NZ-bound flight hit by 'technical' issue

[WyrleyD]

croyde said:

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.

Yes, you got it right, he was a 777 Captain (forget the airline) and it was hilarious to watch at the time, she stomped off in a huff never to return. But I agree that she very technical sometimes and would argue 'till the cows came home but got it very wrong on that occasion, I think she had a lot to do with C130's,

[captain_cynic]

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?

Heatproof bag and a non conductive foam fire extinguisher.

You put the device in the bag and fill the bag with foam. With Lithium and electrical fires, you have to completely smother them.

At least thats how I was trained to do it, on the ground mind you so airlines may have their own kit.

[u-boat]

captain_cynic said:

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?

Heatproof bag and a non conductive foam fire extinguisher.

You put the device in the bag and fill the bag with foam. With Lithium and electrical fires, you have to completely smother them.

At least thats how I was trained to do it, on the ground mind you so airlines may have their own kit.

We’d use a PED kit which involves things like gloves a mask and a fire suppression pillow and blanket etc

You’d put on the gloves and place a fire suppression pad on the device and then cover it with a fire blanket, the suppression pad melts and extinguishes the fire and then pick up the fire blanket with the device inside and place it in the PED bag.

Works really well.

Obviously if you can’t get to the device easily to place it in the bag etc you can use a fire extinguisher first.

[wildoliver]

GliderRider said:

Its worth bearing in mind that when a twin engined aircraft, with the engines offset from the centreline is flying on one engine, the dead engine is creating a massive amount of drag, which in turn needs a significant rudder input to overcome it. This in turn creates even more drag, so the one engine is not just doing double the work it was before, but a considerable amount more than that.

To put the dead engine drag in context, the Boeing 777 engine has a larger diameter than the cabin cross-section of a Boeing 737.

Photo: B777 engine next to B737

No Dougal the plane is far away.

Last plane I flew in my belt didn't even latch but there was so little space in the seat there was zero chance of going anywhere I would rather have spent the 10 hours in the back seat of a 911.

[u-boat]

djc206 said:

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.

You normally use most of the runway regardless of type and where you are as you derate the engine thrust for take off and or use something called assumed temperature to save on engine life.

Obviously if there is terrain or poor weather etc around the airport that might affect the performance you’d use, you might need/want to be airborne quicker.

Sometimes if you’re very heavy or on a short runway you’re going to be using almost full power though and the whole runway.

The wind, temperature and pressure all make a huge difference to the take off performance you use, there’s some airports and routes and situations where you might be sitting there ok to go with a 7 kt headwind but not with a 3 knot headwind for instance.

Then if you’re in such a uncomfortable spot at the holding point, there’s a range of options from going back on stand and chucking off some weight, getting a new flight plan that might use lower than normal fuel reserves or waiting for the wind to increase a few knots to telling the tower what wind you need to take off and Lo and behold they’ll likely tell you that’s exactly what it is.

Obviously giving yourself a bit more fat before taxing will be a more optimal situation but if performance is very tight, then it’s not always possible.

[djc206]

Teddy Lop 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.

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

They take forever to get off the ground and their climb rates are woeful. My hatred of them isn’t entirely rational I’ll be honest.

[paulguitar]

WyrleyD said:

croyde said:

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.

Yes, you got it right, he was a 777 Captain (forget the airline) and it was hilarious to watch at the time, she stomped off in a huff never to return. But I agree that she very technical sometimes and would argue 'till the cows came home but got it very wrong on that occasion, I think she had a lot to do with C130's,

Here is the thread in question:

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

[captain_cynic]

djc206 said:

They take forever to get off the ground and their climb rates are woeful. My hatred of them isn’t entirely rational I’ll be honest.

I prefer the A330 due to the 2-4-2 cabin layout... But my only A340 flights has been on the Luftwaffe so that was just terrible all round.

[u-boat]

djc206 said:

They take forever to get off the ground and their climb rates are woeful. My hatred of them isn’t entirely rational I’ll be honest.

They (a340) were awful in turbulence and wagged around like an old dog, the speed was also very unstable.

[NowWatchThisDrive]

Interesting development in the original story - WSJ now suggesting it may have been caused by a flight attendant serving a meal accidentally catching one of the pilot's seat controls, pushing them forward into the control column...

[Simpo Two]

NowWatchThisDrive said:

Interesting development in the original story - WSJ now suggesting it may have been caused by a flight attendant serving a meal accidentally catching one of the pilot's seat controls, pushing them forward into the control column...

That's worthy of 'Airplane!'

[BREMBOV6]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68580950

Pretty terrifying, Boeing at the moment. I read another article a few days ago and thought it was really bad turbulence.

Been following Boeing closer since the Max incidents. On LinkedIn for example, if they announce or post anything. They are getting it tight in the comments.

[Southerner]

What on earth sort of switch shoves a pilot forwards that violently? What’s that intended for - sounds like a sort of lateral ejector seat!

[Hub]

NowWatchThisDrive said:

Interesting development in the original story - WSJ now suggesting it may have been caused by a flight attendant serving a meal accidentally catching one of the pilot's seat controls, pushing them forward into the control column...

That would potentially pitch the plane down, but a sudden drop with people hitting the ceiling? What was all that stuff about losing the instruments?

[PositronicRay]

Southerner said:

What on earth sort of switch shoves a pilot forwards that violently? What’s that intended for - sounds like a sort of lateral ejector seat!

You would have to question what they were upto.

[u-boat]

PositronicRay said:

Southerner said:

What on earth sort of switch shoves a pilot forwards that violently? What’s that intended for - sounds like a sort of lateral ejector seat!

You would have to question what they were upto.

The 787 seats are electric and operate via rocker switches that move them forward or aft and up and down, in the past they have been stuck travelling, if you’re in the seat and this is happening though you can stop it with a seat power cut off switch. Then you just control them with levers like old style seats.

It doesn’t happen violently the movement is relatively slow though but you could get injured if it happens and you didn’t stop it and your legs weren’t in a good position etc. also if you’re in the seat and it moves fully forwards it’s possible you’d manipulate the flight controls.

[bitchstewie]

There was a good video from blancolirio on this.

Seems it's less about being pushed violently and more about the likely state of flight and the impact a small unexpected impact has at that speed and altitude?

[djc206]

Didn’t something similar happen to a Voyager when one of the pilots manage to wedge his SLR camera on the joystick and it lost considerable height at a crazy rate?

Oops!

[bitchstewie]

Yeah there was also a Chinook crash where they think a dropped iPad likely caused it by jamming the controls

[Eric Mc]

Simpo Two said:

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!'

Rubbish. He said “Bejaysus, we’ll be up here all day”.