The Second Katyn Massacre

The Virginian ^ | 4/10/2010 | Moneyrunner

[moneyrunner]

The Woods of Smolensk

The Polish President and numerous top officials died aboard a TU-154 while trying to land at Smolensk airbase.He was on his way to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Katyn Massacre which took place in the woods near that city. ... After Poland went down before the onslaught of Nazi and Soviet forces in 1939-40, Joseph Stalin and Lavrenty Beria decided to decapitate the country’s society. Since the Polish army required all university graduates to become reserve officers, the NKVD decided to kill two birds with one stone and eliminate the both the trained military manpower of Poland and its “intelligensia”. In 1940 the Communists shot more than 22,000 Polish officers in woods near Smolensk. These included an admiral, two generals, 24 colonels, 79 lieutenant colonels, 258 majors, 654 captains, 17 naval captains, seven chaplains, three landowners, a prince, 20 university professors, hundeds of physicians lawyers, engineers and teachers, more than 100 writers and journalists among others.

Poland was left stunned by the news that their president, his wife, and a whole tier of the Polish elite had been killed.

From the BBC:

The BBC's Adam Easton, in Warsaw, says the crash is a catastrophe for the Polish people. [see pictures]

[Larry Lucido]

Wait, what?

[Berlin_Freeper]

History of the Tupolev-154 plane

The Tupolev-154 was for more than a quarter of a century the backbone of Russia's and the Soviet Union's air transport system.

[hellbender]

Russia said that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will personally head the investigation into the crash.

I'm so relieved that things are in the capable hands of KGB killer Vlad the Irradiator Putin.

[Larry Lucido]

You got a link to a news article, instead of just a blog?

[Larry Lucido]

Never mind. Here is an article.

http://www.citrusdaily.com/polands-president-dies-plane-crash/2010/04/10/37966.html

Poland’s President Dies in Plane Crash

[Elle Bee]

What if the Russian Tower gave them false altimeter setting info?

In the fog you might think you were approaching the airfield at a greater altitude than you actually were ... then .........

The reporting of altimeter setting information by an airport traffic control tower and/or by ATC Regional Centers is a routine requirement for safe en route (altitude separation) and terminal area (approach) navigation and has been a standard procedure for many years. Presently, each control tower has one or more precision aneroid or bourdon tube type barometric pressure sensing altimeter setting indicators (ASI) having accuracies on the order of ± 0.020 to ± .040 inches of mercury. Each sensor has to be calibrated periodically in accordance with its own calibration characteristic and this calibration "number" must be "greasepencilled" periodically on the face of the instrument and taken into account in the computation of the reported altimeter setting number. This task is difficult, time consuming and subject to human error. The altimeter setting indicator reading from such instruments is not readily converted into digital format for transmission throughout an airport for remote indication. It is often the situation that different calibration numbers must be added or subtracted from the instrument reading with respect to the various instruments at the airport, often resulting in discrepancies between altimeter settings communicated to aircraft from different sources at the same airport.

Schiphol airliner crash blamed on altimeter failure, pilot error

Investigators in The Netherlands have announced that last month's crash of a Boeing 737-800 was caused by a combination of an instrument failure and pilot error. Turkish Airlines Flight 1951 crashed upon approach to Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, killing nine and injuring eighty of the 135 passengers and crew on board.

Pieter van Vollenhoven, head of the Dutch Safety Board, said yesterday that as the aircraft was at 1,950 feet the faulty altimeter indicated that the airliner's height was at minus eight feet. Because the autopilot and autothrottle were running from this flawed data the plane automatically reduced engine power as it would in the final seconds before landing.

The sensitive altimeter

The sensitive altimeter is the cockpit instrument that indicates the aircraft's altitude. The instrument is a refined aneroid barometer with a dial indicating height above a pre-set level rather than atmospheric pressure. The main component of such an instrument is a small, flexible, corrugated metal capsule from which the air has been partially evacuated — fitted with a metal closure or diaphragm. There is a spring within the capsule that applies a constant force to the bottom of the diaphragm, while atmospheric static pressure applies a counter force to the top, so that the diaphragm moves as atmospheric pressure changes. The movement of the pressure-sensing capsule is transferred and magnified — via a mechanical linkage or piezo-quartz component — to a dial pointer or pointers, or a digital display, which indicate the altitude reading. The static pressure is drawn from the aircraft's static vent, which may induce slight position errors due to aerodynamic effects around the vent.

The level in the atmosphere at which any particular pressure occurs is also dependent on temperature — as we saw in the 'Airspeed and the properties of air' module — but the altimeter does not sense the air temperature. Consequently, all altimeters are calibrated in accordance with the International Standard Atmosphere [ISA] model, which utilises a standard temperature lapse rate with height of 6.5 °C per km. The atmosphere in any region rarely corresponds to the ISA, so aneroid altimeters do not indicate totally accurate height. This is not that important, as true altitude can be calculated, in the rare circumstance that it is needed for terrain clearance purposes. There is no problem with air traffic management, in that all aircraft in the same region, with properly set (and functioning) altimeters, will be out by the same amount.

It is, of course, desirable to set the current local surface pressure into the altimeter by setting that reference pressure into a pressure-setting scale (known since the 1930s as the 'Kollsman Window'), which in turn resets the position of the height-indicating pointers against the dial. Or, if the aircraft is on the ground, the same result is achieved by turning the pressure-setting scale until the altimeter indicates the known airfield elevation. The altimeter in the image indicates an altitude of 1400 feet with the baro-scale set at 29.9 inches of mercury [in/Hg] — equivalent to 1013 hPa. If the altitude was 11 400 feet, the pointer with the inverted triangle on the end would be past the figure 1 on the image, indicating +10 000 feet.

In Australia, all barometric pressures are reported in hectopascals [equivalent to millibars]; and in the USA in units of inches of mercury [in/Hg =33.86 hPa]. The sub-scale setting range provided in modern altimeters is from 850 to 1050 hPa.

Altitude encoding

In some flight conditions, an aircraft must operate a transponder for traffic separation purposes. The transponder obtains altitude data from a special altitude encoding altimeter or from a blind encoder; the latter being an electronic device that obtains current atmospheric pressure from the static pressure line and the reference pressure used is preset at 1013.2 hPa. That same reference pressure is used for the altitude encoding function of the altimeter, thus the transponder broadcasts pressure altitude only.

[connjdllm]

Communists just like obama!

[MrEdd]

You want to join the 21st century, where ordinary people outside the government sponsored media are considered to rightfully recognized to be the less biased and better fact checked for of the press?

Alternately, you can prove to all of us here that anthropomorphic Global Warming really is real.

That is the entire extent of your rational choices.

You can resort to name calling instead, one supposes.

[Larry Lucido]

Can the speechifying. The bodies are hardly warm and he is flogging a blog. If he was trying to be helpful we would have started with “who, what, when, where” instead of something mid-paragraph that ends in an excerpt.

I’m looking for some details, not “a word from our sponsor.”

But thanks.

[autumnraine]

Considering the Head of the Military AND the President of the National Bank were also on board that plane, and given the symbolic nature of the visit in the first place... too eery. I’m afraid this wasn’t an accident. I imagine the Polish people are terrified right now. I would be.

[jaz.357]

Glenn Beck, CALL YOUR OFFICE!

[Larry Lucido]

Why, is Glenn late for his date with Mitt? :-)

[Uri’el-2012]

Who would benefit from this tragedy.

Putin ? I don't think so.

Chechen Islamic Terrorists ???

[Freddd]

Obama and Putin.

[nkycincinnatikid]

Has Putin ever acknowledged the russian slaughter of the Polish leadership at Katyn?
Inquiring minds want to know?

[verity]

I knew that it would not take long for the whackjobs to surface.

[Uri’el-2012]

Has Putin ever acknowledged the russian slaughter of the Polish leadership at Katyn?

Inquiring minds want to know?

That was the purpose of the trip.

So this looks on the face to be the second Katyn massacre in the woods.

Putin is TOO obvious.

Someone is trying to embarrass Putin.

[stop_fascism]

Did the Ruskies offer their condolences before or after the crash?

[widdle_wabbit]

Extraordinary video about Poland’s history.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lRLzNsn_0g