Jon Elson wrote: > Sid Boyce wrote: >> Jon Stockill wrote: >> >>> It seems BA had a little bit of an accident at EGLL. >>> >>> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7194086.stm >>> >>> Jon >>> >> >> >> Lucky indeed, but they did admirably. Waiting to hear exactly what the >> problem was. Very disturbing if all power plants suddenly quit. >> Regards >> Sid. > This one is quite confusing. I thought they had some kind of battery > backup on the critical flight instruments that would give them at least > a minute or so to get the ram air turbine deployed. I guess the flight > controls did have backup, I can't imagine he was flying by direct > mechanical linkage from the yoke to the control surfaces. Providing all > the power to support the hydraulic flight controls while leaving the > pilot blind and flying mostly by the seat of his pants just seems > ludicrous. > How big a battery does it take to power one DADC, flight computer and > one primary flight display? I guess you need a gyro in there, too. > > I suppose a first thing to look at is if the fuel tanks and lines were > empty. > > Some reports are talking about bird strikes. Well, it could be, but > seems pretty far fetched. > Also, one pilot/witness said he heard louder than normal engine noise > just before impact. I can imagine a scenario where multiple large bird > strikes could damage an engine such that it produced no thrust, yet the > core continued to run. But, the loss of the instruments would indicate > the engines had stopped. > Maybe the smashed fans were windmilling and making a huge racket. Seems > the first indications of massive, multiple bird strikes would leave > plenty of easily visible evidence. > > > Jon > >
There was a 757 over Canada that lost both engines (source Reader's Digest in my doctor's office some years ago) due to fuel starvation. Both fuel gauges were faulty, the book says don't fly unless at least one is working, but they dipped the tanks and did a division rather than a multiplication which said they had more than enough fuel. As a matter of fact, the steward told the refueller that he hoped they had enough fuel and the refueller remarked that they had enough fuel to fly to Vancouver and back. Flying over a lake, the Captain said "I'm just going to sit here, relax and fish", one engine quit, no panic - fuel pump failure, then the other one quit, "Oh ?*!@, fuel starvation". They set course for Winnipeg, nowhere in the manual was a recommended glide speed, so they guessed 280 Kts. and later realised they were going to hit the ground 10nm short of Winnipeg. Panic... the controller told them he'd get them down safely and diverted them to a disused airfield - "just fly the aeroplane and let me worry about getting you down safely". A picnic was just about finished when the people on the ground saw the plane heading for the runway (the wrong one), so they cleared off sharpish. The manual also didn't show how to get the nosewheel down manually either. The nose helped with braking and the jet survived to fly again. The captain said he was also too high on approach, so he side slipped in, a technique he said he remembered from his days gliding. Apart from screaming passengers, all ended well. The design assumption was that both engines could never quit at the same time, so whether it was just put down to pilot error and nothing done since is a question to be asked and whether the same assumption holds for the 777, this of course, may not have a bearing on the current incident. In that situation, they had lost all instruments that needed power and the air pressure operated instruments were very difficult to see from the pilots' seats. Pilots were unhappy with just 2 engines on the Airbus flying long haul, but were told that they knew nothing about aircraft design and to just get on with flying. One comment that came from the makers, I believe, was that aeroplanes of the future would be crewed by one pilot and a dog. The pilot's job would be to feed the dog and the dog would be there to bite the pilot if he touched anything other than dog food (BBC Radio report). Regards Sid. -- Sid Boyce ... Hamradio License G3VBV, Licensed Private Pilot Emeritus IBM/Amdahl Mainframes and Sun/Fujitsu Servers Tech Support Specialist, Cricket Coach Microsoft Windows Free Zone - Linux used for all Computing Tasks ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse0120000070mrt/direct/01/ _______________________________________________ Flightgear-users mailing list Flightgear-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-users
