General aviation/airplane news and chat
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Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
For smaller planes at Heathrow they have remote controlled ones, that’s a job I could get in to.
T & P
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As someone (including you lot to varying degrees) of a certain age who had known nothing other than diesel engines when it came to pulling or pushing heavy loads, it seems astonishing to me how far electric motor technology has advanced that you can now have tiny(ish) electric tugs pulling the best part of a hundred tons
T & P
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On this subject, who here is old enough to have been on a plane reversing out of a gate using its thrust reversers rather than a tug?
I have definitely been in one but can’t remember the model. 727, perhaps? I guess aviation fuel prices were cheap as fuck back in the day…
I have definitely been in one but can’t remember the model. 727, perhaps? I guess aviation fuel prices were cheap as fuck back in the day…
petee
no gods, no malarkey
dunno, would 707s in the 1960s count?
Lancman
Well-Known Member
My wife and daughter were in a 707 which had to back off a set of passenger steps during a hi-jacking in Beirut some years ago. They then climbed out through an emergency exit on to a wing and dropped off while the aircraft was taxi-ing. Daughter got an extra star for inventiveness in her “What I did on my holidays” essay when she got back to school. She protested.
I did a three-point turn in an RAF Britannia turbo-prop aircraft on a narrow runway in Kuwait during a period of heightened tension in the early 60s.
The important thing while reversing was to keep your speed under control using thrust alone, if you used wheel brakes you were liable to bang your tail on the ground.
I did a three-point turn in an RAF Britannia turbo-prop aircraft on a narrow runway in Kuwait during a period of heightened tension in the early 60s.
The important thing while reversing was to keep your speed under control using thrust alone, if you used wheel brakes you were liable to bang your tail on the ground.
T & P
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Tragic loss of five lives aboard the disaster relief plane at Haneda airport today, but incredible to see the 373 people aboard the A350 plane that hit it on landing all escaped with nothing more than a few minor injuries. Testimony to the engineering resilience of modern aircraft, and massive kudos to the flight crew who managed to evacuate nearly 400 people orderly as flames were licking windows on both sides.
Also refreshing to see passengers not being fucking arseholes who ignore orders to leave cabin luggage behind in a life-or-death situation.
Also refreshing to see passengers not being fucking arseholes who ignore orders to leave cabin luggage behind in a life-or-death situation.
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gosub
~#
ATC fuck up from the sound of it...overrelience on pre programed queuing
Elpenor
Dancing as fast as I can
A window blew out at 16000ft on a Us internal flight. A 737 Max 
Everyone fine somehow, seems no one was in the seat adjacent to the window
Everyone fine somehow, seems no one was in the seat adjacent to the window
Alaska Airlines grounds 737 Max 9 planes after section blows out mid-air
Part of the fuselage of the Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 fell off, forcing an emergency landing.
www.bbc.co.uk
petee
no gods, no malarkey
T & P
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A lot of chatter online as to whether the empty seat by the door was dumb luck or deliberate. It has been reported that the plane had flashed a couple of depressurisation alerts in the preceding 48 hours (but whilst on the ground when it’s not a critical issue).A window blew out at 16000ft on a Us internal flight. A 737 Max
Alaska Airlines grounds 737 Max 9 planes after section blows out mid-air
Part of the fuselage of the Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 fell off, forcing an emergency landing.www.bbc.co.uk
T & P
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This article points out how much worse yesterday’s incident could have easily been. Apart from the fact that the seat next to the blown out emergency exit door was empty, had the decompression occurred at 35,000 ft instead of early climb, the force of the decompression would have been far greater, and the seatbelts on sign would have been turned off, which would have almost certainly resulted in multiple casualties.
T & P
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And on further developments, United Airlines has found multiple loose bolts in five of their Max-9s on inspection. Which points firmly towards shoddy workmanship from Boeing (or Spirit, the company that manufactures and installs that section of the 737 MAX fuselage, but the buck would still stop with Boeing anyway).
theaircurrent.com
How differently things might have turned out for both Boeing and Airbus if the former had decided to launch a new clean sheet narrowbody back in 2011 when American Airlines placed a large A320 order, instead of trying to desperately hijack the order by announcing and rushing through an ill-thought next generation of a 50-year-old design that simply isn’t up to the task out of hurt pride. I bet Airbus execs are still pinching themselves to this day.
United finds loose bolts on plug doors during 737 Max 9 inspections
United Airlines has found loose bolts and other parts on 737 Max 9 plug doors as it inspects its fleet of Boeing jets following the Friday rapid depressurization aboard an Alaska Airlines jet of the same make, according to three people familiar with the findings.
theaircurrent.com
How differently things might have turned out for both Boeing and Airbus if the former had decided to launch a new clean sheet narrowbody back in 2011 when American Airlines placed a large A320 order, instead of trying to desperately hijack the order by announcing and rushing through an ill-thought next generation of a 50-year-old design that simply isn’t up to the task out of hurt pride. I bet Airbus execs are still pinching themselves to this day.
DownwardDog
Riding a Brompton with a power meter.
And on further developments, United Airlines has found multiple loose bolts in five of their Max-9s on inspection. Which points firmly towards shoddy workmanship from Boeing (or Spirit, the company that manufactures and installs that section of the 737 MAX fuselage, but the buck would still stop with Boeing anyway).
United finds loose bolts on plug doors during 737 Max 9 inspections
United Airlines has found loose bolts and other parts on 737 Max 9 plug doors as it inspects its fleet of Boeing jets following the Friday rapid depressurization aboard an Alaska Airlines jet of the same make, according to three people familiar with the findings.
How differently things might have turned out for both Boeing and Airbus if the former had decided to launch a new clean sheet narrowbody back in 2011 when American Airlines placed a large A320 order, instead of trying to desperately hijack the order by announcing and rushing through an ill-thought next generation of a 50-year-old design that simply isn’t up to the task out of hurt pride. I bet Airbus execs are still pinching themselves to this day.
Doing a NMA in 2011 instead of MAX would have been a catastrophe for Boeing and an absolute godsend for Airbus. It would have been ready for service in the mid 2020s at the earliest. Meanwhile the A320neo would have been unopposed in the single aisle market for 15 years. MAX was a smart commercial decision that got a new-ish aircraft that was yield competitive with the A320neo to the operators by 2017. They have sold 6,000 MAX and 2023 was it's best ever year. As a result Boeing are in no rush to do a clean sheet NMA even now. Airbus are also very happy with the neo and won't consider a replacement unless EU governments cough up to fund the development.
Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
meanwhile COMAC flogging half priced knock-offs in what is by far the fastest growing market on earth...
skyscraper101
0891 50 50 50
Breaking
T & P
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Well, that door must weight a few kg, so he'd be saving on fuel. But for the sake of safety and comfort, the passengers sitting on the row in question would be given the option to pay at the checkout for the door to stay on during the flight- so everyone's a winner
spitfire
Walty McWaltface
This is a long and scary read about MCAS and Boeing.
"But the bigger picture was becoming clearer: Boeing had manufactured a self-hijacking plane, and in a display of grotesque cowardice, it had chosen to disseminate to pilots a checklist for counteracting the self-destruct mechanism that had killed them even faster. "
"But the bigger picture was becoming clearer: Boeing had manufactured a self-hijacking plane, and in a display of grotesque cowardice, it had chosen to disseminate to pilots a checklist for counteracting the self-destruct mechanism that had killed them even faster. "
T & P
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The saddest part for Boeing is that it could have all been avoided. A 50-year-old design is always going to be less competitive against a newer model and one that can haul larger engines for good measure. But DownwardDog makes a good point about the MAX being an efficient stop-gap solution to stop Airbus monopolising the narrowbody market, and if Boeing's executives had simply accepted that you lose some battles no matter how much it riles you, and been transparent about the level of pilot training required to transfer from the NG to the MAX, it is very likely those two fatal crashes would have been avoided.This is a long and scary read about MCAS and Boeing.
"But the bigger picture was becoming clearer: Boeing had manufactured a self-hijacking plane, and in a display of grotesque cowardice, it had chosen to disseminate to pilots a checklist for counteracting the self-destruct mechanism that had killed them even faster. "
But they were so childishly angry about Airbus landing an order with AA on their home turf, and desperate to win as many future orders against the Airbus NEO as possible, they actually misled prospective buyers and the regulators about the amount of training hours required and the nature of MCAS. Which is extremely stupid, because you're always going to win some and lose some, and a small increase in training costs is unlikely to make that many 737 operators switch to the A320. But it seems they were so butt hurt by the initial order sucess of the NEO, they tried to present the MAX as cheap to operate as possible.
And this latest incident has revealed that communication with airlines about the basic features of the MAX is still lacking. Federal investigators in the US looking into the event have revealed that the cockpit door flew open when the decrompression happened. Apprently this is actually a deliberate feature rather than a result of the decompression, but nobody at Boeing thought of telling any of the airlines that have bought the MAX
Alaska flight incident reveals another feature Boeing didn't inform pilots about
Federal investigators said that Boeing didn't make pilots aware that when a plane rapidly depressurizes, the cockpit door will fly open.
www.politico.com
DownwardDog
Riding a Brompton with a power meter.
The saddest part for Boeing is that it could have all been avoided. A 50-year-old design is always going to be less competitive against a newer model and one that can haul larger engines for good measure. But DownwardDog makes a good point about the MAX being an efficient stop-gap solution to stop Airbus monopolising the narrowbody market, and if Boeing's executives had simply accepted that you lose some battles no matter how much it riles you, and been transparent about the level of pilot training required to transfer from the NG to the MAX, it is very likely those two fatal crashes would have been avoided.
But they were so childishly angry about Airbus landing an order with AA on their home turf, and desperate to win as many future orders against the Airbus NEO as possible, they actually misled prospective buyers and the regulators about the amount of training hours required and the nature of MCAS. Which is extremely stupid, because you're always going to win some and lose some, and a small increase in training costs is unlikely to make that many 737 operators switch to the A320. But it seems they were so butt hurt by the initial order sucess of the NEO, they tried to present the MAX as cheap to operate as possible.
And this latest incident has revealed that communication with airlines about the basic features of the MAX is still lacking. Federal investigators in the US looking into the event have revealed that the cockpit door flew open when the decrompression happened. Apprently this is actually a deliberate feature rather than a result of the decompression, but nobody at Boeing thought of telling any of the airlines that have bought the MAX
Alaska flight incident reveals another feature Boeing didn't inform pilots about
Federal investigators said that Boeing didn't make pilots aware that when a plane rapidly depressurizes, the cockpit door will fly open.
You are using lots of emotive language here ('angry', etc.) that doesn't really apply in the commercial aviation business. The C-Suite at Boeing aren't making these decisions on the basis of raging feels.
Not doing the MAX would have been a very poor commercial decision. Doing the MAX was a very good commercial decision. It's that simple.
Having said that, Airbus are clearly the better managed company. Their stock price has almost made back its pre-Covid high while Boeing haven't (yet).
bcuster
Well-Known Member
More issues for Boeing
www.defensenews.com
‘Cautionary tale’: How Boeing won a US Air Force program and lost $7B
The KC-46 was to be the ideal candidate for a fixed-price development program. Instead, it has cost Boeing billions, and made industry wary of such deals.
www.defensenews.com
T & P
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Well, I however one might phrase it, I think there there are reasonable grounds to say the board of Boeing has made several significant errors of judgement in the last decade that were completely avoidable and prompted by excessive corporate aggression- whether it was sour grapes or naked greed is ultimately irrelevant- it is just bad governance.
Never mind the MAX. Boeing’s extraordinary campaign to stop humble Bombardier from selling a few C-Series frames to airlines in America, including using its formidable influence in Washington to get the US government to impose crippling tariffs on sales of the aircraft in the US, backfield spectacularly and ultimately resulted in Airbus acquiring the model for loose change, and building it in US soil so it was tariff-exempt.
The now-called A220 has captured far more share of the small narrowbody market than Bombardier could have dreamed. A spectacular own goal as well as an ethically bankrupt one and eventually ruled as non applicable by the WTO. If Boeing had simply accepted the fact that a small competitor had won a single order against them and moved on instead of launching a disastrous PR nightmare campaign to stop the deal, they would be hundreds millions at least better off. It’s almost as if the board has been run by eight year olds instead of adults.
Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
Continuing to make the Pinto was a good commercial decision too.
Chz
Stark Raving Sane
TBF, when it comes to assigning emotions to boards of directors, Bombardier would not normally have sold off their home-grown baby so easily, but did it very much knowing what Airbus was going to do and how much it would piss off Boeing.
