NextGen: The Santa One Story - Big flight gets green light as FAA clears Santa One

[MtnBiker2005]

NextGen: The Santa One Story - Big flight gets green light as FAA clears Santa One

Video:
http://fastlane.dot.gov/2011/12/faa-clears-santa.html

A Very NextGen Christmas - YouTube Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e19PUd4BOHk

http://www.faa.gov/santa

http://www.noradsanta.org


This year, Santa’s flight will be the safest and most successful one yet thanks to the NextGen technology used by North Pole International Airport. Rudolph’s red nose features gumdrop-enhanced avionics to make it ten times brighter and easier to track, even in the heavy snowfalls experienced at the Pole. And air traffic control will keep Santa safely separated from other aircraft by having him fly at a cruising altitude of 50,000 feet. That’s higher than commercial aircraft fly. They’ll also be tracking him using Candy Cane Satellite Surveillance-Broadcast, an enhancement of the FAA’s satellite-based system called Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast.



One of the more elaborate flight plans filed this year

In addition to keeping Santa, the reindeer and his important cargo safe, these improvements will allow Santa to fly the fastest, most efficient route, and that benefits children around the world as well as the entire North Pole community. Santa’s reindeer will need to eat fewer carrots over the course of the night. Rudolph and his friends will have more time for reindeer games and more room in their stomachs for milk and cookies. Plus, they’ll be cutting down on their carbon hoofprint.

But you don’t need antlers or a red suit to realize that the improvements to Santa’s route will help him make more deliveries. More deliveries means more gifts for children all around the world. Reports say that elf hiring has gone up 50% at his workshop due to the need for increased toy output.


Although the NORAD tracker can tell you Santa’s exact location, we don’t have a live video feed from inside the sleigh. But you should know Mrs. Claus has assured us that Santa will be well rested, will use his seat belt and will be keeping his phone out of reach and in a stocking during the trip.

Thank you, FAA inspectors, for making sure Santa’s good to go once again. And thanks to the air traffic controllers who will guide the big guy and his cargo safely through our skies. Children around the world are looking forward to news of another on-time, safe flight.

-------------------------------------------
The Santa one Story - NextGEN
How NextGen technology helps Santa's sleigh, the Santa One, navigate the skies.

* Predictability - Rudolph's Nose Now 10 Times Brighter!

* Predictability - Enhanced Gumdrop Positioning System means weather in NextGen areas is no longer a problem. Continuous precision routes remove delays leaving more time for milk & cookies.

* Economy - North Pole Hiring Up 50%!

* Economy - Faster, more efficient flights means more presents. More presents means more jobs for elves

* Safety - Candy Cane Satellite Surveillance (CCSS) Now Operational!

* Safety - Santa's tower control elves can now route Santa safely and efficiently from house to house.

* Environmental - Reindeer Carrot Consumption Slashed!

* Environmental - Getting from house to house faster means reindeer don't need to be fed as much!

Environmental:
Number of Reindeer: 9
Pounds of carrots, per reindeer: 2160 LBS
[24 LBS [10hours] x 9 reindeer]
Pounds of carrots saved by flying efficient Routes: 1080 LBS

The Santa One Story - Merry Christmas!

 

[b7spectra]

But Santa did have to get his license pilot's license renewed:

Santa Claus, like all pilots, gets regular visits from the Federal Aviation Administration, and it was shortly before Christmas when the FAA examiner arrived. In preparation, Santa had the elves wash the sled and bathe all the reindeer. Santa got his logbook out and made sure all his paperwork was in order.

The examiner walked slowly around the sled. He check the reindeer harnesses, the landing gear, and Rudolf's nose. He painstakingly reviewed Santa's weight and balance calculations for sled's enormous payload.

Finally, they were ready for the checkride. Santa got in and fastened his seatbelt and shoulder harness and checked the compass. Then the examiner hopped in carrying, to Santa's surprise, a shotgun.

"What's that for?" asked Santa incredulously.

The examiner winked and said, "I'm not supposed to tell you this, but you're gonna lose an engine on takeoff."

 

[scannerboy01]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7D11 Safari/528.16)

Since the North Pole is Canadian land, what does the FAA have to do with anything? It should be Transport Canada checking on Santa Claus.

 

[MtnBiker2005]

Santa tracking from 2009 using ADS-B transponder.
This year Santa Sled is using a new tracking technology "Candy Cane Satellite Surveillance-Broadcast". Maybe FAA will 'PATCH / LINKED' it to the ADS-B FAA network

 

[Rt169Radio]

NORAD has began to track Santa.

 

[lep]

Actually any carrier that reguarly lands in the USA has to agree to abide by FAA Regulations.

 

[scannerboy01]

Actually any carrier that reguarly lands in the USA has to agree to abide by FAA Regulations.

Since Santa Claus's sleigh lands in many different countries, shouldn't each countries' aviation authorities check on Santa's sleigh once it lands in their country or enters their airspace. However, since the North Pole is in Canada, the sleigh would be certified by Transport Canada and have Canadian registration numbers.

 

[MtnBiker2005]

SANTA1 Flight on PlaneFinder.
http://planefinder.net/flight/S4NTA1

 

[MtnBiker2005]

[From 2011 Tracking.]

 

[MtnBiker2005]

[From FlightAware squawk post]
Posted by Stonesurfer.

After much research, we present the annual aeronautical engineers report on the theory of Santa:
No known species of reindeer can fly. BUT there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not COMPLETELY rule out flying reindeer, which only Santa has ever seen.

There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since Santa doesn't (appear) to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish & Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total -378 million according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes that there's at least one good child in each.

Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with. This is due to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits/second. That is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has .001 second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house.

Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78 miles/household, a total trip of 75.5 million miles; not counting stops to do what most of us do at lease once every 31 hours, plus eating etc. So Santa's sleigh must be moving at 650 miles/second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a pokey 27.4 miles/second. A conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles/hour.

If every one of the 91.8 million homes with good children were to put out a single chocolate chip cookie and an 8 ounce glass of 2% milk, the total calories (needless to say other vitamins and minerals) would be approximately 225 calories (100 for the cookie, give or take, and 125 for the milk, give or take). Multiplying the number of calories per house by the number of homes (225 x 91.8 x 1000000), we get the total number of calories Santa consumes that night, which is 20,655,000,000 calories. To break it down further, 1 pound is equal to 3500 calories. Dividing our total number of calories by the number of calories in a pound (20655000000 / 3500) and we get the number of pounds Santa gains, 5901428.6, which is 2950.7 tons.

The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized Lego set (2 lb.), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300lb. Even granting that "flying reindeer" (see #1) can pull 10 TIMES the normal amount, we cannot do the job with 8, or even 9, reindeer. We need 214,200. This increases the payload - not counting the weight of the sleigh - to 353,430 tons. This is four times the weight of the ocean-liner Queen Elizabeth.

353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles/second creates enormous air resistance. This will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as a spacecraft reentering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Each. In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them and create deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within .00426 of a second. Meanwhile, Santa, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250 lb. Santa, being very conservative in terms of guessing Santa's weight, would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 lb. of force. If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's dead now.

A Merry Christmas to one and all!
http://flightaware.com/squawks/view...ight_gets_green_light_as_FAA_clears_Santa_One

 

[MtnBiker2005]

Get ready to track Santa again for 2012 Christmas!