QF32 388 - emergency landing in SIN after Engine failure

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Yeah I recall the parts are all too big to be easily transported and there was the rumour that QF couldn’t get insurance for the ferry flight. I wonder though, would an An-225 have a big enough cargo hold for the wing?

There’s also shipping if all else fails.
I expect the Ville de Bordeaux may need to take a long journey to Singapore. Will be some very interesting logistics. And then some interesting temporary scaffolding to complete the task.

Or perhaps Airbus engineers can make a suitable temporary fix to enable Nancy Bird to fly back to Toulouse. I am sure they are looking at all options.

Air transport for an A380 wing would be interesting. The length would not be a problem for several aircraft (An225, B747LCF etc), but width may be an issue. I don't know the widest dimension for an A380 wing, but the An-225 cargo door is only 6.4m wide, which I expect may be short of the mark. The 747-LCF is closer to 8m cargo width. It would interesting for Airbus to use a 747LCF to transport an A380 wing ;)
 
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what about the beluga?

Airbus Beluga - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I saw one of these flying once. very surreal

From NM’s linked Wikipedia article:

As the major components and sub-assembly structures of the A380 were too big for the A300-600ST...

And from yours:

The main deck cargo volume of the Beluga is greater than that of the C-5 Galaxy or the Antonov An-124. However it is restricted by cargo weight capacity of 47 tonnes, compared to 122.5 tonnes for the C-5 Galaxy and 150 tonnes for the An-124.[2] Despite this width, the Beluga cannot carry most fuselage parts of the A380, which have to be brought by ship and road usually. However, the Beluga has been used to transport a few A380 components.[3]

I note it does say 'most fuselage parts of the A380' so perhaps there’s a chance.

It’s certainly the ugliest aircraft I’ve ever seen.

Perhaps they need to turn an A380 into an A380ST… :p
 
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Interesting.

So the question is, how do they fix that damage? Can they take the wing off and attach a new wing, because it certainly seem like reinforcing and patching the area would be costly and dangerous.

Duct tape. :shock::shock:
 
Any way you look at it Nancy Bird is going to be out of action for a long time, looking at Ben Sandilands article in Crikey.

I think Joyce and perhaps the Australian authorities are going to play very safe here and demand all new engines from RR. That means 20 needed straight up, how long will that take...no idea, but as I commented before none of the remaining 5 will be flying much before Christmas. I'm headed to LAX early Jan scheduled to be A380. Predicting it will be a 744ER.
 
Found 2 links on how the wings get transported for assembly.

BBC NEWS | UK | Wales | North East Wales | Jumbo wing starts marathon trek

Jumbo wing starts marathon trek


_40005265_airbuswingclose203.jpg
The A380 superjumbo wing has left Broughton to begin its journey

The first wing of the A380 superjumbo came off the Airbus production line in north Wales on Monday morning.
A massive operation to transport the wing from Flintshire to Toulouse in France will take four weeks - by land, river and sea.
But Airbus says the long-term future of the operation is under threat if a ban on the company dredging in the Dee Estuary continues.
The Port of Mostyn was refused permission to dredge last month.
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It's an event that will go down in aviation history
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Brian Fleet, Airbus

Despite this, Airbus has pledged its support to Mostyn.

The port wants the estuary to be dredged so barges can get in and out at all times of the day.
So far permission has been refused by the Environment Agency over concerns about wildlife living in the river Dee.
"We need it to be dredged so the wings can go out in the medium term from the facility," explained Brian Fleet, director of manufacturing for Airbus.
"There is no other way - we have spent the money and we are fully committed to it. This is part of an integrated transport system."
The workforce at Broughton has spent several years designing the wings, which span 80 metres.
Hundreds of workers lined the route to watch the wing start its journey from the plant.
Workers spoke of their pride but it was mixed with a little anxiety as they watched it begin its trip by land and sea.
"The wing's never been taken out of here before, it's never been put on the barge before so we're a bit anxious," said Airbus worker Steven Hardwick.
"The other half of the job is actually getting it there when you see how far it's got to go, I think we're more bothered about that than building it."
The first wing was lifted onto a huge transporter, with a 96-wheel trailer, it then travelled along a special track to the River Dee where it was loaded onto a barge.
_40005289_wingandstaff203.jpg
Workers followed the wing through the plant


The barge is not expected to leave for Mostyn docks for a few days.
Iain Gray, Airbus UK managing director, said: "Much has been achieved in such a short space of time, especially considering the complexity and enormity of the A380 project."
The first superjumbo, which will carry 555 passengers, will take to the skies in test flights in 2005.
The delivery to Airbus' first customer, Singapore Airlines, will be made a year later.
On-board services are expected to include shops, sleeping areas, crèche and exercise rooms over two decks.
"It's an event that will go down in aviation history," Brian Fleet said.
"The A380 will be the aircraft of the future, it will be the aircraft of the 21st Century.

'Huge pride'

"Where Concorde had the speed for the 20th Century, the A380... is absolutely colossal.
"I think for the workforce there will be a huge sense of pride - this has been a real technical challenge of pure size, the scale and the complexity."
Air France, Emirates and Qantas are among the airlines committed to buying the aircraft.
Airbus believes that hundreds of ultra-large aircraft will be needed over the next two decades.
Four years ago the company listed the cost of an A380 superjumbo at about £150m - not much more than a traditional Boeing 747 jumbo jet which seats about 413 people.
The wings, together with their transportation jig and multi-purpose vehicle weigh 200 tonnes, and are far too heavy to be transported by air.
Airbus became worried about transporting the wings via Mostyn after P&O announced it was halting ferry trips between the Flintshire port and Dublin.
The company ran the last service from Mostyn to Dublin on Sunday.
Wings on the sea - A380 - Trelleborg AB

Building the world’s largest civilian aircraft poses a logistics challenge

The challenge of getting the various parts of the A380 to Toulouse, where the aircraft is assembled, has led Airbus to develop its own logistics. Until now, it has mainly used the voluminous A300-600ST, known as the Beluga because of its whale-like appearance, to transport components by air. However, the Beluga is not spacious enough for the largest parts of the A380, and Airbus has developed its own “road-river-sea-river-road” transport link.

ArtAirbusFender.jpg


The largest elements of the A380 are its wings. The skins are made at the Alcoa plant in Davenport, Iowa – the only plant in the world able to produce 35-meter aluminum plates. The plates are transported on a special telescopic truck to Baltimore where they board a ship for the BAE Systems factory in Broughton, Wales, where the wings are assembled. Each completed wing, now 45 meters long, is mounted on a special jig on which it will remain until it reaches Toulouse. For the first stage of the journey, it is carried on a 96-wheel trailer to a terminal on the River Dee.

There, the wing is loaded onto a powered barge. Although the barge was specially designed for the route, it must wait for low tide to be able to pass under the bridges along the way. At the port of Mostyn, 24 kilometers downriver, the wing is loaded aboard Airbus’s own Shanghai-built RoRo ferry, the “Ville de Bordeaux,” which takes it to Pauillac, near Bordeaux. There, it is transferred via a Polish-built pontoon onto another barge.

This makes its way a hundred kilometers up the River Garonne to Langon. There it waits for a second wing and a fuselage to arrive, and then a long, slow nighttime convoy travels 240 kilometers along country roads, resting during the day to avoid the traffic. Airbus has had to strengthen the roads and build by-passes to avoid villages along the route. Three days later, the convoy finally reaches the Toulouse plant.


Fenders cushion journey of fledgling giant
Trelleborg provided fenders, under the brands Fentek and Seaward, for many of the transfer points along the route taken by the wings. The company also supplied modified donuts and pads for the special berth trestles at Broughton and Mostyn.

In Mostyn, Airbus’s RoRo ferry berths against Trelleborg parallel motion fenders, which provide a high level of energy absorption and allow a much lighter support structure. To ensure the barge does not strike land too forcefully when reaching Langon, three-part trapezoidal fenders and a donut are used to berth the barge at the quay. It then slides along polyethylene fenders into a v-shaped wet-dock where vertical arch fenders buffer its arrival.
 
Any way you look at it Nancy Bird is going to be out of action for a long time, looking at Ben Sandilands article in Crikey.

I think Joyce and perhaps the Australian authorities are going to play very safe here and demand all new engines from RR. That means 20 needed straight up, how long will that take...no idea, but as I commented before none of the remaining 5 will be flying much before Christmas. I'm headed to LAX early Jan scheduled to be A380. Predicting it will be a 744ER.

Surely QF should get all new engines before SIA or LH if the latter two are going to continue flying regardless, while QF is suspending all flights till the problem is fixed.

It does make you think Airbus’ idea to have all manufacturing scattered is stupid, especially with cheap airfares and FIFO being a great idea :rolleyes:
 
Surely QF should get all new engines before SIA or LH if the latter two are going to continue flying regardless, while QF is suspending all flights till the problem is fixed.

It does make you think Airbus’ idea to have all manufacturing scattered is stupid, especially with cheap airfares and FIFO being a great idea :rolleyes:

FIFO? What do you mean here Sam?
 
FIFO? What do you mean here Sam?

Fly In Fly Out, there’s no reason why a similar system used in the mines here couldn’t be used to get skilled workers to the factories where the Airbus’ are manufactured in Europe, instead of having factories scattered among countries and driving the costs up because of this. It’s crazy!
 
Had a chat to a former refinery lab technician chemist type today. He had some horror stories about avgas produced in Singapore refineries and thought that he wouldn't be surprised if the that was a contributing factor to engine problems. I was mainly interested in the stories of loading tankers and the testing regime so didn't really get into details of what went wrong. But extending the comments about how business is done in Singapore it doesn't surprise me that SQ are still flying their A380s.
 
Had a chat to a former refinery lab technician chemist type today. He had some horror stories about avgas produced in Singapore refineries and thought that he wouldn't be surprised if the that was a contributing factor to engine problems. I was mainly interested in the stories of loading tankers and the testing regime so didn't really get into details of what went wrong. But extending the comments about how business is done in Singapore it doesn't surprise me that SQ are still flying their A380s.

QF does not use AVGAS, it's for pistons.
 
QF does not use AVGAS, it's for pistons.

Very good. My mistake for using the term in a generic sense. Needless to say he was talking about jet fuel. Feel free to mod my post and insert the technically correct term.
 
I wonder how "former" your chemist was, while they may have had issues in the past, those with aviation knowledge would be well aware of the testing and standards regime in place for Jet A1 that in part accounted for SPC being given the award for best Aviation Marketed Fuel last year, quality being an important part of marketing the product: http://www.spc.com.sg/publications/press_details.asp?id=2118
 
Had a chat to a former refinery lab technician chemist type today. He had some horror stories about avgas produced in Singapore refineries and thought that he wouldn't be surprised if the that was a contributing factor to engine problems. I was mainly interested in the stories of loading tankers and the testing regime so didn't really get into details of what went wrong. But extending the comments about how business is done in Singapore it doesn't surprise me that SQ are still flying their A380s.

Again, all I can say is WTF:!:
 
Fly In Fly Out, there’s no reason why a similar system used in the mines here couldn’t be used to get skilled workers to the factories where the Airbus’ are manufactured in Europe, instead of having factories scattered among countries and driving the costs up because of this. It’s crazy!
But for Airbus, the location of the various manufacturing processes was more about politics than efficiency. Each country lobbied hard and even threatened the overall viability of the project in an effort to ensure their local labour targets and associated local economic benefits were achieved. Politics, not production efficiency, was the driver.
 
But for Airbus, the location of the various manufacturing processes was more about politics than efficiency. Each country lobbied hard and even threatened the overall viability of the project in an effort to ensure their local labour targets and associated local economic benefits were achieved. Politics, not production efficiency, was the driver.

Sure, remember a little bird named Concorde, two complete assembly plants one in England and one in France! The politics of a "concord";)
 
I wonder how "former" your chemist was, while they may have had issues in the past, those with aviation knowledge would be well aware of the testing and standards regime in place for Jet A1 that in part accounted for SPC being given the award for best Aviation Marketed Fuel last year, quality being an important part of marketing the product: http://www.spc.com.sg/publications/press_details.asp?id=2118

Probably about 10 years former and it was SPC that he put in the frame. Very interesting story about his experience during testing loading of a supertanker. Also that SPC undercut the competitors massively to do the testing. $400 to have 2 people take samples every hour for 24 hours? And technically complex samples to collect as well. Got to be some corners being cut somewhere.
 
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