Hugh,

Because all the taxiways off 27 were closed and 27 is 45 m wide, as the A380 needs a min of 55 m to do a 180, for my flight, I considered runway 27 to be unsuitable for use with the 16/34 runway works in place until 2000Z

With a departure time out of SIN of 1149Z, and a FTI of about 6:30 giving an arrival time of around 1900Z, I guess QF has some contingency arrangement or procedure to allow them to use 27 while 16/34 is closed?

In any case, I agree that deciding to do an en-route diversion to pick up more fuel if circumstances en-route require it, is an operational non-event.

Of course, the media "misrepresentation" of such non events has been discussed at length in this forum.

Just a question to crew
who actually certified the tech log in adl if a fuel leak was suspected.
was the defect written in the log?
was the aircraft just fuelled and sent on its way?
thanks for the help in PIA :suspect:

From what I understand, I don't think a fuel leak was suspected. It was considered but that's a very different thing to actually suspecting it after having worked through the issue.

Years ago on the 744 it wasn't unusual to drop fuel (up to 2 ton) on a LAX-SYD flight. Stronger headwinds were part of it, lack of understanding about the fuel flow factors on each engine was another part of it.

These are relatively new airframes (I think this particular airframe was one of the more recent) so probably still gathering data as to FF factors.

Again, from what I understand, the A380 requires 7 knots headwind on a wet runway to land 27. I heard of an A380 last week holding for more than an hour until 16/34 opened due to up to 5 knots tail on both 27 and 09. They had holding fuel to cater for this. Perhaps the crew this morning didn't. They diverted. Won't be the last time an A380 diverts somewhere. :ugh:

It isn't the first diversion either Keg, Fiji, Kuala Lumpur, Dubai and Noumea have already been used for unscheduled stops.

OQA did a few training flights into Adelaide in 2008, so it had been done before. As has already been mentioned this is a non event.

Except for the early risers in Adelaide who might have had a double take at seeing a dugong at their airfield.

What were they doing? Breakfast too cold?

The SO discovered leaking fuel from a fastener, the Captain wrote it up, the FO got out a screwdriver and tightened it up to stop the leak, the Captain did the duplicate inspection, told the SO to fill it up, and off they went.

What do you reckon?

Hmmm now it's 3 pages of BS. :ugh:

I think Griff may be referring to the engineer signing the thing out, not the pilots. Any A380 qualified engineers in ADL? Doubt it.

What do YOU reckon Bloggs?

I reckon Griffin has no idea about how an RPT operation works, or the integrity of QF crews, especially of an A380 in this situation. If he honestly believes a QF pilot could sign off a fuel leak he's not a PP.

Did they read their notams regarding the closure of 16/34 ML BEFORE departure?

Of course they would have, but all crews operating the QF10 were/are advised seperately of the Melbourne runway works, anyway. Rwy 09 is the preferred runway during the works period, and if rwy 27 is required then a tug is prepositioned to tow the aircraft to the terminal from the end of 27 (due to the A/C not being able to do a 180 turn on a 45m wide runway).
Adelaide is the nominated preferred alternate for the QF10 service.
For those who like to comment on the number of pax carried, you may wish to consider that the load/landing weight into MEL is restricted to allow the aircraft to be able to land in Melbourne (Landing performance limits wise) on the short runway so as to be ready to operate the return service to SIN in the pm.
3 pages of BS so far. I hope I haven't added to it.

Capt bloggs

point exactly , who did sign it out?

let me guess, The satcom call to moc went along the lines of dont write anything up in the log that way the pic can do a walk around and check 1 signoff.
Gas and go
If one of the crew(team) went sick would you like a lame to fly?
:ouch:

I wouldn't want a LAME to fly.....and I wouldn't want a pilot to overhaul the hot end, but a turn around? .....I'm happy for either to do that.

I'd have to go and check the books but I suspect that ADL would be an 'offline' port for A380 ops and like a lot of places where our aircraft could potentially divert to, the crew are able to do the turn around and leave the coupon 'open' until the next port if there are no significant defects. Guidance is in the FAM.

Griffin,

It is your pure speculation that the aircraft had a fuel leak. In every civil organisation I have worked for, I would no more write up a fuel leak that caused me to divert, defer it and then launch than fly when stoned on cocaine. I assume that QF is the same.

Instead of virtually accusing the crew of diverting due to a fuel leak, writing it up and then signing it off themselves and launching, how about finding out the facts and then launching allegations?

So now you are hypothesising it wasn't written up?

PS: Just to back up Capn Bloggs comments. Any time I drop fuel from what was planned I'm considering 'fuel leak' as a possibility. It remains a possibility until I can find another reason that could contribute to the loss of fuel. However Occams razor applies to this one. We have a few other simple things that we can do airborne to determine the likelihood of a fuel leak. The reality is that there are often dozens (or more) why a flight can do down on fuel these days and why an in flight diversion may be required.

I'm not sure whether I'm more offended or saddened that one of our engineering colleagues would suspect that a QF crew could defer the write up of a fuel leak to get pax between two Aussie ports less than an hours flying time apart with regular services between the two ports. Offended probably wins. :ugh:

just like the time an A380 landed in FIJI , due med emergency. suspected heavy landing, nothing written in log until approach into MEL, which stated heavy landing suspected FIJI.
check GDP for log coupons. crew (team)worried when cracked wheel discovered MEL.

go can you enlighten us please !

Never heard of that one griffin one. If that's the way it went down then I'm very disappointed in my colleagues. However, a possible urban legend also springs to mind.

griffin one
Keg
Keg, an urban legend it is (and as you'd expect NO need to be dissapointed with your colleagues)
There is a large threshold allowed on overweight landings on a 380 as long as certain conditions are met. In the case mentioned - they were all met which allows operation for a further 5 cycles.

The wheel was removed for a suspected crack - it wasn't cracked!

Subsequent analysis of SAR files determined that no inspections were required at all.

To suggest that a flight deck full of Q 380 pilots would continue on regardless after a heavy landing (and with IOC / Maint Watch knowledge) is stuff of urban legend.
On a previous occasion there had been a diversion to Nadi and the A/C spat out a Slat Fault message during the transit. Engineers were duly despatched from Syd to deal with the fault that the Tech Crew couldn't. Passengers sent to Hotels. Never any talk of "pushing on"



Maintenance Manual requirements for a 380 Heavy Landing below:


Inspection requirements

The primary source to identify a suspected hard/overweight landing is the flight crew.

After an overweight landing, it is permitted to do the load analysis (SAR file analysis) after a maximum of 5FC if the pilot identifies the conditions that follow:

(a) Landing gross weight (LW) was less or equal to Maximum Landing Weight (MLW) plus 60t. (LW<=MLW + 60t)


(b) Vertical speed at touchdown was less than 360ft/min. (Vz<360ft/min)


(c) Aircraft attitude at landing was normal (Main-landing-gear touchdown was symmetrical). You must do the SAR file analysis with the Load Analysis Tool (LAT) during this time to find if the inspection is necessary or not. After such overweight landing, the A/L must tell Airbus about this and supply the SAR file and the computed report when it is available

:ok:
.