Plane / Planes / Aircraft / Aeroplane / Airplane appreciation

Allegedly a known bug in the flight systems that resets everything if they have been powered up for 248 days straight. Should have been patched by the airline but suspected they didn't do it

resets everything if they have been powered up for 248 days

Full kit wankers who never race recalibrate their power meters every day, but airlines can't be arsed to do it twice a year?

Casual chat on the ground, apparently. Will need to wait for official report by Chilean aero agency to find out what really happened.

This 2016 Seattle Times article says every 22 days https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/faa-orders-787-safety-fix-reboot-power-once-in-a-while/

Here's the 248 days bug (a different bug)

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/may/01/us-aviation-authority-boeing-787-dreamliner-bug-could-cause-loss-of-control

248 days is 2^32 seconds

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/15/business/boeing-787-dreamliner-cockpit-seat-latam.html

Too early to confirm but possibly a flight attendant closing a switch cover on one of the pilots’ seats may have pushed the seat/pilot into the steering column, causing a sudden dive.

Pretty poor design by Boeing, not properly covering the switch. It’s especially telling that it was identified as a possible hazard 7 years ago. 1 person is in critical condition (age undisclosed), 11 others were hospitalised, and dozens of others were injured. Unlikely it was an air pocket.

Another Boeing plane in the news now, after losing a panel at some point between now and who knows when: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna143686

Dead Whistleblower’s claims were pretty shocking. Production managers and workers kept raiding the scrap bins for parts they needed, so he installed a locked cage. People kept getting in, so he changed the lock, so corporate had 200 copies of the key made and distributed.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68534703.amp

What’s the likelihood the garbage parts were carefully labelled and the reason for them failing QA was documented and accessible? Literally anything could be wrong with the part, it’s in a scrap bin, from the looks of it. Will it fail immediately, or at 60% of its life expectancy? Who knows!

Unconscionable, putting parts on a plane like that.

Also. Detrimental to organisation in a commercial world. Almost pangs of sabotage / propaganda. I mean if you are one of the biggest manufacturers in the world you would do anything to stay ahead in terms of safety and reliability. 101.

Your competition would probably be lobbying to tar your reputation. But not your own QC?

Budgets are one thing. But you don't cut the hand that feeds you? Shirley?

I’d never popped into this thread before. It isn’t helping my fear of flying.

you don't cut the hand that feeds you?

Modern day investment and corporate attitudes seem happy to bite, cut, draw, and quarter the hand that feeds them, if it means they get a slightly larger reward in the short term. Sadly, there’s loads of other hands to move on to.

I do agree, certainly in the UK. That said the likes of Boeing would be in the interests of national security for the US. No?

Lots of examples of poor QC in military aircraft as well.
Factory tools being found inside cavities is a common thing.

Factory tools being found inside cavities

"I slipped and fell on it"

John Oliver the other week was on Boeing. Seemingly lots of focus on pushing up the share price irrespective of what the risks were.

John Oliver the other week was on Boeing

Echo chamber? Us?

This plane really doesn't want to land. According to the description it was empty, could've used some ballast.

https://youtu.be/_JZkEBF8g3M

That's pretty funky - Any landing at Madeira is quite interesting given that a fair chunk of the runway is built on stilts out into the sea.

Quite a few army helicopters out today

3 Attachments

Love the moody chinook.

Is there a better app for military plane tracking than Flightradar24?

In Norfolk and it’s driving me nuts hearing and not seeing all the planes going about there business above.

adsb exchange

Last time I was in the area there were two fighters doing what looked like dog fighting training near the coast. We saw this weird bird flying above the water and when it was halfway across our FOV we heard the rumble and roar, realising it was a plane and not a bird.

Those things move fast.

Not showing anything other than a Hercules going at about 1000ft every 10mins.

@Leshaches from the pitch changes of the engines it sounds like they are doing similar above us now, haven’t seen them yet though. Assume it’s F15s from the US base

The aircraft needs to have an ADS B Transceiver and it needs to be switched on. I've seen C130s, C17s, AWACs, Eurofighters and various other military aircraft in the proximity of Ukraine at the beginning of the conflict.
Not so much these days.

ETA - Currently there are four C130s sitting on the runway at Kangerlussuaq airport in Greenland. None are visible on either ADSB Exchange or Flight Radar 24.
Check out the live feed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dG4pb20EqJc