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Qantas ferried an engine on the wing of a 747 (2016)

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Re: Qantas ferried an engine on the wing of a 747 (2016)

#41

Post by sofixa »

kqr wrote: post #38
sreevisakh wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't experimental or unique even if it's rare. It has been done before. I'm not sure why this instance alone got such attention. Regarding the cargo hold problem, the aircraft wasn't carrying just the engine core. The 'pod' is most likely the engine nacelle itself. I wonder if the entire thing would fit through the cargo door (mere speculation). While it's true that the 747 was originally meant as a cargo carrier…

> While it's true that the 747 was originally meant as a cargo carrier I was surprised by this so I consulted Wikipedia. Apparently when the 747 was designed they were convinced enough that passengers in the future would not want to travel subsonically, so they designed the 747 to convert to a freighter, to not have to throw the design away when it's hard to attract passengers due to the "low" 0.8 mach speeds!

In general there was a time when supersonic flight was considered the future evolution that will displace the existing tech, like jets displaced propeller aircraft. The Concorde was supposed to be the first one, and it was designed as a general use plane, it wasn't until much later British Airways and Air France thought about marketing it for business/first class "luxury" experience.

For a myriad of reasons ( Boeing failing to make their own supersonic airliner which helped the US Congress banning supersonic flights over the US being one of them), we never got there though, and it seems we never will since the currently planned crop of supersonic airliners ( Boom and co) are specifically targeting the business niche.

Re: Qantas ferried an engine on the wing of a 747 (2016)

#42

Post by spockz »

roelschroeven wrote: post #37
olliej wrote: post #4

Isn't that an intended standard design use of a 747?

Yes, absolutely. I don't see why this is noteworthy, the 747 was specifically designed to be able to do this.

Well not all of us are familiar with the design. Meanwhile loads of new people join the internet every day. So it is going to be novel to someone.

Re: Qantas ferried an engine on the wing of a 747 (2016)

#44

Post by b112 »

bragr wrote: post #15
EdwardDiego wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, "Canadian Sikh terrorists" was not something I was expecting to read about today.

I had a similar reaction when I first read about it. kind of crazy how no one was ever really held responsible and then 9-11 just kind of pushed it out of most of the public's collective memory, or at least that's how it seems to me.

There is a lot of depth and history here.

* the US had the anti-communist McCarthy hearings.

Canada had secret shunning commitees. See a book/video called "The UnCanadians".

(Millions of Canadian households had files on them, at a time when Canada had * Due to this, and the RCMP going bananas in other ways (eg, burning down barns on private property because bikers were legally meeting there....), parliament disbanded the RCMP's domestic and international "spy" departments.

CSIS, CSEC and other agencies were formed.

* During the transition from the RCMP handling terrorism reports, to CSIS, there was bad blood, and a desire to make a clean break, eg, bad RCMP culture was to be replaced with a new agency new culture.

* the Air India disaster had multiple people call in, all reporting, with details, to the RCMP that it was going to happen

* due to all of the above, these reports never made it to CSIS, and the RCMP was at that point forbidden to investigate on their own.

* in 2006? 8? A report was published detailing this disconnect, and more.

I believe that some US agencies are exdeeding their power, and one day, may need to be disbanded and replaced.

To all those, in any country considering the same? Do it right.

Do not let the transition, mess up ongoing dilligence.

The Air India disaster is a poster child for what can happen.

Re: Qantas ferried an engine on the wing of a 747 (2016)

#45

Post by dlsa »

can16358p wrote: post #25
Animats wrote: post #2

No big deal. External payloads seem strange, but 747s have carried much larger ones, such as the Space Shuttle. Worse things have been carried under wings.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_United_States_Air_Force_n...

> W80-1 variable yield nuclear warhead, were mistakenly loaded onto a... Imagine mistakenly loading a nuclear warhead on the wrong plane.

Imagine the other team unloading what they were expecting to be a warhead.

Re: Qantas ferried an engine on the wing of a 747 (2016)

#46

Post by Terry_Roll »

b112 wrote: post #44
bragr wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a similar reaction when I first read about it. kind of crazy how no one was ever really held responsible and then 9-11 just kind of pushed it out of most of the public's collective memory, or at least that's how it seems to me.

There is a lot of depth and history here. * the US had the anti-communist McCarthy hearings. Canada had secret shunning commitees. See a book/video called "The UnCanadians". (Millions of Canadian households had files on them, at a time when Canada had * Due to this, and the RCMP going bananas in other ways (eg, burning down barns on private property because bikers were legally meeting there....), parliament disbanded…

> * Due to this, and the RCMP going bananas in other ways (eg, burning down barns on private property because bikers were legally meeting there....), parliament disbanded the RCMP's domestic and international "spy" departments.

So one of the five eyes activities I found which involved the RCMP (I'm based in the UK), was putting a tiny picture of a full stop (period/dot/whatever you want to call it), at the end of sentences in various web forums. If your broadband was slow, like in the dialup days, before the image had downloaded, web browsers would put a placeholder square or rectangle where the image would eventually appear. I saw this on some forums, so naturally I traced the image back to Canadian webservers. It was their way of tracking who was reading what threads on a forum, but not the only way!

You will find the security services sacrifice many innocent members of the public even kids, in the 5eyes countries, its how the security services effect change when they cant manipulate or blackmail the politicians. There is also a lot of collusion between the Police and the security services, its totally criminal!

Re: Qantas ferried an engine on the wing of a 747 (2016)

#47

Post by hollerith »

StillBored wrote: post #7

Ok, given its flying just the core, and not the fan, why doesn't it fit in the cargo hold? I mean they wouldn't have to worry about the extra drag/etc in the hold. It also seems odd that they would do this on a plane carrying commercial passengers since it seems more of an "experimental" modification even if the manufacture has approved it.

Well it is carrying the core and the nacelle. The nacelle is the bulkiest part.

Re: Qantas ferried an engine on the wing of a 747 (2016)

#48

Post by sokoloff »

dotancohen wrote: post #40
Stratoscope wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose you could say the same thing about cm2187's comment from a few minutes ago about the history of terrorism. Personally, one thing I enjoy about HN is the tangents that discussions sometimes take. If there is something I can learn from a comment, I'm not too worried about whether it is strictly on topic.

A tangent to the topic, sure, I love it. But hijacking the discussion to draw attention to something that has absolutely nothing to do with either the topic or relevant to a specific comment it almost the definition of a troll. Despite a glancing similarity to a detail not relevant to the topic, GP was not relevant to the comment he replied to.

If that’s your threshold, I suspect you find a lot of real-life trolls in everyday small talk.

“anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity” applies strongly to leeoniya’s comment IMO.

Re: Qantas ferried an engine on the wing of a 747 (2016)

#49

Post by jsjohnst »

sofixa wrote: post #41
kqr wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While it's true that the 747 was originally meant as a cargo carrier I was surprised by this so I consulted Wikipedia. Apparently when the 747 was designed they were convinced enough that passengers in the future would not want to travel subsonically, so they designed the 747 to convert to a freighter, to not have to throw the design away when it's hard to attract passengers due to the "low" 0.8 mach speeds!

In general there was a time when supersonic flight was considered the future evolution that will displace the existing tech, like jets displaced propeller aircraft. The Concorde was supposed to be the first one, and it was designed as a general use plane, it wasn't until much later British Airways and Air France thought about marketing it for business/first class "luxury" experience. For a myriad of reasons ( Boeing…

> Boeing failing to make their own supersonic airliner which helped the US Congress banning supersonic flights over the US being one of them

You sure about that order? I thought supersonic domestic flights got banned in the US and then the Boeing supersonic airliner was doomed. I’m not positive, hence asking.

Re: Qantas ferried an engine on the wing of a 747 (2016)

#50

Post by rajeshp1986 »

disillusioned wrote: post #28
EdwardDiego wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, "Canadian Sikh terrorists" was not something I was expecting to read about today.

The whole thing is fascinating. I only just read about it because of the long slog that was Neal Stephenson's Termination Shock, which spends basically half the book talking about the China/India Line of Actual Control, and dips into Sikhism a bit. I had no idea that Indira Ghandi was assassinated by her two Sikh bodyguards, after she insisted they be reinstated to her protective detail, Intelligence Bureau having re…

Whats more interesting is that the terror group which carried out the plane hijacking is still active in Canada. In fact the group was not prosecuted for the hijack and other attacks.

https://www.business-standard.com/article/news-ians/us-decla...

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