Whenever there is problem with an aircraft the chance to say 'catastrophic failure' is at the top of the media pundits list. The truth is if the passengers and crew all land safety as they did with the Quantas Airbus at Singapore earlier today and the passengers leisurely strolled down the aircraft steps (as they did) then the pilot and the aircraft designers should breath a sigh of relief and rest assured that is not 'a catastrophic failure' it is simply a failure of one Rolls Royce Trent-900 engine, not the two or three to make it 'a catastrophic failure.'
What is however distressing is to find that warning notices had been issued several months about this particular aircraft and make of engine. Tellingly it is only the Quantas and Singapore Airlines fleet that are grounded. The rest of the Airbus output have American engines from two rival manufacturers. A friendly mole at the Airbus Hamburg plant confirms. (The damaged wing was made in Wales).
With The UK going through cut backs in the defence programme, this is bound to trickle down and impact on civil applications of once military technology. Kevelar for example is used for the engine cowlings, only today that cowling lies in shatters and I hope the Indonesian villagers seen carting away the bits are in negotiation for a massive finders fee for the safe return of the shattered A380 bits. Luckily no one was standing directly under the falling debris, all neatly labelled ready to be sent back but hopefully not like this.
The Airbus has had its share of problems, but it was actually designed to run on three engines and at a pinch two if one remains either side..... It 'flys by wire' meaning that without a battery of duplicated computers, the aircraft wouldn't be able to fly at ultra slow speed in the nose up stall position as it majestically did a few years back at Farnborough Air Show.
I really cannot understand the attitude of the Rolls Royce Public Relations machine, no one of note has come forward or currently doing the rounds of TV and radio newsrooms and there is scant editorial print comment from RR. No wonder the Rolls Royce share price has dropped like a stone. They left it to Quantas to make the announcements on the state of the RR product. Just plain daft, a few senior directors at RR should be considering their position.
ITN who provide the UK national news for the ITV network and worldwide news outlets, called me at 11.30 am just as the first passenger videos of the fractured upper wing of the A380, were being transmitted, a fraught painfully slow 44 mile trip to the network studio housed at the Innovation Centre of Northampton University and I'm wired up and doing my own fly by wire act.
Unless you have done a few of these, it still amazes me how during a live in vision down the line interview the vision mixer in remote London manged to pull up the right digiclip even as the words were tripping out of my mouth, Steve Scott, the newscaster seamlessly fired the questions and senior cameraman Gary Maybee aimed the camera. Carly Watson set the whole thing in motion
The news programming produced for ITV and Channel 4 reaches nearly 10 million people every day, providing comprehensive, impartial news provision for the British public. ITN's news is also watched by millions of viewers worldwide, through partnerships with global news outlets such as Reuters, CNN and NBC and online partners such as Livestation, YouTube and MSN.
As well as providing television news ITN operates three other divisions: footage sales arm ITN Source; video creation business ITN Productions; and advisory services from ITN Consulting & New Ventures.
Finally plaudits to my partner who deprived of a car for half a day for my 88 mile dash to Northampton and back had a Spa type day en maison....cool!
Contributor: Media & Aviation Expert Julian Bray SKYPE: Julian.Bray.UK Landline: 01733 345581 Mobile: 07944 217476 ISDN2 down line ++44(0)1733 555 319 (Broadcasters) G722 & APT-X Dual Codecs GlensoundC5
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