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Old 21st Nov 2022, 21:46
  #15 (permalink)  
Chugalug2
 
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: West Sussex
Age: 82
Posts: 4,743
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Originally Posted by Old_Slartibartfast
What on earth is this obsession with the bloody Chinook here - I just do not get it, and am being bombarded with wholly irrelevant PMs about the Chinook HC.2 as well. I've never been near a Chinook, let alone be associated with anything related to it.

The Chinook FADEC software issue was more than a decade earlier, and nothing at all to do with the T800 FADEC or its software. The Chinook was Boeing and Textron, the T800 was Rolls Royce and Honeywell. I doubt that the people involved in writing the code for the T800 FADEC, who were located at the other end of the USA, and were ten years later, even knew any of the people that had written the Chinook software.

The T800 (as the CTS800) had FAA certification (and the FAA had done a full analysis of the FADEC code before certifying it). It also had US DoD certification, based on the FAA work I believe, and was ready to slot into the cancelled Comanche (for which it had been designed). It was also flying in the Super Lynx 300, with the Malaysian Navy, and there were a bunch of other customers lined up for either variants of the Super Lynx or re-engining older Gem powered models with the T800/CTS800. I'm not aware of there ever having been any issues with that FADEC software.
This isn't about the Chinook, T800, Comanche, Super Lynx, or any other a/c. It isn't even about FADECs as such. It is about writing and verifying utterly reliable and resilient FADEC code. We will never know if the lack of that caused the Mull tragedy because the BoI came to no certain conclusion and was anyway overruled by the RAF VSO Reviewing Officers who were in turn overruled by a later SoS. The aircraft was grossly unairworthy, was 'positively dangerous', and had been granted an illegal RTS by RAF VSOs. The only way that Flight Safety can advance is by learning from previous accidents and doing one's best to avoid repeating them in the future. BD could do nothing about RAF VSOs granting illegal RTS's, but it could do something about the 'positively dangerous' FADEC code by ensuring that it was never allowed to happen again on its watch. I imagine that is why they refused you Point Blank, OS. It had nothing to do with you personally, BD was just doing the job it is mandated to do. Such determination to stick to the Regulations is heart-warming. It might just herald a long and slow return of UK Military Airworthiness that was dealt such a near fatal blow by RAF VSOs prior to Mull and has yet to recover from it.
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