Jettison external load

Pakistan is a sick plane. Our ‘Profile Drag’ needs serious re-engineering & a serious work-over.

When the going gets rough for a flying machine — especially fighters that are built light to make them more manoeuvrable but end up carrying a lot of additional load to expand their mission and capability — the first and most immediate instruction is to ‘shed external load’. This is the mother of all steps before any further remedial actions are resorted to.

You see, an aeroplane is of use only when it can fly and sustain flight. Even a sickened aeroplane must be enabled to sustain flight — that will give it the time to repair damage. When the ailment is deep and irrecoverable through emergency steps, the effort is to seek maximum gliding distance, if indeed the motor has run out, and bring it to the ground where it can be handed over to the specialists to sort out. Such a deep failure normally needs prolonged maintenance.

An aeroplane in flight has a complex set of forces acting on it. The ‘lift’ — that is the primary force — keeps it in the air and is derived from air — the medium that it flies in. The engine, or the motor, thrusts it forward against all ‘drag’ and ensures that it builds enough speed to exploit the medium of air to derive the requisite lift. The lift balances the weight — that is the aeroplane with all its accompaniments — and sustains flight.

There are two opposing forces to any flight: ‘drag’ and ‘weight’. Engineers, when designing a plane, will determine the maximum weight that becomes a design limit; beyond that limit the aeroplane may not even take-off. Usually weight gets added because of external load; external load gets added to expand the mission and extend the reach of the aeroplane. Their flip side, though, is increase in the ‘drag’ that these external loads cause.

Drag remains the most inimical force to flight. Engineers and designers spend hundreds of hours coming up with innovative ways to minimise drag on an aeroplane. Drag, unless properly managed and contoured, opposes acceleration and does not let lift increase sufficiently to either sustain flight or enable flexibility to manoeuvre. Manoeuvrability is extra lift beyond the need of an aeroplane to sustain flight. Entering combat, or the first sign of trouble, which comes when facing an emergency, the pilot minimises drag to accrue the most potential out of his plane. He does so by ‘shedding external load’.

Internal load is a given on the other hand and comes with the basic configuration. A more efficient and innovative internal configuration and use of lighter materials, too can help keep the weight down. Lower basic weight would mean a need for lower lift to sustain flight, sparing more for manoeuvrability.

Pakistan, too, is like an aeroplane in flight — intended in design for a specific mission congruent with its role based on its capacity; how added load to its basic configuration to extend its reach has added drag that has disabled it to perform its intended role; and how it seems more and more like a sickened plane.

Pakistan came with a basic configuration, envisaged by its founders, to be home to a people who sought freedom to live within a value system that was commonly agreed upon between them. It was meant to be a progressive republic where all had equal stakes. Along the way, the engineers and pilots of its destiny have each attempted to make it work differently than its intended capacity; each suiting his own justification and ambition. As such what was meant to be a pleasurable flight within its design limits, has not only been burdened with extra load, both external and internal, most is now acting as major drag. There is ‘Profile Drag’ and ‘Induced Drag’. Both are excessively disproportionate to the size and role of this poor country. It has lost its ‘lift’ potential and thus manoeuvring capacity. Pakistan is a sick plane. It needs to be brought back for a major fix.

There is another allegory that is of equal value. When an army meets adversity in war or the going gets rough, it closes flanks, reduces its spread and coalesces at the centre. Pakistan needs to close its flanks, minimise its spread and coalesce at the centre. Secure the core, strengthen it, make the structure of the nation viable and then, when anchored sufficiently around pillars of foundational stability, determine the flex that may become available to pursue additional range and reach. The cardinal principle, though, is never to exceed the design limit. Play within your weight.

What are Pakistan’s external loads? Our transfrontier interests and anomalies. I am talking Afghanistan, the war on terror, fascination with continuing the pseudo-strategic relationship with the US, winning Kashmir through manoeuvres with limited potential for additional lift. When you seek lift beyond the design capacity you stall — this is the worst consequence. This has been our self-inflicted ‘Induced Drag’. Today, we know it has held us back as a people and a state, defying the dreams of those who had a different objective in mind.

Our ‘Profile Drag’ needs serious re-engineering and a serious work-over; that must remain our ultimate object of attention. The innards are corroded and badly mangled; those need to be studiously untangled. The weight of older conduits, too taxing for the limited body size, repaired over and over again with shoddy workmanship, must be replaced.

Yet, it must all begin with jettisoning external load.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 13^th, 2011.