Lengthy Flights Over Water
 

Just as a matter of interest, has anyone ever compared the long over-water routes (eg Aus to South America) to the shipping lanes and how busy they are?

If in the unlikely scenario of a flight coming down in the wide expanse of the Pacific, one's chances of survival would be moderately enhanced if there was a steady stream of freighters sailing past to effect a speedy pickup.

However I'm guessing that if the aircraft's route requires a lengthy ETOPS rating then that naturally means that there's never a whole lot of anything (let alone a usable airstrip) down on the surface under some parts of the route.

VH-VKK is still stuck in Guam so it must really really be busted very good :8

Not necessarily of any significance. Could be a complete coincidence.

Bula, you're missing the point. The IFSD requirement for 180 minute ETOPS is .02/1000 hrs. - or 20 shutdowns per million hours. To be clear, that means, on the average, one shutdown every 50,000 hours. The 787 fleet is roughly 10 times better than that requirement.. It's actually on a par with "mature" engine fleets such as the CF6-80C2, GE90, PW4000, and pre-1000 Trent.
So what's your beef? If you feel the 787 shutdown rate is a problem, then you have the same issue with the 737, 757, 767, 777, A320, A330, and any other twin engine aircraft that flies ETOPS...:confused:
BTW, the GEnx-2B on the 747-8 are book kept separately - that would be another ~5 million engine hours - with a similarly low shutdown rate (the gearbox problem that has caused several shutdowns on the GEnx-1B is unique to the -1B).

Emergency Landing on Pacific Island. 320 Stranded.
 

Methinks the Copy Editor got a little over-excited there. :rolleyes:

Perhaps he was imagining pax already clubbing each other in a Lord of the Flies manner and resorting to Cannibalism(?) :}

This is C21. I'm pretty sure they'll all be shuttled to air-conditioned hotels, fed, watered and flown on to their destination shortly...

Still, probably as close to a Survival Story as most people will ever get these days.

@tdracer

There is no doubt you are more intimate with details and have appropriate stats handy to prove it.

But somehow there is trust deficit with B787 program. Numbers look right on the paper, but there is an uneasy feeling.

Hah! (You were joking, weren't you?)

Gold Coast bound Jetstar flight grounded in Guam for 24 hours
... 40 rooms were available in Guam for 290 to 300 people ... the students spent the night in the airport and were given a blanket ...

Never let the facts get in the way of a good story. :O

"somehow there is trust deficit with B787 program"

Certainly a thrust deficit from time to time ...

If you want to call custom tailored paid stats as facts.

There are industry standards for keeping track of things like IFSDs, LOTC (Loss of Thrust Control), Delays and Cancellations, RTO, etc. The 787 is using the exact same standards as every other aircraft/engine out there. Nothing is custom tailored.
The 787 has certainly had it's problems - especially the Li battery problem. But mass media, incompetent reporting, and BS stories such as the above liked Daily Fail are the rule and are feeding a false narrative that the 787 is unsafe. Similar stories have suggested that "all" Boeing did about the battery was put it in a steel box, ignoring that the entire system was redesigned, further feeding the narrative. Good news doesn't sell...
Threads such as this simply feed this false narrative, with irrational statements such as one shutdown every 700,000 hours is somehow unsafe (again, if that's the case, all twin engine aircraft are unsafe). The 787 has had it's issues, but the engine IFSD rate is not one of them.
Part of the problem is most people still think of the 787 as a very small fleet with few hours - not realizing that there are already over 400 in service less than 5 years after EIS. By comparison it took ~8 years for the 777,~10 years for 767 and 757 models, and ~15 years for the DC-10 to reach 400 in-service aircraft. The L1011, MD-11, and A310 never even made 400 units.

Ask yourself, if this had been a 767 or an A330, would the OP even bothered to make the post?

They are sending a few blokes over there with some spanners, it's not leaving till they've put a new donk on it

You are correct. The map you are looking for is here. As you correctly assume, the really, really long ETOPS routes run across stretches of ocean that are largely devoid of shipping.

In any case, having traversed the Southern Ocean in a ship a couple of times, let me tell you, it doesn't matter. Forget about any successful ditching in these waters, ain't gonna happen. This is not the Med....

Are you saying churning out more lemons faster is a great achievement. Because B777 and B737NG were rock solid airlines jumped on B787. When it noticed there are issues, it should have slowed down production.

Now it became so bad, only few airlines can deal with first 200 copies.

B787 was sold as P2P aircraft, but parts depots were located only 3-5 locations in the world, assuming they have the part in stock.

When it noticed lot of components are prematurely failing, they should have stocked more spares. But they ramped up production. Why?

Narita is a major B787 hub, and in this day and age of asset management world, Jetstar need not send a team and parts from Australia. Because B787 parts take time to show up anyway, airlines send their own teams to save money. This should have been fixed in hours.

Even a G650 gone tech at a remote airport spends less time on ground than a commercial B787.

Gosh, it's not often you find such expertise in airline operations, aircraft manufacturing and product support, all in the same post.

tdracer,


Great posts!! Full of interesting facts!

The "Australian" newspaper of the 10th August also has an article about the incident.

According to their report the engine that was shutdown was only 3 months old.

The article is hidden behind a paywall unfortunately, but if anyone else has access to it they may be able to cut & pate the article.

Capt Chambo:
Is this, per your observation that "it was the engine ..." a matter of
the engine itself,
the maintenance program
or the systems interface between the rest of the aircraft systems and the engine systems/sub-systems?

https://i.imgur.com/3SMVA9C.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/DXAgg6Q.jpg