off topic

The Junk Drawer is for those Off Topical discussions where we can ask questions of the community that we feel might have the ability to help out.

Moderator: Harold_V

Post Reply
Russ Hanscom
Posts: 1955
Joined: Wed Mar 15, 2006 11:10 pm
Location: Farmington, NM

off topic

Post by Russ Hanscom »

The discussion of the M D (Delta Milwaukee) in General Discussion reminds me of the MD-80 (McDonnel Douglas) aircraft which used a similar screw in the tail surface control surfaces. At least one nut failed the same way and planted a plane load of passengers off of the CA cost about 30 years ago. Interesting how such strange relationships come to mind. Much higher cost of failure in one case.
User avatar
Steggy
Posts: 1973
Joined: Tue Jun 28, 2011 9:19 pm
Location: JB Pritzker’s Hellhole
Contact:

Re: off topic

Post by Steggy »

Russ Hanscom wrote: Sun Jul 25, 2021 6:18 pm The discussion of the M D (Delta Milwaukee) in General Discussion reminds me of the MD-80 (McDonnel Douglas) aircraft which used a similar screw in the tail surface control surfaces. At least one nut failed the same way and planted a plane load of passengers off of the CA cost about 30 years ago. Interesting how such strange relationships come to mind. Much higher cost of failure in one case.
Such failures in aircraft are exceedingly rare...fortunately. The jack-screw method of controlling flight surfaces is well-proved in large aircraft.

That said, another McDonnell Douglas product, the DC-10, depended on hydrostatic lock to keep the leading-edge slats extended against the air stream. That design decision ultimately cost 273 people their lives at Chicago O'Hare airport in May 1979 when an engine tore loose and severed hydraulic lines in the left wing.
———————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Music isn’t at all difficult.  All you gotta do is play the right notes at the right time!  :D
User avatar
NP317
Posts: 4551
Joined: Tue Jun 24, 2014 2:57 pm
Location: Northern Oregon, USA

Re: off topic

Post by NP317 »

BigDumbDinosaur wrote: Sun Jul 25, 2021 9:46 pm [snip]
That said, another McDonnell Douglas product, the DC-10, depended on hydrostatic lock to keep the leading-edge slats extended against the air stream. That design decision ultimately cost 273 people their lives at Chicago O'Hare airport in May 1979 when an engine tore loose and severed hydraulic lines in the left wing.
My brother was First Officer of a DC-10 that had to abort takeoff from Dallas/Fort Worth, in 1988.
A warning light indicated the port leading edge slat retracted just as they rotated at V1. The brakes failed and they ran off the runway, cracking the plane through first class.
The only injuries were the three crew members in the cockpit, and 5 minor passenger injuries It was a fully loaded and fueled aircraft.
That was the last crash of a passenger carrying DC-10.

The FAA procedures were found at fault by the NTSB. Remarkable! The brake system was redesigned and all flying DC-10s were upgraded.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/ ... f3a8d55a4/

Not steam, but personally interesting, and about failure modes and safety margins.
RussN
User avatar
neanderman
Posts: 896
Joined: Mon Jan 09, 2012 7:15 pm
Location: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA

Re: off topic

Post by neanderman »

After the O'Hare crash, I avoided DC-10's as much as possible. I much preferred the Lockheed L-1011.

Never flew on a 747.
Ed

LeBlond Dual Drive, 15x30
US-Burke Millrite MVI
Atlas 618
Files, snips and cold chisels

Proud denizen of the former "Machine Tool Capitol of the World"
User avatar
Steggy
Posts: 1973
Joined: Tue Jun 28, 2011 9:19 pm
Location: JB Pritzker’s Hellhole
Contact:

Re: off topic

Post by Steggy »

neanderman wrote: Mon Jul 26, 2021 3:00 am After the O'Hare crash, I avoided DC-10's as much as possible. I much preferred the Lockheed L-1011.
I avoided them before that and in fact, only rode once on a DC-10 when it was unavoidable. Given a choice, I would take a narrow-body aircraft before a wide-body, as all of the models that were in widespread use were dependable and well-understood by flight crews. The L-1011 was a technically excellent aircraft, but Lockheed was still being shunned due to the L-188 Electra turboprop crashes. Also, some US airlines at the time didn't like Lockheed's choice of the Rolls-Royce RB211 engine to power the L-1011.

There were several mishaps involving the DC-10 in the early 1970s, the most serious being the crash of a Turkish Airlines plane in the Ermenonville forest in France in 1974. The aft cargo door blew off, causing the cabin floor to collapse due to the pressure differential when the cargo hold explosively decompressed. All control connections to the empennage were severed, causing the plane to enter a rapid descent from which no recovery was possible.

In 1972, an American Airlines DC-10 had a similar aft cargo door failure with subsequent floor collapse, but not all empennage control connections were severed. The pilots were able to maintain some control and make an emergency landing. The kicker was the possibility of such a failure was known to McDonnell Douglas, as Convair, who was subcontracted to build the plane's fuselage, had discovered it during testing before the plane went into full production and had made MD aware of it in a written memo. The FAA at the time was headed by a sleazeball director (John Shaffer) who instead of having the FAA issue an airworthiness directive to legally compel MD to redesign the door locking mechanism, merely "had lunch" with MD bigwigs and told them to come up with a fix. Lacking the AW directive, MD was under no obligation to do anything about the door.

The American Airlines incident convinced me to stay away from the DC-10. I knew enough about aircraft at the time to recognize a plane that had been designed by the accounting department.
Never flew on a 747.
I spent far too many hours in those things. That said, it is a remarkably safe plane. Although the 747 has been involved in two of the deadliest mishaps in aviation history, neither was the result of bad design. The majority of 747 crashes were due to piloting mistakes or improper repair procedures.
———————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Music isn’t at all difficult.  All you gotta do is play the right notes at the right time!  :D
User avatar
Steggy
Posts: 1973
Joined: Tue Jun 28, 2011 9:19 pm
Location: JB Pritzker’s Hellhole
Contact:

Re: off topic

Post by Steggy »

NP317 wrote: Mon Jul 26, 2021 12:01 amMy brother was First Officer of a DC-10 that had to abort takeoff from Dallas/Fort Worth, in 1988...
I recall that one. The slat warning was a false alarm—slats on both wings were found to be symmetrically extended. Had they not rejected the takeoff and overshot the runway everything would have been fine and the brake issue might not have been discovered...until the next time. I will say the cockpit crew was really on the ball—they wasted no time in making the decision to reject when the alarm went off.
———————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Music isn’t at all difficult.  All you gotta do is play the right notes at the right time!  :D
User avatar
neanderman
Posts: 896
Joined: Mon Jan 09, 2012 7:15 pm
Location: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA

Re: off topic

Post by neanderman »

BigDumbDinosaur wrote: Mon Jul 26, 2021 12:13 pm
Excellent info.
Ed

LeBlond Dual Drive, 15x30
US-Burke Millrite MVI
Atlas 618
Files, snips and cold chisels

Proud denizen of the former "Machine Tool Capitol of the World"
Post Reply