I note from the article in the travel magazine that the 'new' engines will have to be inspected after every 200 flights, then subsequently after every 100 Flights. Most unusual to see restrictions tighten after re-introduction and initial data.
The Airline person, anonymous, said the route for the 380 (LAX) is on a "wait and see" basis, so no new info there.
Airbus and Qantas are right pissed at RR, and you may want to read a more cogent and trustworthy source than a Sydney based Travel Office release.
The 900 has teething problems, the question remains, are they mitigable? The only way to know this is to examine what the workaround of the 972 truly consists of. Is the retrofit an upgrade that is thought to extend service life to advertised lengths? Or is it merely a buying of time, a compliance with existing AD's to take the heat off of reintroduction?? None of the C engines has enough TOW to give any results that can be analyzed, as of yet, no demands of 72k POT to the cycles or hours that The "A" acquired at time of the Burst.
The engineers who built and had certified the "A" are on the spot. Is it conceivable that these folk hadn't considered their lightweight newby might need upgrading?? How quickly can new internals be designed, built and tested to plug the gap in performance left wide open by the failure of the first iteration?
The bottom line is this. The certificate failed. Instead of re-certification, the Manufacturer is allowed to modify without returning to the procedures. There is no downside to grounding the 972 whilst rebuilding/replacing them, as they need to be off wing anyway. Pretty slick.
It is simply this: Qantas was offered and accepted the Thrust augmented 972 after Airbus found six tons of extra fat on the Whale. The Thrust came from a DEP, a "Chip" that opened the fuel a bit more on an engine that was DEP limited on shorter routes. The Max thrust was used carefully, in limited fashion, so essentially this engine had serious limits on it that made it a hangar Queen, a Route Limited Diva, or a test bed for how Rolls expected to gain market share. Sell engines by opening the throttle, and limiting its life. That isn't a new engine, that is a "warmed up" leftover.
Last edited by bearfoil; 2nd Jan 2011 at 13:15.