It seems as though the Southwest 737 is not the only Boeing aircraft flying around with fuselage cracks. The US Air Force announced during a testimony to a House subcommittee, that Boeing is working on repairing an unknown amount of C-17 Globemaster IIIs with stress cracking underneath and forward of the wing root. The cause has been identified as use of the aircraft's powerful thrust-reversing system on its giant F117 turbofan engines. A source with the Chicago-based aerospace giant was quoted to say "The cracks are a minor occurrence, and don't pose a safety hazard for the aircraft or flight crews. There's no impact on the operational readiness of these planes and the cracks are being fixed during regularly scheduled maintenance with a simple technique." I guess the Air Force must have purchased the extended warranty on these babies to get Boeing to fix them.
Return to PointNiner Home
Friday, April 4, 2008
C-17 the latest Boeing product with fatigue cracking
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
What a pontificating headline!
Fatigue cracks occur because airplanes are designed for least weight so as to get the best performance, with safety factors to "take care" of imperfect loads prediction and stress calculation tools. That's not news, and by itself it doesn't prove incompetence. The real question is whether (a) the fatigue could reasonably have been prevented, and (b) the fix is consistent with normal levels of product support and maintenance.
According to what you quote from Boeing, the cause was thrust reverser loads (not precisely predictable), and the fix is straightforward and non-urgent probably because of good crack-stopping design and an easy physical fix.
Now, if PointNiner has different facts, he may be able to justify his headline and his tone. Absent that, he's getting a bit fatigued himself?
Post a Comment