Large plane discussion

[railiner]

SpaceX launched their rocket powered
RESILIENCE this evening
The 4 seater will complete the flight in
271/2 hrs. Meals are included. Future plans are for booking trips for the public.

27.5 hours? I would hope meals were included....
BTW, thats an awful long time to get to a station that could come as close as 200 miles from where you launched from...

 

[jis]

27.5 hours? I would hope meals were included....
BTW, thats an awful long time to get to a station that could come as close as 200 miles from where you launched from...

Low energy trajectories tend to be like that.

BTW, when it was launched from KSC on the 15th the ISS was almost exactly overhead.

I was too busy watching the launch from my back porch, to bother looking for the ISS.

 

[railiner]

The Soyuz has made the trip in only 3 hours, recently...

 

[railiner]

The Resilience can carry 1/3rd more passengers (4 instead of 3), but thats only half of what the Space Shuttle could...

 

[jiml]

Air Canada has announced plans to convert most, if not all, of their currently stored 767 fleet to freighters and launch their own cargo carrier. This will be the airline's third attempt at this, although none have been recent. The conversions could total up to 30 aircraft.

 

[Asher]

FAA is set to certify the 737 MAX today.
The hoodoo voodoo software and MCAS System that even the chief engineer didn't understand is supposedly updated to provide a safe Aircraft. Until the next time!

 

[PVD]

The 767 seems to make an excellent freighter. The conversions are very popular. Lot of life left in some of those airframes in low cycle service.

 

[railiner]

737 Max...Cleared for take off.
It’s pilots have to first get updated training...

 

[jis]

The 737MAX is cleared to fly by the FAA, which means that they can fly wherever FAA is the ultimate authority to determine what can fly.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/18/business/boeing-737-max-approval/index.html
Now we await action by other certification authorities of the world to follow suit, allowing it to fly elsewhere in the world. Europe should follow in quick order as should Australia/NZ Japan, India and Brazil. What the Chinese will do is yet to be seen. Chinese airlines are a huge chunk of the 737MAX order base.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

How long did it take to "discover" the previous MCAS "mistake" from EIS? If I were a regulatory agency outside the five ayes echo chamber I'd consider slow walking the approval process until a similar amount of time had passed.

 

[Asher]

737 Max...Cleared for take off.
It’s pilots have to first get updated training...

I feel that they may learn far more than what they think they know now after a large number take the training. After seeing the same wrong reaction to situations over and over they will make more changes.

 

[jis]

IMHO, the primary mistake was giving MCAS unlimited authority. That is what caused the crashes. At least that part does not exist any more. MCAS will now intervene once and then take itself out of the loop instead of insisting that the plane fly itself into the ground and making it so, unless the crew diagnosed the problem correctly in split second and spoke the proper incantation with the proper incense while pulling the proper circuit breakers, which somehow Boeing thought was a reasonable recovery procedure, and FAA concurred And moreover both agreed that it was not necessary to even tell the pilots of the existence of this new fangled gzmo that would unpredictably take complete control away from them unless they did the precise dance that they did not even know existed for sure.

Considering back then Boeing and FAA thought that the procedure followed was great, and they feel similarly now in a self-congratulatory mood, it gives one a bit of a pause, I must admit. At least this time they have deigned to tell the pilots and require additional training to handle the situation that might be presented to them. Boeing probably is reluctantly OK with that since the Southwest order is already in the bag.

 

[Dakota 400]

Considering back then Boeing and FAA thought that the procedure followed was great, and they feel similarly now in a self-congratulatory mood, it gives one a bit of a pause, I must admit

It's almost like 1912 again when Harland and Wolff and the White Star Line said that the Titanic was unsinkable.

 

[jiml]

Canada will not go go along with FAA decision. Count me among those who thought they'd "rubber-stamp" it to appease Air Canada, who have a bunch of them.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/bus...-stay-grounded-in-canada-for-now-despite-faa/

 

[tgstubbs1]

Canada will not go go along with FAA decision. Count me among those who thought they'd "rubber-stamp" it to appease Air Canada, who have a bunch of them.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/bus...-stay-grounded-in-canada-for-now-despite-faa/

Give them a few more days. I might bet money they will approve sometime this month.

 

[Asher]

The Dodger Baseball Team transition from Trains to Aircraft. The link below describes the evolution how they went from small to larger.

https://thinkbluela.com/2014/01/the-flight-of-the-dodgers/

 

[jiml]

Update:

Air Canada has announced plans to convert most, if not all, of their currently stored 767 fleet to freighters and launch their own cargo carrier. This will be the airline's third attempt at this, although none have been recent. The conversions could total up to 30 aircraft.

The 767 seems to make an excellent freighter. The conversions are very popular. Lot of life left in some of those airframes in low cycle service.

The plan has been officially confirmed and the pilots have ratified agreement to fly the cargo-only routes.

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/top...atify-contract-changes/ar-BB1bq99p?li=AAggNb9

 

[Devil's Advocate]

Looks like more delays ahead for the Boeing 777-X after another "uncommanded pitch event."

The FAA cited a long litany of concerns, including a serious flight control incident during a test flight on Dec. 8, 2020, when the plane experienced an “uncommanded pitch event” — meaning the nose of the aircraft pitched abruptly up or down without input from the pilots.

https://www.seattletimes.com/busine...maturity-faa-slows-boeing-777x-certification/

 

[jis]

Now only if their (Boeing's) manned spacecraft would stop doing uncommanded stuff then we might have a successful (unmanned) flight of the craft to the space station and back soon! It flunked the last time because HAL decided to go off on its own for a bit.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

With narrowbody, widebody, military, and spacecraft lines experiencing design and/or manufacturing flaws it appears that Boeing is suffering a systemic fruit of the poisonous tree problem. Airbus looked to be falling behind after their A340 and A380 programs substantially misread market trends but thanks to Boeing's self-inflicted failures and Airbus' own segment-leading A32X & A35X designs they're currently eating McDonnell-Boeing's lunch. What a difference a decade makes. In other news the long A350 backlog means that I may have one final chance to ride an elusive A346.

https://onemileatatime.com/news/lufthansa-a340-600/

 

[railiner]

Love the look of that long fuselage with the relatively small tail, only possible on a four engine airplane. It is sort of a wide-body version of my personal favorite airliner, the long retired Super DC-8-61 and -63....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dougl...8099U_descents_using_its_thrust_reversers.jpg

 

[Devil's Advocate]

Love the look of that long fuselage with the relatively small tail, only possible on a four engine airplane. It is sort of a wide-body version of my personal favorite airliner, the long retired Super DC-8-61 and -63....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dougl...8099U_descents_using_its_thrust_reversers.jpg

I agree that DC-8-61 and A346 share a similar aesthetic appeal but I've never been able to fly either aircraft. It is therefore surprising and timely news that LH has decided to bring five airframes out of deep storage to serve the premium long haul market ex-MUC for a single season in 2022. The EU is already lifting restrictions on US citizens and by the time these aircraft can be restored to active status I expect vaccinated travel to be allowed in both directions.

 

[Exvalley]

In other news the long A350 backlog means that I may have one final chance to ride an elusive A346.

And Lufthansa's famous downstairs bathrooms!

 

[Brian Battuello]

And Lufthansa's famous downstairs bathrooms!

I remember that you weren't allowed to line up on the stairs to wait, not because of some 9/11 thing but because there were no emergency masks over the stairs!

 

[Devil's Advocate]

I've technically gone downstairs to use a lavatory on some B74X's and A388's but never into a sealed cargo module like on the LH A346.


It would have been interesting to see the VS, CX, and TG versions as well but you snooze you lose.