Posted on 06/08/2009 4:00:25 PM PDT by luckybogey
Le Monde is reporting that that Air France Pilot's Union will "refuse" to fly A330/340
The union regrets that, pending the replacement of all defective pitot, management does not “have not taken the decision to stop the A330 and A340 not yet equipped with new models Pitot and whose replacement n ‘ provides that “in the coming weeks.”...
...Back on an historical note, the ocean between Brazil and Africa s a graveyard of French aircraft. Several pioneers disappeared in the same area as the Airbus in the early decades of air transport.
The most famous was Jean Mermoz, a colleague of Antoine de Saint Exupéry, who disappeared mid-ocean in December 1936 flying an Air France Latécoere 300 amphibious plane.
Unlike Air France 447, however, Mermoz had time to report by radio that he was shutting down a failed engine before his plane vanished...
(Excerpt) Read more at luckybogey.wordpress.com ...
Ping.
Oh, that Jean Mermoz! I thought that's who they meant.
;-)
My family heads east over the Atlantic tomorrow, so I am of course tuned into this.
The good news is they will be on a 777.
If it ain’t Boeing, I ain’t going. . .
No Highway.... based on the novel by Nevil Shute, and inspired by the fatigue-prone Bristol Brabizon jetliner, which pretty much ruined the British commercial aerospace industry.
Investigators were concerned in regard to the manner in which the tail fin separated. The tail fin is connected to the fuselage with six attaching points. Each point has two sets of attachment lugs, one made of composite material, another of aluminum, all connected by a titanium bolt; damage analysis showed that the bolts and aluminum lugs were intact, but not the composite lugs. This, coupled with two events earlier in the life of the aircraft, namely delamination in part of the tail fin prior to its delivery from the manufacturer and an encounter with heavy turbulence in 1994, caused investigators to examine the use of composites. The possibility that the composite materials might not be as strong as previously supposed was a cause of concern because they are used in other areas of the plane, including the engine mounting and the wings. Tests carried out on the vertical stabilizers from the accident aircraft, and from another similar aircraft, found that the strength of the composite material had not been compromised, and the NTSB concluded that the material had failed because it had been stressed beyond its design limit.
The official NTSB report of October 26, 2004 stated that the cause of the crash was the overuse of the rudder to counter wake turbulence.
So, the NTSB says the tails on these crap-boxes can fall off in heavy turbulence.
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