Reports of A400 Crash, Saville, Spain

[towerview]

Wait........the Spitfire used wooden propellers? I never knew



Internet is wonderful................


"LONDON, May 23. The Royal Commission on inventions last night announced it had awarded £.15,000 to Mr. Bruno Jablonsky for his laminated wood aeroplane propellers which helped to win the Battle of Britain.

"Mr. Jablonsky, a Polish Jew, came to Britain in 1930, and founded the firm of Jablo Propellers Ltd. He did much of his experimentation on the propeller at a laboratory at the bottom of his Croydon home's garden. Finally, he perfected a plastic wood which replaced metal propellers and enabled the Government to divert much needed metal to other purposes.

"Previously it had been found impossible to produce wooden propellers which would stand the strain of such modern high-speed aircraft as the Spitfire. 'Almost all Spitfires and Hurricanes in the Battle ot Britain were fitted with my laminated wood propeller,' Mr. Jablonsky said to-day."

[KenV]

So Spitfires and Hurricanes did not have controllable pitch/constant speed propellers. Fascinating. I had no idea.

[KenV]

I keep thinking there is still more to this than is being reported. It is a "FADEC" control. For those of you who may not know, on a turboprop, the FADEC will adjust the prop to hold a constant speed, then adjust the turbine to hold the desired output torque (and the FADEC measures the torque on the output shaft directly - at least on the turboprop I worked on many moons ago it measured the shaft twist to determine the output torque).

The turboprop I'm most familiar with did not maintain constant torque, it maintained constant TIT. Trying to maintain constant torque at a constant prop RPM while in a climb resulted in overtemps, so the TIT became the controlled parameter.

[Innominate]

KenV

Individual wooden blades fitted into hubs which allowed variable pitch/constant speed. And nowadays the blades tend to come from Germany...

[NutLoose]

Ken, the original Watts props fitted to the Spit and Hurricane were indeed fixed pitch props. Later props were wobbly ones, ie variable pitch

This shows the various props

http://spitfirespares.co.uk/propellors.html


I have "spoken" via email In the past with the chap that produces the pens ( nothing to do with me ) and he told me he only uses props that are fit for nothing else, ie well past the possible display standard.

Sorry for the thread drift.

..

[roulishollandais]

I'm still using my Fisher pen or 5B pencil when I'm writing in my bed or on the wall board !
KISS !

[BEagle]

Back in the air?

Good to see an A400M flying again today in the local area. I presume it was a Brize-based Atlas?

No further information yet on the AD&S website, but I would assume that the cause of the MSN23 accident has now been positively identified and adequate provision made to prevent anything similar happening again?

[Trumpet_trousers]

Beags:

UK clears A400M for training flight resumption - 6/16/2015 - Flight Global

[Courtney Mil]

Good news.

[sandiego89]

The article states "to immediate effect"- guess Beagle saw it as the release was coming of the presses...

Germany to follow in a few weeks article states. No word on other customers or those still operating with the manufacturer. Paris show next week.

So like Beagle says, must be high confidence between proper software/loading process and suspect software/process. Will be interesting to learn how that was sorted.

[RequestPidgeons]

FWIW, a relatively new design with a similar problem?
Deadly Osprey crash spurred safety changes, heroics | SanDiegoUnionTribune.com

[VX275]

There's a salutary lesson about AEA integration in that article.

[sandiego89]

RequestPidgeons FWIW, a relatively new design with a similar problem?

I say no. Sounds like the crew of the MV-22 started up and took of while in maintainence mode, robbing the engines of ~20% power- so human factors primary cause, design (allowing flight in that mode and no warning/indicators) contributory.

[atakacs]

Any news about the investigation? Or tagging it as military voided any reporting obligations?

[airsound]

Kevan Jones, MP, has formally asked the Secretary of State for Defence what outstanding safety issues there are relating to the A400m Atlas aircraft.

In his reply, Philip Dunne takes a while to say not very much, but he ends with this

the Ministry of Defence is satisfied that there are no safety issues, and that the risks associated with operating A400M are fully consistent with its certified safety requirements – for the basic airframe and engine these are consistent with a civilian airliner – and that the platform is not subject to intolerable or unmanaged safety issues.

If you want to see more, I'm indebted to Think Defence at 4554 - Future Large Aircraft (Answered) - Think Defence
but if you want it from the horse's mouth, then Hansard is probably your best bet.

airsound

[atakacs]

Is this still being investigated? Or just a "nothing to see here" incident?!


Well little bit more than 2 years now and seems this has just never happened

[ORAC]

Airbus knew of software vulnerability before A400M crash

PARIS/SEVILLE (Reuters) - Airbus and European safety authorities were warned in late 2014 of a software vulnerability in the A400M military plane that was similar to a weakness that contributed to a fatal crash seven months later, Spanish investigators have found.

The Airbus-built cargo and troop carrier crashed near Seville during a test flight in May 2015, killing four of the six crew, after three out of four engines froze minutes after take-off. Data needed to run the engines had been accidentally erased when Airbus workers installed software on the ground, and pilots had no warning there was a problem until the engines failed, Reuters reported weeks after the disaster, citing several sources with knowledge of the matter.

A confidential report by Spanish military investigators into the crash, completed this summer, sheds new light on poor coordination and misjudgments that have dogged Europe’s biggest military project. The findings confirmed the engines were compromised by data being wiped, according to extracts of the report seen by Reuters and three people familiar with the inquiry.

The report also said the engine-makers had warned Airbus and the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) in October 2014 that software installation errors could lead to a loss of engine data, and that technicians may not receive any warning before take-off that a problem had occurred.

When contacted by Reuters, Airbus said the crash was the result of “multiple, different factors and contributory causes”, but declined detailed comment about the investigators’ findings because they are not public. The planemaker has since reviewed all systems and acted to “ensure the chain of identified causes could not happen ever again”, a spokesman added.

EASA declined to comment.

The engine-makers Europrop International (EPI), a pan-European consortium owned by Britain’s Rolls-Royce (RR.L), Germany’s MTU (MTXGn.DE) and France’s Safran (SAF.PA), declined to comment.

Spain’s defense ministry, whose air accident agency conducted the investigation, also declined to comment......

[switch_on_lofty]

No comment all round... Not a surprise if it was known within the organisation that engine software could be wiped and no-one would know.

[Just This Once...]

Not exactly an open, transparent and safety-lead investigation process is it.

[atakacs]

Well they requalified what was in my view a civilian test flight into a military one and decided to completely burry the investigation.

Apparently there seems to be a huge case of negligence here and some people are leaking the findings.
All in all I'd say that this reflects extremely poorly on CASA / EADS.