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Aviation Geeks unite?! Anybody else care about planes here?

What's your level of interest in aviation?!


  • Total voters
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So if Boom is successful do you think SSTs will become fashionable again?
I think there's significant demand for it. Concorde was just too far ahead of its time. It had to run afterburners to take off, was incredible loud and finally had one bad accident. Even despite that there was demand. Branson wanted to keep Concorde flying on Virgin, but whatever agreement Air France and BA had didn't allow any of them to be sold.
 
I think there's significant demand for it. Concorde was just too far ahead of its time. It had to run afterburners to take off, was incredible loud and finally had one bad accident. Even despite that there was demand. Branson wanted to keep Concorde flying on Virgin, but whatever agreement Air France and BA had didn't allow any of them to be sold.
It wasn't financially viable to operate them.

That's the major reason that the Concorde had to go away.

That's one of the major issues that Boom Technologies has focused on when designing their new plane.

Make it financially viable in the current and future market.
 
I think there's significant demand for it. Concorde was just too far ahead of its time. It had to run afterburners to take off, was incredible loud and finally had one bad accident. Even despite that there was demand. Branson wanted to keep Concorde flying on Virgin, but whatever agreement Air France and BA had didn't allow any of them to be sold.
Pretty sure the airworthiness certs for Concorde were cancelled after the crash so no-one would have been able to fly them.
 
Pretty sure the airworthiness certs for Concorde were cancelled after the crash so no-one would have been able to fly them.
1x crash didn't stop them from flying.

What killed them was operational costs, low passenger volume, and 9/11 hurting Air Travel for a while.

Concorde Retirement
Retirement
In 2003, Air France and British Airways announced the retirement of Concorde, due to rising maintenance costs, low passenger numbers following the 25 July 2000 crash, and the slump in air travel following the September 11 attacks.[156]

Air France flew its last commercial flight on 30 May 2003[157][158] with British Airways retiring its Concorde fleet on 24 October 2003

It took a "Triple Whammy" to kill the Concorde.
 
Ooh Hey hanging out in avionics.. These were really interesting because it is fascinating to see the amount of equipment and systems that are crammed onboard a plane to keep everyone safe in the air.

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there's been some further information release on the Air India crash in that the position of the fuel flow switches were changed from flow to run.


an image searching indicates they're located below the throttles so definitely not in a position where they could have been flipped by accident.

the article is light on details at this point but wonder if there was an issue with the fuel flow so they tried to correct it with cycling but it strikes me a strange as one the engines are running the switches are only flipped on the ground to shutdown the engines down.

would have expect that your fuel pumps settings and the flow there would have been the first stop.
 
Now it seems that aviation design is also on A.I.’s to-do list:


The Maker community builds a tiny “shuttle”
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So the current analysis exonerates the pilots of any wrong doing.

They're blaming the computer chip that controls fuel flow and says it has a 11,000 Thermal Cycle rating and needs to be replaced after that many cycles.
The FAA / GE let the Airliners know about this as a "Service Bulletin" in the past.
Why it wasn't issued as a AD (Air-worthiness Directive) is unknown.

They say, due to fuel flow chip's manufacture, it could start working intermittently if not properly replaced on schedule.
That would cause the fuel flow to stop and cause the engines to flame out for a few seconds before the computer chip comes back online, which is all that's needed to cause the accident.

I'm curious as to what kind of chip and process node are you using that only handles 11,000 Thermal Cycles.
That opens up A WHOLE can of worms as to who they were sourcing for the computer chip parts, what did they skimp out on, etc.

11,000 Thermal Cycles seems kind of low from my personal experience & understanding of modern Computer Chip manufacturing process.
 
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So the current analysis exonerates the pilots of any wrong doing.

They're blaming the computer chip that controls fuel flow and says it has a 11,000 Thermal Cycle rating and needs to be replaced after that many cycles.
The FAA / GE let the Airliners know about this as a "Service Bulletin" in the past.
Why it wasn't issued as a AD (Air-worthiness Directive) is unknown.

They say, due to fuel flow chip's manufacture, it could start working intermittently if not properly replaced on schedule.
That would cause the fuel flow to stop and cause the engines to flame out for a few seconds before the computer chip comes back online, which is all that's needed to cause the accident.

I'm curious as to what kind of chip and process node are you using that only handles 11,000 Thermal Cycles.
That opens up A WHOLE can of worms as to who they were sourcing for the computer chip parts, what did they skimp out on, etc.

11,000 Thermal Cycles seems kind of low from my personal experience & understanding of modern Computer Chip manufacturing process.


That sounds like a recipe for disaster. I wonder if any other planes on other airlines of the same make and model are going to be affected in the same way.
 
That sounds like a recipe for disaster. I wonder if any other planes on other airlines of the same make and model are going to be affected in the same way.
Or any aircraft that uses that computer chip for Fuel Flow control.

11,000 Thermal Cycles is very low.

Assuming 365 Days of Operation while also assuming you fly at least once per day into a destination and out of said destination back to another one.
On Landing at Point A, you're Turning it off
On TakeOff at Point A, you're Turning it on
On Landing at Point B, you're Turning it off
On TakeOff at Point B, you're Turning it on.
That's 4x Thermal Cycles in 1x Day.
365*4 = 1460 Thermal Cycles per year.
11,000 / 1460 Thermal Cycles per year ≈ 7.5342465753424657534246575342466 years

This isn't counting any mid-stop refuels, any ground tests, any other reasons you would Power On/Off the Fuel Flow while on the ground or during maintainence checks.
This isn't counting Build Quality variation from the Chip Manufacturer.
Do they even keep track of "Thermal Cycles" of the chip?
If so, how are they counting it?
Does anybody read the logs counting said Thermal Cycles?

The 787-8 Dreamliner that Air India 171 was using is stated to be 11 y/o before the crash.
Assuming they've "Never Changed" the Fuel Control Chip since they got the plane, it's a miracle that the chip lasted as long as they did.
 
Or any aircraft that uses that computer chip for Fuel Flow control.

11,000 Thermal Cycles is very low.

Assuming 365 Days of Operation while also assuming you fly at least once per day into a destination and out of said destination back to another one.
On Landing at Point A, you're Turning it off
On TakeOff at Point A, you're Turning it on
On Landing at Point B, you're Turning it off
On TakeOff at Point B, you're Turning it on.
That's 4x Thermal Cycles in 1x Day.
365*4 = 1460 Thermal Cycles per year.
11,000 / 1460 Thermal Cycles per year ≈ 7.5342465753424657534246575342466 years

This isn't counting any mid-stop refuels, any ground tests, any other reasons you would Power On/Off the Fuel Flow while on the ground or during maintainence checks.
This isn't counting Build Quality variation from the Chip Manufacturer.
Do they even keep track of "Thermal Cycles" of the chip?
If so, how are they counting it?
Does anybody read the logs counting said Thermal Cycles?

The 787-8 Dreamliner that Air India 171 was using is stated to be 11 y/o before the crash.
Assuming they've "Never Changed" the Fuel Control Chip since they got the plane, it's a miracle that the chip lasted as long as they did.

I smell more trouble for Boeing if this becomes more widely known
 
another headache for Boeing.

There are issues with the booms on the KC-46 tankers. First is that several aircraft have had booms or parts there off with the damage indicating a shearing rather than just falling off with pilots noting it was very stiff in flight but could also be the speed being flown during refueling. Secondly is the impact of the sun angles on the camera used to guide the boom and it washing out the picture. Also with the system is a lack of fall back if the camera goes down because there's no pod at rear where the Mk1 eyeball can be used.

With the camera problem, a solution is in development but you've got the big question of why that done in the first place when Boeing was warned about.

They need to get it sorted as the -46s are coming in service as the air frames on the -10s and -135s are pretty much expired so it's an issue that needs to be addressed very quickly
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How is Boeing screwing up Aerial Refueling?

Isn't this a very old known problem & how to solve it?


Boeing built the aircraft (rebuilt on 767s) and it's new problem on new aircraft.

It was a contract that was mired in corruption in scandal. Boeing won first time till it came out a corrupt deal had been made so it went back to tender, Airbus won (and it's mentioned in the video that it doesn't have the camera issue).

Boeing appealed the Airbus win and the 3rd time the conditions were written in such away that Airbus has no way of winner..
 
Boeing built the aircraft (rebuilt on 767s) and it's new problem on new aircraft.

It was a contract that was mired in corruption in scandal. Boeing won first time till it came out a corrupt deal had been made so it went back to tender, Airbus won (and it's mentioned in the video that it doesn't have the camera issue).

Boeing appealed the Airbus win and the 3rd time the conditions were written in such away that Airbus has no way of winner..
Sounds like Corruption got in the way again.
 
So if Boom is successful do you think SSTs will become fashionable again?
Fashionable. Interesting choice of words.

The Concorde was quite a sensation when it came into service. The Airport movie franchise took advantage of this, when it featured a Concorde in its fourth movie installment, The Concorde ... Airport '79 . I suppose it was fashionable back then.


The Soviets manufactured their own commercial supersonic plane, the Tupolev Tu-144. It was dubbed "Concordski". It had its maiden flight before the Corcorde. But with just about all things that the Soviets produced for commercial use, it was problematic.


I am curious to see what Boom comes up with.
 
The Concorde was quite a sensation when it came into service. The Airport movie franchise took advantage of this, when it featured a Concorde in its fourth movie installment, The Concorde ... Airport '79 . I suppose it was fashionable back then.

The aircraft used in the film was the one that crashed and brought the era of the Concorde to an end.
 
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