Renamed & Merged: Qantas Severe Engine Damage Over Indonesia
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Mostly at home
Posts: 356
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Scam Sniffer ...
Do you have an "OFF" button?
Contrary to everything you are trying to imply (whilst showing your ignorance of Aviation Law to boot), Richard is a really nice guy who would be the first to acknowledge everyone's contribution.
Leave him alone and give it a rest.
If you have a problem with the way the events have been portrayed in the papers, take it up with their .. er ... fiction department.
Do you have an "OFF" button?
Contrary to everything you are trying to imply (whilst showing your ignorance of Aviation Law to boot), Richard is a really nice guy who would be the first to acknowledge everyone's contribution.
Leave him alone and give it a rest.
If you have a problem with the way the events have been portrayed in the papers, take it up with their .. er ... fiction department.
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: Sydney
Age: 41
Posts: 11
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Scam Sniffer ...
Do you have an "OFF" button?
Contrary to everything you are trying to imply (whilst showing your ignorance of Aviation Law to boot), Richard is a really nice guy who would be the first to acknowledge everyone's contribution.
Leave him alone and give it a rest.
If you have a problem with the way the events have been portrayed in the papers, take it up with their .. er ... fiction department.
Do you have an "OFF" button?
Contrary to everything you are trying to imply (whilst showing your ignorance of Aviation Law to boot), Richard is a really nice guy who would be the first to acknowledge everyone's contribution.
Leave him alone and give it a rest.
If you have a problem with the way the events have been portrayed in the papers, take it up with their .. er ... fiction department.
Quoting ABC website:
"Qantas will not return its A380 fleet to service until confident the issues have been identified and resolved," Mr Joyce said.
He said oil leaks had been discovered in three engines on two different aircraft.
"The oil leaks were beyond normal tolerances," he said.
Unquote.
So three engines (maybe four?) had oil leaks "beyond normal tolerances".
Interesting choice of words. This may open up a can of worms on the adequacy of inspections prior to the QF32 incident and fleet grounding.
"Qantas will not return its A380 fleet to service until confident the issues have been identified and resolved," Mr Joyce said.
He said oil leaks had been discovered in three engines on two different aircraft.
"The oil leaks were beyond normal tolerances," he said.
Unquote.
So three engines (maybe four?) had oil leaks "beyond normal tolerances".
Interesting choice of words. This may open up a can of worms on the adequacy of inspections prior to the QF32 incident and fleet grounding.
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: The Sticks
Posts: 39
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
quick......
SS Said:
Did you and those "many others" take exception to the implied slur on your collective capabilities, espoused by Mrs D'C when she is quoted as saying that the passengers were lucky to have Capt D'C on board. (as if no one else from your esteemed ranks could have handled it as well)
Have you and those collective others noticed the lack of credit given to the other members of the TEAM, in many, if not all, newspaper accounts.
Did you and those "many others" take exception to the implied slur on your collective capabilities, espoused by Mrs D'C when she is quoted as saying that the passengers were lucky to have Capt D'C on board. (as if no one else from your esteemed ranks could have handled it as well)
Have you and those collective others noticed the lack of credit given to the other members of the TEAM, in many, if not all, newspaper accounts.
*giggles
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: sydney
Posts: 136
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
"Ball park in USD what would the price tag be for a new engine from Rolls Royce? Can an airline walk in 'off the street' and buy one or do they refer you back to the aircraft manufacturer?"
Errrgh. Where would you be walking into off the street if it wasn't the manufacturer? If it was an engine type that was at retirement age, then there may be a few around, or if an airline had just gone under, their spares may be available, but the engine manufacturer is the only real source of engines. Yes, you buy spare engines from RR, not Airbus.
There is a "list" price for engines, but in effect no airline would pay it. Engines are heavily discounted (rumour has it that occasionally they are discounted to zero - I personally don't believe it), especially if there is a PBH contract attached, or if there are competing engine types. Spare engines bought separately tend to be less discounted (the airline tends to be more over a barrel...).
Errrgh. Where would you be walking into off the street if it wasn't the manufacturer? If it was an engine type that was at retirement age, then there may be a few around, or if an airline had just gone under, their spares may be available, but the engine manufacturer is the only real source of engines. Yes, you buy spare engines from RR, not Airbus.
There is a "list" price for engines, but in effect no airline would pay it. Engines are heavily discounted (rumour has it that occasionally they are discounted to zero - I personally don't believe it), especially if there is a PBH contract attached, or if there are competing engine types. Spare engines bought separately tend to be less discounted (the airline tends to be more over a barrel...).
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: gold coast QLD australia
Age: 86
Posts: 1,345
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
For God, sake, the poor lady just wanted her hubby back, she was upset, she said the first thing that came into her head, probably not at all used to jouno's firing questions at her. TN had a policy, no press interviews, no matter what, and that included your family. Probably best. That Skipper would be so over it, (and if the airlines have not changed, he will probably get a call from crewing, don't suppose you can do a MEL?) (After trying to get home for two days)!
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: U.K
Posts: 183
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
For God, sake, the poor lady just wanted her hubby back, she was upset, she said the first thing that came into her head
apparently it's a crime to be proud of your other half
Jabawocky,
"And on the topic of the Lufthansa A380, I recall reading they shut an engine down in theirs due to an oil issue in the last few months."
I found this article, Lufthansa A380 engine shut down during flight
German airline Lufthansa said pilots on an Airbus A380 flying from Tokyo to Frankfurt shut down one of the superjumbo's four engines as it neared its destination.
Flight crew detected a change in oil pressure which was probably the result of dirt particles clogging a filter in the hydraulic circulation system, Lufthansa said. The engine was exchanged and the plane resumed service to the Japanese capital.
"It wasn't necessary to shut down the engine, but once in a while pilots do this just to be careful," Lufthansa spokesman Michael Lamberty said today by telephone. "Thankfully it happened just before landing. In another phase of the flight they may have been forced to perform an emergency landing."
"And on the topic of the Lufthansa A380, I recall reading they shut an engine down in theirs due to an oil issue in the last few months."
I found this article, Lufthansa A380 engine shut down during flight
German airline Lufthansa said pilots on an Airbus A380 flying from Tokyo to Frankfurt shut down one of the superjumbo's four engines as it neared its destination.
Flight crew detected a change in oil pressure which was probably the result of dirt particles clogging a filter in the hydraulic circulation system, Lufthansa said. The engine was exchanged and the plane resumed service to the Japanese capital.
"It wasn't necessary to shut down the engine, but once in a while pilots do this just to be careful," Lufthansa spokesman Michael Lamberty said today by telephone. "Thankfully it happened just before landing. In another phase of the flight they may have been forced to perform an emergency landing."
I thought the latest release from qantas had an extroadinary statement.
About Qantas - Media Room - Media Releases
"Engineers have been investigating the engines in detail and how their components and design perform under operational conditions, as opposed to the original out-of-factory expectations."
WTF? Sorry. I thought this would have been the standard that the airline should have been working to from the aircrafts arrival and induction into service.
Says alot about the post dixon era.
About Qantas - Media Room - Media Releases
"Engineers have been investigating the engines in detail and how their components and design perform under operational conditions, as opposed to the original out-of-factory expectations."
WTF? Sorry. I thought this would have been the standard that the airline should have been working to from the aircrafts arrival and induction into service.
Says alot about the post dixon era.
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: sydney
Age: 76
Posts: 260
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
On the subject of engine maintennance , it is not widley discussed how much flak QF took over its Test Cell at Mascot . Not a day went by without someone whinging , so when it came to plans to build a new cell to accomodate the Trent 900 , well you can guess what the reaction was . The local council went into overdrive to ensure it could not be built . no test cell , no engine shop , so the CoE closed , or morphed into a hospital shop . The local member Mr A , led the charge against it . Yes ,Comrades the ALP did it again .
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: Australia
Posts: 24
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
That Skipper would be so over it, (and if the airlines have not changed, he will probably get a call from crewing, don't suppose you can do a MEL?) (After trying to get home for two days)!
Join Date: May 2009
Location: 5th Dimension
Posts: 121
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
RR Design Fault?The Plot Thickens
QANTAS knows small problems can lead to catastrophes.
THE dramatic crash of United Airlines flight 232 at Sioux City, Iowa, in 1989 remains one of the most famous examples of an aircraft brought down by uncontained engine failure.
The DC-10 suffered an uncontained failure of its No 2 engine, which damaged all three of the aircraft's hydraulic systems and rendered unworkable flight control surfaces used to steer and land the plane. The crew had to attempt the landing using only the thrust levers of the two surviving engines in an amazing feat of skill that came unstuck in the final approach when the right wing hit the runway. Television footage showed the aircraft apparently cartwheeling along the runway - an illusion created by the separation of the wing - as the main fuselage skidded sideways, rolled over and slid to a stop upside down in a cornfield.
The cause of the crash, which killed 111 of the 296 passengers, was later tracked down to a microscopic flaw introduced during the purifying of a titanium ingot used to make a fan disk, which propagated a tiny crack that engineers had failed to pick up.
Airlines are aware that small things can cause mighty catastrophes. This is one reason Qantas is taking so much time to ensure it knows what happened to the Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engine that disintegrated on flight 32 near Singapore last week. Uncontained jet engine failures are rare and an analysis of accidents between 1998 and 2007 shows engine failures are at the root of just 2 per cent of fatal crashes.
Engines have also become more reliable: the in-flight shutdown rate has gone from 0.89 per 1000 hours for the piston-driven 1950s Boeing Stratocruiser to 0.0002 per 1000 hours for the Boeing 777-300ER.
"In the old days we used to pull an engine every 500 hours on the 747s," says University of NSW aviation expert Peter Marosszeky.
"The JT-9s at that stage were not as well designed mechanically and also the material technology wasn't there. Then the redesign of the engines altered all that. Now we have engines that literally stay on the wing for in excess of 40,000 hours, and that's a remarkable shift in the paradigm for these engines. They are very reliable."
All this, as Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce points out, makes the explosive failure of a relatively new Trent 900 on a two-year-old aircraft all the more mystifying.
Engineers have fingered the intermediate pressure turbine disc as the part that wreaked havoc with the engine after it disintegrated for unknown reasons. Containment devices made of kevlar (the substance used for bullet-proof vests) failed to stop parts ripping though a section of wing, destroying part of the engine cowling and even, according to a passenger, bouncing off the fuselage.
However, the containment ring may still have saved critical components of the aircraft from damage by flying debris that could have crippled the aircraft.
What caused the disc to disintegrate will likely be uncovered by Rolls-Royce engineers and Air Transport Safety Bureau sleuths, who have considerable expertise in metallurgical analysis, and parts recovered so far have been shipped to Britain for tests.
The Trent engines are a development of the RB211, the engine Rolls-Royce designed for jumbo jets and that drove the company into bankruptcy. More modern versions of this engine experienced an uncontained failure near San Francisco in August and shut down in Singapore this weekend, but these are viewed as coincidental events unrelated to the A380 problem. Part of the problem, says Marosszeky, is that Rolls-Royce opted for a more complicated three-shaft design rather than the simpler two-shaft design of competing engine-makers General Electric and Pratt & Whitney.
"Rolls-Royce engines over the years - and this goes back to when the first RB211 were flying - always did have an issue with the internals because they are a triple-spool engine, unlike the Pratts and unlike the GEs, and tolerances for operating and the balancing tolerances are super, super-sensitive in variations in oil pressure and temperature," he says.
Marosszeky also does not believe this is a case of faulty materials in the engine or their hi-tech nature. Rolls-Royce toyed with the idea of composite fan blades in RB211s but returned to titanium when these shattered when they had chicken carcasses fired at them to test for bird strike.
He says the components used in the Trent 900 are not lightweight per se but designed for their resistance to heat and stress.
"The issue as I see it, from the things I've seen and heard, is not so much the materials but in this particular case the way the engine was designed," he says.
"In other words, they seem to have problems with oil supply and keeping bearings and bearing shafts cool and free of heat."
Qantas says this is not the issue that has troubled it during the inspections, but it is worried about oil getting into places it should not on three of its engines.
Investigations of the engines is understood to have shown signs of spotting and pooling of oil in areas where it could catch fire.
According to respected industry journal Aviation Week, an August failure of a Trent 1000 at a test site in England was the result of an oil fire at high power. The Trent 1000 is a derivative of the Trent 900 and the heating is believed to have softened the intermediate pressure shaft, allowing the intermediate pressure turbine to spin too fast and disintegrate.
The issue caused consternation at Boeing because the engines are destined to power many of its new 787 Dreamliners and was another hiccup for the already delayed multi-billion-dollar program.
At least three engines have been taken off the A380s to further investigate the oil issue and Joyce says extensive checks are under way to explain "where oil shouldn't be on the engines".
"These are new engines on new aircraft and they shouldn't have these issues at this stage and so it's given us an indication of an area for us to focus into," he says.
Joyce rejects union attempts to claim maintenance issues are involved in the explosion, noting the engines have been maintained by Rolls-Royce since installation and the likely explanation is a materials or design issue.
The airline is also zeroing on the operational performance of the engines after none of the problems it has found have been uncovered by other Trent 900 operators Singapore Airlines and Lufthansa.
One line of inquiry centres on the Los Angeles-Melbourne run, a 15-hour-plus trip that sees the superjumbos leave fully laden at maximum take-off thrust instead of using lower power take-offs common to other routes. A theory is that extra stress placed on planes operating the route is different from out-of-factory expectations.
Joyce has vowed not to return the A380s to service until the problem has been resolved. While that may affect the airline's bottom line as it charters planes and recompenses passengers, it is better than the alternative.
THE dramatic crash of United Airlines flight 232 at Sioux City, Iowa, in 1989 remains one of the most famous examples of an aircraft brought down by uncontained engine failure.
The DC-10 suffered an uncontained failure of its No 2 engine, which damaged all three of the aircraft's hydraulic systems and rendered unworkable flight control surfaces used to steer and land the plane. The crew had to attempt the landing using only the thrust levers of the two surviving engines in an amazing feat of skill that came unstuck in the final approach when the right wing hit the runway. Television footage showed the aircraft apparently cartwheeling along the runway - an illusion created by the separation of the wing - as the main fuselage skidded sideways, rolled over and slid to a stop upside down in a cornfield.
The cause of the crash, which killed 111 of the 296 passengers, was later tracked down to a microscopic flaw introduced during the purifying of a titanium ingot used to make a fan disk, which propagated a tiny crack that engineers had failed to pick up.
Airlines are aware that small things can cause mighty catastrophes. This is one reason Qantas is taking so much time to ensure it knows what happened to the Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engine that disintegrated on flight 32 near Singapore last week. Uncontained jet engine failures are rare and an analysis of accidents between 1998 and 2007 shows engine failures are at the root of just 2 per cent of fatal crashes.
Engines have also become more reliable: the in-flight shutdown rate has gone from 0.89 per 1000 hours for the piston-driven 1950s Boeing Stratocruiser to 0.0002 per 1000 hours for the Boeing 777-300ER.
"In the old days we used to pull an engine every 500 hours on the 747s," says University of NSW aviation expert Peter Marosszeky.
"The JT-9s at that stage were not as well designed mechanically and also the material technology wasn't there. Then the redesign of the engines altered all that. Now we have engines that literally stay on the wing for in excess of 40,000 hours, and that's a remarkable shift in the paradigm for these engines. They are very reliable."
All this, as Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce points out, makes the explosive failure of a relatively new Trent 900 on a two-year-old aircraft all the more mystifying.
Engineers have fingered the intermediate pressure turbine disc as the part that wreaked havoc with the engine after it disintegrated for unknown reasons. Containment devices made of kevlar (the substance used for bullet-proof vests) failed to stop parts ripping though a section of wing, destroying part of the engine cowling and even, according to a passenger, bouncing off the fuselage.
However, the containment ring may still have saved critical components of the aircraft from damage by flying debris that could have crippled the aircraft.
What caused the disc to disintegrate will likely be uncovered by Rolls-Royce engineers and Air Transport Safety Bureau sleuths, who have considerable expertise in metallurgical analysis, and parts recovered so far have been shipped to Britain for tests.
The Trent engines are a development of the RB211, the engine Rolls-Royce designed for jumbo jets and that drove the company into bankruptcy. More modern versions of this engine experienced an uncontained failure near San Francisco in August and shut down in Singapore this weekend, but these are viewed as coincidental events unrelated to the A380 problem. Part of the problem, says Marosszeky, is that Rolls-Royce opted for a more complicated three-shaft design rather than the simpler two-shaft design of competing engine-makers General Electric and Pratt & Whitney.
"Rolls-Royce engines over the years - and this goes back to when the first RB211 were flying - always did have an issue with the internals because they are a triple-spool engine, unlike the Pratts and unlike the GEs, and tolerances for operating and the balancing tolerances are super, super-sensitive in variations in oil pressure and temperature," he says.
Marosszeky also does not believe this is a case of faulty materials in the engine or their hi-tech nature. Rolls-Royce toyed with the idea of composite fan blades in RB211s but returned to titanium when these shattered when they had chicken carcasses fired at them to test for bird strike.
He says the components used in the Trent 900 are not lightweight per se but designed for their resistance to heat and stress.
"The issue as I see it, from the things I've seen and heard, is not so much the materials but in this particular case the way the engine was designed," he says.
"In other words, they seem to have problems with oil supply and keeping bearings and bearing shafts cool and free of heat."
Qantas says this is not the issue that has troubled it during the inspections, but it is worried about oil getting into places it should not on three of its engines.
Investigations of the engines is understood to have shown signs of spotting and pooling of oil in areas where it could catch fire.
According to respected industry journal Aviation Week, an August failure of a Trent 1000 at a test site in England was the result of an oil fire at high power. The Trent 1000 is a derivative of the Trent 900 and the heating is believed to have softened the intermediate pressure shaft, allowing the intermediate pressure turbine to spin too fast and disintegrate.
The issue caused consternation at Boeing because the engines are destined to power many of its new 787 Dreamliners and was another hiccup for the already delayed multi-billion-dollar program.
At least three engines have been taken off the A380s to further investigate the oil issue and Joyce says extensive checks are under way to explain "where oil shouldn't be on the engines".
"These are new engines on new aircraft and they shouldn't have these issues at this stage and so it's given us an indication of an area for us to focus into," he says.
Joyce rejects union attempts to claim maintenance issues are involved in the explosion, noting the engines have been maintained by Rolls-Royce since installation and the likely explanation is a materials or design issue.
The airline is also zeroing on the operational performance of the engines after none of the problems it has found have been uncovered by other Trent 900 operators Singapore Airlines and Lufthansa.
One line of inquiry centres on the Los Angeles-Melbourne run, a 15-hour-plus trip that sees the superjumbos leave fully laden at maximum take-off thrust instead of using lower power take-offs common to other routes. A theory is that extra stress placed on planes operating the route is different from out-of-factory expectations.
Joyce has vowed not to return the A380s to service until the problem has been resolved. While that may affect the airline's bottom line as it charters planes and recompenses passengers, it is better than the alternative.
Join Date: Nov 2001
Location: Bundeena(AUSTRALIA)
Posts: 148
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Sunfish asks Some Very Good Questions
Who was consulted at Qantas before the RR AD was issued?
Did QF have a hand in the construction and issue of the AD?
Did Qantas not know that the AD was coming, and when it was coming?
Did Qantas know the contents of the AD?
Was Qantas already doing the planning to implement the AD, including scheduling aircraft for engine inspections / module changes and worked out any potential impact on the fleet?
Finally, did Qantas ask RR what they were going to do to fix the bloody problem and when they were going to fix it?
Basically no one was at home In Qantas To ask these Questions
Did QF have a hand in the construction and issue of the AD?
Did Qantas not know that the AD was coming, and when it was coming?
Did Qantas know the contents of the AD?
Was Qantas already doing the planning to implement the AD, including scheduling aircraft for engine inspections / module changes and worked out any potential impact on the fleet?
Finally, did Qantas ask RR what they were going to do to fix the bloody problem and when they were going to fix it?
Basically no one was at home In Qantas To ask these Questions
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: on the point
Posts: 48
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Or More Importantly..
No one was home to answer them.
When this whole thing blows over it will be back to business as usual.
Qantas management will have learnt nothing and over a few glasses of french it will be "gee I hope that doesnt happen again"
Maintenance protocols will remain unchanged and negotiations for the next EBA wiil be just as hostile.
Unfortunately next time Qantas may not be so lucky
Emperor Clifford has been noticeably silent
When this whole thing blows over it will be back to business as usual.
Qantas management will have learnt nothing and over a few glasses of french it will be "gee I hope that doesnt happen again"
Maintenance protocols will remain unchanged and negotiations for the next EBA wiil be just as hostile.
Unfortunately next time Qantas may not be so lucky
Emperor Clifford has been noticeably silent
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: On a long enough timeline the survival rate for everyone is zero
Posts: 731
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Kudos to Sunfish, great post.
Why is that? Because QF is just another resource to be plundered & looted as quickly as possible by the elite management before they sail off into the sunset with the booty. Wake up people, look around the world and see what is really going on, we are just a resource to be plundered.
If you want to see how the world really works read "What is Globalization" by sy5551.
Maintenance protocols will remain unchanged and negotiations for the next EBA wiil be just as hostile.
If you want to see how the world really works read "What is Globalization" by sy5551.
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: sydney
Posts: 136
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
"Can an aircraft originally fitted with one engine type have a different type fitted later?"
In short, no, not for a modern airliner. Apart from purchasing the new engine type (and parts, repair contracts etc), there would need to be extensive (read, basically complete changeout) of engine mounting systems, instrumentation/avionics and a lot of plumbing.
Basically uneconomical.
The 787, however, with it's all-electric engines, was originally touted as being able to have swappable engine types (mostly at the request of leasing customers, who didn't want to be stuck with a fleet of unpopular aircraft because of a punt on an engine type that turned out to be poor). I'm not sure if that (swapping) is still the case.
In short, no, not for a modern airliner. Apart from purchasing the new engine type (and parts, repair contracts etc), there would need to be extensive (read, basically complete changeout) of engine mounting systems, instrumentation/avionics and a lot of plumbing.
Basically uneconomical.
The 787, however, with it's all-electric engines, was originally touted as being able to have swappable engine types (mostly at the request of leasing customers, who didn't want to be stuck with a fleet of unpopular aircraft because of a punt on an engine type that turned out to be poor). I'm not sure if that (swapping) is still the case.
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: shivering in the cold dark shadow of my own magnificence.
Posts: 522
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
I heard Allan Jones today explain that there are no problems. So you can all breathe easy and go about your business as there's nothing to see here.