Posted on 03/21/2005 11:55:43 PM PST by Paleo Conservative
This sounds disturbingly like the hype leading up to the debut of the Tupelov TU144 at an earlier Paris Air Show.
Will the Airbus 380 suffer the same fate?
Remember, Murphy is an optimist. Particularly where the arrogant are concerened. And the French are as arrogant as any on the planet (with very little reason).
Can you give me any instances of what exactly was "poorly built" about the MD-11's? All of the structure down to the frames, windows and skins belongs (built/designed)to MDC and Boeing - all other interior items such as lighting, tvs, seats, carpets lavs, etc. belong to the airline because they choose the way the interiors are finished. In many cases, the interiors are not even completed by the manufacturer but by an aftermarket mod shop specialing in just interiors.
I bet your gripe has to do with the airline's portion and not the manufacturer's end of the business, right?
I will play. Hydraulics. MD-11 is the redheaded stepchild of the horrendous pile of crap that killed a bunch of folks in Sioux City.
"The winglet's function is to break the vortex that forms at the tips of the wings"
I believe I read that the effect would be the same if the wing were merely extended, but that winglets have the same effect without having to increase the horizontal wingspan......
Oh, you mean that crash that should have killed everyone but didn't because the plane held together better in the crash than thought in the design? Hydraulics did not fail in that instance - they were subjected to a catastrophic failure that had never been imagined during all of the design reviews by the manufacturer, the airlines, the FAA and all of the red-headed step-child pilots who participated in the design reviews. You mean that one?
My gripe with the MD11 is that the range and GTOW were below what was advertised, the dispatch rate is not high enough. It was a failure, as seen by the number of airlines that dumped plane soon after getting it, and the dwindling number of planes in passenger service. It works well for freight, but I know that American and Delta dumped theirs, and I believe Swiss got rid of theirs. I know Finnair has a few, Thai has some, and Varig. EVA relagated theirs to cargo.
Actually, according to SFO officials, A380 operations will be like that of 747-400 operations--no side-by-side landings and takeoffs. Given the fact that relatively few airlines will fly the A380 to SFO until at least 2010 (only Singapore Airlines and Lufthansa has planned flights to SFO officially for now), the runway spacing issue will not be significant.
The Tu144 crash was not a fault of the designers. The 144 was to do the same amount of time in the air as the Concorde, but at the last minute, the french cut the time in half, and changed its route. Then, the pilot had to do emergency action to miss a french fighter jet that strayed into the path of the plane, the pilot could not recover, as the action was past the stresses of the airframe.
Source: Soviet SST, by Howard Moon, great book about the 144.
Why the hell would there be any other aircraft in the air anywhere near that airport during the airshow? Were the French deliberatly trying to sabotage the TU-144?
Everyone of your points (which are true and an issue)have more to do with profitability and usage rates of the operator and very little to do with flying-customer issues - except the DRR one. But again, most DRR issues have to do with operators and not the manufacturer. The MD11 had enough issues, as you pointed out, without having the additional burden of poor operator interior installations and shoddy maintenance added to its record. And that was what I was reacting to.
It was truly sad that American, which had one of the largest (and loudest) pilot-driven design inputs of any operator on the MD11 Launch Team, undercut its team by badmouthing the plane prior to delivery. When EIS occurred, it was an uphill climb to overcome the stigma and closed minds. Sadly, the pilots were getting the lesser bugs worked out when American shut the model down.
Can't wait! (NOT!)
Oh - this summer they are going to do an emergency escape. They have to get everyone off the plane in 90 seconds. Can you imagine what the escape slide looks like that far off the ground? I think there will be 315 people on the second deck.
Nope, it was just bad planning and bad range operations.
Tupolev made 17 or so planes, with a few dramatic design changes. Considering the resources they had, they put together a pretty good plane, however, it had terrible range, and the passenger cabin was deafening, and the fuel economics killed it for good. The US, smartly, killed the Boeing SST before it became a cash monster.
Remember when AA dumped the 11? They went to that joke of an airline USAfrica, which was a disaster waiting to happen.
I was a pax only once on an MD-11, Swiss Air (not the follow along, Swiss, who just got bought out by Lufthansa), LAX to Zurich, we sat on the ground for 4 hours (center seat!) tackling hydraulic issues before take off.
Nasty.
1. They reduce spanwise flow by damming it at the wing tip. This puts more (and faster) airflow over the upper camber and increases lift, and
2. They act as "tip sails". (At least on lower speed wings) they are canted slightly outward at the aft edge. That same spanwise flow pushes against the winglet, and the angle nudges the wingtip forward.
.
That's how Boeing got Juan Trippe to get interested in a wide bodied aircraft rather than a double decker as the basis of the 747. He refused to exit the second deck mockup fuselage using the emergency escape slides.
Boeing didn't kill it; Congress killed it. And that was well before the OPEC oil embargoes that followed the Yom Kippur war in 1973 which made the SST uneconomic.
Like I said, the US killed the SST, not Boeing, it was a gravy train for them.
You may be right......
The two things I have heard regarding manufacturers implementing winglets were:
1. You effectively increase wingspan, lowering vortex drag without actually needing to modify ramp accomodations
2. Look cool
I'm not a pointy-headed aero type, but I know there are a few around here who may be able to speak to the technical issues more succinctly.
The only reason anyone lived is because the pilots were heroic and badasses.
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