Malaysia Airlines Loses Contact With 777 en Route to Beijing

[BoeingBobby]

I bet a beer that you could carefuly remove a flaperon and the plane would still fly OK...

Lift increases with the square of airspeed so it's not out of the question that lift and control power could be maintained with extra speed...especially to make up for a mere 25% loss of 'aileron'.

so, maybe, but JUST maybe...

All that being said, it's hard to surgically lose a control surface and not tear up a bunch of additional, often-important crap...

We have the PSA 727 that didn't do well with two flaps gone (and the leding edge slats and lord knows how much other ripped out and flaming stuff...

Then there's the Gol 737 that you'd think couldn't have lost too much stuff since the biz jet just lost a wimply little winglet...but whatever the winglet tore up took the plane down (and maybe it wasn't aerodynamic damage as much as control actuating systems damage)???****

If it's simple aerodynamics, the plane might? still fly...but if wires are torn out and hydraulic lines severed...

As long as you locked out the opposite side one, probably. If not I am not sure I want to be on that ride at low speed!

[Evan]

And we are not talking about a flap but about the inboard highspeed aileron of the 777 (which extends with the flaps to give a more uniform trailing edge of the wing and is therefore called a "flaperon"). Now tell me that losing a quarter of the ailerons on board a 777 is not serious.

Serious to be sure, but manageable. Flaperons are designed to fail (not fall off) so it one did rip off and the system detected it as failed, the other would return to neutral and revert to damping mode. Roll would be handled by spoilers and ailerons. You would still have an assymmetry but not a catastrophic one.

However, if the system failed to detect the issue (actuators still intact and somehow functioning) and the opposing flaperon was working against the phantom missing one...

[AVION1]

I bet a beer that you could carefuly remove a flaperon and the plane would still fly OK...

Lift increases with the square of airspeed so it's not out of the question that lift and control power could be maintained with extra speed...especially to make up for a mere 25% loss of 'aileron'.

so, maybe, but JUST maybe...

All that being said, it's hard to surgically lose a control surface and not tear up a bunch of additional, often-important crap...

We have the PSA 727 that didn't do well with two flaps gone (and the leding edge slats and lord knows how much other ripped out and flaming stuff...

Then there's the Gol 737 that you'd think couldn't have lost too much stuff since the biz jet just lost a wimply little winglet...but whatever the winglet tore up took the plane down (and maybe it wasn't aerodynamic damage as much as control actuating systems damage)???****

If it's simple aerodynamics, the plane might? still fly...but if wires are torn out and hydraulic lines severed...

I agree with that. Anyone remember that American Airlines Boeing 727 that dropped one engine over the Arizona desert sometime around 1985?
The crew didn't notice anything, just lost of hydraulic fluid and N1 indication.

[Evan]

Then there's the Gol 737 that you'd think couldn't have lost too much stuff since the biz jet just lost a wimply little winglet...but whatever the winglet tore up took the plane down (and maybe it wasn't aerodynamic damage as much as control actuating systems damage)???****

The Gol jet lost about half of a wing. That was a lot of rather important stuff to lose. Of course, a mere winglet hitting it at a combined 1200 mph would sever the wing, but a 30cm birch tree? No, a 30cm birch tree couldn't do that...

[AVION1]

Debris found at the Maldives Islands:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3191134/Has-MH370-debris-washed-Maldives-Investigators-examine-items-isles-locals-saw-low-flying-jet-day-plane-vanished.html

[B757300]

From the pictures at least, none of the Maldives debris looks definitive, unlike the flaperon which was pretty obvious from the start.

[AVION1]

From the pictures at least, none of the Maldives debris looks definitive, unlike the flaperon which was pretty obvious from the start.

Looks like a honeycomb construction to me. (airplane part)
I haven't seen this type of honeycomb structures in boats, yet. And I used to own several sailboats.

[B757300]

Looks like a honeycomb construction to me. (airplane part)
I haven't this type of honeycomb structures in boats, yet. And I used to own several sailboats.

It very well might be. My point was it just isn't obvious like the flaperon. It will take some analysis to confirm if it is from an aircraft and at least give an estimate guess as to whether or not it is from a 777.

[brianw999]

The only time I ever saw that type of construction of a laminated skin filled with alloy honeycomb in an airfoil section was in a helicopter rotor blade. Trouble is, there is nothing in the picture to give an idea of the size of the part.
There have been two helicopter crashes into the sea in the Maldives, both in 1999. A Bell 212 and a Mil MI 8, both of which would have had this kind of rotor structure were the aircraft involved.

[Observer]

MH 370 found ?

Undersea search team found images that could be MH370 debris

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3186523/Sonar-images-deep-Indian-Ocean-led-Australian-search-team-believe-wreckage-Malaysia-Airlines-MH370-t-NOVEMBER-bad-weather.html

[Observer]

False alarm, sorry

Undersea search team found images that could be MH370 debris

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...d-weather.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/aap/article-3195920/Sonar-contacts-not-related-MH370.html

[James Bond]

New drift paper by Metron dated 24 Aug. 2015

[Evan]

Now comes word that a Spanish company has told French investigators that it cannot tell with certainty from consulting its records whether the flaperon found on Reunion Island came from MH370, a French source close to the investigation told CNN. The flaperon is from a Boeing 777 -- and MH370 was a Boeing 777, the only one in the world that's unaccounted for -- but the company can't say with absolute certainty that the flaperon found on Reunion Island comes from the missing plane, the source said.
The Spanish company manufactured part of the flaperon. Investigators had hoped to match a number found on the debris from Reunion Island with records from the Spanish company -- to confirm that the debris did, in fact, come from MH370 -- but that proved impossible.
The development on Monday does not mean that the debris found on Reunion isn't from the missing plane -- it just means that investigators cannot yet make the link with 100% certainty.

RIght. So at this point either we have found a trace piece of wreckage from MH370 or there is a B777 running around without a flaperon. I wonder which one it is....

[brianw999]

RIght. So at this point either we have found a trace piece of wreckage from MH370 or there is a B777 running around without a flaperon. I wonder which one it is....

Blimey ! That's a hard one......as Eve said to Adam !!

[TeeVee]

sorry, but if they had declared it so without being able to match numbers, then later on it was discovered that a different 777 had one replaced for whatever reason, evan would be the first person here to jump on their shyte and blame them for releasing unverified information.

frankly, while it may appear safe for them to ASSume it is from mh370, no tickie, no washie.