Committee on Aeronautics Newsletter

COMMITTEE ON AERONAUTICS NEWSLETTER

Volume 4, No. 2, May 2020

ALAN D. REITZFELD IN THIS ISSUE: CHAIR [email protected] From the Committee Chair and Committee Secretary ...... 2 Subcommittee List ...... 3 SARAH G. PASSERI SECRETARY Committee News ...... 4 [email protected] Articles

Maria C. Iannini, What Apollo 13 Can Teach Us While Living in COVID-19 Times ...... 5 Bradford P. Meisel, California Considers Stringent Drone Delivery Privacy Legislation ...... 9 Albert J. Pucciarelli, Apollo 13 − Saved by the Remarkable LM .. 11 David J. Williams, Conventional Gear: Why It Is Obsolete and Why It Still Matters...... 17 Fun Pages ...... 19

The views and opinions expressed in these articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the New York City Bar Association. From the Committee Chair and Committee Secretary:

Alan D. Reitzfeld1 Sarah G. Passeri2 [email protected] [email protected] Committee Chair Committee Secretary

We are very pleased to present this twelfth issue of our Committee’s Newsletter. It is the last Newsletter during Alan’s four-year term as Chair. An “even dozen” Newsletters, averaging over 30 pages each, was possible thanks to our wonderful authors.

The prior issues are posted (by year) on the Committee’s section of the New York City Bar’s public website (click on the “News & Media” button): http://www.nycbar.org/member-and- career-services/committees/aeronautics-committee. We hope that our Committee Members and Alumni (and other readers accessing this Newsletter on the Bar’s website) continue to find each issue very interesting.

Our Committee focuses on a wide variety of aerospace issues, including topics covered in our 22 subcommittees (see p. 3). The Committee usually meets monthly from September through June, with guest speakers on legal and/or technical aerospace issues. It is a vibrant group, and membership has grown substantially over the last few years.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and quarantine, our Committee’s April meeting was held via video conference (see Fun Pages) and our May meeting is likewise scheduled to be held via video conference.

Please stay tuned for more information about activities of the Committee on Aeronautics.

1 Before retiring in April 2018, Alan Reitzfeld was a senior partner in Holland & Knight LLP’s Litigation Practice Group, where he played a leading role for many years defending airlines in multi-district litigation arising out of numerous major domestic and foreign commercial jet airline crashes and other incidents. In addition to chairing this Committee, Alan is the Chair of the International Bar Association’s Aviation Law Committee. 2 Sarah Passeri is a partner in Holland & Knight LLP’s Litigation Practice Group. Ms. Passeri’s practice focuses on aviation and complex litigation matters, as well as asset-based financing, leasing, acquisitions, sales and securitizations, with a particular emphasis on aviation and equipment finance. She has experience flying single- engine aircraft.

2 SUBCOMMITTEE LIST

SUBCOMMITTEE CHAIR Aerospace Engineering Law and Policy Subcommittee Daniel G. Agius Airline Business Subcommittee Gene K. Kaskiw Airport Travel, Safety and Funding Issues Yuliya Khaldarova Aviation and Government Contracting Ian Massar Aviation Finance Subcommittee Michael P. Peck Aviation Insurance Subcommittee Sophia L. Cahill Aviation-Related Intellectual Property Subcommittee Jeff Tsai Canadian Comparative Air Law Subcommittee Jeffrey Derman Commercial Airline Casualty Subcommittee Erin Applebaum Corporate/Private Jet Charter Subcommittee Susan Sullivan Bisceglia Cybersecurity and Aviation Subcommittee Rebecca Tingey Drone/UAS Regulation & Licensing Subcommittee Michael Davies Federal Preemption Subcommittee Philip Weissman Fuel Subcommittee Patrick Ryan Morris General Aviation Subcommittee Albert J. Pucciarelli International Aviation Treaties Subcommittee Christopher B. Kende Regulatory Subcommittee Racquel H. Reinstein Reports Subcommittee Daniel G. Agius Subcommittee on Commercial Space Flight Austin C. Murnane Subcommittee on ICAO Developments Maria C. Iannini Subcommittee on Rotary-Wing Aviation Jonathan Callaway Technical Advances in Aviation Subcommittee Jenny A. Urban

3 COMMITTEE NEWS

Alan D. Reitzfeld’s four-year term as Committee Chair ends this Summer. Congratulations to Sarah G. Passeri and Racquel H. Reinstein who have been appointed as Co-Chairs of the Committee, effective September 1, 2020, by Incoming City Bar President Sheila S. Boston.

4 ARTICLES

What Apollo 13 Can Teach Us While Living in COVID-19 Times

Maria C. Iannini1 [email protected] Chair, Subcommittee on ICAO Developments

Apollo 13 was launched into space on April 11, 1970. And although it has been 50 years since the Apollo space program’s third crewed mission intended to land on the Moon’s Fra Mauro area, COVID-19 presents a fitting opportunity to recount the story and acknowledge NASA’s ability to adapt in an emergency. There is much to learn from that unprecedented event and apply to our own ongoing life-changing episode, COVID-19.

The Apollo 13 mission was commanded by Jim Lovell, with Jack Swigert serving as command module (CM) pilot and Fred Haise as lunar module (LM) pilot. The lunar landing mission was aborted two days after its launch, on April 13, 1970, after an oxygen tank exploded, tearing apart the service module (SM) that provided the critical power and life support systems for the Apollo 13 CM while journeying approximately 200,000 miles from Earth.

When the oxygen tank exploded at 9:08 pm on April 13, Lovell contacted NASA Mission control center, and announced the famous “Houston, we’ve had a problem.” Over an hour after the explosion the mission switched priorities from increasing our knowledge of Earth’s natural satellite to safely returning the crew home. The mission changed from one of exploration to one of survival. The following 90 hours saw one of the most impressive improvisational engineering efforts of the 20th century.

Mission control advised the astronauts to make their way into the LM to use it as a lifeboat and to power down the CM to conserve what was left of its batteries. Meanwhile, ground controllers in Houston faced the monumental task of figuring out how, when, and in what altitude to burn the LM descent engine to provide a quick return home. All these new procedures needed to be written down and tested in the simulator before being passed to the crew, making the process even more time consuming.

Against all odds and with NASA personnel working around the clock, mission control improvised new procedures so the LM, which was originally designed to support two people,

1 Maria Iannini is a member of the New York City Bar Association. She is a licensed attorney in Colombia and holds an LLM from the Institute of Air and Space Law at McGill University. She is currently working for FinTech Studios. She has previously practiced corporate law for Dentons and interned at the Legal Bureau of the International Civil Aviation Organization. She is passionate about all things related to air and space.

5 could support three men for four days. The removal of carbon dioxide was also a significant challenge. Even though there were enough lithium hydroxide canisters, which remove carbon dioxide from the spacecraft on board, the square canisters from the CM were not compatible with the round receptors in the LM. Mission control devised an ingenious way to attach the CM canisters to the LM system by simply using plastic bags, cardboard, and tape – all materials carried on board.2

In order to return to Earth, the Apollo 13 rocket engine that would have landed Lovell and Haise on the Moon was placed on a “free-return” trajectory. By looping around the far side of the Moon and by firing the rocket engine, gravity would provide the acceleration needed to return the astronauts to Earth.3 Astronauts had managed to limit their use of power by throwing out the original checklists and reducing the equipment running on the lander to a bare minimum.4

Noticeably the crew experienced great hardship caused by a lack of potable water, a near- freezing cabin (3ºC / 38ºF), lack of sleep, limited power, and emotional distress. However, true greatness arises in the face of adversity, and on April 17, 1970 the Apollo 13 crew returned to Earth, safely landing in the Pacific Ocean.

Today the story of Apollo 13 is as exciting as it was 50 years ago and although it sounds like science fiction, it is a true story of great engineering, hard work, and endurance prevailing over challenges. It is a testament to human ingenuity and a reminder to all of us what people can accomplish when they work together and refuse to fail.

While we confine ourselves at home to help stop the spread of the coronavirus, one could make connections between the Apollo 13 mission and our modern-day pandemic. The Apollo 13 crew undoubtedly felt isolated and uncertain if all the procedures planned by NASA were going to work. The three astronauts from Apollo 13 must have known throughout their experience of the high risk of not returning to Earth, similar to the way many feel right now, uncertain about the future and not knowing when and how society as we know it will reopen. The discomfort of self- isolation serves as a reminder that spaceflight is not all thrills; it brings human beings face to face with, at best, an indifferent and often hostile environment ready to extinguish the spirit of any innocent traveler without a moment’s notice.5 COVID-19 exposed how easily things can go wrong for humanity just as in Apollo 13 when the sudden explosion of an oxygen tank completely derailed an otherwise extremely important mission.

The current pandemic has proven to be an unprecedented event for humanity just as Apollo 13 was an unprecedented experience for NASA and all of its dedicated personnel. However, just as mission control devised an ingenious way to attach the CM canisters to the LM system by using materials carried on board, COVID-19 has sparked raw ingenuity. Cafeterias were transformed

2 National Aeronautics and Space Administration. (January 9, 2018) Retrieved from: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/missions/apollo13.html 3 Pearman, Robert Z. (April 13, 2020). Retrieved from: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/apollo-13-at-50- years-looking-back-at-the-missions-lost-lunar-science/ 4 Speed, Richard. (April 14, 2020). Retrieved from: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/14/apollo_13_part_2/ 5 Kelly, Scott. (2017). Endurance. A year in space, a lifetime of discovery.

6 into medical wards, breathing tubes were recycled, ventilators were split between patients,6 and specialists like orthopedic surgeons and oncologists were sent straight to the emergency room. Whiskey companies made hand sanitizer and furniture-makers started producing surgical masks.7 Additionally, various health startups started using their technology to help curb the spread of the novel coronavirus through 3D printing of ventilators,8 AI-powered sensors to support triage,9 drugs identified that can be immediately repurposed to make patients stronger, or wearable, wireless and continuous body thermometers that alert caregivers and healthcare professionals about the current condition of their patients.10 Only time will tell how humanity can stop this pandemic, and what the future might hold.

One potential benefit of the current pandemic is that it may bring humanity together and demonstrate that we have entered a new era where different nations must work together and master the ability to adapt to the global emergencies. Different signs of solidarity have sprung up around the world. Cuba sent doctors to Lombardy, the Italian region worst hit by COVID-19,11 quarantine citizens worldwide applaud first responders and health care workers on the frontlines of the coronavirus outbreak,12 and Pope Francis prayed for those helping to solve problems caused by the pandemic13 – just as Pope Paul VI, along with more than 50,000 people, prayed on April 17th, 1970 for the safe return of the Apollo 13 astronauts.14

Just as the ingenuity, hard work and endurance was necessary to help safely return Apollo 13 to Earth, similar character traits will also be required to solve this pandemic. As LM pilot Fred Heise, now 86, recently said in an interview “We had to be willing to be able to change the norm, if you will, because we had to deal with a lot of new things and new procedures to work around and get through it all. And that’s exactly what the world and people are having to deal with today”.15 Similarly, the words of Walter Cronkite in the 1991 Apollo 13 movie remain powerful

6 Optimizing Ventilator Use during the COVID-19 Pandemic. U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps (March 31, 2020). Retrieved from: https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/optimizing-ventilator-use-during- covid19-pandemic.pdf 7 Carville, Olivia. How America MacGyvered Its Way Out of Covid Chaos (April 19, 2020). Retrieved from: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-19/split-ventilators-and-whiskey-plant-hand-sanitizer-get-the-u- s-through-coronavirus 8 Ducharme, Jamie. Inventors Are Whipping Up Homemade Ventilators to Fend Off a Shortage. Some Doctors Are Wary. (April 6, 2020). Retrieved from: https://time.com/5812678/ventilator-innovations-covid-19/ 9 Kelley A. Wittbold, Colleen Carroll, Marco Iansiti, Haipeng Mark Zhang and Adam B. Landman. How Hospitals Are Using AI to Battle Covid-19. (April 3, 2020). Retrieved from: https://hbr.org/2020/04/how-hospitals-are-using- ai-to-battle-covid-19 10 Starup Health. How COVID-19 Is Sparking a New Wave of Health Innovation (March 10, 2020). Retrieved from: https://healthtransformer.co/how-covid-19-is-sparking-a-new-wave-of-health-innovation-a6f09ed1d53f 11 (April 4, 2020) Cuba’s doctors are in high demand. The Economist. Retrieved from: https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2020/04/04/cubas-doctors-are-in-high-demand 12 Stewart, Emily. Essential workers take care of us. We’re not taking care of them (April 23, 2020). Retrieved from: https://www.vox.com/covid-19-coronavirus-explainers/2020/4/23/21228971/essential-workers-stories-coronavirus- hazard-pay-stimulus-covid-19 13 (April 3, 2020) Pope prays for those helping to solve problems caused by Covid-19. The Vatican News. Retrieved from: https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope-francis/mass-casa-santa-marta/2020-04/pope-prays-for-those-helping-to- solve-problems-caused-by-covid-1.html 14 Giangravè, Claire. Pope Francis becomes part of Church’s ancient bond with space. (October 27, 2017). Retrieved from: https://cruxnow.com/global-church/2017/10/pope-francis-becomes-part-churchs-ancient-bond-space/ 15 Koren, Marina (April 11, 2020). Retrieved from: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/04/apollo-13- anniversary-pandemic/609874/

7 and apply accurately to the COVID-19 pandemic as they applied to Apollo 13: “Perhaps never in human history has the entire world been so united by such a global drama.”16

Additional Reading https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-19/split-ventilators-and-whiskey-plant-hand- sanitizer-get-the-u-s-through-coronavirus https://time.com/5812678/ventilator-innovations-covid-19/ https://hbr.org/2020/04/how-hospitals-are-using-ai-to-battle-covid-19 https://healthtransformer.co/how-covid-19-is-sparking-a-new-wave-of-health-innovation- a6f09ed1d53f https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope-francis/mass-casa-santa-marta/2020-04/pope-prays-for- those-helping-to-solve-problems-caused-by-covid-1.html https://cruxnow.com/global-church/2017/10/pope-francis-becomes-part-churchs-ancient-bond- space/ https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/optimizing-ventilator-use-during-covid19-pandemic.pdf https://history.nasa.gov/afj/ap13fj/29day6-returnhome.html https://history.nasa.gov/afj/ap13fj/photos/s70-31679.jpg https://history.nasa.gov/afj/ap13fj/pics/as-fig1.jpg https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/missions/apollo13.html https://www.engineering.com/DesignerEdge/DesignerEdgeArticles/ArticleID/15386/Great- Moments-in-Engineering-History-Apollo-13.aspx https://www.space.com/apollo-13-at-50-what-if-earth-return-failed-video.html https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/04/apollo-13-anniversary-pandemic/609874/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/apollo-13-at-50-years-looking-back-at-the-missions- lost-lunar-science/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/14/apollo_13_part_2/ ______

16 Id.

8 California Considers Stringent Drone Delivery Privacy Legislation

Bradford P. Meisel1 [email protected]

On February 20, 2020, California Assemblyman Edwin Chau (D) introduced California Assembly Bill 2787, a bill currently pending before the California Assembly Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee that would have significant ramifications for drone delivery of all consumer products including food and medication.2 This legislation comes on the heels of the enactment of the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), the most comprehensive consumer privacy statute in the United States, which took effect on January 1, 2020.3

In recent years and months, various corporations including Amazon and Domino’s have begun to develop drone delivery programs that could use drones to deliver merchandise and food to customer’s doorsteps. The ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic, along with government-issued stay- at-home orders, has fueled interest in drone delivery as corporations and consumers alike have begun to view drone delivery as a means of promoting social distancing and reducing the number of essential workers required to interact with consumers while simultaneously ensuring consumer access to food, medication, household supplies, and other merchandise.4 Alphabet’s drone delivery service, Wing, has reportedly doubled its drone deliveries in Australia and Virginia, the only state in the United States where it has commenced a drone delivery test program as of April of 2020.5 On April 27, 2020, UPS and CVS announced that beginning in May of 2020, they would partner to use drones to deliver prescription medication to The Villages, a Florida retirement community that is home to approximately 135,000 senior citizens.6

1 Bradford P. Meisel is an Associate at McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney & Carpenter specializing in corporate transactions, cybersecurity, data privacy, and drone law who previously served as a Senate Judiciary Committee Law Fellow to U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Cybersecurity and Technology Law Clerk to U.S. Senator Gary Peters of Michigan. 2 California A.B. 2787 (2020). 3 Kari Paul, “California’s Groundbreaking Privacy Law Takes Effect in January. What Does It Do?,” The Guardian (December 30, 2019) https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/30/california-consumer-privacy-act-what- does-it-do accessed May 3, 2020. 4 Curtis Silver, “The Time for Delivery Drones to Rise Up is Now,” Forbes (April 14, 2020) https://www.forbes.com/sites/curtissilver/2020/04/14/the-time-for-delivery-drones-to-rise-up-is- now/#51ebd8bb382a accessed May 3, 2020. 5 Jon Porter, “Alphabet’s Nascent Drone Delivery Service is Booming,” The Verge (April 9 2020) https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/9/21214709/alphabet-wing-drone-delivery-coronavirus-covid-19-demand- increase-toilet-paper-baby-food accessed May 3, 2020. 6 Alan Boyle “CVS and UPS Team Up for Drone Deliveries to Retirees Amid Coronavirus Outbreak,” GeekWire https://www.geekwire.com/2020/cvs-ups-team-drone-deliveries-retirees-amid-coronavirus-outbreak (April 27, 2020) accessed May 3, 2020.

9 The pending California legislation would provide that a drone that is used to deliver any consumer product in California, including food, medication, household supplies, and merchandise, may only collect, use, or retain audio, geolocation, or visual information when reasonably necessary and proportionate to achieve the delivery purposes for which such information was collected or processed.7 The legislation would also require that all such information be destroyed as soon as the delivery is completed unless federal law requires that it be retained.8 Violations of these provisions would be subject to enforcement by the California Attorney General pursuant to Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.99.82.9

If the pending California legislation is enacted, it is possible that it could be challenged on federal preemption grounds. In 2016, a California appellate court held that a state information privacy statute was preempted by the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 as applied to an airline.10 However, courts have yet to address whether state information privacy statutes are federally preempted as applied to drones. Although the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts held that a municipal ordinance governing drone registration was federally preempted by FAA drone registration regulations, it remains to be seen whether this same reasoning would be applicable to a state statute governing drones’ collection, use, and retention of consumer information.11

The enactment of the California legislation would also raise issues for commercial drone operators seeking to comply with the provisions of the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018 governing the privacy practices of commercial drone operators. The FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018 requires any commercial drone operator using a drone for non-First Amendment protected activities, presumably including delivery of consumer products, to develop and implement a publicly available privacy policy governing the collection, use, retention, and deletion of data collected by its drones that protects and respects individual privacy consistent with federal, state, and local law.12 Violations of such privacy policies are subject to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) enforcement pursuant to § 5(a) of the Federal Trade Commission Act.13 Therefore, if the pending California legislation is enacted, businesses offering drone delivery in California may be required to incorporate and comply with provisions mandating compliance with the California legislation into their publicly available privacy policies pursuant to the FAA Reauthorization Act. ______

7 California A.B. 2787 (2020). 8 California A.B. 2787 (2020). 9 California A.B. 2787 (2020); Cal.Civ.Code § 1798.99.82. 10 People ex. rel. Harris v. Delta Air Lines, Inc., 247 Cal. App. 4th 844 (Cal. Ct. App. 1st Dist. 2016). 11 Singer v. City of Newton, 284 F. Supp.3d 125 (D. Mass. 2017). 12 P.L. 115-254 § 357, § 375, § 378 (2018). 13 P.L. 115-254 § 375 (2018).

10 Apollo 13 – Saved by the Remarkable LM

Albert J. Pucciarelli1 [email protected] Chair, General Aviation Subcommittee

A few months back, in my second tribute to Apollo 11 in honor of its 50th anniversary, I praised abundantly and deservedly the Lunar Lander or “LM” that made the descent from lunar orbit with Messrs. Armstrong and Aldrin on board, and then using the descent stage as a launch platform, the LM ascent stage departed the Moon. The reliable engine of the ascent stage of the LM burned for 435 seconds, long enough to travel a distance of about 50 miles above the lunar surface at a speed of about 3,800 mph to dock with the orbiting Command Module (“CM”) / Service Module (“SM”) combination. The two astronauts in the ascent stage crawled through a narrow connecting tunnel that linked the LM to the CM and joined Michael Collins in the CM for the return trip of approximately 240,000 miles back to Earth.

Then followed the second Moon landing by the crew of Apollo 12. The two successful flights even led some people to think that trips to the Moon were becoming reliable and even routine. The superstitious might hesitate knowing that Apollo 13 was next. It lifted off beautifully on April 11, but two days into the flight, on April 13, at 13:13 Houston time, the crew of James Lovell, Jack Swigert and Fred Haise heard a loud bang and saw frozen droplets pour from the SM just behind the CM in which they were seated. Jack Swigert then uttered the now famous: “Houston, we’ve had a problem”.

What happened? Jim Lovell, in his official report on the Mission, wrote:2

“Thirteen [there’s that number again!] minutes after the explosion, I happened to look out of the left-hand window, and saw the final evidence pointing toward potential catastrophe.’We are venting something out into the- into space’” I reported to Houston. Jack Lousma, the CapCom replied, ‘Roger, we copy you venting’ I said, ‘It’s a gas of some sort.’ It was gas-oxygen- escaping at a high rate from our second, and last, oxygen tank. I am told that some amateur

1 Albert J. Pucciarelli is a partner in the firm of McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney & Carpenter, LLP, in which he is chair of the firm’s hotels and resorts and aviation practice groups. He was previously Executive Vice-President, General Counsel and Secretary of InterContinental Hotels until 1998. He is Chair of the New Jersey Bar Association Committee on Aviation Law and past-chair of the New York City Bar Association Aeronautics Law Committee (1999-2001). He is President of the Mid-Atlantic Pilots Association and the Ridgewood Arts Foundation and a Trustee of the New Jersey Aviation Hall of Fame and Museum. He is a commercial, instrument-rated pilot and aircraft owner. 2 Apollo Expeditions to the Moon, Chapter 13.1, “Houston, We’ve Had a Problem” by James Lovell. https://history.nasa.gov/SP-350/ch-13-1.html

11 astronomers on top of a building in Houston could actually see the expanding sphere of gas around the spacecraft.”

The exploded tank was the No. 2 oxygen tank, serial number 10024X-TA0009. This tank had been installed in the service module of Apollo 10, but was removed for modification and was damaged in the process of removal. After its repair, it was installed in the Apollo 13 SM.

The tank was part of a system inside the SM that produced electricity, water, heat and breathable air for the CM. After the explosion, Mission Control, in consultation with the crew, decided that the best way to keep the CM available for the blazing re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere with adequate electrical power in its batteries and oxygen for the three occupants was to shut it down immediately, something never previously done in space, and move the astronauts through the narrow connecting tunnel and into the LM that was still docked to the CM. Its descent and ascent stages were still available for necessary maneuvering, as were its fully charged batteries, fuel for the lunar mission, oxygen for its cabin and the two space suits intended for use outside the LM on the lunar surface. And so, the LM became what NASA came to call “a lifeboat”. Shutting down the CM required flipping many switches in the CM and LM in the precise sequence. Batteries from the LM were used to charge the nearly depleted CM batteries from 15% power to 20% power to enhance the time that would be available later in the CM when it alone would make the re-entry to Earth.

In his official report, again Jim Lovell wrote:3

“We had 2181 ampere hours in the LM batteries. We thought that was enough if we turned off every electrical power device not absolutely necessary. We could not count on the precious CM batteries, because they would be needed for reentry after the LM was cast off. In fact, the ground carefully worked out a procedure where we charged the CM batteries with LM power. As it turned out, we reduced our energy consumption to a fifth of normal, which resulted in our having 20 percent of our LM electrical power left when we jettisoned Aquarius. We did have one electrical heart-stopper during the mission. One of the CM batteries vented with such force that it momentarily dropped off the line. We knew we were finished if we permanently lost that battery.

“Water was the real problem. Fred figured that we would run out of water about five hours before we got back to Earth, which was calculated at around 151 hours. But even there, Fred had an ace in the hole. He knew we had a data point from Apollo 10, which had not sent its LM ascent stage crashing into the Moon, as subsequent missions did. An engineering test on the vehicle showed that its mechanisms could survive seven or eight hours in space without water cooling, until the guidance system rebelled at this enforced toasting. But we did conserve water. We cut down to six ounces each per day, a fifth of normal intake, and used fruit juices; we ate hot dogs and other wet-pack foods when we ate at all. (We lost hot water with the accident and dehydratable food is not palatable with cold water.) Somehow, one doesn’t get very thirsty in space and we became quite dehydrated. I set one record that stood up throughout Apollo: I lost fourteen pounds, and our crew set another by losing a total of 31.5 pounds, nearly 50 percent

3 Apollo Expeditions to the Moon, Chapter 13.3, “Houston, We’ve Had a Problem” by James Lovell. https://history.nasa.gov/SP-350/ch-13-3.html

12 more than any other crew. Those stringent measures resulted in our finishing with 28.2 pounds of water, about 9 percent of the total.

“Fred had figured that we had enough lithium hydroxide canisters, which remove carbon dioxide from the spacecraft. There were four cartridges from the LM, and four from the backpacks, counting backups. But he forgot that there would be three of us in the LM instead of the normal two. The LM was designed to support two men for two days. Now it was being asked to care for three men nearly four days.”

In the tight new quarters designed for two astronauts standing (no seats), all three men would have to remain in relative cold and near total darkness for the still outbound journey to the Moon, knowing that each minute put them thousands of miles further from home. They would journey all the way to about 50 miles from the lunar surface and loop behind the Moon using its gravitational pull to sling them around the back of the Moon and on a trajectory back 240,000 miles to Earth. Regarding this dark and uncertain journey, Jim Lovell recently told a reporter:4

“Temperatures in the LM dropped as low as 38 degrees, and carbon dioxide levels began to rise from the men’s breathing. Mission Control devised an innovative device to reduce carbon dioxide. Still, the men found it very difficult to sleep, crammed together in the small lunar module without seats. Haise got sick from a urinary tract infection.”

After the dark and doubtlessly frightening trip so far from home and the two-day journey 240,000 miles back to the Earth environment, the astronauts faced the very challenging final steps of re-entering the CM, restarting systems that no one knew for sure would come back on line, then quickly jettisoning the damaged SM and the LM that had served them so well, and orienting the capsule’s blunt-end forward for re-entry. Exhausted, ill and taking on unrehearsed tasks, the astronauts succeeded and the people on Earth collectively rejoiced at the sight of the Apollo 13 capsule under three striped parachutes descending into the blue Pacific waters.

Jim Lovell wrote:5

“A most remarkable achievement of Mission Control was quickly developing procedures for powering up the CM after its long cold sleep. They wrote the documents for this innovation in three days, instead of the usual three months. We found the CM a cold, clammy tin can when we started to power up. The walls, ceiling, floor, wire harnesses, and panels were all covered with droplets of water. We suspected conditions were the same behind the panels. The chances of short circuits caused us apprehension, to say the least. But thanks to the safeguards built into the command module after the disastrous fire in January 1967, no arcing took place. The droplets furnished one sensation as we decelerated in the atmosphere: it rained inside the CM.

4 “50 years after Apollo 13, Commander James Lovell sees the Mission’s Failure as a Triumph” by Meg Jones, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, April 12, 2020. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/04/12/apollo-13- 50th-anniversary-commander-james-lovell-reflects-mission/5124891002/ 5 Apollo Expeditions to the Moon, Chapter 13.5, “Houston, We’ve Had a Problem” by James Lovell. https://history.nasa.gov/SP-350/ch-13-5.html

13 “Four hours before landing, we shed the service module; Mission Control had insisted on retaining it until then because everyone feared what the cold of space might do to the unsheltered CM heat shield. I’m glad we weren’t able to see the SM earlier. With one whole panel missing, and wreckage hanging out, it was a sorry mess as it drifted away.

“Three hours later we parted with faithful Aquarius [LM ascent stage], rather rudely, because we blasted it loose with pressure in the tunnel in order to make sure it completely cleared. Then we splashed down gently in the Pacific Ocean near Samoa, a beautiful landing in a blue-ink ocean on a lovely, lovely planet.”

The role of accompanying the CM and SM back to the Earth environment with three persons on board was not contemplated in the specs for the LM, but the LM performed it admirably.

Again, Jim Lovell’s official report:6

“A lot has been written about using the LM as a lifeboat after the CM has become disabled. There are documents to prove that the lifeboat theory was discussed just before the Lunar Orbit Rendezvous mode was chosen in 1962. Other references go back to 1963, but by 1964 a study at the Manned Spacecraft Center concluded: ‘The LM [as lifeboat] . . . was finally dropped, because no single reasonable CSM failure could be identified that would prohibit use of the SPS.’ Naturally, I’m glad that view didn’t prevail, and I’m thankful that by the time of Apollo 10, the first lunar mission carrying the LM, the LM as a lifeboat was again being discussed. Fred Haise, fortunately, held the reputation as the top astronaut expert on the LM- after spending fourteen months at the Grumman plant on Long Island, where the LM was built. Fred says: ‘I never heard of the LM being used in the sense that we used it. We had procedures, and we had trained to use it as a backup propulsion device, the rationale being that the thing we were really covering was the failure of the command module’s main engine, the SPS [SM’s] engine. In that case, we would have used combinations of the LM descent engine, and in some cases, for some lunar aborts, the ascent engine as well. But we never really thought and planned, and obviously, we didn’t have the procedures to cover a case where the command module would end up fully powered down.”

NASA is known to require redundancy in all critical systems, never leaving the success of a mission, especially the lives of crew, dependent on one system or piece of equipment that may fail. In my prior article on the LM, I noted that a failure of the ascent stage to thrust the LM’s crew compartment back into a lunar orbit would have stranded two astronauts on the Moon until their hours-long oxygen supply ran out.7 There was no second system to launch the ascent stage. Similarly, had the explosion of Apollo 13’s oxygen tank in the SM occurred after the Moon landing, after the LM consumables had been used and the LM was no longer part of the CM-SM vehicle configuration, the three astronauts most certainly would have died from a lack of oxygen and a means to put the CM on course trajectory for re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere. But even so, the story of the Apollo program remains a success story. After the tragic fire that killed

6 Apollo Expeditions to the Moon, Chapter 13.2, “Houston, We’ve Had a Problem” by James Lovell. https://history.nasa.gov/SP-350/ch-13-2.html 7 “The LM Ascent Stage: The Most Remarkable Space Vehicle Ever” by Albert J. Pucciarelli. New York City Bar Association Committee on Aeronautics Newsletter, March 2020. http://documents.nycbar.org/files/Aeronautics_March_2020_Newsletter.pdf

14 three astronauts in the Apollo 1 capsule on the launch pad in a simulated launch, no lives were lost and 12 men walked on the Moon and returned safely to Earth. The one post-Apollo 11 mission that did not result in a Moon landing, became instead a tribute to the ability of NASA to adapt in an emergency and the courage of three astronauts who must have known throughout of the high risk of not returning to Earth. Apollo 13 is also a tribute to the capability of the LM that when needed in a role entirely different from that for which it was designed, performed admirably as a safe haven in the cold of space with enough thrust available to return the crew home. For me, the LM remains the most amazing space vehicle ever.

The following photo can be found at: https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/image/spacecraft/apollo_13_sm.jpg

The Apollo Service Module, after jettison from the Command Module after return to near-earth for re-entry. The explosion blew off the outer panel.

15 The following photo can be found at: Apollo Expeditions to the Moon, Chapter 13.5, “Houston, We’ve Had a Problem” by James Lovell. https://history.nasa.gov/SP-350/ch-13-5.html

Haise, Lovell, and Swigert after splashdown of the CM awaiting the recovery helicopter to the Iwo Jima in the South Seas. The crew lost a total of 31.5 pounds; Lovell alone 14 pounds - records in both cases. Dehydrated and exhausted, Haise was invalided three weeks by infection. ______

16 Conventional Gear: Why It Is Obsolete and Why It Still Matters

David J. Williams1 [email protected]

Airplanes produced in the 1920s through the 1930s were all designed with conventional gear, or what pilots often call “taildraggers.” Moving through the World War II era, manufacturers of large aircraft began converting to tricycle gear, with general aviation manufacturers following in the 1950s.

To better understand the difference, think of a delivery person with a two-wheeled hand cart. If the cart is pulled, it will simply follow the person wherever they go. If the cart is pushed, it must be actively steered or it will eventually turn away and end up following the person. This is essentially the dynamics of a tail wheel in what’s called a ground-loop.

On a tricycle gear airplane, if the plane touches down in a crab, the CG (think delivery person) will continue down the runway and the main gear (think hand cart) will align to follow it. Little effort is needed to continue steering it down the runway. If a tailwheel airplane is landed in a crab, the CG will continue down the runway, and the main gear will continue in the direction it was pointed. If no immediate pilot action is taken, the airplane will turn around, i.e. ground- loop.

So with the tricycle gear seemingly so superior, why are airplanes still built with conventional gear?

The 1950s vintage Cessna 180 and 182s are identical airplanes, except for the gear configuration. From the factory, the 180s were slightly faster and a few pounds lighter than their tricycle gear counterpart. The reduced weight, and drag of the tailwheel versus the nose wheel is still an advantage for aerobatic airplanes, like the Super Decathalon.

Conventional gear is also an advantage on rough fields. Although it looks flimsy, the typical tailwheel assembly can take far more abuse than a nose wheel setup. In addition, its failure will result in far less damage. And while the main gear on a tailwheel will push the nose up when riding over bumps, protecting the propeller and fuselage, the mains on a tricycle gear airplane will drive the nose down on uneven terrain, placing additional stress on the nose gear and endangering the propeller. As such, “bush” airplanes are typically tailwheels, like the Super Cub and the Cessna 180.

1 David Williams is an airline pilot and holds ATP (with multiple type ratings), CFI, and Dispatcher certificates. He is a Former Aviation Safety Inspector working as a technical specialist with the Eastern Region FAA legal department.

So if one isn’t planning on flying a tailwheel airplane, then why would one want to get the training and endorsement? The short answer is that learning to fly these airplanes will make you a better pilot.

A Piper Cub is a very docile airplane, and is incredibly rewarding when flown properly. It is also exceptionally intolerant of bad flying, both in the air and on the runway. Your first three hours in this airplane will be frustrating, to say the least. Then you will begin to really feel the airplane and you will start having a good conversation with it, unlike the shouting match you had in the first three hours. By seven hours, you will be having the time of your life!

Tailwheel pilots will progress through multiengine training much quicker because of their improved rudder work. One’s skills in crosswinds, stalls, and commercial maneuvers will also improve after the tailwheel endorsement. Students who wish to become professional pilots, and seasoned pilots needing a challenge, are both good candidates for this type of training.

Conventional gear airplanes still have a place in aviation, even a century after the tricycle gear configuration made them mostly obsolete. In addition to honing your flying skills, learning to fly a tailwheel can afford you more interesting opportunities. The Cirrus is a superb cross country and instrument airplane. However if I’m going flying just to spend time in the pattern or to look at the world from 1000 feet, I’ll take a Citabria any day. ______

18 FUN PAGES

April 16, 2020 Committee Meeting Via Video Conference