Dash-8 Q400 crashed due to ice build-up?

last week, a Dash 8 Q-400, Bombardier made crashed near Buffalo, New York. 49 people perished.
early investigations shown that ice build-up on aircraft’s wing had brought down the plane.

Bombardier Q400

i intrigued to write about this entry, due to my basic knowledge about effect of ice build-up on aircraft’s wing and its overall aerodynamics characteristic.

as the aircraft fly high up in the air, the ambient temperature is way below minus.
with high precipitation, ice could build-up and grow thicker and bigger.
the ice normally will build-up on the leading edge of the wing…the part where the wing meet the airstream.
this will lead into the changes in wing’s aerofoil shape by the existence of the ice over the wing.
since the ice is solid, it will covered the leading edge part of the wing…the crucial area over the chord length of the wing.
thus change the original wing’s camber, wing’s thickness-to-chord ratio.
finally the overall wing’s lift force and wing’s moment will also change.
lift force will reduce and if the situation get worse, the wing’s lift can’t longer equal to aircraft overall weight…thus make the aircraft to plunge since the wing’s lift no longer hold the aircraft up in the air.
its nature that we can’t control…but we could reduce the ice build-up by de-icing system.
de-icing system is normally a heating system that will heat up the leading edge of the wing and horizontal stabilizer.
pilot will monitor the outside air temperature to get a clue about the potential of ice build-up and then activate the de-icing system if needed.

my condolence to all victims of the crash.

dynolicious on iPhone

iPhone…latest gadget swarm the culture all over the World.
cool gadget, i must say.
i did tried my friend’s iPhone and played the balancing game of marble and i’m hooked into it!
ahh, i just don’t know the game’s name.

to the topic…
recently, i read a tuning mags at The Borders and found out about an application on iPhone which can measure car’s acceleration, lateral G-force, elapsed time and even horsepower!
all can be done thanks to accelerometers inside the iPhone.

dynolicious gallery

what attract me on this cool stuff is the ability of the iPhone and dynolicious application/software to give results about par with ordinary dyno machine and G-Tech Pro performance meter.
it shown practically on this youtube video clip.
iPhone Dynolicious Software Better than G-Tech Pro Performance Meter?

the G-Tech Pro cost about USD200 and the iPhone Dynolicious software cost about USD13.
in the video clip, the guy thrown away the G-Tech coz it cost USD200 and shown 0.5s faster than both the drag strip and dynolicious iPhone timings.

here is Dynolicious website.

http://www.dynolicious.com/

acceleration in everyday life

we living with applying physics and maths on our daily life.
raising our hand to pick up glass of juice, start with acceleration.
raising our leg for a walk, start with acceleration.

from these acceleration…comes speed or velocity by integrating the acceleration over time.
we then can determine how much speed or velocity we want to pick up the glass or for the walk.
when we walk at mall in constant speed…we didn’t experience any acceleration during the walk.
neither faster nor slower. speed is constant when acceleration is zero.

from these speed…comes location by integrating the speed over time.
we then can determine how far we reach the glass or how far we’ve been walking.
when we walk at mall in constant speed…we always changing our position from one boutique to another. our current location is now moving away from our starting location due to the acceleration we create or gives to ourselves.

all these are practical applications of how acceleration happen in our daily life.