Airbus 380 incident

[Egon]

Some information on the recent Qantas Airbus 380 engine failure. Some may be interested.

http://www.atsb.gov.au/media/2888854/ao-2010-089 preliminary report.pdf

 

[Dutch445]

amazing analysis, i'm sure R/R will have their own
report on those failed engine components.

 

[jcliburn]

"...liberated disc..." Lol. Love that term! Kind of like "energetic disassembly" to describe an explosion.

 

[jinman]

Good info Egon. I think the crew did a good job of flying that airplane and getting it safely back onto the ground.

 

[Egon]

What really amazes me is the difference in the "Fly By Wire systems" of the new aircraft and say a Tiger Moth!

 

[westcliffe01]

It sounds like they sustained quite a lot of damage at a very low critical altitude with full fuel and lived to tell the tale. It says a lot for the redundancy of the systems and their understanding about what was damaged and what could not be deployed on landing. I have to guess that the outboard portion of that wing is toast. Must be a very expensive fix. If you compare back to the DC10 incident where the loss of the tail engine took out all the hydraulic controls, things have come a ways...

 

[MossRoad]

What really amazes me is the difference in the "Fly By Wire systems" of the new aircraft and say a Tiger Moth!

Fly by wire just scares the bajeebers out of me. So do cars with no throttle cable. Just ask Toyota!

 

[Egon]

Fly by wire just scares the bajeebers out of me

What; you would turn down a ride in a well maintained Tiger Moth? Could you be enticed with a leather jacket, leather helmet, goggles and a silk scarf that will trail in the wind?:thumbsup::thumbsup:

 

[MossRoad]

What; you would turn down a ride in a well maintained Tiger Moth? Could you be enticed with a leather jacket, leather helmet, goggles and a silk scarf that will trail in the wind?:thumbsup::thumbsup:

I think you are mistaking fly by wire with fly by cable. :laughing: I have been in fly by cable planes many times and would never turn down the ride. :thumbsup:

Fly by wire... no direct connection between pilot's hand and control surfaces make me cringe. Of course, the control surfaces are too large for the pilot to move them anyway if there was a direct connection. So, the computer controls it. And, since I make my living with computers, I know that they never ever fail.... :dance1:

 

[nebraskasparks]

Being at the flight controls when a turbine decides to go "Unbalanced" in some form or fashion is a real thrill. Not only do you get all the "bells and whistles" as we call them but you can also get a flight deck that is vibrating so bad that you can't read the instruments....
Kind of like a washing machine that has all the clothes attached to one side of the drum except its spinning a heck of a lot faster than a washing machine.
These large engines also pose a big logistics problem for repair. We had a B-777 that lost an engine in Delhi...had to hire the Russians that had an airplane big enough to bring a new engine in and haul the old one out. The RR engine on the 777 has a bigger circumference than the old B-727 fuselage!
Simulator training has come such a long distance these days that episodes like this can be "simulated" which gives pilots the advantage of having experienced such things on the ground.

 

[westcliffe01]

Fly by wire just scares the bajeebers out of me. So do cars with no throttle cable. Just ask Toyota!

You will be relieved to know that similar to the space shuttle, they have at least 4 separate "full authority" systems, any of which can take over if 1 craps out.

The military take it even further by building the jets so unstable that the pilot could never fly it without crashing and the computer flies the plane at all times with the pilot basically just indicating where he wants to go. Its been that way since Chuck Yeager was in mid life...

 

[Egon]

fly by wire with fly by cable.

Yea but aren't cables just a bunch of wires and those wires on the control thingy aren't they connected to the thingies that make the control surface's move?? So the cables and wires are really doing the same thing when you look at results!:thumbsup:

With all the electronics on the new planes I still can not understand why there are no cameras showing different areas of the plane both inside and outside??

 

[MossRoad]

Yea but aren't cables just a bunch of wires and those wires on the control thingy aren't they connected to the thingies that make the control surface's move?? So the cables and wires are really doing the same thing when you look at results!:thumbsup:

With all the electronics on the new planes I still can not understand why there are no cameras showing different areas of the plane both inside and outside??

Nope. Cable pulling on something VS data signals traveling over wire are nowhere near the same thing. Fly by wire is basically a computer game... a really really intuitive computer game! :laughing:

I think there are cameras so the pilots can see before backing out at the supermarket. :confused2:

 

[Egon]

Nope. Cable pulling on something VS data signals traveling over wire are nowhere near the same thing.

Both are transferring energy are they not.:thumbsup:

You mean Pilots can back them big planes up after a grocery pickup.

 

[Scooby074]

With all the electronics on the new planes I still can not understand why there are no cameras showing different areas of the plane both inside and outside??

There are in many planes. On the 380 passengers even have access to the camera system. In the Qantas incident, one passenger used the system to show one of the pilots oil stains on the damaged engine.

Other planes have ground cameras to enable the crew to navigate on the ground easier, especially in larger planes like the 380

 

[Egon]

But the pilots still could not see the complete engine.

 

[Scooby074]

But the pilots still could not see the complete engine.

That is true. But still better than some aircraft

 

[MossRoad]

Both are transferring energy are they not.:thumbsup:

You mean Pilots can back them big planes up after a grocery pickup.

Technically, they both transfer energy. However, who do you want holding you up over the crocodile infested waters... Popeye or Olive Oil?

And yes, large planes can back up from a grocery store. It will most likely blow the windows out of the store (and perhaps the store off the foundation), but they can back up.

 

[BobRip]

Fly by wire just scares the bajeebers out of me. So do cars with no throttle cable. Just ask Toyota!

How about brake by wire. Of course we already have electric brakes with the ABS. My favorite is steering by wire. The computer might decide to make a hard left turn about 70MPH.

 

[V1Rotate]

How about brake by wire. Of course we already have electric brakes with the ABS. My favorite is steering by wire. The computer might decide to make a hard left turn about 70MPH.

When the pilot of an aircraft with fly by wire move the controls all he is really doing is moving some potentiometers. Those potentiometers then tell the computers what the pilot wants the aircraft to do, the computers then send a signal to the various hydraulic actuators to make the flight control surfaces move. There is also another system called autoland in which not only allows the aircraft land its self but the brakes automatically are applied through an anti-skid system and there is an auto-steer system to keep the plane exactly on the runway centerline until its time to taxi off the runway.
There is a tremendous amount of redundancy built into these planes ( backup computers, hydraulic systems AC anc DC power supplies etc) and they are very safe.