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Bobby_Batronic

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Everything posted by Bobby_Batronic

  1. Some of our 787 pilots have suggested that the altitude window controlling the flight directors might have been accidentally been set close to field elevation not unlike the Emirates 777 that buzzed Dubai at 50 feet and 300 knots. There’s a fleet bulletin out about this issue. Basically, the aircraft will settle at the selected altitude (at or just above field elevation) and selected speed (V2..single engine safety speed) with the engines retarding to maintain speed and altitude and kinda mush back in if the engine response isn’t quick enough.
  2. We may step in directly, or, they may go the Top Gun Maverick route and keep dropping the heaviest penetrators they can carry until the hole is deep enough to do the trick. Destroying the surface structures and any entrances and exits to the underground facilities may suffice for now. I think the initial denials were to stave off any immediate retaliatory attacks on US assets while the Iranian military still had first world military means to do so, but it’s clear as day we’ve been neck deep in this, and there’s not a chance that two surprise drone attacks on strategic targets in separate countries using the same tactics were developed independently. Either way, regardless of your politics, heads up and eyes open for the foreseeable future.
  3. The IAF is able to operate in Iranian airspace with impunity. The issue is payload. The largest US non nuclear bunker buster weighs 30k pounds. That requires a strategic bomber, and the IAF doesn’t have any.
  4. The world will know if they used nukes. However, short of actually using those weapons, it’s a matter of logistics. The IAF does not possess the kind of aircraft that can heft the kind of bunker buster needed to penetrate those hardened underground targets.
  5. You can take it to the bank that B-2 Spirits were involved if they took out the hardened underground nuclear facilities. Israel doesn’t have the weapons platforms to deliver those kind of bunker busters.
  6. Depends on the plane. The Airbus give you a configuration warning if the flaps are not in takeoff configuration or if they’re not in a configuration matching the flight management computer. It doesn’t not, however, care if that is the incorrect flap setting for the takeoff as long as it’s in one of the valid positions and matches the computer data. Similarly, short of triggering the alpha lock I mentioned earlier it doesn’t care if you select the wrong level of flap retraction either. Boeing might be the same.
  7. The Bus has something called alpha lock that prevents flap retraction in low energy or high angle of attack situations. I don’t know if the 787 has a feature like that. The 777 off Maui involved selecting one extra notch of flaps up over the intended setting, the quick rush to select the correct setting, an EGPWS warning and an over G in recovery.
  8. Could have been dust. Then again, there’s some indication the RAT was out, but that’s based on some grainy pictures and the sound as it went by. Inadvertently raising flaps instead of the gear would explain the sudden sink. They may have gone straight into the their EGPWS escape procedure which generally doesn’t have the crew change the gear or flap position. That might explain the gear still being down. Boeing and RR probably already have a good idea what happened unless it was FOD, electrical failure or fuel contamination.
  9. Inadvertent flap retraction nearly downed a UAL 777 out of Maui last year.
  10. Basically the same set up in the Airbus. The Rat should auto deploy above 100 kts if AC busses 1 and 2 are unpowered. Below 100 knots there’s not enough relative wind to spin the blades fast enough to be useful and the batteries take over. It can be manually deployed from two different buttons. One is to provide emergency electrical power, it generates 5kw as opposed the generators which produce 90kw, and the other is to pressurize one of the three hydraulic systems. This backup hydraulic pump is used to drive the backup hydraulic generator. Total deployment time is 8 seconds. 3 to deploy and 5 to spin up. There’s kinda the same setup with the cabin O2 masks. They should auto deploy under certain circumstances but the order to open the overhead doors can be manually sent from the flight deck.
  11. The Ram Air Turbine is deployed which suggests a complete loss of power. It’s a small fan that generates limited electricity and hydraulic pressure. Probably something happened before they had a chance to do much else. Birds, fuel contamination would be obvious. Terrorism? There’s no rudder deflection so they’re not single engine unless the operating engine were retarded to idle. I would think the 787 handles that for you.
  12. Allegedly they performed an intersection takeoff leaving 6300 feet of usable runway behind them which would be very odd on a flight that long.
  13. The 900 may be one of those planes whose main gear are behind the center of lift meaning a technique to soften touchdown is to push the nose forward which decreases the sink rate of the mains as they are rotated away from the ground as the nose lowers. Possibly trying that here? Also, I’m sure you know this but possibly using a reduced flap setting to keep more energy on the plane and account for possible windshear leading to a higher AOA?
  14. Perhaps. Hopefully. The inability to put the smart phone away is not a small problem in aviation these days.
  15. Ahh, the welcome to the airlines bit? Sorry. Can’t delete.
  16. It is, and they may have extenuating circumstances to have been recording, but generally a very, very big no, no.
  17. supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
  18. We have a lot of tools now to avoid the worst of the bumps generally from radars that will depict it, forecast maps, and even a feature that records the accelerometer readings of iPads on other participating aircraft in the air and displays it on a moving map with a time stamp, altitude and intensity so we can see real time what’s coming up. That supposes there’s someone ahead of you at your altitude and you’re not the weather recon plane of the day. Once we were working our way around a line of weather extending into the Gulf and thought we had skirted it on a late night flight when we stumbled right into something billowing up to our altitude. A couple of nasty jolts and the airspeed briefly got a lot lower than we’d like and then we were out the other side. The other pilot looked at me and said “ You know for a second there I was kinda wishing I was a realtor.”
  19. I had to google that s**t.
  20. Most planes either use automation or have a manually added fudge factor to account for gusty winds. For example an Airbus automatically adds 5 knots to the minimum approach speed (which itself is 1.3x stall speed in general terms) for a given approach. Book procedure is to increase that buffer by 1/3 of the gust value over the steady wind if 1/3 exceeds 5 knots, but not to add more than 15 knots. So if the winds are 10 gusting 30, then the gust factor is 20. 1/3 is roughly 7 knots which exceeds 5 knots so we’d manually add that to the minimum speed. Additionally, some aircraft take the steady state wind, and add it to the derived approach speed above in order to maintain a constant ground speed and energy level. So if the approach speed is 138 knots and the steady state wind is 10 knots then the plane will try to maintain 148 knots of airspeed to keep a ground speed of 138 knots. This is called ground speed mini (minimum) in Airbus world. In more pithy terms, yes, a drastic falloff could cause the plane drop. More so if it’s already near its minimum approach speed. It looked like they never flared or flared very late to me which is not overly uncommon in low visibility conditions or semi white outs. The visibility didn’t look too bad from the video above, but keep in mind that the pilots are looking down through more air than the observer on the ground. They’re essentially staring down the hypotenuse of a right triangle whereas the observer is looking down the base leg. This is called slant range visibility.
  21. I suspect several someone’s from Endeavor and the FAA will want to have a word with the individual recording from the flight deck.
  22. That grey outlined part of the wreckage is the emergency exit. Plug type door. Really build that to stay in place. I’m impressed.
  23. I think there was a second RJ circling to 33 or on final to 01 that was told to go around. I’d bet they saw that one. Winds were 17 gusting to 25 knots from the NW at the time of the collision meaning the Blackhawk was crabbed into the wind and away from the collision aircraft. It might also explain some of the drift issues away from the east shoreline. Perhaps overcorrection. Take that helmet above, add NVGs and the peripheral vision isn’t great. Calling the traffic in sight and intent to maintain visual separation puts a lot of the onus on the pilot who accepts that. Tower understaffed and typically busy as DCA always is. A lot of Swiss cheese holes lined up for a tragedy.
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