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Thomas
@aviationdoctor.eth
The record cancelation of flights out of Phoenix, Arizona in the summer of 2017 due to unusually high air temperature is the reason I picked my doctoral research topic on the impacts of climate change on aviation. Now, Phoenix set another unfortunate record: 100 straight days of 100°F (~38°C) or greater heat, beating the previous streak by 3.5 weeks. The death toll will likely be in the hundreds this year (it was 645 last year for the whole Maricopa county). But of course, this does not include the death of local fauna and flora, which is silent until we find our food chains disrupted. https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2024/09/03/phoenix-100-degree-temperatures-record/
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Tempe.degen 🎩
@tempetechie.eth
I didn't know they cancel flights due to too high temperatures 🤔 Can you expand on the reasons behind that?
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Thomas
@aviationdoctor.eth
With pleasure! What happened in Phoenix that day is that the air temperature exceeded the "environmental envelope" of the smaller regional aircraft (Bombardier, Embraer, etc.). That envelope defines the ranges of temperatures and altitudes at which an aircraft is certified to fly. It doesn't mean the aircraft can't fly outside of that envelope; only that they're not allowed to do so. It's possible for the OEMs to extend the envelope by proving the airworthiness of their aircraft in hotter environments, so in the long term that's not really an issue. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40339730
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Thomas
@aviationdoctor.eth
The deeper issue, though (not related to what happened in Phoenix in 2017) is that warmer air is also less dense, and therefore the wings are generating less lift for a given groundspeed. Eventually, the aircraft runs out of thrust, runway, or tire speed, and the only way to take off is to remove payload from the aircraft. If the residual load factor falls beneath the breakeven load factor, then it's no longer economical to operate the flight. So the extra heat can be thought of as a weight penalty imposed on all aircraft (that's what my research was about).
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