NZ-bound flight hit by 'technical' issue

[eharding]

GliderRider said:

Photo: B777 engine next to B737

That's actually a leaked photo of a trial engine fitment of the thankfully now abandoned 737 Mega-Max-Ultra-Whopper project.

[essayer]

GliderRider said:

"Boeing denies quality control issues after leaked photo shows engineers attempting to fit a 777 engine on a 737"

[LotusOmega375D]

NowWatchThisDrive said:

I remember reading in the past about the quite stringent rules on twin-engine planes flying such remote routes, but evidently that's something they've relaxed over time?

Personally, I've been on plenty of transatlantic flights and never given it much thought, but when I did LA-Tahiti in 2008 (on an A340) watching the inflight map on that one focused the mind somewhat!

Yeah but at least an A340 has plenty of engines, so a reasonable chance of you getting there safely.

[djc206]

LotusOmega375D said:

Yeah but at least an A340 has plenty of engines, so a reasonable chance of you getting there safely.

4 asthmatic little engines in fairness. Gutless piece of crap the A340, climb with the curvature of the earth.

[paulguitar]

NowWatchThisDrive said:

ETOPS

Shame Ginetta girl is no longer around to explain it to us.

[essayer]

paulguitar said:

Shame Ginetta girl is no longer around to explain it to us.

"Engines turn or passengers swim"

[captain_cynic]

djc206 said:

LotusOmega375D said:

Yeah but at least an A340 has plenty of engines, so a reasonable chance of you getting there safely.

4 asthmatic little engines in fairness. Gutless piece of crap the A340, climb with the curvature of the earth.

Didn't the A340 have smaller engines than the A330?

[Kiribati268]

djc206 said:

4 asthmatic little engines in fairness. Gutless piece of crap the A340, climb with the curvature of the earth.

Back a few years ago when I worked in load control, the Virgin A340s departing Jo 'burg in their summer would often have huge MTOW (Max take off weight) restrictions due to the altitude of the airport and the temperature. I sometimes saw RTOWs (restricted take off weight) of 30t less than MTOW. Due to the fuel load of an 11 hour flight it sometimes meant bags were left behind...

[Mark V GTD]

captain_cynic said:

50 injured... This, ladies and gentlemen is why you wear your seatbelt when seated... Even when the seatbelt light is switched off.

I was on an Etihad flight this morning and the captain kept the seat belt light on for the first half hour after take off due to turbulence being encountered up to the cruising altitude of 36k. He then requested that everyone wear their belts when seated (as most captains do).

It struck me that if that’s what is almost universally required then why just make it compulsory on all flights and change the traditional seat belt sign to a ‘take your seat’ sign.

[djc206]

captain_cynic said:

djc206 said:

LotusOmega375D said:

Yeah but at least an A340 has plenty of engines, so a reasonable chance of you getting there safely.

4 asthmatic little engines in fairness. Gutless piece of crap the A340, climb with the curvature of the earth.

Didn't the A340 have smaller engines than the A330?

I think they’ve got smaller engines than my old Punto

[Truckosaurus]

LotusOmega375D said:

Yeah but at least an A340 has plenty of engines, so a reasonable chance of you getting there safely.

Twice as many engines = Twice as likely to fail.

(This might not be statistically accurate)

[djc206]

Kiribati268 said:

Back a few years ago when I worked in load control, the Virgin A340s departing Jo 'burg in their summer would often have huge MTOW (Max take off weight) restrictions due to the altitude of the airport and the temperature. I sometimes saw RTOWs (restricted take off weight) of 30t less than MTOW. Due to the fuel load of an 11 hour flight it sometimes meant bags were left behind...

I can believe it. Thankfully Jo’burg has a ridiculously long runway. I flew out of Jo’burg last year in a Swiss A340-300, even though the temp was in single digits we made good use of the available tarmac.

[Simpo Two]

essayer said:

"Engines turn or passengers swim"

Which brings us full circle back to the flying boat concept

Truckosaurus said:

LotusOmega375D said:

Yeah but at least an A340 has plenty of engines, so a reasonable chance of you getting there safely.

Twice as many engines = Twice as likely to fail.

(This might not be statistically accurate)

Reminds me of this (Irish joke warning)...

'This is your captain speaking. Unfortunately due to the failure of one of our four engines, we will be 30 minutes late arriving at our destination'

A little while later...

'This is your captain again. Unfortunately due to the failure of another engine, we will be two hours late arriving at our destination'

A little while later...

'This is your captain again. Unfortunately due to the failure of the third engine, we will be four hours late arriving at our destination'

Irish passenger says 'My god if the last engine fails we'll be up here all night!'

[captain_cynic]

Kiribati268 said:

djc206 said:

4 asthmatic little engines in fairness. Gutless piece of crap the A340, climb with the curvature of the earth.

Back a few years ago when I worked in load control, the Virgin A340s departing Jo 'burg in their summer would often have huge MTOW (Max take off weight) restrictions due to the altitude of the airport and the temperature. I sometimes saw RTOWs (restricted take off weight) of 30t less than MTOW. Due to the fuel load of an 11 hour flight it sometimes meant bags were left behind...

Same at Bogota (2,500m AMSL), it is bad enough that often they couldn't take off with enough fuel so they'd have to do a fuel stop somewhere along the way (usually Punta Cana). The last one I was on was empty enough that the plane could make it back to Europe without a fuel stop which saved an hour.

Fun fact, the internal cabin pressure of an A350 can be lower than the outside air pressure at Bogota (An A350 can maintain a pressure equivalent to 1,700m).

[NowWatchThisDrive]

Some more interesting points, especially around fire suppression being the more serious constraint which I hadn't thought about but makes a lot of sense. Especially nowadays when everyone's going to be taking a couple of Li-ion batteries wherever they go. Also interesting that I only thought about the remoteness aspect in the context of overwater, but yeah I guess there's chunks of land overflown all the time - far north of Canada, Siberia pre-2022, bits of Africa even? - where there are options but few and far between, or other reasons you might not want to end up there. And the Poles as djc206 says.

paulguitar said:

NowWatchThisDrive said:

ETOPS

Shame Ginetta girl is no longer around to explain it to us.

This one went over my head I'm afraid!

[chrisgtx]

Going off on a tangent a bit, what would they do if a small lithium battery started to overheat and smoke on a flight?

[Teddy Lop]

djc206 said:

LotusOmega375D said:

Yeah but at least an A340 has plenty of engines, so a reasonable chance of you getting there safely.

4 asthmatic little engines in fairness. Gutless piece of crap the A340, climb with the curvature of the earth.

How is that they are gutless? The stats re engine power to MTOW suggest they're similar to a330 and exceed say a b747

[u-boat]

chrisgtx said:

Going off on a tangent a bit, what would they do if a small lithium battery started to overheat and smoke on a flight?

In the cabin the crew would use a lithium battery fire kit (or portable electronic device kit or similar) or follow a lithium battery fire procedure (obviously different to a normal fire) which varies by airline.

Depending on aircraft type, In the hold there are smoke (and sometimes fire and also overheat) detectors which are made up of a smoke and fire detector system (on my aircraft that’s detector units made up on led beams which get scattered by particles and picked up by photo sensors) and fire extinguishers and suppression system which discharge automatically and sometimes help stop the smoke and chemicals etc entering the cabin when they first sense smoke and then discharge at a metered rate for the duration of the flight. The amount of secondary metered extinguishers are often the difference between the different etops restrictions. So your aircraft might be 180 minutes normally but if the airline adds more they can extend it.

So the 787 might be 180 minutes ETOPS in base version with 2 high rate and 3 low rate bottles as standard and then one extra for 240 and another for 330 minutes etc.

Obviously various items have to be working so your ETOPS limits can change on the day depending on if all sorts of things are unserviceable.

Fire in the hold (or sometimes cabin depending on where it is) is likely one of the ‘worst’ things that can happen and can make the aircraft unable to fly very quickly.

Edited by u-boat on Thursday 14th March 07:12

[paua]

chrisgtx said:

Going off on a tangent a bit, what would they do if a small lithium battery started to overheat and smoke on a flight?

Turn on the "No Smoking" sign.

[croyde]

NowWatchThisDrive said:

Some more interesting points, especially around fire suppression being the more serious constraint which I hadn't thought about but makes a lot of sense. Especially nowadays when everyone's going to be taking a couple of Li-ion batteries wherever they go. Also interesting that I only thought about the remoteness aspect in the context of overwater, but yeah I guess there's chunks of land overflown all the time - far north of Canada, Siberia pre-2022, bits of Africa even? - where there are options but few and far between, or other reasons you might not want to end up there. And the Poles as djc206 says.

paulguitar said:

NowWatchThisDrive said:

ETOPS

Shame Ginetta girl is no longer around to explain it to us.

This one went over my head I'm afraid!

Former regular poster on here. Military pilot I believe. Very knowledgeable but would upset a lot of posters and get very argumentative.

Had a go at a poster telling him that he knew nothing about 777s when it turned out that he was a 777 pilot.

I think I have the correct aircraft.

She went quiet after that. Shame as despite being a little hotheaded, I enjoyed her posts.