Another 777 emergency landing for engine failure

Off-topic on:
Wait until Thursday or Friday, we may have another announcements
Off-topic off.

 

My wife and I have been in self imposed 'lock down" for some time. I had my vax some time ago via the VA and finally my 84 year old wife will get her first shot in 3 days. We have had a ***** of a time getting her scheduled when we don't have a smart phone, an app, and all the other cyber gimmicks that have been thrown into the process. Even our computer didn't help very much with some. Just one of many things that keep an old fart too busy with things like income tax, and fending off all the on-line creeps tying to steal your money.

 

Jim,

As far as I know, and according to the sources I have, the new designation system for military aeroplanes, introduced in 1940, was not inspired by a desire for more logic: it came as a consequence of the purges.
After all, it could be argued that the “old” system was more logical, as the letters used corresponded to the mission of the aeroplane, exactly like in the United States’ system = “I” for Istrebitel (fighter) just like the “P” of the USAAC, “B” for “bombardirovchtchik”, “Bomber”, with another letter giving the specifics of the mission (exemple “DB” = Dalniy Bomber, long-range bomber, “PB” = Pikiryouchtchia Bombardirovchtchik = Dive Bomber etc…)

To sum it up, and trying to stay brief:
in January 1939, Stalin held an extraordinary meeting at the Kremlin with politicians, the military, aviation designers and constructors to draw conclusions on the “failure of soviet aviation and aeroplanes during the spanish civil war”. He considered soviet aviation to have been badly outclassed in Spain and laid the blame on the “designers of the old guard, who lack understanding of modern aviation and lack ambition”; he specifically named Tupolev, Polikarpov and Petlyakov (it should be noted that some of these designers at the time were already in prison, or about to be arrested).

He said that he wanted a “rejuvination of soviet aviation and aviation industry, we have to get rid of the past and start anew”, and that explains why a new designation system for military aeroplanes was adopted in January 1940, which was based on the one already in use for civil aviation (for instance, Tupolev civil aeroplanes had been designated by his initials, “ANT” (ANdreï Tupolev).

About the three designers Stalin mentioned as "the old Guard":

Polikarpov escaped arrest and conviction (but he had already been sentenced to death in 1929 for failure with the project of a wooden aeroplane…); in 1938 he created his design bureau, but was ordered to visit Germany for an “observation mission” in 1939; when he came back, he found that his Design Bureau had been taken from him and given to Artiom Mikoyan, whose brother, Anastas, was a high ranking senior politician close to Stalin.

Along with many other engineers and designers, Petlyakov and Tupolev were sent to prison (Tupolev was tortured and forced to admit forged charges).
Those who were imprisoned were under obligation of forced labor in the TsKB-29-NKVD department, in various special research bureaus designated STO for “SpetsTekhOdyel”, “special technical department”. By coincidence the acronym “STO” reads as the Russian word “sto”, which means “hundred” (= 100). Therefore, the aeroplanes designed by those held in captivity received a number in the “100” series, Petlyakov’s being “100”, Myasichtchev “102” and Tupolev “103”. They weren’t authorized to use their name, as they had lost the rights to, by having been “convicted”.

In forced labor:
- Petliakov worked on his “Samolet 100”, or “Sotka” (a common expression for “hundred”, derivated from “sto”), which became the “Pe-2” once Petliakov was pardoned in 1941 just before his death in a crash; he had been arrested in 1938 but no specific charges could be found against him; he was nevertheless kept in jail, but never had a formal condamnation.
- Andreï Tupolev worked on what was to him his “Samolet 58”, but was known officially as “aeroplane 103”, then “103U” once modified, and then, after Tupolev was “pardoned” in april 1942, as the Ty-2.
(Tupolev’s conviction was very serious: he had been arrested in 1937 and sentenced to death for having, among other things: “trying to create a National-Socialist Party in the USSR”, and also for a charge of espionage, “having sold to Germany the plans of an aeroplane that was to become the Messerschmitt 110”…his sentence was immediately commuted to life emprisonment. Of course both charges were forged; it has been said that Stalin had a personal grudge against him since a meeting about the ANT-40, to become the SB Bomber, when Tupolev frankly objected to Stalin’s criticism of the second prototype’s defaults that these were “not material, but only banal”; Stalin, astonished, had answered “But there is nothing banal in aviation, everything is serious and what you call a banality could very well lead to the loss of the aeroplane and its crew”)

Rgds

 

Good to know, Bob, so both of you will be protected. Yes, in many ways our life has become dependent on cybergimmicks. After four months of continuous teleworking now, I am slowly becoming a cyber-individual myself: I have not seen a collegue in the flesh for the last four months; in fact, almost not seen one for the last twelve months, if we except a slightly more relaxed period in the summer between two lock-downs.

Rgds

 

Bob- I feel for you and Judy. Jan and I get our second shot this Friday, 5 March. Tennessee is currently doing folks 65 and older and teachers.

 

Dear Bob, at least your wife is finally on the list!

For once, New Mexico is #1 in something! As of 2/26/21 CDC notes:

“New Mexico has administered the highest percentage of COVID-19 vaccines it has received, according to the CDC's COVID-19 vaccine distribution and administration data tracker.

New Mexico
Doses distributed to state: 738,705
Doses administered: 705,538
Percentage of distributed vaccines that have been administered: 95.51%”

HelenAnn and I (84 & 85) received our second Pfizer vaccinations eleven days ago with only very minor shoulder pain for a day or so. Yesterday the entire county of Santa Fe had only two new positive cases, yet we are still locked down fairly severely. Oh well, one of these days…

Best regards,

Robert

 

Some interesting stuff here. I think it's obvious that Stalin's purges of aircraft designers were highly counter-productive, and that his purges in general almost resulted in the the Germans conquering the country when they invaded in 1941. Considering that Petlyakov and Tupolev were both in prison, it's interesting the Petlyakov's Pe-8 design was really Tupolev's!

 

I don't have a smartphone, either, Bob, so you're not the only one. But I have gotten both my shots, and I attribute that in part due to the fact that I live in a state where lockdowns are left to the individual and not mandated by government. As far as I'm concerned, both the governor of Washington and the mayor of Seattle are morons who deserve to be kicked out of office, along with their Oregon and Portland counterparts. (I see that a number of Oregon counties are threatening to secede from the state and become part of Idaho!) I wish you and your wife well.

 

Yes, because before having its own design bureau, Petlyakov worked initially for, and/or Under, Tupolev, in Tupolev’s design bureau. When the Tupolev OKB was given the program in 1934, Andreï Tupolev put Petlyakov in charge of the team of designers that worked on it.
As a project, what was to become the Pe-8 was initially called "ANT-42", for « ANdreï Tupolev », then « TB-7 », « TB » for Тяжёлый Бомбардировщик, Tyazholy Bombardirovschik= Heavy Bomber.

Been doing further reading and fact checking yesterday night: both Tupolev and Petlyakov were arrested at the same time, in October 1937, at the height of the “great purge”.

Rgds

 

It's good to know that some of you are protected. As for new positive cases, stay careful: you never know...
In our neck of woods (I use "our" because F-Chatter "Nicolas21" above & myself are in some kind of "lock-down" only six miles apart) we were under "average" conditions and contamination numbers in the "départment" (= more or less a county, if you like) until contaminations started to litteraly explode about a month ago. Nobody understood why, nor did anybody understood why these new cases were only from the new "South-African" variant, which is much more contagious; how was it possible? Last week, the national scientific advisory board made public a report dated from february 12th, which says that it seems very probable that the variant was imported by one man from the military, at the end of January, when he came back from Mayotte in the indian ocean. One man has contaminated a whole department...

Rgds

 

Typhoid Mary, for sure, and he was not even working in food service.