Ops-Normal.org

WTF

http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/det ... 14311.html

Imagine Ryanair developing this - they could 'drop' the passengers somewhere REALLY cheap.

Boac wrote:Imagine Ryanair developing this - they could 'drop' the passengers somewhere REALLY cheap.

You owe me a new keyboard, thanks !

I have this vision of the Captain & FO suddenly bursting out of the smouldering cockpit, strapping themselves into a couple of vacant passenger seats (obviously this wouldn't apply to FR) and sitting there saying "sure, everything is OK folks" until the cabin detaches and as it were "lands safely".

Didn't realise that it was April 1st already.

News in from Dublin is that there will be a 'excess payment surcharge' for Ryanair passengers who wish to be included in any possible capsule deployment - payable on boarding, of course. In the event of an emergency in flight, the cabin crew will pass through the cabin offering 'capsule scratch cards' to those who have not paid before departure, while shouting "We don't want to die" in heavily accented English.

It appears that Airbus have filed a patent for a removeable cabin - this one to allow 'pre-boarding' and then be attached to a carrier airframe. All designed to 'speed-up' boarding. No mention of a similar baggage module, however.

Must check my calendar.............

With acknowledgements to Airliners.net

Bugger! - it doesn't fit

With all due respect to Mr Nikolaevich I do have to ask in what stage of flight this contraption would render an aircraft crash proof...?

For example think of CFIT where accidents often occur just near the top of the ridge that rears up before the hapless flying crew...

FO to Captain: "Altitude Captain, altitude!" (parroting the ground proximity warning system that has been trying to warn the hapless duo for the last 20 seconds with its incessant and irritating PULL UP, PULL UP)...

Cue an enormous bang and then sounds of relief in the cockpit as the aircraft shudders back into the air sans the passenger module as Captain and FO look back ruefully at the smoking wreckage of said passenger module they have left on the hillside with the aircraft soaring heavenwards, now many tonnes lighter...

Or on final approach on a dark stormy night, winds gusting +- 50 knots, sans autopilot...

FO to Captain "Captain I canna hold her"...

Captain to FO: "You must man, you must. Speed, speed... Go around"... Captain then disengages passenger module and aircraft, unencumbered by those pesky moaners in economy, roars back into the sky in TOGA mode...

Seriously though, I suspect Mr Nikolaevich is chasing a problem that is becoming less relevant due to other important flight safety advances with a hugely expensive and inappropriate solution to the problem of flight safety, let alone making aircraft crash proof...


http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21660255-towards-crash-proof-aeroplane-quit-stalling

DESPITE two catastrophic air crashes (the disappearance of MH370 over the Indian ocean, and the shooting down of MH17 over Ukraine), 2014 was the safest year on record for civil aviation—with only one accident for every 4.4m flights. All told, 73 airline accidents occurred, including 12 involving fatalities. Some 641 passengers and crew died as a result. Even if the 298 lives lost over Ukraine are included (aircraft destroyed through acts of war are not classified as accidents), 2014 would still have been the safest ever.

The truth is that above all else Ms Nikolaevich's solution is plain uneconomic in the context of the risk it purports to mitigate.

I suggest you watch the sci-fi film "Pitch Black" where on trying to land a spacecraft after a particulate strike, the young lady flying the vehicle dumps the passenger modules (and passengers) to regain control.

I reckon this will keep going until April 1st!

Boac wrote:I reckon this will keep going until April 1st!

It has to be a windup...

It has to be a windup.

Yes, that might work, but would passengers accept a whopping great twisted band of elastic running down the aisle from nose to tail....