Posted on 06/03/2009 9:12:38 AM PDT by luckybogey
The Air France disaster should be watched very closely as there are numerous political implications in the aircraft industry. The Australian is reporting investigators may be looking at the Airbus Air Data Inertial Reference Unit (ADIRU) System that sent a Qantas A330 on a wild ride over Western Australia last year.
The Qantas incident last October, and another in December last year also involving an Airbus 330 near Western Australia, involved a problem with a unit called an air data inertial reference unit, which prompted flight control computers to twice pitch down the nose of one of the jets.Fast action by the crew limited the extent of the plane's fall but 14 people were seriously injured.
The incidents raised questions about a potential wider problem with ADIRUs, which collect raw data on parameters such as air speed, altitude and angle of attack, and process the information before sending it to flight computers. They led to European authorities issuing a global alert to A330 operators.
After the Air France disaster, The Seattle Times reported yesterday that experts were already examining these malfunctions...
(Excerpt) Read more at theaustralian.news.com.au ...
I don’t know anymore. The 330 seems to have as impressive a safety record as possible. If you don’t count the test flight accident, you have 3.3 million flights w/out a fatality. We also don’t know the cause of this one yet and whether it will be attributed to the plane. Prior to this you had the 7 test flight fatalities and that’s it over 15 years. I don’t choose to fly Airbus planes for different reasons than safety but will fly them as needed.
Depends. The weather was bad. And even in good weather there are no guarantees, but read this about some of the luckiest people ever to get off a plane in one piece...
Easier said than done. I live in Columbus, a city of 800,000 and when I go to Boston or NYC it's almost always on an Embraer or a CRJ.
Indeed. As a real fair weather sailor with limited eperience I have only been caught in one bad open water storm and that was in a RHIB in the persian gulf long ago.
Weatheris a killer at all levels. Wonder why the pilots weather radar didn’t warn him ?
Just a look at such would be enough to divert the flight plan to smoother skies or return to Brazil
Rule #4: Thou shall not fly into thunderstorms. I will not fly within 20 miles of an active building cell. There are old piliots, and there are bold pilots. There are no old, bold pilots.
I am an old chicken pilot.
The suspected flight plan is probably correct because, flying those distances, they probably use canned flight plans. Also SIDs (standard instrument departures) and STARs (Standard Terminal Approach Routes) can get you most of the way on some flghts with just one entry in a proposed flight plan.
At one time there was (might still be) a canned approach (STAR) for LaGuardia that started at a VOR in Illinois. Made it easy for the AA and UAL guys who flew it 10 times a month!
Different planes, different ADIRUs:
I agree with the point however my understanding is that it is the same software!
What keeps a fly-by-wire vehicle controlled if there is a sudden disaster in the electrical systems?
gravity, inertia, lift, drag
Amazing.
Doesn’t Southwest fly from Columbus to NYC, Providence RI and Manchester NH?
That would suck. Big time.
If one ADIRU comes from Honeywell and the other comes from Litton (or whoever bought them out) you can pretty much bet the eternal salvation of your soul they don't use the same software.
Much patent-infringement and unfair-restraint-of-trade litigation has transpired over the years between those two companies and their respective RLG products.
Wow. That’s the first time I’ve heard of that one.
WOW! Pucker Factor Infinity on that one!
I wonder what happens to pilotos who "chicken out" and return to base? Can't be good. (Not as bad as what happened, though.)
LaGuardia service starts June 28. To Providence and Manchester, it's four or five hours through Baltimore (then the possible 1-2 hour drive.)
It's business travel. The office prefers US Airways. I don't.
The incident in Post 32 is right up there, too.
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