You wouldn’t necessarily pass out, but if your number is up, what a way to go! Free-fall from 35,000 feet! Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
A friend of mines father used to be an a pilot for United. He told me many years ago that a plane breaking up at 30,000 feet when it is traveling at high speeds is vertually impossible being as there is so much air pressure being exerted on the aircraft. Thus holding it together. Unless of course there was some type of decompression, but still… Whether this is true or not I don’t know, but it makes since.
Jeff
jeff@oriented.org
CAL jet took erratic course
2002/5/27
The China Post staff
The last time the aircraft contacted the control center was at 316 p.m. It was last seen on radar screens at 300 p.m., officials said.
Radar screens showed that the plane started taking an abnormal path at an irregular speed at 318 p.m., said Yong.
What had happened during the 12 minutes, between 316 p.m. and 318 p.m. would be crucial for investigators to find the cause of the catastrophe, Yong added.
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/detail.asp?ID=26879&GRP=A
Is it just me, or is the “China” Post just adding to the mayhem?
“full loss equivalency” !!!
LMAO !!! Christ that’s hilarious !!! I think I’ve just “experienced” a “full loss equivalency” all down the front of my trousers !!!
HAHAHAHA!
Once again, we can see the Taiwan media’s indifference to fact-checking and basic decency and respect for the family. I would say that about 50% of what we’re hearing about the crash is rumor and that we’ll have a better idea of what happened in the next few weeks.
Maybe it’s the Taiwanese people or maybe it’s the push for ratings, but Taiwanese news has become sensationalized to the point of ridiculousness. I truly watch the news for entertainment only.
Airplanes, Jeff, as far as I understand, are pressurized from the inside so that the passengers don’t suffacate. Therefore, the pressure would be like that of a balloon – tending to force the plane to pop. Of course the pressure is not that great so that it does’t do that, and you must remember that the aircraft at its cruising altitude must be going, what? 350-400mph?
I think the only thing holding the plane together is the plane.
The history of China Airlines makes harrowing reading. They have killed around 700 of their customers and destroyed aircraft of virtually every type. If you have ever flown them you will also know their service is pretty lousey compared to other carriers.
In my humble opinion the whole outfit should be shut down and the people responsible for it be locked up.
In case you think this is a ‘Taiwanese’ thing, compare the record of EVA Airlines (also Taiwan based). They have never even dinged a puddle jumper.
The attitude of China Airlines was summed up well by two accidents that happended in the 1990’s. In 1994 the airline lost a A300-600 (Airbus) and most of the passangers and crew over Nagoya, Japan. The cause was traced to an error operating the autopilot system. It was found that a German operator had previously encountered similar problem (without loss of life). All airlines had been notified, but CI did not pass on the notice to their pilots. Following the event there was a big public outcry, officials lost a little face, the airline supposedly improved saftey standards, pilots were retrained. Then in 1998 near CKS airport China Airlines lost another A300-600 with all souls and 7 bystanders in a textbook duplicate of the accident… Well of course they are still in business, still killing people and crashing planes.
Of course we don’t know who is responsible for the latest event, China Airlines style is usually pilot error (7 out of 9 fatal events, and one 747 in HK bay) but it is dumb to speculate at this stage. If you have read accident reports, very often the reasons are very subtle and unexpected.
By the way, there is no way anyone survives aircraft disintegration at cruising altitude. Survival rates are low even when the aircraft is intact when it hits the ground and to some extent still under control.
Oh well, tickets should be cheap this summer, just don’t forget your crash helmet, parachute, oxygen bottle…
The inside of the plane if pressurized to the same as if you were at an altitude of 3000+M
You cannot open the door when the plane is at that height and pressure cause they doors open in and then out, unless you are really strong… planes can cruise at about 900Kph… but the body is designed to act like a wooden barrel… it is strapped on the outside so the higher the pressure inside the more the body is compressed
Actually planes are quite flemzy things… an aluminium shell… as you go up and down this stresses the shell…and fatigues the shell…
The engines suck in air, compress it in a funnel and then put some fuel in it and exhaust it out the back to give it lots of thrust
Fuel is carried in the wings…in fuel cells… so usually if it is an explosion… it will be near the wing or the wing… when you look at the plane on the runaway and when flying…espically on a 737… the wings raise by maybe 8 feet
The planes engines run at 105% throttle sometimes on takeoff… and it is not exactly the wings that lift the plane on takeoff… but the air pushing the belly when you pull up the nose…if an engine gives up and dies on take off… you probabily will not make it… the plane is designed with 4 engines cause all four are needed for take off
A plane will use one third of the fuel in its tanks climbing to 10000M…
Once you are up there you are probabily quite safe… but then we you are coming down …if you don’t throttle the airplane correctly and do the thing with the flaps… you will stall the plane…
Unlike a glider… if all the engines cut out on a jumo jet…it is like a bag of blocks… straight down
There are other things as well like wind sheer…
Airbuses are dangerous… best advice… don’t fly in one… they should be all grounded…espically the A330
So the worse combination is flying China Airlines on an A330
if a plane explodes it is subjected to a 900kph wind which will completely tear it apart if the explosion doesn’t … so then when the cabin becomes depressureized you are basically in the same position as if you were standing on Mount Everest or probabily worse than that…so you have no air to breathe along with the wind chill factor… if the air pressure from the wind didn’t burst you lungs and collapse your chest cavity… you would fall for about 3 mins unconcious… at a max velocity of about 210 Kph ( as the drag caused by your body makes this the terminal velocity)… but probabily by the time you would start falling you woould be dead, or unconscious from the explosion and sudden depressurization… then you strike the water and are dead
Falling from 10000 (~6miles)m is the same as falling from 100m( 330feet)…it just takes longer …
Zhukov, I think you should check at least some of your facts before posting what appears to be intended as an informative article…
You can’t open the door of a plane at cruising altitude even if you are strong! The pressure is too high. You do not explain why one might ‘want’ to do this!!
Fuel is contained in the wings of planes for engineering reasons. It actually gives them structural support during takeoff (its like a balloon filled with water), and avoids a lot of fuel being close to the passangers.
Aerodynamic lift comes almost entirely from the wings. The body of the plane is streamlined but gives little lift.
The 747 was designed with four engines, not because they are specifically needed for takeoff, but to enable a ocean crossing to be completed even if two failed. At the time the design was conceived a two engine jet could not run on one engine for the required 4 hours+ to make landfall. This issue has become less important now since engine failure is much rarer now. The two engine 777 is now rated for cross ocean flights and there have been no incidents.
Engines are run at a rating of 105% for some takeoffs, but this is a technical rating and this operation is correct.
If an engine fails on a jet airliner during takeoff and the takeoff cannot be aborted this is not a problem either. Pilots are regularly trained on this procedure, while uncommon it does occur. Try it yourself using “MS Flight Simulator”, the simulation is very accurate! The plane will veer toward the failed engine, but this can be corrected and the takeoff completed. Actually engine failure is most likely during rotation (as the plane turns to take off the ground) since the combination of power and stress on the engine is a maximum and the presentation of the airflow is not perpendicular to the engine’s axis. The engine mountings are actually designed to break in a serious engine mechanical failure, allowing it to fall off (!) and the plane to continue to fly.
What is your problem with Airbus??? The A330 has never had a fatal event!
The other Airbus types (A300, A310, A320) do not have particularly high accident rates, they do however vary somewhat by model. There was certainly some early controvosy about the fly-by-wire systems, not all conducted in the language of engineering, but the ‘bugs’ have been largely ironed out at this point. Regretably CI did not operate the planes correctly, but it does help to read the instructions with most complex technical products.
Your comments about survival in high-altitude incidents appear speculative. Refer to http://www.avweb.com/articles/highalt/
for a more informed discussion. This topic has been well studied and autopsy reports are quite clear.
This from the Taipei Times:
quote:
The captain, Yi Ching-fung, 51, joined the company in 1991 and had 6,128 hours of flying experience.His deputy, Hsieh Ya-shiung, 52, was recruited by China Airlines in 1990 and had 6,244 hours of flying experience.
Chao Sheng-kuo, the on-board technician, had worked at the company since 1977 and had 18,024 hours of experience.
Now, I may be off the mark here because I don’t know anything about airline hiring practices. But where I come from, this list of experience would be inverted. Why is it that the guy with the least amount of flying hours is at the top of the hierarchy?
It may not have been pilot error, but this inverted pyramid of experience looks a bit off. Maybe there were some mitigating circumstances. Maybe the more experienced guy’s vision is failing. I don’t know. Any thoughts on this?
Or is this guanxi too?
Or are the discrepancies between the two that negligible? Does 120 some odd hours of flight experience just mean the captain has had more vacation time?
And why did they mention the on-board technician? Does he fly the plane? What are his duties? Is that a fancy name for switching on the cabin lights and asking the attendants for coffee?
You can see the rest of the article at Experience.
Sorry, double post.
quote:
Originally posted by Jellymister: It may not have been pilot error, but this inverted pyramid of experience looks a bit off... ...And why did they mention the on-board technician? Does he fly the plane? What are his duties? Is that a fancy name for switching on the cabin lights and asking the attendants for coffee?
This experience arrangement is not uncommon. Actually 6000+ hours is a lot of experience in airline terms. Pilots do not fly for 40 hours a week! If the pilot had this much experience they should not have had much trouble getting over the Taiwan Strait on a mild day in daylight.
The B747 design requires 3 operators in the cockpit. Two are pilots and actually do the flying. The other guy, the flight engineer (or whatever the newspaper called him), monitors the engines, fuel and navigation. Duties also include some cross check of the other pilots. It is a proper job, but in modern planes there is more automation (think computers!) so only two crew are needed. In this case the guy may have been a very experieced flight engineer, but for some reason had never stepped up to be pilot
Zhukov, I think you should check at least some of your facts before posting what appears to be intended as an informative article…
You can’t open the door of a plane at cruising altitude even if you are strong! The pressure is too high. You do not explain why one might ‘want’ to do this!!
Zhukov:I do not think you would want to do this unless you were like the drunk passenger on some flight to Enlgand two years ago… that had to be restrained from doing it, or unless you had a parachute
Fuel is contained in the wings of planes for engineering reasons. It actually gives them structural support during takeoff (its like a balloon filled with water), and avoids a lot of fuel being close to the passangers.
Zhukov: Fuel is contained within the wings cause that is the only place they could put in and cause it is a long the center of gravity of the plane…and also it stops the engines from vibrating the plane apart
Aerodynamic lift comes almost entirely from the wings. The body of the plane is streamlined but gives little lift.
Zhukov: Not true… that is why the bottom of the plane has got a bulge… true the flaps and the wings give it a lift and stability. but it is also the pressure of the air against the underside
Read:
Wide-Body The Triumph of the 747…its about the develop and design of the Boeing Jumbo Jet
The 747 was designed with four engines, not because they are specifically needed for takeoff, but to enable a ocean crossing to be completed even if two failed. At the time the design was conceived a two engine jet could not run on one engine for the required 4 hours+ to make landfall. This issue has become less important now since engine failure is much rarer now. The two engine 777 is now rated for cross ocean flights and there have been no incidents.
Engines are run at a rating of 105% for some takeoffs, but this is a technical rating and this operation is correct.
If an engine fails on a jet airliner during takeoff and the takeoff cannot be aborted this is not a problem either. Pilots are regularly trained on this procedure, while uncommon it does occur. Try it yourself using “MS Flight Simulator”, the simulation is very accurate! The plane will veer toward the failed engine, but this can be corrected and the takeoff completed. Actually engine failure is most likely during rotation (as the plane turns to take off the ground) since the combination of power and stress on the engine is a maximum and the presentation of the airflow is not perpendicular to the engine’s axis.
Zhukov: Planes bank I thought…like a car on an oval circuit…you only use engines to turn when your rudder is gone… otherwise they are just on… the main stress on a turn is on the tail section
The engine mountings are actually designed to break in a serious engine mechanical failure, allowing it to fall off (!) and the plane to continue to fly.
Zhukov: How do the engine mountings distinguish between a non serious and serious mechnical failure.
And if they can how does the engine that is basically bolted to the plane… come off?
What is your problem with Airbus??? The A330 has never had a fatal event!
Zhukov: Not really any problem…I am just curiuos to why the Pilots Association in the US wanted them all grounded
The other Airbus types (A300, A310, A320) do not have particularly high accident rates, they do however vary somewhat by model. There was certainly some early controvosy about the fly-by-wire systems, not all conducted in the language of engineering, but the ‘bugs’ have been largely ironed out at this point. Regretably CI did not operate the planes correctly, but it does help to read the instructions with most complex technical products.
Your comments about survival in high-altitude incidents appear speculative. Refer to http://www.avweb.com/articles/highalt/
for a more informed discussion. This topic has been well studied and autopsy reports are quite clear
Nothing speculative about that … when you are at 10000M you are dead
I totally couldn’t follow that conversation. Are you guys allergic to the “quote” button? C’mon, make it easier on those of us that are interested in reading the replies. Pleeeeeze?
Sorry Zhukov, i have to agree with Malkie that your post was fairly flawed.
Of course aerodynamic lift comes almost entirely from the wings. Where on earth did you get that claptrap about the “bottom of the plane has got a bulge” and helps generate lift?
And turns are not initiated by a rudder movement, but by ailerons. The rudder and elevators are used in conjunction to control the turn.
Commercial airplane engines are indeed designed to detach from their pylons when they encounter severe abnormal forces. The idea is that in an accident – for example a gear-up landing – if an engine digs into the ground it won’t take the entire wing with it.
And yes they can (and have) accidentally fallen off badly-maintained commercial aircraft during flight in the past.
I flew to Hong Kong that day, the plane must have crashed while I was in HK airport waiting for my flight to San Francisco. My parents were calling China Air to see if I’d gone down on it. Knock on wood, mateys, knock on wood. Thank christ I flew cathay pacific.
Originally posted by wix99:
quote[quote]Hopefully in an attempt to rebuild their image they will now change their name to Taiwan Airlines.[/quote] From [url=http://www.taipeitimes.com/news/2002/05/29/story/0000138061]today's [i]Taipei Times[/i][/url]:Some TSU lawmakers attributed the tragedy to the carrier’s use of the word “China” in its title.
To avoid recurrence of bad luck, TSU legislators Lo Chih-ming, Huang Cheng-che and Lin Chih-lung suggested that the company replace it with the word “Taiwan.”
Oh yeah. That would be a real public relations coup for Taiwan. “You know that airline that keeps having horrific fatal accidents? One of those that has ‘China’ in its name? Well, now you can associate it more directly in your mind with Taiwan. Hooray, Taiwan!”
I hope they do change the name – just not now. (But I wouldn’t expect any airline that wants to make money off the HK route to field a serious proposal to include “Taiwan” in its name.)
“Burning airlines give you so much more.”
quote[quote]Zhukov:I do not think you would want to do this unless you were like the drunk passenger on some flight to Enlgand two years ago.. that had to be restrained from doing it[/quote] I suspect they stopped him, not because he was likely to succeed, but rather because it would terrify the other passangers, especially those not versed in engineering!quote[quote] Planes bank I thought..like a car on an oval circuit..you only use engines to turn when your rudder is gone.. otherwise they are just on.. the main stress on a turn is on the tail section [/quote]Just a check to that we all understand the terms:
Aileron: The flaps on the end of wings.
Rudder: The flap on the vertical part of the tail.
Elevator: The flap on the flat part of the tail.As another writer said, ailerons are used in conjunction with the rudder to steer planes in turns. This is correct. The aileron movement is easy to observe as a passanger!
My point was that engines and their mountings are under the most stress at takeoff. This is because the plane is forced to nose up by hard upward deflection of the elevator. Since the plane is still on the ground the airflow presented to the engine is no longer perpendicular to the face of the engine, while the engine is running at the full power setting. If it is going to go unstable, this is the time it will fail.
This point is actually quite relevant in the development of the 747 since they were so concerned of a 4 engine flame-out on rotation of the new large JT9D engines that batteries were carried on the maiden flight of the plane in case total electrical failure resulted from loss of engine generator output. Perhaps you skipped this chapter of the book?
quote[quote]Zhukov: Fuel is contained within the wings (edited)... and also it stops the engines from vibrating the plane apart[/quote] Really???? So when a plane does a go-around (missed landing) and climb power is reapplied why doesn't the plane vibrate apart or the passengers experience higher vibration than the initial post-takeoff climb? Answer: Jet engines do not create significant low frequency vibrations that are damped by fuel.quote[quote]Zhukov: Not true.. that is why the bottom of the plane has got a bulge.. true the flaps and the wings give it a lift and stability. but it is also the pressure of the air against the underside[/quote] I guess you don't read aerodynamic textbooks, but you could consider the reverse argument: "Why do aircraft designers go to all the trouble of putting wings on the plane?" True some planes are designed as a 'flying wing' (US Steath Bomber for example), but the shape is not the same. For an object to generate dynamic lift it has to be longer over the top than the bottom (so there is a pressure differential).To understand why the actual body shape is chosen, you will have to read the book thought, some factors are aerodynamics (rounded shape), stability (specific bulges and little fins here and there), weather radar location and cockpit view (shape of front), loading distribution (width and length), rotation needed for takeoff (flat at the bottom at the back), strength (tubular shape), APU housing (extension behind tail).
quote[quote]Zhukov: Not really any problem..I am just curiuos to why the Pilots Association in the US wanted them all grounded [/quote] Well that was all about the A300 and a mysterious crash. Wouldn't it be easier to read about it and weigh the matter rather than scaring people by telling them that the A330 is unsafe? A good, non-technical article can be found at: [url=http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/01/25/airbus.pilots/?related]CNN Airbus Coverage[/url] Relatively speaking the A310 has had the most accidents and is higher than similar Boeing models. The A300 has a rather average accident record, but the issue here is there might be a undiagnosed design flaw.
Zhukov, since you still seem to have a rather weak grasp of aerodynamic concepts…
quote:
Planes bank I thought…like a car on an oval circuit…you only use engines to turn when your rudder is gone… otherwise they are just on… the main stress on a turn is on the tail section
Just a check to that we all understand the terms:
Aileron: The flaps on the end of wings.
Rudder: The flap on the vertical part of the tail.
Elevator: The flap on the flat part of the tail.
As another writer said, ailerons are used in conjunction with the rudder to steer planes in turns. This is correct. The aileron movement is easy to observe as a passanger!
Malkie… whatever about the names… the point is still the same…the tail gets stressed not the engines…
My point was that engines and their mountings are under the most stress at takeoff. This is because the plane is forced to nose up by hard upward deflection of the elevator. Since the plane is still on the ground the airflow presented to the engine is no longer perpendicular to the face of the engine, while the engine is running at the full power setting. If it is going to go unstable, this is the time it will fail.
If a plane is climbing at 45 degrees… that does not mean if you draw a line between the nose and the tail that the angle is also 45 degrees… the engines just know how to go in the direction that they are pointed… it is the wings and the UNDERBELLY of the plane being pushed against the air that force the plane up intially, like when have your hand sticking out the window of the car and you incline it against the window… so in a sense its like gravity wants things to go down… the engines want to go forward…and it is the more the wings that want to make the plane go up… the more the angle of the nose and the tail equal the climb angle… the more the engines are pushing it up in the air… so it is three distinct forces acting on the plane… the resultant makes the plane go up…if you carefull ylook at a plane just a take off… it appears not just to be going up but going forward at a different anlge to what the plane is tilted at
I have no doubts that the flaps and the Bernulli (spelling?) exclusion principle work here…but the belly does also give it lift espically when you first pull up the nose
This point is actually quite relevant in the development of the 747 since they were so concerned of a 4 engine flame-out on rotation of the new large JT9D engines that batteries were carried on the maiden flight of the plane in case total electrical failure resulted from loss of engine generator output. Perhaps you skipped this chapter of the book?
yeah but the faster the plane moves the more air the engines can suck in
quote:
Zhukov: Fuel is contained within the wings (edited)… and also it stops the engines from vibrating the plane apart
Really??? So when a plane does a go-around (missed landing) and climb power is reapplied why doesn’t the plane vibrate apart or the passengers experience higher vibration than the initial post-takeoff climb? Answer: Jet engines do not create significant low frequency vibrations that are damped by fuel.
Malkie… but you don’t use the same amount of power for the same amount of time… significant…how do you define significant… so they do produce noise and virbration that the fuel muffles… and believe me if you throttle the plane on an empty tank… it can shake the plane so as to stucturally damage it
quote:
Zhukov: Not really any problem…I am just curiuos to why the Pilots Association in the US wanted them all grounded
Well that was all about the A300 and a mysterious crash. Wouldn’t it be easier to read about it and weigh the matter rather than scaring people by telling them that the A330 is unsafe? A good, non-technical article can be found at:
CNN Airbus Coverage
Relatively speaking the A310 has had the most accidents and is higher than similar Boeing models. The A300 has a rather average accident record, but the issue here is there might be a undiagnosed design flaw.
Malkie I am convinced you work for Airbus or you are French… but still I don’t like flying planes if there is an undiagnosed design flaw… I’d hate to have to get killed to change the “might be” to an “Is”… and if there is a design flaw in one… there probabily is a design flaw in the other…
Zhukov, if you wish to discuss this subject I suggest:
(1) Don’t make inaccurate references to people’s national origins or assumed conflicts of interest. I am not French and I don’t work for Airbus. I just check the facts before I start writing.
(2) Learn how to use the ‘quote’ feature of this Web board. Your posts are a confusing mix of what I have written and your own comments.
It might be nice to discuss this topic, and why your many lay observations are actually in many cases misunderstandings. Aeronautics and airline operation is a well studied engineering discipline, but it is highly theoretical and difficult to communicate to those not versed in such matters. The interesting thing to me is why people assume they understand it all and then spread this misinformation, rather than seek the less sensational but correct answer?