The extended EASA AD is published since 2012-02-08. AD No.: 2012-0026

New:
Applicability: Airbus A380-841, A380-842, and A380-861 aeroplanes, all serial numbers.

This AD ... extends the applicability to all aeroplane serial numbers and requires
accomplishment of High Frequency Eddy Current (HFEC) inspections of certain
wing rib feet and accomplishment of applicable corrective actions.

Wing deflection
 

Automatic dihedral!

A 380 Wing Story via Boomberg
 

A Norwegian friend sent this to me and I wondered if the forum experts in this area had seen it:

Airbus CEO says wing cracks show risk of technology leaps | Business & Technology | The Seattle Times

Thanks,
John Dixson

Looking beyond the courage of Ender's remarks, things look worse than thought. It can be said that the culture at Airbus has been less than forthcoming, so as well as refreshing, the comments speak to the gravity of the situation. For eighteen months, a/c will be completed with materials that will fail, and involve serious downtime and cost that is staggering in their repair. Meanwhile, a/c fly with fractured ribs, looking at several milions in repair sooner or later.

Boeing is not immune; the storied delays may in the long run be a saving grace. However, a giant leap into new and untested technology (tested in long term).

In the case of the three-eighty, an ironic failure, naturally in pursuit of profit. Eventually a/c will fly as anorexic hangar queens? Light, Strong.........and Durable?

One correction to this post. Only the upper surface wing panels of the A380 are creep formed during the precipitation hardening heat treatment. The lower surface panels on the A380 (as well as A310, A319/20/21, A330 and A340) are shot peen formed. The failing brackets on the A380 attach the ribs to the lower peen formed panels. The photo in this post is, indeed, of an upper surface panel in the autoclave at Broughton, North Wales. I was in charge of the US owned factories in North Wales from 1982 till my retirement in 2005 where all the above named lower Airbus panels were shot peen formed and shot peend along with many other Airbus (and other manufacturers) parts. Shot peening is a specialist cold working surface process which increases resistance to fatigue failure and stress corossion cracking as well is being used to induce form or correct distortion by inducing beneficial residual stresses.

Is this aircraft safe to fly? The traveling public are led to believe that lots of cracks have been found but it remains safe. Any air frame engineers care to elaborate?

Retired Peener,

I remember a vid of the upper skin in its machining stage, it was air tabled and routed to thickness. For its profile dimension, the lack of a platten or solid table made it look iffy to get good tolerance over the entire (single!) sheet.

So when the TRENT holed it, I immediately thought, well, there goes the monolithic integrity, they'll patch it. Did they? or did they ship a single sheet of upper skin to Aus, and layer it on site?

Can I assume a rough similarity between shot peening the lower skins to what a Jag scholar or Ferrari assembler would use an English Wheel? (beneficial residual stresses?)