Latest XH558 Newsletter

[MOD]

Some people are writing XH558 off already. I think this is a tad premature although there may well be a delay before she flies again.

As far as I know: There is no collateral damage. There are 2 replacement engines available and the cause is likely to be unrelated to the Olympus engine's integrity.

The engineering side of things would appear to be obvious and capable of being sorted 'fairly' quickly ie fit the two replacement engines.

It's the AAIB/CAA/RRs attitude that is the unknown factor. imho.

Fingers crossed..

ibw

[Sploosher]

In other words somebody has dropped a bloody big clanger!!

having seen the size of those silica gel bags, it would have been impossible to miss them if they were left in the air intakes, and they surely would have caused some damage before the engines were spooled up to the power needed for take off....

but how would that explain the glass that was found..........

I have no doubt that the fine the band of engineers that 558 has will get things sorted.......

[Dougs]

Silica is un melted glass add a very hot engine and you get glass as for not possibly missing the bags, well i doubt they were sucked off the runway but the most important thing is fixing the old girl not taking the pee out of a group of very dedicated engineers (we all make mistakes) good luck guys fixing her

[Kermit]

As Dougs says !!
a bit of support for 558 and the engineering team is whats needed now, not endless sniping.

558 will fly again, thats what she does, and what her engineers will make sure she can do

[Sploosher]

@ Doug

I do realise that silica is unmelted glass and that is a possible reason why glass was found on the ground after the incident.

@Doug and Kermit.......

What I put in my last post was in no way at all sniping or taking the pee out of the engineers, ( I have never mocked in any way shape or form the engineers who work on 558, in fact I have always praised them highly )I was just merely stating that it must be virtually impossible to miss those big bags of silica gel if they were left in the intakes.......

If people are going to start misinterpreting and casting aspertions on what I post on these forums, then I shall just simply ot bother posting any more.....

off to work now..........

[Dougs]

hey sorry sploosher was not saying that you taking the pee just that someone obviously made a ballsup, And what i was trying to avoid is starting a slag the engineers off debate (imo thats more a UKAR thing )

no offence intended (i am off to go remove my foot from my mouth)

all the best Doug

[Mayfly]

To be honest the slagging and snipping from some posters on some other fora only goes to show how little many really know of what goes on behind the scenes and how unprofessional they make themselves appear.


A regrettable incident that shouldn't have happened? Yes absolutely, but now is not the time for finger pointing or recriminations. All will come to light in the subsequent investigations and recommendations made.

IF and it's a big IF it is found these bags were overlooked then nothing anyone can say will make the team feel worse than they already do and I bet they would feel gutted however 2 engines were lost.

Onward and Upward - lets get behind them cheer when 558 next takes to the sky!!

[Kermit]

Same here Gordon, I had in mind the countless posts on other fora calling for somebody, anybody at all, to be hung and quartered over this, I know that you support 558 and certainly didnt include you in my comments

[Dee]

Onwards and upwards!!

[Sploosher]

@Doug and Kermit.

Thanks for coming back to me, after I left to go to work this morning I had a rethink about what you both put and also my reply, and I thought that I may have been out of line a little by what I said, and also that I may have misinterpreted what you both said, in wich case I would like to offer my apologies

As I said though, I have never ever said anything bad about the engineers who do a great job working on 558, what ever it was that happened, I am sure will be discoverewd and sorted, and as for doom mongers out there if `other` forums, I very much doubt indeed if there was any attempt to sabotage 558, and only someone totally out of there minds would even dare say so......

[Minty4371]

Another money update

DEADLINE 31st MAY
APPEAL TOTAL:
£273,850

MAY TARGET
£90,000
TO DATE: £64,382

[Mayfly]

It's good to see the donations haven't tailed off.

[Lucas1860]

Have you seen this?

http://www.doncasterfreepress.co.uk/new ... -1-4601181

[Mayfly]

Mainly taken from this weeks newsbytes

[Minty4371]

http://www.vulcantothesky.org/phpBB3/vi ... 58&p=49217
Photographs taken by Lewis Steeper.
What is being shown in the last photograph please?

[Mayfly]

Sootys your man for this but I would guess it shows the outer casing of the 2 cooked engines and just how well the disintegration was contained,

What I have no idea of is if there is anything unusual to see in that photo such as scorch mark.

[Hungry Haggis]

Looking from the back of the engine bay Is it not showing the extent of the exesive heat on the outside of the engines and also the spread out onto the exterior of the wing surface.Lets keep our fingers crossed that the damage is only cosmetic apart from the hours of work needed to check the safety of everything in the bays and replacing the actual engines .

[Vulcan Bomber]

It'd be nice to see the intake tunnels.

I'm only looking on my phone atm but does the back of no2 engine look to be sat in the wrong position?

The bay doors look like they got warm.

Well done to the aircrew for being on the ball and not letting it get any worse!

[Exceptionalsleeper]

Ask yourself the reason why it happened? It wasn't malicious, nobody goes into work to have a bad day or write off two engines.

Human Factors...

Us techies in the RAF are shit hot on this, especially in our expeditionary "task focussed" money saving operating environment. Accidents happen; all the VTTS should be worried about is how to implement procedures to prevent this happening again.

I’ve seen and heard countless tails of mistakes and I could spin you all a yarn or two about some of the incidents I have had in the past and believe me, the failure often happens way before the incident.

If there were plentiful stocks of 201’s then this wouldn’t be a great deal however, we all know there isn’t.

Good luck to the engineers and looking forward to seeing her at Waddington – my new posting btw at 51 Sqn cough Rivet Joint, year in USA on my ‘Q’ course!

[Mayfly]

Robert Pleming has done a pod cast for UKAR


http://www.airshows.co.uk/podcast/

[Minty4371]

Another money update.

DEADLINE 31st MAY
APPEAL TOTAL:
£275,441

MAY TARGET
£90,000
TO DATE: £65,973

[Sooty655]

Just goes to show how different eyes see different things looking at the same pictures.

I think No 4 shows very little if any sign of heat damage to the outside of the engines ~ they appear to have contained the failure very well. I can't see any misalignment of the No 2 engine. I can't see the bomb doors at all, so I don't know where the comment about them showing heat effects comes from.

I've tried zooming No 3 in an attempt to see if the LP turbine has been burnt out, but the resolution isn't really good enough.

My GUESS (and I stress it is only a guess) is that the silica gell passing through the engine melted in the combustion system and plastered the HP turbine, which either burnt out or lost efficiency in a big way. That screws up the power balance between the two turbines, causing the HP spool to slow down and the LP spool to speed up. The LP compressor would then get into continuous surge and eventually come apart. It is possible the bandoliers themselves caused the damage, but the Oly LP compressor is a pretty good mincer of (non-metallic) debris.

[Dan4th]

The ideal thing would be for it to be
just a straightforward engine swap,

BUT I'm sure that many, many safety
and structural checks will need to be
made before she flies......

Bright Side::::::::::::::::::

1) No one was killed or injured.

2) It happened on the Tarmac, not in the Air.

3) Damage seems to be confined to ye Olympii.

Looking forward to further news and
hoping the ground crew will take heart
from the above three items.

Danf.

[Mayfly]

The latest newsletter is out

http://mxm.mxmfb.com/rsps/wlnk/c/1216/r/26866/e/382

No 558 at Waddington unfortunately.

[Minty4371]

Oh B****r .
Looks like I won't see it at all this year .