Kansas City Business Aviation Association’s Post

The MD-80/88 main landing gear was showing significant vulnerability to vibratory stresses. After six instances of catastrophic failure from fatigue in the landing gear, the FAA was getting very strict about inspection requirements. This affected time in service and costs for commercial airlines using the planes, so one company sought out an alternative means of compliance. We designed an LPB system to treat the landing gear in the hangar while the planes stopped in for routine maintenance. Today, all of the affected landing gear have been processed and are regularly taking you to your intended destinations. Click the link in the comments to read more about the solution. #aerospaceengineering #mechanicalengineering #landinggear

The MD-80/88 main landing gear was showing significant vulnerability to vibratory stresses. After six instances of catastrophic failure from fatigue in the landing gear, the FAA was getting very strict about inspection requirements. This affected time in service and costs for commercial airlines using the planes, so one company sought out an alternative means of compliance. We designed an LPB system to treat the landing gear in the hangar while the planes stopped in for routine maintenance. Today, all of the affected landing gear have been processed and are regularly taking you to your intended destinations. Click the link in the comments to read more about the solution. #aerospaceengineering #mechanicalengineering #landinggear

What are the options open to an operator when a relatively small part, that is not readily available, results in the aircraft effectively being grounded? The case in point, is the rear hinge of the L410 Main Landing Gear. The functioning surfaces of this hinge are subject to corrosion and to wear, which necessitates the replacement of associated parts. However, the original spare parts are not generally and readily available in the market and the lead time offered by the original manufacturer is prohibitively long. In response to the problem, last month, Aeroservis obtained an STC to change the rear hinge. The STC is applicable to the following model aircraft: L410 UVP-E, L410 UVP-E-LW, L410 UVP-E9, L410 UVP-E20, L410 UVP-E20 Cargo, L420. The new hinge has been designed to address corrosion issues, and even if the hinge does somehow suffer corrosion or wear, it is more likely repairable without the need of replacing. Even if the need for replacement may arise, lead time and availability issues have also been addressed. “We Care, You Fly”

What is very striking in this image is the extent to which the fuselage has pretty well fully combusted while the wings (still largely metal alloy?) are largely intact. Also, I wonder what the toxicity of the smoke would be, presumably containing a large amount of micro-carbon fibres? Possibly one of the first examples of a major fibre on a mainly carbon-fibre composite construction.

#4A AIRSHIP RULES COMMENTS TODAY is the last day for public comments on the FAA's new MOSAIC rules for Light Sport Aircraft. I gave some, here is fourth, part A. Comment: #2 AIRSHIP ENVELOPE SAFETY CONCERNS by Jesse Blenn This relates to my work on the Lighter-than-air Subcommittee of ASTM. This and my previous comment is about the two most glaring safety concerns that I see being overlooked in airship standards, both in FAA P-8110-2 Airship Design Criteria and the ASTM Standard Specification for Design and Performance Requirements for Lighter-Than-Air Light Sport Aircraft F2355 – 14 (22). ENVELOPE COMPARTMENTS AND/OR RIP PROPAGATION CONTROL The second is the possibility of envelope material rips due to physical injury in flight or on the ground, or from either envelope material quality defects or envelope material deterioration due to aging or sunlight. Under normal conditions (except in bending as in gusts or very high static loading) the longitudinal fabric tension is near half that of the circumferential fabric tension, thus failures or rips are more likely to be in the longitudinal direction in response to the higher circumferential tensions. As most small airships up to 10 seats are constructed as a single envelope of nearly homogenous fabric, a rip once started may propagate a sufficient distance as to cause major or even total loss of lifting gas. Despite their decades of experience in building airships, this happened on July 6, 1960 with the very large Goodyear ZPG-3W Vigilance airship, leading to the death of 18 of the 21 crew. The accident report at https://lnkd.in/eWUDuE3E states: “The cause of the crash was a design failure by Goodyear when a tearing of the fabric at the nose spread instantly to the very heavy radar compartment supporting a 43 foot antenna at top mid-ship and then split down the full side of the bag causing immediate release of gas and instantaneous decent in to the sea.”

A door blown off of an Aircraft. My take on the issue with limited information at hand. Follow the link for the assembly image. Discussion points. 1.Door Plug design isn't very clear in the drawing. It looks like a part of the frame. Importantly there were pressure loss warning in previous fights. Maintenance crew should have throughly checked the door assembly. Pressure loss simply put, is air escaping. Have they checked with some bubble test or even a blue test they could have found a gap and by analysing the causes of gap they would have found the reason. A proper Cause effect Diagram and then Why Why analysis would have led to the weakness in door Plug. 2. Alternatively they could have used Red X method by switching the "good door" and "bad door", further going down to one by one subsystem swaps , till they found the contrast at component level. Then study the comparison of both good and bad components for linear, angular and geometrical dimensions/ tolerances, feature anything which would differentiate the parts and correlate to the root cause. Component search is powerful tool in such assemblies. 3. Most important failure is not to heed the warnings. Poor judgement or lack of time to resolve or simply ignorance, I can't comment. But we must trust sensors and warning indicaors. They are there to help us. Credits: Reposting this with your permission. Kush Shah

OTD in 2017: An engine AGB was inadvertently sent for overhaul. Work commenced before that was realised. The module was then sent back u/s but the log card entry was changed subsequently not realising a filter was missing. A successful autorotation ensued.   https://lnkd.in/e_SwM2z #aviationsafety #flightsafety #aviationmaintenance #continuingairworthiness 

Quote from the report: "Two months after the accident, the FAA issued SAFO 19003, which replaced SAFO 15009, “to further clarify that advisory data for wet runway landings may not provide a safe stopping margin, especially in conditions of moderate or heavy rain on smooth runways”. It recommends that before initiating an approach, pilots verify that the aircraft can stop within the landing distance available, assuming a runway condition of medium-to poor whenever there is the likelihood of either a) moderate or greater rain on a smooth runway or b) heavy rain on a grooved/porous friction course runway." Most 737 over run accident had a combination of tailwind, moderate or heavy rain, unstable approach, excess speed, high over threshold, and touchdown past the 1500' target on the runway. With all those factors if the runway was considered FICON 5/5/5 or GOOD braking action, the jets would have stopped if the landing weight was appropriate to the runway available. Late speedbrake application, less than full reverse thrust also put one into the over run corner. The key though is precipation intensity turning a wet runway into a "FLOODED" runway with more than 1/8" water. Hold or divert if the airport is subject to Heavy or Moderate Rain to allow the runway to drain to just WET.

# ELEVATORS (Basic) The elevator is the primary flight control surface that moves the aircraft around the horizontal or lateral axis. This causes the nose of the aircraft to pitch up or down. The elevator is hinged to the trailing edge of the horizontal stabilizer and typically spans most or all of its width. It is controlled in the cockpit by pushing or pulling the control yoke forward or aft. Light aircraft use a system of control cables and pulleys or push-pull tubes to transfer cockpit inputs to the movement of the elevator. High performance and large aircraft typically employ more complex systems. Hydraulic power is commonly used to move the elevator on these aircraft. On aircraft equipped with fly by wire controls, a combination of electrical and hydraulic power is used. #Majdi Houcine

Some things don’t change. In the case of aircraft, that’s the manufacturer's serial number (MSN). Why? Simple, it’s tied to the airframe. If you want to track the aircraft through multiple owners, you should use the MSN. I wrote more about it here: https://lnkd.in/dz3UBS3g