AA137 LHR-LAX diverts to GLA
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PA38-Pilot
Fire light... and no way of knowing if it's for real or not...
Fire light... and no way of knowing if it's for real or not...
Commenting as an electronics designer, it strikes me that a heck of a lot more use could be usefully made of modern low-power CCTV systems to monitor scenarios like this. Heck, the CCTV cameras could be integrated into any existing high speed data bus. There's loads of situations that come to mind where the crew can't see what's going on that could be easily fixed using CCTV.
SkyGod
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Commenting as an electronics designer, it strikes me that a heck of a lot more use could be usefully made of modern low-power CCTV systems to monitor scenarios like this.
In between flying jobs I took a job as a yacht captain: Running a 70 foot twin-engine Taiwan built yacht that had those built in: Cameras in the engine room, on the stern looking aft, galley and other places. All controlled by push-buttons at the fly bridge. If that comes standard on a $ 2.0 mill tub, it should indeed come on a $200 mill aeroplane. The cost would be peanuts, but the savings huge.
Question...Does the A-380 have such CCTV systems as standard equipment?
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CCTV cameras are available, along with a whole other raft of electronics, that simply plug into an Ethernet (wired) or wireless IP bus. We (NASA) use these in Antarctica to monitor our equipment racks. We can even turn on the lights.
All you need on the other end is a common laptop.
Dirt simple.
All you need on the other end is a common laptop.
Dirt simple.
Often wondered about this myself. As a controls engineer we use lots of different bus technology to do monitoring, and even without CCTV there's a hell of a lot of diagnostic info you can get from 'intelligent' instruments and sensors. Maybe there is some rationale for not using it, but it does seem strange on a/c which are otherwise pretty sophisticated.
CCTV >>>>>Not much of a view of the Cargo Compartments when they are all full of containers (There is very little space at the sides and ceiling )............ agree that they would be usefull if using pallets which were not too high.
Like everything else they would get a battering from the loaders..........so do you add them to the MEL as a Go/No-go ??
Like everything else they would get a battering from the loaders..........so do you add them to the MEL as a Go/No-go ??
[We have had some of the CCTV screens for door monitoring produce smoke etc.]
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Do they become a go/no-go item ? What, therefore, is the reliability target that needs to be met by the complete system ?
Does the pilot think they take precedence over the fire warning light ? Should he ?
So when the light comes on, but no fire seen on the screen, what should he assume and do ? By contrast, what WILL he assume and do ? How, therefore, do we alter training and SOPs ?
How can we show they won't adversely affect the existing systems ?
Once it's in there, what clever abuses will it be put to that we hadn't thought of or can't prevent ?
- - + - -
This is (approximately) how System Safety Engineers approach such a problem. You aircrew chaps get enough whistles and bells thrown at you that engineers are pretty shy of putting any more in, and bean-counters are shy of paying for the consequences and risks.
It's not that they don't trust your finely-trained judgements to cope with more, it's that they spend their days making best efforts to give you something that you can more or less, mostly, rely on, if you use it they way they expected when they did the analysis.
It's not a pretty sight to watch. I'm happier out of it.
Y
Does the pilot think they take precedence over the fire warning light ? Should he ?
So when the light comes on, but no fire seen on the screen, what should he assume and do ? By contrast, what WILL he assume and do ? How, therefore, do we alter training and SOPs ?
How can we show they won't adversely affect the existing systems ?
Once it's in there, what clever abuses will it be put to that we hadn't thought of or can't prevent ?
- - + - -
This is (approximately) how System Safety Engineers approach such a problem. You aircrew chaps get enough whistles and bells thrown at you that engineers are pretty shy of putting any more in, and bean-counters are shy of paying for the consequences and risks.
It's not that they don't trust your finely-trained judgements to cope with more, it's that they spend their days making best efforts to give you something that you can more or less, mostly, rely on, if you use it they way they expected when they did the analysis.
It's not a pretty sight to watch. I'm happier out of it.
Y
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No AA in Hamburg
Just to clarify:
American Airlines' only service to Germany goes to Frankfurt. There are daily flights to FRA from ORD (767) and DFW (777).
Hamburg is not on their list.
There are no AA flights from LAX to Germany.
American Airlines' only service to Germany goes to Frankfurt. There are daily flights to FRA from ORD (767) and DFW (777).
Hamburg is not on their list.
There are no AA flights from LAX to Germany.
