Boeing planes are looking more and more like the avg American car

Eureka

Diamond Member
Sep 6, 2005
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I'm wondering if the reason that we're seeing all these mishaps is because of increased news coverage.

I can't imagine that planes built in the 60s or 70s didn't have their fair share of random screw-ups. But what we have now is the internet and everyone's a reporter.
 

OCGuy

Lifer
Jul 12, 2000
27,224
36
91
This incident probably wouldn't be reported on an Airbus flying somewhere in Africa.....

Not that big of a deal compared to the 737 issues a couple years back.
 

SKORPI0

Lifer
Jan 18, 2000
18,429
2,357
136
Boeing%20Panel.jpg

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-...panel-falls-air-india-787-fuselage-mid-flight

Wow, just as large as a sheet of plywood. :eek:o_O
 

mmntech

Lifer
Sep 20, 2007
17,501
12
0
Boeing planes don't need body panels. Hell, the B-17 could still fly with it's tail hanging off. :D

Yeah, I think there's just increased awareness/coverage of it since 9/11. Flying is statistically one of the safest way to travel given the sheer number of flights there are. It's no safer or more dangerous today that it was on September 10th, 2001. Though it is good they're monitoring mechanical problems more closely. A lot of the policies in place came from previous crash investigations.
 

coxmaster

Diamond Member
Dec 14, 2007
3,017
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I'm wondering if the reason that we're seeing all these mishaps is because of increased news coverage.

I can't imagine that planes built in the 60s or 70s didn't have their fair share of random screw-ups. But what we have now is the internet and everyone's a reporter.

That and the fact that planes are a lot more complicated now than they ever have been before
 

Red Squirrel

No Lifer
May 24, 2003
68,457
12,610
126
www.anyf.ca
Yikes! They sure have issues with this model lol. So far nobody was hurt though, but a missing panel is definitely quite serious and could have ended up much worse such as the plane ripping to shreds in mid air.
 

LTC8K6

Lifer
Mar 10, 2004
28,520
1,575
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It's just an aerodynamic fairing that allows maintenance access. It's not structural. Most likely it was removed for maintenance and not re-installed properly.
 

BurnItDwn

Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
26,167
1,638
126
Boeing planes don't need body panels. Hell, the B-17 could still fly with it's tail hanging off. :D

It's amazing to look at some of the pictures of planes that somehow were able to make it back and land... Half of wings missing, tails shot off, control surfaces made into swiss cheese. Those flying fortresses were fvcking awesome!!!!
 

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
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Eureka

Diamond Member
Sep 6, 2005
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That's not really much to say... most cars look like each other because styling comes and goes in waves. Also to note, Ford owns quite a bit of Aston Martin, which is why they look alike now, and Ford and Mazda have had a lot of co-influence, and on top of that, who doesn't want to look like an Aston Martin?
 

Eureka

Diamond Member
Sep 6, 2005
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unokitty

Diamond Member
Jan 5, 2012
3,346
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Those jobs were insane... your grandfather was one of the lucky ones. The unlucky ones were in the planes that landed with bad landing gear.

EDIT:... maybe that was a WW2 myth.
It was while Rooney was attached to the 8th that he witnessed a death terrible in its inevitability. A call came in that one bomber's ball turret gunner was trapped. Operating in the bomber's belly, ball turret gunners rotated their plastic "cages" for maximum target capability. On this particular aircraft, the rotational gears had jammed and the gunner could not return to a position where he could exit into the plane.

The bomber was losing altitude fast and would have to make a crash landing. Everyone --crew, observers, and especially the ball turret gunner -- knew what was going to happen. The pilot ordered the crew to ditch everything to keep the plane in the air for a few more precious minutes, but still the wheels could not be brought down. "We all watched in horror as it happened," Rooney writes in "My War." We watched as this man's life ended, mashed between the concrete pavement of the runway and the belly of the bomber."

And then young Sgt. Rooney went back to his city desk and his work. "I returned to London that night shaken and unable to write the most dramatic, the most gruesome, the most heart-wrenching story I had ever witnessed," he recalls. "Some reporter I was."

--Sgt. Andy Rooney
 

techs

Lifer
Sep 26, 2000
28,559
4
0
I don't see how your grandfather could have fit in there with has brass balls the size of Texas. He must have let them dangle free smashing up bits and pieces of Germany.

I don't know why but I found that hysterical.
 

NoTine42

Golden Member
Sep 30, 2013
1,387
78
91
More B-17:
http://www.eaa.org/warbirdsbriefing/articles/1110_midair.asp

The vertical fin and the rudder had been damaged; the fuselage had been cut almost completely through, connected only at two small parts of the frame; and the radios and electrical and oxygen systems were damaged. There was also a hole in the top that was over 16 feet long and 4 feet wide at its widest, and the split in the fuselage went all the way to the top gunner’s turret.

..,
The tail gunner was trapped because there was no floor connecting the tail to the rest of the plane. The waist and tail gunners used parts of the German fighter and their own parachute harnesses in an attempt to keep the tail from ripping off and the two sides of the fuselage from splitting apart.

....
Despite the extensive damage, all of the machine gunners were able to respond to these attacks and soon drove off the fighters. The two waist gunners stood up with their heads sticking out through the hole in the top of the fuselage to aim and fire their machine guns. The tail gunner had to shoot in short bursts because the recoil was actually causing the plane to turn.

....

Two and a half hours after being hit, the aircraft made its final turn to line up with the runway while it was still over 40 miles away. It descended into an emergency landing and a normal roll-out on its landing gear. When the ambulance pulled alongside, it was waved off because not a single member of the crew had been injured.

No one could believe that the aircraft could still fly in such a condition. The Fortress sat placidly until the crew all exited through the door in the fuselage and the tail gunner had climbed down a ladder, at which time the entire rear section of the aircraft collapsed onto the ground. The rugged old bird had done its job.