[nomocom]

I hadn't thought much about coffee as a safety of flight issue, until I saw a report on United flight 940 (Jan 3) in the WSJ yesterday, page A3. The incident went from an inconvenience to bad, then fortunately, rather than get worse it was sorted out.

Coffee was spilled in the cockpit during some turbulence. The liquid took out some communications, so one of the crew uses the transpoder to notify ATC of lost com, except they fat finger it and enter 7500 instead of 7600. The flight was a Chicago to Frankfurt and was over Canada at the time. Transport Canada was notified by United Dispatch office that it was not in fact hijacked (7500), but was experiencing com problems- so it didn't escalate (United Dispatch was texting back and forth with the crew). The flight did divert to Toronto and passengers got put up in a hotel overnight, then caught a flight the next day.

I can't help but think this could have been serious had they been flying by a security TFR or the DC ADIZ.

This leads to my product recommendation. The Thermos vacuum bottle JMW500P6. It will keep liquids hot or cold for several hours like any vacuum bottle, but the real beauty of it is you can drink very nicely once you've released the top half of the clam shell lid. Enjoy a few swallows, then swing the lid back down closed and it is spill proof and leak proof. Even if turbulence knocked it loose with the lid flipped back, the restricted outlet would likely limit the flying beverages.

JMW500P6 http://www.amazon.com/Thermos-JMW50...1?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1294430795&sr=8-1

 

[Transporter]

Fate is the Hunter

No relation to the Ernest Gann book of the same title (he didn't like the script)...but spilled coffee was the culprit in the 1964 movie crash.

Nice thermos!

Mike

 

[Flying Scotsman]

No relation to the Ernest Gann book of the same title (he didn't like the script)...but spilled coffee was the culprit in the 1964 movie crash.

Nice thermos!

Mike

This was *just on* the other night, on TCM I think...very eery!

I won't spoil the plot if you haven't seen it (it's predictable enough, though...LOL!).

 

[Scott Hersha]

That's a good idea Stan. I like the fact that it's a thermos. You can get a cup holder for it at your local boat supply store and mount it in a convenient place in your cockpit. A common water bottle works pretty well too because of the cap. However, the likelihood of a spill causing problems with your communications/transponder equipment is much less likely in a typical RV installation because of it being mounted on a more vertical plane. This equipment on the United Boeing is on the pedestal between the seats on a horizontal surface with convenient lips surrounding this equipment to contain the spill - so it has a better chance to soak into your radios and transponder. Quite effective at funneling coffee, or say orange juice - don't ask me how I know this... There is a fix that's been in place for quite some time in airline SOP's. The requirement for cockpit beverages to be served in 'crew cups' with a lid. This is a very unusual incident blown completely out of proportion by a drama-starved media. It's funny how everything that happens in aviation ends up on the front page.

 

[radiokaos]

Darn you Stan for sending me shopping.

In the past the only safe way I found to get my coffee fix was to hang a IV bag and set the drip level to .05 per second.

 

[craigvince]

Darn you Stan for sending me shopping.

Yep, ya got me too. I just went to Amazon and ordered two of 'em.
Thanks for the tip!

 

[cfiidon]

Be careful out there.

This leads to my product recommendation. The Thermos vacuum bottle JMW500P6. It will keep liquids hot or cold for several hours like any vacuum bottle, but the real beauty of it is you can drink very nicely once you've released the top half of the clam shell lid. Enjoy a few swallows, then swing the lid back down closed and it is spill proof and leak proof. Even if turbulence knocked it loose with the lid flipped back, the restricted outlet would likely limit the flying beverages.

JMW500P6 http://www.amazon.com/Thermos-JMW50...1?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1294430795&sr=8-1

Use caution with a thermos. Opening a thermos full of hot liquid at altitude can be just like taking the radiator cap off your car. The sudden reduced pressure causes the liquid to boil and ... yikes!

Best to leave it vented.

Don

 

[rleffler]

You can purchase cup holders from a fellow RV'er and VAF advertiser, Geoff Combs.

Here's the link, scoll down towards the bottom of the page.

 

[Bob Axsom]

I go 4 or 5 hours without coffee very well

I don't even drink anything before takeoff - I did once. I have taken water with me on flights but seldom use it. The idea of hot coffee in the cockpit seems like a risky idea. On very long trips I keep all snacks in a bag behind the seat, with screw on caps on the liquids (sorry RV3, 4 and 8s).

Bob Axsom

 

[Scott Hersha]

I go 4 or 5 hours without coffee very well

I could go 4 or 5 years without coffee, but none of us should go 4 or 5 hours without water, especially while flying (I know Bob didn't say he did that). I've done a little studying about pilot fatigue and dehydration, and we should try to keep ourselves hydrated on long flights - more than two hours. Coffee makes it worse. Helps with the fatigue part on a short term basis, but long term it worsens the situation.

 

[nomocom]

boiling liquids ??

Use caution with a thermos. Opening a thermos full of hot liquid at altitude can be just like taking the radiator cap off your car. The sudden reduced pressure causes the liquid to boil and ... yikes!

Best to leave it vented.

Don

How high you going? Is your day job an unpressurizedds SR-71

Never been a problem. The first time I open the flip top I get a pressure equalizing "burp". This is not a big deal. In theory, if turbulence threw liquid up against the lid at the exact moment of opening, OK, it would maybe spit some.

The depression of the boiling point does occur with altitude, but it hasn't been a practical concern. Now if you go and pre-heat your 1 gallon vacuum bottle, fill it with boiling liquids, then gain 20,000 feet.... definitely going to be a problem, but we've got much less thermal inertia and I don't work to keep the liquid at close to boiling temperatures- remember you drink directly from this unit so target here is drinking temperature a few hours after filling.

 

[caryr]

Drinking coffee causes me to have to do other things.


Some things are not easily accomplished in a RV and that's one of them.

 

[nomocom]

SOP's- What are those?

Scott,
The SOP may call for "crew cups" but SOP's aren't worth the paper they are written when they aren't followed. If you are interested, pop over to airliners.net and read some of the stories the pro's have to tell
My favorite was the co-pilot spilling his coffee then not having anything within quick reach to soak it up, he reacted by standing up and sitting on the spill, soaking as much up with his pants as he could. I read that and about fell out of my chair its so funny. If "Airplane" ever gets remade, I want that in the script!!

http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/tech_ops/read.main/285631/
about halfway down the page.

 

[Bill Wightman]

My $150,000 cup of coffee + Saved a UAL 737 story

Descending into the Chicago area in light to mod chop in a B757. I dutifully followed all company SOP's regards liquids in the cockpit - the biggie with us at United is to never hold or pass a cup (open or closed) over the center console, FMC's, or anything else that might be $$ to fix (or cause your flight to divert and land your face on the front page of the USA Today)

So, while holding the cup in my left hand, resting on my thigh, I reached across to reset the altitude pre-select and while doing that my right hand just caught the lip of the cup and tipped it onto the center avionics panel. Whoops! Coffee took out the right radio head, right side pitch trim indicator, and I think also the wx radar control head. I later found out through MX it was a $150k cup of Joe.

Another time, I was commuting home on one of our rope start Guppies: new guy I was, only 3 months with the company. So, the FA comes to me (in First Class seat) and says the captain wants to see you. Oh S**T!! I'm just sure I broke some Golden Rule of commuting. Nope. What happened is they spilled water into their console, and it took out ALL of the radios including the NAV radios. No TX/RX at all. Good thing it was clear and a million that day. The plan was for me to call Dispatch from my seat phone in First Class and see if we could get a phone patch to KC Center. It worked! We had a three-way conference call from United DD to Center! Way better than radios, let me tell you. They even "handed me off" to OKC approach and then even to tower! I wrote ATC's instructions down on napkins and the FA passed them to the cockpit... and we landed on time. Funny how it feels writing "Cleared to Land" on a bar napkin!

By the way, be very careful eating spaghetti and/or ice cream sundaes in anything worse than light chop. Also, I've found that yogurt containers will spooge on your tie when opened at moderately high cabin altitudes. Pierce the foil lid first.

 

[Bill Wightman]

WSJ inaccurate

I hadn't thought much about coffee as a safety of flight issue, until I saw a report on United flight 940 (Jan 3) in the WSJ yesterday, page A3. The incident went from an inconvenience to bad, then fortunately, rather than get worse it was sorted out.

Coffee was spilled in the cockpit during some turbulence. The liquid took out some communications, so one of the crew uses the transpoder to notify ATC of lost com, except they fat finger it and enter 7500 instead of 7600. The flight was a Chicago to Frankfurt and was over Canada at the time. Transport Canada was notified by United Dispatch office that it was not in fact hijacked (7500), but was experiencing com problems- so it didn't escalate (United Dispatch was texting back and forth with the crew). The flight did divert to Toronto and passengers got put up in a hotel overnight, then caught a flight the next day.

I can't help but think this could have been serious had they been flying by a security TFR or the DC ADIZ.

]

Just to correct the WSJ (I'm sitting next to the copilot who flew the "rescue" airplane):

The incident occurred when the copilot was holding a 1 liter water bottle and pouring in some energy drink powder. He fumbled the bottle and wound up grabbing it - actually crushing it - in his hand. This caused the water to erupt out of the bottle top, and onto the center console. The transponder went into 7500 due to a system fault. Also, the passengers never stayed in Toronto. YYZ has no customs/immigration so the pax were shuttled from one UAL 777 to the other, then flown back to Chicago. They only spent about 3 hrs on the ground in YYZ.

Just goes to show you how inaccurate the news is, even when from a good source like the WSJ.

 

[dhammer]

Watch Out

How high you going? Is your day job an unpressurizedds SR-71

Once saw a flight attendant get burned with her Starbucks on a corporate airplane when she popped open her thermos. Coffee made at sea level, plane at 41k, cabin at 8k. We determined that the coffee was hotter than the 8k boiling point of 197.5 degrees. Guess it depends on how hot you like your coffee.

Carefull!!

 

[Kevin Horton]

YYZ has no customs/immigration ...

I'm not sure where that info came from, but YYZ is the destination for a very large number of international flights, and has a large customs/immigration staff. But, I don't know what time the flight in question landed. Maybe it was in the wee hours of the morning, when no flights are scheduled to land, and no customs staff were on duty.

 

[hendrik]

I'm not sure where that info came from, but YYZ is the destination for a very large number of international flights, and has a large customs/immigration staff. But, I don't know what time the flight in question landed. Maybe it was in the wee hours of the morning, when no flights are scheduled to land, and no customs staff were on duty.

ORD -> FRA are night flights leaving ORD in the evening and arriving in FRA the next day, because FRA is closed at night. Looking at the regular schedule (don't know if it was delayed) my guess is that the flight arrived in YYZ around 9:30pm.

 

[Bill Wightman]

The FO on the rescue flight told me they couldn't process through customs there - and I mis-translated that in saying YYZ didn't have the facilitation. I guess they do; never been there myself.

At any rate, I always thought it would be very difficult to have a liquid spill in our sport plane cockpit affect anything critical, since our avionics are mostly mounted in the panel. However, the water bottle "explosion" scenario could indeed spew liquid all over the place, including on your panel. Just a thought...

 

[nomocom]

Physics of hot liquids and gases

Once saw a flight attendant get burned with her Starbucks on a corporate airplane when she popped open her thermos. Coffee made at sea level, plane at 41k, cabin at 8k. We determined that the coffee was hotter than the 8k boiling point of 197.5 degrees. Guess it depends on how hot you like your coffee.

Carefull!!

Carefull, yes, that's good advice. There is genuine burn potential as demonstrated by the flight attendant. Did you measure the temperature in the vacuum bottle? I'm asking for data, since even MacDonalds prior to the hot coffee lawsuits were not serving coffee that hot. Probably at it's hottest, maybe 190 as it went out the drive through window. Another thing to consider, these vacuum bottles only slow the loss of heat, so if you fill them with a liquid that is just below boiling, in the first hour, they can be expected to loose 10-20 degrees F. (depends on quality and size- http://coffeegeek.com/proreviews/detailed/thermosnissan/bottles has some reviews and temperture data).

A more likely mechanism would be getting simply splashed with coffee or having hot vapor condense on bare skin. Getting splashed doesn't need explaning, but the vapor condensing might. The vapor is very hot, but not superheated, so when it nears a cooler object (like your hand), it easily condenses and your skin gains the calories released from the condensaton. It is exactly the opposite of the cooling your skin experiences when sweat evaporates. Oddly, steam coming off a pressurized system may be 100 degrees hotter, but is less likely to burn your skin immediately, since it carries more heat, the vapor has to cool some before condensing.

Now if you have a latte made inside your thermos, that could get the temps up there! Key part of that would be steaming the milk in in the thermos, so it's at boiing point and raises the interior of the vacuum bottle to bp, then pour the fresh shots in on top of that. Close, then wrap in another layer of insulation. A procedure like that could keep the liqiud hot enough maybe to boil at altitude, or on the positive side, one could probably enjoy a nice warm latte 12 hours later.

 

[nomocom]

150K cup of Joe- Great story.

Descending into the Chicago area in light to mod chop in a B757. I dutifully followed all company SOP's regards liquids in the cockpit - the biggie with us at United is to never hold or pass a cup (open or closed) over the center console, FMC's, or anything else that might be $$ to fix (or cause your flight to divert and land your face on the front page of the USA Today)

So, while holding the cup in my left hand, resting on my thigh, I reached across to reset the altitude pre-select and while doing that my right hand just caught the lip of the cup and tipped it onto the center avionics panel. Whoops! Coffee took out the right radio head, right side pitch trim indicator, and I think also the wx radar control head. I later found out through MX it was a $150k cup of Joe.
Also, I've found that yogurt containers will spooge on your tie when opened at moderately high cabin altitudes. Pierce the foil lid first.

A good illustration of how very unlikely events do occur when given enough exposure time. 1000 cups of coffee go where they are supposed to, then you have that spendy cup. Thanks for the story.

I've had trouble with the yogurt containers as well. The foil has came off while it was stored in the cooler and I don't know if it tipped over or what, but it was a real mess.

 

[Ironflight]

We had a fairly famous crew member spill a coke on the center console in one of our simulators years ago. Very, very expensive....That lead to a rule that only beverages in sealed pouches with straws are allowed in the simulator cockpits, so we drink specially prepared coffees and juices ONLY when we spend the day in "the box".

In the RV, I sometimes will get juice pouches for long trips - but usually forget, and have to make due with a bottle of water picked up at an FBO. I always take a few swigs out of it before flight so that i am not dealing with a brim-full container when I unscrew the lid. No hot fluids in the RV cockpit for me!

Paul

 

[Mike S]

----and have to make due with a bottle of water picked up at an FBO. I always take a few swigs out of it before flight so that i am not dealing with a brim-full container when I unscrew the lid.

Paul

Squeeze the bottle a bit before you put the cap on, get most of the air out------no surprises when you open the cap at altitude.

 

[hendrik]

I take water in a camelbak. Works great (unless you sit on the valve; don't ask how I know).

 

[RV-4]

UNITED DISPATCH

I like that one...ah Modern Kids..

''(United Dispatch was texting back and forth with the crew). ''

This will translate into '' Datalink back and forth '' in Airline jargon...

Bill
YYZ being my employer main Hub, I can tell you that there are Customs available there but it could have reduce staffs in the wee hours of the night

On the fact that you never being there..Trust me..You didn't miss a thing..It sure is not ORD..ATC wise..

Bruno