Life as a Physicist

Global Entry–Just Get It April 20, 2011

A month or two ago I was traveling back from Geneva with a friend of mine. Kaori and I were on a flight that was late – about an hour late. We landed at IAD and really had to race to make our connections (we had less than an hour). We raced to immigration and I got in line. Looking around – I couldn’t find her… looking over to the side, I saw her at some kiosk… in about a minute or so she was racing through to the baggage pick up. Me… I hung out in the line for about 5 minutes.

She was using the Global Entry program. Having signed up and used it for my most recent flight… I’m a fan. It is fairly cheap – $100 bucks for 5 years. You do have to give up finger prints and picture to the US government – as far as I know that is the first set of finger prints any government agency has on record for me – so that was a little weird. As an example, on my last flight into IAD the plane doors were opened at 4:10 pm. At 4:22 pm I was in the X-Ray line. This included more than 5 minutes of walking since our plane was waaaay down the terminal. You use a kiosk instead of a person in the immigration area. I’d say it took the same amount of time as dealing with an officer who decided not to ask any question and if there were no lines – about 90 seconds or so. Extra bonus: no filling out those @*#&@ blue custom forms (there is an abbreviated version on the kiosk). And, when you go through customs, there is a separate line that lets you cut to the front (at least, in IAD). You just hand them a bit of paper that the immigration kiosk printed out and you are done.

I could imagine there are a number of circumstances that don’t make this worth it. If you always travel with kids under 14 you can’t use this (well, the kids can’t use this), if you always check baggage the time saved will be a small fraction of your total time, and I think there are only about 20 airports that support it (these are where your international ports-of-entry). Oh, and if you like watching people while standing in lines to relax after that long flight being cooped up… then this isn’t for you either.

My flight into IAD earlier this week was over an hour late. I had less than an hour to connect. A student of mine and I were both on the plane and both were on the connecting flight to Seattle. Neither of us had bags checked. The Seattle flight was in D29 in IAD (which means a long walk). I did a brisk walk and made it before boarding started. He had to sprint some of the way and made it after everyone had already boarded – but he still made it. BTW – I was also able to skip to the front of the X-Ray line which can be killer in IAD because I’d been upgraded on that last leg. That probably saved me an additional 10 minutes or so on this trip.

So… I’d recommend getting this if you flight internationally with any frequency. It definitely made that part of my trip quicker and, thus, more enjoyable!

As a side note… WHY don’t they design the airport so that if you don’t have to pickup your luggage you don’t have to go thought security again?

AF 447: All anyone is talking about June 2, 2009

I’m spending a week at an ATLAS meeting here in Geneva. The day I flew was the day of the horrible Air France 447 crash. The plane just disappeared over the Atlantic on its way from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to Paris, France. Just disappeared. It flew through heavy turbulence and a thunder storm. And just disappeared.

As I’m sure you’ve read by now modern airplanes (which this A330 is most certainly one of) are built to deal with these sorts of conditions. Being struck by lighting, flying through strong and gusty winds, etc. So what happened?

Of course, none of us know. But many of the group of people over here at CERN that I hang out with are from the USA. Which means we take these long distance flights all the time. In the past month I’ve taken the equivalent of two of these flights. The uncertainty is really getting to us. Most of us will be on one of these long distance flights (and some on a A330) in less than a week. So you can imagine…

There is another plane crash I remember – Swiss Air 111. This flight was going from JFK to Geneva in 1998. It happened during the CHEP 1998 conference. There were a bunch of people on that flight from the CHEP conference.

I guess one comforting thing for those of us that have to fly is that this is the first A330 crash ever (besides one initial test flight). Still, it is the main topic of conversation over beer and lunch right now. Which is probably just making it worse.

Regardless, our hearts go out to the folks that survived the passengers of 447. We are all connected to the people on that flight one way or the other.

UPDATE: Now that they have found the wreckage they are sending a submersible down there to search for the black boxes. Apparently, the submersible they are using is the same one that is used to repair the Antares experiment (a neutrino experiment on the floor of the ocean).

UPDATE II: I went to dinner last night with someone that was actively trying to get on that Swiss Air 111 flight. It was sold out, fortunately. He knew some people from BNL that were on that flight, on their way to CERN.

777 Is Not Big Enough May 18, 2009

A Boeing 777 is a big plane. Apparently, however, it is not big enough. I’d swear going over Canada we were actually a paper airplane. Or the pilots were entertaining themselves.

There is a great Farside cartoon (which I can’t find) – it shows two pilots in a jet and one saying to the other “Let’s do that again! Announce more rough air ahead”. Brilliant – it was about how I felt during this flight!

Ever since 9/11 turbulence has been a fascination of mine. Before 9/11 I never cared about it. I was in a plane on 9/11, on the way back from China. It was a smooth ride. But something about that whole experience…

How many people listen to Channel 9 when it gets rough? Available on United, it enables you to listen in on radio communications. When flying through heavy turbulence the first thing you learn is that… no, it isn’t heavy. “Light Chop”, as defined the by pilots, is the stuff that makes the plane go bumpity-bumpity-bump. You, the non-flight attendant, can still walk, but you might hold onto something as you do it. At the upper end of the light scale the pilot turns on the seat belt sign. Then comes moderate.

I think that is worst I’ve ever bin through. I’d hate to know what the other two feel like (“heavy” and “extreme”). At the low end of moderate you could walk if you first violated the seatbelt sign (who doesn’t!?) and really held onto things tightly. Flight attendants even start holding onto things here – and at the upper end they have to sit as well. Now the plane is making decidedly un-plane like noises (thump! Groan! Creeeeek!). Listening in on Channel 9 I heard another pilot describe +- 20% pitch, gusts across the plane that caused “significant sheer”. In the understated language of jet pilots, significant is well, probably significant (the flight controller responded with “Wow!”). Another guy said something like “we are being tossed all over the place – like salad!” No one, of course, had any fear in their voices. We were decidedly below a plane’s breaking point

Uncharacteristically, however, our plane wasn’t changing altitudes to find smoother air. This is what caused me to listen into Channel 9 in the first place. Every other plane was hunting around, trying all sorts of different altitudes – looking for a bit of smooth air. That is what I’m used to. It sounds like way down at 29,000 feet it was smooth. We were up at 37,000 and it was decidedly unsmooth!

Every time the flight controller would ask how the air was up here, our pilot would always say light chop with intermittent moderate chop. This is exactly what everyone else was saying, and what every other plane was going up and down trying to figure out how to avoid. But not our guy. He just powered through it. The result: I didn’t sleep a wink until we were well over the Atlantic and things smoothed out.

That was another thing. As long as we were over North America all conversations were between the flight controller and the pilot. As soon as we left Canadian airspace, there was a “switch to frequency xxxx, end radar coverage”. After getting a backup frequency, the pilot switched over, announced himself (as they always do when they change). And then the pilots talk to each other “Hey – anyone know who won the Preakness?” 🙂 The other thing is it sounded like the planes, once they start the “crossing” can’t change altitudes. They are allocated a slot before they start, which is cleared in some central clearing house, and then they have to stick with it for the whole flight.