Shpaget

From FAA https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/faa-statement-recommending-visual-inspections-boeing-737-900er-mid-exit-door-plugs No words on whether anybody found anything on ERs.

Does this surprise you? Were you expecting something else? Are you confusing yourself by writing out all those decimals? This is equivalent to (4*(pi^2))/(pi^2). Square pies cancel out and you are left with 4. I wouldn't.

Leg extension was a bit out of sync. Another good launch.

Like I said, my stand is not focused just on aerospace but on general concept of self control, including other industries like food production, animal husbandry, utilities etc... One of the regulations over here is that food manufacturers (among others), are allowed to control themselves, with government inspectors taking a back seat. If the manufacturer finds irregularities, they are required to report it to the gov inspectors and then conduct self controls more often for some time. These are not only a burden but may lead to recalls and drop in public approval of whatever the product, resulting in loss of profits for the company. That means that the manufacturer is continuously in conflict of interest and there is always at leas some incentive to neglect the reporting of issues, just kind of fix it and hope the public never finds out. Just because an inspector is not an employee of a company they are inspecting, doesn't mean they are less competent than the in house personnel.

More from FAA https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/faa-increasing-oversight-boeing-production-and-manufacturing Hopefully this will lead to the abolishment of the practice of governments delegating health and safety oversight to the companies themselves. This is not a problem with just Boeing, or just aviation, nor is it endemic to USA. It's a widespread issue globally, that I find beyond absurd. One can hope.

Most likely that. When you paste something, for me at least, there's a popup at the bottom of the text box that says "Pasted as rich text. Paste as plain text instead". The second half is clickable and removes formatting that rich text contains.

I have no trouble imagining that. It appears to be a lot harder to get some guys to understand that a click of the torque wrench means "stop pulling" than I would have thought a few years ago. The usual excuse when asked "Did you not hear and feel the click?" is "Yeah, but I though I'd tighten it just a little bit more." I have three collet nuts (ER16, that's M22 nut) sitting on my desk that are split completely on one side by overtightening them. What is worse is, I found them by chance. They were being actively used in the milling machines. No one knows who did it, no one noticed they broke.

The very bottom of the forums. It's quite fugly and looks unfinished, but at least it's dark.

Alaska Airlines reports that they too have found "some loose hardware". https://news.alaskaair.com/alaska-airlines/operations/as-1282/ NTSB says the plug moved upwards and disengaged all twelve stops of the holding mechanism. The four bolts that were supposed to hold the door down have not been recovered yet and NTSB has "not yet determined if they existed there". That will be determined in their lab in Washington DC. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DI8tv9h0PPg timestamp 2:50

FAA has already proposed rule change to increase CVR from 2 to 25 hours. That is likely to happen soon, however, the regulation would apply only to newly manufactured planes. NTSB lady was saying that the new rule should apply to all planes. https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/faa-proposes-requiring-25-hour-cockpit-voice-recorders EASA and ICAO have had this rule for years, so devices are in actual use. There is no development issue. It is literally an off the shelf part at this point.

Apparently, the cockpit voice recorder was completely overwritten. For whatever (regulatory) reason, it keeps only 2 hours of recording. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsxttZvI3qo

Bob, a schoolteacher in Portland, found the door plug in his back yard. edit: sniped

From https://news.alaskaair.com/alaska-airlines/operations/as-1282/ (I'm cutting out a bit of marketing and corporate speak, so check full text) Am I reading this correctly? Plug blows out, AA makes a voluntary decision to ground its entire 737 MAX fleet of 60+ planes, checks 18 of them, declares them A-okay and returns them to service. Then FAA issues EAD and they reground the fleet?

Apparently, it is an optional emergency exit that was factory sealed since that particular cabin configuration doesn't require emergency exit there.

I guess, this might be the best place for this. Not related to MCAS, but it is a 737 Max in question. On January 5 2024 Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 suffered a midflight fuselage failure (altitude of 16 000 ft). A decent chunk blew out. Luckily, no fatalities. The aircraft in question is brand new, having first flown on October 15 2023. FAA grounded 171 737 MAX 9 (including all 65 in Alaska Airlines fleet). https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/us-safety-board-investigating-alaska-airlines-boeing-737-max-9-emergency-landing-2024-01-06/ This is in addition to this bit from December 28 2023 "Under consultation with the FAA, Boeing has issued a Multi-Operator Message (MOM), urging operators of newer single-aisle airplanes to inspect specific tie rods that control rudder movement for possible loose hardware." https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/faa-closely-monitoring-inspections-boeing-737-max-airplanes

Did space shuttle have those? Was the full configuration ever static tested (two SRBs + orbiter with the big boy tank)?

No, they don't. Seriously. They don't owe us any info whatsoever. If there are third parties out there that do have a legitimate claim to this data, we don't see them complaining.

So much this. No only there already is a vacuum on Mars (or near enough for this discussion), so you don't need the tubes, but in order for a train (or any mass transit system) to make sense, you need at least two locations far apart with heavy demand. I don't see Mars having two colonies any time soon, let alone them being big enough to need a high speed train connection between them.

Oh, I completely forgot. If you guys want radio only for music and not news, have everybody write down suggestions on songs, albums, performers and assemble a mix which you then put on an MP3 player. An old iPod or even a cheap Aliexpress one will do just fine. As for multiple radios, there are FM transmitters that may help (check if they are legal in your area).

Consider getting a better radio. Alledgedly car radios have significantly better reception than home/office stuff since they need to operate in electronically noisy environment.

What's the difference between the two? Anyway, pufferfish.

Waiting for the golden record-like analysis of all the markings.

In fiction, sure. Just have all the uranium mined by a civilisation long gone (or don't explain it at all). In reality? What would be the mechanism that prevents U from getting in that particular part of accretion disk which will eventually form the planet, but be present in another part of that same cloud so it can be fount elsewhere in the system?

According to https://www.foia.gov/faq.html "Generally any person - United States citizen or not - can make a FOIA request."

Moon (2009) explores why you need human presence.