Getting a 787 back in the air after a diversion
flightradar24.com
flightradar24.com
Naturally, they were the best mechanics Boeing had.
An airplane makes money only when it is flying. When it is sitting on the ground, it loses money at a prodigious rate. A large focus of the engineering on the 757 I worked on was to keep that airplane flying as much as possible.
I understand that Microsoft has a similar crew they can dispatch to any customer to get their business software working again. This is how Microsoft is able to successfully compete against free software.
The word "payload" is not a misnomer :-)
It really is a great systems thinking story. Set the overall context and goal and then figure out how to optimize for the thing that drives results.
Kelleher (a lawyer by training) ran a private practice while litigating a 3-year lawsuit against airline incumbents at the time... before Southwest flew its first flight in Texas.
And when asked "Why?" As in, why didn't you stop, return to law, or do something easier, he basically said "Because it didn't seem fair. Or right. That they could keep us from flying."
I'm sure he had his fair share of sharp business decisions, but he came across as a truly great human being.
[0] https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/national-public-radio/how-i...
The highest revenue per hour route is JFK to Heathrow at $24,639 [1]. A 787-800 costs about $8000/hr [2]. So that's about $277/min of revenue. Yeah, $125/min sounds about right for an average route.
My understanding is that very few airlines outright own their planes.
For example, conventional wisdom is that owning your own home outright is a Good Thing. But if mortgage interest rates are low, taking out a mortgage and investing in something that pays more than that interest rate is a Better Thing.
Yes, but there's extra risk that way. That strategy depends on either the investment returning enough every month to pay the mortgage for that month, or another funding source (like a salary) being available every month to do so. If for some reason neither are available on a given month, you risk losing your home.
But speaking globally, I would say you’re likely right. The majority of airlines are very heavily leveraged and as soon as the economy softens we’ll see at least a few casualties again.
https://www.google.com/search?q=Worlds+Toughest+Fixes+S01+E0...
I know people who do this kind of work, but are they really the best? - As long you hold a screwdriver in your hand, you are No.2 in salary. - Family, your child has birthday, something to show you in school or sport? Forget it, 5 minutes before it starts, you get always a call. So you have no family (anymore). - 9 to 5 nah.. more like 9 plus 5 hours to work a day. - Friends, forget it you don't have any. But of course they have storys to tell. But why would you choose a such life?
And one of the more difficult things when you're that sort of person is finding a rewarding challenge up to your skills.
Or as a president once quipped, "Why does Rice play Texas?"
Because it is hard.
There is a saying that these teams are dispatched by private jet and consist of 8 executives and 2 engineers.
If you do a really good job at handling the communication separation the business relationship is stronger after and each side better understands one another’s needs and motivations. My foot in mouth moment ended up turning into a larger business arrangement because the CEO turned it into a positive experience.
While not a universally perfect negotiating book, I’ve found “Never Split the Difference” to be an interesting tome on making the best of adversarial business situations.
The fact that much of what we say, especially in times of stress, isn't what we really care about is easy to miss in actual practice.
Yikes well I work for a large corporation that uses tons of Microsoft software, and we use their dispatch team constantly. Granted, we are probably one of their largest customers. It's great to have such a resource. But the fact that we need it doesn't speak well for Microsoft -- I would prefer if we didn't need such a dispatch team on a constant basis.
Before Microsoft, computers crashing was not considered an ordinary, everyday occurrence. I still recall my shock, back in the '90s, when I remarked to a Windows user that Unix didn't crash all the time, and he remarked that he went months without reinstalling. I learned that "crash" had been redefined!
Microsoft really needs that emergency crew. What says more is that most people who call them don't need to call other crews.
I don't know about your experience, but in my circles there was real tension between upgrading to a current kernel release, vs. maintaining your 180+ days uptime. I "apt dist-upgrade"-ed for well over a decade without a failure, through a half-dozen generations of host hardware.
Only during the period when the i915 display driver was still buggy did I ever have failures. Even then, I could SSH in.
So, compared to needing to reboot twice a day (common) or twice a week (lucky), and never once needing to reinstall, yes, it was extremely stable.
https://www.amazon.com/The-Long-Way-Home-Revised-ebook/dp/B0...
The article was from 2016, and the question you want to be asking is, "how often should a 2 year old 787 be having engine issues requiring unplanned diversion?" and is AA's maintenance regime causing them to encounter these situations more than is expected?
What you will generally find is that because of labor costs in the US, and the thin maintenance margins that our carriers are incentivized to follow (partly also because penalties for stranding passengers is quite low), these kinds of diversions are more frequent than other airlines operating better-maintained long-haul routes.
Things are always breaking on airplanes. How much proactive maintenance is conducted is up to the airline, and determines how much builds up before 1 out of many issues on the minimum equipment list rises enough to ground the aircraft. It's quite an active decision for an airline, actually. In this case, AA maintenance probably made a decision (under all the other constraints they face) to fly the 787 to Shanghai (where they don't have a full maintenance depot) with some marginally performing or slightly-overdue-for-recommended-replacement engine part. And then on the return the strategy backfired.
Consider that when you wonder, "is it just me, or why does airline X seem to have so many more delays and aircraft swaps than others?"
...?
Also: on the first page, second paragraph of the special coverage, what does "Check Airman" mean?
One story that stands out is he asked a local worker to warm up the APU. The worker proceeded to build a fire under the APU, destroying it. What he meant was start it up and let it run until it reaches operating temperature.
How cold should it be before you use it? Ask the internet:
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/amp/globe-drive/culture/comm...
Most cars do start though. It’s really a maintenance issue, where it’s bad for your car to start it at -30 (as the linked article says). In my experience, a newer car in decent shape will start consistently.
Block heaters are a must in that environment.
In addition to less engine wear, it also works wonders for fuel consumption and makes the car comfortably warm in a couple of minutes.
Electric cars have the standard advice to leave them plugged in overnight in cold areas.
I had to use a block heater (and battery heater) a number of times. But once I moved to a late 80’s car, I almost never had to use the block heater.
And yes, some airplane engines use gas but the majority of them runs something that in constituency is closer to regular diesel than to gas.
Kersone is #1 diesel!
AV gas is another matter entirely but I'm not aware of any jet that would use it, though that might be a fun thing, and given that turbines can run on almost anything combustible it will probably work to some extent but I don't think it will be a happy ending unless the engine is really designed for it.
Btw, this is an interesting start-up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESdHyNtHpqs not cold weather but I'd hate to fly that in any conditions.
Still, I imagine that was a "light fire, move away" procedure!
Sure, small ones with piston engines. Sure. Most anything running a turbine uses Jet-A which is closer to kerosene / diesel than gasoline.
If you're leaking fuel you've got bigger problems than how to safely heat up the engine.
(There were some, late in the war, but only just. Otherwise, all aircraft were piston-driven, running avgas, a/k/a petrol / gasoline.)
Afterburner light-ups were limited by the availability of TEB aboard.
Hydrazine + nitrous oxide could be fine though, but better check first before use. ;-)
The WWII Liberty Ships utilised a triple-expansion steam engine, fired by bunker fuel. Both the expended steam and the boilers were used to fluidise the fuel to flowable tempertures -- the steam circulating either through or around the feed tanks, and the fuel line itself passing through the boiler and flame trench before final injection.
There are two remaining Liberty Ships in the US -- the John W. Brown in Baltimore, and the Jeremiah O'Brien in San Francisco.
Pay a visit and one of the engine-room crew can tell you the details.
The generaly kluginess and hackiness of the design instantly brought to mind what many software projects I've worked on might look like if physically instantiated. Though the Liberty Ship design is by far the more robust and useful than most.
The engine and gear oil would freeze solid. Required fires under differentials, oil pans, etc. just to get the oil liquid again.
They stripped everything off the airplane they could. Seats, interiors, galleys, everything. They put in just enough fuel to hop over the trees to Heathrow. He said they did it, but barely.
The interesting thing is that „the end of the runway“ is actually a major river.
And a Vuelling flight almost made the same mistake two years ago (but today it would be less critical as they have extended the runway to accommodate A380s some time ago).
How did you find it?
The engine sump was incredibly heavy; when inquiring as to why, I was told the idea was that you could light a (small!) fire under it to make it easier to get the engine cranking in severe cold.
That's Soviet engineering for you!
* ETOPS: Extended-range Twin-engine Operational Performance Standards; jokingly referred to as "Engines Turn Or Passengers Swim"
They check out other pilots and write procedures.
Airframe manufacturers like Airbus and Boeing have similar teams (AOG – Aircraft on Ground). The logistics and skills are just staggering. Delta dented a 757 pretty hard in Azores last year and had it patched up and back in the US pretty darn quickly. Stuff like this is exactly why neither the Russians nor Chinese are any threat to the Airbus/Boeing hegemony.
Small Planes Over Big Oceans (ETOPS Explained) (2017) [video]
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7504393/American-ai...
Some emergency situations will have the plane fly back to its origin even if there are closer airports (source: have been in one), some others will have you land at the closest airport period even if might not be 100% suitable.
Wasn't long ago a 747 flying over the North pole had all four engines fail simultaneously. Fortunately, conditions at 20,000 ft were better, and they got them restarted.
GE actually managed to figure out what went wrong and made sure it couldn't happen again. Makes me think they sort of knew it could happen, but the conditions seemed too unlikely.
The plane doesn't just fly nicely with one engine, it will yaw and become much less stable. You will also usually be descending (drift down procedure) because the single engine service ceiling is lower than normal cruise. And the autopilot doesn't work so you're flying manually, for all of the diversion.
You really don't want to be doing that any longer than necessary. You have also no redundancy left, so continuing means you're increasing risks. Even more so because you'll increase your remaining engine to max continuous power stressing it more than usual.
https://thepointsguy.com/2017/12/last-call-alaska-american-a...
If the FAA wanted to prioritize safety, it would still require the use of four-engined planes, as it used to for most long ocean routes. The desire to fly twin-engine planes over the ocean is entirely driven by a desire to maximize airline profits.
Admittedly, it does appear that modern twin-engine planes are reliable enough that it's not entirely crazy. But it would only take a couple of fatal engine failures to make it seem really dumb in retrospect.
People are weirdly dogmatic around this ETOPs rule change by the FAA. There is almost no one questioning it and yet the entire motivation is purely monetary. The FAA and airlines continue to push the limits further and further.
That intuitively makes sense, but it's incorrect. The FAA certified twin engines over water because it's safer. Half the number of engines mean half the failures, and half the risk of cascaded failures from the failing engines.
Statistics bear this out. Twin engines are safer.
You'll probably have to do some processing, but the answer should be in there!
The main motivation is money, that's true, but the secondary motivation, the environment is also important and the math really does work out to a negligible safety difference (advantage twins) that to date has not led to the observation of numbers that would indicate a deviation from the predicted reliability figures.
Finally, the chances of something going wrong on a twin engined aircraft vs a quad are higher for the quad because it is a much more complex system. So yes, if an engine fails a four engined plane would be able to deal with it better but the chances of something going wrong are twice as high.
In the 60's, when the 747 was designed the reliability of jet engines was such that four engines was more or less a must but we are now a good 50 years away from those days and our ability to deal with complex reliability issues has gone up substantially (recent Boeing issues notwithstanding). The A380 has four engines because it is simply too heavy to take off with only two engines.
Engine shutdown is so rare now that pilots can go a whole career without encountering it even once and typically it is the monitoring system that has a fault rather than the engine itself but you would shut down the engine anyway in those situations as a precaution.
I could build a jet engine in my garage and the FAA wouldn't let me fly 270 minutes away from an airport with paying passengers on it just because I made four of them. Certification is always going to be important.
Why not research a thing BEFORE deciding you have a strong opinion about it?
These failures are really, really rare. A very conservative approximation would be one in 100,000 flights. (That would be once every other day in the US, for reference. Like I said, conservative) That means you'll have both engines fail randomly every 100,000,000,000 flights, which frankly no one cares about.
Carrying around an extra engine for the 1 in 100+ Billion situation it'll be useful isn't a good idea. It'll probably kill more people than it saves, for that matter - how many extra compressor disks will be thrown into cabins because of that?
I doubt the US President will be flying on a twin-engine plane any time soon. They'll choose the safest (American made) option. Probably an updated 747 model, no?
The president flies a 747 for size and prestige more than safety. Safest option would be to recommission an Iowa and use it as an armed ocean liner or something and skip planes entirely. Or just to stay home.
They also fly on Marine One (helicopter) which is probably less safe overall than any modern airliner.
2 engines: You need to install and carry 200% of the engine power needed to fly the plane.
3 engines: You need to install and carry 150% of the engine power needed to fly the plane.
4 engines: You need to install and carry 133% of the engine power needed to fly the plane.
It is really quite interesting that twin-engine planes are cheaper to operate than planes with more engines. The engines in twin-engine planes should be larger and thus more expensive in every way. It seems that larger engines must be discounted somehow, either by the manufacturer or by the maintenance crews, or that there is a scaling factor that hugely effects efficiency of large passenger jet engines.
For example, are maintenance costs dominated by paperwork? That could be enough to overcome the extra expense of needing powerful equipment to lift and otherwise manipulate the parts of a huge engine.
Further, larger engines are more efficient than smaller ones. You pretty much want to install the largest engines you can fit. It’s the underlying reason for the 737 Max debacle.
I see no evidence that larger engines are more efficient than smaller ones. Larger total frontal area (counting all engines together) is more efficient, as is a higher bypass ratio. Both of those tend to lead toward larger engines, but you could leave those unchanged while modifying the number of engines.
For example, switching from 2 engines to 8 engines, you could maintain the same frontal area by changing the diameter from 10 feet to 5 feet. The bypass ratio, which is the portion of air that bypasses the combustion, could be 12-to-1 or 10-to-1 or whatever, and need not change with engine diameter.
You're right, and that's why 787s with Rolls Royce engines had their ETOPS certification reduced from 330 minutes to 140 or 180 depending on which version of the engine the frame has.
ETOPS is not just some rubber stamp for a particular model of airplane that manufacturers self-certify (hello, 737 MAX debacle), but rather a process applied to (airframe, engine, airline). You have to service particular engines to particular standards to be allowed to fly ETOPS, and it depends on the airline. I could go to the store, buy a 777 and hire 4 ATPs and fly a 777... but I wouldn't be allowed to fly it ETOPS, for example.
All in all, the program seems massively successful to me. It saves fuel, which means cheaper flights and less CO2 being generated. That's a good thing. The main downside seems to be medical emergencies; I remember some stories about the aircraft that flew EWR-SIN... it has some special corpse compartments to stash away the inevitable deaths that occurred 9 hours away from an airport. (It had 4 engines, but engines don't perform heart surgery on passengers.)
The reality is that engines are pretty reliable. 2 is the right number.
If we add many safety bells and whistles to planes, it would mean nobody could afford flying. If people couldn't afford it, they'd use other transportation methods. Those methods might be more dangerous than flying. So it wouldn't actually increase the safety of travellers. Oceanliners and cars are far from 100% safe, for example.
If flying commercial over oceans, it is either ETOPS, A380, or a current type of 747 (747-8).
I personally think that any additional safety effort ought to be put into making cars safer, and not just safer for the occupants, but safer for the poor SOBs who they run into. I mean, sure, I'm not saying we should decrease airplane regulation (except maybe in the security theatre bits) but I think there's a lot more to be gained, safety wise, by regulating cars more than by regulating airplanes more.