Live data from Hacker News

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

aeroxplorer.com

281–290 of 386 posts

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

#281

The source quoted in the article is “The Moscow Times,” which is not actually located in Moscow, but somewhere in the Netherlands. Not exactly a reliable source.

Only since 2022, before that they had their headquarters in Moscow (since 1992). It would actually be a much less reliable news source if they were still be allowed to operate in Russia ;)

Indeed. The NYT and Washington Post are so much more reliable.

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

#282
post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The story looks like a penny dreadful of “Russia is doomed” series. 1. There’s no info on that Russian slide about actual planes flying without any breaks at all. There’s a manufacturer defined minimum equipment list that allows planes to have some breaks (actual number depends on the type of a plane) disabled for, let’s say, 10 days at the most. This is absolutely normal as planes cannot be serviced constantly (they…

As a Russian I'd say this guy lives in some other country. Probably imaginary. Based on how little reality there is in the comment I would not believe comments about airplane brakes either... Not a single person I know much less their kids has "foreign crypto virtual cards" etc. Ofc even if they had they would be locked out of transacting with any serious business that doesn't take crypto. The exodus is real, ask Arm…

I am curious, is that propaganda effective within Russian people?

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

#283
post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The story looks like a penny dreadful of “Russia is doomed” series. 1. There’s no info on that Russian slide about actual planes flying without any breaks at all. There’s a manufacturer defined minimum equipment list that allows planes to have some breaks (actual number depends on the type of a plane) disabled for, let’s say, 10 days at the most. This is absolutely normal as planes cannot be serviced constantly (they…

About the foreign virtual cards, can you please give me a link where I can get one? Being searching for a long time, only found scam. All legitimate ones require proof of address.

Kazakh and Belarusian banks open cards for Russians with no questions asked. There are services that do it online for you. You only need a passport (the international kind).

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

#284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Russian I'd say this guy lives in some other country. Probably imaginary. Based on how little reality there is in the comment I would not believe comments about airplane brakes either... Not a single person I know much less their kids has "foreign crypto virtual cards" etc. Ofc even if they had they would be locked out of transacting with any serious business that doesn't take crypto. The exodus is real, ask Arm…

I am curious, is that propaganda effective within Russian people?

Scarily effective with the older (millennials' parents) generations.

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

#285
post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The story looks like a penny dreadful of “Russia is doomed” series. 1. There’s no info on that Russian slide about actual planes flying without any breaks at all. There’s a manufacturer defined minimum equipment list that allows planes to have some breaks (actual number depends on the type of a plane) disabled for, let’s say, 10 days at the most. This is absolutely normal as planes cannot be serviced constantly (they…

>More importantly, there is absolutely no shortage of airplane parts in Russia — they’re just delivered in a more “wink-wink” obscure way. That sounds like a hazard in itself, airlines being forced to buy parts outside of official supply lines makes it much easier for unscrupulous sellers to substitute counterfeit parts.

You raise an interesting point. How does Iran, Cuba, and Syria get parts for any Boeing or Airbus civilian aeroplanes? Or are they all flying Russian aircraft now?

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

#286
post #28

I'm curious the actual mechanics of this operation. The main primary-source I found is a Telegram post of an Aeroflot pilot memo [0], but this only discusses the side-effects of reverser only braking, not the mechanics of "disabling the brakes." There is a possibility the brakes are still available and not worn through, and this is a preemptive measure to leave enough brake material to handle an emergency rejected ta…

Thank you for that link. In case anyone else is wondering, this is a Telegram chat with actual pilots in it. There is currently a lot of cursing in that thread about stupid sensational news on the topic, along with an actual explanation. Aeroflot is disabling 1 out of 4 brakes, not all 4. Nobody is actually trying to stop a plane with just reverse thrusters.

I went and read through the last 3 days of chat history, including the part where the original article was mentioned. There are not really a lot of “cursing about stupid sensational news“ there. In fact, people were posting screenshots of news about Chemezov (the Head of Rostech) reporting to putin about the ongoing cannibalisation of the current fleet.

Why use throwaway btw?

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

#287

Planes don't stop with the reverse thrust, only slow down to 100-120km/h. If you use it a lower speed there's a real risk of lifting a piece of debris off the runway and sucking it into the engine intake. This is why we have to bother with pushback for jet aircrafts unlike the convenient powerback we have for props.

There will, of course, be absolutely no foreign debris on any Russian runways ever, even the ones crudely hacked from the taiga! Looking forward to the operator guidelines on why flying on one engine is required in the near future.

Due to the routes they are left to fly, debris will most likely be Russian. But I bet in case of an incident, propaganda will definitely declare it as foreign debris.

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

#288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the moral here is there is an unhealthy dash of sensationalism and propaganda that must be sifted away, if we actually want to take any worthwhile information out of this. As the saying goes, the first casualty in war is truth.

But there's no sensationalism or propaganda here.

Propaganda has an interesting dynamics where it feeds off human instinctive behaviour.

It would be hard to convince people about things they don't believe in already. Propaganda works by amplifying what people already want to believe and by giving tools for people who already want to believe in something but don't know how to back their beliefs with arguments. This leaves people who don't believe in the thing surrounded by people who wouldn't otherwise have strong rhetorical skills suddenly tooled with a barrage of pre-canned arguments and "facts" to disarm any fruitful conversation.

A consequence of this dynamics is that often even pure factual presentations of an event gets spontaneously turned into "propaganda-like" discourse without necessarily any active involvement by state agends

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

#289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am more surprised there is not a sufficiently rich black-market operation going around sanctions. Random site[0] says, >In general, airplane brakes can last between 1000-2000 landings before they are changed. An active airplane makes an estimate of two landings per day; this means the airplane needs to be changed after 18-36 months. Even at multiple brake pads(?) per plane, that does not sound an insurmountable amo…

Black market from where? If caught selling parts to Russia, you'll be banned by Airbus and Boeing, meaning you can't maintain your own fleet.

[dead]

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

#290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only since 2022, before that they had their headquarters in Moscow (since 1992). It would actually be a much less reliable news source if they were still be allowed to operate in Russia ;)

Indeed. The NYT and Washington Post are so much more reliable.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN