Planes, how do they work?

Penfold101 said:
This one is a bit old, but one of my favourites to listen to with regard aircraft failures. Engine takes a bird on takeoff, carries on up and around, holds for a while then comes in to land, all on one engine. You can listen to the radio chatter as well, as cool and calm and collected as can be the whole time.


Aircraft have immense amounts of redundancy built in, and one failure will almost never cause a failure of the whole airframe.
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The end is particularly funny when they ask if he wants a tug. Makes you wonder why they don't just fit the one good engine to all these planes that can survive on one engine!

/s
 
I'm more concerned about being on a flight where there's a "biological hazard". Imagine being mid Atlantic and a passenger loses control of their bowl in the aisle.
 
Penfold101 said:
Aircraft have immense amounts of redundancy built in, and one failure will almost never cause a failure of the whole airframe.
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I like the 747.

It's got four engines.

I always used to book flights on 747s with four engines over anything else with just two engines (yes, I know about ETOPS). Someone once asked me why I always tried to book aircraft with four engines, my reply was simple "Because there are no commercial airliners with six engines".

Penfold101 said:
Aircraft have immense amounts of redundancy built in, and one failure will almost never cause a failure of the whole airframe.
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Also.

Two Irishmen are flying home from New York. Shortly after taking off there is a big bang and the pilot announces that one of the four engines has gone and the flight will take an hour longer. Not long afterwards the pilot announces that a second engine has failed and the flight time will be 90 minutes longer. Half an hour later the pilot speaks to the passengers again to say that the third engine has gone out and they will arrive two hours late. Paddy turns to Mick and says "Begorrah, I hope that fourth engine keeps going or we'll be up here all night."
 
Yeah I mean once I started playing Microsoft Flight Simulator a bit, then watching some videos of actual pilots, it became incredibly obvious how stringent airline safety actually is. The people who look at airline safety are incredibly smart, incredibly serious, and reassuringly boring. Jet engines basically don't fail these days, period. Everything has multiple redundancies, everything is stress tested, there are extensive checklists to follow and manuals to read. It's very literally more dangerous to jump in a taxi to the airport than it is to get on an aeroplane.
 
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Roar87 said:
Yeah I mean once I started playing Microsoft Flight Simulator a bit, then watching some videos of actual pilots, it became incredibly obvious how stringent airline safety actually is. The people who look at airline safety are incredibly smart, incredibly serious, and reassuringly boring. Jet engines basically don't fail these days, period. Everything has multiple redundancies, everything is stress tested, there are extensive checklists to follow and manuals to read. It's very literally more dangerous to jump in a taxi to the airport than it is to get on an aeroplane.
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Hey look - Roar made a post I agree with!

The amount of work that goes into airworthiness and the people behind the scenes who don’t use spammers is just immense - Air Legislation was one of the more drier modules of my licence but one of the most important.
 
Feek said:
I like the 747.

It's got four engines.

I always used to book flights on 747s with four engines over anything else with just two engines (yes, I know about ETOPS). Someone once asked me why I always tried to book aircraft with four engines, my reply was simple "Because there are no commercial airliners with six engines".
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“Hello, British Airways? Yes, I don’t suppose you fly any B-36’s by any chance…?”
 
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Feek said:
I like the 747.

It's got four engines.

I always used to book flights on 747s with four engines over anything else with just two engines (yes, I know about ETOPS). Someone once asked me why I always tried to book aircraft with four engines, my reply was simple "Because there are no commercial airliners with six engines".
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This is a famous joke in the aviation community. The original was something along the lines of... "Boeing CEO sir, why have you put four engines", he replied "I couldn't fit any more".

If you haven't watched it, the documentary on Netflix about Boeing and the merger is amazing television. The focus switch from safety to share price etc...
 
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I suppose planes get safer after every crash or procedures are changed ? that horrendous Concorde flight, delayed flight so they skipped the runway check, strip of metal left on the runway finds weak spots
As said before i haven't flown for decades and pretty phobic now
 
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