Comments on: Ashes To Ashes, Dust To Dust

By: Bryan

Bryan — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 02:06:16 +0000

In reply to Badtux.

There is only one sure way of checking for engine damage and that’s pulling them apart to check each stage. Military maintenance does it all the time and is able to do a lot of it right on the flight line. The airlines have maintenance facilities that should be able to do a tear down to the same level.

That the military found it almost immediately means they could see it with their fiber-optic scopes in the first stage or by crawling into the intake with a flash light. SOP says the engine is red-lined for depot and replaced as a critical air safety hazard. In combat they would clear what they could see and do a ground test to stress the engine. but that requires everyone to sign off on it. Aircraft are expensive and destroying one in testing is considered very bad form.

I just don’t trust the airlines or the inspectors who are supposed to be protecting the public.

By: Badtux

Badtux — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 22:49:42 +0000

F16’s typically fly a bit faster than airliners, with correspondingly higher pressures involved in their engines. Still, I’d be interested to see whether the airlines bothered actually doing a teardown of the engine of their “test” flights.

Frankly, at this point I’d board an ocean liner and spend a few weeks crossing the Atlantic rather than board one of those flying death traps they call “airliners” today. The only time I reluctantly board one of the things is if my job requires it or if I have to visit my relatives back in Louisiana, otherwise it’s horseless carriage for me.

– Badtux the Luddite Penguin

By: Bryan

Bryan — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 22:05:29 +0000

Steve, if you can speak English, you have almost every sound that is available in verbal communications. It is a melding of Germanic, Romance, and Gaelic roots, with a dabble of everything else thrown in. The key is to get as close as you can, so you can be understood, not to sound like a native speaker. Who in their right mind would assume that the perfectly good “S” in “island” isn’t pronounced in English?

Hipparchia, I don’t trust airlines to know the real risks in flying. They seem to feel that they can get away with shortcuts and taking chances as they price themselves out of their market.

By: hipparchia

hipparchia — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 15:50:55 +0000

thanks for the [written] pronunciation key. i know there are sound files all over the internet, but the cats have turned my latest pair of speakers into a cat toy [again], so i've unplugged them and put them away to keep them from being destroyed until i can figure out a[nother] way to cat-proof them. ,i>The airlines said they had flown test flights and there were no problems, which is interesting in light of the fact that the ABC reported Fighter jet engines suffer volcano damage from test flights. interesting as in the test flights didn't fall out of the sky, so everything is hunky dory [just don't look under the hood]? the tsa may just have done a bunch of us all a favor by making flying such a hassle that at least we're spared the thrill of falling out of the sky in a poorly maintained plane.

By: Steve Bates

Steve Bates — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 14:58:55 +0000

You pronounce it for us, Bryan. I'll pass: my tongue, which served me so well over decades of woodwind-playing, including all those complicated tongue patterns from the 17^th and 18^th centuries, suffers a classic case of ankyloglossia; indeed, the photo in the wiki might as well be of my tongue. Even Spanish is a problem for me, as is German. (Sigh.) Maybe in my next lifetime... Flying jets into foreign objects, including volcanic ash and dust, is just insane. I hope none of us is obliged to fly in Europe until this is over.