Léopoldine who tragically drowned in Villequier at 19 years of age, seven months after her marriage.

The birth of a museum

1902, the year marking one hundred years since Victor Hugo’s birth, is also the year that the museum was founded following a large donation made to the City of Paris by Paul Meurice, a long-standing friend of the poet’s. From the antechamber, which brings back memories of his youth, to the bedchamber where he died (Avenue Victor Hugo), including a trip through the red chamber, the Chinese chamber and the medieval-style dining room he designed in Guernesey for Juliette Drouet, the visit to the apartments follows three major stages which, according to him, punctuated his life:

Before exile, During exile, After exile. The first floor is reserved for temporary collections and for the display of collections: written and graphical works by Victor Hugo, illustrations of his works by other artists of the 19^th and 20^th centuries.

Unexpected collections

Presented alternately with temporary exhibitions, the collections of Victor Hugo’s House are not limited solely to the works of the apartments. The poet’s drawings and drawings which illustrate his works, paintings, old and contemporary photographs, books and manuscripts, documentary collections and family objects all come together to make an exceptionally rich heritage.

The acquisition process for the collections is a reflection of the extraordinary diversity of Hugo’s work and is not only a sign of vitality for the museum but also a guarantee of the loyalty to its purpose which was highlighted in 2007 with the one-off slogan “Ten years of acquisitions”.

Exhibitions over time…

Each year, the poet’s work is showcased through exhibitions organised in cooperation with many prestigious lenders such as the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, the Rodin museum, and with major institutions abroad.

The genius of Victor Hugo can be seen in various fields: photography “En collaboration avec le soleil”, “Dans l’intimité de Victor Hugo”, his graphical works with “Du chaos dans le pinceau”, “L’esprit de la lettre”; through more biographical exhibitions such as “Hugo vu par Rodin”, “Juliette Drouet ”, or through exhibitions focusing on his written works, such as “Les Misérables, un roman inconnu”.

Victor Hugo’s house (during his exile)

Hauteville House

In1851, Hugo left for exile. After spending a few months in Brussels and three years in Jersey, he settled in 1855, in Guernsey, where, thanks to the success of Contemplations, he purchased Hauteville House, a large white house with a garden overlooking the sea.

An enthusiast of second-hand markets and gifted with a boundless imagination, Victor Hugo spent many a month on the interior fitting out and decoration, giving the unique house a feel of inner force and mystery. It is there that he wrote some of his masterpieces:

La Légende des Siècles, Les Misérables, Toilers of the Sea, The Man who Laughs, etc. He returned to France in 1870, making some trips to Hauteville House in subsequent years. In March 1927, the centenary year of the Romantic movement, Hugo’s descendants donated the house to the City of Paris. Hauteville House has been preserved exactly as it was. It bears witness to Hugo’s abundant creativity.

Earthenware in a corridor, Delft tiles in the dining room, a jumble of styles, from the Baroque red chamber to the oriental blue chamber, from the oak gallery to the library landing and the famous little “Crystal Palace” Looks-out, where he wrote, standing up, facing the sea. In 2002, to mark the bicentenary of the writer’s birth, the garden was opened to the public.

The Oriental at the Maison de Victor Hugo

(English Translation) (Note Excellent Zoom Viewing @ Above Link)

In 1829 Victor Hugo published Les Orientales. From the preface of his collection, the poet reminds us that the East, with its dazzling colors purple and tan, glowing in its color palette of gold and fire, occupies all thoughts and dreams of his contemporaries. With the exhibition Les Orientales, a hundred outstanding works – paintings, sculptures and drawings – are met from March 26 to July 4, 2010.

The poems have haste and watered steel swords, the palpitation of a reflection on the pearly flesh of concubines, and the darkness that lights up in the apple of Spahis. The melee rhythm and feel of this poetic language beats in unison with all the sighs, all the cries of all the songs of the Greek heroes, sultans defeated, pashas cruel, captives and warriors about their ” mares disheveled “…

Who will decide between the East and the West? And another of yourself? “It wobbles and paint color unknown.

This chromatic material and sound Hugo’s the Word finds its echo as its reverberation l’orientalisme naissant de Géricault et de Girodet puis de Delacroix, de Descamps, de Colin, de Boulanger, de Chassériau. For the East of the soul, dark and dazzling at times, is common to a whole generation of writers and artists.

Les 4 parties de l’exposition sont une invocation :

For large precursors that are the poets, explorers, travelers and conquerors alike: Bonaparte and his expedition – Egypt! Egypt! – Chateaubriand, whose “Journey from Paris to Jerusalem and from Jerusalem to Paris” opens the path of all trips in the East of painters and writers of the nineteenth century, Lord Byron, whose commitment to the Greek epics and Eastern lead all European Romanticism in the race (Delacroix, Ary Scheffer, Géricault).

At the news of the war of Greek independence against the Turks (Delacroix, Ary Scheffer, Descamps, Diaz de la Pena, Gericault, David d’Angers), which occupies the entire first part of the collection, poems warriors, caught the momentum of heroic figures. An outstanding collection of portraits (Girodet-Gericault, Delacroix, Mr Bonnington-August), for the first time together, reflects the fascination of artists, around 1820-1830 for the ardor of the dark figure of the East .

At a certain wild grace … Released in London in 1819, Byron’s poem Mazeppa is needed in epic Inspiration – “Genie, fiery steed! (Victor Hugo). Fauves, stallions and riders transfigure the rugged beauty of the poem in tangible substance or paint (Gericault, Delacroix, Boulanger, Vernet, Barye).

In the spell of the beautiful captive harem – of “captive” to “Nourmahal the Redhead” and “Sarah the bather” to “Lazzara,” the sparkling sounds and colors unveils “that obscure object of desire” (Delacroix, Colin, Deveria, Boulanger, Chassériau)

The exhibition brings together a hundred outstanding works, some of which have never been presented, from French and foreign public collections (the Louvre, Orsay, National Library, museums of Lyon, Lille, Besançon, Angers, Fabre Museum, British Museum, Narodny Gallery, National Gallery of Athens, Benaki Museum, Museum of Charleroi) and private collections.

A set of illustrated books and engravings (Denon, Cassas, Dupre, De Launay) reports of cities and landscapes that travelers have delivered to the imagination and dreams of readers, including Victor Hugo!

A Photographer Whose Beat Was the World

“Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Modern Century” runs from Sunday through June 28 at the Museum of Modern Art; moma.org. It travels to the Art Institute of Chicago (July 24 to Oct. 3); the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (Oct. 30 to Jan. 30); and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta (Feb. 19 to May 15).

Al Qaeda Threatens Attacks at World Cup

By Jana Winter

(FOXNews.com) – Al Qaeda has put the American and British soccer teams directly in its cross hairs, circulating word online that the athletes are prime targets for an attack at the World Cup Games in South Africa in June, FOXNews.com reported Friday.

The threats from al Qaeda target a range of teams competing at the World Cup, but the June 12 USA vs. England match, scheduled for live broadcast, is the terrorists’ top priority, according to threats published in an online Jihadist magazine.

“The game … is broadcast live. The stadium is full of a Crusader audience while the sound of a blast shocks the stands and turns the stadium on its head. God willing, there will [be] dozens and hundreds of casualties. 50 grams alone are sufficient for such an operation,” reads a post on the online magazine.

The South African Ministry of Police said it was aware of the threats, and the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security said it was providing support as the host country beefs up security in preparation for the tournament.

“Diplomatic Security’s Office of Anti-Terrorism Assistance has provided training to the South African Police Service in the run up to the 2010 World Cup,” a Diplomatic Security official said in a statement to FoxNews.com.

The jihadist article said al Qaeda will focus on striking countries taking part in the “Zionist-Crusader campaign on Islam,” and it specifically mentioned the American, British, Nigerian, Slovenian, French, German and Italian teams as targets. The jihadist author, Ubada bin Al-Samit, said nothing could be done to prevent the attack.

South African Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa said his force has been preparing for any potential threats since 2004.

end

The Oriental at the Maison de Victor Hugo

In 1829 Victor Hugo published Les Orientales. From the preface of his collection, the poet reminds us that the East, with its dazzling colors purple and tan, glowing in its color palette of gold and fire, occupies all thoughts and dreams of his contemporaries. With the exhibition Les Orientales, a hundred outstanding works – paintings, sculptures and drawings – are met from March 26 to July 4, 2010.

The poems have haste and watered steel swords, the palpitation of a reflection on the pearly flesh of concubines, and the darkness that lights up in the apple of Spahis. The melee rhythm and feel of this poetic language beats in unison with all the sighs, all the cries of all the songs of the Greek heroes, sultans defeated, pashas cruel, captives and warriors about their ” mares disheveled “…

Who will decide between the East and the West? And another of yourself? “It wobbles and paint color unknown.
This chromatic material and sound Hugo’s the Word finds its echo as its reverberation l’orientalisme naissant de Géricault et de Girodet puis de Delacroix, de Descamps, de Colin, de Boulanger, de Chassériau. For the East of the soul, dark and dazzling at times, is common to a whole generation of writers and artists.

Les 4 parties de l’exposition sont une invocation :

For large precursors that are the poets, explorers, travelers and conquerors alike: Bonaparte and his expedition – Egypt! Egypt! – Chateaubriand, whose “Journey from Paris to Jerusalem and from Jerusalem to Paris” opens the path of all trips in the East of painters and writers of the nineteenth century, Lord Byron, whose commitment to the Greek epics and Eastern lead all European Romanticism in the race (Delacroix, Ary Scheffer, Géricault).

At the news of the war of Greek independence against the Turks (Delacroix, Ary Scheffer, Descamps, Diaz de la Pena, Gericault, David d’Angers), which occupies the entire first part of the collection, poems warriors, caught the momentum of heroic figures. An outstanding collection of portraits (Girodet-Gericault, Delacroix, Mr Bonnington-August), for the first time together, reflects the fascination of artists, around 1820-1830 for the ardor of the dark figure of the East .

At a certain wild grace … Released in London in 1819, Byron’s poem Mazeppa is needed in epic Inspiration – “Genie, fiery steed! (Victor Hugo). Fauves, stallions and riders transfigure the rugged beauty of the poem in tangible substance or paint (Gericault, Delacroix, Boulanger, Vernet, Barye).

In the spell of the beautiful captive harem – of “captive” to “Nourmahal the Redhead” and “Sarah the bather” to “Lazzara,” the sparkling sounds and colors unveils “that obscure object of desire” (Delacroix, Colin, Deveria, Boulanger, Chassériau)

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Bottled Messages

Filed under: Arts, Aviation, Science, Technology — 1 Comment

April 10, 2010

Just a castaway
An island lost at sea
Another lonely day
With no one here but me
More loneliness
Than any man could bear
Rescue me before I fall into despair

I’ll send an SOS to the world
I’ll send an SOS to the world
I hope that someone gets my
Message in a bottle

Bottled Message Reaches France, Returned 23 Years Later

Computer servers, ogres energy

Le Figaro – Fabrice Nodé-Langlois (English Translation)

With a click to search Google, you eat as much as a lamp for an hour! A query over the Internet does indeed involve a cascade of electrical appliances from your PC to the Google servers, joined by thousands in giant warehouses, data centers, which process data in billions of billions of bytes . “The Internet bubble has generated the production of millions of servers,” explains Adrien Porcheron, CEO Dotgreen, a fledgling firm that helps companies reduce their IT energy bills.

There are approximately 45 million servers worldwide. On their own large data centers have doubled their electricity consumption from 2000 to 2005. Nothing in Western Europe, energy costs of all these “farms” of servers have reached 4.9 billion euros, according to IDC. “The story about the hunger for energy of a Google search is the urban legend,” smiled Adrien Porcheron who nevertheless takes on its site, “because it is very difficult to calculate the energy used by a consumer on equipment shared by thousands of people. ” We know, however, the United States’ data centers consume 3% of the country’s electricity, “noted Steven Chu last month, the U.S. Department of Energy. Within two years, U.S. data centers emit as much CO2 as planes in the United States.

In France, a report prepared by Michel Petit, delivered in September 2009 to Christine Lagarde was concerned “the unsustainable growth model data centers.” In many of them to one kilowatt (kW) spent a server, another kW is needed to dissipate heat. The subject is so concerned that regulators around the world in the coming years could require manufacturers and customers to reduce their power consumption.

Google has more than one million servers

The computer industry has not waited for the recent awareness of policies to make energy a priority. The portfolio has been more influential than environmental concerns. The downside, however: according to a survey conducted by the Green Grid consortium created by the giants Microsoft, IBM, Google, Intel, Sun or AT & T, 72% of companies have no strategy to reduce appetite Electric their data centers.

Google, which has over a million servers worldwide, has worked for ten years to reduce energy costs and even gives advice on how to design data centers more efficient. Our server farms consume “five times less energy than conventional data centers,” assured the end of 2008 Urs Hölzle, Google’s vice president in charge of the operation.

The tracks for green data centers abound. Experts estimate that one third of the electricity consumed by servers is wasted before reaching the machines themselves, especially to convert alternating current into direct current network.

More than the air, “spins servers 24 hours 24 ‘generates a waste, says Anaïs Fourest, society EcoAct, which sells advice on energy efficiency and carbon footprints. “The data centers are designed for spikes, as you never know in advance what will be the demand, full Bad Wurtz, CEO of American Power Assure.

At 3 o’clock in the morning, only a few students look at their bank account but the servers run at full speed. “Servers that lights up according to the request would generate, not the United States, 25 billion dollars in savings . Manufacturers of computer hardware, software and consulting firms have realized the economic importance of green business. For the information technology are not about to stop their race.

Google will sell electricity

On 19 February, Google, one of the largest electricity consumers in the world, received the green light by U.S. authorities to buy and sell on the wholesale market for electricity. Google, which owns the largest fleet of data centers – more than a million servers – have struggled for years to produce its own renewable energy.

In 2007, the firm has created a foundation, Google.org, which funds projects in the fields of solar, geothermal or wind. The search engine has even filed a patent in 2007 to build a tidal barrage. Google claims not to know precisely how to exploit this permission. “We have taken this step to have more flexibility in purchasing power for our own business, including our data centers,” said a spokesman.

NASA RELEASE : 10-080

NASA’s Unpiloted Global Hawk Completes First Science Flight

WASHINGTON — NASA has successfully completed the first science flight of the Global Hawk unpiloted aircraft system over the Pacific Ocean. The flight was the first of five scheduled for this month’s Global Hawk Pacific, or GloPac, mission to study atmospheric science over the Pacific and Arctic oceans.

The Global Hawk is a robotic plane that can fly autonomously to altitudes above 60,000 feet — roughly twice as high as a commercial airliner — and as far as 11,000 nautical miles, which is half the circumference of Earth. Operators pre-program a flight path, then the plane flies itself for as long as 30 hours, staying in contact through satellite and line-of-site communications links to a ground control station at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center in California’s Mojave Desert.

“The Global Hawk is a revolutionary aircraft for science because of its enormous range and endurance,” said Paul Newman, co-mission scientist for GloPac and an atmospheric scientist from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. “No other science platform provides the range and time to sample rapidly evolving atmospheric phenomena. This mission is our first opportunity to demonstrate the unique capabilities of this plane, while gathering atmospheric data in a region that is poorly sampled.”

GloPac researchers plan to directly measure and sample greenhouse gases, ozone-depleting substances, aerosols, and constituents of air quality in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere. GloPac’s measurements will cover longer time periods and greater geographic distances than any other science aircraft.

During Wednesday’s flight, the plane flew approximately 4,500 nautical miles along a flight path that took it to 150.3 degrees West longitude, and 54.6 degrees North latitude, just south of Alaska’s Kodiak Island. The flight lasted just over 14 hours and flew up to 60,900 feet. The mission is a joint project with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA.

The plane carries 11 instruments to sample the chemical composition of the troposphere and stratosphere. The instruments profile the dynamics and meteorology of both layers and observe the distribution of clouds and aerosol particles. Project scientists expect to take observations from the equator north to the Arctic Circle and west of Hawaii.

Although the plane is designed to fly on its own, pilots can change its course or altitude based on interesting atmospheric phenomena ahead. Researchers have the ability via communications links to control their instruments from the ground.

“The Global Hawk is a fantastic platform because it gives us expanded access to the atmosphere beyond what we have with piloted aircraft,” said David Fahey, co-mission scientist and a research physicist at NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo. “We can go to regions we couldn’t reach or go to previously explored regions and study them for extended periods that are impossible with conventional planes.”

The timing of GloPac flights should allow scientists to observe the breakup of the polar vortex. The vortex is a large-scale cyclone in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere that dominates winter weather patterns around the Arctic and is particularly important for understanding ozone depletion in the Northern Hemisphere.

Scientists also expect to gather high-altitude data between 45,000 and 65,000 feet, where many greenhouse gases and ozone-depleting substances are destroyed. They will measure dust, smoke and pollution that cross the Pacific from Asia and Siberia and affect U.S. air quality.

The Global Hawk will make several flights directly under the path of NASA’s Aura satellite and other “A-train” Earth-observing satellites, “allowing us to calibrate and confirm what we see from space,” Newman added. GloPac is specifically being conducted in conjunction with NASA’s Aura Validation Experiment.

The GloPac mission includes more than 130 researchers and technicians from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Dryden Flight Research Center, Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. Also involved are NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory; the University of California, Santa Cruz; Droplet Measurement Technologies of Boulder, Colo.; and the University of Denver.

NASA Dryden and the Northrop Grumman Corp. of Rancho Bernardo, Calif., signed a Space Act Agreement to re-fit and maintain three Global Hawks transferred from the U.S. Air Force for use in high-altitude, long-duration Earth science missions.

Ron Paul: Barack Obama is Not a Socialist

WSJ – By Susan Davis

NEW ORLEANS–Republicans and tea party activists are fond of accusing President Barack Obama of being a socialist, but today party gadfly Ron Paul said they had it wrong.

“In the technical sense, in the economic definition, he is not a socialist,” the Texas Republican said to a smattering of applause at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference.

“He’s a corporatist,” Paul quickly added, meaning the president takes “care of corporations and corporations take over and run the country.”

Supporters of the Texas lawmaker appear to represent a significant number of the 3,500 attendees here, fueling speculation that Paul is likely to win the straw poll later today. The Campaign for Liberty, Paul’s political outfit, declined to discuss how many of his supporters were at SRLC.

The Texan’s supporters often descend on political gatherings to vote for him in 2012 straw polls. In February, he won the Conservative Political Action Conference’s straw poll with a hefty 31% of the vote.

end

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Happy Friday: Goodbye, My Friends, I Am Off To Glory! “Adieu, mes amis. Je vais à la gloire!”

Filed under: Arts, Entertainment, Humor, Sports — Leave a comment

April 9, 2010

Muslim woman strangled by her burkha in freak go-kart accident

Daily Mail – By Richard Shears

A young Muslim woman had died after her burkha became snagged in a go-kart.

The 24-year-old woman, who has not yet been named, died a terrifying death today when a fluttering part of her burkha became caught in the wheels of a go-kart she was driving near the town of Port Stephens, north of Sydney.

The Muslim clothing the woman was wearing flew back as she sped around the track and part of it became entangled in the go-kart’s wheels.

She was strangled in a second and crashed the vehicle.

Despite the efforts of paramedics who rushed to her aid, the neck and throat injuries she suffered were so severe that doctors were unable to revive her when she arrived at the John Hunter Hospital in the New South Wales city of Newcastle.

The young woman was riding the go-kart at a popular recreational area known as Bob’s Farm, which offers rides of up to 15 minutes at a time.

Her death is being likened to that of American dancer Isadora Duncan, acknowledged as being the creator of modern dance, and who was famous for the flowing silk carves she liked to wear.

But while riding in an open-top car in Nice in 1927, her scarf became entangled in one of the vehicle’s spoked wheels and she was strangled.

Tax Returns of the Living Dead

26 tax preparers charged with ID theft and other scams

NBC NY By ALICE MCQUILLAN

Dead people were claiming tax refunds and the children of strangers were listed as dependents.

Those were among the bold scams that 26 Bronx and Manhattan tax preparers were allegedly using to claim the bulk of about $95 million in refunds since 2001, prosecutors said Thursday.

Besides seeing dead people, investigators also spotted deductions for businesses that don’t exist, inflated commissions and identity theft of people living in Puerto Rico, frequent victims of such scams because they have social security numbers but don’t have to file federal tax returns, prosecutors said.

Exactly a week before the April 15th tax filing deadline, authorities on Thursday announced “the largest coordinated takedown of tax preparers in history” calling it, what else, “Operation Brass Tax.”

Undercover IRS agents posed as clients and recorded some of the defendants promising to concoct fake business losses and inflate other deductions, prosecutors said.

“In a criminal twist on the old proverb about death and taxes, some of the defendants charged today allegedly even filed for tax refunds using the identities of dead people,” said Preet Bharara, Manhattan U.S. Attorney.

Six of the charged tax preparers remain at large while 16 were arrested Thursday and were expected to appear in Manhattan Federal Court, officials said. Four others had been charged previously and will face the new accusations at a later date, officials said.

Cow rescued from storm drain after 5 days trapped under street

Fox13Now – Utah

KAYSVILLE, Utah – The rescue was a success after a cow that was trapped underneath the streets of Kaysville was freed from a storm drain. Davis County Animal Control officers believe the cow wandered into a culvert and then got stuck as the drain became narrow. They say it was under the street for at least five days.

Holden Holt and his wife told FOX 13 they found the cow stuck the drain while walking Thursday morning.

“We heard a noise in the storm drain and my wife went over and looked and there was a head with some eyes poking out. It was a little frightening,” Holt said.

The cow was full-grown and had just recently delivered a calf.

The cow was said to have wandered through an opening in the culvert and when the concrete tunnel became narrow, the animal crawled on its knees to reach a wider opening where it could stand.

Construction crews were able to dig a portion of the street up to create an opening big enough to hoist the cow using a tractor.

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LuckyBogey’s Blog

Archive for April, 2010

Pilots of Poland’s Tu-154 Had All Chances to Avoid Crash

Radio Chatter – International Aviation Forums

The pilots knew that the pitch

Lech Kaczyński

CNN Video (Crash Site Unprotected)

Pilots run out of 10-15 m height – say about the disaster in Smolensk Korocznin Alexei, a former fighter pilot and the chief power engineer Siewiernyj airport. Everything indicates that the master Presidential Tu-154 itself decided to land

Related Links:

Sunday Poem

Málaga celebrates Paul and Jane Bowles

Art for obsolete nobles

Sunday Museum Visits

Hugo House Museum

The Hôtel de Rohan

Guéménée, Place des Vosges

A living and writing place

The birth of a museum

Unexpected collections

Exhibitions over time…

Victor Hugo’s house (during his exile)

Hauteville House

The Oriental at the Maison de Victor Hugo

Google has more than one million servers

Google will sell electricity

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