Small Planes Over Big Oceans (ETOPS Explained) | Wendover Productions

0:00This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome? That's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online makes sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up require compatibility and availability varies 18 plus. This episode is brought to you by Palm Olive. Family time isn't just the big moments. It's weeknight dinners, sitting around the table, everyone talking all at once. So when the plates are empty and the sink is full, use Palm Olive Ultra. Palm Olive's most powerful formula removes up to 99.9% of grease, leaving your dishes sparkling clean. And the new convenient pump makes cleaning even easier so you can spend less time tackling dishes and more time together. Shop now at palmolive.com. Propel Fitness Water With Gatorade Electrolites, Zero Sugar, and Vitamins,

1:01Propel hydrates better than water to help you get the most out of your workout and get back to your best self. What propels you? Propel with Gatorade Electrolites. This Wendover Productions video was made possible by Hover. Get your unique domain and email from Hover by going to hover.com slash one-nover and using the code Wendover at checkout. It'll be a cold day in hell before I let twins fly long haul over water routes. Those were the words of Lynn Helms, administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration during the Reagan Administration. At the time, no commercial American airplane with two engines was allowed to fly anywhere farther than 60 minutes from my diversion airport. The belief was that, if one engine failed, the other could only safely fly the plane for about an hour, but this rule severely limited what smaller planes could do. On North Atlantic routes like New York to London, twin engine planes could only fly in these areas, but a direct route looked like this. The options were to either fly a twin engine plane

2:02on an inefficient route or fly an inefficient three or four engine plane. There was no place for long and skinny routes between smaller cities using smaller planes since airlines couldn't legally fly those smaller planes. This one simple rule changed the very way airplanes were built. Now in the 60s, this 60-minute regulation only applied to planes with two engines. Of course aircraft manufacturers could build quad engine jets, but those had to be huge for airlines to make their money's worth with the high fuel consumption. The 747s of the time could carry more than 400 passengers. They could therefore only fly on super high demand routes like New York to London to have any hope of being full. In order to start flying more convenient nonstop routes from smaller markets, planes had to get smaller while still being legally allowed to hop the pond. That's where trigets came into play. With three engines, these planes weren't subject to the same 60-minute regulation as twin jets. They could easily fly any transatlantic route.

3:03That's why in the 70s and 80s, the long haul jets you'd see at airports were for the most part, either 747s or trigets like the DC-10. This 60-minute regulation was inconvenient for Atlantic crossings, but in the Pacific, it actually changed how Hawaii as a state developed. There are zero diversion airports between California and Hawaii. So the route isn't even close to covered under the 60-minute rule. As a result, airlines could only fly huge planes between the mainland and Hawaii, which meant the planes could pretty much only fly to Honolulu. There was virtually no service to the other islands from the mainland, which meant they were severely isolated. That's part of the reason why the tourism industry only picked up on the other islands in recent decades. The 60-minute rule originated from the days of piston-driven propeller aircraft. With these, it was far more common for engines to just stop working mid-flight. That's why there were contingency engines. The regulations just didn't adapt to the increased reliability of jet engines.

4:05Specifically, for every failure of a jet engine, there are 117 piston-engine failures. Once the jet age rolled in, engine failure just wasn't as much of a concern. So, in 1985, the FAA begrudgingly granted permission to trans-world airlines to fly their twin-engine 767 direct between Boston and Paris, a route taking it up to 120 minutes away from diversion airports. This was the first example of a brand-new FAA certification called E-tops, extended range twin-engine operational performance standards, or more colloquially, engines turn or passenger swim. Before an airline can fly a long overwater route, they have to buy a plane with what's known as an E-tops type rating. Basically, that means that the plane was built with adequate redundancies, communication systems, and fire suppression systems to fly safely if one engine fails. For example, the 767, the first plane to get an E-tops certification, has a type rating of 180 minutes, meaning it can fly anywhere,

5:06as long as it's within 180 minutes from a diversion airport. But just because a plane has an E-tops... This episode is brought to you by Palm Olive. Family time isn't just the big moments. It's weeknight dinners, sitting around the table, everyone talking all at once. So when the plates are empty and the sink is full, use Palm Olive Ultra. Palm Olive's most powerful formula removes up to 99.9% of grease, leaving your dishes sparkling clean, and the new convenient pump makes cleaning even easier, so you can spend less time tackling dishes and more time together. Shop now at palmolive.com. This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome? That's new. They can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up require compatibility and availability varies 18 plus.

6:07Propel Fitness Water. With Gatorade Electrolites, Zero Sugar, and Vitamins, Propel hydrates better than water to help you get the most out of your workout and get back to your best self. What propels you? Propel with Gatorade Electrolites. Pops type rating doesn't mean an airline can fly at e-tops. They have to have a special maintenance plan, a special flight crew, special cabin crew, special dispatchers, special fuel quantities, and special passenger recovery plans, since just because there's a runway doesn't mean a plane can safely divert since the emergency doesn't necessarily end when to the plane lands. Cold Bay Alaska, for example, is a perfect diversion airport for routes between Asia and North America. It only has six commercial flights per week nowadays, but as a former Air Force Base, it has an enormous runway. The only issue is that the town of Cold Bay has a population of 108. It's tiny, so any diversions automatically double or triple the amount of people in the small town. There certainly aren't enough hotel rooms or restaurants

7:10to house and feed stranded passengers. So if airlines plan to use Cold Bay as a diversion airport, they need to make a plan for how to house, feed, and recover passengers within 48 hours of landing. Last year, an American Airlines 7A7 was flying from Shanghai to Chicago when its right engine had an issue halfway across the Pacific Ocean. The plane quickly took a left turn diverting to Cold Bay. Even before landing, the passenger recovery plan was implemented as flight attendant served a second meal service early. Just a few hours after safely landing in Cold Bay, Americans' mechanics took off from Seattle, bound for Cold Bay, to start fixing the plane. While Alaska Airlines, Americans' partner, sent a 737 from Anchorage to pick up the stranded passengers. Meanwhile, flight attendant served the third set of meals they had stocked while waiting on the ground and the Coast Guard opened their heated hanger to passengers. Just 10 hours after the emergency landing, passengers were on their way to Anchorage where they spent the night before taking an American 757 to Chicago.

8:10That was a perfect example of how the passenger recovery plan worked. The quick response and defined plan helped with the airline get passengers out safely and quickly. Now, because of this solid engine reliability, numerous redundancies and well-designed passenger recovery plans, airlines and airplanes can now receive some insane e-top certifications. The 787 Dreamliner, the plane that diverted to Cold Bay, has a type rating of 330 minutes. That means it can fly up to five and a half hours away from a diversion airport. Certain routes over long ocean stretches in the southern hemisphere were theoretically possible in the past with four engine planes, but were economically impossible since airlines could never fill the large planes on the low-demand city pairs like Melbourne to Santiago. With the e-tops 330 certification, LaTom Airlines can fly their small 787 economically on this relatively low-demand route across the South Pacific. The Airbus A350 is even rated for e-tops 370.

9:12It can fly six hours and 10 minutes away from diversion airports. This plane can therefore fly everywhere on Earth except directly over the South Pole. Because of this simple rule change, three and four engine planes are largely a relic of the past. Boeing and Airbus' largest jets are both their only four engine planes in production, the 747 and A380. Nearly all North Atlantic traffic today is on twin engine planes as smaller and smaller planes get e-tops certifications. Air Canada, for example, flies their tiny 120 passenger A319 with e-tops certification daily between St. John's Airport and London Heathrow. British Airways even sends the even smaller A318 between New York and London City Airport. These routes would have been unimaginable 30 years ago, but the reliability of the airplanes of today mean that we need not fear flying small planes over big oceans. This video was made possible by Hover. I talked last time about how Hover is a fantastic way

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