IAF747, on 14 Jul 2013 - 10:39 AM, said:

I honestly believe that the Lithium-ion batteries are highly flammable and are impossible to stop burning once on fire. They are unstable and this is a scientific fact. Read the links I posted above.

What you--and you are clearly not a scientist or an engineer--honestly believe isn't really relevant. There are people who honestly believe that Elvis lives, but that certainly doesn't make it so. The links are to old articles written before the engineering fixes were applied and tested. And Popular Mechanics--hardly a peer-reviewed scientific publication--is comparing consumer-grade lithium batteries using a different chemistry to the ones on a 787...and even worse, trying to draw some connection between a cargo fire incident where a shipment of consumer appliance batteries caught fire while they just happened to be loaded on an aircraft.

 

IAF747, on 14 Jul 2013 - 10:39 AM, said:

It is a workaround because the engineers that designed it thought it was fine. And they were probably told they were keeping it anyway.

Poppycock. You have absolutely no idea what the engineers who designed it thought about it--especially after the two fires, or what they were told, yet you spout out this malarkey like it's an established fact.

 

Fact is, this isn't a workaround--it's a major, permanent redesign of the battery pack.

 

 

IAF747, on 14 Jul 2013 - 10:39 AM, said:

If fires are happening on brand new aircraft and it is because of the design, and taking into account the aircraft is losing customers because it is three years too late and Boeing can't afford delaying their customers any more, I would say Boeing has ultimately locked themselves in and won't change it unless forced to. Whether that be a hull loss on the ground or in flight which would be more shocking and definitely make a lot of people launch a court case against Boeing, or just a series of more fires, it is only speculative. In any case I could be wrong. But the facts are the 787 is not suffering teething problems, but very serious safety issues that call the aircraft's safety into question.

The battery design was changed--significantly. They put a pile of money and manpower on it, and tested the redesigned unit extensively. Then they had to get approval from a sceptical FAA and CAA. There have been no repeats of the previous problems on any of the redesigned units. Your speculation that Boeing would knowingly risk peoples' lives by putting a system into service with a known propensity to cause a fire borders on libel. And what you call "facts" here are not relevant facts at all, such as conflating consumer-grade lithium chloride battery packs (which contain cheap mass-production charge control circuits) with a redesigned lithium cobalt pack that was recently the subject of one of the most concentrated re-engineering efforts undertaken in the aerospace industry since the Apollo program.

 

You have it in your head that because two fires occurred in the original battery packs, that no battery design with lithium cells is acceptable. Were the industry to work using this sort of logic, we'd have junked the JT-3 jet engine on the B-707 the first time one caught on fire (and a whole bunch of them did) and retrofitted them all with radial engines. Boeing's engineers and their government regulators believe that a lithium pack with proper electrical and thermal cell isolation, an aerospace-grade charge control unit with thermal monitoring, mounted in a sealed metal container can safely do the job. I trust them to get it right more than the author or reader of a Popular Mechanics article.

 

Regards

Now come on, if you want to be taken seriously with your talk of Boeings efforts to solve this issue (which personally I think hasn't been solved, but anyway) then coming out with such a nonsense statement just destroys any credibility you might have tried to build. It smacks of playground name calling, especially when you should well know that a high speed full rudder doublet applied above manoeuvring speed would likely tear the vertical stab of any airliner. The A300 is a perfectly safe and well built airliner, but can't cater for downright stupid control inputs - like most aircraft.

AA597, the A300 in question, was airborne just over a minute and a half before crashing. No way he was above maneuvering speed. The copilot overcorrected with large rudder inputs while trying to compensate for wake turbulence coming from a B747 that took off ahead of them.

 

The A300-600 has a short pedal throw which contributed to the copilot's overcontrol of the rudder. In subsequent lawsuit proceedings Airbus disclosed an internal memo (written four years before the accident, in 1997) in which one of their engineers identified the possibility of exceeding the ultimate load stress on the tail *below* maneuvering speed if a full stop-to-stop input was made. The memo was, once again, internal--as in the operators were never made aware of this potential risk.

 

FWIW, both the C-141 military transports and the Gulfstreams I flew all had rudder pressure limiters which limited application of rudder force at high speed expressly intended to prevent overstressing the tail.

 

Regards

Today's Times reports that Honeywell international have been invited to take part in the investigation.

 

Honeywell supplies the emergency locator transmitter that is being examined in connection with the fire.

The emergency locator transmitter on the 787 probably uses a Lithium Ion battery...

The emergency locator transmitter on the 787 probably uses a Lithium Ion battery...

 

 

You'd probably be wrong, It's reported that emergency locator transmitter is powered by a lithium manganese battery that is non-rechargeable. This means the equipment was self-contained, and does  not rely on power from the aircraft’s electrical systems for obvious reasons.

I'll say it again - I can't see Boeing making a more successful long haul aircraft than the current B777 series for a while. Really disappointing to hear about the 787 getting all these issues. No rush to board one! Bet BA are happy... Should have just ordered some more 77W's on top of what they're getting in a few months!

You'd probably be wrong, It's reported that emergency locator transmitter is powered by a lithium manganese battery that is non-rechargeable. This means the equipment was self-contained, and does  not rely on power from the aircraft’s electrical systems for obvious reasons.

Correct!

That was supposed to be a joke, guys!!!

That was supposed to be a joke, guys!!!

You got to remember those Smiles :smile:

I'll say it again - I can't see Boeing making a more successful long haul aircraft than the current B777 series for a while. Really disappointing to hear about the 787 getting all these issues. No rush to board one! Bet BA are happy... Should have just ordered some more 77W's on top of what they're getting in a few months!

 

Correct!

The T7 is a great plane, but for a different mission. The 787 is aimed at 'thin' long-haul routes, where demand is too small to fill a T7 (or larger).

 

 

Well here's the report, it was indeed the ELT: http://www.aaib.gov.uk/cms_resources.cfm?file=/S5-2013%20ET-AOP.pdf

 

Regards,

Ró

This is not just a 787 problem anymore, the device is installed in 6k aircraft.

Well here's the report, it was indeed the ELT: http://www.aaib.gov.uk/cms_resources.cfm?file=/S5-2013 ET-AOP.pdf

 

Regards,

Ró

Thanks Captain Ro! How is the summer in Ireland?

 

 

 

EDIT:

 

Now what was I saying about lithium ion batteries?

 

Two major companies both put faith in them to fly. Well it just proves my point. Lithium ion batteries should be banned (apart from iPhones etc) from commercial use on board aircraft. I don't see why the risk of landing at a diversion and you are one hundred or more minutes away on ETOPs, so you either ditch or end up like the Halifax Swissair flight.........

IAF747, on 18 Jul 2013 - 6:37 PM, said:

Now what was I saying about lithium ion batteries?

But the emergency locator transmitter uses lithium-manganese batteries.

Thanks Captain Ro! How is the summer in Ireland?

Insanely hot, it was hotter here than in the Canaries today, it reached 25 celcius!!!   Irish people stop functioning at anything over 18...  :(  :Whew: This is not normal at all for us... 

 

Met Éireann have even issued a yellow alert...  :Shocked:

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/yellow-weather-alert-issued-as-highs-of-30-degrees-forecast-1.1467955

 

Regards,

Ró.

Insanely hot, it was hotter here than in the Canaries today, it reached 25 celcius!!! Irish people stop functioning at anything over 18... :( :Whew: This is not normal at all for us...

 

Met Éireann have even issued a yellow alert... :Shocked:

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/yellow-weather-alert-issued-as-highs-of-30-degrees-forecast-1.1467955

 

Regards,

Ró.

 

Oh yes, you guys up there are very climatised to "cooler" conditions than us Aussies!

 

I have been known to see 45C on my ICE display of the GT46C diesel locomotive I was driving, and in my own car in the Pilbara have seen 48C outside....

 

At Marble Bar it has reached 52C sometimes there. Apparently the record is 55C at Marble Bar. Bare exposed rock with high levels of metal heats up fast! That is why it gets so hot up there in summer. But at night in winter, ouch, it is freezing inland! Freezing as in 0C or less.....

 

30 degrees is just pleasant for us....... I suppose it is 10-12 degrees higher than there what you find pleasant......