More on this on the Beeb;

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4841912.stm

I don’t know how many of you have done this, but I have been a couple of times on the Passenger safety course that BA offer to their Corporate customers where you get to go down all the chutes at their crew training centre as well as doing smoke filled cabin evacuations and having various other bits of excellent aircraft safety advice given. Its great fun but you can see that there is a real risk of injury going down the slides in a hurry and on the course they were very careful to make sure you did it properly. The bit that you really don’t expect on the slide is the sticky bit on the bottom that slows you down. I have a friend who did one for real in Houston a few years ago and it was a bit of a shambles, so practice can be a good thing.

The last time I did this they told us the story of the 777 evacuation certification that apprently became really problematic as it didn’t meet the standard. I think they said it took 4 or 5 attempts at different locations around the world and various technical changes before they finally managed it. What I guess that means, is that the success of this weekends test is by no means a foregone conclusion. I would not want to come down from the upper deck especially of a 380 or Jumbo in a high wind because its a long way down.

While I don’t think there have been any fatalities on aircraft practice evacuations, there certainly have been on the equivalent systems that they use on Sea ferry’s, and I understand that large scale testing of those has all but been abandoned.

“Key CH-53K components”

That Sounds dangerously close to Technology transfer to me 😀 :diablo:

Not sure if this link has been posted before but the MOD in their press release that sparked this off a few days ago don’t seem as pessimistic as some of our contributors on here.

http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/DefenceNews/DefencePolicyAndBusiness/LordDraysonJsfOperationalSovereigntyIsVitalForUkDefenceInterests.htm

“We have no reason to believe that our discussions with the administration will not be successful ” etc

They also seem to think that the second engine is not necessarily dead

I still believe that America has little choice but to transfer the technology or to produce a derivative not using the disputed technology if it wants to sell the JSF in any number.

This aircraft is supposed to be the next F-16 among other things. Most customers will insist on sovereign control and if they don’t get it then they won’t buy. If they don’t change their mind or the technology then all they will sell will be a few aircraft to minor nations who wouldn’t have had the technical ability to maintain their own aircraft anyway. The US is not stupid it knows this, but may have painted itself into a corner that it finds it will not get out of without losing face.

Its a fact though that the financial viability of the whole project depends on exports and America is a trading nation and it would go against its principles not to export something like this in any numbers when they said originally that it was their intention to do so.

I find it bizarre that they are fussing about tech transfer yet Britain and the USA are contemplating embarking on a new ICBM project to replace Trident where full tech transfer will be needed, just like with its predesessor.

I can think of all sorts of reasons why this is just not sensible to retrieve it to the sub that launched it. I think it should be expendable.

I am surprised that the CDG has had so much trouble with its plant as the French are usually very competent in Nuclear engineering.

Obviously the F-16 knew that it had been acquired and locked on, do we know if the Tornado crew every knew if they had been locked on and attacked or were they unaware ? I never read the report.

Yes of course, but its strange how ones memory goes when getting older because I had completely forgotten (until I just re-read it) that these often have a small rockets underneath to provide some lift at landing speeds so they don’t hit the deck to hard. I put my poor memory down to information overload 😀 😉