text:
The Science of Improv with Ryan Stiles & Oona Cava
In the Season 1 finale, Spark Science interviews Comedian and founder of the Upfront Theater in Bellingham, WA, Ryan Stiles. We discuss the difference between improv and stand up comedy, how one teaches comedy and the benefits of laughter.
We also bring in the Upfront Theater improv instructor who taught our very own Jordan Baker. Oona Cava discusses the methods of improv in more detail and how one can use improv techniques to become a better university professor.
Enjoy our jokes and come back for new episodes in January 2016.
Podcast, Season 1
Physics, Fear and Flight
Spark Science was in the skies over Bellingham, WA with pilot, computer scientist and friend of the show, Dr. Aran Clauson. Dr. Clauson offered to take Jordan and Dr. Regina in a tiny Cessna and we had a great time. We recorded part of the show in the air and part in the KMRE Spark Radio studios.
Join us for a show where we discuss the science that goes into flight (lift, drag and crosswinds) and some history of aviation. Throughout the whole episode, listen to us giggle while we reflect on our trip to the "Danger Zone!"..
>> One, three, four. Four, five. Bellingham International Airport Information Hotel, one, six, five, four, Zulu. One, eight, zero, at eight. Visibility, one, zero. Sky condition, ceiling 2300 overcast. Temperature, one, six. Due point, one, three. Altimeter, three, zero, one, zero. IOS approach runway one, six in use. Go to Sea-Tac Airport. Advise you have information. Hotel.
>> Here we go.
[? Blackalicious rapping Chemical Calisthenics ?]
? Neutron, proton, mass defect, lyrical oxidation, yo irrelevant
? Mass spectrograph, pure electron volt, atomic energy erupting
? As I get all open on betatron, gamma rays thermo cracking
? Cyclotron and any and every mic
? You're on trans iridium, if you're always uranium
? Molecules, spontaneous combustion, pow
? Law of de-fi-nite pro-por-tion, gain-ing weight
? I'm every element around
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Welcome to Spark Science where we explore stories of human curiosity. I'm Regina Barber DeGraaff, Astrophysicist, pop culture enthusiast and I'm here with my cohost Jordan Baker. How's it going?
>> Jordan Baker: I'm good. Jordan Baker. I'm your resident tall person.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yep. Tallest person I know.
>> Jordan Baker: Blonde hair. Blue eyes. The crowning achievement of Lynden.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Right [laughing]. You got all of it.
>> Jordan Baker: Right. Yeah. Every stereotype Lynden put out. Got it.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Right.
>> Jordan Baker: Encapsulated. Physically.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Demographic of like pop culture was like, you know, tall, blonde hair, blue-eyed guy. I don't know.
>> Jordan Baker: We are moving right along.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yeah.
>> Jordan Baker: Our guest today is —
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yeah [laughing]. Well, so we are here today and we want to talk about aviation. And we have a Spark Science veteran.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Oh, yes. I am.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Dr. Aran Clauson. How's it going?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Pretty good.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: He was here before in our computer science show and we asked him, because we knew he was an amateur pilot, we were like, "Can you take Jordan up in your plane?"
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: And I said, "Absolutely not. But I can take the both of you."
>> Jordan Baker: Yeah.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: That is exactly what happened [laughing].
Now, your friend Gina, me, I'm slightly afraid of going up in small planes. But —
>> Jordan Baker: Slightly.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Slightly. But I thought that it would be an opportunity to talk about just the basic physics of flight, talk about my phobias, and also talk about just like, you know, how are the planes that Aron, Dr. Clauson, is working on and flying in — how are those different from the original planes that the Wright Brothers put together?
So I wanted to have a show and Dr. Clauson took us up two days ago. And we actually recorded it.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: How did you like the flight, Jordan?
>> Jordan Baker: It was good. It was my first full flight. I have one and a half flights on a small plane under my belt now.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: I'm intrigued by the "half."
>> Jordan Baker: I jumped out of it.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Oh. So one take off, no landings.
>> Jordan Baker: Right. Yeah.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Wait. With a parachute.
>> Jordan Baker: There was — yeah. There was a man. He was a lot shorter than I was strapped to my back.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Really?
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: And he was the professional?
>> Jordan Baker: Yeah. Exactly!
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yeah. Wow. So I was terrified, but it went well and we're alive. And, during this show, we're going to cut and we're going to listen to some of the — we have some clips that we're going to listen to during this show that our listeners will hear us and our conversations while we're up in the air. They'll hear Jordan having a great time and me screaming.
>> Jordan Baker: Cowering down like a little whiny person.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yeah. Covering my eyes.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Which is why we took the mic away from her.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yes. I will not be miked. You'll just hear me groaning in the background.
>> Jordan Baker: Not to downgrade anybody's fear against flying or whatever. I mean that's fine if that's who you are.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Right. But, for those that are afraid of flying, I conquered that fear and I confronted it and I survived. And I actually feel like I'm better for it. It was a beautiful flight. Seeing Bellingham from 1,000 feet was amazing.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Hey, look. The brakes work.
>> Jordan Baker: All right.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yay!
[ Laughter ]
>> Jordan Baker: So Regina does not have a microphone because she is plugged in the microphone to the recording device so you will not be able to hear her. You just will be able to hear yelling and screaming in the background.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: [inaudible] Skyhawk 2-1-7-4-5 holding short 1-6 ready for departure for [inaudible].
>> Jordan Baker: Now Gina's shaking her head in the back. She's getting scared.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: OK, for the FAA who is listening. We were up at about 2,000 feet.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: We were at 2,000 feet.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: So we were perfectly legal.
>> Jordan Baker: Yep. It was over 2,000 feet.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: It was.
>> Jordan Baker: I looked at the altimeter.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: I'm not a pilot. I didn't know. I was in the back, too. I mean, how would I have known.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: We were 30 feet and cruising around.
>> Jordan Baker: Yeah. We were cruising at like 50 feet above BP [laughing].
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: We were —
>> Jordan Baker: Took a picture of my brother.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: We took a lot of pictures. Jordan and I were just like — we actually — I tweeted from up in the air. It was really cool.
But I want to take us back. Aran had told me in the past that he was actually very fascinated with aviation, was actually building his own plane. So I want to go back, back in the way back machine, and talk about when did you start being interested in aviation?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: What a great question.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yeah. I'm good — I'm good at this.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: So, in high school, I was working at a coffee shop. And this was right when espresso was starting to get popular. There was this new company called Starbucks. And, let's be honest —
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Was this in the '90s?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Yeah. No. It was in the '80s.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: What?
>> Jordan Baker: OK. Hang on. Stop. Before you continue this story, I just have one thing I want to ask. Because you do ride motorcycles, was Top Gun your favorite movie?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Top Gun was a good movie, but I can't —
>> Jordan Baker: Because Tom Cruise rode motorcycles and he flew planes. Go on. Continue with your story.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: That's a good point.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Well, the trouble is Tom Cruise.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Oh [laughing].
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: But that's another —
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: So you can just think of the movie. Take him out.
>> Jordan Baker: Smart Tom Cruise.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: You know —
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: It's just an F-14 flying around by itself. There's a guy in the back seat saying, "How did we get here."
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: No. Just insert a different actor. I do that all the time. I'm like, "I love that movie. Wasn't it John Cusack or something?" and then people tell me it wasn't, but I don't care.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: See. Now it's Deep Roy.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: It's what?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Deep Roy. He's the —
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: I don't know who that is.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Oh, Charley and the Chocolate Factory. The —
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: The kid?
>> Jordan Baker: No. That's Johnny Depp.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yeah. That's Johnny Depp [laughing].
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Yeah. Right. But the helpers. The —
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Oh, the oompa loompas?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Yeah. He played all the oompa loompas?
>> Jordan Baker: All of them?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: All of them.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Wait. Wait. Oh, not John Cusack. The guy you're talking about [laughing]. I was like, "What?"
>> Jordan Baker: What's happening [laughing]?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: I don't remember him in that movie. But anyway.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: All right.
>> Jordan Baker: Anyway.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: We're back in the '80s.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Back in high school I was working at a place called A.J. and Charley's and the woman who started the coffee shop, A.J., didn't own a car. She had an airplane. A little Grumman tiger. And for — this is her first company and she had like three employees. And, for Christmas, she bought each one of us a 30 minute intro flight at the local flight school.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Damn. What a nice boss.
>> Jordan Baker: Right?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: I know.
And so —
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: She sounds amazing.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: I went up for 30 minutes and that's like — how many cups of coffee do I have to serve to get another hour in the airplane?
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Wow. Did she continually like help you out or was there like a club that like did that?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Well, there was a flight school, but there wasn't a flying club. That was just sort of the hook.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: OK.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: But she also helped me out because she was the one who — I think the statute of limitations has expired on this — she gave me a pirated C compiler and a reference for the Kernighan and Ritchie C book. And so that was my introduction into like grown up programming.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: And computer science. Yeah. Wow. So she like hooked you on —
>> Jordan Baker: Was that computer science things you just said?
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yeah. So the C program. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah.
>> Jordan Baker: OK.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Like C++, but before that.
>> Jordan Baker: I had no idea what that meant. I just thought we were on planes still [laughing].
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: It was a C plane.
>> Jordan Baker: Well, yeah, that's what I thought. I was like, "Oh, C plane?"
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Controlled by a robot. It's computer science.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: There we go. So I can say she got me hooked both into aviation and computer science.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: So what — what town was this in again?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: This was in Gig Harbor.
>> Jordan Baker: Oh, yeah. Sorry. We talked about this the other day.
>> Jordan Baker: Sorry, listeners. I thought you were there.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: I was there. I don't listen. So Gig Harbor. And she's still there?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: No. I think she has since passed away.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Oh, but she sounds amazing and she — what about the other employees? Did they also kind of catch the bug?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Well, one of the other employees was my girlfriend at the time.
>> Jordan Baker: Oooh.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Yes. And she caught the bug. She actually went to Embry-Riddle in Prescott Arizona and got her pilot's license there.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Wow. So yes. So this woman is just like kind of spread the love of aviation.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Absolutely.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: So you go to college, you become a computer scientist.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Yep.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: You get a PhD in computer science. And are you doing — are you flying the entire time?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: So I got — I flew as much as I could. I never actually got my pilot's license through high school. Went off to college. Graduated from Western. And my wife, Stacy, and I, who was not my girlfriend in high school — just to be clear —
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yeah. You're different from Lyn people like me. So I understand.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Yeah. We go out and meet new people.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yeah [laughing].
>> Jordan Baker: Gross.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yeah. What is that [laughing]?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: So Stace and I moved to Island County, which is, you know, Whidbey Island. And there's this little airport there called Whidbey Island Naval Air Station. And through —
>> Jordan Baker: Never heard of it.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Yeah. It's — if you're from Whidbey Island, it's hard not to hear it. They fly jets. Anyway, through the Civil Air Patrol, I actually got in to do their flying club, which made getting the pilot's license affordable.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yeah. So they give you discounts for being –? So how is it affordable because you go through that?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Because the flying club is part of Morale, Recreation, Welfare part of the military. It's, you know, what military people do when they goof off.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: OK. Cool.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: And so you're really just paying for the fuel and maintenance of the airplanes. The planes themselves are provided be the flying club.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: And they're not looking to turn a profit.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: So you're not renting the plane or anything, which costs?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Well, you're renting — I think, at the time, this would have been '95, '96, '97 maybe. Mid-90s. I think the planes were $45 an hour and a flight instructor was $15 an hour.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Oh, OK. OK. So and then you're flying. It's great. You love it. And then you're like, "I'm going to build a plane?"
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: OK. This was kind of —
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: So tell us what plane we flew in yesterday and then what plane you're building.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: So yesterday — it's a rated plane. It was a Cessna 172n and the n's are I think mid-80s, like an '88.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Which kind of tells you the age of the fleet. There's a lot of '70s and '80s airplanes out there. But this is like a real grown up airplane. You can buy it from Cessna. It's got all the parts.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Good [laughing].
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: You know, no assembly required. The battery is included.
>> Jordan Baker: What's this? Ah, I don't know.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: I don't know.
>> Jordan Baker: Throw it away.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: We didn't pay the extra five bucks.
>> Jordan Baker: Yeah. Exactly [laughing].
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: So I worked at a place down in Eugene and we did flight planning — the software we wrote did I think all the non-combat flights for the Air Force. It was just flight planning software.
And, as a benefit, if you worked on that project, the company paid for your next endorsements. Well, for most people, that's their private pilot. And the idea is that, if you get your private pilot, there's this navigation aspect to it and you have to understand how to navigate an airplane in order to write the software.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: That's a — yeah. That seems logical.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: It's a great argument.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: I don't know if it really works, but —
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Well, that's fine. Yeah.
So we're going to take a quick break and, when we come back, we want to just talk about like just the basic physics of like lift and we were talking about cross winds when we were up in the plane, talk about that a little bit when we come back.
[? Kenny Loggins singing Danger Zone ?]
>> Jordan Baker: If you're just joining us, this is Spark Science on KMRE 102.3 FM in Bellingham. I'm Jordan Baker.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: And I'm Regina Barber DeGraaff. Today, we're talking about our flight in a Cessna with Dr. Aran Clauson.
Beggin' you to touch and go
? Highway to the danger zone ?
? Ride into the danger zone ?
? Headin' into twilight ?
>> Jordan Baker: If there's a science idea that you're curious about, send us an e-mail or post a message on our Facebook page.
? She got you jumpin' off the track ?
? And shovin' into overdrive ?
? I'll take you riden' into the danger zone ?
[Pilot speaks indistinctly over radio]
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: G oes the wrong way. And I'm going to roll back and the nose goes the wrong way.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: That's because the [inaudible] are generating drag as they generate lift. The Router counteracts that. So if I don't put air on input, I can put more [inaudible] you can see the nose switch.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: And vice versa. That's how you drive a car. So our plane, if you have like a glass of water, you could hold onto this glass of water and keep the water level straight. I've seen people do aerobatics with a glass of water on the dash, on the panel, and it just sits there. I'm not that good.
>> Jordan Baker: Welcome back to Spark Science where we're speaking today with Dr. — is it Dr., right?
>> Jordan Baker: Aran Clauson who brought us up into an airplane.
>> Jordan Baker: And we didn't die.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: And we didn't die.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Which is a success.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yeah. It is a success. Every time.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: And the plane can still be used, so that's even better.
>> Jordan Baker: Right.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: So when we were up in the air, I think you were talking a lot about lift and you were also talking about like —
>> Jordan Baker: You think because you could hear him or you think –?
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: No. Because I'm trying to remember. It was like in the beginning I think [laughing]. I don't listen.
So we were talking about the plane and it was like tilting a certain way. So I want to kind of take this time to talk about the physics of just lift in general, which we have talked about in other episodes, and also like this idea of, I don't know, vector. There's a lot of vector algebra. I don't know.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: There's a lot of vector algebra going on.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Vector physics basically.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: So here's the — from a pilot's perspective.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: The stuff thank you need to know.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: To live.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: To live.
So you've got a wing and it's an airfoil. And this isn't quite right, but you can think of it as being symmetric. So the curve at the top and the curve at the bottom is the same. Some planes will have that. This plane didn't. It certainly had a positive camber.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: What's a camber?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: The bend in the wing.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: So if you draw — if you take a cross section of the wing and take — slice it up vertically and take the midpoint — it's sort of an arc. It bends. It's concave down.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: But if you think of a wing where that's not the case, where it's — that line would be straight, that there's as much wing above it as below it —
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: It's sort of an idealized wing. There's a curve, which is the coefficient of lift. And factoring in density and humidity and air pressure and air speed.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Density have air, right? You mean? OK. Not the density of the plane. Yeah.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Not the density of the plane. The density of the air. The air going over the airfoil
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: At different angles of attack — so as you — if you have the wind coming straight at the leading edge of the wing, it's not going to generate any lift because it's symmetric. The air just splits halfway above, halfway below.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Right. The velocity of the air going above the wing is going to be the same as the velocity of the air below the wing so, therefore, the pressure's going to be the same.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Ah, somebody who subscribes to Bernoulli.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Bernoulli's principle. Yes.
>> Jordan Baker: Sure.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yeah, sure. I teach it in class so that's why.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: So that's what the camber takes into effect. So the plane that we flew had a positive camber, which means the air going over the top of the wing has farther to travel than the wind going underneath the wing.
>> Jordan Baker: So it's kind of like — it's more shaped like a bird wing with like the — and then the other — the first flat one you were talking about reminds me of like an ultralight?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Well, ultralights will actually still have a positive camber.
>> Jordan Baker: Oh, dangit. I was wrong!
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: They just don't look like it?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Well, it's usually fabric.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: So what you're seeing is really the fabric looks like it's flat.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: OK. Got it.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Because of the way the pressure builds, it'll actually —
>> Jordan Baker: Oh, the optical illusion. That's what got me messed up.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: There it is.
>> Jordan Baker: I've only seen them on the ground.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: With zero angle of attack. So the wind is coming at the same angle as the wing and this is our idealized wing with no camber. There's no lift.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: As you increase angle of attack so that the wind is hitting more the bottom of the wing rather than coming right at the leading edge, you actually start generating positive lift.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: That's this coefficient of lift starts to increase. And it's basically linear up to about 20-ish degrees, 21, 22 degrees. After that, the wing stalls and it's still generating lift, it's just generating less lift as the angle of attack increases.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: So it sort of — if you think of it as a curve, it's almost a line coming off of the origin until it gets to about 21, 22 degrees, and then it rounds off.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: And when you mean 22 degrees, you mean like the wing itself?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: The angle between the relative wind and the wing.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: OK. And the wing.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: And the wing.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: OK. Got it. And then it just — OK.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: And then —
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: It doesn't really help that much. You have a stall. That's how planes stall.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: And we didn't do that the other day.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: No.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: But I really wanted —
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: No. Jordan can go up with you another day and that can happen [laughing].
>> Jordan Baker: That'll be fun.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Well, see, here's the interesting thing is you think about flying a plane it's like, "Ah, we want lots of lift, all kinds of lift. Lift is a good thing."
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Lift is our friend. Well, the truth is you want as much lift as the weight of the plane. If you generate more lift than that, you're actually accelerating up.
>> Jordan Baker: You want a balanced lift.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yeah. Exactly.
>> Jordan Baker: So like at breakfast. A balanced breakfast.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: When we were flying around, there's like four forces we're interested in. It's lift and weight. And you want those to counteract each other.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: So we don't want to climb. We don't want to descend. And then there's drag and thrust. And those have to balance each other. And drag is weird. Drag actually comes from two different areas. There's the drag of just taking the airframe and dragging it through the air. And this is — when you think about a car, you're driving down the road at 50, 60 — OK. So Regina's driving 80 miles an hour.
>> Jordan Baker: She's flying on the freeway.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: I am.
>> Jordan Baker: But she won't actually fly in a plane.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Correct.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: You're driving down the road, you put your care in neutral. And it slows down and eventually stops.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yep.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: And prime — well, there's other effects — but primarily it's speed. It's just the wind resistance. It's just the drag of moving through the air.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: That's what we're really — at cruising speeds above 60 miles an hour, that's basically it dominant force is it's called parasite drag.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Parasite drag. Sounds intense.
>> Jordan Baker: It does.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: It's a cubic relationship.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Cubic.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: So if you want to double your air speed, you need eight times the horsepower.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Oh, wow.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: So. That's the bad side of the power curve.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: So we're up there. We're flying around. We're going about 90 knots, 100 miles an hour or so. And we had the engine dragging us through the air and the engine was producing as much thrust as we had drag. The wing was producing as much lift as we had weight. And that's just sort of straight and level flight.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Right. It's almost statics.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Well, here's the interesting thing is the angle of attack is dictated by the weight. So if we're going 100 miles an hour, we're going to have an angle against the wind that's going to generate just the right amount of lift. Right?
So, if you want to slow down, at that point, because it's all parasite drag, you reduce thrust. So the drag will eventually dominate, we slow down, we drop to — and we slow down to 80, 70.
>> Jordan Baker: Yeah. When we cut off the engine. Or slowed it down.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Terrifying
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: So what happens is you end up nosing up. So you're increasing the angle of attack. So the plane is still flying level, but the nose is in the air because you want to increase angle of attack on the wind — or, yeah — the angle of attack with the wind so that you're still generating as much lift as the weight of the plane.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: [on radio] all right. So there's ignition systems. There's the one on the right [inaudible] on the left. It's on the bottom spark plugs. And one part is — they didn't differ by more than about 50 RPMs and the engine didn't quit. Which means both ignition systems are actually working [inaudible]. Dump a bunch of hot air into the intake. We lost about 50 RPM. And then we want to make sure, at idle, it doesn't die on us because this is what we're doing when we're landing.
>> Jordan Baker: Yeah. You don't want it to die when you're landing.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Yeah. No. All right. So mags carb vacuum was in the green. Amps. This is one of the problems with the LEDs is it used to be you turned a landing light on and you could see that it would be briefly discharge the battery. But the landing light is an LED. It doesn't pull that much current. So what I do is I [inaudible] the charging system off, and notice we're drawing about 17, 18 amps. Turn it back on and notice it's briefly positive as the battery charges back up. The charging system works.
Oil pump's in the green. Oil pressure's in the green. And [inaudible].
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: And so what Jordan's talking about is, to hopefully deal with some of the fear, we didn't turn the engine off. We throttle back the idle. But at that point, it's not really generating thrust. The propeller was just spinning in the slipstream. It's not doing anything.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: It's actually probably slowing us down. And what we did is we slowed down to this magic number, which is 65 knots in that plane.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: And what we were doing is we — since we weren't adding any power, we had to get energy from somewhere. And so the plane starts to descend. And we were losing 500 feet a minute at 65 knots. So 70-ish miles an hour.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Well, what it is is there's two sources of drag. There is the parasite drag that we're all used to. If you run really fast, you can feel it.
>> Jordan Baker: I don't run that fast.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff and Dr. Aran Clauson: Yeah. Me neither.
[Laughter ]
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Jinx.
>> Jordan Baker: Just making sure we're all on the same page.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: I'm a computer scientist. Running is a theory for me.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Hypothesis? It's testable.
>> Jordan Baker: I'm a butcher. I just stab the things that are faster than me. Throw knives at it.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: And then we eat them.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: So at about — so there's two forces — or there's two areas of drag. There's parasite drag. And then there's induced drag. And this is another angle of attack thing. And so, as the angle of attack increases, there's a coefficient of drag that also increases. And this is the drag of turning literal movement into lift. And so, as you get down to about 65 in that particular plane, parasite drag is still part of it, still a cubic relationship, but it's — the speed is getting so low that it's no longer the dominant source and this induced drag takes over.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: And what's inducing the drag?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: The actual generating lift.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: You can think of it — there's like — there's wing tip vertices. There's these spiral of air coming off the wing tips.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: And they increases at really high angles of attack.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: So you're generating lots of turbulence in the —
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Lots of eddies?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Yeah.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: OK. Well, that's what they're called.
>> Jordan Baker: Oh.
>> Jordan Baker: We were in the water now?
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Well, it's — kind of. Right? The little spirals.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: They're eddies. Right?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: They're just little eddies coming off the wing tips.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: That's for reals.
>> Jordan Baker: Fine.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Yeah. It's actually [inaudible].
>> Jordan Baker: I'm not arguing.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Right [laughing]. He's impressed. That's what that is.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: So, as you slow down — and we did not do this, again, because we were only at 2,000 feet — that you can slow down slower than 65. But, as you slow down, you actually need to add throttle back in. Because now we're not trying to compensate for the parasite drag. We're trying to compensate for the induced drag.
And so the — there's a point where you can slow down to the point where, you know, I've got full throttle and we're going 40 miles an hour, 35 miles an hour.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: And that's about as slow as you can go and maintain level flight because I don't have enough horsepower to [inaudible].
>> Jordan Baker: You're listening to Spark Science on KMRE 102.3 FM in Bellingham. We're talking about flight and physics with Dr. Aran Clauson.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: It's kind of weird. You get these layers of clouds and that's because we're getting so much moisture off the water. But you can think of it as like stratified moisture layers. So you got this air mass near the ground that's wet. And, as it goes up, it cools off and it eventually gets super saturated and turns into clouds. It doesn't want to do that. Something is pushing it up. The thing that's pushing it up is called turbulence. It's lifting of some flavor.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Well I just — I'm fascinating by all of this physics and all of this compensation that the pilots have to actually do and be practiced in and know how to do. I'm fascinated by, when we landed, there's tons of videos on YouTube of all these like giant jets landing in — just ton — right? You've seen these?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Oh, yeah.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Cross winds that are just going at like, you know, 30 miles per hour or even more.
>> Jordan Baker: Like all those like — I think it's Alaskan flight TV show that they're all like landing on a —
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yeah. And they're crabbing in. That's what it's called. Right? So they're —
>> Jordan Baker: Crabbing in.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Right. So they're not actually going straight like down the runaway. They're kind of coming in at an angle because they have to compensate for this cross wind. So you've had to deal with that before, right?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Oh, absolutely.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: There was a point in my life where you would go find those days. Oh, it's a 90 degree cross wind.
>> Jordan Baker: Two days ago [laughing].
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: And so this is where —
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Just a little bit.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: This is where that vector arithmetic comes in.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: So there's —
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: A heading for the runaway. So the runaway we were flying on was runaway 1-6. It was roughly 1-6-0 degrees.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: And so the wind we had I think was 1-9-0 so it was about 30 degrees off.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: And it was only going about 10 knots.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: And you have to do vector addition to figure out where you have to go in?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Well, we actually have this little — you didn't see me do it. Actually it's all digital now. But you get trained on a slide rule. It's a circular slide rule that computes your cross wind component.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Cool. So it tells you where to point?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: It's sine of 30 degrees times your wind speed is the cross wind component.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: So the plane we were in — I think it's published — 15 knots of cross wind is sort of my personal limit.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: And there's two reasons. One is that crabbing in. So let's say we have no headwind or tailwind. The wind is perpendicular to the runaway and it's 10 knots. Well, we did our approach at about 70 knots. Well, if I just point the airplane at the runaway, we're going to get blown off course in the four minutes it takes us to get there.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: The other planes would be mad.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Yeah. They get upset. The tower gets upset too.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: So what you do is you aim into the wind. And you want to aim into the wind so, you know, sine times whatever your angle into the wind is at 10 knots.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: So you just counteract it. And so you're really pointed a little upwind. You're not really heading relative to the ground, the way the airplane is pointed.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Well, that's sort of a bummer if you land that way because the tires only roll one way.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Right. Correct [laughing].
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: And this is where — so the plane we were in was tricycle gear; main wheel in the back, little wheel in the front. All right. The little wheel is the same size of the other ones, but the main gear is in the back. And that's important because the center of mass of the plane is in front of the main gear.
So, if I want to buy new tires, I could crab into the wind, fly all the way down to the runaway, just drop the main gear on the runaway. It would squeal and blow smoke and I would never be able to rent the plane again.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: But what it would do is just —
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: It would look cool because you'd leave tire marks.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: We're drifting in the plane.
>> Jordan Baker: He's so cool.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: But the plane would actually center itself. And we would be pointing down the runaway.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: It'd be noisy and expensive.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Tail draggers with the main gears in the front and the little wheels in the back — and it usually is a little wheel —
>> Jordan Baker: It is.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Have the opposite problem. Their center of mass is behind the main gear. So, if they tried that, tried to do that where they crab into the wind and just fly it down to the runaway, the center of mass is behind the main gear, what it's going to try and do is flip ends.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: So it's like pushing a shopping cart backwards.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: It really doesn't like it.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: And, well, when you swop ends in an airplane, it's called a ground loop, usually things get broken. And that thing is usually the wings.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Which are shockingly important.
>> Jordan Baker: What?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Yeah. So there's a trick where — so we've got — in any aircraft, there's four controls you're interested in as far as just going out and doing your business. There's roll, which is the ailerons. Those are the little bendy parts at the very end of the wing tips. And that's what rolls the airplane left and right. Sure.
There's pitch, which is nose up, nose down. That's the elevator in the back. And then there's the rudder, which gives a yaw input, which is how you drive a car because you can't, you know, roll a car or —
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Well, you can.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Yeah, you can. Less than ideal.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: But really in a car you're driving with a yaw input. I want to twist the plane to the left or the car to the left or right.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: The other input is power, which people often forget about. That's an important one. Well, there's this interesting trick that you can do where you can roll the airplane into the wind, but use the rudder. So you put a yaw input in so the airplane is still pointed down the runaway. And so the airplane wants to turn — let's say the wind is coming from the right — so you would roll into the right and then add left rudder so that the airplane is pointed down the runaway, but flying crooked. You we, its upwind wing is low.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: And it will fly straight. Well, straight. It will continue to fly and what you do is you take that lift vector, which is basically pointing up through the top of the plane, and you sort of point it at the wind.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: So rather than aiming into the wind, you actually aim your lift vector into the wind.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: So that it counteracts the cross wind.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: So you're saying it's not just Y and X, right? It's Z too.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: There's a Z.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Right. Wow.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Z is awesome.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Wow. I didn't even think of that.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Usually what you use your crab into the wind to 100 feet, 50 feet, depends on how good you are. I usually start — it's called a slip. So you start slipping. I'm usually like at 300 feet I'm all set up for that slip because I'm not that good.
Well, you can fly that right down to the runaway and what you'll do is you'll land with the upwind wheel first and then the downwind wheel and —
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Right. I've seen those landings.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: So if we go way, way back.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Yes.
>> Jordan Baker: Before they had these other safety features.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Before they had all these great things. Yeah.
>> Jordan Baker: And crabbing.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yeah [laughing]. And thinking about vector —
>> Jordan Baker: Was it just Jeppy in the plane and he just would fly straight up and then straight down? How did they start to come up with the rudder and the –?
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yeah. Like when did all that happen?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: That's actually — so that actually goes back to the Wright Brothers.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: And there were a couple things that the Wright Brothers did that their peers weren't.
>> Jordan Baker: Those were the Wrong Brothers.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Right [laughing]. Yeah. There was a rivalry for a long time.
>> Jordan Baker: Yeah. They messed up.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: All right. So here's the interesting trivia.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yes.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: So when the CAA started issuing — the Civil Aviation Authority — authority? I don't know. The precursor to the FAA was issuing airman certificates. They issued the Wright Brothers' certificates 3 and 4.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Wow. Who were 1 and 2?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: It was Lindberg and I can't remember who the other one was.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Lindberg.
>> Jordan Baker: That guy!
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Yeah. They issued them in alphabetical order.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Oh [laughing]. And the Wrights were at W.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Wow. There was four people.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Yep. Xavier Zanmorousky [sp?] got five I guess.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Anyways. So that's one of the things the Wright Brothers were interested in is like not just how do you get an airplane into the air, but, once you get there, what are you going to do?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: And so they spent a lot of time figuring out how — what controls you wanted and how you would affect these controls. And their peers really weren't doing that. It was more like hang gliders where the way you control a hang glider is by shifting your mass around underneath the wing.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: And they were actually interested in — they called it wing warping where they would actually change the camber of the wing to affect a roll or — well, that was typically the aileron input. And they did have rudders in the front and they had an elevator — well, the rudder was in the back. The elevator was in the front, which is sort of an interesting change.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: So — but were their wings as bent as let's say –?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: They had a very high camber.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: And it was one of the — the other things that they did that their peers weren't is that they were actual scientists. They didn't design a wing to look like a bird.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: They — actually they did that originally. They were making kites and studying how the kites flew. And the first one wasn't performing well so they made a better one and it didn't perform well. And then like, "Maybe we don't understand this whole lift and fluid dynamics thing."
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: And they constructed a wind tunnel and started looking at what shapes does a wing need to be. And they figured out that there's this thing called the aspect ratio, which is the width of a wing versus the wingspan.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: And the greater that ratio, the more efficient the wing.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Oh, OK.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: And so they went from stubby little kites to the Wright Flyer One, which is a relatively narrow wing with a long wingspan.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: And that got off the ground and flew and here we are today.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: So what kind of scientists were they?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: They were bicycle — they made bicycles.
>> Jordan Baker: Bicycle scientists?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: But they switched from making wings that looked like birds' wings to, "Let's understand how these things work in the first place and design a better wing."
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Right. Which is — which makes the laugh because I realized that like — is it Red Bull that does the competition every year where people are making the like –?
>> Jordan Baker: Oh, yeah.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: You know what I'm talking about, right? But people still try to make devices or, you know, machines that look like birds still. Like to this day, people still I think don't work.
>> Jordan Baker: Reinvent the wing?
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yeah [laughing]. They don't really work as well. But we're going to take a break and, when we come back from that, I want to maybe continue a little bit about history.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Sure.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Talk about my horrible fear of flight and how it's validated by statistics.
>> Jordan Baker: Stop.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: And maybe wings.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: This is Aran Clauson, amateur pilot. And you are listening to KMRE LP 102.3 FM in Bellingham. Your community, your voice, your station.
? Metal under tension ?
? Beggin' you to touch and go ?
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Today's episode, Physics, Fear, and Flight with Dr. Aran Clauson was produced in the KMRE Spark Radio Studios located in the Spark Museum on Bay Street in Bellingham.
? Spreadin' out her wings tonight ?
? She got you jumpin' off the deck ?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: So you are listening to KMRE LP 102.3 FM in Bellingham. Your community, your voice, your station.
? Ridin' into the danger zone ?
? You'll never say hello to you ?
? Until you get it on in the red line overload ?
[Pilot speaking indistinctly over radio]
>> Your transition is approved. That's [inaudible] 3-0-1-1 at Bellingham [inaudible].
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: We're back speaking with Dr. Aran Clauson about aviation and my horrible fear of flying. I am not really afraid of flying commercial airlines, but I am afraid of flying in smaller planes, which we did a couple days ago. So —
>> Jordan Baker: Why is that? Is there a statistic about larger planes going down more often than smaller planes?
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: The other way. The other way around.
>> Jordan Baker: Well, I was just asking. I don't know. If there was only somebody we knew who had the answer.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Right. So Aran came up to me and like tried to make me feel better. And what did you say?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: So this is a rule of thumb.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: And so with commercial aviation, the big jets, the most dangerous part of a commercial flight is getting to the airport.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: On the freeway.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: On the freeway in your car.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Or on the side roads, right?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: However you're getting there. Once you're in the plane, you're — that's like the safest place you can be.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Right. But then you gave me a statistic related to motorcycles.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: General aviation, which is what I do — so you're in a Cessna. It's a rated plane. I have a private pilot certificate. I have to go get a medical exam every two years. It's —
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: That's just good for you, though. That's awesome.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: It's a totally different one.
>> Jordan Baker: Congratulations.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: This is where you go see the doctor and he's like, "How do you feel?" and I tell him, "I feel fantastic, but I expect to feel better any day now." He signs my ticket off for a few years and I'm good. I have a total other doctor for the, "Man, it hurts when I do that."
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: And I'm hoping the FAA's not listening to that.
So general aviation, which is, you know, yahoos like me in little planes actually controlling the thing is in the same neighborhood as riding a motorcycle. That — you know, motorcycles crash about as often per hour as general aviation airplane.
>> Jordan Baker: So the motorcycle statistic actually, when I heard it, when I started riding, was the first six months of riding a motorcycle is the most dangerous.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Oh, really?
>> Jordan Baker: Any time after that is fine. So there's a lot of people out there.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: I'm covered.
>> Jordan Baker: Yeah. Within that six months that are just dropping like flies.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: So our produce over here, Katie Knutson, is making a face. She made the same face that I made when Aran said this to me because he's like, "So, do you ride motorcycles?" and I said, "Of course not."
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: And I was surprised. I thought everybody did.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Ah, no. And I don't because they look super dangerous.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Oh, they are.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: God [laughing].
>> Jordan Baker: Exactly [laughing].
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: See, that didn't make me feel better.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: But it's not like — I don't know what's more dangerous than that. Like jumping out of an airplane with a parachute, that's just crazy.
>> Jordan Baker: Oh, I think that's safer.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: I don't think it is, Jordan [laughing]. Did you look at those statistics?
>> Jordan Baker: Yeah. What is the statistic on that, you know?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: I don't know.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: The jumping out? So I have a friend who is a skydiver and she's done like 160 something —
>> Jordan Baker: And she's not dead, right?
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: She's not dead.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: But she said that after —
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: There's one data point.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: She said [laughing] — yeah. There is a number, and I don't remember what it was. I think it was — it was like in the 300s or something. She was like, "Yeah. At that point, your like statistics are getting like more and more likely that something is going to happen to you?" And I was like, "Wow, that sounds terrifying." It's like past 200 or something.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: And yet you drive a car.
>> Jordan Baker: Yeah. I was going to say.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yeah. I don't even let myself go there.
>> Jordan Baker: When I lived in California, California will allow you to take a class so you don't get a speeding ticket or something on your record. So I went and took this class and they said that — I'm sure it's gone up from now — but they said the amount of wrecks that happen in the US are equivalent to a Boeing 747 going down every single day.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yeah. Yeah. That's — yeah. So that's why I'm not afraid of commercial airlines, but I would as afraid of your motorcycle statistic when we went up a couple days ago.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Well, here's — to typical accident is running out of gas. And so we went up —
>> Jordan Baker: We checked it. Remember? Remember, we checked it?
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: We have a picture of that, listeners.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: OK. So this is how paranoid I am. So we left for an hour flight. It was 1.1 hours. And we had three hours and change for the gas.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yeah [laughing]. Just in case.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: So we were covered.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: And that's —
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yeah. I do want to say to our listeners that Aran is very, very cautious. Like everything he was like, "Let's check this. Like I — let's, you know, let's go in at this vector because I don't trust this other one." He's like, "Now let's look around to see if there's any other planes that are going to hit us." And that was — that made me feel a lot better. I do want to say that.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Well, I was in the plane.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: If it was a remote control — let's just go. No. And that's part of it. You know, there's a preflight inspection and we did a run up before we took off. And it's — it's sort of checking the shape of the airplane that all the parts are there and nothing's rusting out. And then we did a run-up where you don't quite get the engine to full power, but you get it up to about 17, 18 RPMs and make sure there's — there's two ignition systems and there's two spark plugs per cylinder and you try the ones on the left and you work and the ones on the right and they work. And the carburetor's doing its thing.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yeah. Well, I was actually impressed. I — the amount of like safety checks we did was way more than I thought was going to happen. And so I do want to thank you for making me feel good.
>> Jordan Baker: The safety checks I thought was going to happen was going to be the equivalent of the movie Radio Flyer where the kid just turns a radio flyer wagon into a plane.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yeah. I've seen that.
>> Jordan Baker: Yeah. Just hits the wing, "All right. Let's start this lawn mower up!"
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: To bring us back to TV and computer science too.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: We talked about Top Gun, but is there any other aviation movies that are just ridiculous, like super inaccurate as a pilot now that you watch them? Or pretty accurate as a pilot?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: That's an interesting question.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yeah. I'm full of interesting stuff.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Well, I have to say there's actually a movie called Always that I really enjoy.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: But I haven't seen it recently to tell you that if it's terribly accurate or inaccurate.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Who's in it?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Richard Dreyfuss.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Is the ghost.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: He's a ghost?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: He's a ghost.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: I want to watch this.
>> Jordan Baker: This is horrible. Richard Dreyfuss [laughing]?
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Jordan and I were forced to watch Mr. Holland's Opus over and over and over again when we were in band.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: At — in Lynden. So we're not the biggest Richard Dreyfuss fans [laughing]. But if he's a ghost, I mean, I kind of — I'm kind of curious how.
>> Jordan Baker: No. Don't even. No.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: So it's actually a lot about fighting forest fires from the air.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: OK. Which is how he died? Because he's a ghost?
>> Jordan Baker: Of course.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: And he's supposed to be mentor for this up and coming pilot who cannot have — he just cannot do a stable approach. So he's coming into land and, you know, he's rolling about 45 degrees each way.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Oh, God.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: And there's actually a comment you can make to pilots, "Oh, that was an Always approach."
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Referencing that movie?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Referencing that movie.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: We're in the know now.
>> Jordan Baker: That's kind of like The Guardian but an Always version. The Guardian — it was — I can't remember.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Kevin Kline?
>> Jordan Baker: Kevin Costner. Yeah. Where he takes on this young —
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: That's every movie. That's Cats.
>> Jordan Baker: I've never seen that.
>> Jordan Baker: Is it one lady in a house?
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: No. You take on, you know, a young apprentice. I don't know. I get — that reference is from Simpsons. I don't know if that's even true.
But so can you think of any other movies? Top Gun, of course, is awesome, but that's jets. So let's think of Cessnas. I think there's a movie with Anna Paquin and geese.
>> Jordan Baker: Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say. I was trying to say it. What was it?
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Fly Away Home.
>> Jordan Baker: Fly Away Home. Yeah.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: I enjoyed that movie.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Did you? I've never seen it. How was it?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: It's a good movie.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: I'm sure it has to be fairly accurate, right? It's like a — based on a true story or something.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Well, it is based off of a true story.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: But there's a part in the movie that I — if I remember right, they were flying out of Canada down to Florida with these Canada geese.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: And they actually —
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: They're so loud and poopy.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Yes. They end up flying into a control area in the states.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: On.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: By accident.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: And so that was — I kind of enjoyed that.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Because it's sort of — you're worried of flying, crashing, and dying. I'm worried about flying into somebody else's airspace and not calling them.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Oh, yeah. That's a good point.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: And it's really weird up here with, you know, Canada.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Canada right there. Yeah.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: So did Anna Paquin get shot out of the sky?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Well, they had F15s. It was sort of a mashup.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: No!
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: They just landed.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: I was like, "What?"
>> Jordan Baker: The untold story!
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: I should watch this movie.
>> Jordan Baker: F15s blew all the Canadian geese away [laughing].
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: That was the end. That was the director's cut.
>> Jordan Baker: Yeah. Director's cut [laughing]. The alternate ending.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: You have to turn the commentary on. The F15 in the background.
>> Jordan Baker: Here's what actually happened.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Right. That's based on a true story.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Well, I'm trying to think of the aviation in the movie.
>> Jordan Baker: It's all true except for 10% of the movie where they actually fly.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Right. And there are geese [laughing].
You're listening to Spark Science on KMRE 102.3 FM in Bellingham. And we're talking about physics and flight with Dr. Aran Clauson.
? You'll never know what you can do ?
>> Jordan Baker: All right. You said we're going to do a barrel roll?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Technically it's aeroroll.
>> Jordan Baker: Yeah. It's an [inaudible]
[ Speaking indistinctly over radio ]
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: And I'm not. I don't do that and I wouldn't do that even if I had a plane that was [inaudible] this close to the ground.
>> Jordan Baker: All right, guys. We're going to take a selfie.
There was — I thought there was some movie with like Will Smith was like a test pilot for the Navy or —
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: That was Independence Day.
>> Jordan Baker: Was that Independence Day [laughing]? I don't know [laughing].
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: There's not a movie, but there's a Flying Alaska. I think it's on discovery.
>> Jordan Baker: Oh, yeah. Flying Alaska. I haven't seen it, but I know what you're talking about.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: I have seen each and every episode.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: You watch a lot of Discovery.
>> Jordan Baker: Yeah. You've watched every episode?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Yeah. It's — I really enjoy it, but there's a — so in Alaska, flying is a little different. We have the benefit of runaways. They'll land on sandbars and hillsides and, you know, they drop people off in the back country to go, I don't know, hunt stuff.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Go camping.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: And it's not the safest maneuver.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: But it's not — you know, they bill it as like, "Oh, this is the most dangerous thing you can do in aviation is, you know, go land in the grass." You know, I've landed in the grass.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Have you?
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Why?
>> Jordan Baker: How are you here?
>> Jordan Baker: Are you a ghost?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: So down in Arlington —
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Richard Dreyfuss.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: That's it.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Sorry.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Yes. Yes. I am a ghost.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: That's an Always maneuver to be a ghost. So go ahead. You landed in grass?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: So down in Arlington there's a — which is a — so we took off out of Bellingham. Bellingham has a control tower.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: It does. We heard it.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: You and — and, listeners, you might also hear it.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Yeah. So we had to talk to — there's an area of the airport that there's a person in the tower who's grounded and they control everything up to the runaway. And the tower owns the runaway and everything that's off the ground up to — it's about 2,700 feet. And you have to ask for permission and get clearance and, you know, hopefully you'll hear the part where we're coming back in and they tell us exactly what to do. And I did my best to do what they asked me to do.
[Tower speaking indistinctly over radio]
>> Jordan Baker: Textbook landing. Beautiful.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Sky [inaudible] 7-4-5 taking delta, taxiing, parking, monitoring ground.
Arlington has no tower.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Oh.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: So there is a frequency that's assigned for the radios and you're supposed to tell Arlington traffic, "I'm about to do something crazy."
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: And this is Arlington, Washington for our listeners in Italy.
>> Jordan Baker: Not Arlington, Texas.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Not Arlington, you know DC or whatever. Virginia.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: So, yeah. Arlington is an old World War II airport. It's a big airport, but there's no control tower. And so, when you're coming in, you're like, "Hey, I'm five miles out. Landing on," whatever runaway you're going to land on. So crazy stuff happens there. They do glider ops. There's ultralights. There's rated planes. It's — I used to fly out of there a lot and you would take off and be the only person in the sky. And, by the time you've turned around and landed, there's like eight people.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: My aunt lives one mile from it. That just hit me. When I go to her house, I see that airport all the time. Yeah.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: And so when I was flying out of there, there was a guy with a Yugoslavian fighter that he would go fly around with.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Oh, my gosh [laughing].
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: We would do the pattern at about a half mile out. He'll do it at five miles out because, you know, he [inaudible] at 200 miles an hour.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Wow.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: So Arlington's weird.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Well, there's the main runaway that you land on. And there are these little exits. There's the — an exit at — there's a way onto the runaway at the very beginning of the runaway, you know, a mile at the other end, the other extreme. And then there's two in the middle.
Well, the islands, you know, where it's not paved, is just grass and they just mow it down so you can like see the signs and see the runaway.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Well, I had a Cessna 150 and it didn't have wheel pants like the 172 did the other day.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Wheel pants. I love it.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: They're little shoes that just makes the tires go faster.
>> Jordan Baker: It was more like spats.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Well, you just make your approach and it's like, "Yeah. I'm going to go land in the grass." And you would just land in the grass to the right of the runaway.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: And you just roll out.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: And they were like, "That's OK. We have fighter planes here. That's cool."
>> Jordan Baker: There's nobody controlling it. Right?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: There's nobody out there. It's just — and I wasn't the only one doing it.
>> Jordan Baker: So if all your friends were doing it, then it's fine for you to do it.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Yeah. If I all my friends are landing there.
>> Jordan Baker: Geez.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: But it's a different — it's called a soft field landing. So, you know, it wasn't a bad landing the other day.
>> Jordan Baker: You got to get versed in it somehow, right?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Yeah. So it's just practice.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yeah. When you go out to the wild Canadian, you know — like that show that you watch. So one day that will be you.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: And that's — that was kind of my point. It's a great show. They do some fun stuff. But it's — you know, when they talk about landing, some of the sandbar landings that the guy does in the TV show, that's like crazy. Where he actually puts the tires down in the river to slow down.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Oh, yeah. I've seen that.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Yeah. I don't do that.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: But landing on a ridgeline? That's – I would do that. So it's not like, "Oh, my God. The guy's going to die because he landing on a ridgeline." It's just like, well, it's not paved. It's like, you know, driving down a dirt road rather than driving down the freeway.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: He's just spoiled. Really.
>> Jordan Baker: If we could talk really quick about — I saw the most dangerous airport in the world. Do you know anything about that? I think it was —
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Up in the Himalayas?
>> Jordan Baker: They have like some crazy approach to it. Have you heard anything about it? I just want more information.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Sure. I cannot remember the name of it. It's named after Hillary's Sherpa.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: And I don't remember his name. But it's — so it's a one way runway. So you take off one way and you land the other.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: So we're — you know, in Bellingham, we took off on 1-6 and you landed on 1-6. This would be like landing on 1-6 and taking off on 3-4.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: It's uphill on the approach. So you touch down on the numbers and you're actually going uphill. Which is great on a landing because now you're — you don't have to hit your break because you're going uphill.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: And it's great on the takeoff because you turn around and you fly downhill.
>> Jordan Baker: And then it just disappears.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: So why is it the most dangerous?
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Very high altitude.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: And it's short.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: And yetis.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: And yetis. Yeah.
And there's no real go round. So you're basically flying into a cliff face. So, if you miss your approach for some reason, it's a pretty aggressive maneuver to get out of there.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: So you come in, you land. And airplanes get squirrely at altitude because the air isn't dense. It's kind of thin.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: That the ailerons don't work as well. The rudder — you start losing rudder authority. So it's — and, you know, it's — you got to go fly a little faster and you approach a little faster and that runway's not getting any longer.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: So, yes. I don't go there.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Right. I don't go to the Himalayas.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: I don't think that [inaudible] would make it up that high.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Right. I do want to say, as we finish this show, that I really did appreciate and hopefully the listeners have already heard kind of the beginning of when you were like, "OK. Now we're at 500 feet. Now everything's safe." Having you take us through that was very, very helpful and now you telling me about this Himalayan thing, I'm glad that we aren't there.
>> Jordan Baker: So you're welcome.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: No problem.
>> Jordan Baker: And thank you.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: And, yeah, thank you so much for taking the time to take us up in the air.
>> Dr. Aran Clauson: Let's go again.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: All right. Thank you so much, Aran, for coming and talking to us about aviation.
>> Jordan Baker: Thank you very much.
>> Taxiing markings are faded. Please go to the Sea-Tac airport. Advise you have information India.
>> Jordan Baker: India? Somebody's flying to India?
>> Bellingham International Airport, India, 1-7, [inaudible] 1-0 sky condition. Ceiling 2,300. Overcast. Temperature 1-7. Due point 1-3. Altimeter 3-0-1-1. [inaudible] approach 1-6 in use. No [inaudible].
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Thank you for joining us. We just spoke with pilot and computer scientist Dr. Aran Clauson about aviation.
>> Jordan Baker: If you missed any of the show, go to our website, KMRE.org, and click on the podcast link. Our show is entirely volunteer run and if you would like to help us out, click on the button "donate."
This is Spark Science. I'm Jordan Baker.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: And I'm Regina Barber DeGraaff.
>> Jordan Baker: If there's a science idea that you're curious about, send us an e-mail or post a message on our Facebook page, Spark Science.
? Until you get it on the red line overload ?
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Today's episode, Physics, Fear, and Flight with Dr. Aran Clauson was produced in the KMRE Spark Radio Studios located in the Spark Museum on Bay Street in Bellingham. Our producer is Katie Knutson and the engineer for today's show is Eric Februetta [sp?]. Our theme music is "Chemical Calisthenics" by Blackalicious.
>> Jordan Baker: And our feature song today is "Danger Zone" by Kenny Loggins.
? Out along the edges ?
? Always where I burn to be ?
? The further on the edge ?
? The hotter the intensity ?
? Gonna take you right into the danger zone ?
? Lead, gold, tin, iron, platinum, zinc, when I rap you think
? Iodine nitrate activate
? Red geranium, the only difference is I transmit sound
? Balance was unbalanced then you add a little talent in
? Careful, careful with those ingredients
? They could explode and blow up if you drop them
? And they hit the ground