Plane Simple Truth 460
brothke writes "In the TV show House, M.D., a premise that protagonist Dr. Greg House holds dear is that people are liars and stupid. Real life is often not far from House's observation. At the general public level, people are
often misled by their lack of common sense, their deficiency in understanding statistics and basic science, and therefore fall victim to the lies of the myriad
charlatans that claim to have something that fixes everything. A piece I wrote on that issue, New York
News Radio — The voice of bad science, details that.
While it is too broad to call the authors of Fuel efficiency of commercial aircraft: An overview of historical and future trends liars; their mediocre research created the scenario that far too many took their research as
reality. Known as the Peeters report, after lead author P.M. Peeters, the authors of Plane Simple Truth refute the wide-spread belief that the fuel efficiency gains in the commercial aviation sector are erroneous, which is the
principle theme of the Peeters report." Keep reading for the rest of Ben's review.
The aviation industry is often an
environmental pariah, with environmentalists crying foul at the industry. But it is only a pariah due to flawed
data that negatively influences the public debate, and this book attempts to set the record straight. Plane Simple Truth is an articulate and extremely well-written and researched
rebuttal to the Peeters report, and other flawed studies.
| Plane Simple Truth | |
| author | Geoffrey Thomas |
| pages | 208 |
| publisher | Aerospace Technical Publications |
| rating | 9 |
| reviewer | Ben Rothke |
| ISBN | 978-0975234167 |
| summary | Valuable book in the important debate over greenhouse gases and aviations contribution to it |
The Peeters report flies in the face of reality, in which gains in jet engine efficiency over the last 40 years have been astounding. Contrast those gains with the popular Cadillac Escalade and similar SUV's whose mileage per gallon is often measured in single digits, and whose efficiencies have gone in the opposite direction.
The authors wrote Plane Simple Truth as they felt that never in recent history has an industry been so maligned and the public so misled by so much falsehood and distortion. With the Peeters report and climate activists pointing the accusing finger at the aviation industry, Plane Simple Truth is their defense.
The reality is that while the Detroit automakers were making huge gas guzzling SUV's well into 2008, companies such as Lockheed had fuel efficiency on their mind back to the 1970's. In fact, fuel efficiency has been a key factor in the aviation industry since the early days. This is based on simple economics and physics in that every pound of fuel, is a pound of payload that the airline cannot carry, which costs the airline money as fuel economy is a major driver in the industry. The bottom line is that fuel economy is absolutely critical in commercial aviation. Witness the number of aviation bankruptcies in 2008 when fuel prices soured.
Like a first-rate defense attorney, the book defends the industry against its charges. In every chapter, the authors show the errors, both intentional and those errors of omission, where incorrect reporting and research have negatively affected public opinion.
While not a book about the history of jet engines; the book details the fascinating and phenomenal improvement into the efficiency of the technology. But the underlying theme of the book is that of the environmental issues.
The book details the fundamental errors in the Peters and other environmental reports that have been often taken as the unquestionable truth. Rather than analyzing the facts like the book authors have done, the media often creates sensationalist headlines with an emphasis on short sound bites, often at the cost of scientific fact. Not only do the authors refute the Peeters report, they show in detail how important aviation is to the global economy. In fact, the aviation industry is critical to every growing economy.
The books 18 chapters cover the entire spectrum of jet emissions and their incredible development in detail. Current topics such as bio fuels and their promise, new engine technology, aerodynamic gains, green airlines and more are discussed. The book makes ample use of charts and photographs to illustrate its points.
Plane Simple Truth is a fascinating book that exposes the myriad errors of the flawed environmental studies. It is also a fascinating look at the development and history of jet engines, and the amazing progress that has come about in the last few decades. Huge strides have been made that increase power by significant amounts, while simultaneously cutting emissions. In fact, there are less environmental issues to worry about in the future due to aviation, given the significant strides that are being made.
The book makes many of its valuable points via the approach of letting charts and diagrams do the talking of often dry statistical facts. Be it fuel efficiency, less emissions, or toxic gases, the book shows that misplaced myths and the smoke and mirror games that are often used by those with an agenda, have negatively affected the public's view of aviation.
We have seen that a single bad piece of research is enough to derail an entire industry and mislead the press and politicians. Plane Simple Truthis an important book that has relevance to everyone, as there is no one that is not positively affected by the aviation industry.
While the industry still has a long way to go in other areas such as passenger satisfactions, lost luggage, air traffic control delays and much more, the engine makers have continually pushed the envelope in terms of fuel efficiency and environmental concerns, and they have done this for well over half a century. This was long before the environment was a cool topic. It was also done when jet fuel was still quite cheap.
While the book's authors are intimately involved in the airline industry and clearly pro-airline, and the book's publisher is Aerospace Technical Publications; the authors let the facts speak for themselves. While greenhouse gases and their potential negative effects are part of the public and scientific debate, the ability of modern jet-engines to minimize those effects is clear. Plane Simple Truth is a valuable book in the important debate over greenhouse gases and aviation's contribution to it.
Ben Rothke is the author of Computer Security: 20 Things Every Employee Should Know.
You can purchase Plane Simple Truth from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Um. Illiteracy is rampant. Er. (Score:2, Informative)
I guess while putting down the rest of America for being easily led by the nose, the author forgot to read about how to use simple punctuation.
While we're on it, perhaps Barnum was right, but perhaps he was more right in the second less-well-known part of his statement.
"There's a sucker born every minute -- and two to take him." -- P.T. Barnum.
Google 101 is over. The rest is left as an exercise for the reader.
Ehud
Re:charlatans (Score:3, Informative)
I wouldn't be so sure about that:
2008: Ford F150 Pickup 2WD 6 cyl, 4.2 L, Manual 5-spd, Regular
14 city
20 hwy
1985: Ford F150 Pickup 2WD 6 cyl, 4.9 L, Manual 4-spd, (FFS), Regular
15 - 17 city
20 - 22 hwy
Source: User reports at fuelecomony.gov
Smaller engine, more gears, worse economy.
Reviews: how not to write them (Score:5, Informative)
Starting your review with a convoluted first paragraph chock-full of double negatives and irrelevant references is a Bad Idea. I had to read it three times before I figured out which book was being reviewed and what the reviewer thought of it.
The review also takes whatever this book says as gospel. How do we know that this book is any more correct than the studies it tries to debunk?
Turbopropellers (Score:3, Informative)
Re:the truth is (Score:3, Informative)
CC.
Re:charlatans (Score:3, Informative)
Can you really have a 28 valve engine? Wouldn't it be 6 cylinders * (2 intake valves + 2 exhaust valves) = 24 valves.
Just askin'...
Report is wrong... (Score:5, Informative)
1. Cargo - planes carry significant amounts of cargo today, on the piston engined aircraft of yesteryear it was pretty much 'passengers OR cargo, but not at the same time'. Thus the plane today is doing work that your plane of yesterday would be excluded from because you aren't getting a per-seat-kilometer value for it (no seats).
2. Range - planes today carry out some serious routes, with the top end of the scale actually topping out at between 8,000miles on a regular basis (there are longer routes, but they are less common). You won't be getting that in piston engined aircraft.
3. Reliability - jet engines are much more reliable than the piston engines of yesteryear, which is why we now have ETOPS (extended-range twin-engine operational performance standard) hitting 207 minutes. Thats three hours and twenty seven minutes distance from an airfield on one single engine. Try that in a piston engine aircraft of yesteryear.
4. Reliability - yes, its worth mentioning again. Jet engine aircraft can run sectors with minimal turn around, with minimal maintenance between sectors and with minimal top-ups of required fluids. Piston engined aircraft required a lot more in the way of coaxing and looking after on the ground between sectors. More time in maintenance means less time making money.
5. Longevity - there haven't been many piston engine aircraft that were built for two or three decades in passenger service (the DC-3 comes to mind, but not many others). Most piston engine passenger aircraft of the pre-war and immediate post-war period were designed to last only a few thousand hours, or a couple of years in passenger service.
Oh, and yes, I'm related to the aviation industry
Re:charlatans (Score:2, Informative)
Look up the differences in how they came up with the ratings between 1985 and 2008.
You can't just look at the specific numbers and ignore the specs of the tests that brought about those numbers.
Re:Report is wrong... (Score:4, Informative)
A piston engine is constantly trying to shake itself apart, a turbine engine doesn't do that. In addition to the mechanical wear issues, the vibration was unpleasant and also contributed to reduced airframe life.
With piston powered airliners it wasn't uncommon to have engine fires and other catastrophic failures. But hey, no biggie right? Still have 3 good engines! With today's turbofans it is just about unheard of.
Commercial FADEC jet engines can be treated essentially like lightbulbs, turn them on and go.
Uhm, hello? What a ridiculous summary (Score:5, Informative)
Excuse me, but I just actually read that report (...on slashdot!? I must be new here), and it nowhere states that jet engine efficiency *hasn't* improved tremendously over the past 40 years. On the contrary, it shows clear diagrams that shows they *have* improved a lot.
However, it states, probably correctly, that compared to the last-generation *piston* aircraft engines which where built around 1955 or so, first-generation Jet engines used twice as much fuel (per passenger or kg moved per kilometer) compared to those. However, that amount of fuel since halved so they are now about on par with 1955 piston technology. Doesn't look like a lie to me. Of course, modern jet engines can fly a lot faster than those with piston engines.
In addition, it states that the amount of reduction will level off when the technology has matured. This happened for piston engines, and I don't see why it wouldn't for jet engines; most things to improve their efficiency by a lot have already been invented by now. This explains why they use much less fuel than 40 years ago, but doesn't guarantee in any way that they can get a lot more efficient still.
Of course, I like taking a plane to the Hawaiian beaches as much as the next guy, but I don't see why we need to post this kind of bullshit stories just so we can fool ourselves into thinking that planes do not use a lot of fuel.
Re:charlatans (Score:2, Informative)
Re:charlatans (Score:3, Informative)
Instead, why not look at the CAFE requirements, which have shown rather more modest improvements?
Car engines have made huge improvements in efficiency, but much of those gains have been lost by increasing the overall weight of cars. Compare a modern Mini to the weight of the original -- Old: 1,360 lb, New: 2496 lb.
Re:Report is wrong... (Score:5, Informative)
Firstly, turboprops still have the vibration issue that plagued piston engined aircraft. Sure, its drastically reduced, but it still raises the cabin noise level significantly over a turbofan - which means you need more sound reduction material to counteract it and bring cabin noise levels down, which means weight.
Secondly, turboprops are high power but only in certain bands - and increasing the size of the props to give a better power band is not easy, as it increases the strain on the gear box among other things. You seem to be under the impression that
Thirdly, because of the size of the props we are talking about, they need to be mounted on a high wing rather than a low wing. This means significantly added cost and more importantly weight, as you need to transfer the wing load down through the body of the aircraft to the undercarriage. Or you use wing mounted main gear, which has to be significantly larger than on low wing aircraft because you are now transfering the load a farther distance. Thats all extra weight to carry around.
Fourthly, turboprops aren't as powerful as you think - the A400M needs 4 TP400-D6 turboprops to lift a MTOW of 141 tonnes, or 311,000 lbs. An A330-200 has a MTOW of 230 tonnes, or 507,000 lbs with only two Trent 700s. And even then, the A400M only has a 3,800nm max (dependant on configuration), while the A330-200 will be topping out at 6,800nm.
In short, theres a damn good reason why the airline industry uses turbofans, and its not because they are shiney.
Re:Stay alive, Drive FIFTY-FIVE! (Score:3, Informative)
If they're so stupid that they're doing eighty, can't tell that the car ahead is going slower and aren't paying attention to boot, it's not ME wasting the fuel.
I'm not going to waste my gasoline to save yours, especially when you obviously don't give a shit about your fuel economy or you'd be going slower.
Re:charlatans (Score:2, Informative)
Since the CAFE was enacted in 1975, the required fuel economy has gone from 18 mpg (1978) to 27.5 mpg (1990, originally 1985). The standards for light trucks are a little more convoluted (especially in the past), but went from a low of 15.8 mpg to 22.2 mpg (2007).
Congress recently passed an increase in the CAFE to 35 mpg by 2020, an increase of a whole 7.5 mpg in the next 12 years, after nearly 18 years of no increases.
It should also be noted that these numbers are for an average fuel economy across a 'fleet' of vehicles, meaning that they're not for a particular model, but for the cars sold in a particular model year by the particular manufacturer. This means that selling hybrid SUVs gives the manufacturer a boost in the average gas mileage calculation used for the rest of their SUVs and trucks (excepting those that are above the maximum weight for CAFE requirements). They also get a credit towards the calculation for hybrid and multi-fuel vehicles (beyond the increased mpg those vehicles might get).
So, of course a 2008 full-sized Ford pickup gets better gas mileage than a 1975 full-sized Ford pickup of the same model. However, the number is unlikely to have doubled in the 33 year time period. In fact, fueleconomy.gov puts the numbers from 1985 to 2009 at an increase of roughly 3 mpg (why they don't have the numbers going back to 1975 I don't know).
Re:charlatans (Score:2, Informative)
I know I gave numbers for 1985. That was the earliest numbers available from a trusted source. The numbers are not from the EPA MPG tests. These are numbers provided by people who own and use the vehicles, which make the numbers more reliable than the EPA tests.
Re:charlatans (Score:5, Informative)
The fact is they didn't make SUVs back then.
Yes, they did. The Chevy Suburban [wikipedia.org] was first built in 1935, and the International Harvester Travelall [wikipedia.org] was built from 1953 to 1975.
Re:charlatans (Score:3, Informative)
Or visit Fuelly.com [fuelly.com] and just browse what some people are getting for fuel economy. There's a few people out there that apparently can't enter numbers properly, but it's a nice view of what people are getting in reality and not just "EPA Estimates".
Yes, my cars [fuelly.com] are on there too.
Re:the truth is (Score:3, Informative)
Looking at the tails of the curve, you're always going to have more people at the low end whom are randomly physically screwed up (due to accidents or whatever) and a smaller tail at the high end of superior intellects.
IQ has a normal distribution because IQ is defined to have a normal distribution. If the tail at the high end is too small, then the tests will be adjusted.
Re:charlatans (Score:3, Informative)
Well, some SUVs are (usually the larger ones), while the smaller "crossover" vehicles, like the CR-V, Rav4 and Forester, are Unibody constructions. As for trucks, the Honda Ridgeline [caranddriver.com] is built on a Unibody platform.
Re:Report is wrong... (Score:3, Informative)
Turbofans are shrouded for a reason, if it was more efficient to unshroud them, they would be unshrouded because that shroud represents a hell of a lot of weight that an airline would most certainly not want to carry around.
The shroud plays two major parts - containment in the event of blade failure, where the fan loses a blade, and smoothing of the airflow through the engine. Having a smooth airflow through the engine reduces resistence significantly, and allows for better performance of the turbine itself, as well as cleaner air flow out of hte back of the engine. This can add as much as 5% benefit in terms of engine efficiency.
I would think that blade containment would be self explainatory, but incase it is not:
A Trent 900 turbofan (the powerplant for the A380, alongside the GP7200 from GE and P&W) rotates at between 2,900 rpm and 3,000 rpm. Your PW124, which powers regional aircraft such as the Fokker 50, has a maximum rpm of between 1,300 and 1,600rpm.
A Trent 900 has 24 116" fan blades, each weighing about 4 times that of the 5 blades the PW124 uses. Thats one fuckton load of potential energy you have there, when the engine is at full power - the tips of the blades are actually supersonic.
In the event of one of those blades leaving the hub, the shroud is designed to contain the entire blade and any ejecta caused by the separation event within the engine - the engine destroys itself but causes little or no damage to the rest of the aircraft. On a regional aircraft, the blades are light enough, small enough and slow enough that you can protect the body of the aircraft.
In any case, I think the very fact that there are many many turboprops in service today with regional airlines proves that 'passengers think turboprops look scary so airlines don't use them' is completely wrong, without having to go into all what I did.
It most certainly is not about looks. Airlines would use whatever they deem lowest cost.
Re:Uhm, hello? What a ridiculous summary (Score:1, Informative)
The 1957 Constellation 1649A Superstar with its 3400hp turbo compound piston engines achieved a fuel efficiency better than 747-200s and held the distance/time aloft record for commercial airplanes OF ANY TYPE until the late 1990s.
Jets need to climb fast and fly high, then power-off dive and land quickly. Otherwise they'd run out of fuel before they reached their destinations. They are only efficient at high altitudes. Jet engines are Horribly Inneficient at low altitudes which, unfortunately, is where most of us live.
Piston aircraft pretty much use the same amount of fuel per hour at cruise regardless of whether they are flying high and fast (airspeed) or low and slow. You have to actually use engine power to descend into thicker air... (Planes are *designed* to climb efficiently, think about it - otherwise commercial aviation couldn't work at all)
It's all about airspeed. Try and fly fast at a low altitude and you'll run out of fuel. In piston craft its because there are too many air molecules to push out of the way (pesky atmosphere). In jets its because they're using too much fuel at lower altitudes.
Bad result either way. Flight planning is important.
Re:charlatans (Score:3, Informative)
*ahem*
I beg to differ, SUV's were indeed made prior to 1980.
The label of SUV is of modern origin but the concept of a station wagon on a truck frame that has at least some off-road capability goes back as least as far as WWII. (With or without 4WD)