No conditioned air from the ground for you?
Gosh for a moment I thought there was a monstrous ice formation or some other type of damage on the windshield…
1 Like
It’s a little clever trick we learned over the years, it keeps the pilots in slumber on the flightdeck so they can’t go around and break something or write stuff up!
9 Likes
HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHA
2 Likes
I KNEW IT!!!
4 Likes
We can hook up a GPU and run the AC or start the right engine and put it in QPM mode…but the ECS system on the PC-24 is quite terrible. As a matter of fact we are currently AOG in Minnesota due to likely condensation from a blocked condenser drain that may have caused liquid to come in contact with a battery or bus tie. We were taxiing out for departure yesterday when we suddenly got a bus-tie open and Battery 1 fail that led to a latched left FADEC fail (non-resettable)… Currently holed up in a hotel… Another plane flew up last night to pick up the medical crew and drop off a mechanic. Pilatus reliability is regrettably pretty awful.
6 Likes
5 Likes
Ever heard about Cult Mechanicus, for the 40K fans here? Yeah that’s pretty much us. What happens in the hangar can never see the light of day.
7 Likes
3 Likes
Oh man this reminds me of watching Junkyard Wars as a kid, back when educational programming was actually educational.
3 Likes
That certainly doesn’t look like the Lower 48 but wherever that is it looks like a place I might want to live.
Puebla, Mexico (MMPB). Field elevation 7,361’ - almost enough to trigger the FIELD HI parameters of our airplane. It was funny because after we had offloaded our patient we had about an hour to just sort of cool our heels out at the airplane. 26C (79F) on the ramp…absolutely beautiful…cool temperature compared to North Carolina where it has been like the surface of Mercury for the past few weeks. And as those of you know that have been up in the higher elevations…the air felt better…more pure…and the sounds…are somehow muted…I don’t know why or if that is even true…but it was still. A Volaris A320 went to takeoff and I swear…the airplane sounded…muffled… A PA-28 taxied past and it sounded…like a fan. I don’t know what it is about the quality of air at elevation…but it changes everything. And the volcanoes towering into the high overcast… God I wanted to go climb them.
Anyway. Returned to Houston, got a hotel room overlooking Hobby Field…and watched Southwest airplanes takeoff and land on runway 22 all evening. Sometimes it barely feels like work.
12 Likes
The muted air is an interesting one, granted the highest I’ve ever been was Flagstaff and I was too busy nursing a wicked pressure headache to notice any sound changes 
1 Like
Not quite as above ASL as Flagstaff, but we live at 1000m (that’s 3,300ft for those of you still living in the dark ages).
Even though it isn’t much in terms of average pressure/O2 levels, another bonus is that once ‘acclimatised’ when you do make it back to sea level, you have more stamina. I can definitely run further and/or faster when I visit family or friends who live on the coast (i.e. 90% of the population).
6 Likes
I was Superman for three years while I attended college in Prescott, Arizona (5,319’ elevation). My roommate and I played tennis (not very well) against one another several times a week and by the end of the first semester I had become totally “acclimated” to strenuous workouts at altitude. When I returned to sea-level on break (home - Washington DC area)…I felt like I could run a marathon every day. Definitely the healthiest I had ever felt…well…mostly… 50 cent beer nights weren’t all that geared towards improving health…
8 Likes
Air density.
At that altitude and temperature, I’d say the air density is about 80% of what it is at sea level.
Sound is basically air pressure, which will be less at altitude.
5 Likes
I’m hyperventilating.
Sound is differential pressure, it is the power contained in the oscillation around the mean pressure, so no, sound pressure level has nothing to do with altitude.
Perhaps there was a steep temperature gradient in the air which will cause sound to either bend away from the surface or towards it which causes it to bounce, depending on the direction of the gradient.
2 Likes
Correct me if I’m wrong, but as sound is differential around mean pressure, and at altitude average air pressure is lower - this means sounds at altitude do sound different as the mean pressure is lower…
That’s like saying electrical power is dependent on how dense the electrons are in your conductor.
Power is dependent on amplitude and waveform/spectrum.
1 Like