the idea that fuel blowing off from the No 1 tank travelled along the side of the aircraft and into the No 7 tank dry bay, was disproved by the evidence to the inquest. BAE Systems experts showed conclusively that this could not have happened.
Interesting. How did they show this? This then puts more focus on leaks, though as I think has been said leaks will always be impossible to entirely remove so you must have a design that can tolerant some degree of leakage (mtn errors, battle damage etc.). Anecdotes suggest the old Lightning design was very unforgiving in this respect.
Ed
300 seal changes per aircraft....this is going to cause us more problems. I guess the VC10 (more than 25 years old) is in the same can of worms.
The first Nimrod to have all its seals changed will leak on test. Those leaks will be identified and cured. Then, the first flight (post major air test?) will suffer leaks due to flexing and, despite a safe flight and landing, that will be the last flight of the Nimrod fleet. All under the guise of working towards ALARP. This is a complete mess.
A mess it certainly it is. I think your choice of the word guise is telling. Its all too political now though isn't it - the seals must be seen to be changed, irrespective of a balanced risk assessment of the impact of such a decision.
Having said that, did the seals really have no lifing data prior to this incident? Is the science behind their degradation known, or is the 25yrs limit just a liability limiting exercise be the OEM as it is infact unknown?