I’ll be mightily interest in you sharing your source as the engine taking two more years to mature. Is that hearsay or do you have hard evidence??

I didn’t say engines, other posters did. Apart from the engines, there are lots of other problems….structural, electrical, electronic, weight….you name it, it’s gone awry on that aeroplane. Maybe the tyres are OK.

I also did not say that the Fat Herc will be flying, I said it will be nearly flying…..meaning that if A400 took a holiday then LM would pile on the design and prove programme and accelerate it in order to capitalise on the hole in the market. If they want the market that is….maybe they don’t (But why launch the Fat Herc anyway if that’s the case?)

You could say it’s just a rumour, but as I’m involved in the aeroplane then it is a hard rumour. And most of the rumours put about in the industry and MoD corridors tend to be purposelly leaked in order to soften the blow of the actual announcement.

Deino, the Fat Herc is a new aeroplane. The lessons learnt from the 130J can be passed onto the Fatty. Let’s hope they keep it metal not CFRP.
I said some time ago that the forces want a workhorse, to be thrown about the sky, bounced down garbage airstrips in Africa and grunts leaping out of the back with their kit. Airbus military are giving them a Rolls Royce but without the reliability or the cheap cost. The last remark is just a dig at the fact of the cost over runs on A400 are between 5 and 10 fold the targets, even for the early sets on the learning curve. The design/admin costs must be more than 10 fold.
But hey, a lot of EEC jobs are depending on it so it needs to carry on. The nightmares of the A400 can be avoided on the A350. CFRP is not the panacea it was thought to be. From the evidence I’ve seen so far, the weight saving is negligable by the time you’ve added all the Lightning strike protection system onto it. The major stress bearing components are of course still metal anyway. The cost of making CFRP “Structural” parts is outrageously more expensive than bending ally or hogging out an ally billet. I say Structural because the class 2 and 3 stuff like panels, undercart doors and the like are possibly a little cheaper, in these cases the part count is reduced too. And of course the fire damage is a far greater risk, so anywhere there is heat or the potential of heat there is a lot of Titanium, Stainless Steel or ablative paints. The carbon fibres will melt at the temperature of the sun but the resin will go at about 265 degrees C. That’s cold in terms of a fire. All this fire retarding is very heavy and the ablative paints are very expensive. Basically, for the massive extra cost, is the weight that is actually saved worth it? This is a very important question. Boeing are of course finding out the same problems on the 787.

In some cases the higher cost is worth it, where there really is a weight saving. I know of a Customer that is prepared to switch from an Ally part to a CFRP part and be prepared to pay $1,000 per lb for it. His part is presently 48lb, the CFRP version will be 36lb but with a vast part-count reduction. He is prepared to pay an extra $12,000 for that part, because saving 12lb on it is an obvious improvement in weight but it is also a critical CofG consideration because the part is behind the main gear. Basically if he saves 12lb there then he can reduce (I think it was 8lb) from a counterbalance near the nose.

Could anyone here in the know care to speculate if the A400M would be flying today if they went with the Pratt &Whitney Canada powerplant instead of the Europrop/Snecma one?

Almost certainly it would. P&W motto is “Dependable Engines”.

The latest A400 news is that it may have to take a 2 year holiday. The worst is that it could be cancelled. IMO if they do have a “Stop work notice” for two years it will then be cancelled. We can’t keep labour on pegs for two years, the whole team(s) will disperse and find other work. In two years the “Fat Herc” will be nearly flying, and that platform has pedigree and sound engineering to build upon.

People are buying the record because they either like it or they like somebody that is singing on it. Some will buy it as a collectors item. I doubt if more than 2 or 3% of the purchases has been made solely to give to the Poppy fund. So, we can still safely knock the programme with the confidence that we are correct.

Reg Varney has passed away aged 92, He played Stan Butler in the 1970’s comedy “On the Buses”.
RIP mate ripe old age to get to.

Yeah, 92…good innings.
Is his old boss “I’ll get you Butler” still in Summer Wine?

And that girl in On the Buses, Olive? She was the thing that nightmares are made of.

I am going to assume that the above is a slip. The government soes not need oil, we all do. You will struggle to find anything in your home that has not had oil involved in part of its existence.

No, no slip. It was a kick at how the Al Yam is paid for.

I think they are called scanners now because you can set them to scan multiple frequencies for transmissions. In the old days as I remember them my airband radio was a little hand sized radio which you could tune to only one frequency at a time.

I think now you can even have ones which scan more than one band at a time, so while listening to FlyCookThomsonBabyAirways.com you can even listen to the local Constabulary deciding what everyone wants from MacBurger or whether it is to be Chinese, Indian, Thai or bacon butties from the greasy spoon.

As an aside, is it true, when referring to Her Majesty’s Constabulary, that PCSO stands for Please Call a Sensible Officer?

Regards,

kev35

Yeah, it was a standard tune-in Radio. The FM went from 106 to 140??
The Police were indeed on that too. IIRC Manchester aproach was 119.4 and Tower was 118.7.

If those freq. are correct I’m going to have a MASSIVE brandy in celebration that my brain is still on. It was 1974 I last used such a radio.

And the UK’s relationship with Saudi Arabia is oh so critical ‘your a very naughty boy and here is some Typhoon’s to tell you how naughty you are.’:rolleyes:

Good Call!
We too turn a blind eye, money is involved you see. Well, oil for UK Guvmint and money for BAe. Money has no flag. Ever.

I was involved slightly in the Al Yamama, more in the supply of Spares…or rather the re-supply of refurbished kit. Which, was not always a happy medium when the Saudis received refurbished stuff from RAF Tonkas that were considerably older and far heavier used. “It’s an actuator…what’s the problem?” didn’t wash. This happened because there was a Xhour promise on turnround, which was considerably shorter than it took to mend/refurb it so what was on the shelf went out. The Saudis were unhappy and bought some more spares (At gargantuan prices) in order to guarantee they had new stuff back.