Transmission

Letters and online

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Downfall: the case against Boeing – reviewed

@JRicardoBraz [On the Insight Blog – Downfall, the Case Against Boeing – Reviewed⁽²⁾] The documentary did not aim to analyse the accidents themselves. The idea was to start from the accidents to go back in time and analyse Boeing’s conduct. Even if there was no accident with the MAX, all of Boeing’s omissions and negligence could not be ignored.

@Riaz_Sc Commercial interests will always overshadow regulatory oversight somehow or other.

@InnerMetronome Lessons? Don’t assign only one AOA sensor to a computer! And don’t leave the controls to just the computer!

Western fighters for Ukraine?

@holy_sick On the Insight Blog ‘Ukraine – time to fast-track front-line fighter pilot training?⁽⁴⁾ ] Western-made aircraft are a long-term solution. Now they need MiGs or Sukhois, as their whole air force is built around them. Maintenance,

@Autopilotuser Nevertheless, I think it is now the time to start training for Western types. The war will not be gone in the next 12 months.

@Atamansikka Support is the issue. It’s not just the airplane. It’s a whole system that needs to be in place. But the process should be started and Ukrainians trained to take top-notch Western aircraft.

Why can’t Britain produce a successful light aircraft?

@GuyG_Boffin [On ‘Inspiration Nation’ in the May 2022 issue of AEROSPACE⁽³⁾] Hmm, best of luck to them, but the Europa, Beagle Pup, Bulldog, Escapade/ Scout, Condor, Auster, adoption of the Skyranger, T600, and a few others don’t suggest to me a complete national failure since WW2 to build decent light aeroplanes. Fault more with business models?

@arrowfoil Perhaps marketing isn’t helped by ‘traditional British reserve’? Your list doesn’t include Swift, who designed the newest Europa product (originally as a fully-built aircraft), maybe because of a reluctance to fully promote their ‘Chubby Little Spitfire’?

@dtieic Inspired seems to have some good ideas, however. There needs to be a push towards ease of operation, such as highway-in-the-sky displays and Garmin-like auto-recovery, and I believe that net zero will be increasingly important. Also, down with rudder pedals.

Campaign for National Spitfire Monument

National Spitfire Project

The National Spitfire Project ⁽¹⁾ has been launched to build a new, national monument, commemorating the iconic aircraft.

The stainless steel Spitfire, one and a half times the size of the original aircraft, will appear to be rising up from its birthplace, taking flight over Southampton Water atop of 131ft tall swooping plinth, designed to resemble a vapour trail.

At the heart of the plinth, visitors will see a Merlin engine under reinforced glass, surrounded by roundels depicting the 30 allied air forces that flew the Spitfire during its service career and emblems to represent cities and towns involved in construction, delivery and maintenance. Royston Smith GM MP, one of the Trustees of the project, said: “The iconic Spitfire was instrumental in defending our country during the war. We are proud to call Southampton the home of the Spitfire and I am grateful to the government for trusting us to deliver this project and for supporting it by match funding donations with £3m from Treasury.” Construction of the monument is set to be completed by June 2024.

EASA’s Executive Director attends RAeS Banquet

via Patrick Ky/EASA

Patrick Ky, Executive Director of the European Aviation Safety Association (EASA) was guest of honour at the 2022 Royal Aeronautical Society Gala Dinner on 5 May. Ky gave an entertaining and enlightening speech and later posted the above image with new RAeS President Peter Round FRAeS on Twitter, saying: “Very pleased and proud to be the guest of honour at the @AeroSociety annual banquet in London yesterday evening – PKY.”

Some future liquid hydrogen airliner design considerations

We refer to recently well publicised and ‘polished’ reports from FlyZero/ATI. There is a fair deal of useful information. However, the detail provided on the future LH2 configurations shows lack of appreciation of fundamentals. This invites some technical comment.

It appears that these configurations have not been through any certification scrutiny, even at a basic level. Crashworthiness and passengers/service access standards are well established and mandatory for all civil aircraft. We all appreciate that Cryogenic LH2 fuel is a dangerous medium and it cannot be stored close to passengers or crew – ground or in air. Yet this is not respected. A crash landing could result in spillage of LH2 from a ruptured tank which could cause splash injuries from cryogenic fuel, asphyxiation and/or rapid boil-off, leading to a potentially explosive fuel-air mixture.

Ignition of spilt LH2 will result in buoyant and invisible flames playing on the passenger floor and around the forward emergency exits. It should be remembered that the only way to extinguish a hydrogen fire is to starve it of fuel or oxygen.

To reduce this risk, the fuel tanks should be separated from the passenger cabin.

ATI

Refuelling is a hazardous procedure when using a hose from a bowser or fuel main. Safety exclusion/evacuation zones have been proposed. This inconvenience could be minimised if the fuel tanks could be detached from the airframe and exchanged for ‘refilled tanks.’

Several other specific issues are apparent, eg the ‘narrow body’ layout is tail heavy and does not even balance on the ground without passengers aboard. I have done some basic modelling to check that. Canard surface moves the neutral point further forward. Achieving static stability margins is difficult.

Assuming laminar (natural or otherwise) flow over fuselages at transonic speeds certainly sounds worthwhile in theory.

In practice it may be difficult to achieve that beyond the nose radome region of the fuselage. Reynolds numbers are very much larger on the fuselage.

The longer-range version has passenger seating above the forward fuel tank, in addition to the rear ones. The concept has no ameliorative features in the event of crashworthiness precautions being breached.

We draw attention to our concept, Gondola. (see AEROSPACE, January 2022, ‘Powering a net zero future’) Employing a twin-fuselage layout enables the separation of LH2 containment and propulsion from the crew/passenger cabin.

Furthermore, the concept fits in with airport procedures. Further details on this concept will appear in a forthcoming paper to be published.

Dr R K Nangia Hon FRAeS and
Mr L Hyde, MRAeS

ARA

Wind tunnel tariffs

Reference the monstrous tariff charge for the Aircraft Research Association wind tunnel mentioned by Paul Hutchinson, CEO of Aircraft Research Association Ltd [AEROSPACE, May 2022, Transmission].

This surely indicates the need to engineer a battery capable of delivering the same peak demand while being trickle-charged to merit a lower tariff.

Denis W Oglesby
AMRAeS

From the RAeS photo archives

RAeS/NAL

Z A Arapova, left, a senior laboratory assistant in a Russian astronautical laboratory, fastens registration contacts on cosmonaut A Grachev before he goes into a test chamber for a simulated test flight, c.1959. Gracev was one of a number of so-called ‘phantom’ astronauts who died on unreported space missions. In this case, in 1962 the Italian news bureau Continentale announced that two Soviet cosmonauts had disappeared aboard ‘Vostok III’ which should have carried out one round trip around the Moon. In reality, the Soviets did not possess a rocket powerful enough to launch a crewed payload to the Moon until 1968.

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1. https://www.nationalspitfireproject.org

2. https://www.aerosociety.com/news/downfall-the-case-against-boeing-reviewed/

3. AEROSPACE, May 2022, ‘Inspiration Nation’

4. https://www.aerosociety.com/news/ukraine-time-to-fast-track-front-line-fighter-pilot-training/