* Posts by SkippyBing

2364 publicly visible posts • joined 21 May 2008

Boeing, Boeing, gone! CEO Muilenburg quits 'effective immediately'

SkippyBing

Re: MCAS =/= anti-death

Wrong, MCAS is required to pass certification, no MCAS no selling it for use as an airliner.

The training was minimised to allow pilots to be qualified on the 737NG and Max with the same type rating, which is a big cost saving, and helps scheduling crews on mixed fleets.

SkippyBing

Other Issues

Worth noting, they've also had problems with the new tanker they're building for the USAF, the 777X failed its pressure test probably delaying certification, and the space capsule thingy failed to rendezvous with the ISS.

And then there were two: HMS Prince of Wales joins Royal Navy

SkippyBing

Re: Air Cover?

I think the appearance of two new USMC squadrons would kind of give it away as no one has made new Harriers since 1997. But sure a conspiracy of silence makes more sense.

SkippyBing

Re: Bloody Shambles

Canopus actually didn't make it to the Battle of Coronel, having failed to get around Cape Horn in time.* She ended up being grounded in Port Stanley harbour to act as a fixed battery, with a phone line over the hill to an observation post. Consequently when von Spee's task group turned up she actually scored the first hit while the Battlecruisers were getting steam up, having just finished coaling.

Oddly the choice of Sturdee as the Admiral in charge of Invincible and Inflexible was also Churchill's choice, although this was mainly to get him out of the Admiralty where he didn't get on with his immediate boss Fisher.

The Battle of the Falklands may indeed have been about the only occasion Battlecruisers were used properly!

*There's a line of thinking that her Captain knew it would be a suicide mission but no real proof.

SkippyBing

Re: Air Cover?

Not according to the USMC in 2012.

SkippyBing

Re: Air Cover?

Yes but the poster I was replying to was claiming a P-3C would be more use than an AEW helicopter for AEW. Which seems unlikely given the sensors on a P-3C.

SkippyBing

Re: Bloody Shambles

One other point about Admiral Philips, he was sent at Churchill's insistence and not at the choice of the Admiralty. One of many cases, in both wars, of Churchill micro managing things that he should have kept out of.

SkippyBing

Re: Air Cover?

Unlikely, they were stripped for parts and sent to the Boneyard. There were too many differences between the US and UK versions to make operating them practical fro the USMC.

SkippyBing

I looked into it a while ago. Theoretically it could have met them in South Africa on the timeline PoW and Repulse followed, however I suspect if she hadn't run aground they would have got to Singapore a bit later having waited for Indomitable either there or in Ceylon*.

*I keep using Ceylon, I know it's called Sri Lanka but I've written a load on the Second World War recently and it's easier using the place names in use at the time.

SkippyBing

Re: Bloody Shambles

'I have always wondered about the RN, nay, the entire HMG’s view that above a certain rank / grade everyone is equally competent in all fields'

I wouldn't say that's true, i.e. a logistics officer of any rank will never have command of any type of ship, never mind an aircraft carrier. That Admiral Philips had been working in a staff job is to a certain extent typical, people with operational experience need to cycle in to HQ jobs to ensure the knowledge there is relevant and at some point they may come back out and go to another front line role. Plus you can't leave people on the front line forever, they burn out.

Philips knew there was a need for air cover, but he assumed the staff in Singapore would divine his movements in response to the signals they were sending him. Therefore he trusted wouldn't need to call for it in advance and potentially give his position away to the enemy. The Hunting of Force Z by Richard Hough has quite a good insight into the whole situation based on the survivors recollections.

SkippyBing

Re: Bloody Shambles

Unfortunately the RAF insisted on hoarding Spitfires in the UK* and using them for fighter-sweeps over the Continent a task for which they were ill suited. As opposed to intercepting enemy bombers which would have been useful in say, Singapore. But then some of the Air Ministry's pre-war doctrine was worse than the RN's when it came to the test.

*I think they had ~100 squadrons of them at the time.

SkippyBing

The RN was hampered by naval aviation belonging to the RAF throughout the inter-War period. Observers were in fact the only bit of naval aviation they had complete control over, ie they were all naval officers, were only in Fleet Air Arm squadrons, and didn't lose seniority which naval pilots did when they went through flying training etc. Observers had plenty of feeling for naval aviation, you have to if you're the one who navigates back to the ship!

Unfortunately because of the dual control of the air arm in the interwar period there weren't any officers of flag rank with recent aviation experience (a few from WW1 were serving but having not transferred to the RAF in 1918 were a bit out of date). And of course with the Air Ministry controlling aircraft production the RAF's ideas on the capability of naval aircraft preveiled.

A good read on this, and the Fleet Air Arm's success despite the odds in the opening stages of the war is 'The Dawn of Carrier Strike' by David Hobbs.

SkippyBing

Sorry even Wikipedia says Nells and Bettys were naval aircraft, the Nell's specification even being drawn up by Admiral Yamamoto. They were being operated by the Genzan and Mihoro Kokutais.

How many aircraft do you think the Germans and Italians had in the Med?! Again the Kido Butai's ability at that point is irrelevant as they were halfway across the Pacific and it's unlikely the RN would have stayed in place to oppose them without significantly more ships. e.g. What Somerville had in '42 in the Indian Ocean.

SkippyBing

Re: Bloody Shambles

Also worth noting the decision to send the PoW and Repulse to Singapore was entirely Churchill's against the advice from the RN who'd wanted them at Ceylon. This would have held them as a fleet in being, complicating Japanese plans, because as you say, on their own they weren't considered sufficient.

SkippyBing

Re: Prince of Wales

No to either ship being cut in half to install prop shafts as far as I'm aware. One of QE's props ended up slightly out of alignment for a combination of reasons* which led to some of the bearings needing to be repaired and strengthened but that was a relatively easy job. Possible we didn't pay for it as we didn't even own it at the time so it would have been up to BAE to deliver a working warship. For example I was shocked when I found out a whole load of modifications to an aircraft were being funded by the manufacturer as otherwise they wouldn't be able to meet a key performance requirement.

*It was in the first documentary series the BBC did on her, I think the prop got fouled and that exacerbated something that hadn't been installed correctly.

SkippyBing

Re: on contrary

Yes, but that was in 1945, at the point PoW and Repulse were sunk it was the first time that any battleship manoeuvring on the open seas had been sunk entirely by aircraft action.

SkippyBing

Re: Air Cover?

I mean good luck ever getting a P-3 on or off a carrier. Not sure what good an anti-submarine aircraft would be for AEW either to be honest.

SkippyBing

Sea Hurricanes and Fulmars were also outclassed by the aircraft of the Italian and German Air forces in the Mediterranean. They still prevented ships being sunk, indeed during Op Pedestal no ships were sunk by aircraft while they had a carrier escort. The key was breaking up the incoming raids making it easier for the ships to take out the individual aircraft and preventing coordinated strikes. The key to this was radar and fighter control. So the outcome is nowhere near as certain as your top trumps analysis would suggest.

Also I'm fairly sure all the aircraft involved were from the Japanese Navy who had an extensive range of land based attack aircraft. It would have been impressive if the Kido Butai had turned up as at the time they were on the way back from Hawaii, which is quite a long way from Malaysia. I doubt the PoW task group would have hung around waiting for them.

Have you got a source for your quote by Indomitable's Captain? I haven't come across it in anything I've read about her.

SkippyBing

Not true to say the RN hadn't realised battleships were vulnerable to air attack, they had after all carried out several practical demonstrations against the Germans and Italians. The PoW and Repulse lacked air cover because a) there wasn't a lot around and b) the Admiral in charge of the task group assumed the staff in Singapore would realise his intent and therefore didn't break radio silence, consequently no one knew where to send what there was. The Japanese only found the pair* by luck on the way back from where they thought they'd be, hence a number of the attackers were low on fuel in the first wave.

*There were also two destroyers but they managed to survive and rescue the survivors from the battleships.

Irish eyes aren't smiling after govt blows €1m on mega-printer too big for parliament's doors

SkippyBing

That all makes sense, but do they have to do it in the actual parliament building? Or were they just taking the phrase 'bringing the process in house' literally?

Labour: Free British broadband for country if we win general election

SkippyBing

Because it turns out people will happily accept poor service in exchange for lower bills. Hence Ryan Air and Talk Talk still being in business. But if that's a choice people want to make then let them, it's not as if there aren't better choices available, e.g. any other airline, Andrews and Arnold etc.

SkippyBing

'Labour is pro-remain, right?'

I think they're Schrodinger's Brexit. Their apparent policy is to negotiate a better Brexit deal which they'll then put to a referendum where they'll campaign against it. Actually that makes Schrodinger sound simple.

SkippyBing

Re: Marx would be proud

You're forgetting the re-education camps, which obviously you'll be attending for not realising the glorious benefits of this scheme comrade.

SkippyBing

Re: Political self-obsession and onanism

I'd also imagine that if this plan went through the best you'd ever get is 30mbps as that's what the founding charter of the National Broadband Service was and there'd be no incentive to improve 'our NBS' which is free at the point of use and not for sale. God just thinking about it depresses me.

Beardy biologist's withering takedown of creationism fetches $564,500 at auction

SkippyBing

Alfred Russel Wallace

Just saying.

Controversies aren't Boeing away for aircraft maker amid claims of faulty oxygen systems and wobbling wings

SkippyBing

If it helps, just remember the solution to the battery fires on the 787 was to put the battery in a titanium box so the fire couldn't get out of it...

The UK's Civil Aviation Authority asked drone orgs to email fliers' data in an Excel spreadsheet

SkippyBing

Re: SASE

If my experience was anything to go by you'd also have to ring them up after a couple of months to ask where your licence was and that yes you had in fact paid the £90 processing fee* so maybe they could do their job. Despite their claim that everything was proceeding correctly my licence mysteriously turned up the next day.

As the regulator for a high tech industry the CAA seems to be stuck firmly in the 19th Century. It takes them a month to send you the results for multiple-choice exams that are designed to be marked by a Babbage Difference Engine and combined Ocular Reader.

*Something like that I forget exactly.

It's dangerous to go alone! Take Uncle Sam and the Netherlands: Duo join naval task force into China's backyard

SkippyBing

Re: Those are dangerous waters

It'd be awfully nice if they did, intelligence gathering is so much easier when it comes to you.

SkippyBing

I believe 1 British and 1 US F-35 squadron. The slow build up of UK F-35 is partly explained by there not being much point in buying many pre-Block 4 as they'd need upgrading anyway. Plus the cost is coming down with each successive batch ordered.

SkippyBing

Re: Because ABDA worked so well in 1942?

Different OPFOR though, it's not as if the Chinese were doing brilliantly in '42 either.

Aviation's been Boeing through a rough patch: Software tweaks blamed for Airbus A220 failures

SkippyBing

Re: Both engines?

My understanding is that the engines have dual control channels so if one fails you can swap to the alternate one. These control channels may be developed independently, but each engine has both.

This is all based off the engines in the type I work with so may be completely irrelevant in this case.

UK.gov's smart meter cost-benefit analysis for 2019 goes big on cost, easy on the benefits

SkippyBing

Them "what day of the week is good for us to fit your smart meter"

Me "none of them I have a job"

Them "well let us know when you are going to be on holiday and we can do it then"

Me "OK..."

They must think I'm really keen not having a holiday in three years.

Wake me up before you Gogo ... so I can jump out: Kenyan MP takes on aeroplane flatulence

SkippyBing

To some extent it can't be helped. Your digestive tract is used to being surrounded by ~1 atmosphere of pressure. Rapidly take it up a few thousand feet* and the gases will start to leak out.

*average airliner cabin altitude is ~8000'

Captain's coffee calamity causes transatlantic flight diversion

SkippyBing

Pedant mode

Technically it wasn't the radio the coffee was spilt on it was the Audio Control Panel, which lets the crew choose which of the radios to listen to, which of those they'll reply to when they press the transmit button etc. The actual radios will be big boxes elsewhere in the aircraft.

The end result is the same though in that the crew wouldn't be able to talk to anyone.

Now on Amazon Prime: The Amazing Shrinking UK Tax Burden

SkippyBing
IT Angle

Re: Reality

Genuinely surprised they have IT in Yeovil to be honest.

Hugs and kisses from across the border in civilised Dorset.

Auditors bemoan time it takes for privatised RAF pilot training to produce combat-ready aviators

SkippyBing

When I went through aircrew training last decade it was probably about 5 years from Zero to front-line fast jet, ~3 years for helicopters. That's not to say it was perfect and you could spend a year+ on holdover between flying courses as they hadn't got the output from one course aligned with the input to the next.

In comparison in the '60s my dad left Dartmouth and a year later was a front-line fast jet Observer.

As I mention elsewhere, the big problem is the training requirement increased between the contract award and implementation due to the 2015 defence review. My understanding is more aircraft are being procured to deal with this, but added to the usual teething difficulties and it's caused something of a mess.

SkippyBing

Re: "Auditors bemoan time it takes"

Minor correction, the training contractor actually can go out and buy more aircraft. It's literally part of the contract, the requirement is train X pilots, Y observers, and Z aircrewmen a year to the required standard.

How they achieve that is up to them, if they can do it with 2 Cessna and a Jetranger crack on.

To be fair to the contractor, the initial X, Y, and Z figures were based on the front-line strength post the 2010 SDSR. This was increased markedly in the 2015 mini-review which means they're having to expand their training capacity. I have no idea how much extra they get paid for this change in direction.

Royal Navy seeks missile-moving robots for dockyard drudgery

SkippyBing

Re: Cart b4 horse

To a certain extent they do, you just slot missiles into the vertical launch silos and forget about them. However they're not the only weapons, and for some reason they've made loading the silos more complicated than you'd have thought necessary.

Ah, this should totally reassure Euro workers: They'll get Brexit EU settled status app on iPhones from October

SkippyBing

Surveillance Society?

So on the plus side it appears highly unlikely the government is able to link all your records to find out everything about you. Which isn't a massive surprise, but still silver lining and all that.

Electric cars can't cut UK carbon emissions while only the wealthy can afford to own one

SkippyBing

Re: except

Oddly enough I can go to the garage on my way somewhere else, it's not a special journey.

Great, if you have a garage a lot of people don't or even off street parking, which makes at home charging problematic.

SkippyBing

'There are now over 1000 more EV charging locations than petrol stations in the UK'

How many charging stands are there vs petrol pumps?

Army Watchkeeper drone flopped into tree because crew were gazing backwards

SkippyBing

Perhaps, perhaps not. If you haven't seen it from that angle before it may not be readily apparent as the field of view isn't that big. Judging the difference between on the ground and a foot or two up can be a challenge, even if you're sat in the aircraft.

Leaked EU doc plots €100bn fund to protect European firms against international tech giants

SkippyBing

Re: Slightly odd EU thinking going on here...

'Or look at Airbus... without direct intervention, there would be only US planes.'

The UK was making large airliners before Airbus came along. Thanks to direct intervention where the government told them what to build even the government owned airline had limited interest in buying them. See the VC-10 for an example, designed to operate out of Nairobi* it was over engineered for most other roles, BOAC bought a handful and then more Boeing 707s, which were remarkably like the aircraft Vickers had wanted to build...

*Nairobi is hot and high which reduces aircraft performance, which is problematic during the take-off portion of the flight.

An Army Watchkeeper drone tried to land. Then meatbags took over from the computers

SkippyBing

Re: Crew Training

'Surely it would be a net saving by sending the "commander" of each single drone's crew to get their PPL - £10k - or even a gliding "get to solo" course - £2k-ish - so they have an understanding of the basics of flight and why an aircraft may be landing long or just doing something that'

They are doing something along those lines already. What I'm not sure about because I haven't read the full report is whether it was the Army flying it or Thales own pilots, the latter doing most of the flying out of Aberporth. Thales pilots as far as I know are all qualified in actual aircraft already...

I could throttle you right about now: US Navy to ditch touchscreens after kit blamed for collision

SkippyBing

Haven't had an excuse to go on the newer stuff yet! Interestingly the USN tried going to a hybrid electric drive for the Arleigh Burke and changed their mind, so they're still going round with a full COGAG set up.

SkippyBing

Gas turbines don't like lots of large throttle changes, they're happiest running at a constant speed. The temperature fluctuations aren't great for one thing so it leads to a reduced MTBF. Less of a problem these days as everything moves to electric final drive which cushions the turbines from the demand changes.

SkippyBing

It's a bit more complicated than that, certainly on the T23, in that you let the engine room know if you're planning on going fast enough to need the gas turbines and they sort out all the details for you. You can also put the engines in engine room control and just tell them what you want, in the worst case this involves personnel in the actual machinery spaces manually controlling the engines. Redundancy, they've heard of it.

SkippyBing

'How did such a design pass basic functionality testing?

I suspect because it was an incremental upgrade to a design from the '80s. So someone just said we can do this neat thing, without the implications being thought through.

SkippyBing

Re: Touch screens

'Most cars have a hot-cold temperature dial which allows you to mix hot engine coolant with your cold air conditioner output, with little or no visible indication in the non-extreme cases.

Only if you're a pauper without climate control.

Disclaimer I only ever buy cars second hand but it's helpful to have as a filter on autotrader to limit the choice.

SkippyBing

Re: Touch screens

The issue with all missile fighters was the Defence Secretary then decided that you had to get visual ID before you were allowed to shoot anything down. By which point you're too close for missiles...

So the theory wasn't terrible, it just didn't allow for politicians.