Sully-Hudson-and FEW safety changes
Chronus
It's a matter of probabilities matched against capability of the engine.
There are all kinds of parameters at play. If you stack the worst together then any single engine is going to lose power.
All the FAA can do in response to the NTSB rec is sort the existing data in-service against the existing technology in their crystal ball.
The existing data, simply put, suggest more planes will be lost for other reasons, not yet addressed fully, vs a Sully repeat in the next ten years.
So the challenge is where does one put the limited resources (manpower, time, money, equipment).
As with all enviromental threats, birds, ice, rain/hail, the balance need also consider avoidance of the encounter as well. Yet such avoidance (birds) also involves actions outside engines, aircraft, airports, operations and also involves the public acceptance of the bird existing as a threat.
The action will be to continue to monitor all these contributions for areas that lend themselves to improvements rather than degradations
Incidently from a cost standpoint, anything you do at the engine level that impacts fuel burn will have the biggest impact fleet wide. It's truly amazing that we got as far as a ten fold decrease in bird ingestion catastrophic risk in the last 20 years and yet still managed to flood the market with long range twin engine aircraft and better seat mile expenses.
It's a matter of probabilities matched against capability of the engine.
There are all kinds of parameters at play. If you stack the worst together then any single engine is going to lose power.
All the FAA can do in response to the NTSB rec is sort the existing data in-service against the existing technology in their crystal ball.
The existing data, simply put, suggest more planes will be lost for other reasons, not yet addressed fully, vs a Sully repeat in the next ten years.
So the challenge is where does one put the limited resources (manpower, time, money, equipment).
As with all enviromental threats, birds, ice, rain/hail, the balance need also consider avoidance of the encounter as well. Yet such avoidance (birds) also involves actions outside engines, aircraft, airports, operations and also involves the public acceptance of the bird existing as a threat.
The action will be to continue to monitor all these contributions for areas that lend themselves to improvements rather than degradations
Incidently from a cost standpoint, anything you do at the engine level that impacts fuel burn will have the biggest impact fleet wide. It's truly amazing that we got as far as a ten fold decrease in bird ingestion catastrophic risk in the last 20 years and yet still managed to flood the market with long range twin engine aircraft and better seat mile expenses.
Although the fans have gotten larger (and hence the ingestion of bird(s) more likely, the latest generation of wide cord fans have far better bird (and FOD) resistance than the earlier generation of fans. The composite fan blades on the GE90 have proved particularly robust (I remember a press release where the GE90 had gone over 10 years since EIS without having to scrap a fan blade due to impact damage).
So, while bird strikes are increasingly common, the rate of significant damage/thrust loss due to bird strikes has actually dropped.
So, while bird strikes are increasingly common, the rate of significant damage/thrust loss due to bird strikes has actually dropped.
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Personally, I often envy the nations that use one agency to cover both major functions.
In fact, here in Hong Kong, HKALPA amongst other transport lobby groups (buses, ferries etc) are lobbying for the HK Government to move away from the single agency model to create an independent transport safety organisation.
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Sorry to lower the tone of the discussion, but a young son of a friend asked why they did not have chicken wire in the front of engines. I decided it would take too long to explain and detract from beer drinking with his dad. I ask for the shortest explanation possible so I can show him. No bigger than a postcard, please.
Rat, I could go into a long winded discussion of pressure loss and the effect on performance, icing, etc. But an even simpler explanation would be this:
Ask the young man to consider the damage several six pound birds doing 250 knots did to heavy duty titanium fan and compressor blades (which, BTW, are designed to withstand bird strikes), then think about what sort of "chicken wire" would be required to stop those six pound birds doing 250 knots.
Ask the young man to consider the damage several six pound birds doing 250 knots did to heavy duty titanium fan and compressor blades (which, BTW, are designed to withstand bird strikes), then think about what sort of "chicken wire" would be required to stop those six pound birds doing 250 knots.
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Think you missed the point- since an x pound bird can destroy strong metal titanium blades- ' chicken wire ' even heavy gage- would be like tissue paper in relative terms- and have NO effect other than to add to the metal debri going thru the engine. !!!
There was a post earlier postulating that 4 engines would have resulted in happy outcome (apparently now deleted).
However, having four engines is no guarantee of a happy ending if you take out two with birds while taking off:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1995_A...entry_accident
Off the top of my head, these are the only major jetliners I know of to go down due to a bird strike in the last 25 years...
However, having four engines is no guarantee of a happy ending if you take out two with birds while taking off:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1995_A...entry_accident
The investigation concluded that the probable cause was the ingestion of Canada geese into No.1 and No.2 engine.
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Just got back from the movie SULLY- well done- did not make NTSB types look good- but IMHO mix of actual footage and CAG was well done. It also appears that a few survivors played themselves ?? What a difference 35 seconds can make- even with practice
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From a system engineering prospective, this would not be difficult to do.
For example, each engine controller could determine the health of its own engine and specifically if it was reliable enough to allow another engine to shut down. If it was, it would send a continuous coded "reliable engine" message to the other engine controller. A controller would only shut down the engine after it had terminated its own "reliable engine" message for some period of time (a few seconds), was receiving the "reliable engine" message from the other controller, and had determined that running its own engine was unsafe.
For example, each engine controller could determine the health of its own engine and specifically if it was reliable enough to allow another engine to shut down. If it was, it would send a continuous coded "reliable engine" message to the other engine controller. A controller would only shut down the engine after it had terminated its own "reliable engine" message for some period of time (a few seconds), was receiving the "reliable engine" message from the other controller, and had determined that running its own engine was unsafe.
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There was a post earlier postulating that 4 engines would have resulted in happy outcome (apparently now deleted).
However, having four engines is no guarantee of a happy ending if you take out two with birds while taking off:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1995_A...entry_accident
Off the top of my head, these are the only major jetliners I know of to go down due to a bird strike in the last 25 years...
However, having four engines is no guarantee of a happy ending if you take out two with birds while taking off:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1995_A...entry_accident
Off the top of my head, these are the only major jetliners I know of to go down due to a bird strike in the last 25 years...
And if you wanted to use the last bit of power from an unhealthy engine that the computer shut down, before it failed?
Actually this is up to the installers what's best in a computer control against possibilities.
There was a post earlier postulating that 4 engines would have resulted in happy outcome (apparently now deleted).
However, having four engines is no guarantee of a happy ending if you take out two with birds while taking off:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1995_A...entry_accident
Off the top of my head, these are the only major jetliners I know of to go down due to a bird strike in the last 25 years...
However, having four engines is no guarantee of a happy ending if you take out two with birds while taking off:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1995_A...entry_accident
Off the top of my head, these are the only major jetliners I know of to go down due to a bird strike in the last 25 years...
That crew lacked the breathless New York media hype machine, for one ...
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Makes you wonder about Heathrow traffic climbing out over the big areas of water to the west, the home of thousands of Canada Geese horrible bird that needs a serious cull on all lakes and water ways in the UK.
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Being Canada geese, I'm sure they say "excuse me" or "sorry" just before ingestion.
As for the chicken wire suggestion, someone asked me that once and I dug up a bunch of pictures and videos of engines on the group sucking up water and carrying baggage containers in their intakes to demonstrate how useless the wire would be, and how hard it would be to hold it in place. Also get them to think of a chicken (preferably not frozen) hitting chicken wire at 150mph
As for shutting down an engine automatically, I remember working on a quote for a bit of military gear that had the 'battle override' button. The kit was supposed to protect itself from overheating and other dangers, but if you hit the battle override, it would run itself to destruction, presumably on the basis that if it shut down you were going to get blown to smithereens anyway, so running it to failure might give you the chance you need.
As for the chicken wire suggestion, someone asked me that once and I dug up a bunch of pictures and videos of engines on the group sucking up water and carrying baggage containers in their intakes to demonstrate how useless the wire would be, and how hard it would be to hold it in place. Also get them to think of a chicken (preferably not frozen) hitting chicken wire at 150mph
As for shutting down an engine automatically, I remember working on a quote for a bit of military gear that had the 'battle override' button. The kit was supposed to protect itself from overheating and other dangers, but if you hit the battle override, it would run itself to destruction, presumably on the basis that if it shut down you were going to get blown to smithereens anyway, so running it to failure might give you the chance you need.
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There is an interesting paper by The Bird Strike Committee Europe published in May 1996. It states the first known bird strike occurred in 1908, when Orville Wright chased a flock of birds.
It can be found at http://www.int-birdstrike.org/London...SC23%20WP1.pdf
There is another report of the same date, by the same organisation. It talks of the efforts of Transport Canada to deal with the problem. http://www.int-birdstrike.org/London...C23%20WP24.pdf
I suppose they must have felt duty bound to do something about it, given their OEM brand, the Canada Geese.
It can be found at http://www.int-birdstrike.org/London...SC23%20WP1.pdf
There is another report of the same date, by the same organisation. It talks of the efforts of Transport Canada to deal with the problem. http://www.int-birdstrike.org/London...C23%20WP24.pdf
I suppose they must have felt duty bound to do something about it, given their OEM brand, the Canada Geese.