Ornis,
Maybe you missed my previous post 1502

Sasless, earlier posts!

They'd need to have checked the fuel contents in all tanks before removing the a/c from the roof otherwise fuel might have leaked in transit and they'd never have known. No way would they have used a monkey with a wrench to drain the tanks. It would have been an aircraft engineer licensed on type who would have known which components are normally level (i.e. spirit level) and then emptied all tanks in the appropriate way. Anything else would have been gross negligence. The engineer would have drained the tanks and felt and smelt around for spillage, if any, then replaced drain plugs. If they'd have had to cut to access the plugs, that's what they'd have done. Fuel is such an obvious potential reason for an a/c to force-land they would have seen to it that this was done with the greatest care, even if they'd have had to work for three days.

Cool, an expert.




I've pasted the post for everyone's entertainment, just incase it gets deleted later.

Sorry Sid, but you have got that completely wrong. May I politely suggest that you take a look at ASB EC 135-28A-018

Thanks for the link :rolleyes:
Are you sure the ac that had the fault leading up to the checks ran out of fuel?
So how much water was found in the ac tanks?

Can you link us to what actually happened please. Clearly grapevines are different!

Are you for real? Given your identity is no secret and employers these days search Internet forums and online social media, this kind of sarky arrogance is not going to do your career a lot of good but that's your business. Politeness, respect, tolerance,...team-work,....?

That is "Starvation" if there is fuel available.

fuel starvation
 

The engines were closed down or failed. To both fail implies no fuel in the supply tanks.

Three possibilities: (1) The appropriate pump was switched off. (2) That pump was switched on but failed. (3) That pump was working but the fuel went through a nrv instead of into the supply tanks.

Any other possibilities?

JT2 -- No, it has not been stated explicitly that the engines were running. See http://www.aaib.gov.uk/cms_resources...-SPAO%20v2.pdf

Also worth noting the very sloppy English in the same report:

Who certified the amount 400kg of fuel? How, and when?

pie Chaser,

I have looked at the fuel diagram and If I read correctly, the pilot posters suggest that with a nose up attitude, the fore pump in the main tank may be isolated or it will run dry, using the aft pump only.

The suggestion is that the check valve on the fore pump was jammed open so the fuel was merely being pumped from the back to the front of the bulk storage tank.

although the diagram doesn't show the pipe sizes, I would still expect fuel to reach the individual engine tanks, as there is far less restriction here, the pipework is shorter and it doesn't need to overcome a check valve, which I still don't accept as being jammed fully open, although it may well have been passing.

I would also have expected the pipework supplying the 2 engine tanks to be equal, I.e self balancing and not the unequal tee arrangement shown, though I'm not from aviation though as you can probably tell from my terminology!

also, I believe this is a German designed machine, and they are known for engineering clumsiness rather than simple and elegant engineering solutions, so they may just run higher pressures and not bother with hydraulic balance, as the tanks overspill anyway, in normal and single failure modes, it does work.

Lemain;
That would have been found in the tech log, usually filled in by the duty pilot immediately after the last refuel. I don't know how the Scottish ac tech log is printed, but NPAS tech logs have boxes for, landing qty, litres in, kgs in & post refuel/next start qty.


Nothing to do with sarky arrogance, just the post you made, I think, was quite funny :ok:


Sorry all, I was thinking of the 'unavailable fuel' side of the discussion Fuel starvation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia :(

German designed machine ... engineering clumsiness
 

Well that's a stormer! Most of the German gear I've used has been superb!

Sid, we are talking about helicopters. :}
Of course it all goes round and round ... except when it doesn't! :{

The discussion about where fuel goes and how it gets there in the EC135 has been most interesting to this non-EC135 person. For all the disagreements and such, thanks to you all for helping one to understand all that. :ok:

People do make mistakes. There is so much sloppy English in society today spilling over into safety-critical activities. I can't see how anyone can say for absolute certain that there was, e.g., 400l or 400g fuel in the tanks unless they drained and re-filled with a known tested pump gauge. The best you can say is 'the fellow before told me there was....' etc.

In what sense 'funny'? If you're referring to the perceived difficulty in craning the hull off, I have done much the same, as crane operator, taking out of the water and putting back a 20 tonne sailing yacht. There is no problem in providing any required angle for levelling and you should be able to manage +/- a couple of degrees on a tiddly little helicopter weighing 3 tonnes. So what's so funny? :confused:

So by that last post, you are saying that every aircraft in the world is unsafe. You read the dials, if a problem occurs on a transatlantic flight....... oooops!

No, of course not. Go back to Sid's post 1671 for context. A lot depends on the a/c and instrumentation and the accuracy of it. Fuel uplifted is just one factor and is absurdly confused by kg vs l.

I believe that mass (kg) should be the only measure in use by people. In the old days, before modern electronics, gauges almost invariably read volumetrically, and the kg computed from that. Given that there is a 20% difference between vol/mass this is an accident waiting to happen when some poor sod has his mind on other things....it happens. It'll be safer when all imperial measurements go for good, as well.

We are talking about an accident that happened when seemingly it shouldn't have. These are reliable a/c in service round the world and generally well-liked by pilots (usually the best endorsement).

Coming back to the actual question - do we know for certain that there was 400kg fuel on board? No. On the contrary we can be sure that there was not exactly 400kg (other than by sheer chance with long odds). How much more or less than 400? :\

Lemain, do you drive a car ...... with a fuel gauge?
How often do you calibrate it :ugh:

Do you drive on motorways?
"Before setting off. You should ensure that you have sufficient fuel before commencing your journey, especially if it includes motorway driving. It can be dangerous to lose power when driving in traffic."
https://www.gov.uk/rules-drivers-mot...setting-off-97

Amazing isn't it? He's like Ricky Gervais on a management bonding course, thrashing around (and around and around and around and around), flicking peanuts at any moving target whilst ironically spouting off ill-conceived tripe.

The facts:
There were no mechanical defects found in any part of the drive train during the initial investigation.
The engine showed no signs of failure.
The pilot was not incapacitated.
Bond grounded the sister machine immediately the AAIB started investigating an issue with misreading gauges.
The fuel was low, at best (the AAIB will have drained all fuel from the wreck before transporting it to Farnborough).

Fuel exhaustion means you've got empty tanks.
Fuel starvation means the engines are deprived of sufficient usable fuel enabling them to function (maybe due to fuel exhaustion).

I think the AAIB will release its report soon, describing a fuel starvation problem; I think the gauges were showing more fuel than was available. Despite that and given that there would (should) have been a short period between engine #2 and #1 flaming out, the questions remain: what were the red FUEL LOW warning lights doing and what did the pilot do (or not do) about it because whatever happened, it all happened rather quickly.

It seems all possibilities have now been considered on this forum, so further speculation is probably futile; let's wait and see what the report says...

Lemain,
So, do you know where we can get a fuel pump that dispenses in kgs?
Only asking 'cos we've been told more than once that it's Gallons or Litres only - which is why, in the door pocket of the aircraft there's a laminated card with the Kgs to Litres conversion on it to make sure that we put the right amount in. Then, at the end of each month when the Senior Pilot does the QA checks on the tech logs, one of the items to be checked is that the litres vs kgs figures do actually reconcile and add up to a "normal" average fuel consumption.

Sorry JT, we crossed!