Aircraft pics

[47Hammer]

Kinda Kool.

http://s14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...0Fighter-1.flv

[Dog427435]

For anybody who is not familiar with a jet engine, a jet fan blade should be perfectly smooth.
A pilot for a Chinese carrier requested permission and landed at FRA (Frankfurt, Germany) for an unscheduled refueling stop. The reason became soon apparent to the ground crew: The Number 3 engine had been shutdown previously because of excessive vibration, and because it didn't look too good. It had apparently been no problem for the tough guys back in China: as they took some sturdy straps and wrapped them around two of the fan blades and the structures behind, thus stopping any unwanted wind-milling (engine spinning by itself due to airflow passing thru the blades during flight) and associated uncomfortable vibration caused by the suboptimal fan.
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Note that the straps are seat-belts....how resourceful! After making the 'repairs', off they went into the wild blue yonder with another revenue-making flight on only three engines! With the increased fuel consumption, they got a bit low on fuel, and just set it down at the closest airport (FRA) for a quick refill.
That's when the problems started: The Germans, who are kind of picky about this stuff, inspected the malfunctioning engine and immediately grounded the aircraft. (Besides the seat-belts, notice the appalling condition of the fan blades.) The airline operator had to send a chunk of money to get the first engine replaced (took about 10 days). The repair contractor decided to do some impromptu inspection work on the other engines, none of which looked all that great either. The result: a total of 3 engines were eventually changed on this plane before it was permitted to fly again.
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And we were worried about lead paint on our children's Toys
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[PeteLeathersac]

Crazy stuff!.

So how far ahead of the main airframe mfg. date should these seat belt codes be to have been be considered correct by the Germans...or is it only necessary that they predate each individual engine assembly they're used on?.

~ Pete

[427TJ]

Most U.S. airlines would love to achieve that level of cost control, believe me. No, I'm not kidding.

[ANDY M]

This is for Pete, another great way to waste an afternoon.
http://grin.hq.nasa.gov/

[COPO 70 RS/Z28]

Real underware changing stuff

[427TJ]

Factory-fresh Lockheed F-104A Starfighter visiting George AFB near Victorville, California in 1958. You can see why the '104 was called "The missile with a man in it." In the left background are North American F-100D Super Sabres of George's 479th Tactical Fighter Wing. The '100 was the USAF's first fighter that could exceed the speed of sound in level flight but on this day in 1958 the 104 was the hottest bird on earth. You can see the southern Sierra-Nevada mountains in the distance.