A380 "engine problems"

A lot of kinetic energy in those turbines. More info at

RR Trent 900 engines according to the reports. At leastthey have most of the bits available for inspection (including the lost casing).

Regards, Martin Brown

These things are supposed to be contained, but most of the serious containment is in the front of the engine, around the big fans. This one seems to have blown in the hot section, or maybe the outlet turbines.

Making jet engines on this scale is an awesome enterprise. R-R may not, in the long term, have the resources. That was noted in this week's Aviation Week mag.

John

On a sunny day (Thu, 04 Nov 2010 07:12:17 -0700) it happened John Larkin wrote in :

Eye witnesses report an explosion. Sabotage? Somebody on the airfield could have put some explosives in the engine.

..

Why? The American originally put jet engines in pods under the wings (or on either side of the tail) precisely to separate the energy stored on the rotating parts from the structural members of the airframe. It was a good idea, which is why everybody else copied them.

That would have to have been a particularly incompetent saboteur. My money is on botched maintenance - Qantas maintenance has had a good record for a very long time, but eventually some cost-saving idiot gets into even the best run system.

Wrong end of the engine for that.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

Engines like this don't come apart quietly. There's more kinetic energy in the spinning parts of a 100K-lbf class engine than any reasonable parcel of explosives can pack.

John

A kilogram of TNT explosive has about the same energy content as the potential energy of 20 metric tons of steel and concrete, 10 stories high... and most high-rises have more than 20 metric tons of steel and concrete... :-D

Michael

Quantas had a 747 RR engine experience an uncontained failure a bit over a month ago on a SFO -> Sydney flight.

They may not hold their record of never having had a fatal accident (on a jet airliner) forever.

I've done that flight :-(

...Jim Thompson

On a video filmed by a passenger, there appeared to be a small irregular hole on the upper side of the wing. Fortunately it did not do any serious damage inside the wing as the runway debris did in the Concorde crash in Paris. Debris hitting the fuselage or window could also cause a lot of damage due to loss of pressuration.

The R-R Trent 900 engine type has suffered more than expected wear and according to BBC, it had been considered potentially unsafe by European airworthiness authorities in August.

A turbine blade could have failed. I was once a paralegal assistant in a lawsuit about jet engine maintenance - something about turbine blades.

Apparently, they're cast out of a single crystal of titanium. If a worker drops one on the floor, it has to be rejected.

I wouldn't be a bit surprised that out of the billions and billions of turbine blades produced that one or two might have a flaw. (apparently, they swap them out when overhauling an engine. They might remelt the used ones, but that's just a guess.)

A new engine might be $3,000,000.00, but an overhaul is only about $300,000.00. ;-)

Cheers! Rich

On a sunny day (Thu, 04 Nov 2010 21:15:29 +0200) it happened Paul Keinanen wrote in :

Can A380 use any other engines?

I used to know a guy who was an aircraft engine designer. He told horror stories about how aircrafts are built and maintained in the real life.

Looking at the universal idiotism that each of us has to encounter every day, it is a miracle that the aircrafts don't fall on our heads at every

VLV

Yes, the ones that Air France uses are GP7200 from Engine Alliance

Yep. Particularly considering the number of posters here who obviously work in the aircraft industry... like NymNoNuts ;-) ...Jim Thompson

You wouldn't have a head after the first one.

'Someone' has to test the toilets. :(

On a sunny day (Thu, 04 Nov 2010 22:04:57 +0100) it happened OBones wrote in :

Good, at least A380 future is safe then.

Average annual American death rate from driving, per person: 1 in 5000

From flying, 1 in 11 million.

John

I once flew Aeroflot - and lived!