Originally Posted by
Checkboard
......Which would you rather be on? A 777 with two modern, computer controlled and remote monitored engines or a 707 with four smokey turbojets with only 15% of the thrust .....
But that isn't the choice, is it? I think that my last flight on a smokey 707 must have been in 1971, but I'm not sure.
I would rather be on a modern aircraft with four modern, computer controlled and remote monitored engines, and luckily for me they exist and I have that choice available, at least on long over-water sectors, so that when one of the modern, computer controlled and remote monitored engines decides to pack up or, as in this case. shed most of its front end, there are 3 more instead of just the one.
One of my problems with ETOPS, apart from the imminent prospect of approval for 420 minutes s/e diversion time (ie 7 long hours over the freezing Southen Ocean hoping the remaining engine won't suffer a failure
and that the aircraft's remaining ETOPS significant systems** will continue to perform in accordance with a set of statistical assumptions), is the way that ETOPS maintenance procedures are designed to make an ETOPS aircraft safer than one that's not ETOPS certified. By and large, I would rather that the extra care is applied to every aircraft used on commercial air transport. The regulations essentially acknowledge - admit - that this is not the case.
** On that subject, has anyone ever tested the assumption that the ability to maintain 3% halon concentration in the cargo hold for 7 hours continuously (in the worst case) will suppress a fire that would otherwise spread to other areas including the cabin? As a layman, I don't get it. What is "suppress" supposed to mean in this context? It isn't "extinguish"; if it were they would say "extinguish", wouldn't they? What happens, exactly, when you "suppress" a fire for 420 minutes? Fires consume fuel, if they don't go out they spread.