Wing cracks no threat to safety, insists Airbus chief

I'm certainly no engineer, but I'm not sure if I've heard of wing cracks not being called a safety issue in the past.
Imagine the consequences if a A380 were loss to *possible* structural issues after 3 years while they waited for "heavy maintenance" to get around to finally inspecting a certain aircraft.
Does anyone have an opinion that this approach is more of face saving maneuver on the part of Airbus vice just inspecting the whole operational fleet. I mean a 5 for 5 inspection rate certainly leads to doubts about the rest of the fleet in my mind.

USMCFLYR

 

Nothing to worry about. Just dont get on the same flight as Ted.

 

"Airbus has traced the problem to an aluminium material used in the wing ribs - called 7449 - which tends to be more sensitive to the way the parts are assembled on the wing."

So, it's the aluminum's fault????

 

So a plane that only has a couple of years of service and with probably one to two t/o and landings a day now already has wing cracks? Yeah, that plane is a not going to make it.

 

If there truly is a problem, they will come up with a fix. It may require some strengthening and some additional weight, but if that wing can hold after that Number 2 uncontained failure on Qantas 32, that's one tough bird. As more checks are performed, the inspection periods may decrease, not waiting until the next Heavy Check.

There's always going to be gremlins that surface in the first few years. It's the nature of the beast.

The biggest enemy will be the media.

 

This does not surprise me at all. I have never seen an A380 land smoothly. Never. On YouTube there are already lots of videos of A380 hard landings.

Last week after landing at JFK, I witnessed an Air France A380 land on 31L abeam our position. Granted the winds were crossing the runway and gusting, the AF "super" had a very hard landing, and then a hop and a skip. The wing flex and resultant sine wave like motion that imparted through the wing looked awful.

 

Is it me or does this A380 land short?



Compared to this ...

 

I'm sure that the regular media will over exaggerate anything and everything, but this news coming after such exhaustive testing that current airframes go through before certification has to come as a surprise after so little time in the operational fleet (4 years) and such a high failure rate (anything failing at 7% of the time in this day and age can't be normal).

USMCFLYR

 

And again:

That looked WAAAY short. It appeared the nose had just barely crossed the threshold when the mains hit.

Where is DXB? Are these videos both at Dubai? If so, I am 99.99% convinced the night landing was 500 ft short of the threshold.

As to cracks: one of the big delays in the 787 was cracking in the fuselage/wing-join area.

The F-18A had bulkhead cracks where the vertical fins bolt-on shortly after entering service (one of the fixes is that cheesy plate on top of the LEXs; it diverts the LEX vortex away from the vertical fins).

ALL the Block 50 F-16s (the one that 'replaced' my "worn out" F-4G) had their wings replaced (whole fleet) less than a year after entering service. Fatigue cracks in a 9-G wing (turns out it wasn't designed for the flexing caused by carrying two 800 lb HARMs). All the F-16Ns (used by Navy Weapon School) were grounded, I believe within three years of delivery...for fatigue cracks (and they were the lightest F-16s ever built, with no gun, and no bomb-dropping hardpoints).

As 11Fan said, there are always gremlins that surface during the initial operating period.

 

When you have 400+ networked digital monitors, theres bound to be some delay at some seats, just from the network traffic alone. Add in compression and decompression and the image might be several seconds delayed at some seats...

Its pretty easy to spot when lost of people watch a game, there will easily be a 2-3 second delay between the fastest and the slowest in-seat monitor...

So, my guess top video filmed off a monitor that falls into the delayed category when filmed. Bottom video filmed from a monitor that was close to real-time.

As for the cracks: no different than 757 and 737 fuselages at every airline - go look up the ADs...

Cheers
George