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Aeroflot deactivates brakes on nine aircraft, relies solely on reverse thrust

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Re: Aeroflot deactivates brakes on nine aircraft, relies solely on reverse thrust

#81

Post by dragonwriter »

zapdrive wrote: post #31

How hard is it to manufacture an airplane brake? Surely Russia does have the required precision machining equipment and expertise. Of course a lot of that is being devoted to mass manufacture of weapons and other military equipment. I'm sure they can (and maybe in due time, they will) reroute some of those resources towards airplane parts. In my opinion, Russia is sometimes a little slow to react, but once the shit h…

Failure to maintain brakes isn't going to make airplanes fall out of the sky.

May increase incidents on the ground, though.

Re: Aeroflot deactivates brakes on nine aircraft, relies solely on reverse thrust

#82

Post by anticodon »

woodruffw wrote: post #71
anticodon wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a word for US movies and books portraying Russia: "klukva" (cranberry). Because in every US made movie and US written book amount of lies and confabulations about Russian history and Russian culture is so high, that it deserves a special word. E.g. I was reading a book recently by John le Carré and had to stop after reading about 50 pages. I simply couldn't continue. E.g. there's a scene where Russian traitor…

I don't doubt for a minute that Western media is filled with all kinds of ridiculous apocrypha about Russia. At the same time, I've never encountered this kind of ridiculous sensitivity about a country's perception before. Do you think every American drives a pickup truck and owns 12 guns? You probably don't, because you're not a fool; similarly, most Americans don't think that Russians live their lives swizzling vod…

> I don't doubt for a minute that Western media is filled with all kinds of ridiculous apocrypha about Russia. At the same time, I've never encountered this kind of ridiculous sensitivity about a country's perception before.

You won't find many Russian authors vilifying USA habits and culture. Not among popular ones, for sure. Nor the Russian movies. That makes a difference.

When there's a Russian in the US movie, I mentally prepare myself for a cringe. Usually, it would be a unreasonably aggressive person, killer or terrorist, or just a bad person. Drinking vodka like water, beating women, etc, etc.

You'd have hard time finding anything resembling this in Russian books or movies about USA.

Re: Aeroflot deactivates brakes on nine aircraft, relies solely on reverse thrust

#83

Post by anticodon »

woodruffw wrote: post #74
anticodon wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Moscow Times is a western propaganda source as well. It's main office is in Amsterdam, not in Moscow. The only difference is that it is directed mainly to the English speaking expats living in Russia. So amount of confabulations is probably 10-20% lower than in the Western domestic propaganda, because expats can see with their own eyes that we're not eating hedgehogs, for example.

Leaving out why they're in Amsterdam is a somewhat conspicuous omission: they were forced out of Russia[1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moscow_Times#After_2014

[flagged]

Re: Aeroflot deactivates brakes on nine aircraft, relies solely on reverse thrust

#84

Post by woodruffw »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #80
woodruffw wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No. Not really. Russia has the means to produce brakes for their trains. They do not have the means to do the same for these airplanes. I meant in terms of riders' perceptions of safety, not industrial capacity. That being said, it astounds me that Russia can't fabricate replacement breaks here: we're talking about a country with some of the best metallurgists in the world and a domestic aerospace industry; what gi…

No one ever said that they can't. But going from zero to being able to buy replacement Boeing (or whoever the OEM was) brakes off the shelf is a process of many months (in the optimistic case) or years, not weeks. After all, even the simplest analysis for an aviation supplier has to be "can we make enough money selling these replacement brakes to cover the cost of setting up a manufacturing, quality control, and dist…

This would have made sense 12 months or even 9 months ago, but we're now 18 months into a war that Russia's government had otherwise been preparing domestically for. Again: what gives?

Re: Aeroflot deactivates brakes on nine aircraft, relies solely on reverse thrust

#85

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

striking wrote: post #66
woodruffw wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A train without breaks isn't really comparable because the planes can break using thrusters. I'm pretty sure a plane at V1 can't break using thrusters.

I believe this to be true (the article definitely states "Brakes are also necessary for aborting takeoffs", and V1 is the speed at which takeoff ~~occurs~~ edit: must be committed to), but this is only one instant of the journey. At other times it is certainly feasible to brake (landings included) with just the use of the thrust reversers.

It's been a while, but isn't that V2? ISTR that V1 is the commit speed: above that point you have to take off since there isn't enough runway to abort.

Re: Aeroflot deactivates brakes on nine aircraft, relies solely on reverse thrust

#86

Post by dragonwriter »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #80
woodruffw wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No. Not really. Russia has the means to produce brakes for their trains. They do not have the means to do the same for these airplanes. I meant in terms of riders' perceptions of safety, not industrial capacity. That being said, it astounds me that Russia can't fabricate replacement breaks here: we're talking about a country with some of the best metallurgists in the world and a domestic aerospace industry; what gi…

No one ever said that they can't. But going from zero to being able to buy replacement Boeing (or whoever the OEM was) brakes off the shelf is a process of many months (in the optimistic case) or years, not weeks. After all, even the simplest analysis for an aviation supplier has to be "can we make enough money selling these replacement brakes to cover the cost of setting up a manufacturing, quality control, and dist…

Also, Russian manufacturing may have other urgent priorities right now. Wars (fought outside of the homeland) may be good for employment and industrialization broadly, but they often are the opposite for application of industry to civilian ends.

Re: Aeroflot deactivates brakes on nine aircraft, relies solely on reverse thrust

#87

Post by anticodon »

throwawaysleep wrote: post #12
reacharavindh wrote: post #3

How in the world would any common Russian trust an airplane in this current sanctioned state in Russia and fly in one?! Are people that brainwashed to trust their leader to get on a plane that doesn’t have brakes?!

Life matters not there. Not in war. Not in peace. Not in travel. Not in home. Most Western countries obsess about proventing deaths. The USA does as well, except among poor people and gun victims.

Any proof? How many civil plane catastrophes happened in Russia in the last 1.5 years?

Re: Aeroflot deactivates brakes on nine aircraft, relies solely on reverse thrust

#88

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

keddad wrote: post #48
mudil wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck with this logic.

What is the alternative, curl up and cry? Doing anything (especially anything interesting) involves taking risks. Not to mention that I probably have more chances of being arrested or conscripted then actually suffering in an airplane accident, they are still quite safe. I don't think that worrying about everything, especially things as basic as an airplane travel, will do you any good.

One of the surprising things I've learned in this online world of ours is that some people simply worry about everything. I don't get it either.

Re: Aeroflot deactivates brakes on nine aircraft, relies solely on reverse thrust

#89

Post by dragonwriter »

woodruffw wrote: post #84
HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one ever said that they can't. But going from zero to being able to buy replacement Boeing (or whoever the OEM was) brakes off the shelf is a process of many months (in the optimistic case) or years, not weeks. After all, even the simplest analysis for an aviation supplier has to be "can we make enough money selling these replacement brakes to cover the cost of setting up a manufacturing, quality control, and dist…

This would have made sense 12 months or even 9 months ago, but we're now 18 months into a war that Russia's government had otherwise been preparing domestically for. Again: what gives?

They hadn't been preparing for it to last 18 months, and part of their preparation had been oriented at influence operations to preemptivelt disrupt Western unity and political response when the war qas launched. While I won't say that categorically failed (it still has tangible effects), it has been far from a complete success.

Re: Aeroflot deactivates brakes on nine aircraft, relies solely on reverse thrust

#90

Post by jamiek88 »

woodruffw wrote: post #84
HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one ever said that they can't. But going from zero to being able to buy replacement Boeing (or whoever the OEM was) brakes off the shelf is a process of many months (in the optimistic case) or years, not weeks. After all, even the simplest analysis for an aviation supplier has to be "can we make enough money selling these replacement brakes to cover the cost of setting up a manufacturing, quality control, and dist…

This would have made sense 12 months or even 9 months ago, but we're now 18 months into a war that Russia's government had otherwise been preparing domestically for. Again: what gives?

It’s an incompetent oligarchy where competence is dangerous and gets you sidelined.

Rotten from the top down.

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