Keep the information flowing if you have any. Lets not allow Airbus Military to keep hiding things like they have with the boom departures.

Not stirring the sh1t (god forbid) but given the number of A330's in military service versus civil use, shouldn't this (perhaps) have been left in "Rumours & News" ? for the wider A330 driver population. . . guessing here that it is an A330 issue & not a dirty dive to avoid an errant refuelling wallah ? ?

I hope there are some swingeing penalty clauses in the PFI contract.

As for the Q72 incident: Just what you want for your air-tanker when you have an A400M "plugged in"!

In case there is still any confusion, the Voyagers that fly towlines and Herrick airbridge are grounded but the A330s that aren't Voyagers, fly the MPA airbridge, don't fly towlines but still use the callsign "Towline" are still flying...

Glad all are safely home. It's a good job this happened now whilst the TriMotors are still around to help out and not a few months down the line when we really will only have the one basket for egg storage. When's the 216 disbandment due again?

Uncommanded pitch down incident and Qantas 72
 

The QF72 incident arose from the Northrop made ADIRU not filtering out signal spikes. A software/algorithm error was suspected. The ATSB did an in-depth investigation and their several reports make interesting reading. The problem was supposedly fixed, although the QF 330 fleet apparently switched ADIRU units to the competitor product fairly swiftly.

The QF72 legal cases settled on confidential terms with Airbus and Northrop in Chicago, Illinois.

QF72
 

The QF72 report can be viewed at http://www.atsb.gov.au/media/3532398/ao2008070.pdf .

awblain wrote:While I consider the whole concept of PFI for primary military requirements to be utter folly, this event seems to have been a technical issue which, short of any maintenance error, would surely be outside the control of the PFI service provider.

As compared with the civil A330, Voyager has a modified AFS. Whether or not the software modifications, installation and certification have any relevance in this incident will doubtless be considered during the investigation.

I would imagine that decisions regarding TriStar are being made at high level - just as they were when the last VC10K3s had to soldier on beyond their intended OSD due to delay in the Voyager programme.

At the risk of injecting some facts into a rumour site, for those at work on Dii with access to ASIMS the initial report from the Captain is now at this URL:

http://www.asims.r.mil.uk/viewfsor.h...ist=&id=176979

Stop teasing orgASMic tell us what you know please.

A332 RAF Grounded!
 

Another post here:

UK’s new Aerial Refueler grounded after Voyager plane plummets 2,000 feet
The Aviationist » UK?s new Aerial Refueler grounded after Voyager plane plummets 2,000 feet

Seems notorious for incorrect info Daily Mail added 3000 feet to the drop.

Really?

Would welcome the Tristar anyday. Solid and reliable and its still going strong...

Long live the Tristar

From Flight:

An 'unscheduled change of flight level' indeed......:rolleyes:

An 'unscheduled change of underpants' more like! Amazing how these spin-doctors get away with such cr*p. Perhaps they could be used to describe the current floods "an unscheduled change of river level"? :ugh:

Tristar "solid and reliable...."?? Really? In its day, certainly, but of late it's unreliability has been widely reported due to the very publicly-expressed fury of soldiers burning their precious leave waiting for one to become serviceable.

What sort of a miltary are you guys running over there that burns personal leave 'coz a transport is U/S? :confused:

Really Shotone? Definition of "of late" please? Maybe 3 years ago, but "of late", not sure.

Oh, and just to clarify, any R&R leave "lost" due to delays in getting home is added to post tour leave, so not actually lost. :=

A very small one. With limited resources and with ever reducing capability.

We were told by the pilot that the co pilot had got up to get a drink when the aircraft dropped at an angle of between 20 and 40 degrees, some one said 60 degrees.
At the time we were at 33,000ft flying on auto pilot. I was sitting right at the back of the aircraft and was suddenly lifted out of my seat as far as my belt would allow me, but others ended up on the ceiling. Apparently we were at negative 1.6g The whole event lasted around 40 seconds I think

Good grief, jessum1466 - that sounds utterly horrendous. Some 'unscheduled change of flight level'.....:eek:

-1.6g (as recorded at the centre of gravity) would mean an even greater negative g value at the back of the aircraft. It must have been very close to structural failure.

A terrifying event which you were lucky to survive - I hope that you won't suffer any lasting trauma.