NEW EU Aibus A380!!!

[Adhesive]

Searching for Blame in an Airbus Near-Disaster

Last week's blowout of an engine on an Airbus A380 after taking off from Singapore has raised fresh concerns about the superjumbo aircraft and cast doubt on the quality of the Rolls-Royce engines that some of them are equipped with...

[Tsuru]

Having reviewed some of the systems new to this aircraft I have to say it is a major leap forward with regards to systems redundancy. It is the first aircraft ever which features an electro-hydraulic backup for the flight controls and this fact alone blew my mind. Look at it this way: the hot section in one of its engines literally blew apart taking out multiple hydraulic and electronic systems, and it still flew for 2 hours, bringing over 500 people safely back to Singapore, would could still enjoy their gin & tonic in relative peace WHILE ONE OF THE ENGINES HAD EXPLODED AND PEOPLE 8 MILES BELOW THOUGHT A BOMB HAD GONE OFF. Even a 747 would have had more difficulty coping if it had been in the same situation.

It was a bad day for Rolls-Royce, but a good day for the A380.

[Cyka UchuuJin]

ah Tsuru, glad to see your name here. been meaning to ask you about these giants. i've got 5 A380 flights (3 Emirates and 2 Singapore air) under my belt and every time i wind up with a sinus infection within days. especially on the paris-dubai flight, the pain was massive during the entire descent. what one of the flight attendants said was the this type of complaint from people flying on the upper deck was common because the plane is more pressurised than single level planes.

any truth to that? granted, i do have an inner ear problem and tricky sinuses anyway, but i doubt it's coincedence that i fall ill with infection on the same plane type 5 times.

[Tsuru]

You're sure you're not allergic to certain plastics or other materials? Even if the flight is 15 hours long it sounds more like an allergy to me than an infection. The materials that aircraft interiors are made with have to meet very strict fire safety requirements and are chemically different from those used on the ground.

Then again I'm an engineer, not a doctor.

[Cyka UchuuJin]

You're sure you're not allergic to certain plastics or other materials? Even if the flight is 15 hours long it sounds more like an allergy to me than an infection. The materials that aircraft interiors are made with have to meet very strict fire safety requirements and are chemically different from those used on the ground.

Then again I'm an engineer, not a doctor.

i haven't had a battery of allergy tests since i was a kid, but i don't think so. i can actually feel the pain as the A380 starts it's descent, a pain starts under my eyes and my ears start closing up. it's like i can actually feel the pressure squeezing my sinues. then when i am on the ground, everything gets even more blocked up and presto! sinus infection the next day. never experienced that on any other plane.

[Coligny]

You're sure you're not allergic to certain plastics or other materials? Even if the flight is 15 hours long it sounds more like an allergy to me than an infection. The materials that aircraft interiors are made with have to meet very strict fire safety requirements and are chemically different from those used on the ground.

Then again I'm an engineer, not a doctor.

My bet would go toward aircooling without enough humidication, it dries your sinuses who then after are fragile and goes infected. Humidity usually travel downward, lowerdeck would be better... in theory..

[Adhesive]

i haven't had a battery of allergy tests since i was a kid, but i don't think so. i can actually feel the pain as the A380 starts it's descent, a pain starts under my eyes and my ears start closing up. it's like i can actually feel the pressure squeezing my sinues.

From what you describe, it sounds to me like a simple case of your face being rocked by the A380's sheer awesomeness. Just sit back and recognize.

[Dragonette]

[Kagetsu]

[Failsafe]

Oil fire 'may have caused Qantas engine failure'


European Aviation Safety Authority orders airlines to re-examine Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines

Europe's air safety regulator said today that an oil fire may have caused an engine turbine failure on a Qantas superjumbo last week, and issued an emergency order requiring airlines to re-examine that type of Rolls-Royce engine and ground any planes if suspicious leaks show up.

The order by the European Aviation Safety Authority (EASA) backed earlier indications from investigators that they suspect a turbine disc was the cause of the engine failure on the Airbus A380, but was the first official mention of an oil fire preceding the engine's disintegration.

Qantas said it had found small oil leaks on Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines on three of its other Airbus A380s during tests started after the incident over Indonesia last Thursday. The airline, Australia's national carrier, said it was keeping its six A380s grounded until further checks were completed, extending an earlier deadline.

Singapore Airlines grounded three of its A380s yesterday after checks prompted by the Qantas incident revealed what the company called oil stains on the engines. Lufthansa also uses the A380-Trent 900 combination, but said on its checks had not turned up anything unusual.

The European regulator said in a new "emergency airworthiness directive" posted on its website that airlines using Trent 900 engines should conduct "repetitive inspections" on them.

EASA said airlines should be checking several parts of the engines, including the oil service tubes, to ensure there is no "abnormal" leakage. If any such leaks are found, the airlines are prohibited from using the engines.

The directive was issued in response to the Qantas engine failure, which sent shrapnel slicing through the plane's wing and littered the ground below with debris. It returned to Singapore and safely made an emergency landing.

EASA said an analysis of the investigation into the incident so far "shows that an oil fire" in part of the engine "may have caused the failure" of the engine's intermediate pressure turbine disc.

"This condition, if not detected, could ultimately result in uncontained engine failure potentially leading to damage to the aeroplane and hazards to persons or property on the ground," they added.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which is taking the lead on the investigation, has focused on a mangled section of shattered turbine disc, which was recovered from the stricken plane. It has been sent to Britain for testing, while investigators co-ordinate with Rolls-Royce, according to the bureau.

Airworthiness directives are issued by the European agency to advise airlines about extra inspections or repairs needed to deal with potential problems on planes. They are relatively common occurrences covering many different types of planes and engines.

The latest directive was the third one issued this year on the Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines that power many A380s currently in service.

In an earlier directive, the European agency warned that unusual wear to parts of the engine could cause problems in the intermediate pressure turbine the same part of the engine identified in the directive.

Too much wear and the turbine could move backward into a non-moving part of the engine, the earlier directive said. That could eventually lead to an oil fire and an uncontained engine failure.

Jason Middleton, an aviation professor at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, said the engine parts the agency has directed airlines to check all appear to be in the same area as the damaged disc.

He cautioned that it's simply too soon to tell if the issues are related. Still, he said, it is intriguing.

"The original [directive] does point at an area which looks to be one of interest right now," said Middleton. "There could be a connection there."

Directives classified as emergencies, are fairly unusual and suggest the agency really wanted to capture the airlines' attention, Middleton added.

The Qantas and Singapore incidents are not the first problems Rolls-Royce have faced with its engines. In September 2009, a Singapore Airlines A380 was forced to return to Paris mid-flight after an engine malfunction. And last August, a Lufthansa crew shut down one of its engines as a precaution before landing in Frankfurt, after receiving confusing information on a cockpit indicator.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/nov/11/oil-fire-qantas-jet-engine-failure

[Coligny]

Oil fire 'may have caused Qantas engine failure'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/nov/11/oil-fire-qantas-jet-engine-failure

You'd think they'd put a fracking oil level warning on those engines if it can lead to such a catastrophic failure...

Seems it was designed by the same guy that did my car... indicators... too expensive... they'll see when they ran out of fuel by themselves...

[Adhesive]

Having reviewed some of the systems new to this aircraft I have to say it is a major leap forward with regards to systems redundancy. It is the first aircraft ever which features an electro-hydraulic backup for the flight controls and this fact alone blew my mind. Look at it this way: the hot section in one of its engines literally blew apart taking out multiple hydraulic and electronic systems, and it still flew for 2 hours, bringing over 500 people safely back to Singapore, would could still enjoy their gin & tonic in relative peace WHILE ONE OF THE ENGINES HAD EXPLODED AND PEOPLE 8 MILES BELOW THOUGHT A BOMB HAD GONE OFF. Even a 747 would have had more difficulty coping if it had been in the same situation.

It was a bad day for Rolls-Royce, but a good day for the A380.

So far out of my realm of expertise it's not even funny, but, why exactly would a 747 have more difficulty coping? I thought them limping back home with a blown engine or three was a regular occurrence?

747 makes it back to SFO after engine fails

Qantas Flight 74, a Boeing 747 with 212 passengers on board, left San Francisco for Sydney about 11:30 p.m. Monday. The plane had reached 30,000 feet about 45 minutes after takeoff when a malfunction in the No. 4 engine on the right wing ripped a hole in the external casing, or cowling, authorities said.
Radar tracks on FlightAware, a flight-tracking website, show that the plane was about 275 miles west of San Francisco when the incident happened.
The pilot declared an emergency, made two wide circles over the Pacific to dump fuel to reduce the plane's weight and returned to SFO at 12:45 a.m., authorities said. Airport fire trucks surrounded the plane as it arrived.

Was the area of damage different in the A380's case? I've only heard that the cowling was destroyed and the turbine blades were sheared off. Are there hydraulic and electrical systems critical to flight control so close to the engine, or was the blast just so huge that it reached those areas? The reports (English ones, at least) are always so vague on what actually happened.

[IkemenTommy]

Qantas Air is probably not the best carrier to fly these days. (Not that I have any business in Australia)

[Tsuru]

Was the area of damage different in the A380's case? I've only heard that the cowling was destroyed and the turbine blades were sheared off. Are there hydraulic and electrical systems critical to flight control so close to the engine, or was the blast just so huge that it reached those areas? The reports (English ones, at least) are always so vague on what actually happened.

The blast was actually that big and put engine parts in places where they had no business being. The A380 sustained damage way beyond the engine itself, evidenced by the fact that none of its slats (high lift devices on the front of the wing) were deployed, the gear doors were open when it landed which indicates the landing gear could only be extended by gravity (as opposed to hydraulically), the wing had large holes punched through it both in front and behind of where one of the main spars is located, which indicates severe structural damage, and engine 1 could no longer be shut down from the flightdeck and had to be smothered with foam by the emergency services.

The 747 is a tough old bird and she will always have a special place in my heart, but one of the key differences that sets the A380 apart from older jets which I mentioned earlier is its use of self-contained electro-hydraulic backup systems in the actuators of all of its main flight controls. If hydraulic pressure is lost the actuators go in hydraulic lockdown completely by themselves, trapping fluid in the cylinder and the backup circuit, which contains a small but powerful hydraulic backup pump driven by a stepper-motor. This system allows the surface to be moved by a single pair of electric wires which provide the electric power as well as the control. It shouldn't be a surprise that the guy who thought of this system is German. Looking at the circumstantial evidence mentioned, I think this Qantas incident is the first time it was used in anger.

If a 747 loses one of its hydraulic systems it's really no big deal, but if it loses all of them it is literally up shit creek without a paddle. The crew have no means of controlling the aircraft using the flight controls, and have to rely on differential engine thrust and electric backup elevator trim to make it back to earth in one piece, or at least that's what they have to hope for. Remember the United 232 DC-10 crash in Sioux City in 1989? This is what happens when a big jet loses all hydraulics. This all changed when the A380 came along with its EMA-powered flight control system. It can fly when it has no hydraulics left, and as a consequence was certified to fly with only two separate systems instead of the more traditional four. (The 747 has four separate hydraulic systems and the DC-10 has three. The older 727 even needed five!). Even the latest and greatest 747-8 still largely uses the same old hydraulic layout as the first one built in 1969, make of that what you will.

[Adhesive]

The blast was actually that big...

Thanks, you made that pretty easy to understand, even for us non-technical folk.

[Coligny]

The blast was actually that big and put engine parts in places where they had no business being. The A380 sustained damage way beyond the engine itself, evidenced by the fact that none of its slats (high lift devices on the front of the wing) were deployed, the gear doors were open when it landed which indicates the landing gear could only be extended by gravity (as opposed to hydraulically), the wing had large holes punched through it both in front and behind of where one of the main spars is located, which indicates severe structural damage, and engine 1 could no longer be shut down from the flightdeck and had to be smothered with foam by the emergency services.

That will make quite an expensive write off...

[Tsuru]

Knowing Qantas, they will never allow that to happen. Even if it means they have to put on a new wing. QF001

[Coligny]

Knowing Qantas, they will never allow that to happen. Even if it means they have to put on a new wing. QF001

I think that A380 would not count...

>>Regarding QF001: The aircraft was repaired at great expense to preserve Qantas's record of never losing a jet aircraft and was returned to service.

[Kagetsu]

The A380 will almost certainly be repaired I think.

[2triky]

[Greji]

"......Airlines traditionally have spare engines......"

The article is pretty good tricky, but the authors do include several great passages like the above. Perhaps they have never been lucky enough to have the chance to see an airplane. Maybe they just take the train from Sydney to Los Angeles.....

[2triky]

The article is pretty good tricky, but the authors do include several great passages like the above. Perhaps they have never been lucky enough to have the chance to see an airplane. Maybe they just take the train from Sydney to Los Angeles.....

Hehe. Just trying to keep the discussion lively.

[Failsafe]

Hehe. Just trying to keep the discussion lively.

Qantas launches lawsuit over superjumbo engines

Qantas has launched preliminary legal action against Rolls-Royce, the manufacturer of the engine that exploded on one of its A380 superjumbos in mid-air last month.

The airline said today it has filed a statement of claim in a federal court that will allow it to launch legal action against Rolls-Royce at some point.

Qantas chief executive officer Alan Joyce has said the airline will seek compensation from Rolls-Royce over the November 4 incident in which an engine disintegrated shortly after takeoff.

Qantas said today's legal action would ensure it could sue Rolls-Royce if it was not satisfied with a compensation offer from the UK-based company.

The legal move was announced after Australian investigators said they had identified the source of an oil leak that caused the engine to blow apart in mid air last month, and said a suspected manufacturing defect in the Rolls-Royce engine was to blame.

They warned airlines the potential flaw could cause engine failure.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau recommended the three airlines that use Rolls-Royce's Trent 900 engines on their A380s go back and conduct more checks now it has pinpointed the problem area. Three airlines fly a total of 20 such planes.

Earlier warnings blamed an oil leak for a fire and subsequent chain of failures that sent heavy parts flying off an engine on a Qantas A380 shortly after it took off from Singapore on November 4, the most serious safety problem for the world's largest and newest jetliner.

The ATSB, which is leading the international investigation into the Qantas break-up, added some specifics today, saying a section of an oil tube that connects the high-pressure and intermediate-pressure bearing structures of the engine was the danger area.

"The problem relates to the potential for misaligned oil pipe counter-boring, which could lead to fatigue cracking, oil leakage and potential engine failure from an oil fire within the HP/IP bearing buffer space," the ATSB said in a brief statement.

It called the problem "a potential manufacturing defect".

Counterboring is when you place a larger hole over a smaller hole to make room for a seal. The ATSB said a misalignment of those holes had produced a thinning of the oil pipe wall and fatigue cracks. That could have led to oil leaking into a section of the engine that contains extremely hot gas - a mixture of burned fuel and air. If oil comes into contact with the hot gas, it will burn.

"It is a design error and obviously a major one," said Peter Marosszeky, a jetliner maintenance expert at the University of New South Wales.

The ATSB recommended close inspections of all Trent 900 engines to look specifically for signs of the counterboring problem. Any engines that display such signs should be removed from service, it said.

In response to that recommendation, Rolls-Royce, affected airlines and other safety regulators were taking action to ensure the A380s involved were safe, the bureau statement said.

The three airlines, Qantas, Singapore Airlines and Germany's Lufthansa, conducted extensive checks of their Trent 900 engines and modified some parts in compliance with a November 11 directive from the European Aviation Safety Authority. That order was to look for oil leaks in the same section of the engine, but did not mention a potential source.

http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/qantas-launches-lawsuit-over-superjumbo-engines-2149032.html

The comments from Christy001 and frankposter are quite interesting as well.

[Coligny]

the problem "a potential manufacturing defect".

Counterboring is when you place a larger hole over a smaller hole to make room for a seal.

Somebody can explain that part a little slower for me ?

[Yokohammer]

Somebody can explain that part a little slower for me ?

I thought "counterboring" was what people did to alleviate boredom.

[Greji]

Somebody can explain that part a little slower for me ?

Easy to explain. Larger hole over smaller hole! Here's a scalp I took on the warpath last night that demonstrates the concept quite nicely....

[Coligny]

Easy to explain. Larger hole over smaller hole! Here's a scalp I took on the warpath last night that demonstrates the concept quite nicely....

I got it... them pubes caught fire and exploded dem engine...

More seriously:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterbore

I'm ready to bet it's not the proper word when pipes are the concerned parts...

[Tsuru]

This is the counterbore misalignment and resulting failure in question:

[Coligny]

you have pict of the non failed part ?

[ketchupkatsu]

Australian aircraft engineers have called for Airbus A380 - the world's biggest passenger aircraft - to be grounded, after Singapore Airlines and Qantas found cracks in the wings of their super-jumbos.

'We can't continue to gamble with people's lives and allow those aircraft to fly around and hope that they make it until their four-yearly inspection,' said Steve Purvinas, secretary of the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association....

UK daily mail

Don't know how much of this should be a real concern, but hopefully there's someone on this forum with more knowledge about cracks showing up on planes this new.