Soldato
- Joined
- 18 Oct 2002
- Posts
- 2,809
- Location
- Chelmsford
Many moons ago now I worked in aircraft engineering and ran a system that read data taken from the FDR and wrote it onto an optical disc in a QAR. Once a week, discs were taken off of each aircraft in the fleet and sent to me for general analysis by the computer itself. Any incidents such as overspeed with a certain flap setting, were sent as an alert to the relevant fleet captains and so pilots were encouraged to report and not hide things. It was a bit big brother if you like.
Aside from that, every time we had an incident on one of the aircraft in the fleet, I would be told what had occurred and then I'd look at the available parameters to find what happened. I wasn't a licensed engineer so I just presented my findings to those in the department who were and they would work out what had gone wrong.
Keeping in mind this was the late 90's going into 2001 (when I then left), the data resembled that of a Seismogram with lines on a screen. As you moved along the lines, it went along in seconds and there were a huge amount of parameters to look at.
Two incidents I recall looking at were an uncontained engine failure on an A300 and a panel that departed the top surface of the left wing of an A321.
The A300 was obviously an older airframe but still had a decent selection of things to look at so it would be things like altitude, airspeed, outside air temperature, EGT, N1, N2, fuel flow, engine vibrations, oil temp etc etc. You could see certain lines go from being perfectly flat to a little wiggle and then boom, off the scale.
The A321 was a little different. A passenger reported to the cabin crew that something had come off the left wing and sure enough there was a rather large gap just in front of the aileron. Prior to that there had been a lot of airframe vibration.
I looked at various bits on the PC, altitude, airspeed, heading, airframe vibration, which autopilot was engaged, selected altitude, selected heading etc. Basically the panel was loose and was causing a lot of vibration in the airflow which was registering as high airframe vibration. The aircraft then entered a left hand turn (on autopilot) meaning left hand aileron up, right hand aileron down and just as the turn commenced, the panel came off hitting the aileron as it went. All was good and the vibration stopped.
Nothing to solve as such but interesting to look at. I looked at all sorts in my time there.
Some years down the line from that, I worked for a company supplying components for Dash 8 Q400's. Absolute heap of an aircraft.
Anyway, the company had previously supplied 737 classic components before I ever joined and they had a few old bits left that were time expired and needed to be destroyed so they could never find their way back into the system, particularly in countries that don't care too much for that sort of thing.
I was tasked with 'breaking' two FDR's one day and my word it took some effort! I took a hammer to them both and using the claw end, beat them repeatedly until I eventually started to break through the casing. That took some doing.
Nothing to add on the Air India incident but just my two penneth on FDR's and how much they record.
Aside from that, every time we had an incident on one of the aircraft in the fleet, I would be told what had occurred and then I'd look at the available parameters to find what happened. I wasn't a licensed engineer so I just presented my findings to those in the department who were and they would work out what had gone wrong.
Keeping in mind this was the late 90's going into 2001 (when I then left), the data resembled that of a Seismogram with lines on a screen. As you moved along the lines, it went along in seconds and there were a huge amount of parameters to look at.
Two incidents I recall looking at were an uncontained engine failure on an A300 and a panel that departed the top surface of the left wing of an A321.
The A300 was obviously an older airframe but still had a decent selection of things to look at so it would be things like altitude, airspeed, outside air temperature, EGT, N1, N2, fuel flow, engine vibrations, oil temp etc etc. You could see certain lines go from being perfectly flat to a little wiggle and then boom, off the scale.
The A321 was a little different. A passenger reported to the cabin crew that something had come off the left wing and sure enough there was a rather large gap just in front of the aileron. Prior to that there had been a lot of airframe vibration.
I looked at various bits on the PC, altitude, airspeed, heading, airframe vibration, which autopilot was engaged, selected altitude, selected heading etc. Basically the panel was loose and was causing a lot of vibration in the airflow which was registering as high airframe vibration. The aircraft then entered a left hand turn (on autopilot) meaning left hand aileron up, right hand aileron down and just as the turn commenced, the panel came off hitting the aileron as it went. All was good and the vibration stopped.
Nothing to solve as such but interesting to look at. I looked at all sorts in my time there.
Some years down the line from that, I worked for a company supplying components for Dash 8 Q400's. Absolute heap of an aircraft.
Anyway, the company had previously supplied 737 classic components before I ever joined and they had a few old bits left that were time expired and needed to be destroyed so they could never find their way back into the system, particularly in countries that don't care too much for that sort of thing.
I was tasked with 'breaking' two FDR's one day and my word it took some effort! I took a hammer to them both and using the claw end, beat them repeatedly until I eventually started to break through the casing. That took some doing.
Nothing to add on the Air India incident but just my two penneth on FDR's and how much they record.
(I got a little hooked on the stories after reading about the "Gimli glider" in Readers Digest as a kid).
