Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: ozrocker on November 25, 2013, 10:37:33 AM
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Advising pilots to avoid Thunderstorms. Possible ice crystalizing and
reducing engine performance.
http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/business&id=9338126
:cheers: Oz
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From reports I've heard, normal teething problems with the new generation engines. (GE made engines)
And it's a very slight possibility of it occuring but the FAA in the meantime issues warnings.
The maker of the engines will resolve this apparently with a quick turn around time fix.
Another thing is this was discovered during the spring and summer of 2013, GE learned of four 747-8F freighters that suffered icing in their engines at altitudes of 40,000 feet and above. The most serious incident involved an AirBridge Cargo freighter. On July 31, while at an altitude of 41,000 feet over China, the flight crew noted two engines surging while a third lost substantial power. The pilots were able to land the plane safely, but the engines were found to have sustained serious damage.
One thing people constantly forget, Boeing doesn't choose what engines to hang on their planes, the customers do. The issues around the engines do impact Boeing's image but we do not control the design and quality of those engines. We give those companies specs and ask them to build it.
Boeing doesn't choose interiors or easy-bake ovens that catch fire either, Customers do.
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Avoiding thunderstorms is a good idea no matter what kind of plane you're flying... That's just common sense. In the meantime, it should be noted that the 787 has survive multiple cases of direct lightning strikes with no major incidents resulting, and even more important, the planes struck by lightning have been quickly inspected, repaired, and returned to service.
As for ice accretion inside engines, this isn't just a thing with 787 engines. All high bypass motors and many low bypass motors are susceptible to various forms of engine icing, whether it is inlet icing or blade ice buildup. I strongly suspect that in this case, they'll do a little more testing, provide some temporary guidance on how to avoid the conditions that cause more rapid than usual buildup, and when a permanent fix is developed the engine manufacturer will make the fix available for retrofit as the engines go through routine servicing. There's nothing unusual about that process... I don't think there has ever been an airplane ever designed and built that hasn't had something like this go on. Something pops up in real world ops that wasn't seen in testing, they re-test to determine the scope of the problem (if there is one), then turn the engineers loose to fix it.
Being told to avoid thunderstorms... That's a bit like being told to not wreck your car parking it in the garage every day after work. It's something everyone does anyhow, and if you bump the garage wall once or twice and bend your front license plate, you don't throw the car (or the garage) away... You figure out a way to quit doing that or ignore the problem and accept the occasional bent license plate and wall scuff mark.
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What eagl said.
Can you imagine a pilot coming on com and saying 'Hey folks, we're going to fly directly through this herky jerky thunderstorm in order to make our on-time arrival plan so we don't get docked pay'.
No, they don't do it. They want passenger comfort over on-time arrival because unhappy customers don't come back when they're wearing their drinks in their laps upon exiting the plane. :)