AvTalk Episode 233: Ural in a field (again)

AVT 233 Transcript
EPISODE 233
[EPISODE]
[0:00:07] IP: Hello and welcome to episode 233 of AvTalk. I am Ian Petchenik, here, as always
with –
[0:00:17] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. Ian, good to talk to you back on the computer microphone
thingy after spending so much time with you and so many other people in person last weekend.
[0:00:28] IP: That was the most fulfilling trip I have had in a while. I came away from Dorkfest
and Spot LAX, I don't want to say with a new lease on life, but certainly, a reinvigoration of my
avgeek spirit. It was just such a fantastic weekend with so many people. I think Brett Snyder
counted the raffle tickets that we handed out, and there were over 450 participants. Including
the NYC Aviation Spot LAX events, it had to have been over 500 people. I'm pretty sure, I talked
to almost each and every one of them.
[0:01:05] JR: Yeah, what struck me the most is that there were a ton of people, most of the
people I spoke to who introduced themselves, or I talked to were there for the first time this year,
which I thought was really interesting. A lot of people, I said, “Oh, were you here last year, or
before COVID?” They go, “No, this is the first year I'm here.” Actually, a lot of them heard about
the whole event, Cranky Dorkfest and NYC, the whole weekend, through us, actually, last year.
We didn't give them enough heads up to go last year, so they only came this year. Maybe we'll
give you a six-month countdown and a three-month countdown to book your flights and we'll be
more on top of it. It was really awesome to meet so many people, so many of you listening right
now, so many young people, too.
We have to keep the hobby and the interest going and people younger than Ian and myself,
because we're old and we need the kids to be interested in aviation. It seems like that's coming
along nicely.
[0:02:00] IP: Speaking of kids, I thought the most impressive person that we met all weekend is
a young man of about 14-years-old.
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[0:02:10] JR: Oh, so it's not me. All right.
[0:02:12] IP: No, you were impressive in your own right, Jason.
[0:02:14] JR: Thank you, but go on.
[0:02:16] IP: This young man, he's 14-years-old, Dorkfest and Spot LAX, for those that are
listening, I guess, to this is their first episode, real quick recap. Brett Snyder, who runs Cranky
Flier, which is an aviation news blog, but also runs a wonderful travel agency in its own right, he,
a few years ago, more than a few years ago, I guess, 15 years –
[0:02:38] JR: 10 years, I believe.
[0:02:39] IP: Spot LAX was the 10th anniversary.
[0:02:41] JR: Oh, Spot LAX is 10 years. Yeah.
[0:02:42] IP: Dorkfest has been going on a little bit longer. More than 10 years, and we'll double
check the numbers for next time. Basically, started this whole thing by saying, “I'm going to be in
and out next to LAX in Los Angeles. Come eat hamburgers and talk about airplanes with me
while they fly over our heads.” It has grown to a 450-person gathering with raffle prizes from, I
mean, flightradar24 donated subscriptions, airlines have donated tickets, or models. Other LAX
associated places have donated things like the parking spot donated free parking at LAX, that
kind of stuff. Just a big collection of avgeeks.
10 years ago, Spot LAX got started with NYC Aviation. Now, because it's such a destination,
they have them on the same weekend, every weekend, and the events are fluid and people
mingle between the two and there's all sorts of things that you can do with both groups along
the way. This 14-year-old young man who is a listener of the podcast, a subscriber to the app
and bigger avgeek than I think I ever could be, because he has somehow convinced his teacher
to let him leave the classroom when there is a cool aircraft flying over, so he can go get a
picture.
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[0:04:03] JR: All right. I mean, that's dedication.
[0:04:06] IP: Not every aircraft, but if something special flies over during class, his teacher is
totally fine with him leaving class to go snap a picture. He's committed. He's a committed
avgeek. To show his mother how committed he is, he created a 25-slide PowerPoint
presentation to convince her to take him from Phoenix, Arizona to Los Angeles for the weekend,
so that he could come hang out with us, look at planes and just be in the general vicinity of his
people. It worked. I was just blown away by his, first of all, his ingenuity and his commitment.
Also, his passion.
You can tell that this is one of those people who has found what he loves very early on in life
and intends to pursue it to the fullest. I thought he was the most impressive avgeek we met all
weekend. There was no shortage of young people there. I think the youngest person there,
because they wanted to be, rather than because their parents put them in a stroller and pushed
them over to the event. I think the youngest two were four-years-old, and they're because they
loved airplanes, mostly because their parents love airplanes and they've successfully managed
to get their kids into airplanes, too. I just thought that was fantastic. They were so great to talk
to, because there's no pretense about anything. It's just, they were so genuine in their love for
the thing that was flying in the sky.
[0:05:47] JR: Yes, just you ask, “Why are you here?” They go, “I like planes.” You go, “Okay.” To
be clear, that excuse goes all the way up until probably, the day I die, no matter how old I am
when that happens. To hear that from multiple people that age four-years-old is kind of – I didn't
like anything that much when I was four-years-old. I don't know about you, but it's good to see
some people pick out such a hobby that young and create a 25-slide PowerPoint presentation
on why you should go to something called Cranky Dorkfest at the in and out next to the airport.
[0:06:22] IP: To her credit, his mom was so onboard with his passion. She was absolutely
committed to making sure that he had as good a time as he possibly could. I was really
impressed by her. It was clear that she didn’t – she understood that he was passionate about it,
but she didn't really understand why. It didn't have that little extra step, which I know, my parents
don't. They're like, “Have fun with that.” It was really great to see her see encouraging that.
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AVT 233 Transcript
Dorkfest is such a great event. I mean, we've been talking about it, because I think the biggest
thing about Dorkfest and I told Brett this over the weekend, and I told it, basically, everyone I
had to is that there's no pretense, other than you have to enjoy aviation. Because there are
people there who are so deep into the industry, at the top of major airlines, C-suite executives at
major airlines that are there. Then there's a four-year-old kid, and they're talking to each other,
because they both love airplanes, and it's as simple as that. That is why I encourage anyone to
begin planning now. It'll be sometime the first couple of weeks in September in LA next year.
Stay tuned to us and keep a watch on Cranky Flier’s website for the official announcement of
next year's dates and we hope you can join us then.
[0:07:50] JR: Excellent. Should we talk a little bit about how we got there and back? Because I
know it's been a little while since you've been on an actual airplane.
[0:07:58] IP: It has been a while since I've been on an actual airplane. I suppose that's true. If
only to talk about your shoes, Jason, we should do that.
[0:08:05] JR: We'll get to that.
[0:08:08] IP: We've talked about this summer being the summer of suck in New York in
particular. You got bit by it, but you could have been bitten worse.
[0:08:18] JR: I got bit, but we didn't have to amputate, which is important.
[0:08:21] IP: There you go. There you go. That's a picture.
[0:08:23] JR: For all of June in New York, and in this case, I braved the elements out in New
Jersey at Newark. Travel through the Northeast was just awful. Again, the same thing repeated
in the first couple of weeks of September, where we had lines of thunderstorms to the West that
just blocked every route. Of course, this book, I tripped United – I booked United out of Newark,
which is always a questionable idea when there's potential weather. I was originally booked
really happy about this, actually, and internationally configured 777-200, which would have been
really nice. Had a nice economy-plus seat, all picked out.
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On my way to the airport, I got there a little early. I looked at the radar and saw, “Oh, jeez.
There's a lot of storms building.” I got there early and I opted to move up an hour, because it's
New York to LA, there's a flight literally every hour or better, so I can stand by on the earlier
flight, which was a 75. Not the end of the world. With extra legroom seat, empty middle seat,
which made it real good. Yeah, we spent two hours and 55 minutes out there on the taxiways
waiting to take off. But damn it, we got out. We had five minutes left on the clock before – I'm
not really sure what exactly would have turned us into a pumpkin. I think at the three-hour mark,
we would have had to go back to the gate, because of the tarmac delay rules, but then there are
no gates, or fuel, or crew, whatever. We were very much on the clock and I had people on
Twitter listening to ATC saying, “My crew is basically pleading, “Hey, we only have 28 minutes
left. Can we please get out of here?””
Then eventually, they got a route, which had us going all the way down to North Carolina out of
New Jersey, before we were able to turn west to get around the storms. There's only so many
flights that can do that at once. We got real lucky we made it out of there with about four and a
half minutes to spare. My original flight that I moved off of did not make it out. They spent four
and a half hours on the ground before turning around and getting a gate.
[0:10:16] IP: That sounds rough.
[0:10:16] JR: Put God there, but I was on that 757 –
[0:10:20] IP: Technically, that flight did make it out, didn't it?
[0:10:23] JR: No, it was outright canceled.
[0:10:25] IP: Wasn't your original flight that turned into a westbound red eye?
[0:10:28] JR: No. All the later ones. That went back to the gate and the crew basically said,
“See you later. You're on your own.” It was the later flights that went out at midnight and got into
LAX at 5 am, which is just awful. But it's weird that my 2-hour 55-minute delay is like, “Yeah, it's
not so bad. All right, I'll take that.”
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[0:10:49] IP: Take what you can get right there.
[0:10:51] JR: Yeah. On the way back, I was on one of the not well loved United high-density
domestic 777s, the eighth oldest currently active Boeing 777. Line number 22. Of course, all top
10 all belong to United. They like their old 777s. It was fine, except something happened in LAX
on the way out that's never happened to me before. I don't know if it's happened to many
people. I hope not.
When I got there, the line for pre-check was actually quite long, and I didn't want to bother with
that, because the line for regular security had no one in it. I figured, “Oh, whatever. I'll take my
belt off, take my shoes off. It'll still be a whole lot quicker than pre-check.” I put all my stuff in
one bin, I took my shoes off, took my belt off, my watch, put my bag in the thing, left the bin
there, because it was one of those newer style X-ray machines where five people can line up at
once, put the thing in and then the machine sucks it up and then puts it through the conveyor
belt. When it came through the other side, only one of my two shoes was in the bin, which isn't
great, because you usually need two shoes, especially when you're flying across the country
and you got to take all sorts of trains and fights.
The TSOs, the TSA, TSOs on the secure side at LAX could not have cared less that the
machine presumably picked one of my shoes. There's always one of the officers on the other
side who's taking the bins that were rejected to be secondary screened and he said, “Well, you
probably put it in wrong.” Well, that's just not helpful, man. Come on. I know how to put a shoe
in a bin.
[0:12:31] IP: I still need the shoe bag.
[0:12:32] JR: I've done it before and can you please help me find this shoe? What am I going to
do here? Eventually, I found a manager who was willing to go to the other side and found it
somehow on the floor, and got its own bin and went through the machine. I didn't really think
about it before, but these new style of machines where five people line up, you queue, you
leave, basically.
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You go through the X-ray machine, or the swirly thingy, whatever that is, the full body scanner,
then you just hope that your tray gets sucked into the queue properly and goes through the
machine. You don't actually have eyes on it at that point. During that time, anyone could do
anything to that bin. The TSOs aren't really going to see everything going on. If recent news is
any indication, they're probably going to steal stuff right out of your bag. I don't think that was at
LAX. I think that was at Miami, which is not too surprising. Miami has a history of things like that.
It just was like, man, I didn't put the shoe in the bin wrong. The thing fell out, or someone took it
out, or it got knocked out. I put the shoe in the bin, but I was very happy to be reunited with my
shoe.
[0:13:38] IP: I guess, my question is, how would you put the shoe in the bin wrong?
[0:13:42] JR: I don't know.
[0:13:44] IP: How does that work?
[0:13:45] JR: I guess, if you overload the bin and it's sticking up and hanging off the side,
maybe it falls out. I don't know, but be a little more compassionate when a man sitting there with
one shoe in his hand and needs both. But I got there. It was fine. We got to gate early in
Newark. You had a very different experience.
[0:14:04] IP: I was on the same plane both ways.
[0:14:06] JR: That's interesting.
[0:14:08] IP: An interesting experience.
[0:14:08] JR: On a hub-to-hub route like that, you would not expect to see the same aircraft
doing the same route like that repeatedly. Usually, they cycle them in and then they go
somewhere better.
[0:14:18] IP: They did. They did go somewhere better. This was a really cool thing. I got on the
plane in Chicago, so this was a United 787-10. I got on the plane in Chicago, flew to Los
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Angeles. The plane went from Los Angeles to Tokyo and back, and then took me home back to
Chicago.
[0:14:33] JR: It only had time for one turn. That's awesome.
[0:14:35] IP: Yeah. One Tokyo turn. It goes to show you, I mean, fleet utilization, man. That's
where it's at. Yeah. getting out was fine. I love the domestic, so Internet, it's Polaris configuration
on the 787. I used this trip to check off the 787 Bingo card. The 10 was my remaining 787. I've
done the 8, the 9, and the 10. I mean, if we're being geeky about it, which is what this podcast is
for, I'm pleased as punched that I was able to do that.
[0:15:08] JR: I'm not bitter at all last year that United subbed out a Dash 10 for a Dash 9.
[0:15:12] IP: That’s right.
[0:15:12] JR: Nope. Nope. Not at all bitter about that.
[0:15:15] IP: Getting out was fine. My seatmate was super interesting. He was a guy who had
been in Chicago, was headed home to Los Angeles, had seen the Pearl Jam show at United
Center and was just on his way home. He was in film and television and a big music fan.
Judging by his appearance, I'm going to say behind the camera in general, but he was telling
me about some of his aviation exploits. That was really fun to listen to, some of the things that
he's done flying-wise, because of both his job and who he's friends with. Things like, flying bush
planes in Alaska to go fishing and some other stuff. He had flown on an aircraft that has the
Garmin auto-land.
[0:15:56] JR: Push the button.
[0:15:58] IP: Yeah. He did not. I asked him. I'm like, “Well, how tempted were you to push the
button?” He's like, “Super tempted.” I was like, “You didn't push the button, did you?” He's like,
“No, I didn't.” Did not want to get in trouble for that one. Yeah, so going to Los Angeles was
completely an eventful flight. It was great. I used the smart, I guess, tip of on an internationally
configured 787. The premium economy is sold as economy plus. You just have to look at the
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seat map and make sure you're clicking on the right seat when you're booking, so I took
advantage of that.
Then on the way home, nothing was terrible. It was like a comedy of anything that could go
mildly wrong, like wrong enough to just be annoying is what happened. Because the plane
came back from Tokyo –
[0:16:43] JR: That’s flying in the US is special right now.
[0:16:47] IP: Yeah. Yeah. The plane came back from Tokyo. Customs and border patrol had to
go onboard the plane and make sure it didn't bring back any puffer fish, or salmon eggs, or I
don't even know what. But they did a sweep of the plane, and that was fine. United didn't delay
boarding, so they didn't tell anybody until everyone – they had lined everybody up to board.
[0:17:09] JR: Oh, you got boarding, not boarding. That stinks.
[0:17:12] IP: Yeah. Then they were like, “Oh, customs is on the plane, so we need to wait.” That
took 90 minutes. Fine. Whatever. Thanks to schedule padding, we were still going to be roughly
on time. Then the crew had to get onboard and get the plane ready and all that's fine. You get
on board, and then we do that, we fly. It was a completely uneventful flight, a lovely crew, a
wonderful way to end the weekend. Land. We did a couple circles, which was weird, but, I
mean, what are you going to do? That's O’Hare. Then Uber was $90 to go from the airport to my
house. A trip that is normally between $35 and $40.
[0:17:49] JR: Did you pay it?
[0:17:50] IP: No, I absolutely not. On principle.
[0:17:53] JR: All right, who line it is.
[0:17:55] IP: This was a work trip. For those going, “Why didn't he expense it?” Just on
principle.
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[0:17:59] JR: Yeah. Exactly the same reason why I took the Newark air train to Jersey transit to
the three train to get back to Brooklyn, or some nonsense. It took half as long as the flight from
LA did. I'm not paying $170 to come [inaudible 0:18:14].
[0:18:14] IP: No, no, because, yeah, it's just unconscionable that that is how much it costs. I
took the blue line a few stops and got a car from there, and it all worked out.
[0:18:23] JR: Well, you know what? I'm just going to quote our show notes here, because we're
already 20 minutes in, we got a lot of news. Great fun. Good time was had by all. Thank you,
Ian for putting that in the show notes. I would not have known that otherwise.
[0:18:36] IP: You would not have known that otherwise. Okay, so that was 20 minutes of what
happened this weekend. If only to say, it was an amazing experience and we're so grateful that
so many people came up to us over the weekend and said, “We love your podcast. I listen to
every episode.” There were so many people who showed me, showed me their phone to prove
that they had flightradar24 as one of the most popular apps on their phone. I was like, “This is
fantastic.”
To all of the people that said, “Hey, I have a problem,” and then told me their problem and then
either I've sent it on to our developers, or product people for review. Thank you. That's how
flightradar24 gets better. If you do have a question about the app, or a problem with the website,
or anything like that, always email us. Because if you've got a problem, I guarantee somebody
else does, too, and we want to make sure that it's the best experience for everyone.
As Jason said, we have a lot of news. News did not wait for us to get back, reset, and grab our
bearings. Hey, let's just dive right in. By dive right in, I mean, make a soft landing in a field
outside of Novosibirsk, which is exactly what a Ural A320 did.
[0:19:44] JR: They’ve got to stop doing that.
[0:19:46] IP: Yeah, right? This is the second in –
[0:19:48] JR: Second since 2019.
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[0:19:50] IP: Three, four years. Yeah.
[0:19:51] JR: The first one was a legitimate good idea. This one, we’ll get to why probably not
what needed to happen.
[0:19:59] IP: This was a Ural A320 flight from Sochi to Omsk, that encountered hydraulic
issues. And so, decided, because the hydraulic system on the A320 can impact things like
braking performance and being able to stop the aircraft on the runway. They said, “Let's go to
Novosibirsk,” and they have a long runway.
[0:20:24] JR: All right. Nothing out of the ordinary, or unprecedented. This is a good idea.
[0:20:27] IP: That makes perfect sense.
[0:20:29] JR: This is good piloting. You want a longer runway for situations where you don't
know what the performance capability of your aircraft is. Good idea. Continue.
[0:20:38] IP: Jason, what's one of the things that every pilot that you know of keeps an eagle
eye on almost at all times? But especially in an emergency situation.
[0:20:49] JR: Oh, in an emergency. Fuel. Fuel is a big one.
[0:20:53] IP: Indeed, fuel is one of those things where air traffic control’s often requesting, how
much fuel do you have left? Both for a timing issue, but also to understand how heavy the
aircraft is going to be and in the case of an emergency, how much fuel is going to be on the –
[0:21:07] JR: That's always the question, right? Number of souls on board and fuel remaining.
[0:21:11] IP: And fuel remaining.
[0:21:11] JR: The two questions.
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[0:21:13] IP: These particular pilots failed to keep an eagle eye on the fuel remaining portion of
the proceedings, and proceeded to near Novosibirsk, land in a field, because they ran out of –
[0:21:27] JR: Yeah. Obviously, we always say, we wait for the final report to be issued by the
respective investigation agencies in this case. In this case, it really feels like a foregone
conclusion here that this crew did what they thought was the right idea, and it obviously was.
They tried to divert to an airport with a longer runway, but they may not have taken to account
that their landing gear was down and their flaps were deployed and probably couldn't retract
due to the hydraulic issues. Your performance, your range with all of these items out, ruining
your aerodynamics, your fuel consumption goes way up and your range goes way down. If they
did do any of the math to see what's our range? What divergent airports can we get to? They
either did not do it, or did it very improperly, to the point where, I mean, when is the last time you
can recall that a commercial jet aircraft ran out of fuel and had to ditch in a field? I can't even
think of the last time this has happened.
[0:22:35] IP: I mean, you've got the Azores Glider, the air transit Azores Glider, and –
[0:22:40] JR: That was a fuel leak, though. That wasn't caused by –
[0:22:42] IP: You mean, just plain –
[0:22:44] JR: When is the last time they ran out of fuel and had to ditch somewhere that was
not an airport? It has probably been decades?
[0:22:51] IP: Yeah, I don't know. That one's a good question. Without mitigating circumstances
where there's a mechanical issue, or something like that.
[0:22:59] JR: I mean, there were mechanical issues, but in this case, it wasn't like the fuel pump
stopped working. Oh, okay. You know what? Maybe that's one that the BA ditching at Heathrow,
where the fuel pumps got clogged with ice, or something along those lines, but that's not really
the same thing. This was just, they ran out of fuel. I mean, I guess maybe Avianca on approach
to JFK, but that was decades ago. I think that was before either of us were even a thing. That
wasn't they ditched. They just fell out of the sky. In this case, they just ran out of fuel and
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ditched. But thankfully, all is well that ends well. There were no injuries reported. The aircraft,
thankfully, landed in a field. Didn't encounter any boulders, or whatever and break up. The
aircraft will be broken up, because it can't take off from a field.
[0:23:42] IP: You never know until you try, Jason.
[0:23:44] JR: Exactly. But unfortunately, that will not be happening. This is the second Airbus
aircraft in four years that will be broken up in a field. Again, the first one, probably a good idea.
This one, not. But yeah, I'm very interested and hopefully, we get to see a preliminary and final
report. I assume Russian authorities are still doing that.
[0:24:05] IP: Yeah. I mean, if nothing else, Russian in the Interstate Aviation Committee has
been quite thorough in their reporting.
[0:24:12] JR: Yeah. I'm a little disappointed that there's so much jump to praising the crew for
safely putting the aircraft down when they seem to be the ones that put it there in the first place.
Again, no injuries, luckily, thankfully. Can't be all that bad, I guess. This is just something that
should not have happened, and then just look on their side this time.
[0:24:35] IP: Yeah. We'll wait for the report. Oh, and speaking of Russian accident investigation
reports, I have a link and it will be in the show notes, for the last report that we talked about for
the landing in Turkey by Nordwind. That will be in the show notes. I got a copy of the actual
report, rather than just the headlines on that and the initial pictures from social media. There is a
full report with additional pictures. It doesn't paint a better picture. It just paints a more full one.
[0:25:08] JR: Yes.
[0:25:08] IP: Speaking of, I don't know. I don't have a transition for this one. Pratt & Whitney
engines are just messed up.
[0:25:15] JR: I can't read the show note you have here, because it's not –
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[0:25:17] IP: No, no. I put a not family friendly line in the show notes. Choose your adverb
accordingly.
[0:25:24] JR: Yes. If you are an airline that has Pratt & Whitney engines on your 320neo, or, I
guess, A-220, you are very unhappy right now.
[0:25:35] IP: RTX, which is the parent company of Pratt & Whitney says that between 600 and
700 is the Pratt & Whitney 1100 G engines need to be removed from the A320neo wings
between now and 2026. Here's a quote. “This is currently beyond Pratt & Whitney's shop visit
forecast entering 2023.” This is an additional amount of aircraft that will need to be grounded, so
that their engines can come off the wing, so that they can be inspected and retrofitted as
necessary.
They say that they're going to have most of them done by the middle of 2024, but they're also
going to have 350 aircraft on the ground, so an average of 350 in the 2024 to 2026 period,
because of when the inspections are going to come due. There is now a flight cycle analysis
that needs to be performed. Between the number of cycles and then the inspections are
necessary, but then, also, replacements are necessary at different intervals. It's getting worse
for Pratt & Whitney as we learn more. In the third quarter, RTX will take a 3.5-billion-dollar
charge. That's B, billion.
[0:26:57] JR: They'll be okay. I'm not too worried about them.
[0:26:59] IP: They'll be fine. But, I mean, it's still, I mean, a billion here, a billion there. Pretty
soon, we're talking about real money. Let's see, which airlines are most impacted at the
moment? We've got Hawaiian, the quotes from, I think it was the CFO of Hawaiian Airlines were
just this side of unprintable. They're not happy. Wizz is taking a 10% hit, as far as their available
aircraft capacity.
[0:27:28] JR: For an airline, the size of Wizz, 10% is not two planes. That is probably dozens.
[0:27:35] IP: I mean, this is the flip side of fleet commonality. We've always talked about the
doomsday scenario in regards to Ryanair and Southwest, where if there's an issue with the
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Boeing 737, whether the NG, or the MAX, at this point, if there's an issue that grounded those
fleets, it would take those airlines offline. This is an issue that's grounding not entire fleets for
entire airlines, but big chunks, like Air New Zealand had to reduce its capacity. Scoot’s been
affected to a lesser extent. Airlines that operate these engines are looking and going, “What is
the likelihood that I will have the A320neo available in my fleet at X date?” Because they've got
their schedules decided for now. Then the next time they reconfigure their schedules, the next
time those schedules come out, what is that airline going to do? Do they have to take into
account that 10 of their aircraft are out of service, or five of their aircraft are out of service, or 20
of their aircraft are out of service?
[0:28:36] JR: Yeah. This seems very similar to the early days of the 787, where the Rolls Royce
engines just were not reliable. They had to be taken off wing and that you had a lot of aircraft
grounded at any given time. That's when the 787 was a relatively new, not widespread aircraft.
This is, we're talking about the A220 and the 320neo series here. This is far more widespread,
far more airlines, far more aircraft at any given time. Yeah. Someone at Pratt & Whitney right
now is doing the math on how much this is going to cost them, how long this is going to go, and
honestly, how much future sales they're going to be missing out on here. Because if I were an
airline, I wouldn't be too happy about this.
[0:29:19] IP: Airlines are not happy. Indigo has basically said, “Give us any old Airbus aircraft
you can, as long as it doesn't have these engines on it.” We will take A320COs. We will take,
well, I guess that's really the only older aircraft. From anybody, we'll take them. Whatever you
got, we'll take them, because we need to get – because they operate in nearly all A320neo fleet,
and we need to get these aircraft back up in the air. We'll take whatever you got.
[0:29:48] JR: Good luck to every one of them. Pour a drink for fleet planners at any of these
affected airlines, because they're going to need it.
[0:29:55] IP: Not necessarily related to the particular issues that we're talking about, because
we just don't know yet, but something that we wanted to flag is the Air China A320neo engine
fire that happened in Singapore earlier this week. It was an Air China A320neo from Chengdu to
Singapore, carrying a 146 passengers and nine crew. I’m always amazed by how many crew
foreign airlines carry. You haven't noticed that crew?
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[0:30:20] JR: Nine crew.
[0:30:20] IP: Nine crew on an A320neo.
[0:30:22] JR: On an A320. That's wild.
[0:30:24] IP: Yeah. Obviously, A320neo operated, or powered by the Pratt & Whitney 1100G
engines suffered an engine fire. Everybody was safe getting off the aircraft and no injuries,
thankfully. But we don't know what caused it. We're just flagging that in the same news bracket,
but not trying to say that it was caused by any of these issues. Just not a great week for the
A320neo as news of the Pratt & Whitney furthering engine issues come about, and then this fire
as well. We shall turn our attention now to Boeing. We now know that the Alaska Airlines
737-800 that suffered a gear through wing issue, main landing gear through wing issue –
[0:31:11] JR: I don’t think there’s a term for this.
[0:31:13] IP: I'm a podcaster. I can make up terms, right?
[0:31:15] JR: Sure.
[0:31:16] IP: All right. I don't know. That problem, the reason the gear ended up going through
the left wing is because of a fractured trunnion pin.
[0:31:25] JR: You got to look out for those fractured trunnion pins. They'll get you.
[0:31:29] IP: Exactly. The preliminary report’s out. There'll be a link to that in the show notes.
For all of the talk, and Jason, I think you were the one who gave us caution when we first
discussed this particular incident. You said, looking at things, you doubted that it would be a
hard landing on the part of the pilots based on the visual evidence that was available. Sure
enough, the NTSB coming through and saying, “No, it was a fractured trunnion pin.”
[0:31:58] JR: That's true.
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[0:31:58] IP: There you go.
[0:31:59] JR: Yeah. The NTSB in their initial report put out some information about what it takes
to be classified, a hard landing at Alaska Airlines, because every, I guess, every airline has their
own specifications, their own limits on when you would need to actually conduct a hard landing
investigation. In this case, they pulled the recorders from the aircraft and had a maximum
vertical acceleration of 1.71Gs, where the minimum required for hard landing at Alaska on this
aircraft, at least, would have been 2.2Gs. It was, yeah, it was a forceful landing, but given the
consideration of the horrible weather at the time, the short runway, they were simply putting the
aircraft –
[0:32:37] IP: You want to make sure the aircraft has landed.
[0:32:39] JR: Yes. The pilots did, actually, a phenomenal job, if you read the report, because it
wasn't that hard a landing. The left engine was dragging on the surface of the runway.
[0:32:49] IP: I like the captain's comments where it's like, “It’s kind of pulling to the left.”
[0:32:53] JR: Yeah, pulling a little to the left, but they were able to counteract that with rudder to
the right, and they were able to keep the aircraft bang on centerline and then taxi it off a little bit,
and then they stopped and said, “You know what? Maybe we should poke our head out the
window and take a look,” which is exactly what they did. Kudos to the crew for keeping it on the
centerline and getting it off the runway. This is a case of, well, let's not jump to conclusions,
because the evidence we have really doesn't support that it was a hard landing, because it
looked pretty soft to me. Indeed, that is the case.
[0:33:24] IP: Yeah. A firm landing, but not one that would normally result in the landing gear.
[0:33:29] JR: Landing with intention, like every other landing you'll ever see at LaGuardia.
[0:33:33] IP: There you go. In final report news, we now have the final report for United Flight
328, which was the 777 that left Denver in February of 2021, and promptly had an uncontained
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engine failure. The Pratt & Whitney PW4077 engine failed not long after takeoff, and that
particular engine powered a subset of the 777 fleet, and that particular fleet was promptly
grounded until adequate inspections of all of the engines could be carried out.
The NTSB issuing its final report saying partially that the engine design and testing were to
blame. But also, the fact that the inspections were inadequate, because there were already
required inspections for this particular engine, the root cause was actually already known, and
had been flagged by FAA airworthiness directives. The NTSB says that inspections of this
particular engine had actually revealed metal fatigue in the fan blade that failed. But the blade,
despite showing evidence of metal fatigue, had not been removed from the engine.
[0:34:55] JR: Well, that's problematic. Lesson learned. Yeah.
[0:34:57] IP: Yeah. Big lesson learned. I always wonder if the guy who ended up with the inlet
cowling got to keep that. Probably not.
[0:35:06] JR: Well, it's like a foul ball in baseball, if you catch it out in the crowd.
[0:35:09] IP: If it lands in your pickup truck, it's yours now.
[0:35:13] JR: Yeah. That was line number five. Even older than the aircraft I was on by a good
bit. That was, I believe, N772UA?
[0:35:21] IP: I think so.
[0:35:22] JR: 775. I had lots of buffer from being on that aircraft.
[0:35:28] IP: Yes. Yes, indeed. Your aircraft has since been thoroughly inspected and retrofitted
if necessary, and is now on a scheduled inspection regime.
[0:35:38] JR: Fantastic.
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[0:35:38] IP: Because that was with the airworthiness directive that came out of this accident
required.
[0:35:43] JR: At 30-years-old, I'd rather be on a scheduled retirement flight in Mojave, or
something. Like, enough.
[0:35:49] IP: Soon enough. Soon enough. Let's see. The link to the report will be in the show
notes. Now we move on to the good news section of the podcast.
[0:35:59] JR: The good stuff.
[0:36:01] IP: The fun stuff.
[0:36:01] JR: Yeah, the good stuff. Like, the 321XLR is going to go find itself on some journeys
across –
[0:36:07] IP: Yes, it is on –
[0:36:08] JR: Across Europe, across the Atlantic. Going to check out the US and head back on
to France and debrief it what it was to do when it grows up.
[0:36:18] IP: Exactly. It's going to find itself, Jason. The A321XLR is embarking on a 10-day
route-proving tour. The first was a lovely Mediterranean tour lasting about seven hours. The
second flight is a Polar flight, which our own Chris Lomas is currently on board. We're recording
this on Wednesday, the 13th of September. They are in the air at the moment, flying to the North
Pole and back from Toulouse. Chris will be on the show next week to give us his take on what
do you do on a route-proving flight? What happens? What is going on? Because I have no idea,
other than I know they're flying this particular path and making sure that the plane works. We're
going to talk with Chris next week and we'll have much more on our blog and on our YouTube
channel from this particular flight and his experience in Toulouse. Generally, he's speaking with
a lot of very interesting people, including the flight test engineers, the ground telemetry
engineers, as well as the actual flight crew from the aircraft. The coolest thing, and I didn't know
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that this was a requirement for certification. The aircraft has to be kept on for 10 days. Powered
on for 10 days. It can't turn off.
[0:37:28] JR: I mean, that's not all that unusual, because what was it? The airworthiness
directive for the 787, like you have to reboot it once a month –
[0:37:35] IP: Every so many hundred hours, yeah.
[0:37:36] JR: - otherwise, it’s going to fall out of the sky and kill everyone on board. That was a
real thing, right?
[0:37:40] IP: Yeah, it sure was. This particular set of flights, well, the aircraft will be on the entire
time. Powered on the entire time.
[0:37:48] JR: I don't think I'm exaggerating that case. It was quite literally, there's a limitation –
number of hours you could keep the 787 powered on for before everything fails, basically.
[0:37:58] IP: Yeah, all the computers would restart. If you were in the air, all the computers
would restart.
[0:38:02] JR: That’s a problem. It's a computerized aircraft.
[0:38:05] IP: Especially if you're about to land.
[0:38:06] JR: Yeah, that could be a problem.
[0:38:09] IP: Really cool stuff, and we'll hear more from Chris next week. Stay tuned for that
and check out our blog for updates before then. Jason, we've talked about this next thing,
maybe three or four times. It's always been in six months where they're looking at the review, or
it might be coming. Now, now it seems that this week, Mexico will achieve, or regain its FAA
category one status, which is huge news.
[0:38:40] JR: Great, if true and real.
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[0:38:43] IP: Huge if true.
[0:38:43] JR: This has been since May of 2021, they have had the lower FAA safety rating.
Something we thought would be days, weeks, maybe months if things are really out of whack
down in Mexico. Yeah, this is a long time. I hope they're able to regain that. As we talked about
recently, Mexico is playing around with the aviation industry a little bit too much. Maybe the FAA
doesn't feel like re-upping that safety rating. We'll see.
[0:39:12] IP: We'll see. Updates this week. Next week, hopefully we can report. It’s official.
They've achieved their category one rating.
[0:39:20] JR: You know who's going to make that vision?
[0:39:23] IP: Yes. Well, maybe. We'll see. But I like where you’re going with that.
[0:39:25] JR: Thank you.
[0:39:26] IP: Go ahead. By all means, take this one.
[0:39:30] JR: A new appointee has been proposed, I guess, to take lead of the FAA as they
have not had a permanent head for two years now, I think. Michael Whitaker, currently the Chief
Commercial Officer for Supernal, am I getting that right? Doesn't matter.
[0:39:48] IP: I think so.
[0:39:48] JR: A Hyundai company developing an electric air vehicle who served as the deputy
FAA administrator under the Obama administration, which is very interesting. Any possible
rebuttal, or dissent to Whitaker's nomination here should be swift rejection, because he was
already the deputy FAA administrator. Who better could you ask for at this point?
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[0:40:12] IP: Yeah. I haven't seen any pushback. I've seen airlines. I've seen unions. I've seen
senators who need to approve the nomination, say that it's a good nomination. Should be swiftly
approved. Everyone's looking forward to –
[0:40:25] JR: Just do it already. That’s [inaudible 0:40:26].
[0:40:26] IP: - to having a permanent hat.
[0:40:28] JR: We need to have a permanent head already. This has gone on way too long.
Honestly, at this rate, maybe this happens by the end of the current administration. Maybe.
Fingers crossed. Washington doesn't seem to be in the habit of making things happen too
quickly these days. We'll see.
[0:40:45] IP: We will see. Hopefully, this one moves through quickly. Jason, let's talk about
some orders. I think the first one is the most interesting, if only because the aircraft has
experienced not quite a name change, but a developer change, or a developer refinement.
We've whittled down the developer. Now there's an airline picking up a clean 10 of them.
[0:41:09] JR: Yeah. The MC-21, which used to be called the Irkut MC-21, is now seemingly
being rebadged as the Yak-21, I think. Or is that the Yak-MC-21? I'm not really sure, but this has
previously been referred to as the UAC, the United Aircraft Corporation, MC-21. It seems like in
this order for Aurora, which used to be a subsidiary of Aeroflot, which is now all on their own, out
in the way far east of Russia, I think, has ordered 10 MC-21s for, and I'm air-quoting right now,
as with any, any, not picking on the Russian development here, I'm picking on all aircraft
development. “Delivery between 2027 and 2030.” That seems a little optimistic, but you never
know. Good to hear of orders for an aircraft you don't really hear much about these days, since
a bit of other circumstances going on in that country.
[0:42:11] IP: Yeah. Switching gears to the 737 MAX, we've got a 25 strong order from SMBC
aviation, the lessor there, bringing their total order work up to 81. Then Vietnam Airlines has,
Jason, it's a “commitment to order,” I believe, 50 737-8 MAX aircraft.
[0:42:35] JR: It's not even an MOU, not a firm order, not options. A commitment to order.
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[0:42:40] IP: It's like, between an LOI and an MOU maybe? I don’t know.
[0:42:44] JR: They commit to it, but only if they're really committed.
[0:42:47] IP: There you go. Speaking of commitment, Lufthansa parked their A380s and said,
“No, we're not going to fly them anymore.” This was early on in the pandemic. Then they said,
“Okay, we're going to bring them back.” Now they're saying, “Okay, we're going to keep them
around.” Because of the delays in the 777X program, of which Lufthansa is a – I think Emirates
is a launch customer, but I think they're just right alongside.
[0:43:13] JR: It's not really been clear.
[0:43:15] IP: Yeah. Because of the delays in the 777X program, Lufthansa is looking at keeping
its A380s in the fleet, at least until the late 2020s, if not early 2030s. Your chance to fly on a
four-engined passenger aircraft, your last chance with a flag carrier, I would say, barring any
random one-off airlines is probably going to be Lufthansa.
[0:43:44] JR: Yeah, better. A Conviasa A340-300. That will probably be in service forever.
Looking to fly, said A380, Lufthansa and partner, Swiss, just in as the whole slew of new and
somewhat interesting routes, actually, to North America. The A380 specifically will be popping
into Washington, Dulles, which is interesting. There are already some other A380s in Dulles. I
think, Lufthansa joins British Airways and Emirates down in Dulles, which is nice. They're also
adding some new routes for summer 2024 to new dots for Lufthansa. That would be Frankfurt to
Rowley Durham and Frankfurt to Minneapolis, which is really going to piss off Delta. I'm
surprised we already haven't seen a rebuttal about that one, but they're also adding Munich to
Seattle. Not an A380 route just yet. But Munich is Lufthansa's A380 home base. Wouldn't be out
of the question to see a Munich-Seattle A380 route on Lufthansa.
Does the A380 even have the legs to do that? That's quite a long fight. I'm not sure. Yeah, just
probably. We’ll look into that. Probably. Interestingly, also Swiss is adding Zurich to Dulles.
Dulles is a popular destination these days. Also, seasonal Zurich to Toronto, which is historically
a very underserved airport for international competition. Canada is usually very protectionary on
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its routes. All in total, Lufthansa group will have 27 distinct North American destinations in
summer 2024, which is just wild.
[0:45:26] IP: I mean, it's really fascinating to me what their strategy has been. As we talk about
Lufthansa, I feel like we should talk about the wider Lufthansa group, because we got a handful
of helpful emails over the week, because we had talked about Discover Airlines last week.
Jason and I had expressed some confusion about where this was coming from. Eurowings
Discover versus Discover. We've been informed by folks in Germany and folks outside of
Germany that basically, they were always separate airlines, and they used Eurowings, because
Eurowings was a well-known brand and Lufthansa needed the money from the German
government.
It was easier to sell Eurowings to the German public and it was easier to sell Eurowings to the
German government. They didn't want to start by building a new brand. This was always the
plan from the get-go, to have two separate airlines with different names. The breakout is just the
plan coming to fruition, rather than Lufthansa deciding something new at this point on the fly.
Thank you to the folks that wrote in and provided that explanation. It was enlightening, but also,
still confusing.
[0:46:52] JR: Still not getting why there's Lufthansa and other Lufthansa and other Lufthansa.
Don't forget all of the other Lufthansas and also, somehow, ITA plays into this somehow. It's all
very confusing. None of it makes sense. You can try to rationalize it, but there is no rationalizing
it. It's confusing.
[0:47:08] IP: It's extreme market segmentation is what it is.
[0:47:13] JR: Sure.
[0:47:14] IP: Shall we end the show with something new?
[0:47:18] JR: Something specific, maybe.
[0:47:21] IP: Maybe an airline.
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[0:47:23] JR: Yeah. If you are familiar with Northern Pacific, which wasn't really doing anything
in the North, nor anything over the Pacific, turns out, they needed a new name, because
someone was already called Northern Pacific. Apparently, they didn't look into that too hard.
Their new name is New Pacific Airlines. Still not flying anywhere over the Pacific, unfortunately.
But if you're looking for Northern Pacific, try looking for New Pacific Airlines.
[0:47:54] IP: Northern Pacific Airways is now New Pacific Airlines.
[0:47:56] JR: Yeah. They didn't even want to keep the airways. They switched to airlines, which
they didn't seem to need. But okay, whatever. Good luck to them.
[0:48:08] IP: New name and good luck to them. I guess, I appreciate their transparency, too,
because they were like, “Yeah, we're changing our name because we're getting sued.”
[0:48:16] JR: Yeah. All right. Thanks for letting us know. That's a lot of signage that just went up
to change, a lot of liveries to change, a lot of collateral to change. That's expensive for an airline
that probably doesn't have all that much capital going on right now.
[0:48:31] IP: Well, hopefully, they can figure something out. Maybe just a sharpie or something.
[0:48:35] JR: Yeah. Yeah. Whiteout and sharpie. Never fails.
[0:48:37] IP: Problem solved. All right. I have to say, this was a large episode. Not the episode
that I had initially planned this week. I was like, we'll soft pedal back into things after Dorkfest.
It'll be a good episode. But then, the aviation industry was like, “We never stop.”
[0:48:54] JR: Nothing stops.
[0:48:55] IP: That's true. It never stops. It’s a 2024 –
[0:48:56] JR: Unless, you're [inaudible 0:48:58]. Maybe. I don't know. That was a low blow.
Didn't need that.
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AVT 233 Transcript
[0:49:03] IP: That was.
[0:49:04] JR: But it felt right.
[0:49:06] IP: It felt like you just slipped it right in there. In any case, this has been episode 233
of AvTalk. I am Ian Petchenik, here, as always with –
[0:49:17] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. Thanks for listening.
[END]
© 2023 AvTalk 26