irrational fear of flying

[vertical_doug]

at this point:

New Blow for Boeing After Debris Found in 737 Max Fuel Tanks
2020-02-19 14:04:37.139 GMT


By Alan Tovey, Industry Editor

(Telegraph) -- Boeing’s troubled 737 Max has suffered another
blow after debris was found in the fuel tanks of planes put in
storage while the model remains grounded due to safety fears.

The firm found the so-called foreign object debris while doing
maintenance on aircraft grounded since March after the second of
two 737 Max crashes in five months that killed almost 350 people

It poses a serious safety risk to aircraft and can block fuel
supplies to engines causing them to cut out, or damage other
components as they move around in flight.

A Boeing spokesman said the discovery led to a “robust internal
investigation and immediate corrective actions in our production
system”.

All 737 Max planes in storage will be inspected to check for any
other debris.

Airlines that have already received 737 Max planes that had been
in storage for more than a year are also being advised to check
fuel tanks as part of new procedures.

The discovery is just the latest in a spate of problems with the
737 Max since it was grounded, including a series of damning
emails between Boeing staff before the crashes that labelled the
aircraft as “designed by clowns and supervised by monkeys” .

The two crashes that led to the grounding occurred in October
2018 and March last year.

Both are being linked to the MCAS software system on the
aircraft, which compensates for the Max’s more powerful engines.

This pushes the nose down if it detects that the aircraft is
flying up too steeply and could stall. It is thought MCAS was
malfunctioning and sending planes into a dive from which pilots
struggled to recover.

Boeing is developing modifications to counter the problem but
initially kept building dozens of 737 Max planes every
month despite the grounding - forcing it to store them in its
Seattle car park after running out of space elsewhere.

Production was temporarily halted in January .

Boeing expects the crisis to cost it $18bn (£14bn). This includes
compensation pay-outs for airlines that have received planes
which remain grounded, and those which have had to cancel
services due to non-delivery.

Boeing has said it hopes to return the 737 Max to service in
mid-2020, but many doubt this target can be met.

-0- Feb/19/2020 14:04 GMT


Increasingly, the only competitive edge Boeing ever had was
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40% of all loans and 60% of all guarantees are for Boeing.


For the Brits on the forum- will the boeing 737 fly before the cross rail goes live?

[Saab2000]

Saw a video on twitter of a Airbus 380 landing in London in the super high wind recently...
Holy hell... the pilots and crew must have been scared shitless... I am sure the passengers were if they had
any idea.
The plane is descending in 80mph side wind....(Note- this is by far the worlds biggest airliner... prob had 4-500 passengers in it.)
the plane is blown almost sideways as it touched down...the wheels connect w the tarmac and the plane straightens out to decelerate.
Hard to tell from the rest of the short video but it looks like it is then blown off the runway onto the grass.

Saab, Any experiences like this in your history?
Mistral in southern France maybe?

Gusty crosswind landings are part of normal operations. Different airplanes have different techniques due to the danger of a wing strike or striking the inboard engine. Some airplanes are designed to be landed in what appears to be a fairly extreme crab and others can be corrected with rudder and aileron. My current airplane has a bank angle limit for landing to avoid a wingtip strike. My personal record is winds gusting to 50 knots, but they were more or less down the runway 4R at JFK. Typical east coast Noreaster.

The 380 video looks spectacular in part because of the perspective. A half hour on YouTube will show you enough hair raising approaches that you'll never leave the house again, including many which appear far more violent than the one to which you are referring.

[gregl]

Gusty crosswind landings are part of normal operations. Different airplanes have different techniques due to the danger of a wing strike or striking the inboard engine. Some airplanes are designed to be landed in what appears to be a fairly extreme crab and others can be corrected with rudder and aileron. My current airplane has a bank angle limit for landing to avoid a wingtip strike. My personal record is winds gusting to 50 knots, but they were more or less down the runway 4R at JFK. Typical east coast Noreaster.

The 380 video looks spectacular in part because of the perspective. A half hour on YouTube will show you enough hair raising approaches that you'll never leave the house again, including many which appear far more violent than the one to which you are referring.

As usual, Saab nails it. See page 10 of this Airbus publication for the official recommendation for A380 crosswind landing technique: https://www.airbus.com/content/dam/c...agazine_15.pdf.

Greg

[rwsaunders]

Nice week of flying...even saw a mountain or two.

[Lionel]

The MRS airport is laid out so when the Mistral blows you are landing straight against it.

[jclay]

Found in a box of my fathers belongings. No batteries required!

IMG_5627.jpg

[SteveP]

There is something about the view from a plane that is very enticing.
The night time view of Manhattan from the plane on a flight from Philadelphia to Boston is worth the cost of the ticket.

Last time I flew to Europe we passed right over London in the early morning ( still dark ).
Fantastic view. Big city!

RWsaunders pics from above are indicative. Window seat worthy.

[vertical_doug]

Many years ago when the Iceland volcano was spewing and disrupting the JFK - LHR flights, we flew up and over Greenland on the way to avoid the plume. Greenland is a really cool place from above.

[SteveP]

Many years ago when the Iceland volcano was spewing and disrupting the JFK - LHR flights, we flew up and over Greenland on the way to avoid the plume. Greenland is a really cool place from above.

Window seat worthy for sure.

[jclay]

I started building one of these (Woodstock) about 30 years ago. Got all of the fuselage and flying surface ribs made and then had the bright idea to build a house instead. Shoulda stuck with the glider; shoulda kept the ribs and plans....I have time for a project though good Douglas Fir is pretty difficult to find these days, around here. Shoulda, woulda, coulda....like the MV Agusta 750s America for $2k, in a crate that I almost bought in the late '70s when the were leaving the US market...though given my riding style back then I'd probably be dead, or worse, so maybe not such a bad move.

Maupin was a genius. He later designed the Carbon Dragon which is even slicker.

Maupin Woodstock One - Wikipedia

Maupin Carbon Dragon - Wikipedia

Thought about this one, too. It is a very cool design: Strojnik S-2 - Wikipedia

I chucked all my related books in a fit of "clearing stuff out", too. I cut a little too deeply; interesting stuff to read.

C'est la vie.

[jclay]

A seriously cool little bit of flying history: Spitfire 944

In October 2005, the filmmaker William Lorton inherited two suitcases of 16mm home movies which his great uncle, James R. Savage, MD., shot while serving as a flight surgeon for the US Army Air Corps during World War II. The most compelling shot in the three hours of war footage was the crash landing of a Spitfire Mk XI fighter plane at RAF Mount Farm in Great Britain. Spitfire 944 is the short documentary from those movies in which 83-year-old World War II pilot John S. Blyth views, without advance knowledge of what he's about to see, the footage of his 1944 Spitfire crash-landing for the first time, sixty-one years after the event.

More background info here: Spitfire 944 - Wikipedia

Film here: SPITFIRE 944 - YouTube

[ides1056]

That made my day.

Thanks.

[Paul Jacobs]

That is a great film, thank you. A very appropriate post on the 75th anniversary of VE Day.

[Paul Jacobs]

A seriously cool little bit of flying history: Spitfire 944

Great film thank you (as I said above).

In 2014 I spent a week learning steel bicycle frame building with Dave Yates. He had a workshop next to RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire, England which is where the Battle of Britain commemorative flight is based. This may not have been a coincidence as I found that Dave was a great aircraft enthusiast. While I was there the only two remaining airworthy Lancaster bombers were making several flights a day. There was the English one, part of the memorial flight, and a newly restored one which had flown over from Canada. Every time we heard the engines overhead it was obligatory to down tools and rush outside for a view. I also saw the Spitfires and Hurricane but did not manage to capture a photo of those.

[gregl]

In 2014 I spent a week learning steel bicycle frame building with Dave Yates. He had a workshop next to RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire, England which is where the Battle of Britain commemorative flight is based. This may not have been a coincidence as I found that Dave was a great aircraft enthusiast. While I was there the only two remaining airworthy Lancaster bombers were making several flights a day. There was the English one, part of the memorial flight, and a newly restored one which had flown over from Canada. Every time we heard the engines overhead it was obligatory to down tools and rush outside for a view. I also saw the Spitfires and Hurricane but did not manage to capture a photo of those.

I may have shared this once before: I had the opportunity to turn wrenches on the Canadian Lancaster back in the summer of 1986. I was a young charter pilot on a layover in Hamilton, Ontario. With time to kill, I took the tour at the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum. The Lancaster was undergoing restoration at that time. I struck up a conversation with one of the mechanics working on the Lanc. When he found out I was a recent aeronautical engineering grad and pilot who loved old airplanes, he offered to put me to work. A few minutes later, I was in some coveralls working on the Lanc. I opened up access panels, worked as a "go-for" for the real mechanics, and provided "strong back/weak mind" manual labor as needed. It was great fun and my day was over well before I was ready to stop!

Greg

[Paul Jacobs]

1986! That was a long project. I hope it is still flying.

[gregl]

1986! That was a long project. I hope it is still flying.

Yes, it's still flying. The restoration was about 3/4 done when I saw it in '86. I believe it was flying by 1990. I've seen it at several airshows over the past thirty years. Sounds like a formation flight of Mustangs or Spitfires!

Greg

[jclay]

While radial engines powered my predecessors warplanes I have to concede that nothing sounds as beautiful as a Merlin powered fighter screaming past at high manifold pressure. Thankfully the US had the sense to put them into the P51.

[Paul Jacobs]

Yes, it's still flying. The restoration was about 3/4 done when I saw it in '86. I believe it was flying by 1990. I've seen it at several airshows over the past thirty years. Sounds like a formation flight of Mustangs or Spitfires!

Greg

Watching two Lancasters flying in formation was a privilege yet they once flew in 400-700 bomber raids. That is difficult to imagine. Apart from building all those planes and four engines for each one the combined effort of crews and ground crews was immense.

[ides1056]

While radial engines powered my predecessors warplanes I have to concede that nothing sounds as beautiful as a Merlin powered fighter screaming past at high manifold pressure. Thankfully the US had the sense to put them into the P51.