Indeeed. Who the heck is "Boeing GE"?
Required Reading:
Posted on 09/15/2012 7:55:47 PM PDT by smokingfrog
The engine installed on every Boeing 787 built in South Carolina so far has a problem.
The first sign something was wrong came on a Saturday afternoon in July when the second locally made Dreamliner experienced a pre-flight engine failure as it accelerated down the runway at Charleston International Airport.
A month and a half later, the extent of the defect has become clearer — and bigger.
The North Charleston incident was not isolated, as had been the original hope. Instead, two other General Electric-made GEnx engines have been found to suffer from a similar defect in the drive shaft.
And the concern is that the problem could be even more widespread, inherent to the make-up of the engine itself.
That news came Friday afternoon as the National Transportation Safety Board, which has been investigating the July 28 incident, issued a pair of urgent safety recommendations regarding the fan midshafts of GEnx engines.
The NTSB called on the Federal Aviation Administration to require ultrasound inspections of all GEnx-powered 787s and 747s not already inspected before any further flight.
The NTSB also recommended that the FAA require repetitive inspections of the fan midshafts of all GEnx engines “at a sufficiently short interval that would permit multiple inspections and the detection of a crack before it could reach critical length and the FMS fractures.”
That’s what happened in Charleston in July and on Tuesday as a Boeing 747-8F cargo jet was preparing to take off from Shanghai.
(Excerpt) Read more at aikenstandard.com ...
My last GE refrigerator lasted 21 years. I was more then happy.
Things that make you go “Hmmmm.”
The Part that Broke in Charleston is a Turbine shaft made by IHI of Japan. They are thinking the 747-8 that had an engine let go in Shanghia has the same problem.
When the LPT Turbine shaft breaks, the LPT turbine wheels overspeed and it’s only a matter of time before all of the blades fly off and if it continues to spin, catastophic, uncontained disk failures can result.
My GE fridge is a piece of crap also.
“The Part that Broke in Charleston is a Turbine shaft made by IHI of Japan. “
The same company that made the turbocharger for my MX5.
Interesting.
I’m told that everything the GE makes sucks except for their vacuums.
Boeing doesn’t work on the engines.
Ruh-roh!
I’m told that everything the GE makes sucks except for their vacuums.
I have a GE vacuum:It blows.
Someone is definitely going to get shafted over this mess.
Is it too late to put in some Rolls Royce engines?
Wish there was more info here. Does this mean that all GEnx powered aircraft are grounded, wherever they are? How many aircraft are affected? Where? How many passengers will be stranded in airports worldwide?
My first GE washer lasted 30 years. The next one lasted four. Changed brands.
Indeeed. Who the heck is "Boeing GE"?
Required Reading:
and I thought spending 3 hours pulling/replacing wiring because a new GE ground fault kept tripping was a pain in the rear. In the end, a new GFCI from a different company fixed the original problem. (original GFCI would not reset, GE one would trip randomly)
Turns out the GFCI outlet is not much better than their plane engine.
at least no one would die if the GFCI tripped when it should not have.
GE paying their fair share yet?
Sounds like it's really going to affect the delivery of new planes until they figure out what the problem is.
GE used to make pretty good electrical equipment.
(Better than Federal Pacific, Zinsco, and some others, anyway.)
You are an idiot. GE makes the best aircraft engines in the world. They are used to power 737’s, 767’s, 777’s, and many small regional jets in addition to military aircraft. The GE engine on a Boeing 777-200LR is the reason this aircraft can fly nonstop between any two cities in the world. It is incredibly reliable. GE will fix the problem with the new engine and they will stand behind it. GE owns more commercial aircraft, thru their leasing division, than any airline in the world. No I don’t work for GE, but I do work on them, along with Pratt & Whitney and Rolls Royce.
GE — Government Electric.
Pratt makes a better engine. If a GE barks, off the wing it comes.
The fan shaft forms the low-pressure spool of the GEnx-1B engine and connects the fan stage with the low-pressure (LP) turbine. The shaft is made up of two main sections, and the failure is thought to have emanated in the torque-retaining nut connecting the two. The NTSB says the GEnx engine “fractured at the forward end of the shaft, rear of the threads where the retaining nut is installed.” It adds that the fan mid-shaft is “undergoing several detailed examinations, including dimensional and metallurgical inspections.”
Investigators and a team of experts from the NTSB, FAA, Boeing and GE specializing in engine systems and metallurgy found the small fracture leading to the aft part of the shaft, which is made by Ishikawajima Heavy Industries of Japan.
The fracture in the shaft assembly allowed the rotating LP turbine to move aft, clashing with the LP stators. The impact caused significant damage to the LP turbine section, pieces of which were jettisoned from the engine exhaust. The hot parts exited the engine and sparked a grass fire by the runway which caused the airport at Charleston, S.C., to be briefly shut down. The engine was powering a 787 on a pre-first flight high speed taxi run. The aircraft was the second to be completed at Boeing’s Charleston site and is destined for delivery to Air India.
The fan shaft is designed to separate in extreme stress events to avoid over-speeding the LP turbine and risking an uncontained failure.
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