படித்து ரசித்தது ….” வாழ்க்கைப் பயணம் …”

June 3, 2015NatarajanLeave a comment

வாழ்க்கைப் பயணம்

அமெரிக்க தொழிலதிபரான ராக்ஃபெல்லர், முதுமையிலும் கடுமையாக உழைத்தவர். ஒருமுறை, விமானத்தில் பயணித்தார். அப்போதும் ஏதோ வேலையாக இருந்தவரைக் கண்டு அருகில் இருந்த இளைஞர் வியப்புற்றார். அவர், ”ஐயா, இந்த வயதிலும் இப்படிக் கடுமையாக உழைக்கத்தான் வேண்டுமா? ஏகப்பட்ட சொத்து சேர்த்து விட்டீர்கள்… நிம்மதியாக சாப்பிட்டு, ஓய்வெடுக்கலாமே?!” என்று ராக்ஃபெல்லரிடம் கேட்டார்.

உடனே ராக்ஃபெல்லர், ”விமானி இந்த விமானத்தை இப்போது நல்ல உயரத்தில் பறக்க வைத்து விட்டார். விமானமும் சுலபமாகப் பறக்கிறது. அதற்காக… இப்போது எஞ்ஜினை அணைத்துவிட முடியுமா? எஞ்ஜினை அணைத்துவிட்டால் என்னவாகும் தெரியுமா?” என்று கேட்டார்.

”பெரும் விபத்து நேருமே!”- பதற்றத்துடன் பதிலளித்தான் இளைஞன்.

இதைக் கேட்டுப் புன்னகைத்த ராக்ஃபெல்லர், ”வாழ்க்கைப் பயணமும் இப்படித்தான். கடுமையாக உழைத்து உயரத்துக்கு வர வேண்டியுள்ளது. வந்த பிறகு, ‘உயரத்தைத் தொட்டு விட்டோமே…’ என்று உழைப்பதை நிறுத்தி விட்டால், தொழிலில் விபத்து ஏற்பட்டு விடும். உழைப்பு என்பது வருமானத்துக்காக மட்டுமல்ல, உடல் ஆரோக்கியம் மற்றும் மன நிம்மதிக்காகவும்தான்!” என்று விளக்கம் அளித்தார்.

Source………………unknown…. input from a friend of mine

Natarajan

Why Airplane Windows Have Tiny Holes….

June 1, 2015NatarajanLeave a comment

My friends laugh at me when I ask for a window seat. You’re an airline pilot, they say. You have the window seat all the time.

True enough. But the cockpit, well, that’s work. As a passenger I’m actually free to enjoy the experience—to listen to music or a long-postponed podcast while gazing out at the world below, to remember that it’s still a wonder to look down, not up, at clouds. The window seat is like the best table in a café on a busy street, except that instead of people-watching, entire cities, oceans, and mountain ranges parade past.

Still, every once in a while something interferes with that view. Maybe it’s the forehead smudges left by your seat’s previous occupant. Or the little hole that appears in the lower portion of a typical airliner window.

Hole in the window? The little one, near the bottom, that you perhaps only notice when a hollowed-out snowflake of frost forms near it. This tiny hole is called a breather hole or a bleed hole, and it serves an important safety function.

If you look closely at a typical passenger cabin window, you’ll see three panes, typically made of acrylic materials. The purpose of the innermost pane—sometimes called the scratch pane, but I like to call it the smudge pane—is merely to protect the next one.

The middle pane (with the breather hole in it) and the outer pane are more important. Generally speaking, as an aircraft climbs, the air pressure drops in both the cabin and the outside air—but it drops much more outside, as the aircraft’s pressurization system keeps the cabin pressure at a comfortable and safe level. This means that the pressure inside the aircraft during flight is typically much greater than the pressure outside.

The outer two cabin windows are designed to contain this difference in pressure between the cabin and the sky. Both the middle and the outer panes are strong enough to withstand the difference on their own, but under normal circumstances it’s the outer pane that bears this pressure—thanks to the breather hole.

As Marlowe Moncur, director of technology  for GKN Aerospace, a leading passenger cabin window manufacturer, put it to me via email: “[T]he purpose of the small bleed hole in the [middle] pane is to allow pressure to equilibrate between the passenger cabin and the air gap between the panes, so that the cabin pressure during flight is applied to only the outer pane.”

In the extraordinarily unlikely event that the outer pane fails, the middle pane takes over. And yes, in that case, there would be a small leak of air through the breather hole—but nothing the aircraft’s pressurization system couldn’t easily cope with.

Bret Jensen, an aerospace engineering guru at Boeing Commercial Airplanes, told me about a separate but related function of the hole: to release moisture from the air gap and stop (most) fog or frost from forming on the window. So when you’re looking out at the clouds and planetary wonders crossing below you, take a moment to give thanks for the breather hole.

There’s still the matter of that small but lovely pattern of frost that can form near the breather hole on a long flight. At cruising altitude the temperature of the outside air can be minus 70 degrees Fahrenheit. The frost, according to Moncur, “is caused by condensation of water when cabin air contacts the cold window surface.”

But what causes that telltale frost pattern? The physics behind it are an interesting question, he says. “The circular pattern must be a function of window surface temperature, humidity of the cabin air and flow rate through the bleed hole.”

Brilliant Video shot From IAF Jaguar Plane…!!!

May 30, 2015NatarajanLeave a comment

How difficult is it to film a running car sitting in another car? Pretty difficult. But this video mission has crossed all levels of precision and perfection by capturing the launch and the flight of India’s nuclear-capable sub sonic cruise missile called Nirbhay. The missile is being developed by India’s DRDO with features like wing development and a turbofan engine. It carries either conventional or a nuclear payload while flying to the target.

This video uploaded by Anantha Krishnan M. is from the last successful test and is shot from an IAF Jaguar plane. We salute the pilot and the camera person for a brilliant footage!

Source…..www.storypick.com and http://www.youtube.com

Natarajan

Here is what a Pilot Thinks When the Aircraft loses all of its Engines in the Mid Air….

May 30, 2015NatarajanLeave a comment

Last weekend, Singapore Airlines Flight 836 was traveling from Singapore to Shanghai when the twin-engine Airbus A330-343 lost power on both engines over the South China Sea.

Image of Airbus330-343

Fortunately, the pilots were able to restore power to the engines, and the flight was able to continue on to its destination.

No injuries have been reported.

Modern turbofan engines are very robust pieces of engineering and tend to be incredibly reliable.

That makes last weekend’s incident an exceedingly rare event.

In fact, experienced A330 pilot Karlene Petitt told Business Insider that in her years flying the popular jet, she has never encountered, in pilot parlance, a “dual flameout.”

So what is an airline pilot thinking when the engines on his or her plane inexplicably lose power?

“What would go through my mind is fly the plane and do everything I can to get the engines started,” Petitt said in an email. “That would be the only thing to think about.”

In the cockpit, pilots are equipped with reference guides which provides guidance and checklists for a wide variety of operational situations – including the loss of power on all engines.

At cruising altitudes – 39,000 ft. in the case of the Singapore jet – the air is very thin and there may not be enough oxygen to get the engines to relight.

However, according to Petitt, “Normally when you get down around 24,000 feet you should be able to get one started because of the denser air at that altitude.”

In the case of Singapore Flight 836, the airliner lost 13,000 feet of altitude before the pilots were able to get the engines going again.

According to Petitt, she would only think about looking for a landing location after realizing she wouldn’t be able to get the engines going.

Depending on how high and how far the airplane is from an airport, the pilot would then determine what would be the appropriate course of action

In past incidents, pilots have chosen a variety of strategies.

In 1983, Air Canada Flight 143 going from Montreal to Edmonton ran out of fuel midway through the flight after the ground crew miscalculated the amount needed for the trip. The pilots were able to glide the twin-engine Boeing 767-200 jet to safety at a retired Canadian military runway that had been turned into a race track.

In 2001, an Air Transat Airbus A330 traveling from Toronto to Lisbon developed a fuel leak while flying over the Atlantic Ocean. The widebody jet lost all power, but the pilots were able to glide to an airport in the Azores Islands.

Miracle on the Hudson

Most famously, US Airways flight 1549 lost both of its engines after colliding with a flock of geese while taking off from New York’s LaGuardia Airport. Due to the low altitude, the pilots didn’t have time to complete the engine restart procedure. Miraculously, Captain Sully Sullenberger was able to successfully guide the Airbus A320 down in the middle of the Hudson River.

In these instances, the pilots were able to safely land their planes with few injuries to the passengers and crew.

“Pilots never stop flying the plane,” Petitt reiterated. “No matter what, we will do what it takes.”

Source….BENJAMIN ZHANG in www.businessinsider.in

Natarajan

image of the Day… Sunset Sequence in Mars…!!!

May 29, 2015NatarajanLeave a comment

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover recorded this sequence of views of the sun setting at the close of the mission’s 956th Martian day, or sol (April 15, 2015), from the rover’s location in Gale Crater.

The four images shown in sequence here were taken over a span of 6 minutes, 51 seconds.

This was the first sunset observed in color by Curiosity. The images come from the left-eye camera of the rover’s Mast Camera (Mastcam). The color has been calibrated and white-balanced to remove camera artifacts. Mastcam sees color very similarly to what human eyes see, although it is actually a little less sensitive to blue than people are.

Dust in the Martian atmosphere has fine particles that permit blue light to penetrate the atmosphere more efficiently than longer-wavelength colors. That causes the blue colors in the mixed light coming from the sun to stay closer to sun’s part of the sky, compared to the wider scattering of yellow and red colors. The effect is most pronounced near sunset, when light from the sun passes through a longer path in the atmosphere than it does at mid-day.

Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, built and operates the rover’s Mastcam. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL designed and built the project’s Curiosity rover. For more information about Curiosity, visit http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Texas A&M Univ.

Source……www.nasa.gov

New “Malaysia Airlines ” set to Fly From September 1….

May 29, 2015NatarajanLeave a comment

The state-run airline’s sole shareholder, Khazanah Nasional Berhad, has this week appointed an Administrator to facilitate the transfer of selected assets and liabilities from the existing Malaysian Airline System Berhad to new company Malaysia Airlines Berhad. The current business will continue to operate through to August 31, 2015, with the new operator, effectively a start-up, taking to the air from September 1, 2015.

Troubled Asian national carrier Malaysia Airlines will be completely revamped as a business through the remainder of the year as its new boss takes drastic action to return the loss-making operator to profitability. Christoph Mueller, who recently joined as chief executive officer from Aer Lingus has played important roles in the restructuring the Irish carrier and other European flag carriers.

The voluntary administration follows the passing of a special Malaysia Airlines administration act by both houses of the Malaysian Parliament last year to provide for “an effective, efficient and seamless means to transition the business, property, rights, liabilities and affairs”.

The transition of the business is a key component of the 12-point MAS Recovery Plan, which was announced on in August last year to restructure the national carrier and set it on a path towards sustainable profitability. The process also includes conditional investment funding by Khazanah of up to RM6 billion ($1.66 billion), disbursed on a staggered basis and subject to the fullfillment of strict conditions.

Christoph Mueller, Chief Executive Officer Designate of the new airline, said: “This appointment does not affect our daily operations or existing reservations. All Malaysia Airlines flights, schedules, and reservations continue to operate as normal. I assure you our operations are very much business as usual.”

The ‘new’ Malaysia Airlines is expected to operate under a new brand and livery and there are certain to be changes to its network and fleet strategies, including the departure of some, if not all, the Airbus A380s in its fleet and which are used on its routes to London and Paris from Kuala Lumpur.

In this first official interview since taking over at Malaysia Airlines on May 1, 2015, Mueller has outlined more details of his management brief to Reuters. He said the ‘new’ Malaysia Airlines will operate like a “start-up” and would not be “a continuation of the old company in a new disguise,” but that “everything is new”.

“I’m hired to run the new company entirely on commercial terms and there’s very little margin for error,” he told Reuters in this week’s interview in the downtown Kuala Lumpur office of Malaysian state investor Khazanah. The airline is expected to cut its 20,000 workforce by around a third through the switch of airlines, with all those keeping employment with the state-run business doing so on revised contracts. .

Source….Richard Maslen in http://www.routesonline.com

Natarajan

Pax Pulling off a Plane Window …!!!

May 26, 2015NatarajanLeave a comment

IF you’re a terrified flyer, maybe you shouldn’t watch this video of a man casually pulling off a plane window of an Airbus A320.

http://www.news.com.au/video/id-swNzRhdTpnqENBdqRyvvgexmeOfpoYvp/Airline-passenger-holds-window-pane-in-his-hands-after-it-falls-off

Brazilian Eduardo Caram was waiting in his seat before his flight departed when he discovered a panel had come loose.

He immediately alerted an air steward, who said it was not a problem.

The video of the incident has been viewed almost 50,000 times.

“I talked to the flight attendant and he said there was no problem because it is only a protection,” Caram cstated in the video’s caption.

The Mirror reports that the TAM Airlines flight from Rio de Janeiro to Sao Paulo in Brazil took off regardless.

The airline is yet to make an official statement.

Plane scare … The man holds a plane window pane after ‘removing it with ease’. Picture: Youtube/Eduardo CaramSource: YouTube

Source…..www.news.com.au

Natarajan

Stunning Images of Planet Earth ….Captured From ISS…!!!

May 24, 2015NatarajanLeave a comment

The Dutch physician and European Space Agency astronaut was selected to participate in International Space Station expeditions 30 and 31. Leaving the planet on December 21st 2011 and returning the following July, Andre Kuipers captured some absolutely incredible images of our planet.

400 kilometers above Earth

The Australian Outback

A bizarre interaction between light and the sunset

Canada

A comet as seen from ISS

Flattened Moon beams

ISS at MOONLIGHT

Sahara Desert and the Atlantic Ocean

The Moonrise

The ISS Observatories

The Sahara Desert and Mauritania

over the Somalian Desert

The Soyuz – the apparatus Kuipers used to return to Earth

The Super Moon

By Savannah Cox on January 23, 2014 in Aerial photography, Astounding, Earth, Galleries, Photography, and Space

http://www.all-that-is-interesting.com

Natarajan

Meet Saravanan….Chennai Super King’s Super Fan ….!!!

May 19, 2015NatarajanLeave a comment

Saravanan has attained the status of Chennai Super Kings’ super fan and is a hugely popular figure at the Chepauk. (BCCI)

The afternoon sun is at its harshest in Chennai, as it always is during May. The Chennai Super Kings players arrive at the MA Chidambaram stadium in Chepauk and get set for another match in the most testing of conditions. Right opposite the stadium, despite the scorching heat, H Saravanan, arguably their biggest fan, is busy with his own preparation: getting his body covered in yellow paint with the name ‘Dhoni’ and the number ‘7′ written in bold across his chest.

Three years ago, Saravanan was threatened by security personnel when he went to the team hotel with a hope of meeting MS Dhoni. Now, he travels with the Chennai team for all their Indian Premier League matches, interacts with the players like he’s a part of the side and even leads their victory lap after their final home match.

Saravanan is the Chennai version of Sudhir Kumar Chaudhry, the Sachin Tendulkar fanatic – that rare fan who almost sacrifices their own life to follow their heroes.

Saravanan, like Chaudhry, hails from a modest background. His father is an autorickshaw driver and mother a housewife. But, unlike Sudhir, who abandoned his family and job to dedicate his life to follow Tendulkar and now the Indian team, Saravanan has a stable job as a warehouse in-charge at a construction material company in Chennai. By his own admission, Saravanan is “nowhere close to Sudhir”, but stresses that Dhoni and Chennai are his “life and biggest priority”.

“Sudhir is great. He has done a lot and he’s definitely an inspiration,” says Saravanan, even as the painter carries on with his job. “I’m nowhere near and I can’t even be compared with him. But Tendulkar already has such a fan and I wanted Dhoni also to have one such fan. More importantly, I wanted to be that fan.”

Initially a fan of Tendulkar, Saravanan’s admiration for Dhoni started after India’s victory in the 2007 World T20. It took an accident in 2010 and a World Cup victory under Dhoni in 2011 to inspire him to make the leap to being a super-fan.

“My only ambition then (2007) was to get an autograph from Dhoni,” he recalls. “But I didn’t know where and how to proceed with it as he had no connection with Chennai and I had no connection with cricketers. Luckily for me, in 2008, he came to Chennai through the IPL and I sensed a chance.”

At first, Saravanan was just like any other fan, only his face painted while supporting Chennai. “I met with an accident and injured my leg in December 2010 and was stuck to bed for six months. It forced me to watch every single match of the 2011 World Cup and the IPL. India won the World Cup and

Chennai won the IPL, so it was a double boost for me and my love for Dhoni grew rapidly. I wasn’t there for 1983 World Cup, so this really moved me. I badly wanted to do something in return for Dhoni.”

The injury forced him to miss the 2012 IPL as well, but his passion didn’t wane. In 2013, he started painting his entire body, and instantly became a hit among spectators in Chennai. Friends and relatives mocked him, but Saravanan had already become a mini-celebrity in the stands, with people queueing up to take pictures with him.

Lack of funds and Chennai’s home matches moving out of the city were major roadblocks, but Saravanan worked his way around both and gradually became an official fan of the franchise. A fellow Chennai supporter created a social media profile in his name and after repeated requests, the franchise officials agreed to take him along for a couple of matches in Ranchi during the Champions League Twenty20 2013.

“That was the first time I went away from Chennai to watch a match,” he says. “Again in 2014, there were no matches in Chennai. I had become a fanatic by then and couldn’t imagine the possibility of missing Chennai’s matches. Kasi Viswanathan, the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association secretary, helped me a lot and the franchise took me to all matches during the India leg of the tournament. It cost me Rs 50000 in 2013 but the franchise takes care of most of my expenses now and I have seen all Chennai matches in India from then.

“I missed only one match,” he admits, “because I got engaged that day. The first time I met my fiancee, I told her very clearly that this is my life and my biggest priority. Everything else comes after this.”

Saravanan’s routine starts five hours before a match. He rents a room opposite the stadium and gets his friend, who is no professional painter, to completely paint his body in yellow. On an average, around 15 small bottles of paint are used and Saravanan has to stand throughout the painstaking process. He does not sit even during the match to avoid the paint peeling off and consumes only water during the whole period, which comes to around 11 hours.

Finally, it all seemed to pay off, when at an event in Bangalore last year, he met his idol.

“I went fully painted as I wanted him to see me like that first time,” he says, the pride in his voice evident. “Suresh Raina, Brendon McCullum and Ravindra Jadeja walked in front of me and I was looking at them, when Dhoni suddenly came from behind. I was speechless and immediately fell at his feet. He lifted me and spoke something, but I couldn’t understand anything as it was all in Hindi. I have a language problem with him and the only thing I know is that he calls me ‘yellow man’.

“I share a good rapport with some other players too. R Ashwin often asks me with concern why I do all this and why I spoil my body, but, luckily, I’ve not had any allergy or skin problems until now. I’m not scared of it.”

In a tournament where squads and loyalties are fluid, Saravanan is an exception. Is all this worth it though?

“Definitely. I don’t expect anything for what I do,” he says. “All this is only for happiness. When fans call me Dhoni when I walk on the street with the paint on, I feel happy … I’m Chennai’s Dhoni. He’s Ranchi’s Dhoni.”

Source….www.ibnlive.com

Natarajan

Image of the Day….Astronauts at work on International Space Station…

May 16, 2015NatarajanLeave a comment

Astronauts working on the International Space Station.

This week, the six-member Expedition 43 crew worked a variety of onboard maintenance tasks, ensuring crew safety and the upkeep of the International Space Station’s hardware. In this image, NASA astronauts Scott Kelly (left) and Terry Virts (right) work on a Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) inside the station’s Japanese Experiment Module. The CDRA system works to remove carbon dioxide from the cabin air, allowing for an environmentally safe crew cabin.

The crew also is packing the SpaceX Dragon space freighter readying the vehicle for its return home and splashdown May 21.

Tags: Expedition 43, Image of the Day, International Space Station, One-Year Crew

Source……www.nasa.gov

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படித்து ரசித்தது ….” வாழ்க்கைப் பயணம் …”

வாழ்க்கைப் பயணம்

Brilliant Video shot From IAF Jaguar Plane…!!!

Image of the Day….Astronauts at work on International Space Station…

Tags: Expedition 43, Image of the Day, International Space Station, One-Year Crew