Aviation

You can get almost everything on airline bonus miles. But Finnair definitely takes this to a new level: For 3.180.000 points you get a Rintojen suurennus (or on swedish: bröstförstorning).

Bruce Schneier wrote a really thoughtful article for CNN.com about security in aviation: "Is aviation security mostly for show?". A must read!

Security is both a feeling and a reality. The propensity for security theater comes from the interplay between the public and its leaders.

Airbus sold the first A380 in the horror configuration: Air Austral, a carrier from La Réunion firmly ordered two A380 in an economy-only configuration according to this Airbus press release. 840 seats in a single aircraft ... i assume even sardines would ask for a little bit more room They want to use it on their high-density route from La Réunion to Paris.

To you remember this experiment in school? You use a steel ball and at room temperature you can put it through a hole with a slightly larger diameter. Now use a Bunsen burner, put heat to the steel ball for a moment and now try the same again: The ball doesn't fit anymore.

A similar trick is used in building airplanes. To ensure that the bolts tightly fit in their holes, you freeze so they get a little bit smaller. They easily fit in their holes. When they get to room temperature, they expand and you have a tight fit between the bold and the both plates you want to connect.

Well, so far so good. It looks like, they had an interesting problem in the 787 program as reported by Wall Street Journal. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer writes:

They found that metal bolts, called freeze plugs, inside the wings of one of the six test airplanes had slightly damaged the surrounding material, causing delamination, or cracking, the Journal said, citing "internal company documents and a person familiar with the matter."

Hmm ... reading about all this problems ... i'm sure i'm waiting a few years before i will put a feet in a 787. I thought, Boeing has already used composites parts in other aircrafts ... thought they wouldn't have such basic problems in the 787.

I wrote not that much about aviation in the last few months, but writing about 787 delays got boring. However ... today i found an interesting article about the experiences of Airbus, airlines, pilots and engine manufacturers with the first two years of the A380 in service. The article "A380 In-service report" at flightglobal.com is really an interesting read.

On Youtube is a video of the Boeing Advanced Tactical Laser in action. I'm disappointed ... from a laser large enough to need a C-130 as a carrier aircraft i would have expected an spectacular disintegration

I have more and more problems with the thought to be a passenger in the 787. At September 10th Mitsubishi announced that they vastly reduce the amount of carbon fibre parts in their new regional jet. At that moment i didn't connected the dots, but: Mitsubishi is the company that manufactures the wings for the 787. And those guys trow out carbon out of vast areas of their own aircraft development? Yikes.

Did you know that Snowglobes are dangerous? Before reading this blogentry at upgradetravelbetter.com i didn't knew it as well. What do they expect? That you throw those snow globes after the security personal like Joker threw his gas grenades after Batman? Snowglobes should be banned at all ... but out of other reasons. They are just ugly

But i found an interesting thought in that article showing that this "No liquids" policy is just outright nonsense. Let's assume that there are really explosive substances in the water bottles, gel tubes or similar stuff. Let's assume they are not dangerous when you don't mix them. Now you get to the security perimeter, your carry-on-luggage gets xrayed, they find a bottle. One of your options is to throw away the bottle. There are simple trash cans at the airport security to do so. You mix all the bottles in one can. Oh my god, all those trash cans at the security gateway are potential bombs. Expecting that those liquids may be explosive when mixed, i would ask a bomb squad to empty my trash can.

Would you really use normal garbage procedure when you expect that they contain explosives? I wouldn't use the normal garbage collection. At least in the usual german garbage truck the load is compressed at a regular schedule to save space in the truck. The bottles burst, the liquids are mixed at the bottom and according to the security logic you should have a puddle of explosives at the ground of your garbage truck. But: So far i never heard of an exploded garbage truck at it's normal job because of liquid explosives .

TUIfly hat es echt in Rekordgeschwindigkeit geschafft mich zu nerven. Auf der Bordkarte steht "Boarding 45 Minuten vorher" ... Natuerlich begann Boarding 20 Minuten vorher ... wie ueberall sonst auch. Halbe Stunde Schlaf umsonst geopfert ,,,

Ich bin ja auch nur interessierter Laie, aber die ganzen Fehler die da gestern in diesem Pro7-Flugzeugkatastropenfilm gemacht worden sind, sind ... nun ... ja ... eine Katastrophe. Ich muss ja zugeben, das ich mir das auch vorher hätte denken können, aber ich guck nun mal gerne Sendungen, bei denen es um Flugzeuge geht ... ist eine Schwäche von mir.

Also Geschwindigkeiten werden meines Wissens im Cockpit immer noch in Knoten angegeben, das Triebwerk explodiert spektakulär nachdem sie die Tragflaeche verlassen hat, aber wenige Sekunden später reisst die rechte Tragfläche ab, ohne einen entsprechenden Feuerball zu erzeugen. Immerhin sollte wenig spaeter das Teil auf Berlin fallen wg. Treibstoffmangel, das heisst die Maschine flog wohl nur noch auf Treibstoffdämpfen ... aber nix ... kein Feuer. War wahrscheinlich nicht opportun, kurz vor Ende noch mal alle zu verbrennen Waere aber realistischer gewesen.

Ansonsten: Die Tornados waren Eurofighter. Der Film hat wohl in der Zukunft nach einer erfolgreichen Wahl der CDU stattgefunden, denn da hat der Innenmister doch glatt Befehlsgewalt über die Luftwaffe. TV und Flugzeuge ... zwei Welten treffen aufeinander Man muss aber zugeben: Die erste Stewardess stirbt recht spektakulär. Trotzdem ... ich will nur einmal in meinem Leben einen realistischen Flugzeugkatastropenfilm sehen ... nur einen einzigen

When it rains, it pours. After problem with the connection of the wings to the center box, there are more problems with the fuselage. The Fliightblogger writes in "Breaking: Structural flaw halts production of Alenia 787 sections":

Alenia Aeronautica has halted production of two major 787 structural components due to wrinkles in the fuselage skin caused by manufacturing flaws in subcomponents of the one-piece composite barrel, according to a letter obtained by FlightBlogger.

and

Campbell and Simmons explain the justification behind the production halt as "related to stringer edge steps" causing wrinkles in the skin of the fuselage that were larger than previously "demonstrated during the [preproduction verification] PPV on these components."

This plane starts to be a nightmare ....

This guy goes to the extremes. You may know him from this video where he drove a Bugatti Veyron with 407 km/h in Ehra-Lessien. Now he got the opportunity to fly with the Lockheed U-2 capable of operating at 25,900 meters and possibly a little bit more. It must be an awesome experience:

Just look at the airliner at 3:00 in the video just to get an impression how high they are flying.
(Thanks to Egghat for the link)

I've lost my fear of flying a while ago, but in the light of the disclosures about the 787 in this article it's a good question, if this fear will haunt me again. At least in a certain type of aircraft. The Seattle Times reported in "Boeing 787 wing flaw extends inside plane", that the 787 hadn't problems with delaminating wings at ultimate load (limit load + 50 % of limit load). No, the problems occurred right above limit load (the maximum load the wing will experience in airline service). Ouch.

At least this gives a good explanation, why Boeing delayed the test flight. The Seattle Times further reports:

Because the wing test fell short of the ultimate load target, the plane could have flown only under restrictions that would have severely limited the usefulness of a test flight.
It also helps explain why Boeing canceled the first flight planned for the end of June.

Just heard on N24, that the Luftfahrtbundesamt found the reason for the go-around with touching the ground in the last year in Hamburg. The Spiegel (a german magazine) will report it: They call it a computer problem. Well ... i´m not so sure of that, and i´m sure that the Luftfahrtbundesamt said something different in their report. Why do i think different? Well ... i remember the last crash with fatalities of the Lufthansa on 14. September 1993 in Warsaw. At that time the Lufthansa Airbus A320 crashed into a small "hill" at the end of the run-way. The reason: The computer of the Airbus didn´t think that the Airbus is on ground and thus it didn´t brake.

At this time the computer programm for the brakes was modified and the activation of the brakes was coupled to an pressure of 2t instead of 12 tons on the landing gears and the airbrakes and the reverse thrust isn´t coupled to the landing gears at all and i´m sure that many landing were more secure of this decision.

When i look at the video of this attempt to land it looks like that both gears touched the ground and thus the Airbus switched in the ground mode. Looks as "works as designed". That isn´t a computer problem. This circumstances was just out of the specification. But as usual ... i´m waiting for the final report.

But i find something strange about this: When even a computer guy like me know about this situation, why does a pilot know about it, as the Hamburger Abendblatt reports it. Okay, i´ve read a lot about it to explain in meetings and seminars about the fact that the ability to specify requirements is finite. There will be always unspecified circumstances.

But well ... the Hamburger Abendblatt wrote, that the Spiegel will report about this. And the Spiegel is pretty well known for being overly negative in regard of Airbus. I remember they have declared the death of Airbus when Boeing announced the 787 They have even the old story about the Airbus being a computer controlled plane, but i assume you can´t talk with a journalist about direct law, alternate law and normal law.

There are rumours, that Boing has finally figured out how they can do a first-flight of the 787 soon. There is an image of the configuration available.