Bob's dreaded "Seven engine approach"

"the engine departed the aircraft"

Maybe next time tighten the bolts?

I have no idea how those are built but as I recall they had 4 dual engine pods and each pod is an integrated unit. Does that mean the engine left the pod in much the same way a torpedo was launched from a PT boat tube? That must have been something to see.

 

The only way that I can think that this could happen was that all 4 mounting bolts, that are pretty huge, came undone all at once. The other scenario would be the fatigue failure of the forward mount that has the thrust link in it and then a progressive failure of the aft mount that is nothing but a stabilizing mount to hold up the aft end of the engine. That's what I can remember from 1952 so I might be a little off. I'm going to dig through some things to see if I can find something.

 

Well having a pretty good idea of the chain of custody of written articles, editors etc and taking into account the technical understanding of your average journalist I wonder if it lost an entire pylon? The torpedo thing was the only alternative I came up with. As far as the fuel line parting I considered that as well but it still depends on the specifics of the fuel supply system. I can see a situation where it may continue to make power for a couple of seconds and that may be enough. If that is indeed the case they are very lucky it cleared the aircraft or we may well be reading an account of a bunch of people wondering why we lost a B52 out in farm country.

Then again it might have gone out backwards but the pictures I have seen of most fan motors I wouldn't think that was possible. Like I said, I don't know how they are built but I still like the image of the torpedo launch.

 

I was just about to post this.

When I first read this article a few min ago I thought "I bet then accidentally dropped a nuke and using this to cover it up."

After reading Command and Control I may be a bit of a conspiracy theorist though.

GT

 

"MINOT AIR FORCE BASE, N.D. — A catastrophic engine failure is the likely cause of a Jan. 4 incident in which a B-52 lost one of its eight engines, top Air Force leaders confirmed to Defense News on Thursday."

Air Force Secretary: Catastrophic Engine Failure Likely to Blame for Minot B-52 Mishap

Good article, I think.

--Carter

 

OK, so, the engine didn't unbolt itself and fly off in the wild blue yonder. It had an uncontained failure and shook itself out of its mounts. Where was the flight engineer? Taking his turn shooting the tail gun? He didn't catch this on his panel until the EGT dropped to zero because the thermocouple got ripped off?

 

I speculate that it was an entire pod.
If one engine in a pod had a catastrophic failure and blew it's guts out you can bet it took the other engine with it.
I would put long odds on the "good" engine remaining with the airplane under these circumstances.
I would bet it happened pretty quickly too.

 

I'm guilty of short sighted assumption. The engine mounts are titanium and some aluminum forgings. They have to take something like 15000 pounds of loading going in several directions, if I remember, and then the thrust of 100% on take off. The mounting points on the engine are on circumferential rings on the case so if the engine disintegrates internally and destroys the case, it's going to come off the mounts in a formation of large pieces, I would think. I believe that it would be pretty instantaneous. Some more of my ramblings.

 

No flight engineer on the B-52 and the H only has a 4 man crew since there is no gunner. Not much to monitor on turbofans. Oil pressure and maybe temperature (not on all), rpm, TIT (my favorite for some reason), bleeds. Pilots do that. The navs and EWO/ECO have limited instrumentation.

 

That B-52 stuff has gotten pretty old and obscure now and I shouldn't make vast statements when I have half vast info but I have seen spool seizures on a smaller engine and all of that rotation energy has to be expended somewhere and it goes into the case.

 

If they would just do the right thing and put four F138 (CF6) engines on them, these problems would go away. I mean, how long can you keep ancient J57s properly operating?

 

There are clearance issues on the outboard engines, too, if a re-engine were done..