A380 -- The Reveal

[Akira 0]

Quote[/b] ]SAS operates non-stops from Seattle to Europe on the polar route. Northwest and United go all sorts of weird places out of here, not to mention Areoflot.

While you may think of SFO, LAX, JFK, and such as portals, and rightly they commonly are, you also have a lot of non-stop traffic originating out of Chigago-O'Hare, Dallas-Ft.Worth, I heard of a Phoenix to some bizarre place the other day as well.

Non-stops are not the niche for the A380. As I said, hub-to-hub is the main route for the A380. The route has to be able to support the massive capacity of the A380. I would be surprised if Seattle will see the A380 as the load factors are just not there. Hubs like Chicago (United), DFW (American), Atlanta (Delta), Dulles, JFK, LAX (to name a domestic few), are the main market. Time will tell if airports stick by their No-A380 rhetoric, but in the end the A380 will be bringing in massive amounts of passengers, and that could equal revenue for an airport.

In any case, we won't be seeing the A380 in US carrier colors anytime this century.

Quote[/b] ]Pan-Am and some of the other early 747 customers toyed with having a lounge in the bubble, but they ended up pulling it shortly after launch to add more seats. Simple return on investment. It would make sense maybe on a Europe-Asia or Europe-Carribean (any planned service down there?) routes where you have time and interest to make up for lost seats. It all depends on the routes and markets.

The lounges were in a number of airlines and harkened back to the day of the 377. They were yanked out when they took up valuable seat space with ever sky rocketing fuel costs (70's). I have a airline design book that shows the interior of a Braniff (I think) 747 lounge....the Tiger Lounge....in the early 70s....and yes there was plenty of orange involved.....I'll just leave you with that horrific image.

EDIT:

777-200LR

Basically from Los Angeles, there is no where in the world this plane can't reach (sans Aantarctic).

[Necromancer- 0]

In any case, we won't be seeing the A380 in US carrier colors anytime this century.

This century? that would be very old, my friend.

[theavonlady 2]

Literally on a wing and a prayer:

Quote[/b] ]What made an Airbus rudder snap in mid-air?

13 March 2005 07:43

At 35 000 feet above the Caribbean, Air Transat flight 961 was heading home to Quebec with 270 passengers and crew. At 3.45pm last Sunday, the pilot noticed something very unusual. His Airbus A310's rudder -- a structure over 8m high -- had fallen off and tumbled into the sea. In the world of aviation, the shock waves have yet to subside.

Mercifully, the crew was able to turn the plane around, and by steering it with their wing and tail flaps managed to land at their point of departure in Varadero, Cuba, without loss of life. But as Canadian investigators try to discover what caused this near catastrophe, the specialist internet bulletin boards used by pilots, accident investigators and engineers are buzzing.

One former Airbus pilot, who now flies Boeings for a major United States airline, told The Observer: "This just isn't supposed to happen. No one I know has ever seen an airliner's rudder disintegrate like that. It raises worrying questions about the materials and build of the aircraft, and about its maintenance and inspection regime. We have to ask as things stand, would evidence of this type of deterioration ever be noticed before an incident like this in the air?"

He and his colleagues also believe that what happened may shed new light on a previous disaster. In November 2001, 265 people died when American Airlines flight 587, an Airbus A300 model which is almost identical to the A310, crashed shortly after take-off from JFK airport in New York. According to the official report into the crash, the immediate cause was the loss of the plane's rudder and tailfin, though this was blamed on an error by the pilots.

There have been other non-fatal incidents. One came in 2002 when a FedEx A300 freight pilot complained about strange "uncommanded inputs" -- rudder movements which the plane was making without his moving his control pedals. In FedEx's own test on the rudder on the ground, engineers claimed its "acuators" -- the hydraulic system which causes the rudder to move -- tore a large hole around its hinges, in exactly the spot where the rudders of both flight 961 and flight 587 parted company from the rest of the aircraft.

On Sunday night Ted Lopatkiewicz, spokesperson for the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which conducted the flight 587 investigation, said that the board was "closely monitoring" the Canadian inquiry for its possible bearing on the New York crash. "We need to know why the rudder separated from the aircraft before knowing whether maintenance is an issue," he added.

Airbus -- Europe's biggest manufacturing company, to which British factories contribute major components, including aircraft wings -- has now overtaken Boeing to command the biggest share of the global airliner market. In sales literature to operators, it described the A300 series as a "regional profit machine".

The firm recently launched its superjumbo, the two-storey A380, which is due in service next year. Like earlier Airbus models, this relies heavily on "composite" synthetic materials which are both lighter -- and, in theory, stronger -- than aluminium or steel. Fins, flaps and rudders are made of a similar composite on the A300 and A310, of which there are about 800 in service all over the world.

Composites are made of hundreds of layers of carbon fibre sheeting stuck together with epoxy resin. Each layer is only strong along the grain of the fibre. Aircraft engineers need to work out from which directions loads will come, then lay the sheets in a complex, criss-cross pattern. If they get this wrong, a big or unexpected load might cause a plane part to fail.

It is vital there are no kinks or folds as the layers are laid, and no gaps in their resin coating. Holes between the layers can rapidly cause extensive "delamination" and a loss of stiffness and strength.

Airbus, together with aviation authorities on both sides of the Atlantic, insists that any deterioration of a composite part can be detected by external, visual inspection, a regular feature of Airbus maintenance programmes, but other experts disagree.

In an article published after the flight 587 crash, Professor James Williams of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one of the world's leading authorities in this field, said that to rely on visual inspection was "a lamentably naive policy. It is analogous to assessing whether a woman has breast cancer by simply looking at her family portrait."

Williams and other scientists have stated that composite parts in any aircraft should be tested frequently by methods such as ultrasound, allowing engineers to "see" beneath their surface. His research suggests that repeated journeys to and from the sub-zero temperatures found at cruising altitude causes a build-up of condensation inside composites, and separation of the carbon fibre layers as this moisture freezes and thaws. According to Williams, "like a pothole in a roadway in winter, over time these gaps may grow".

Commenting on the vanishing rudder on flight 961, he pointed out that nothing was said about composite inspection in the NTSB's report on flight 587. This was an "unfortunate calamity", he said. Although the flight 961 rupture had yet be analysed, he continued to believe Airbus's maintenance rules were "inadequate", despite their official endorsement.

Barbara Crufts, an Airbus spokesperson, said visual inspections were "the normal procedure" and insisted Williams's case was unproven. "You quote him as an expert. But there are more experts within the manufacturers and the certification authorities who agree with these procedures." She disclosed that the aircraft used in flight 961 -- which entered service in 1991 -- had been inspected five days before the incident. She said did not know if the rudder had been examined.

Despite these and earlier assurances, some pilots remain sceptical. The Observer has learnt that after the 587 disaster, more than 20 American Airlines A300 pilots asked to be transferred to Boeings, although this meant months of retraining and loss of earnings. Some of those who contributed to pilots' bulletin boards last week expressed anger at the European manufacturer in vehement terms. One wrote that having attended an Airbus briefing about 587, he had refused to let any of his family take an A300 or A310 and had paid extra to take a circuitous route on holiday purely to avoid them: "That is how convinced I am that there are significant problems associated with these aircraft."

Another seasoned pilot with both military and civilian experience said: "Composite experts across the country advocate state-of-the-art, non-destructive testing to prevent this type of incident from happening, yet civil aviation authorities still only require 'naked eye' or other rudimentary inspections. How many more incidents have to occur for decision-makers to do the right thing by passengers and crews?"

He said that while flight 961 had come down safely, to land a plane without a rudder in a crosswind or turbulence could be impossible. The rudder was all the more important on a plane such as an A310, because its wing design meant that it was "aerodynamically unstable" and needed the rudder for stability.

Air Transat, a charter operator which flies from Canada to Europe and the Caribbean, said that after the incident it "immediately carried out a thorough visual examination of all its Airbus A310s... and no anomaly was detected."

The separation of the rudder may have further implications for the cause of the 587 crash. In its report, the NTSB said the tail and rudder failed because they were subjected to stresses "beyond ultimate load", imposed because the co-pilot, Sten Molin, overreacted to minor turbulence and made five violent side-to-side "rudder reversals". The report said the design of the A300 controls was flawed because it allowed this to happen.

However, the NTSB investigation has been criticised by many insiders. Ellen Connors, the NTSB chair, told reporters last January that the report was delayed because of "inappropriate" and "intense" lobbying by Airbus over its contents, adding: "The potential for contaminating the investigation exists." In America, the NTSB staff is small and manufacturers provide many of the staff employed on air-crash investigations into their own products.

Dozens of former accident investigators, engineers and pilots, including some who were involved in the official inquiry but were disappointed by its conduct, poured their expertise into a parallel investigation run by Victor Trombettas, who lives near the crash site and runs a website, usread.com. Drawing on the huge mass of technical data released after the crash, they question the conclusion that "aggressive" rudder inputs were the crash's main cause.

"I don't think the NTSB did a quality job," said Vernon Grose, a Washington safety consultant who is a former board member. He supported the conclusion of Trombettas's group -- that more than ten seconds before any rudder movements, the 587 pilots were fighting to regain control of the aircraft for reasons that remain unknown: a still-to-be investigated technical failure, or possibly a terrorist bomb. The crash, he recalled, took place two months after 9/11. Ninety per cent of the witnesses who saw the plane from the ground said they saw smoke or fire billowing from it before the tail and rudder fell off, Grose said.

Against this background, a spokesperson for the Canadian Transport Safety Bureau, which is performing the investigation, disclosed that there is "no evidence" of any movements by the rudder before its rupture, while Air Transat confirmed that it had separated when the plane was at cruising altitude and speed. "You barely use the rudder at all in those conditions," the former A300 pilot said. "If this plane lost a rudder with no one doing anything, it has to raise new questions about the fate of flight 587."

And the pressure is now on the aviation authorities to review whether testing by the naked eye is really enough to keep air passengers safe.

[Akira 0]

The interesting thing is the fact that Boeing is going to 90% composite build for their new 787. Also, no one seems to point the finger at Boeing when the 737's rudder is in question, with numerous known incidents, and two well known fatal incidents. Personally I think its hogwash. Especially after this:

Quote[/b] ]that more than ten seconds before any rudder movements, the 587 pilots were fighting to regain control of the aircraft for reasons that remain unknown

So I guess the group doesn't believe that a 747 wake turbulence encounter is that significant?

I believe most of the incidents most likely can be written down as A)faulty or inadequate maintainence and B)20-year old frames.

[der bastler 0]

I believe most of the incidents most likely can be written down as A)faulty or inadequate maintainence and B)20-year old frames.

Plus it is a little bit... bold... to draw conclusions for a whole series of aircrafts from single incidents...

[soul_assassin 1723]

Literally on a wing and a prayer:

Quote[/b] ]What made an Airbus rudder snap in mid-air?

13 March 2005 07:43

At 35 000 feet above the Caribbean, Air Transat flight 961 was heading home to Quebec with 270 passengers and crew. At 3.45pm last Sunday, the pilot noticed something very unusual. His Airbus A310's rudder -- a structure over 8m high -- had fallen off and tumbled into the sea. In the world of aviation, the shock waves have yet to subside.

Mercifully, the crew was able to turn the plane around, and by steering it with their wing and tail flaps managed to land at their point of departure in Varadero, Cuba, without loss of life. But as Canadian investigators try to discover what caused this near catastrophe, the specialist internet bulletin boards used by pilots, accident investigators and engineers are buzzing.

One former Airbus pilot, who now flies Boeings for a major United States airline, told The Observer: "This just isn't supposed to happen. No one I know has ever seen an airliner's rudder disintegrate like that. It raises worrying questions about the materials and build of the aircraft, and about its maintenance and inspection regime. We have to ask as things stand, would evidence of this type of deterioration ever be noticed before an incident like this in the air?"

He and his colleagues also believe that what happened may shed new light on a previous disaster. In November 2001, 265 people died when American Airlines flight 587, an Airbus A300 model which is almost identical to the A310, crashed shortly after take-off from JFK airport in New York. According to the official report into the crash, the immediate cause was the loss of the plane's rudder and tailfin, though this was blamed on an error by the pilots.

There have been other non-fatal incidents. One came in 2002 when a FedEx A300 freight pilot complained about strange "uncommanded inputs" -- rudder movements which the plane was making without his moving his control pedals. In FedEx's own test on the rudder on the ground, engineers claimed its "acuators" -- the hydraulic system which causes the rudder to move -- tore a large hole around its hinges, in exactly the spot where the rudders of both flight 961 and flight 587 parted company from the rest of the aircraft.

On Sunday night Ted Lopatkiewicz, spokesperson for the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which conducted the flight 587 investigation, said that the board was "closely monitoring" the Canadian inquiry for its possible bearing on the New York crash. "We need to know why the rudder separated from the aircraft before knowing whether maintenance is an issue," he added.

Airbus -- Europe's biggest manufacturing company, to which British factories contribute major components, including aircraft wings -- has now overtaken Boeing to command the biggest share of the global airliner market. In sales literature to operators, it described the A300 series as a "regional profit machine".

The firm recently launched its superjumbo, the two-storey A380, which is due in service next year. Like earlier Airbus models, this relies heavily on "composite" synthetic materials which are both lighter -- and, in theory, stronger -- than aluminium or steel. Fins, flaps and rudders are made of a similar composite on the A300 and A310, of which there are about 800 in service all over the world.

Composites are made of hundreds of layers of carbon fibre sheeting stuck together with epoxy resin. Each layer is only strong along the grain of the fibre. Aircraft engineers need to work out from which directions loads will come, then lay the sheets in a complex, criss-cross pattern. If they get this wrong, a big or unexpected load might cause a plane part to fail.

It is vital there are no kinks or folds as the layers are laid, and no gaps in their resin coating. Holes between the layers can rapidly cause extensive "delamination" and a loss of stiffness and strength.

Airbus, together with aviation authorities on both sides of the Atlantic, insists that any deterioration of a composite part can be detected by external, visual inspection, a regular feature of Airbus maintenance programmes, but other experts disagree.

In an article published after the flight 587 crash, Professor James Williams of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one of the world's leading authorities in this field, said that to rely on visual inspection was "a lamentably naive policy. It is analogous to assessing whether a woman has breast cancer by simply looking at her family portrait."

Williams and other scientists have stated that composite parts in any aircraft should be tested frequently by methods such as ultrasound, allowing engineers to "see" beneath their surface. His research suggests that repeated journeys to and from the sub-zero temperatures found at cruising altitude causes a build-up of condensation inside composites, and separation of the carbon fibre layers as this moisture freezes and thaws. According to Williams, "like a pothole in a roadway in winter, over time these gaps may grow".

Commenting on the vanishing rudder on flight 961, he pointed out that nothing was said about composite inspection in the NTSB's report on flight 587. This was an "unfortunate calamity", he said. Although the flight 961 rupture had yet be analysed, he continued to believe Airbus's maintenance rules were "inadequate", despite their official endorsement.

Barbara Crufts, an Airbus spokesperson, said visual inspections were "the normal procedure" and insisted Williams's case was unproven. "You quote him as an expert. But there are more experts within the manufacturers and the certification authorities who agree with these procedures." She disclosed that the aircraft used in flight 961 -- which entered service in 1991 -- had been inspected five days before the incident. She said did not know if the rudder had been examined.

Despite these and earlier assurances, some pilots remain sceptical. The Observer has learnt that after the 587 disaster, more than 20 American Airlines A300 pilots asked to be transferred to Boeings, although this meant months of retraining and loss of earnings. Some of those who contributed to pilots' bulletin boards last week expressed anger at the European manufacturer in vehement terms. One wrote that having attended an Airbus briefing about 587, he had refused to let any of his family take an A300 or A310 and had paid extra to take a circuitous route on holiday purely to avoid them: "That is how convinced I am that there are significant problems associated with these aircraft."

Another seasoned pilot with both military and civilian experience said: "Composite experts across the country advocate state-of-the-art, non-destructive testing to prevent this type of incident from happening, yet civil aviation authorities still only require 'naked eye' or other rudimentary inspections. How many more incidents have to occur for decision-makers to do the right thing by passengers and crews?"

He said that while flight 961 had come down safely, to land a plane without a rudder in a crosswind or turbulence could be impossible. The rudder was all the more important on a plane such as an A310, because its wing design meant that it was "aerodynamically unstable" and needed the rudder for stability.

Air Transat, a charter operator which flies from Canada to Europe and the Caribbean, said that after the incident it "immediately carried out a thorough visual examination of all its Airbus A310s... and no anomaly was detected."

The separation of the rudder may have further implications for the cause of the 587 crash. In its report, the NTSB said the tail and rudder failed because they were subjected to stresses "beyond ultimate load", imposed because the co-pilot, Sten Molin, overreacted to minor turbulence and made five violent side-to-side "rudder reversals". The report said the design of the A300 controls was flawed because it allowed this to happen.

However, the NTSB investigation has been criticised by many insiders. Ellen Connors, the NTSB chair, told reporters last January that the report was delayed because of "inappropriate" and "intense" lobbying by Airbus over its contents, adding: "The potential for contaminating the investigation exists." In America, the NTSB staff is small and manufacturers provide many of the staff employed on air-crash investigations into their own products.

Dozens of former accident investigators, engineers and pilots, including some who were involved in the official inquiry but were disappointed by its conduct, poured their expertise into a parallel investigation run by Victor Trombettas, who lives near the crash site and runs a website, usread.com. Drawing on the huge mass of technical data released after the crash, they question the conclusion that "aggressive" rudder inputs were the crash's main cause.

"I don't think the NTSB did a quality job," said Vernon Grose, a Washington safety consultant who is a former board member. He supported the conclusion of Trombettas's group -- that more than ten seconds before any rudder movements, the 587 pilots were fighting to regain control of the aircraft for reasons that remain unknown: a still-to-be investigated technical failure, or possibly a terrorist bomb. The crash, he recalled, took place two months after 9/11. Ninety per cent of the witnesses who saw the plane from the ground said they saw smoke or fire billowing from it before the tail and rudder fell off, Grose said.

Against this background, a spokesperson for the Canadian Transport Safety Bureau, which is performing the investigation, disclosed that there is "no evidence" of any movements by the rudder before its rupture, while Air Transat confirmed that it had separated when the plane was at cruising altitude and speed. "You barely use the rudder at all in those conditions," the former A300 pilot said. "If this plane lost a rudder with no one doing anything, it has to raise new questions about the fate of flight 587."

And the pressure is now on the aviation authorities to review whether testing by the naked eye is really enough to keep air passengers safe.

so its rudder fell off, so what where is the near disaster? The rudder isnt carrying any major aerodynamic loads thus u can fly without it only thing u won't be able to yaw and compensate for adverse yaw. The article blows it outa proportion. However it is strange that it fell off.

[Tovarish 0]

so its rudder fell off, so what where is the near disaster? The rudder isnt carrying any major aerodynamic loads thus u can fly without it only thing u won't be able to yaw and compensate for adverse yaw. The article blows it outa proportion. However it is strange that it fell off.

Did you read the whole article?

Quote[/b] ]He said that while flight 961 had come down safely, to land a plane without a rudder in a crosswind or turbulence could be impossible. The rudder was all the more important on a plane such as an A310, because its wing design meant that it was "aerodynamically unstable" and needed the rudder for stability.

[Akira 0]

so its rudder fell off, so what where is the near disaster? The rudder isnt carrying any major aerodynamic loads thus u can fly without it only thing u won't be able to yaw and compensate for adverse yaw. The article blows it outa proportion. However it is strange that it fell off.

Did you read the whole article?

Quote[/b] ]He said that while flight 961 had come down safely, to land a plane without a rudder in a crosswind or turbulence could be impossible. The rudder was all the more important on a plane such as an A310, because its wing design meant that it was "aerodynamically unstable" and needed the rudder for stability.

Also it should be noted that Fl.587 suffered a complete vertical stabilizer failure....not just rudder. A plane cannot fly without a verticle stabilizer.

[soul_assassin 1723]

so its rudder fell off, so what where is the near disaster? The rudder isnt carrying any major aerodynamic loads thus u can fly without it only thing u won't be able to yaw and compensate for adverse yaw. The article blows it outa proportion. However it is strange that it fell off.

Did you read the whole article?

Quote[/b] ]He said that while flight 961 had come down safely, to land a plane without a rudder in a crosswind or turbulence could be impossible. The rudder was all the more important on a plane such as an A310, because its wing design meant that it was "aerodynamically unstable" and needed the rudder for stability.

Also it should be noted that Fl.587 suffered a complete vertical stabilizer failure....not just rudder. A plane cannot fly without a verticle stabilizer.

You got me there i didnt know it was the whole stabilizer that fell off , which indeed would make the plane too unstable. A blown off rudder would create unfavourable vibrations due to the extra turbulent air gathering behind the stabilizer but it would bot be any problem for any experienced pilot. It is certainly nowhere as bad as loosig horizontal stabs., flaps, gears, wings.....cockpit....u name it, the rudder is probably one thing that if u knew somethings gonna fall off u would wish it was the rudder.

The A310 btw is a medium size long range jet capable of around 220 passengers with a standard mid-fuselage undercarage wing design which would've created little influence on the failed rudder.

Im a aerospace engineering student studying at a faculty which created Glare which is one of the composite materials being implemented in the A380.

[Tovarish 0]

The A310 btw is a medium size long range jet capable of around 220 passengers with a standard mid-fuselage undercarage wing design which would've created little influence on the failed rudder.

No offense....but in this case I think the opinion of a "seasoned pilot with both military and civilian experience" has much more credibility than yours.

[soul_assassin 1723]

Im in no way challenging the knowledge and experience of the pilot im just saying the article has most likely been overexsadurated...I mean where did they find tail flaps??? hehe

[soul_assassin 1723]

EDIT: Sorry for DP

[shinRaiden 0]

Huh.

Quote[/b] ]

Composites are made of hundreds of layers of carbon fibre sheeting stuck together with epoxy resin. Each layer is only strong along the grain of the fibre. Aircraft engineers need to work out from which directions loads will come, then lay the sheets in a complex, criss-cross pattern. If they get this wrong, a big or unexpected load might cause a plane part to fail.

It is vital there are no kinks or folds as the layers are laid, and no gaps in their resin coating. Holes between the layers can rapidly cause extensive "delamination" and a loss of stiffness and strength.

Airbus, together with aviation authorities on both sides of the Atlantic, insists that any deterioration of a composite part can be detected by external, visual inspection, a regular feature of Airbus maintenance programmes, but other experts disagree.

In an article published after the flight 587 crash, Professor James Williams of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one of the world's leading authorities in this field, said that to rely on visual inspection was "a lamentably naive policy. It is analogous to assessing whether a woman has breast cancer by simply looking at her family portrait."

Williams and other scientists have stated that composite parts in any aircraft should be tested frequently by methods such as ultrasound, allowing engineers to "see" beneath their surface. His research suggests that repeated journeys to and from the sub-zero temperatures found at cruising altitude causes a build-up of condensation inside composites, and separation of the carbon fibre layers as this moisture freezes and thaws. According to Williams, "like a pothole in a roadway in winter, over time these gaps may grow".

Commenting on the vanishing rudder on flight 961, he pointed out that nothing was said about composite inspection in the NTSB's report on flight 587. This was an "unfortunate calamity", he said. Although the flight 961 rupture had yet be analysed, he continued to believe Airbus's maintenance rules were "inadequate", despite their official endorsement.

...

Another seasoned pilot with both military and civilian experience said: "Composite experts across the country advocate state-of-the-art, non-destructive testing to prevent this type of incident from happening, yet civil aviation authorities still only require 'naked eye' or other rudimentary inspections. How many more incidents have to occur for decision-makers to do the right thing by passengers and crews?"

If only you knew the quality and reliability of the processes that go into composites manufacturing... it's as bad as the animal right's wacko's slaughterhouse exposes or Michael Moore's Farenheit 911 FUD. There's so many places for the process to go wrong...

Here's a quick overview of the composites process:

The manufacturer recieves composites stock from a vendor, and supposedly it's sampled for quality then put into storage. As needed, it gets pulled out and trimmed in sheets that look like gaskets. At this stage it looks like an oversized plastic or rubber gasket, but works like a piece of tape.

When a part is needed, an operator will then gather the necessary layers at a workstation. Visually it looks like an old-style printing press. The operator will lay down a sheet and center it, then lay down the second layer on that. The overhead half of the heated press is then lowered to compress the stack and seal it up. The process is repeated until the part is totally constructed.

I forget the staging on the next two processes, I believe though it's in this order: The raw part is then sent to the large autoclaves to get cooked. Following that it gets laundered through a nasty chem tank bath to get cured. It then goes to milling for any final processing before going into assembly.

There's any number of places where stuff can go wrong...

* Inventory control problems can allow for old deterioted composite tape to remain in the cycle instead of being discarded.

* Design and communications problems can lead to improper layers. Oversized layers of course can generally be trimmed, but undersized ones are much more of a problem.

* When the operator lowers the press, they can raise it to doublecheck the positioning before they seal the layer. If they catch an error or bubble then it's fixable, but if they seal it they have to toss it out and start over.

* Cooking in the autoclaves is dependent on lots of factors. You presume the themocouples and pressure sensors are registering correctly so that the proper temperature and pressure is reached and held. If your sensors were feeding bad data, what happened to the part? If there is problems with the process automation, what happens if the parts are cooked too long or too short? All "strictly hypothetical" and not necessarily based off of any such real or imagined situation. ;)

* Lets suppose that the chem tanks haven't been properly cycled because the plumbing was blocked by EPA action. Lets suppose that this shutdown was not communicated to the rest of the plant due to managerial politics. Lets suppose that the sensors in the tank were not returning accurate information about the chemical content and dilution of the acids in the tank. Lets suppose the crane controller to move the parts melted down and left tha parts in the etch tank for too long. Again, all "strictly hypothetical" ;).

Anyway, I think you get the point. There is no justification at all for not doing penetrative testing such as X-ray or ultrasonic scanning on all parts, and destructive sampling as well.

[Akira 0]

For those interested, the A380's maiden flight will be Wednesday April 27th (weather permitting).

Anyone live near Toulouse?

[Oeil2Lynx 0]

I live at 15km from Toulouse. And for sure i'll get my ass over there to see it

i've nothing to take photos (is the word camera?)

i hope it won't have any problems, that would make lots of people mad

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

you lazy azz! Get yourself a cheap camera or we will hang you!

[FerretFangs 0]

Quote[/b] ]Boeing Gets $6.9B Jet Order from Air India

Tuesday, April 26, 2005

BOMBAY — Air India (search) approved on Tuesday the purchase of up to 50 long-range Boeing (BA) aircraft at a cost of about 300 billion rupees ($6.9 billion), the U.S. plane maker's second multi-billion-dollar deal in as many days.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,154648,00.html

The way things are going for Boeing, it looks like Airbus is going to have to do better than just roll out a double decker bus with wings.

[Akira 0]

Boeing also just recieved a large order from Air Canada for 777s and 787s.

However, only the last few months have looked up for Boeing, who has been behind Airbus since 2000. With the concentration on the A380, and the somewhat luke warm response to a possible A350, Airbus is behind the order game for the first time in a long time. However, there are rumors of a possible A320NG which could propel Airbus ahead again. Boeing needs to decide if it wants to go ahead with the 747Adv or concentrate on a 737 replacement based on the 787 technologies.

[Balschoiw 0]

Quote[/b] ]it looks like Airbus is going to have to do better than just roll out a double decker bus with wings.

China has already bought 5 of them and another 25 planes from airbus.

[FerretFangs 0]

When Airbus is selling more of the A380's than Boeing is selling 747, and 777's, then we might start to worry.

[Akira 0]

When Airbus is selling more of the A380's than Boeing is selling 747, and 777's, then we might start to worry.

When the A380 has been out as long as the 777 (10+ years) and the 747 (30+ years), then you can talk. And I wouldn't talk too much about the 747 whose orders are drying up (think they had maybe 10 last year...only one passenger...don't remember exactly).

The A380 easily outsold the 747 and 777 combined last year.

[FerretFangs 0]

Actually the test is for Airbus, and not Boeing, seeing as how Boeing has already met that test hasn't it?

[red oct 2]

i think the real concern w/ the A380 is the rising fuel costs. could be even worse should they decide to throw in all of their sales gimmicks (bar, gym, and what not) i would like to know how many vacant seats there usually is on your generick mid-sized airliner.

[Akira 0]

And what test would that be? Airbus has already proven to be a viable plane maker for 30 years, as well as a very innovative one. Airbus has been pummeling Boeing for the last 5 or so years, so I would say that the test is on Boeing to see if A) they can catch up, and B) they can retain the lead and keep customers turned off by their strong arm, arrogant tactics when they held a veritable monopoly on the commercial aviation sector.

So I would think Boeing should stop looking back to the heyday of the 1960s when they were on top, because they aren't anymore.

EDIT:

Quote[/b] ] i think the real concern w/ the A380 is the rising fuel costs. could be even worse should they decide to throw in all of their sales gimmicks (bar, gym, and what not) i would like to know how many vacant seats there usually is on your generick mid-sized airliner.

The A380 is more efficient than a 747-400/ER. That is one of its selling points, since that coupled with its seating capacity lower the seat/per mile costs considerably.

And load factors depend on A)route and B)time, so it would be useless to compare routes with the A380. The routes that the A380 was designed for are extremely high-yield routes (obviously you won't be flying Birmingham-Halifax on an A380).

As far as the gimmicks go, I too am skeptical that an airline will give up revenue generating seats for unassured (and heavy) revenue generating distractions.

[FerretFangs 0]

Abus has to OUTLAST Boeing, first. Secondly, Boeing is not belly up by a long shot. Thirdly Boeing is continueing to develope and produce new aircraft. And fourth, Boeing is has produced and sold aircraft in volume, which will continue to fly for quite some time. The real showdown isn't between the jumbos, it's between the midsize carriers.

With the production of new types, such as the 787, and Sonic Cruiser, Boeing could very well retake the lead. That flight hasn't yet left the gate.