James, My hat is off to you Herc drivers - quite an airplane and quite a mission. The P-3 had the same engine / prop issues as the Electra, that is with the NTS system. It was reliable and if any problems, just add or subtract the thrust lever to make it calm down - usually worked but not all the time. Glad to hear these Navy guys made it back. I'm indirectly involved with the P-8 program to replace the Orion, they'll like that airframe a bit better I'm sure.

(Written on 09/24/2010)(Permalink)

Chalet, There were two reasons they didn't fire Tex: The first was that the president of Boeing told him to fly over the city that day and "show 'em what the Dash 80 could do." After he rolled the airplane twice in front of God, country and millions of on lookers, orders flowed in for the airplane from all corners of the world. Hard to dump an employee who does what you ask and then gets hundreds of airframes sold at the same time.

(Written on 09/20/2010)(Permalink)

I think Boeing would frown on any kind of aerobatics with their -787 prototypes. The last time this happened was when an enthusiastic test pilot rolled the prototype B-707 over Seattle during the annual boat race in Seattle harbor. Did it not once, but twice! I believe they now have a high member of management flying in the cockpit with a gun to prevent this from happening again. <g>

(Written on 09/20/2010)(Permalink)

Airbus stated goal (years ago) was to build an airplane that could be flown and maintained in 2nd and 3rd world countries. The Airbus product was easy to fix - if the radio don't work, pull the radio module and replace it. If the pilot wants to go up, pull back and the airplane goes up, until it gets slow and then the computer takes over to not let a stall develop. Simple and easy. But that is what fly by wire is. Relatively easy to fly while it works. Didja know the B-777 was Boeing's first fly by wire? You'd hardly know the difference - I've got a couple thousand hours in that heavy twin and the controls were very well balanced. But then again, that's a Boeing.

(Written on 09/19/2010)(Permalink)

Toolguy, I came on the EAL property in Miami back in 1969 when Rickenbacker and Maytag were still bumping heads over who would rule the airways. <g> No fly by wire back then, even the "heavies" could be flown in some sort of manual over ride.

(Written on 09/18/2010)(Permalink)

A bit of history on FADEC (fully automatic digital engine control) engines. Most of the last generation of big, high bypass engines are FADEC. The companies just have another name for it. In the case of RR, the Trent 1000 has a FPMU (fuel pump metering unit) that controls the engine. In effect, the pilot has an ON/Run and Off switch in the cockpit. He tells the computer (FADEC) that he wants more power and the little box located somewhere below decks makes the correct input to give him more thrust. The reason for this is that modern, high thrust engines cost upwards of $10 million dollars each - no use exposing that kind of expensive machinery to a bad, hung or hot starts. Frank, Toyota is not building aircraft engines, but Honda is going to build their own engines for the Honda Jet which is being built in the USA.

(Written on 09/17/2010)(Permalink)

I'm probably going to "date myself" with this one, but I was in the early group of pilots with Eastern Air Lines when we got the L-1011 from Lockheed. The engine of choice was the RB-211 which was their first production engine with three sets of rotors. Yep - N1, N2 and N3. Was it complex? About as complex as you could make a basically simple principle get. I'm sure you've all heard the quotation "mad dogs and Englishmen, out in the mid day sun." Eventually we worked out the bugs and the engines turned out to be one of the more reliable systems on the 1011.

(Written on 09/17/2010)(Permalink)

Tool guy, I've been nosing around the Boeing (employment) web site checking on some job offers. They're looking for some production pilots to train in Seattle then move to Charleston within a year to help with delivery of the -787. I've only flown metal airplanes all my life, this composite bird seems quite the challenge to build. I'll attach the link for an interesting piece of Boeing propaganda: http://www.boeing.com/careers/featuredjobs/splash_charleston.html

(Written on 09/17/2010)(Permalink)

I believe you've all got valid points. RR was testing this engine to "higher than normal rotor speeds" and found out that is not a good idea - i.e. it came apart. So, now you know why they call for max N1 and N2 rotor speeds, and tho shalt never exceed. I'll assume these engines are FADEC and a software tweak will correct this overspeed problem. Now, anybody got any comments about (what if) this engine had a failure in flight and blades penetrated the composite hull?

(Written on 09/17/2010)(Permalink)

I hear one of the Rolls Trent engines came apart on the test stand in England last week. The Trent is one of the engine options for the -787. The feeling is that testing will slow down a little, but airframe testing will continue on schedule. With something this big, complex and important to the future of Boeing, it's simply going to have to be working and correct when the first airframes are delivered to ... is All Nipon still the first customer? KenO

(Written on 09/05/2010)(Permalink)