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WASHINGTON – One moment, the super-sized airliner was climbing thousands of feet over Indonesia. The next, the engine exploded, shooting flames and shrapnel through one wing. Computer warnings of impending systems failures throughout the aircraft started flashing on cockpit screens.
Human ingenuity saved the day for plane in crisis - Yahoo! News (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101119/ap_on_bi_ge/superjumbo_woes - broken link)
WASHINGTON – One moment, the super-sized airliner was climbing thousands of feet over Indonesia. The next, the engine exploded, shooting flames and shrapnel through one wing. Computer warnings of impending systems failures throughout the aircraft started flashing on cockpit screens.
Human ingenuity saved the day for plane in crisis - Yahoo! News (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101119/ap_on_bi_ge/superjumbo_woes - broken link)
What's astonishing to me is that a turbine engine exploded in the first place. They only have one moving part: the shaft. All the compressor veins and turbine stator's are attached it and unless those came off, I can't think of anything right off hand which would cause a problem like that, short of a carrier bearing going dry or the ingestation of something which broke the compressor veins.
But, they're talking now as if it's some kind of design flaw, so who knows? It will interest me to find out. Turbine engines, of any size, are still the same basic design.
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Originally Posted by stillkit
What's astonishing to me is that a turbine engine exploded in the first place. They only have one moving part: the shaft. All the compressor veins and turbine stator's are attached it and unless those came off, I can't think of anything right off hand which would cause a problem like that, short of a carrier bearing going dry or the ingestation of something which broke the compressor veins.
But, they're talking now as if it's some kind of design flaw, so who knows? It will interest me to find out. Turbine engines, of any size, are still the same basic design.
You also have the drive gears of the accessory section, the hydraulic pumps, fuel pumps, oil pumps and the generators. The high bypass fans of today are nothing like the turbojets of 40 years ago. Technology is so much more advanced that it makes every little part that much more critical.
You also have the drive gears of the accessory section, the hydraulic pumps, fuel pumps, oil pumps and the generators. The high bypass fans of today are nothing like the turbojets of 40 years ago. Technology is so much more advanced that it makes every little part that much more critical.
You're right, of course. All the ancillary things can go wrong too. In fact, at the horrendous RPM's those things turn, anything is possible!
But, they're still the safest engine ever invented. In stationary power applications, they regularly run 7 or 8 years continuously with no problems.
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