Uncle John’s Slightly Irregular Bathroom Reader (22 page)

—
National Geographic

THAR SHE BLOWS!

“In August 2003, scientists from the Australian Antarctic Division, traveling by boat on a research mission to attach satellite-tracking devices to whales to study their habitats, managed to capture what they believe is a historical first photo: the water pattern that results from the bubble when a huge whale releases flatulence. Said researcher Nick Gales, ‘We got away from the bow of the ship very quickly.’”

—The Australian

“Man is an animal that makes bargains: no other animal does this—no dog exchanges bones with another.”

—Adam Smith

Kissing can cause wrinkles.

Statistically, airplanes are the safest form of long-distance travel available. So why would anyone be afraid to fly? This article answers that question. (
Warning:
If you’re reading this on an airplane, you might want to save it until you’re back on the ground.)

J
UST ANOTHER FLIGHT

Air Canada Flight 143 on July 23, 1983, started out like any other flight. Captain Robert Pearson and First Officer Maurice Quintal had arrived ahead of time to go over the aircraft and prepare it for departure. The flight was scheduled to depart Montreal shortly before 6:00 p.m. They were going to make a quick, 19-minute hop to Ottawa to pick up more passengers before flying 1,700 miles across Canada to Edmonton, Alberta.

The plane was a twin-engine Boeing 767, one of the most sophisticated commercial aircraft of its day. It was also one of the first commercial jets with a “glass cockpit”—meaning that nearly all of the standard instruments and gauges had been replaced with a bank of computer screens displaying the same information in a digital, graphic format. (Kind of like trading up from a pinball machine to a video game.)

NEW AND IMPROVED

The 767 was so new that Air Canada owned only four of them, none of which had been in service for more than a few months. Captain Pearson, who had more than 26 years on the job, was one of only a handful of Air Canada pilots qualified to fly the plane.

The glass cockpit offered numerous advantages over traditional instruments: Fewer moving parts meant fewer instrument failures. That translated into fewer flight delays, lower operating costs, and higher profits for the airlines. And because so much information was condensed and presented in easy-to-read displays, it eliminated the need for the pilot to scan numerous tiny gauges all over the cockpit, which reduced eyestrain and fatigue.

The new 767s were so sophisticated, in fact, that only two people—the pilot and first officer (co-pilot)—were needed to fly it, instead of the usual three. The position of flight engineer had been eliminated, and the job had been divided between the onboard computers, the ground crew, the pilot, and the first officer. Every task had been accounted for.

Is this a good thing? Helen Keller could identify her friends by their odors.

Or so everyone thought.

A BAD OMEN

As soon as Pearson and Quintal stepped onboard, the ground crew told them that something was wrong with the “fuel quantity processor”—the instrument that measures the available jet fuel and displays the amount on the computer screen. Result: The fuel gauge display was blank. And no spare fuel quantity processors were available on such short notice—the planes were too new. Captain Pearson would have to fly the plane without any fuel gauges.

But was that even permitted? In a traditional jumbo jet the answer was no, but the 767’s fuel management system was much more sophisticated than a traditional mechanical fuel gauge. It could measure the rate at which the fuel was being consumed, something that had never been possible before. That meant if you manually told the computer how much fuel was in the tanks at the start of the flight, it could automatically subtract the amount consumed to give a precise estimate of how much fuel was left. It would even display the quantity in the form of a digital “estimated fuel” gauge.

But these were only
estimates
, and they only worked if the pilot entered the correct fuel load into the computer at the start of the flight. If the pilot miscalculated, the information displayed in the estimated fuel gauge would be totally off.

NOT BY THE BOOK

Understandably, Captain Pearson had reservations about flying a jumbo jet without any working fuel gauges. Who wouldn’t? So he consulted the 767’s official Minimum Equipment List, or MEL, to see if the plane would even be cleared to fly with its fuel gauges out. It wasn’t.

But when Pearson pointed this out to one of the mechanics, the mechanic assured him that the plane had been cleared to fly by Air Canada’s Maintenance Control division, which has the final say—even over the MEL—as to whether an airplane is safe. Captain Pearson still had misgivings—he didn’t like reading one thing in the MEL and hearing something else from the airline. But the 767
was
a sophisticated plane, so he figured that if Air Canada said it was safe to fly, it was.

The first crossing of the United States by automobile took 52 days in 1903.

MEASURE FOR MEASURE

Air Canada’s four 767s were unique in another way, too: they were the first jumbo jets in the entire fleet to use the metric system instead of the traditional British “imperial” system of weights and measures. Canada began phasing in the metric system in 1979, and now Air Canada’s air fleet was beginning to make the switch.

This 767’s fuel was measured in kilograms, not the imperial pounds that Air Canada pilots were used to dealing with. Adding to the confusion, while the plane measured its fuel by
weight—
kilograms—the fuel truck measured its by
volume—
liters. And with the fuel quantity processor broken, all the calculations—normally done by computers—now had to be done by hand.

But whose job was it to do the math? On an ordinary jumbo jet it was the flight engineer’s job to calculate fuel load. But on the 767, that position had been eliminated. As an investigation later revealed, the pilots had been told that fuel calculations were now the job of the ground crew, but since the ground crew hadn’t been trained to do the calculations, then either the captain or the first officer had to be responsible for them now.

MATH PROBLEM

Captain Pearson knew that 1) he needed 22,300 kilograms of jet fuel to get to Edmonton, and 2) there were 7,682 liters of fuel in the tanks. So how many liters of additional fuel did he need to get to 22,300 kilograms? More simply put, how many liters of jet fuel are there in a kilogram? That was the question.

Pearson was used to thinking in terms of gallons and pounds, and his knowledge of the metric system was a little rusty. So he asked the guy on the refueling truck how many liters were in a kilogram. “One point seven seven,” the guy answered. That sounded about right; First Officer Quintal thought so, too.

PROBLEMS MULTIPLY

How hard was it to do the math? See if you can follow along:

•
If there were 7,682 liters of fuel in the tanks and 1 liter is equal to 1.77 kilograms, that meant the tanks contained nearly 13,600 kilograms of fuel. Thus, they had to add 8,700 kilograms to get the 22,300 kilograms they needed.

Stenophobia
is the fear of narrow spaces.

•
Dividing 8,700 by 1.77 to convert back to liters, the fuel truck had to add a little over 4,900 liters of fuel to fill the tanks to roughly 12,600 liters.

•
Multiply 12,600 by 1.77 and you get 22,302 kilograms—more than enough fuel to get to Edmonton.

Simple, right? Well, it’s a little confusing in the best of circumstances, harder if you’re just learning to master the metric system, and worse still if there’s a plane full of people waiting for you to finish the math and take them where they want to go.

But just to be on the safe side, Pearson and Quintal checked and rechecked their math. Sure enough, every time they multiplied 12,600 by 1.77, they got 22,302. According to their calculations, they had enough fuel on board to make the flight, with plenty to spare.

AND AWAY WE GO

Finally satisfied, they programmed their fuel load into the computer manually, then finished their preflight checks and made the 19-minute flight to Ottawa.

During the 43-minute stopover, they had the ground crew check the fuel levels again. Pearson multiplied the remaining liters by 1.77 and concluded that he still had more than 20,000 kilograms of fuel onboard. He entered this estimate into the computer to get the estimated fuel gauge, finished his preflight procedures, and at 7:05 p.m. was cleared for takeoff.

A few minutes later, the Boeing 767 lifted into the air with 61 passengers and 8 crew members aboard. In their wildest dreams, none of them could have imagined what was about to occur.

For Part II of the story, turn to
page 319
.

SOARING COSTS

A used DC-9 airplane costs more today than it did when it was new in the 1970s.

An eagle’s bones weigh half as much as its feathers.

We here at the BRI love rumors and urban legends. Especially when they involve our favorite room
.

R
UMOR:
To clean a toilet, pour a can of Coca-Cola into the toilet bowl. Let the “real thing” sit for one hour, then flush clean.

BACKGROUND:
The Coke-as-bowl-cleaner story was spread as one item on an e-mail list of “household hints.” Other items on the list: the “facts” that Coke is so highly acidic a human tooth or a T-bone steak soaking in it will dissolve completely in two days (a steel nail will dissolve in four); Coca-Cola trucks must display “hazardous material” placards when transporting Coca-Cola syrup; and several state highway patrols carry gallons of Coke in their trunks to clean the blood off the highway following auto accidents.

THE TRUTH:
Carbonated beverages do contain carbonic acid, and Coke also contains small amounts of citric acid and phosphoric acid. But overall, it’s less acidic than many fruit juices. Coke can’t dissolve teeth, nails, steaks, or anything else, and it’s not considered a hazard...or a toilet cleaner. Any commercially available cleaning product with a picture of a toilet on the label will probably do the job better than Coke. And there’s always soap and water.

RUMOR:
Microsoft is developing a combination toilet/computer called the “iLoo.”

BACKGROUND:
In April 2003, someone purporting to be a representative from the software giant’s U.K. office issued a press release describing the project, and the story was picked up by newspapers all over the world. The “iLoo,” they claimed, would have a built-in computer, complete with wireless keyboard and monitor, making it possible for “end users” to surf the Web while doing their business.

THE TRUTH:
The iLoo was indeed a project of Microsoft U.K. ...but somebody forgot to tell the home office. Microsoft’s U.S. headquarters immediately issued its own press release calling the iLoo story a hoax. “This iLoo release was not a Microsoft-sanctioned communication,” a spokeswoman told reporters. “We apologize for any confusion or offense it may have caused.”

British government toilet paper used to read, “Govt. Property, Now Wash Your Hands.”

The following day, Microsoft issued a second press release admitting that they had probably “jumped the gun.” Microsoft bigwigs apparently learned about the iLoo just like everyone else—by reading about it in the newspaper. They promptly canceled the program because Web-surfing toilets “aren’t the best extension of our brand.”