Text by Yunshi Wu Translation by Leo Illustration by Haolun Zhang Photos by Zeng Jian

FLY OVER THE LAND OF SNOW

Text by Yunshi Wu Translation by Leo Illustration by Haolun Zhang Photos by Zeng Jian

雪域沖天翼

Situated in southwest China, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, dubbed as the “roof of the world”, had long been considered a “no-fly zone” for civil aircraft because of its prohibitive height and extremely complex geographical and climatic conditions. But that was the old story. Today, China Southern offers flight services to 5 super-high plateau airports and 10 high plateau airports, including Lhasa Gonggar Airport.

在中國的西南邊陲，巍然聳立著“世界屋脊”——青藏高原。由于地理和氣候條件極端復(fù)雜，它曾被民航界視為“空中禁區(qū)”。而今，除了拉薩機(jī)場以外，南航的飛機(jī)還開始飛往香格里拉，九寨溝等5個“高高原機(jī)場”及10個“高原機(jī)場”。

High Requirements for Airports

Long runways: due to thin air on plateaus, an aircraft's true airspeed is much higher there than when flying on plains. Besides, the thrust of the aircraft's engine significantly drops when it operates at a high-altitude airport. As a result, the plane needs a much longer runway to take off or land at a high-altitude airport.

High Requirements for Aircraft

Complex and changing weather patterns on plateaus, which may significantly differ from hour to hour, from region to region and from locality to locality, require much for the aircraft.

1. An aircraft needs to “l(fā)ose weight” (about 25 tons) before flying into Tibet;

2. The engines used must be within 600-6,000 hours of flight time (or so called “golden period of service”);

3. The aircraft must be able to supply enough oxygen to meet oxygen requirements for emergency descent and first aid scenarios as well as the oxygen demand of the cabin crew in the interval between landing and the next flight that correspond to the high or super-high plateau airport and air route where it operates;

4. For an aircraft to operate at a super-high plateau airport, its cabin/cockpit pressurization system also needs to be modified.

High Requirements for Pilots

To qualify as a pilot for high-altitude routes, one has to meet very high physical criteria and go through a vigorous selection process, including:

1. Having no less than 500 hours of flight time on a certain aircraft model and have personally operated the landing and take-off of the aircraft model on a super-high plateau airport for at least eight times;

2. Having completed a simulated single-engine flight training course and learning of theoretic knowledge about flight over plateaus plus participation in a singleengine flight training every six months.

1. Lhasa Gonggar Airport拉薩機(jī)場

2. After the Airbus A330-300 suffered a compressor surge on the right side engine at Lhasa Gonggar Airport, a maintenance team was sent from Guangzhou to replace the failed engine with a new Rolls-Royce Trent 700 engine. It took the team four days (and nights) to reach there. The team put on airtight protective clothing to avoid radiation burns from strong ultraviolet (UV) light and had to stop to rest or even inhale oxygen from time to time while working on the engines.