Another Airbus tries to water ski.... - Page 2 - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

PaulC · #16 06-30-2009, 09:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DieselAddict

What about that Qantas plane that recently blew a hole in its luggage compartment, wasn't that a 747? Also I remember some incident near Hawaii or involving Hawaiian Airlines where the plane blew a hole in the passenger cabin and a flight attendant got sucked out. It was probably a Boeing too.

One significant difference - the Boeings were still airworthy enough to continue to fly and then land safely.

pwogaman · #17 06-30-2009, 09:11 PM

Just don't let vapors in your center tank heat up too much in one of these - oh wait, wrong manufacturer. At least they got their tail elevator jack screw problem fixed - dang-it!, wrong manufacturer again.

pj67coll · #18 06-30-2009, 09:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pwogaman

Just don't let vapors in your center tank heat up too much in one of these - oh wait, wrong manufacturer. At least they got their tail elevator jack screw problem fixed - dang-it!, wrong manufacturer again.

I didn't say Boeing had no problems. But even the problem with the rudder in the 737 tails was still a specific component that was identified and corrected. There is an uneasy feeling developing that Airbus has gone too far too fast with composite materials and that such planes are simply not strong enough for severe conditions. Just like rust developing in cars, such problems might only show up a few years into a planes life.

Therefore if that is in fact the issue with Airbus composites (and their fly by wire concept) this could be the start of a major issue.

- Peter.

R Leo · #19 06-30-2009, 11:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HuskyMan

what goes up must come down.

Airlines are 100% successful; they've never left anyone up there!

pawoSD · #20 07-01-2009, 01:16 AM

The news pointed out that this particular plane was 19 years old and had a history of failing inspections....most recently while in France in 2007!

Who knows how many neglected components that plane was flying with....those 3rd world air lines run their planes into the ground (literally!) and then people are surprised and point the finger at the plane's manufacturer.....

Brian Carlton · #21 07-01-2009, 10:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pj67coll

Yeah. But Boeings don't typically tend to break apart in flight, which seems like it could possibly be a burgeoning problem with Airbusses. Although this particular incident looks like it could simply be bad weather and not necessarily the planes fault.

- Peter.

I find it laughable that you compare two completely different airliners in two completely different flight regimes without a shred of data from either incident and you make a conclusion that the manufacturer of the two planes is to be condemned for a "burgeoning problem".

Your analytical skills are non-existent.

pj67coll · #22 07-01-2009, 11:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brian Carlton

I find it laughable that you compare two completely different airliners in two completely different flight regimes without a shred of data from either incident and you make a conclusion that the manufacturer of the two planes is to be condemned for a "burgeoning problem".

Your analytical skills are non-existent.

There are three Airbus incidents of tailfin or rudder seperation excluding the Yemenia crash.
The investigation into the rudder failure in the Air Transat flight 961 about which I include a quote here indicated issues with delamination of the composite material in flight resulting from freeze thaw cycles of moisture that ingressed into the layers of composite. I'm quoting from memory here so my terminology may be a bit off. This is what another poster on an aviation forum had to say...

*When Flight 961 literally began to fall apart at 35,000 feet, it increased fears of a fatal design flaw in the world's most popular passenger jet

At 35,000 feet above the Caribbean, Air Transat flight 961 was heading home to Quebec with 270 passengers and crew. At 3.45 pm last Sunday, the pilot noticed something very unusual. His Airbus A310's rudder - a structure 28 feet high - had fallen off and tumbled into the sea. In the world of aviation, the shock waves have yet to subside...

...Allow me a little speculation here. What might be up with that could be hinted-at in the Guardian article's subhead, italicized above. See, the commercial aviation market is still gasping on the mat after 9/11 compounded three decades of mismanagement and union avarice. And in the middle of those decades, at the precise moment the dollar/euro exchange rate was at its most cantilevered, came Airbus with free money and cheap, heavily-subsidized airplanes. Voila, as that subhead alludes: "the world's most popular passenger jet".

So along comes 9/11, then hot on its heels comes AA587: The tail falls off; the engines fall off; even the little "Made in France" sticker falls off, and people die. Continuing with my speculation: given that it would've finished air transportation right off to ground the Airbus, the twitchy-footed pilot was made a convenient scapegoat by the accident review board; meanwhile a program of visual inspection of the planes' composite tailfins was quietly mandated.

Trouble is, visual inspection doesn't tell you much about the health of a composite structure. Only costly and frequent ultrasonic, vibrometric or holographic inspection of the detached panels would do that... sometimes. To my eye, the situation is compounded by Airbus' design decision not to use metal structural spars in the panels to distribute shear forces through the composite structure. So when these panels failed, they broke cleanly away from their unreinforced attachment grommets: compare photos of the consistent damage in this latest airplane's fractured tail with the postmortem pictures of AA587's carcass.

What we might be looking at is the chilling leading-edge of a hockey-stick trend of structural failure in Airbus' composite tails. Scary stuff indeed. And scariest of all, if so: how many more hundreds of souls must perish before regulators ground the Airbus? And what happens to commercial aviation and the economy when they do?*

http://www.iasa.com.au/folders/Safety_Issues/others/rudder-sep_files/airTransatA310rudder-1.jpg

These are not my analytical skills. I'm merely echoing what others, some of them pilots, have said about the situation.

- Peter.

Brian Carlton · #23 07-02-2009, 12:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pj67coll

There are three Airbus incidents of tailfin or rudder seperation excluding the Yemenia crash.
The investigation into the rudder failure in the Air Transat flight 961 about which I include a quote here indicated issues with delamination of the composite material in flight resulting from freeze thaw cycles of moisture that ingressed into the layers of composite. I'm quoting from memory here so my terminology may be a bit off. This is what another poster on an aviation forum had to say...

*When Flight 961 literally began to fall apart at 35,000 feet, it increased fears of a fatal design flaw in the world's most popular passenger jet

At 35,000 feet above the Caribbean, Air Transat flight 961 was heading home to Quebec with 270 passengers and crew. At 3.45 pm last Sunday, the pilot noticed something very unusual. His Airbus A310's rudder - a structure 28 feet high - had fallen off and tumbled into the sea. In the world of aviation, the shock waves have yet to subside...

...Allow me a little speculation here. What might be up with that could be hinted-at in the Guardian article's subhead, italicized above. See, the commercial aviation market is still gasping on the mat after 9/11 compounded three decades of mismanagement and union avarice. And in the middle of those decades, at the precise moment the dollar/euro exchange rate was at its most cantilevered, came Airbus with free money and cheap, heavily-subsidized airplanes. Voila, as that subhead alludes: "the world's most popular passenger jet".

So along comes 9/11, then hot on its heels comes AA587: The tail falls off; the engines fall off; even the little "Made in France" sticker falls off, and people die. Continuing with my speculation: given that it would've finished air transportation right off to ground the Airbus, the twitchy-footed pilot was made a convenient scapegoat by the accident review board; meanwhile a program of visual inspection of the planes' composite tailfins was quietly mandated.

Trouble is, visual inspection doesn't tell you much about the health of a composite structure. Only costly and frequent ultrasonic, vibrometric or holographic inspection of the detached panels would do that... sometimes. To my eye, the situation is compounded by Airbus' design decision not to use metal structural spars in the panels to distribute shear forces through the composite structure. So when these panels failed, they broke cleanly away from their unreinforced attachment grommets: compare photos of the consistent damage in this latest airplane's fractured tail with the postmortem pictures of AA587's carcass.

What we might be looking at is the chilling leading-edge of a hockey-stick trend of structural failure in Airbus' composite tails. Scary stuff indeed. And scariest of all, if so: how many more hundreds of souls must perish before regulators ground the Airbus? And what happens to commercial aviation and the economy when they do?*

http://www.iasa.com.au/folders/Safety_Issues/others/rudder-sep_files/airTransatA310rudder-1.jpg

These are not my analytical skills. I'm merely echoing what others, some of them pilots, have said about the situation.

- Peter.

The only incident of an unknown structural failure was 961. 587 was conclusively proven to exceed the design loads for the rudder by the introduction of a severe sideslip by the pilot. 447 has absolutely no conclusive evidence of any type of structural failure attributed to a design or maintenance flaw at the present time.

It's better not to repeat the fictitious ramblings of others...........unless you want a job with Fox News.

BTW, once I read "world's most popular passenger jet" being attributed to the A310, any sense of competency by the writer was immediately ruled out and I didn't even complete the remainder. Unsubstantiated hyperbole and downright false statements.............nothing more.

raymr · #24 07-02-2009, 08:56 AM

A telling sign would be whether Airbus still uses the same design in the tail structures of its new planes.

DieselAddict · #25 07-02-2009, 04:24 PM

If Airbus's structure is so bad, then why aren't they falling out of the sky left and right? There are thousands flying every day. I just read today that there's new evidence that the recent Air France crash involved the plane hitting the water belly first, meaning it didn't disintegrate in flight as was previously thought.

pj67coll · #26 07-02-2009, 04:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DieselAddict

If Airbus's structure is so bad, then why aren't they falling out of the sky left and right? There are thousands flying every day. I just read today that there's new evidence that the recent Air France crash involved the plane hitting the water belly first, meaning it didn't disintegrate in flight as was previously thought.

Nobody really knows wether their structure is actually bad or not. Composites are not Aluminum. They are new materials and it looks as if there may be problems with them over time that might not be fully understood. Without the CVR and FDR from AF 447 I doubt there will ever be any conclusive evidence as to what happened. And the point about the referenced "hockey stick" curve of incidents is that things will be fine for a while until the material reaches a certain age and then accidents start to occur. Hopefully this is not the case but if it is then the aviation industry is in for a trying time.

- Peter.

Brian Carlton · #27 07-02-2009, 05:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DieselAddict

If Airbus's structure is so bad, then why aren't they falling out of the sky left and right?

Understand that any aircraft is designed for loads that are significantly higher than typical flight conditions. A B-747 can experience turbulence that is so violent that the wingtips will stand straight up to 90 degrees and the wing will not fail. This is a very well designed and durable airplane.

If the Airbus suffers from deterioration of the carbon fiber over time, the typical flight with average flight loading will not present any issues. However, in a situation of significant turbulence, or when the flight controls are moved to the maximum deflected positions, the airframe is now tested in a situation that is much closer to its design limitations. If the carbon fiber is not up the the task, the component fails.

961 does concern me in this regard.

raymr · #28 07-03-2009, 11:08 AM

At first there were reports of automated messages signaling loss of cabin pressure. If the plane was still intact, why was it losing pressure? Some other system(s) must have been failing, but lately there has been nothing in the news about the cabin pressure part.

PaulC · #29 07-03-2009, 01:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by raymr

At first there were reports of automated messages signaling loss of cabin pressure. If the plane was still intact, why was it losing pressure? Some other system(s) must have been failing, but lately there has been nothing in the news about the cabin pressure part.

I wonder if power fluctuations can trigger incorrect fault messages?