by In view of the constantly changing patterns of tourism, the flight routes are added regularly to come and go. But the announcement of Wizz Air last week that all of his routes from Abu Dhabi (the capital of the United Arab Emirates and a busy air center between Europe and Asia) will be scraped up more eyebrows than usual.
In addition to the hard commercial and geopolitical climate in the Middle East, the inexpensive aircraft also cited the “hot and hard” climate of the United Arab Emirates as the reason for the earth of flights, and added that the high dust concentration caused damage to the engines.
Nobody will have news that the golf can be punished. But the idea that extreme temperatures can cause complications for aircraft seems to be what frequent flyers may want to know more – especially if they want to jump into the region soon.
Too hot to handle it
Most of the time, hotter temperatures for pilots are a question of simple physics, says Nick Eades, an experienced captain of the legendary Boeing 747 and author of several books. When the air heats up, it also becomes easier for an airplane to get the buoyancy that it has to take off for correct.
“In the past few days, airlines had to adapt their schedules to avoid the hottest parts of the day, but modern airlines can operate under extreme conditions,” he says. In the worst case, the pilot may have to carry out some additional calculations, e.g. B. the reduction of the amount of fuel on board to reduce the weight of the aircraft.
As soon as the plane has taken off, the heat is much less a problem (although it can contribute to turbulence at lower heights). Although aircraft that land in hot weather usually experience a higher level of soil. “In order to compensate, the pilots will slow down much earlier and extend the flaps and the chassis earlier than normal,” he says.
Where hot weather led to flight cancellations, it is usually on the ground and not per se. In the past year, the flights in Delhi were briefly on the ground that the security authorities had decided that the airport was too hot to start safely.
Nearby at home, flights from London Luton Airport were canceled for a day in the summer of 2022 after high temperatures led to the fact that parts of the runway melt.
When the dust settles
In the case of Wizz Air’s experience in Abu Dhabi, the problem is not necessarily the heat, but the strong concentration of sand and dust in the air von which some are sucked into the engine during the start.
The extreme warmth of the engine then means that a large part of this dust melts and leaves a glass -like gap that can hinder the blades.
“This is not like volcanic ash where there is a risk that the plane falls out of heaven,” says Dr. Claire Ryder, meteorologist at the University of Reading, who has led studies on the dust levels around various airports. However, the gradual structure and abrasion over time leads to performance problems for the aircraft engines, which means less fuel efficiency and higher maintenance costs.
For an ultra-deeper cheap airlines such as Wizz Air, which rely on reducing possible costs to offer the cheapest tickets, these are potential headaches.
In view of the massive aviation market in the Middle East, there is a considerable incentive to develop engines that can better avoid dust. At the University of Manchester, a team of researchers works with Rolls Royce to carry out tests with synthetic dust to understand exactly what happens when it is sucked into the engine.
“We know that the dust becomes smaller, the further it gets into the engine, but we also examine how it changes in its chemical structure,” says Dr. Nicholas Bojdo, who heads the project. The problem becomes more relevant when engines become stronger, since the increased capacity means that the temperatures inside get even hotter – so that the melting point for more minerals exceeds.
While the temperature may increase, the models of climate change are not particularly well equipped to estimate the effects on the dust, says Dr. Claire Ryder.
Some studies show a correlation between rising temperatures and dust towers – the latter have led to flight cornation (especially in India) due to poor visibility.
Under snow
Hot weather and dust are a problem, but what about the other end of the spectrum when aircraft have to work in hard cold snapshots? Despite all disorders caused by snow storms and arctic explosions, the effects on the levels are far from being so dramatic.
The typical cruise height of passenger jets means that they are already done for a few serious temperatures that are done below zero. If at all, colder floor temperatures can make the engines more efficient. The wings can also be treated with a special anti-frost frost to ensure that they are not affected by the outside temperatures.
If cold weather causes problems, it is probably on the floor. For example, snow tractors can affect the visibility of air traffic control. Under these circumstances, it is common for controllers to impose stricter security limits and increase the distance between starts and arrivals. This usually means that some flights are inevitably canceled.
Extremed cold weather can also lead to the landingways, as was the most of the country at four British airports (Bristol, Newcastle, Birmingham and Manchester), as a large part of the country under an amber warning for snow and ice. As a rule of thumb, the aviation authorities warn of trying to start if the surface is more than 25 percent ice or snow.
Maybe Wizz Air will not start a Greenland or Alaska service soon. However, it is good to know that for these airlines that are ready to inject the money, the miracles of modern engineering can handle extreme weather conditions – even if the airports themselves may not be so lucky.
