[SUBMITTED] A Plane Problem

by **The Super Fork** » Fri Mar 15, 2019 11:09 am

Thoughts?

Draft 3
Description: Last Tuesday, over a hundred people were killed and many more injured when a plane overshot the runway at downtown @@ANIMAL@@ City Airport and crashed into a concert being held at @@LEADER@@ Park. Several concerned citizens have come to your office to voice their opinions on the matter.

Validity: Must have airplanes.

Option 1: “The solution is plainly obvious” says @@ANIMAL@@ City Airport manager @@RANDOMNAME@@. “The city is too dense to extend the runway, so we should establish @@LEADER@@ Park as a runway safety area. People wouldn’t be allowed into the park for their safety, but it would still be a green space for @@ANIMAL@@ City”.

Effect: riots have erupted over lack of picnic areas

Option 2: “No way!” shouts @@RANDOMNAME@@, who was last seen hugging a tree. “We can’t allow this park to be closed to the good people of @@ANIMAL@@ City! To put it plainly, we need to invest in improving pilot training so this never happens again”.

Effect: pilots long to finish training and take to the skies

Option 3: “@@ANIMAL@@ City Airport is outdated anyway,” says your Minister of Transportation, @@RANDOMNAME@@. “We can build a new, modern airport outside the city, capable of handling the newest planes. Think of the tourism revenue!”

Effect: tourists travel to @@NAME@@ just to see the muti-billion @@CURRENCY@@ airport

Option 4:
Your technology hating uncle, who you banned from your office, jumps out from behind a potted plant, saying, “I hate planes! Those darn metal monstrosities always fly over my house and scare me half to death with their weird noises!” As security drags him away, he shouts,”You should just abolish planes all together!”

Effect: only the richest citizens can afford zeppelin flights

Policy Addition: No Planes

Draft 2

Draft 1

by **The New California Republic** » Fri Mar 15, 2019 11:16 am

The Super Fork wrote:Option 2: ... All you need to do is place a limit on how large planes coming to @@ANIMAL@@ City Airport can be!

Effect 2: Only propellor planes come to @@ANIMAL@@ City Airport.

Trust me, planes with propellers can be LARGE:

The Super Fork wrote:Option 3: Your technology hating uncle that you thought you had kicked out of your office jumps out from behind a potted plant, saying, “I hate planes! Those darn metal monstrosities always fly over my house and scare me half to death with their weird noises!” As security drags him away, he shouts,”You should just abolish planes all together!”

Effect 3: @@DEMONYM@@ citizens never take to the skies.

Banning planes wouldn't stop people going up in a hot air balloon or a blimp...

by **Verdant Haven** » Fri Mar 15, 2019 1:12 pm

Ahh, airport and airplane safety! A topic in which I have a more than passing interest.

Runway overruns are typically caused not by the type of airplane landing at a given location (they know before trying whether or not it's within bounds for their type), but by some exigent condition or an error which results in the normal requirements not being enough: excessive water or wind conditions (Lion 583), landing too far past the threshold (American 331), failure of, or failure to properly use, the brakes or thrust reversers (Southwest 1248), incorrect modification of the runway surface (TAM 3054), etc. Extending a runway is a billion dollar task that is generally done with a decade+ of planning, in order to increase future capacity, rather than in response to a mishap. By way of example about how airplane type isn't the issue, Tegucigalpa/Toncontin airport in Honduras was notorious for its short runway. Here is footage of a 757 landing safely, while here is a photo series showing a much much much smaller G200 that overshot.

I think this could be an excellent issue if it is looked at from the perspective of real-world solutions for overruns. The current real world international standard is to require a sufficient RSA (Runway Safety Area), and many regulators encourage the use of EMAS (Engineered Materials Arrestor System) which can stop a plane safely rather than having it crash and break up.

An RSA, for example, is recommended to provide 300m of extra stop distance beyond the end of the runway, and is about half that in width. These areas are usually green spaces, and in some cases are public parks, which might fit your narrative nicely. The fact that a park was off the runway is not abnormal, but maybe the speaker now wants to keep people out of it and make it a fully restricted area?

An EMAS would be a solution that might be suggested to try and keep the park open, but allow for safe stopping. They typically involve paving the area past the runway end with a lightweight concrete that is calculated to break under the weight of a plane and "catch" the gear safely - if you imagine driving over a bed of foam and your car sinking in, it's similar to that. These are especially widely used at airports in big cities with historical build up around them, where they don't have room for giant RSAs - The NYC airports, the Chicago airports, all have EMAS installed. This would be a great "spend money to save lives" option for somebody to suggest.

I wouldn't suggest trying to reduce the types of planes usable there, but if you want a good pro-regulation option, I imagine somebody arguing about the actual cause of the overrun in question could present a safety/training position very effectively, blaming pilots for poor airmanship (Swissair 316), or the airports for having bad weather data (Lufthansa 2904), or the like, and asking for more training or equipment.

by **Australian rePublic** » Fri Mar 15, 2019 2:23 pm

Any reason why the runway can't be extended on the other side?

by **Outer Sparta** » Sat Mar 16, 2019 8:42 am

Although there is an issue that covers aviation safety, you can always focus on certain types of aviation disasters and such. This is a good focus in my opinion.

I would add another option to build a completely new airport that's located far away from obstacles.

Another good option would be to better train ATCs, but I don't know if that would make a significant difference considering we are talking about short runways.

by **Bears Armed** » Sat Mar 16, 2019 9:14 am

Australian rePublic wrote:Any reason why the runway can't be extended on the other side?

Unsuitable terrain?
Too much city?

by **The Super Fork** » Mon Mar 18, 2019 6:52 am

Wow! So much great feedback. This is definitely the most support I've had for an issue idea so far.

Verdant Haven wrote:Ahh, airport and airplane safety! A topic in which I have a more than passing interest.

Runway overruns are typically caused not by the type of airplane landing at a given location (they know before trying whether or not it's within bounds for their type), but by some exigent condition or an error which results in the normal requirements not being enough: excessive water or wind conditions (Lion 583), landing too far past the threshold (American 331), failure of, or failure to properly use, the brakes or thrust reversers (Southwest 1248), incorrect modification of the runway surface (TAM 3054), etc. Extending a runway is a billion dollar task that is generally done with a decade+ of planning, in order to increase future capacity, rather than in response to a mishap. By way of example about how airplane type isn't the issue, Tegucigalpa/Toncontin airport in Honduras was notorious for its short runway. Here is footage of a 757 landing safely, while here is a photo series showing a much much much smaller G200 that overshot.

I think this could be an excellent issue if it is looked at from the perspective of real-world solutions for overruns. The current real world international standard is to require a sufficient RSA (Runway Safety Area), and many regulators encourage the use of EMAS (Engineered Materials Arrestor System) which can stop a plane safely rather than having it crash and break up.

An RSA, for example, is recommended to provide 300m of extra stop distance beyond the end of the runway, and is about half that in width. These areas are usually green spaces, and in some cases are public parks, which might fit your narrative nicely. The fact that a park was off the runway is not abnormal, but maybe the speaker now wants to keep people out of it and make it a fully restricted area?

An EMAS would be a solution that might be suggested to try and keep the park open, but allow for safe stopping. They typically involve paving the area past the runway end with a lightweight concrete that is calculated to break under the weight of a plane and "catch" the gear safely - if you imagine driving over a bed of foam and your car sinking in, it's similar to that. These are especially widely used at airports in big cities with historical build up around them, where they don't have room for giant RSAs - The NYC airports, the Chicago airports, all have EMAS installed. This would be a great "spend money to save lives" option for somebody to suggest.

I wouldn't suggest trying to reduce the types of planes usable there, but if you want a good pro-regulation option, I imagine somebody arguing about the actual cause of the overrun in question could present a safety/training position very effectively, blaming pilots for poor airmanship (Swissair 316), or the airports for having bad weather data (Lufthansa 2904), or the like, and asking for more training or equipment.

Thanks for all the great information! I incorporated some of it to find a balance between what the average person knows about airport runways and the detailed stuff you described.

Outer Sparta wrote:Although there is an issue that covers aviation safety, you can always focus on certain types of aviation disasters and such. This is a good focus in my opinion.

I would add another option to build a completely new airport that's located far away from obstacles.

Another good option would be to better train ATCs, but I don't know if that would make a significant difference considering we are talking about short runways.

I added an option for this in the second draft.

Bears Armed wrote:
Australian rePublic wrote:Any reason why the runway can't be extended on the other side?

Unsuitable terrain?
Too much city?

I was thinking too much city, so I made the tiny change of adding "downtown" to the description. Adding that also makes the new third option make sense.

by **Candlewhisper Archive** » Tue Mar 19, 2019 5:12 am

Loving this issue. I can't offer VH's level of clear expertise on this matter, but anecdotally I recall that the old Hong Kong Kai Tak airport used to have this terrifying approach where the pilot had to turn while making his final descent in order to avoid high rise buildings and then line up with the runway.

Found a video, if anyone is interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lx3Ccs5tKfw

Great idea for an issue though.

by **Baggieland** » Tue Mar 19, 2019 7:05 am

The Super Fork wrote:when a plane overshot the runway downtown at @@ANIMAL@@ City Airport

Overshot the runway at downtown @@ANIMAL@@City Airport. I think conveys your intention better.

The Super Fork wrote:Effect: Tall trees are roped off in the name of airport safety.

Suggestion: riots have errupted over the lack of picnic areas

by **Verdant Haven** » Tue Mar 19, 2019 7:45 am

Candlewhisper Archive wrote:Loving this issue. I can't offer VH's level of clear expertise on this matter, but anecdotally I recall that the old Hong Kong Kai Tak airport used to have this terrifying approach where the pilot had to turn while making his final descent in order to avoid high rise buildings and then line up with the runway.

Found a video, if anyone is interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lx3Ccs5tKfw

Great idea for an issue though.

Gosh, yeah, Kai Tak was awful! That close end right in to the city is a terrifying thing to think about. My brother is good friends with a guy who lived in HK in the 90s, and was on a flight that actually struck the antenna of a building as it was departing. The plane was thankfully able to return and land safely, but just a couple feet difference and it would have plowed straight in to a high rise. I've been to the new airport, and it is lovely. Wouldn't have wanted to go to the old one! I mean, Chicago Midway isn't necessarily much better I suppose, but nobody is trying to drop 747s and A340s in there on the regular.

Back to the draft!

The Super Fork wrote:Draft 2
Description: Last Tuesday, over a hundred people were killed and many more injured when a plane overshot the runway downtown at @@ANIMAL@@ City Airport and crashed into a concert being held at @@LEADER@@ Park. Several concerned citizens have come to your office to voice their opinions on the matter.

Validity: Must have airplanes.

Option 1: “The solution is plainly obvious” says @@ANIMAL@@ City Airport manager @@RANDOMNAME@@. “We need to establish @@LEADER@@ Park as a runway safety area so people won’t be in the way if another plane overshoots. People wouldn’t be allowed into the park, but it would still be a green space for @@ANIMAL@@ City”.

Effect: Tall trees are roped off in the name of airport safety.

I'd concur with Baggieland's suggestion for how to fit the "downtown" portion in.

For the effect, maybe since the concert venue was placed off limits, bands now play on the steps of the mayor's office to protest?

Option 2: “No way!” shouts @@RANDOMNAME@@, who was last seen hugging a tree. “We can’t allow this park to be closed to the good people of @@ANIMAL@@ City! To put it plainly, we need to invest in improving pilot training so this never happens again”.

Effect: Pilots are rated on the amount of hours they spend in training.

Pilots actually are rated based on their hours of training :-D That's a real-world thing. To make it a bit more humorous, perhaps one could suggest that "pilots spend more time in classrooms than cockpits" to emphasize the desired "overdoing it" aspect.

Option 3: “@@ANIMAL@@ City Airport is outdated anyway,” says your Minister of Transportation, @@RANDOMNAME@@. “We can build a new, modern airport outside the city, capable of handling the newest planes. Think of the tourism revenue!”

Effect: Tourists travel to @@NAME@@ just to see the best airport in @@REGION@@.

This is an excellent direction to go with this option! It's also exactly what Hong Kong did to replace Kai Tak that CWA mentioned above - they actually built out one of the largest artificial islands in history to create enough space for the new airport. Is there an effect text that pokes a little more at the sheer scale of such an undertaking?

Option 4: Your technology hating uncle that you thought you kicked out of your office jumps out from behind a potted plant, saying, “I hate planes! Those darn metal monstrosities always fly over my house and scare me half to death with their weird noises!” As security drags him away, he shouts,”You should just abolish planes all together!”

Effect: Hot-air ballooning is an increasingly popular pastime.

I like the option text, and the direction of the effect. The only part of the option text I'd probably tweak would be the first line, which is a little difficult to read due to its complexity and present lack of punctuation. If that can be clarified slightly, I'd love it. For the effect, I might try to suggest a bit more of the knock-on effects... hot air balloons can't really replace planes, but airships might! Ticket prices for the latest zeppelin cruises might be quite high.

by **The Super Fork** » Tue Mar 19, 2019 12:01 pm

Draft 3 is up with these changes!

Baggieland wrote:
The Super Fork wrote:when a plane overshot the runway downtown at @@ANIMAL@@ City Airport

Overshot the runway at downtown @@ANIMAL@@City Airport. I think conveys your intention better.

The Super Fork wrote:Effect: Tall trees are roped off in the name of airport safety.

Suggestion: riots have errupted over the lack of picnic areas

I was planning on changing the "tall trees" effect line, and I love this suggestion! Thanks!

Pilots actually are rated based on their hours of training :-D That's a real-world thing. To make it a bit more humorous, perhaps one could suggest that "pilots spend more time in classrooms than cockpits" to emphasize the desired "overdoing it" aspect.

How's this?
Effect: Pilots long to finish training and take to the skies.

This is an excellent direction to go with this option! It's also exactly what Hong Kong did to replace Kai Tak that CWA mentioned above - they actually built out one of the largest artificial islands in history to create enough space for the new airport. Is there an effect text that pokes a little more at the sheer scale of such an undertaking?

Effect: Tourists travel to @@NAME@@ just to see the muti-billion @@CURRENCY@@ airport.

like the option text, and the direction of the effect. The only part of the option text I'd probably tweak would be the first line, which is a little difficult to read due to its complexity and present lack of punctuation. If that can be clarified slightly, I'd love it.

Punctuation!
Your technology hating uncle, who you banned from your office, jumps out from behind a potted plant, saying...

For the effect, I might try to suggest a bit more of the knock-on effects... hot air balloons can't really replace planes, but airships might! Ticket prices for the latest zeppelin cruises might be quite high.

I like both the existing effect and this new one based on your comment. It's going to be hard to decide on one.
Effect: Only the richest citizens can afford zeppelin flights.

Once again, thanks for the amazing feedback everyone!

by **Baggieland** » Wed Mar 20, 2019 6:19 am

Verdant Haven wrote:Extending a runway is a billion dollar task that is generally done with a decade+ of planning, in order to increase future capacity, rather than in response to a mishap.

Great in-depth information here VH. However, my feeling is that a lot of players will think to themselves "why don't we just extend the runway?" Now, everyone who has read this thread knows why thanks to VH. But the majority of players wouldn't have read it. Does everyone think there should be some mention of the above quote somewhere in the isue?

by **Candlewhisper Archive** » Wed Mar 20, 2019 6:40 am

Or perhaps even better make it clear that the mishap wasn't about runway length, but about the difficulty of approach.

One thing I've been considering is that a policy that identifies nations that have embraced high rise structures would be narratively useful. Been thinking a lot about the ecological and sociological impact of tower blocks, and interesting issues that might arise around those, and I have a concept or two in the pre-draft stage.

An approach you could take here is to make this issue eligible for nations with high rise buildings, and then frame the narrative as being about increasingly tall buildings overlooking the airport making the approach more dangerous, and the crash or a near miss resulting from that.

Like VH has mentioned, planes regularly skimmed buildings in Kai Tak.

If you were to shift the issue to being more about high rises, then runway length wouldn't be an issue, and additionally I'd definitely be very interested in picking that up as my next edit, in order to get the high_rise policy up and running.

by **Trotterdam** » Wed Mar 20, 2019 7:15 am

Isn't building airports away from cities a good idea regardless of how high the buildings are? You know, because of noise pollution and stuff. Having skyscrapers right next to the airport would make the issue more acute, but it's not a prerequisite, and it wouldn't happen if the airport were sensibly located to begin with. The more likely trigger would be city growth causing an airport that was previously in the suburbs to become enveloped.

Besides, I'd expect most nations to have both high-rises and low-rises varying by city and district. And then there's those nations that just have one or two ridiculously high buildings as a prestige project while otherwise not having a great deal of particularly high buildings.

by **The Super Fork** » Wed Mar 20, 2019 12:41 pm

Baggieland wrote:
Verdant Haven wrote:Extending a runway is a billion dollar task that is generally done with a decade+ of planning, in order to increase future capacity, rather than in response to a mishap.

Great in-depth information here VH. However, my feeling is that a lot of players will think to themselves "why don't we just extend the runway?" Now, everyone who has read this thread knows why thanks to VH. But the majority of players wouldn't have read it. Does everyone think there should be some mention of the above quote somewhere in the isue?

That's true.
I'm seeing three options here.
A: Add another option for extending the runway.

B: Add something like this to the text of option 1.
"Although we could extend the runway, it would be much cheaper to turn @@LEADER@@ park into a runway safety area".
People might still wonder why there is no option to extend the runway though.

C. Do both, having the runway extension option first, followed by the runway safety area option.
This would probably be best for keeping the flow of the issue going.

Thoughts?

by **Baggieland** » Thu Mar 21, 2019 6:15 am

The Super Fork wrote:That's true.
I'm seeing three options here.
A: Add another option for extending the runway.

B: Add something like this to the text of option 1.
"Although we could extend the runway, it would be much cheaper to turn @@LEADER@@ park into a runway safety area".
People might still wonder why there is no option to extend the runway though.

C. Do both, having the runway extension option first, followed by the runway safety area option.
This would probably be best for keeping the flow of the issue going.

That's not quite what I meant. I was suggesting you give a quick mention as to why runway extension isn't viable.

by **Verdant Haven** » Thu Mar 21, 2019 6:24 am

Baggieland wrote:That's not quite what I meant. I was suggesting you give a quick mention as to why runway extension isn't viable.

I think that would be perfect. In option one, it could read along the lines of "We're too hemmed in by the city to extend the runway, so we need to establish the park as a runway safety area..." (or something like that).

by **The Super Fork** » Thu Mar 21, 2019 6:47 am

Verdant Haven wrote:
Baggieland wrote:That's not quite what I meant. I was suggesting you give a quick mention as to why runway extension isn't viable.

I think that would be perfect. In option one, it could read along the lines of "We're too hemmed in by the city to extend the runway, so we need to establish the park as a runway safety area..." (or something like that).

Ah, that makes a lot more sense. I changed part of option 1 to this (didn't think a small change like this warranted a full new draft):
"The city is too dense to extend the runway, so we should establish @@LEADER@@ Park as a runway safety area."

by **Trotterdam** » Thu Mar 21, 2019 11:08 am

The city can't be that dense if it has a park.

by **Verdant Haven** » Thu Mar 21, 2019 12:57 pm

Trotterdam wrote:The city can't be that dense if it has a park.

New York City is ludicrously dense, and has one of the largest urban parks in the world. Central Park would be fine as an RSA, but you sure as heck wouldn't want to extend a runway in to it.

by **The Super Fork** » Fri Mar 22, 2019 8:57 am

Verdant Haven wrote:
Trotterdam wrote:The city can't be that dense if it has a park.

New York City is ludicrously dense, and has one of the largest urban parks in the world. Central Park would be fine as an RSA, but you sure as heck wouldn't want to extend a runway in to it.

I think the realism for this issue is still good, as Verdant points out, NYC is super dense and still has Central Park.

Any more suggestions or thoughts for this issue? If not, I'm ready to put it on Last Call.

by **The Super Fork** » Sun Mar 24, 2019 3:04 pm

Now on LAST CALL!

by **The Super Fork** » Mon Mar 25, 2019 6:31 pm

Submitted!

Thanks again for all the great feedback and helpful information!

by **Jutsa** » Tue Mar 26, 2019 7:59 am

Good luck, Super Fork! Sorry I didn't get around to your draft. :blush:

Oh! Don't forget to replace [LAST CALL] with [SUBMITTED]. :lol:

[SUBMITTED] A Plane Problem

[SUBMITTED] A Plane Problem

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