Henrik Fongen

Fløy til Trondheim kl. 1200 den søndagen. La da merke til at denne avgangen kun var merket som forsinket, fra kl. 1110 til kl. 1200. Trodde jeg skulle være heldig og få med meg take-off'en før flyet mitt dro, men da vi takset ut, sto flyet fremdeles ved gaten, ved siden av Icelandairs nylig innkommede flight fra Reykjavik.

http://pub.tv2.no/nettavisen/na24/article536500.ece Ser ut til at Airbus såvidt stakk av med størst ordrebok i fjor også, til tross for kjempeordrer til Boeing helt på tampen. Edit: Her er Airbus' egen pressemelding: http://www.airbus.com/en/presscentre/pressreleases/pressreleases_items/06_01_17_airbus_2005.html

Sliter stadig med trykkforskjeller selv, og må ofte ty til "blåsemetoden". Opplever da innimellom at jeg kun klarer å utligne trykket i det ene øret. Løser dette ved å stikke en finger i det øret som er ferdig utlignet, og så ta i litt ekstra. Funker ganske bra... Min merkeligste flytur var fra Lisboa til Heathrow med en BA 737-500; under landingen, akkurat idet nesehjulet traff bakken, vinglet flyet plutselig voldsomt, før det rettet seg opp igjen. Virket som om nesehjulet sto skjevt, og at piloten måtte rette det opp relativt kvikt da han skjønte dette...

Hehe, må være gode gamle Kai Tak, det... Heftigere innflyvning enn det fant man ikke! En helt egen opplevelse å sitte i en gedigen 747 på final og kunne kikke inn i de omliggende husene! Er forøvrig også der jeg har opplevd flest spennende go-arounds... Det var alltid mye action på Kai Tak, nesten synd den er nedlagt... Av eksisterende plasser liker jeg Lisboa best; fin blanding av store og små fly som tar av og lander, og en innflyvningsview som er helt rå (ser ut som flyene skal lande inn i terminalen!). Er dessuten en pen by å fly over på kveldstid.

Sånn apropos Boeing og kundeforhold.... Here's an article on the Boeing 747 - I bet this never made the Seattle Times. The A380 will hopefully have such howlers sorted out *before* it goes to a customer ... BTW - any arguments to mitigate the Boeing fiasco will also mitigate the A380's testing program ... better just to let it rest. "Something had gone wrong with the installation of the JT9D powerplants, and it was becoming increasingly clear that the thrust and fuel consumption figures at high power settings were not going to meet the guaranteed levels on which the whole profitability of the 747 was based. The problem did not specifically affect the safety of the aeroplane, but the customer airlines would never accept the penalty of a 5% increase in fuel consumption, nor the loss of take-off payload that would automatically follow any drop in available engine power. The source of the problem was identified as a bending movement in the engine casing. The primary thrust link on the 747 is mounted on the turbine exhaust casing, well to the rear of the overall engine assembly. This link transmitted the power into the aircraft structure, leaving the forward engine mounting -attached towards the rear of the fan casing -to handle all the vertical and side loads associated with the engine's physical weight and flight manoeuvres. The bending occurred when power was applied, causing a nose-down pitch to the front of the engine casing, which then departed from its simple 'tube' structure to take up a slightly oval shape. The circular core of the engine, rotating with very fine tolerances to the inside walls of the tube, was unable to bend with the casing, and blade-rubbing could then occur in one plane, leaving gaps between the rotor and the distorted casing in the other. This blade-rubbing, and the general loss of engineering tolerances within the engine, drastically reduced the efficiency of both compressor and turbine. Finding out why the engine was down on performance was not difficult: resolving the problem to everyone's satisfaction was a different matter. Pratt & Whitney tried several internal modifications -including pre-ovalised seals capable of accepting abrasion, and an offset high-pressure compressor case -before turning to the outside of the engine in an attempt to stiffen the casing and prevent the distortion occurring. The company's initial approach included a much stronger exhaust casing, and a big stiffening ring to embrace the h-p turbine casing. These certainly reduced the ovality by a small margin but the bending itself continued, registering a distortion of up to 0.043in across the engine beam. Only when the primary thrust pick-up was transferred from the rear of the engine to the intermediate compressor casing at the back of the fan shroud, did the problem show any real signs of diminishing. Several different arrangements to achieve this transfer were tried before the one finally chosen: this was in the form of a 60° inverted Y-frame, with its single point attached to the original thrust pick-up on the pylon, and its 'fork' linking with two new attachments immediately aft of the fan casing. With this new frame in position, the engine bending problem fell away to 20% of its former level, and the h-p turbine casing remained broadly circular. The problem had not been fully understood until quite late in the certification programme, and by then it was too late to stop the production line churning out unmodified aircraft. By mid-October, when the 'fix' was tentatively announced, 22 aircraft had already been rolled out and a new one was being added to the list every 4~ days. Only the five 'development' aircraft were equipped with engines. The remainder -including the first for Lufthansa, Air France and BOAC -were parked forlornly on the Everett flight-line to await a decision on their future: the new thrust frame still had to be installed, flight tested and certificated between Boeing and Pratt & Whitney. The two companies were now facing a difficult time financially. There was no way of stopping the hugely complicated production effort, and all the accumulating costs -thought to be well in excess of $2million a week in interest charges and modification costs alone -had to be absorbed over a long period without any customer delivery payments coming in to balance the equation." Dette er sakset fra en tråd i PAI's forum, hvor det også foregår stadige Boeing/Airbus-diskusjoner...

Prima!! Akkurat hva jeg var ute etter! Hjertelig takk for hjelpen!

Takker for raskt svar! Har vært der inne, men sliter med å finne frem.... Noen som kunne gitt meg en hjelpende hånd?

Hey Noen som vet om det er noen spennende maskiner på Gardermoen mellom kl. 1000 og 1400 på førstkommende mandag? Vet dessuten noen av dere hva slags fly Lufthansa Cityline pleier å bruke på sine Hamburg-Oslo-flighter? På forhånd takk for svar!