Watch the later Top Gear film where they drive around abandoned places in Spain in 'budget' supercars. They start out in Britain (Girbraltar Airport), and show some cool footage of that crossing.
Also, I'm not generally put out by turbulence. But when you can see it from the ground, that's bad.
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NTP66
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Southwest has received FAA approval to fly to Hawai'i. Here's hoping that the 'Southwest Effect' is real, and my ticket prices/miles required drops.
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In aviation news, British Airways just announced an order for 18 777-9 aircraft with options for an additional 24. It looks like the new 777s will be used to replace BA's 747-400s in the early-to-mid 2020s.
Also, Rolls-Royce announced that it would not be responding to Boeing's invitation for proposals for engines for the "New Midsize Aircraft," which will probably be called the 797. That leaves GE (in the form of its CFM joint venture with Safran) and P&W as the remaining competitors. Both CFM and P&W are supposedly proposing scaled-up versions of their 737-sized engines, which are the LEAP series for CFM and the PW1000G series for P&W. Rolls doesn't have any modern engines in that size class, and maybe it's easier to scale up a smaller engine than to shrink down a bigger one.
My bet would be on scaled-up CFM LEAP engines for the 797, maybe called the LEAP-2 or something. CFM has been the exclusive engine supplier for the 737 since the 1980s, and the LEAP-1B is the exclusive for the MAX. Boeing knows the CFM engines very well. Also, GE is the exclusive provider for the engines on the 7&7X and the 747-8 and is one of the two engine providers for the 787, so Boeing has a lot of recent experience working with GE.
Also, Rolls-Royce announced that it would not be responding to Boeing's invitation for proposals for engines for the "New Midsize Aircraft," which will probably be called the 797. That leaves GE (in the form of its CFM joint venture with Safran) and P&W as the remaining competitors. Both CFM and P&W are supposedly proposing scaled-up versions of their 737-sized engines, which are the LEAP series for CFM and the PW1000G series for P&W. Rolls doesn't have any modern engines in that size class, and maybe it's easier to scale up a smaller engine than to shrink down a bigger one.
My bet would be on scaled-up CFM LEAP engines for the 797, maybe called the LEAP-2 or something. CFM has been the exclusive engine supplier for the 737 since the 1980s, and the LEAP-1B is the exclusive for the MAX. Boeing knows the CFM engines very well. Also, GE is the exclusive provider for the engines on the 7&7X and the 747-8 and is one of the two engine providers for the 787, so Boeing has a lot of recent experience working with GE.
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Last week a Commutair Embraer E-145 operating as a United Express flight from Newark to Presque Isle, Maine (which I had no idea had air service) had a runway excursion on landing, and the pictures are impressive. It looks like the left engine darn near ate the left landing gear:
The pilots did a go-around on the first landing attempt and then requested that the runway lights be turned on due to low visibility before the second attempt. There are some reports that the aircraft might have missed the runway entirely. The runway was supposedly covered by a light coating of snow at the time, and if the visibility wasn't that good, it's quite possible with all of the snow everywhere that the pilots couldn't tell the runway from the "grass."
I'm thinking that aircraft is going to be a write-off.
The pilots did a go-around on the first landing attempt and then requested that the runway lights be turned on due to low visibility before the second attempt. There are some reports that the aircraft might have missed the runway entirely. The runway was supposedly covered by a light coating of snow at the time, and if the visibility wasn't that good, it's quite possible with all of the snow everywhere that the pilots couldn't tell the runway from the "grass."
I'm thinking that aircraft is going to be a write-off.
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Neat.
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NTP66
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Ethiopian Airlines flight ET302 crashes en route to Kenya, killing 157
I’m very interested to learn the cause, because this was a brand new Max 8. That’s two crashes in just a few months for new Max jets, iirc.An Ethiopian Airlines flight travelling from Addis Ababa to Nairobi crashed on Sunday morning, killing all 157 people on board.
The 149 passengers and eight crew members were on board flight ET302, a Boeing 737-800 Max aircraft, when it took off from Bole International Airport. It crashed near the town of Bishoftu, 62 kilometres southeast of Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital.
The plane had "no known technical problems," according to Ethiopian Airlines group CEO Tewolde Gebremariam, adding that the pilot had an "excellent flying record" but had asked for permission to turn back shortly after take-off.
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As exemplified by the below article, there's a lot of panic and FUD going on over the recent MAX8 crash in Ethiopia. Considering that we do not yet know the cause of the Ethiopian crash, the calls to ground the entire MAX fleet strike me as absurd. There is no evidence that the Ethiopian crash had anything to do with the same problem as the earlier Lion Air crash, or even that it had anything to do with the MAX8's systems at all. There are some media reports (which would all be second-hand at best) that the pilots reported a control problem and asked to return to the airport, but we do not know what type of problem, what caused the problem, or whether the pilots were responding appropriately to that problem. At this point, we can't even rule out terrorism or other external causes.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/f ... 127692002/
https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/f ... 127692002/
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NTP66
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I agree, which is why I'm going to be paying close attention to this story's developments.
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What I've read is there is potentially a glitch in the flight control software and sensors that commands a sudden nose down attitude in certain circumstances that was not part of the pilot training protocols. Meaning aircrew could be inadvertently telling the jet to nose dive with a certain combination of control and throttle settings that would not normally result in a nose dive.
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The Lion Air crash is believed to be caused by the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) system, which is designed to provide automated intervention to protect the aircraft from stalls. The system depends upon the angle-of-attack indicator, which on the Lion Air flight was seemingly malfunctioning. That led the MCAS to move the aileron trim tabs to lower the aircraft's nose, even though the aircraft was not nose-high, and that nose-down trimming kept going and eventually reached the point where the pilots could not physically overcome the nose-down forces on their control yokes.
I don't want to cast aspersions on the Ethiopian pilots, but if this was an MCAS problem, they might share some blame. First, following the Lion Air crash, Boeing put out a bulletin on how to recognize and deal with an MCAS problem, which every MAX pilot should have read by now. The solution is to turn off the system and trim manually, and that is just a matter of hitting switches in the cockpit. Second, the functional effect of the MCAS problem is what's called a "stabilizer trim runaway," which is something that pilots are already supposed to be trained to recognize and respond to. It's something that every Boeing pilot would be getting in the simulator. While there is not yet a final report on the Lion Air crash, it's quite likely that the investigation will end up placing at least partial blame on the pilots there, because by all reports they did not turn off the automatic stabilizer trim, which they should have done in order to respond to a trim runaway. Did the Ethiopian pilots make the same error? No one knows.
I don't want to cast aspersions on the Ethiopian pilots, but if this was an MCAS problem, they might share some blame. First, following the Lion Air crash, Boeing put out a bulletin on how to recognize and deal with an MCAS problem, which every MAX pilot should have read by now. The solution is to turn off the system and trim manually, and that is just a matter of hitting switches in the cockpit. Second, the functional effect of the MCAS problem is what's called a "stabilizer trim runaway," which is something that pilots are already supposed to be trained to recognize and respond to. It's something that every Boeing pilot would be getting in the simulator. While there is not yet a final report on the Lion Air crash, it's quite likely that the investigation will end up placing at least partial blame on the pilots there, because by all reports they did not turn off the automatic stabilizer trim, which they should have done in order to respond to a trim runaway. Did the Ethiopian pilots make the same error? No one knows.
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Early reports are often wrong, and eye witnesses for crashes can be notoriously unreliable (or report things that are unrelated to the cause of the crash), but Reuters is reporting that witnesses of the Ethiopian crash say the aircraft was trailing smoke and debris before it crashed:
If indeed the 737 was trailing stuff like clothes and papers—which would almost certainly mean that either the passenger cabin or cargo bay is open to the air—then the crash would likely not have anything in common with the earlier Lion Air crash.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ethi ... SKBN1QS15F
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ethi ... SKBN1QS1LJ
Tamirat Abera, 25, was walking past the field at the time. He said the plane turned sharply, trailing white smoke and items like clothes and papers, then crashed about 300 meters away.
“The plane was very close to the ground and it made a turn. We looked and saw papers falling off the plane,” Malka Galato, the farmer whose land the plane crashed on, told Reuters.
If indeed the 737 was trailing stuff like clothes and papers—which would almost certainly mean that either the passenger cabin or cargo bay is open to the air—then the crash would likely not have anything in common with the earlier Lion Air crash.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ethi ... SKBN1QS15F
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ethi ... SKBN1QS1LJ
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NTP66
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Is it bad that I hope it was an act of terrorism instead of malfunction?
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I'm not sure whether that would be bad or not. But terrorism could explain a hole in the aircraft, and there are terrorist groups active in Ethiopia, including Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Shabaab. An onboard fire could be another explanation. I don't think it would be decompression. From what I understand, the crash occurred at best only a couple minutes after takeoff, and the aircraft didn't climb more than around a thousand feet or so. The flight data available from Flightradar24 shows an altitude of over 7,000 feet, but Addis Ababa airport is a high-altitude airport that itself is over 7,000 feet in elevation, and Flightradar shows 0 while an aircraft is on the ground, so most of that listed elevation is just the height of the airport itself. With the aircraft that low, I don't think there would be enough of a pressure differential to cause an explosive decompression.
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Everyone is grounding 3-7 Max 's.
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There's a lot of fear and misinformation going around out there, and to be honest I think the groundings are based more on the adverse public reaction than any concerns about the safety of the MAX fleet. I was curious and read come Twitter and Youtube comments on this issue, and it is obvious (just like for many,many other topics) that people are not letting a lack of understanding of aircraft and the aviation industry get in the way of making assertions on subjects they do not understand and where they cannot possibly have complete information. Some of the comments include:
That aircraft has a design flaw!
What flaw is that, exactly? No one says (or knows). There's no evidence that the two crashes have the same cause, or that the Ethiopian crash even has anything to do with the aircraft's systems or controls at all.
They need to inspect all those aircraft before letting them fly again!
Inspect them for what? We know Lion Air involved a malfunctioning AoA sensor. Lion Air also knew the aircraft had a malfunctioning AoA sensor, because the company's mechanics knew about it but didn't fix it before the fatal flight. And every MAX operator is already on the lookout for malfunctioning AoA sensors. In terms of Ethiopian, considering there is no known cause yet, what would inspections be looking for?
That MCAS system is flawed! Boeing automation is killing people!
First, the MCAS system for Lion Air only produced a dive because it was taking readings from a malfunctioning AoA sensor, which the Lion Air mechanics knew about and failed to repair. Second, unless Twitter is loaded with psychics who can read the future, no one yet knows whether MCAS (or any other system on the MAX) was is involved in the Ethiopian crash at all. It could have been an uncontrolled engine failure. It could have been an on-board fire. The aircraft could have been overloaded with cargo. It could even have been a bomb, missile, or another form of terrorism. None of those could affect the safety of the MAX.
How can anyone say that the MAX 8 is safe when two have crashed in just five months!
Aircraft crash for all sorts of reasons, and the leading cause of crashes—at well over 50%—is pilot error or other human error (such as bad ATC instructions, improper actions by ground crew or cargo loaders, etc.). Mechanical defects and failures are behind less than 25% of crashes. (Weather is behind around 12% of crashes, and sabotage/terrorism is the cause of roughly another 10%). If an aircraft crashes due to pilot error, that doesn't necessarily mean the aircraft is unsafe. Serious human errors can and do crash fully modern aircraft with every modern safety features. For example, Aeroflot Flight 593 was the crash of a brand-new Airbus A310—a modern aircraft with a full suite of safety features. What caused the crash? The pilot let his son sit at the controls, and the son accidentally disengaged the autopilot and put the aircraft into a bank and dive, and the first officer then added his own error to the mix by failing to correct the dive. The result was 75 fatalities, in a brand-new aircraft, with no fault for the aircraft itself.
That aircraft is too automated! It takes away control from the pilots! I'm going to fly Airbus from now on!
Holy crap, do people not realize that Airbus aircraft are more dependent upon automation and computer controls than even the MAX? A320s, for example, don't even have trim switches because the flight-management computers handle all trimming themselves. The only way an Airbus pilot can trim manually is to set the aircraft in "natural law" mode and turn the trim wheels manually. And like Lion Air, there have been Airbus crashes based on blocked/malfunctioning AoA sensors; look up XL Airways Germany Flight 888T. Boeing generally designs its aircraft to give pilots more direct control over the aircraft's systems, and that includes the MAX, which even with the MCAS system is still subject to less overall automation and computer control than just about any Airbus aircraft.
That aircraft has a design flaw!
What flaw is that, exactly? No one says (or knows). There's no evidence that the two crashes have the same cause, or that the Ethiopian crash even has anything to do with the aircraft's systems or controls at all.
They need to inspect all those aircraft before letting them fly again!
Inspect them for what? We know Lion Air involved a malfunctioning AoA sensor. Lion Air also knew the aircraft had a malfunctioning AoA sensor, because the company's mechanics knew about it but didn't fix it before the fatal flight. And every MAX operator is already on the lookout for malfunctioning AoA sensors. In terms of Ethiopian, considering there is no known cause yet, what would inspections be looking for?
That MCAS system is flawed! Boeing automation is killing people!
First, the MCAS system for Lion Air only produced a dive because it was taking readings from a malfunctioning AoA sensor, which the Lion Air mechanics knew about and failed to repair. Second, unless Twitter is loaded with psychics who can read the future, no one yet knows whether MCAS (or any other system on the MAX) was is involved in the Ethiopian crash at all. It could have been an uncontrolled engine failure. It could have been an on-board fire. The aircraft could have been overloaded with cargo. It could even have been a bomb, missile, or another form of terrorism. None of those could affect the safety of the MAX.
How can anyone say that the MAX 8 is safe when two have crashed in just five months!
Aircraft crash for all sorts of reasons, and the leading cause of crashes—at well over 50%—is pilot error or other human error (such as bad ATC instructions, improper actions by ground crew or cargo loaders, etc.). Mechanical defects and failures are behind less than 25% of crashes. (Weather is behind around 12% of crashes, and sabotage/terrorism is the cause of roughly another 10%). If an aircraft crashes due to pilot error, that doesn't necessarily mean the aircraft is unsafe. Serious human errors can and do crash fully modern aircraft with every modern safety features. For example, Aeroflot Flight 593 was the crash of a brand-new Airbus A310—a modern aircraft with a full suite of safety features. What caused the crash? The pilot let his son sit at the controls, and the son accidentally disengaged the autopilot and put the aircraft into a bank and dive, and the first officer then added his own error to the mix by failing to correct the dive. The result was 75 fatalities, in a brand-new aircraft, with no fault for the aircraft itself.
That aircraft is too automated! It takes away control from the pilots! I'm going to fly Airbus from now on!
Holy crap, do people not realize that Airbus aircraft are more dependent upon automation and computer controls than even the MAX? A320s, for example, don't even have trim switches because the flight-management computers handle all trimming themselves. The only way an Airbus pilot can trim manually is to set the aircraft in "natural law" mode and turn the trim wheels manually. And like Lion Air, there have been Airbus crashes based on blocked/malfunctioning AoA sensors; look up XL Airways Germany Flight 888T. Boeing generally designs its aircraft to give pilots more direct control over the aircraft's systems, and that includes the MAX, which even with the MCAS system is still subject to less overall automation and computer control than just about any Airbus aircraft.
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NTP66
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One thing I read is that other planes have three AoA sensors, but the Max planes do not. If true, why? This seems like it could be an issue. Perhaps not with these two incidents, but in general.
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I know the MAX has a least two AoA sensors. I'm not sure whether it has three. Of course, even with multiple sensors, there is still a question of which one to "listen to" when they disagree.
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NTP66
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With three, I thought the system just voted on the data, with that from the faulty sensor being rejected.
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Based on further searches, it looks like the 737 has two AoA sensors, and the MCAS system is generally only listening to one at a time. That does mean that a single faulty sensor can confuse the MCAS system. A third AoA sensor would indeed provide additional redundancy. As indicated in this article from the Seattle times, it is likely that Boeing did not consider the potential of erroneous AoA readings to be a significant risk because pilots can easily turn the MCAS/auto-trim system off, and trim runaways are something that pilots are already trained to deal with.
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/b ... ol-system/
Also, something material to the fact that US-operated MAX aircraft have not been grounded by American or Southwest is that the those airlines ordered their MAXes with additional AoA gauges and/or alert systems that Lion Air did not order and were not present on the aircraft that crashed last year. Not sure whether Ethiopian ordered those optional systems or not.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-indo ... SKCN1NZ0QL
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/b ... ol-system/
Also, something material to the fact that US-operated MAX aircraft have not been grounded by American or Southwest is that the those airlines ordered their MAXes with additional AoA gauges and/or alert systems that Lion Air did not order and were not present on the aircraft that crashed last year. Not sure whether Ethiopian ordered those optional systems or not.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-indo ... SKCN1NZ0QL
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El Presidente Naranja chimes in:
Airplanes are becoming far too complex to fly. Pilots are no longer needed, but rather computer scientists from MIT. I see it all the time in many products. Always seeking to go one unnecessary step further, when often old and simpler is far better. Split second decisions are....
....needed, and the complexity creates danger. All of this for great cost yet very little gain. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want Albert Einstein to be my pilot. I want great flying professionals that are allowed to easily and quickly take control of a plane!
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NTP66
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He’s a **** moron.
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Most recent FAA statement. No evidence of systemic performance issues at this time.
https://twitter.com/FAANews/status/1105592393032744961
https://twitter.com/FAANews/status/1105592393032744961
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On this topic, I wholeheartedly agree.He’s a **** moron.
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So a bit more info on that MCAS: It is on the Max series jets because the larger engines forced Boeing to re-engineer the wing root and reposition the nacelles, and that has resulted in an aircraft that - in certain flight conditions - displays a tendency to pitch up on throttle application. The MCAS detects this and automatically responds the way Shyster set forth. It can be overridden (again, per Shyster's explanation), but pilots have to be trained to recognize the tells when that happens in flight so they can respond appropriately. The pilot in command had over 8000 hours, and he was the pilot flying. The first officer only had 200 hours, however. I don't know what the division of labor is for executing that command, if the right seat is supposed to recognize the situation and act unilaterally with some verbal notice to the PIC, or what.
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If the MCAS system is getting bad data from an AoA sensor, then the result is a trim runaway. The MCAS system is new, but the concept of a trim runaway is not. You could have a short in a trim switch that produces the exact same effect. It's something that all commercial pilots should already be trained to deal with. And it's not something that should be difficult to detect. Not only can the pilots see the trim wheels spinning on either side of the throttles, they make a pretty loud noise when they spin.
A YouTube channel I follow is Mentour Pilot, who is a 737NG pilot (we think for Ryanair). In this 2017 video, he discusses the trim system and Boeing's philosophy on control designs. Boeing designs its controls so that everything is constantly moving and showing the pilots what the aircraft is doing. So even when autopilot is on, the yokes are moving, the throttles are moving, and the trim wheel is spinning. The pilots can see and hear the wheels spin. Note that he mentions the concept of a trim runaway, so we know that it's not a new concept.
Another video that shows the sound that the trim wheels make. As the title of the video indicates, one of the ways to deal with a trim runaway is to just reach down and stop the wheels from turning.
A YouTube channel I follow is Mentour Pilot, who is a 737NG pilot (we think for Ryanair). In this 2017 video, he discusses the trim system and Boeing's philosophy on control designs. Boeing designs its controls so that everything is constantly moving and showing the pilots what the aircraft is doing. So even when autopilot is on, the yokes are moving, the throttles are moving, and the trim wheel is spinning. The pilots can see and hear the wheels spin. Note that he mentions the concept of a trim runaway, so we know that it's not a new concept.
Another video that shows the sound that the trim wheels make. As the title of the video indicates, one of the ways to deal with a trim runaway is to just reach down and stop the wheels from turning.
Last edited by Shyster on Tue Mar 12, 2019 9:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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