Re: United Airlines Fleet - 2023

LAXPolaris wrote:

It’s a combination of a lack of 764s (the retrofits were originally suppose to be done by now)

Re: 787-10 floor vibration

I was on a UA 787-10 recently ORD-LAX sitting 47J. There was a very pronounced coarse vibration I could feel in my feet the entire trip. For what I know and from the seat plan around the 47J area there really aren't any major mechanical components that will directly cause vibration feeling or sound...

Re: Differences between Airbus and Boeing troubleshooting

Can’t say for Airbus, the Boeing troubleshooting logic path is to replace the LRU if it is easily replaceable. Otherwise it would be a series of troubleshooting steps to determine the root cause of the problem before jumping into any conclusion. ‘replace for precaution’ doesn’t make sense as it mean...

Re: Can steel brake pads be used in systems designed for carbon?

I remember about 20 years ago CFM made adverts about using geunine parts, the one that sticks to my mind is the picutre of using a cloth hanger in place for a car antenna. Well if you ignore all regulations then yes you can manufacture your own brake parts and install onto aircraft. and in RA- regis...

Re: How does the IFE display things like altitude and speed

There are flights with very few passengers. I was on 737 and md80 flights with a single digit number of passengers. For a frequent flyer figuring out one of these flights should be fairly simple. I was also on a flight with a packed regular Y, but no free upgrades to virtually empty Y+, to help wit...

Re: How does the IFE display things like altitude and speed

Most of that is the same information displayed on the cabin displays for the cabin crew. Our cabin crew have to initialise the mast et IFE control with the flight number and destination. I was recalling my memory on that very same screen when writing. And on some setup if the flight crew entered th...

Re: How does the IFE display things like altitude and speed

The IFE takes in more than just GPS data. Take the Panasonic eX2 as an example, it would take in information like: Door (Any doors opened for pre-recorded announcements) Engine Running (The speakers will be MUCH louder with engine running) Air/Ground information (inhibites any system servicing) Oxyg...

Re: Static wicks and electric GA aircraft...

Umm I think you have the wrong concept for the static dischargers. It's purpose is to control the rate of static dissipiated from the aircraft in a controller manner, so the it won't generate current which will interfere with radio and signals. That's why we have to perform check at maintenece to en...

Re: Portable External Oil Cooler

If I am not mistaken, the AMM mentions to not operate the hydraulic pump(s) more than 2 minutes if there the fuel tank quantity is less certain quantity (at least on 737). I assume the fuel tanks are empty inside the maintenance hangar for safety reason. Hence the oil cooler (PEOC) can be useful fo...

Re: Portable External Oil Cooler

a) Is this oil cooler (PEOC) used a lot for airlines and MROs (maintenance, repair, and overhaul) No, at least never heard of such device at where I work. b) Is this oil cooler (PEOC) used only for 737 MAX or all Boeing aircraft? Never touched the MAX and don't have the AMM on hand for the MAX, but...

Re: B737NG programming after layout change

Pretty much the same- you draw up a layout and get a new config file. Not sure whether you have to go to Boeing for that or it can be done by the airline

Re: 787 with extensive wing paint peel?

A question, the 787 was in testing in all types of environment for a year or two before EIS, did the issue not appear during testing or did Boeing paint its test a/c with a different type paint that did not create this issue? All types of environment TESTS but not real world - it's a much harsher w...

Re: music/movie in cockpit on (ultra) long haul?

Spock540 wrote:

I flew with a Captain who used to listen to the radio (in the AM bandwidth)... obviously during long quiet and uneventful cruises.

Re: Curious: BA Takeoff Procedures - Gear Retraction

77west wrote:

I am picking at 1038 °C you have other issues other than just hot brakes!!

Re: Installing/ Uninstalling ETOPS On An Aircraft

KA does not exist, https://www.cad.gov.hk/english/airoperator.html Lease returns for the ex-KA aircraft back to the lessors would now be done as private operations, they are not under any AOC. To put a KA aircraft onto the CX AOC they would need similar process to the lease return maintenance packa...

Re: airplane gliding

Be surprised. The Boeing Dual Eng Fail/Stall checklists do not give any kind of gliding guidance to the crew. The checklist assumes you get at least one engine started and have a nice day. There is no branch of the checklist for what to do in case you don't get an engine started. Interesting, not s...

Re: Curious: BA Takeoff Procedures - Gear Retraction

On the A330 I can have the brakes at 400 deg C 40 minutes before push and it will be okay for a 20 minute taxi, they will drop around 5 degC per minute. 400°C?! Jesus christ! When I heard people here talking about hot brakes, I thought it was around 150°C! as Zeke mentioned, unlike the brakes on yo...

Re: Installing/ Uninstalling ETOPS On An Aircraft

They didnt share a lot of things, the two airlines did not share ground handling and maintenance organizations at HKG, nor did they even have simple things like engine oil in common. You are posting about things you have no direct knowledge of which are not true. Well unfortunately for some work no...

Re: Installing/ Uninstalling ETOPS On An Aircraft

Any part of the chain broken and the aircraft will be downgraded and will require at least a verification flight before it can regain the status. So it's not something you can just slap on overnight to make an aircraft able to perform ETOPS flight. Most defects that downgrade an aircraft EDTO do no...

Re: Installing/ Uninstalling ETOPS On An Aircraft

Do you care to share what the 737 needs for ETOPS? Thanks! Air conditioning / pressurisation control Autoflight / Autopilot system Communication - HF/VHF/Satcom availibility Electrical generation Fire detection / Smoke detection / Fire extinguishers Fuel Systems Anti-Icing system Oxygen system Pneu...

Re: Metric vs Imperial in aircraft

My Snap-On 1/2” socket is clearly engraved with “1/2-12.7” right on it. Swear to god. … … Never seen any metric equivelent on my snap-on set... are yours custom made? Jay, there’s no metric on airliners. You may have missed the jokes. No mechanic anywhere working on airliners has metric tools anywh...

Re: Pre-Departure Walkaround Top of Fuselage

If catering trucks and baggage carts could impact the top of the fuselage we would inspect them more often Not only catering truck or baggage cart - I just had a 767 came in with holes on the top of the fuselage caused by a platform truck, which decided to sink down and made multiple holes on the t...

Re: Installing/ Uninstalling ETOPS On An Aircraft

As we are getting less and less quads EDTO and ETOPS are pretty much merging together into one thing. https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7717/16889921430_04505084a4_c.jpg As mentioned by CALTECH, ETOPS is not only the aircraft being ETOPS-ed, it's the entire system: From the pilots able to perform ETOPS...

Re: Pre-Departure Walkaround Top of Fuselage

If catering trucks and baggage carts could impact the top of the fuselage we would inspect them more often The two biggest drivers for crown inspection are hail damage and lighting strike inspection. Both are mechanic inspections that usually require a boom type of man lift. I have also done it in ...

Re: Pneumatic vs Hydraulic

Everyone is correct about the 767 Thrust Reverser. For GE engines they are pneumatic. For PW they are hydraulic just like the 757. Yes that's the beauty with the Boeing birds from that era - so many variations with different airlines and engine combination. In the 747-200 and 400, all four engine d...

Re: Avionics Bay Access and Pressurization

I have to wonder why large avionics bays haven't gone by the wayside on newer A/C's. No doubt a modern smart phone has more than enough compute power for every system on the aircraft. Not that I'd be advocating for a central controller or anything. I have heard that a lot of the technology is delib...

Re: Engine Start Procedure. Which one first?

thepinkmachine wrote:

787 - you start both at The same time

Re: United Airlines Fleet Thread - 2022

Just build a wireless charging mat into the seat and call it a day. (I'm going to guess that 150 wireless charging matts on an airplane is a nonstarter.) well it's possible if you integrate into the phone/ipad holder above the seat tray. But if a USB port is good enough for the job then there's no ...

Re: Avionics Bay Access and Pressurization

I would think the crew would want access to the E&E in the event of a fire. To let air into the fire and smoke into the cockpit? Not sure how smart that is.... The equipment down there is ventilated anyways. It's not sealed off. Usually you can throw stuff down to the E&E compartment fwd of...

Re: Peeling paint on composite surfaces.

On the 787 the most problematic area is the wings and looks like it's similar on the A350. Yes composite has been used for a long time but it's until 787/350 where it's used on the wing and see flexing all the time. On the 787 the paint system is revised and looks like it's fairing better now, so wi...

Re: Avionics Bay Access and Pressurization

On the 747, there is a bulkhead door in the fwd wheel well. No warning light in the cockpit. Sure about that? MD11 has one that I only found out about recently. Never saw one on a B747. As stated, just about every ATC aircraft has an E&E compartment, or two, and as far I’ve come across, they ar...

Re: United Airlines Fleet Thread - 2022

UAinAUS wrote:

Also looks like 763 N663UA will exit HKG on Saturday with Polaris/PP mod

UAinAUS wrote:

Next in is N669UA (just maintenance I assume)

Re: Do airlines test fly planes before buying a new type?

Depends on airline with what acceptance policies - some will have a dedicated test pilot group whose job is solely doing aircraft checkouts, while some are line pilots being brought over to perform flights with additional duties. I have worked with some test pilots and got to say they know the aircr...

Re: Collins Diamond Seat Family Weights

Unlikely you will get an answer - these companies don't like giving out any data even to those who have to work on their design problems! Never bothered weighting them, but 21kg is most likely an empty shell without IFE and all the seat electrical mechanism (also heavy once you add them all up). Als...

Re: Complicated, by design. But is it really?

Aircraft are designed with safety in mind - one thing is having redundancy system incase of hardware or software failure. This casuss the whole thing to be much more complicated. When comparing with a smartphone - you won't have three sd cards for data storage or three sim cards in case one give up.

Re: When jetliners are offered with multiple powerplant options, how do they decide which to choose?

That is very interesting, 77west. Can you or someone else elaborate on "rating plugs." Are these the same as "ID" plugs. ? http://nandang-smart.blogspot.com/2014/09/cfm56-7b-identification-plug.html That's the one. Give the engine manufacturer some money, and they will give you ...

Re: Assembling a fleet of used aircraft

From an interview with the Midwest Express CEO many years ago, I learned that - as long as the airline has seats on property and planes where the seats are - reconfiguration can basically be done overnight. That must be many many moons ago - on modern airliner with complicated IFE system it would t...

Re: United Fleet, Network, and Discussion Thread - Q4 2021

I'm gonna assume that the PE seats don't require the extensive engineering involved with Polaris and could easily be completed internally, or outsourced without having to go to HKG. When Polaris is initially installed in a 767 it's essentially an entire retrofit of the entire cabin and a BIG job. T...

Re: Is it dangerous when aircraft carry fuel in a center tank beneath the passenger cabin?

Questions about the horizontal stabilizer tank: 1) on planes that had/have the horizontal stabilizer tank, is that used primarily for feeding the APU? The APU would feed off the tank which is used up last - say after landing the aircraft is parked overnight, and you want to be able to start up the ...

Re: Why didn't airline makers follow the lead of the Lockheed L-1011 and use stabilators instead of THS?

DLC was one of the more notable 'ahead' features on the TriStar compared to other jetliners, in addition to some of its manufacturing methods. The all-flying stabilizer (stabilator) doesn't really rank as highly, as it has appeared on many types of aircraft and is featured heavily on fighters. I pe...

Re: United Fleet, Network, and Discussion Thread - Q4 2021

kaitakfan wrote:

Does anyone have an idea when N662UA should be out of mod in HKG? Thanks!

Re: Question For the Mechanics: Which Commercial Aircraft Have Been Easiest and Most Difficult For You to Work On?

The 737 has been good to me. The A32X series not so much. E175/190s aren't bad if you know what interface card does what and when. (Novice techs will be firing the parts cannon) 747, 757, 767 aren't bad. MD80s are hit or miss. The CRJ can get left in the grass as a fire training object. I always th...

Re: Is it dangerous when aircraft carry fuel in a center tank beneath the passenger cabin?

tommy1808 wrote:

Aren't those just A319LR, the Airbus equivalent to the 737-700ER? I think AF had a small number too for those too long for a normal NB, to thin for a WB routes.

Best regards
Thomas

Re: Is it dangerous when aircraft carry fuel in a center tank beneath the passenger cabin?

The center wing tanks usually are the largest. On the 777 (-200LR/-F/-300ER) for example the center tank holds 184,480lb and the wing tanks 69,630lb each. I think some early versions of the 777 didn't use the space in the center wing box for fuel. The two compartments of the center tank in the wing...

Re: Question For the Mechanics: Which Commercial Aircraft Have Been Easiest and Most Difficult For You to Work On?

Just reading your story is terrifying. It's all in a day's work. These stories never stop coming in. Back when I was a newbie I was working with my teammate and he was rather unlucky - when we were disconnecting the fuel pressure transducer at engine FMU he got fuel sprayed all over his face, then ...

Re: Which airliners have ram air turbines. Which power hydraulics and which provide electricity?

Oh, I wouldn’t say impossible. I’d say way too cost prohibitive to even consider it. Well, I supposed you could take the airframe apart, right back to a million separate parts and rebuild it …. at a cost of several times that of a new airframe, but both Boeing and Air Canada Technical Services (tha...

Re: Question For the Mechanics: Which Commercial Aircraft Have Been Easiest and Most Difficult For You to Work On?

Never worked on a Douglas airplane fr8mech, but I've worked my share of hydraulic leaks. Never met a mechanic yet that had anything good to say about LD4. It's fantastic as a torturing tool - going into the stabilizer compartment with a running APU, the LD4 fume will cause an all round burning sens...

Re: Which airliners have ram air turbines. Which power hydraulics and which provide electricity?

For 767 (I assume same for 757) the RAT drives the center hydraulic, and the hydraulic motor generator gives out electricity from hydraulic power. No, on both the B757 and B767 the flight controls are powered directly by the RAT. Our B767's do have a Hydraulic Motor Generator (HMG) and does run off...

Re: United Fleet, Network, and Discussion Thread - Q4 2021

United updated its schedule: -The only mainland China that will operate this winter is the 4x weekly SFO-PVG flight that stops in ICN. All UA flights to PEK and CTU are completely gone. Was Chengdu a leisure or business-oriented route when it operated? I'm sure PEK will come back once China's entry...

Re: United Fleet, Network, and Discussion Thread - Q3 2021

FWIW, that video was shot in May, 2021. ;) Same question, any damage to UA aircraft? Otherwise what was the point of posting that here? The airport reported 5 hail events in 2021 when the post was made. Aircraft pulled out, had hail damage. The MX centers in China were evaluating hail damage on wid...