B-777 short landing at Heathrow

The ETOP battle brings back memories of the relentless string of meetings, talking among our own and talking to airline customers to convince them that it was workable. Then, typical of the breed, one airline guy piped up and said," I know what ETOPS means. Simple. Engines Turn Or People Swim."
The 777 is the greatest jet airliner ever and many airline crews refer to it as the WGA----World's Greatest Airplane.
Swiches

 

I think that you are absolutely correct.
Switches

 

I suppose you could look at it that way.

Are these A/C fueled from single source? Seems overly redundant on the one hand, and perfectly moronic to rely on one Chinese teenager to fuel a 200M Euro Aircraft.[/QUOTE]

Well it isn't a Chinese teenager. And the fuel source is the same for ALL the airplanes. Fuel was NOT the problem or else we would have heard about it from other flights.

 

I should have been a little more specific re: fuel. If the 777 is at least
redundant, if not more so, wouldn't it be advisable to isolate fuel systems?
All that work to isolate and protect at least one system, and the powerplants sip from a common well? Fuel is the easiest resource to wrench, if one is of a mind to, and blockading one engine from a corrupt energy source would seem wise. Just askin'. You seem a little defensive, I hope not on my account. Anyone driving a vehicle that large and mysterious is entitled to understood respect, if not Awe.

 

All it takes is money.

Yeah but then you are talking about two different infrastructures. And how far back on the chain do you go? The supplier? Refinery? It just isn't an issue. Quality control is very good when it comes to aviation fuel.

Maybe so. Not intentional. But people on other boards came up with some really outlandish theories that demonstrated their total lack of knowledge of how the whole system works. After so much of that, it is kind of hard NOT to get at least a little defensive.

 

I just ran out of them

 

I'm on a Brit site for aero engineers. The New Buzz re: 777 LHR? A company pilot was on a mobile frequency on a separate aircraft giving pass. intro. when his transmission ended up on the P/A in the cabin of the incident airplane: just as #1 failed to spool up. It was heard by several people in the Boeing and is being entertained as a poss/contrib. factor if not the actual cause. I wouldn't repeat this but for the solid source. I can look up the comment if anyone wants to read it. In radio/micro trans., freqs. that are discrete can end up where they don't belong, due to energy/proximity issues.

 

The latest from BA re: LHR 777. According to company, Fuel tanks nothing significant, fuel still being tested. The main thing is, the A/C was Autoland, and a security phone (one of the Prime Minister's people) was trans. under Glideslope 27L. The ECM signal corrupted the GS signal, and the panel displayed an artificially Low G/S signal. Autoland read this and pulled power to both and dropped the nose (to acquire the "Glideslope"). By the time F/O started to hand fly, it was too late. Maybe you know this already. Because the Prime Minister was aboard another A/C waiting for clearance, and it is one of his people who may be responsible for the incident, and the Govt. and BA are feuding, this is better than a novel.

bill

 

LOL Turf wars.

I hadn't heard details, but I saw a general statement about this. It makes more sense that most of the theories I have seen. But from 500 feet, there should have been enough time to "save the day" so to say. I guess we will find out in due time.

IF this does turn out to be true, I think more effort should be made to insulate the airplane and GS signal from outside interference.

Greg

 

500AGL should be ample and it raise questions if this theory is accurate, and I'm certainly not saying it is. Pilots reported loss of power then a manual command and acquisition of full thrust for 5 seconds from 2 and 8 seconds from 1, before second spool-down. I'm way out of my depth here, but how long to acquire manual from A/L? What do the power excursions indicate (Theoretically), and could the continued corrupted G/S (other) play into difficulty exiting Autoland? What's the override/Radar Altimeter sensing have to say about playing tag with Autoland in a dire time frame like this one?

Then again, those Brits have a very well developed sense of humor. I'm so thankful no one was seriously hurt, the bird looks like a total to me.

 

About a nanosecond. The auto pilot disconnect switch on the yoke will disconnect the autopilot and by default disconnect autoland.

No idea, really.

Doubtful since disconnecting the autopilot will automatically disconnect autoland.

Override? Not sure what you mean on that one.

Radar Altimeter only really comes into play for the flare maneuver. At 500 feet, it really isn't in play yet.

 

Well it's not flattering to Mr. Coward, the F/O, but what happens if he tries to power up w/o A/P disconnect?

By the way, thank you for donating your time here, it isn't often accurate
information is so readily available, especially on the Net.

bill

 

Well, the airplane will fly down the glideslope faster. But there are two sets of buttons on the throttles and one set on the yoke. The button on the yoke disconnects the autopilot and the two on the throttles disconnect the autothrottles and initiates a go around. In this scenario, what "should" have happened is when the airplane started to do a strange thing, the pilot would push the TO/GA buttons and the autopilot/autothrottles would have initiated a go around. If that wasn't happening, the pilot would have clicked off the autopilot and autothrottles and manually flown out. It really takes no time at all to do all that.

LOL. Understand. Glad I actually know something about it.

 

Nothing earthshaking, but everything has coalesced into discussions about The three types of fuel the A/C may have been refueled with, the fuel system itself, including drains and ERR printouts recorded on the Flight Data Recorder. Only two small items to report that aren't concerned with fuel. First, the A/C supposedly exited AutoPilot two miles out, which upsets some theories about AutoThrottle malfunction, and the Glideslope corruption may have been caused by a Jammer, a device the PrimeMinister's SecOps people deploy to prevent Bad people from triggering IED's. The Aircraft Accident Investigation Board (The Brit's NTSB counterpart) says to expect a preliminary report within 48 hours. Meanwhile my contacts at UAL and AMR are describing rather frantic and expensive excursions into Fueling ops and quality protocols, with an eye to developing a tighter rein on potential Fueling challenges.

bill

 

LLoyd's cut a check to BA several days ago, the A/C is a total loss. The Insurance ramifications are fascinating, but go elsewhere, too involved to explain here. Try PPrune.com. Or one of the Aero sites.

(All my info is to be met with a standard level of skepticism, I get it from others, whose dependability is variable, to say the least. "But I saw it on this Website", lol.)

 

I have heard of a possible fuel contamination, I guess the only take fuel sample once every 1000 flight hours in the 777, per Boeing.

 

777 requires a "Daily" sump, but pragmatically, it isn't done. Don't know what a 1000 hour sample is, but in Beijing, it was below zero on the ramp before take off, and the A/C was "cold-soaked". Checking a drain can mean instantly frozen water, a stuck open sump and fuel all over the deck. Fuel issues are FUEL issues; right now, the focus is on type/quality and "freezing" or "waxing" fuel resulting from continued flight at -70C. The rub is that the A/C had descended, and ice issues should have resolved. It is a very long discussion, and I just reached my limit of understanding of the issue; The authority should issue something soon, one would hope.

bill

 

I have been told that ice in the tanks is an issue under investigation. I was under the impression that there are boost pump heaters but they have to be activated for a certain length of time before let down.
Switches

 

Interesting points I've seen made elsewhere.

1. The 777 manual requires moving fuel to the center tank before refueling ("uplifting") the outer (wing tanks). There are three tanks total. But only if the "EICAS" (computer status bank) directs the crew to do this due to "Icing" issues.

2. Boost pumps mix and heat fuel in the tanks during flight, but "icing", "waxing" can occur at "layers" in the tank, away from this action.

3. The "A.D." from the FAA regarding icing in engines was applicable to the G.E. 90's, not the RR Trent. And, as Greg Bockelman has pointed out, this was an external ice ingestion scenario, unrelated to Fuel or engine deficiencies.

4. The coldest tropospheric ambient air temperatures are above the tropical latitudes, the warmer ones above the Poles. (News to me).And counter intuitive

5. Icing has to do with liquid water, present in the tank or transiting to the powerplants, freezing, and blocking fuel flow.
this can happen anywhere, but generally occurs in bad places like filters, by-passes, valves, and narrow passages.

6. Waxing has to do with Fuel changing properties that disturb its viscosity, portability, volatility, flammability, etc. These are separate issues but occur at extremely low temperatures, far colder than the freezing point of liquid water.

 

I would like to see the reference on that. Because we only get upper air temperature charts on POLAR routes when the temperature is cold enough to be an issue. Flying anything OTHER than Polar is just not an issue.

 

but interesting, nonetheless. I found it on Prune, ex 777 pilot and RAAF F/B111 pilot talking OAT at 37,500 plus.

PPruNe.com

 

Hope this works.

Planeflyr
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An AA 777-200 suffered one engine failing to respond to increase thrust commands on approach to LAX a couple of days ago.

American investigates as 777 engine fails to respond to throttle

 

.............cough cough ...............Lucas Electrics........................cough cough..............