21 ms·
Aeroflot deactivates brakes on nine aircraft, relies solely on reverse thrust
- skinkestek 3y ago[flagged]
- barbazoo 3y agoI don't think we need that kind of response here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- reacharavindh 3y agoHow 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?!
- actionfromafar 3y agoI think it's simply normalisation of deviance.
- rich_sasha 3y agoStory from a friend. Once, flying on a Russian domestic airline flight, they noticed something like a little shrine at the back. Some black and white photos, flowers, mementos. They asked the cabin crew about it. Response was, well, the plane had crashed once, killing some people on board, including some staff. So they are commemorated here. But the plane is fine. Anecdote aside, it's fair to say Russia has a somewhat laissez-faire attitude to safety.
- parl_match 3y agoTo be fair, in America I don't think we have rules against reintroducing planes involved in deadly incidents, but are still airworthy. The shrine is a bit wild, though.
- windexh8er 3y agoGiven the Max 8 debacle [0], I'd agree we don't seem to have many great rules around this. [0] https://apnews.com/article/boeing-max-crashes-faa-ea8fac0ad2758b08c58d2d64756fbf37 https://apnews.com/article/boeing-max-crashes-faa-ea8fac0ad2...
- mulmen 3y agoThe difference in this case is that when the Max-8s crashed they were no longer airworthy and were not re-flown.
- mannykannot 3y agoAfter the 2nd. one.
- mulmen 3y agoNone of the crashed 737 MAX-8s were ever re-flown. This is a conversation about re-flying air frames that have been involved in fatalities. Air frames here means the planes, not the model. The 737 Max-8 is a cautionary tale about a lot of things, but re-flying crashed airframes is not one of the lessons.
- mannykannot 3y agoYou are right - my mistake.
- anticodon 3y agoWe 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 comes to "Chechen" restaurant in the center of St. Petersburg, and orders only a glass of vodka. Firstly, there are no Chechen restaurants. Especially in the center of St. Petersburg. I don't know why, but anybody living here in Russia wouldn't be able to find any Chechen restaurant in Moscow or St. Petersburg. Russian, Ukranian, Thai, Chinese, Vietnamese, whatever, but not Chechen. Secondly, not all Russians drink vodka, not even majority. Vodka is considered a drink for poor and alcoholics. I don't think it's true, I think that vodka is superior to many other spirits, but that's the typical Russian stereotype. Thirdly, Russian people never order just vodka. We always drink vodka together with substantial food. Not only it is considered a very poor taste to drink vodka without food, it's also absolutely not enjoyable to consume it this way. And on the cover of the book it was written that the story is very close to the truth, which makes Le Carré special. OMG. So, this whole story about a shrine in a plane is bullshit.
- wkat4242 3y agoIn the West airplanes are also repaired and put back in service after a crash where possible.
- netsharc 3y agoE.g. Qantas' fix to maintain a no hull-loss accidents: https://simpleflying.com/qantas-flight-1-runway-excursion-anniversary/ https://simpleflying.com/qantas-flight-1-runway-excursion-an... > However, the aircraft took on severe damage. Its nose and right wing collapsed, and the two right wing engines were damaged. While Qantas did not disclose an exact figure, it cost the carrier less than AU$100 million in repairs, which was significantly cheaper than buying a new 747 at the time. > Repairing and returning the aircraft to service also helped Qantas maintain its record of having no hull-loss accidents upon the rise of the Jet Age at the time, which also meant the carrier could uphold its safety reputation.
- oceanplexian 3y agoI flew on a Russian domestic flight 10-ish years ago, and people were still lighting up cigarettes on the plane if that says anything.
- foverzar 3y agoWeird, smoking on civillian aircrafts was forbidden in 2002.
- xp84 3y ago2002 was only 8-9 years ago. Source: am a millennial, the math checks out for me
- vGPU 3y agoYou might want to check what year it is. There are only two countries that have allowed smoking on planes in the past decade: Cuba, and China. Both have banned it. China was the last to do so, with their ban on pilots smoking that only began getting enforced in 2019.
- vGPU 3y agoAir Canada 143. JAL2. Just a few of the airplanes that have crashed and been put back into service. It’s pretty common so long as it’s economic. Otherwise, they’ll get stripped for parts.
- throwawaysleep 3y agoLife 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.
- trefoiled 3y agothis is just open racism
- wkat4242 3y agoI think it's more directed to the regime not valuing citizen lives rather than racism against Russians?
- trefoiled 3y agoIt quite explicitly says "not in home"
- foverzar 3y agoTechnically there is no way it could be definded as "racism" (Russian is not a race). But IDK what would be a proper term for a cituation when a person doesn't like something about the politics of higher government echelons and starts filling blanks by projecting it down to every comissioner, manager, certification auditor, mechanic or even every household?
- vbezhenar 3y agoChauvinism, xenophobia.
- mighmi 3y ago> The USA does as well, except among poor people and gun victims. I suggest you look at the actual causes of death in the US: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db456.htm#section_4 https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db456.htm#secti... Considering typical health outcomes in the US, obesity and the life choices people make, I don't think you can honestly say the US obsesses about preventing deaths. Of course, improved health care access and personal health wouldn't materially change the numbers, just the ages where those end of life diseases finally win. A magnitude less than the causes there, car crashes are around 12.9/100,000, and guns are at 10/100,000 (54% suicides, 1% "accidents") - and the US car death rate is significantly higher than Europe or elsewhere, very preventable with more stringent driving tests and lower blood alcohol level allowances.
- vkou 3y ago> How in the world would any common Russian trust an airplane in this current sanctioned state in Russia and fly in one?! 1. What are the alternatives? Spend five days traveling by rail? 2. It's probably still safer, per mile traveled, than my driving commute, and I don't give climbing into a car a second thought.
- blibble 3y ago> 2. It's probably still safer, per mile traveled, than my driving commute, and I don't give climbing into a car a second thought. maybe at the start when everything was within its specified flying hours but after a few years it's going to be way worse
- vkou 3y agoIf driving were 10 times more dangerous than it is now, we'd all still be doing it.
- blibble 3y agoyour lifetime risk of dying in a motor accident is about 1 in 100 (depending on where in the world you live) I suspect you'd see fewer people driving if it was 1 in 10
- vkou 3y ago> I suspect you'd see fewer people driving if it was 1 in 10 Everybody dies, and I need to get to work/see grandma/go to the grocery. People drove about as much in the 60s, when the per-vehicle mile travel deaths in the US were 5 times what they are today.
- serf 3y ago>I suspect you'd see fewer people driving if it was 1 in 10 I don't. The cohort of people that make risk assessments with regards to routine every-day things and change their plans accordingly is minuscule, and most places around the world do not have an equivalent form of transportation. Even with minor/un-needed activities people tend to ignore risk. Every cigarette smoker over a long enough period will develop health problems and eventually die faster than they would have otherwise, but it's still a thing; and it doesn't offer the advantage of actually facilitating getting to work on time and feeding your family.
- bunga-bunga 3y agoYou vastly overestimate the possibility that this news makes it into the mind of fliers and that they actually understand the consequences. Government says it’s ok, so it must be ok. That’s all people think.
- keddad 3y agoI flew from Moscow to Vladivastok recently, and it's a choice between 8 hour flight and a week in a train. The planes might be missing some maintenance, but they are certainly not falling out of the skies, and it's not like the trains can't fail (especially considering occasional train tracks sabotages). There are always risks, it's not that big of a deal.
- mudil 3y agoGood luck with this logic.
- keddad 3y agoWhat 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.
- HeyLaughingBoy 3y agoOne 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.
- woodruffw 3y agoI think the more apples-to-apples comparison here would be a train without breaks, wouldn't it be? After all, people can sabotage airfields and airplanes as well.
- krisoft 3y ago> I think the more apples-to-apples comparison here would be a train without breaks, wouldn't it be 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. So the reality on the ground is that the trains have brakes while the airplanes don't (or they have breaks but with rapidly aging out of compliance parts.)
- daxuak 3y agoLike they have a choice.
- dharmab 3y agoPossibly apocryphal Soviet folk song about airline travel: Tu-104 is the best plane in the world / In only 5 minutes it will bring you to your tomb. Should've gone via train / Should've gone via train.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- WeylandYutani 3y agoRecently read Derk Sauers autobiography on his 30 years of living and doing business in Russia. Russians are... different from us. The vodka stereotype is real and combine that with melancholy and religion they are all kamikaze.
- protocolture 3y agoI mean. Consider the recent issues with the FAA and Boeing. People kept getting on those planes.
- jrockway 3y agoThe fleet was grounded for nearly 2 years while Boeing fixed the design flaw and applied the fix to the existing airframes. So they're probably OK now. The whole point of the MAX program was to get a few more years out of a 1960s design with a couple tweaks. Hopefully all the tweaks that cause the plane to dive into the ground are fixed now, simply because there can only be so many tweaks. I enjoyed this snippet from Wikipedia: > In March 2022, there were rumors that Boeing would request an exemption from the U.S. Aircraft Safety and Certification Reform Act of 2020, a safety reform law passed in response to the MAX crashes. The act requires airliners to be fitted with an engine-indicating and crew-alerting system (EICAS) if type certificated after December 31, 2022. [...] In December 2022, the U.S. Congress agreed on a bill allowing Boeing to certify the MAX 7 and MAX 10 without EICAS, but it must install a third angle-of-attack sensor in all 737 MAX types as previously demanded by European and Canadian regulators. The company also must install a switch to disable the stick shaker, which distracted pilots during the MAX crashes. Boeing would have to retrofit these design changes to all 737 MAXs already delivered in Canada, Europe, and the U.S. within three years of MAX 10 certification. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_MAX https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_MAX This all sounds like a great idea to me. What could go wrong?
- berkes 3y agoI won't be surprised if the narrative within Russia reframes this to "Western airplanes are inferior to Russian planes. So for your security we have grounded all Boeings and Airbuses" in near future. I can only hope this happens before western planes start dropping out of the sky due to missing parts.
- Eavolution 3y agoIf a regular russian businessman needs to get from one side of russia, to the other, what else can they do? Russia's a big country like.
- imdsm 3y agoHas the author got the year wrong? It's August 2023 not 2022.
- woodpanel 3y ago[flagged]
- zgluck 3y ago(Replying to a comment saying that western sanctions will cause deaths of Russian civilians.) No, the blame will lie with Russian regulators and airlines. Russian civilians can take the bus.
- bloak 3y agoBut what if the bus is even more dangerous? :-)
- zgluck 3y agoIt most likely is and that's also Russia's responsibility. Remember: This is a country that projects itself as a technological soon-to-be-world-leader while it's actually a glorified gas stop with nukes that USSR era scientists/technologists built using stolen US tech well before the brain drain of the 90s and onwards.
- foverzar 3y ago> stolen US tech Techological progress doesn't work that way. This as basically as claiming that everyone stole from Russians because they created the first periodic table. Or that everyone stole from Germans because WWII scientists.
- meindnoch 3y agoWell, considering Russian road habits...
- barbazoo 3y agoTake off and landing aside, can you properly control the aircraft on the ground without brakes? I'm thinking of stopping at hold short lines, at the gate, etc. How precise, responsive is reverse thrust in those cases? Or will they get picked up by those little cars and pulled right after landing?
- ars 3y agoI suspect they can still use them in those situations, since there is very little wear just holding still. The planes probably still have brakes, just the pilots are told not to use them when landing - this would make them last much longer, but still be available.
- barbazoo 3y agoYes that makes much more sense.
- wkat4242 3y agoIt's not very responsive at all. Nor is it meant for this purpose. It's just a brake assist for use on the runway. Also, reverse trust is hard to maneuver with considering you will immediately start reversing once you've stopped moving. Unlike a brake that has a stop as an "end state". If they really start taxiing using that it'll lead to collisions at least, I'm sure, because of unintended reversing. It's a harebrained plan as presented here IMO. But perhaps it's more nuanced? Just not using the brakes unless you really need them? This is what we used to do at the gliding club too, since brake pads are expensive and our runway was 5x the length needed for an unassisted rollout. I don't think the margins are ever that high on airliners though... It still sounds very dangerous and has the risk of pilots getting confused.
- usrusr 3y agoMy thoughts as well: go through the crazy "look ma, no brakes!" emergency routine for landing and use the remaining pads for taxiing. Not an aircraft engineer, but my guess would be that the pad wear for one regular landing would be good for a decade or two of what's consumed during taxiing. (and when the inevitable accident happens, the victims' suffering will at the same time be acclaimed as heroic sacrifice and a called out as a direct attack by "evil nato, how dare they not give us what we need for business as usual". Chances are less people will die for this propaganda stunt than in the apartment bombings)
- constantly 3y agoExcellent strategy for arriving at one’s destination faster than planned.
- tguvot 3y agoFinal Destination 6 - Aeroflot
- ssabev 3y agoThis is probably going to be just the tip of the iceberg. There was already articles around cannibalisation of planes so that you can service and repair an ever dwindling number of aircraft. If it keeps going on for another year or two it's not going to be good
- aunty_helen 3y agoThis literally happens everyday, everywhere and to every airline. Sometimes even between airlines. I’ve personally been responsible for a part getting pulled off another engine from another airline and swapped for one that got its electrical connector damaged so the engine would ship on time. There is a whole industry of buyers and sellers of 2nd hand aircraft parts.
- stevehawk 3y agoThat doesn't mean this is the same situation. In examples you are likely thinking of, this is happening because of the immediate need for parts or as cost savings, etc. Russia is doing it because they are blocked from primary and secondary markets. For many of their aircraft in the country there are no replacement parts coming except what falls off of the truck in China and gets passed along. So their supply chain is slowly approaching zero until their aircraft have to simply be grounded (or they quit invading neighboring countries and the embargoes are lifted.)
- kelnos 3y agoSure, but those types of things are stopgap measures that work in a normal, unsanctioned market. Like, they need a part now, but there's none available in the maintenance hangar (or whatever), and it would take a few days to order one, so they ask another airline at the same airport to float/sell them the part. Once the ordered part arrives, they're back to their usual number of parts. In this case, Aeroflot just cannot get more parts, period. The market for new parts is completely closed to them right now due to sanctions, and secondhand parts will only get them so far. We're talking about brakes here, which wear out to uselessness, so I doubt there's even much (if any) secondhand market for those. Once all the "Boeing brake pads" wear out and run out in Russia, that's it. They can't get new ones without someone violating sanctions. Well, unless they manage to bum spares from countries like China that aren't sanctioning them, or unless someone local can manufacture them to the correct specs. Regardless, these other options get more and more expensive as time goes on.
- sillywalk 3y agoMy heart bleeds. FTA: "Many parts in (western made) Russian passenger aircraft that would normally be easily replaced are rapidly wearing out with no replacement parts in sight due to the import of spare aircraft parts from Boeing and Airbus being banned since March 2022. " I wonder what other parts are wearing out.
- wetpaws 3y ago[dead]
- hedgehog 3y agoI would be curious about things like lubrication and the hydraulic systems where deferring maintenance is easy but repairs once there are problems are potentially very costly. Hopefully the manufacturers can get some of the data back, it seems like this kind of deferred maintenance is an experiment nobody would run willingly but given that it's happening the data could help improve safe and efficient fleet operations.
- WalterBright 3y agoMaintenance issues are constantly fed back to the design teams that adjust the designs.
- hedgehog 3y agoOh for sure, but I'm guessing it's rare for an operator with modern aircraft to aggressively defer maintenance to the extent it sounds like is happening over there. Toyota has plenty of data about what happens to a Camry if it goes a few years with no oil changes (because people) but does Boeing have similar data to draw from?
- bobthepanda 3y agoWe just had a roughly three year period where planes meant to be running more or less constantly were consigned to desert parking lots due to lack of travel demand.
- anticodon 3y ago[flagged]
- mulmen 3y agoI don’t speak russian, would you mind pointing out the relevant part of that article that inverts the claim of disabled brakes?
- bartread 3y agoDrop the URL in here: https://translate.google.co.uk/?sl=auto&tl=en&op=websites https://translate.google.co.uk/?sl=auto&tl=en&op=websites. Russian to English translation is certainly good enough to understand the thrust of the article. It makes "cunning" use of handwaving and misdirection in this case.
- anticodon 3y ago«Аэрофлот» предупредил пилотов о риске выкатывания за пределы ВПП на самолетах с деактивированным тормозом», — говорится в сообщении, разошедшемся по Telegram-каналам. Правда, даже после внимательного прочтения этих постов выясняется, что поводов для паники нет: ближе к концу читателей информируют, что тормозов у самолетов не один, а много, на каждой стойке шасси, и часть из них вполне может быть деактивирована в соответствии с перечнем минимального исправного оборудования (MEL) «Аэрофлота». It says basically that airplane has several brake pads, so the memo says that the plane can fly for up to 10 days after seeing that some of the brake pads had worn out.
- vbezhenar 3y agoAccording to this article, using planes with some of the brakes disabled is OK and generally accepted everywhere, up to 10 days. Of course brakes will be replaced soon, but just the fact that some breaks are not functional does not mean that plane have to be moved to repair immediately. There are some plane defects which are considered acceptable for limited time use and this situation is one of them.
- mulmen 3y ago
- bri3d 3y agoI'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 takeoff while avoiding "unnecessary" braking on landing by using the reversers instead. It's still ridiculously dangerous and bad, of course, but a different situation from "they're running the aircraft with no brakes." [0]: https://t.me/aviatorshina/3679?comment=166821 https://t.me/aviatorshina/3679?comment=166821
- thrway63245 3y agoThank 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.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Waterluvian 3y agoThis feels like “it’s not as bad as it seems. Only three rooms are currently on fire, not twelve.” …They’re disabling brakes?
- zapdrive 3y agoHow 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 hits the ceiling (aka things come to the attention of the top leadership) they fix their shit up pretty quickly. Edit: don't wanna say it, but it DOES sound like Western propaganda. Unless I see planes falling out of the sky in Russia, I will not believe this is a big issue for Russia.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- varjag 3y agoYes, Tsar not knowing is definitely the crux of the issue. Once he learns about it, the planes he never files are all gonna be fixed pronto. After all the health and well being of his subjects is demonstrably his top priority.
- acyou 3y agoYes, it's beyond belief that they can't make the required brake parts in Russia. If Russia starts having "civilian aircraft incidents" due to NATO missiles, there will be also a convenient "well established precedent" that the Russian airplanes are falling out of the air anyways. That perception of airplane safety may be (is) more relevant than the hard facts.
- dragonwriter 3y agoFailure to maintain brakes isn't going to make airplanes fall out of the sky. May increase incidents on the ground, though.
- HeyLaughingBoy 3y agoOf course they have the skills and equipment to make airplane brakes. But think it through a bit. First the airline has to see that they need brakes. Then they have to find a potential supplier, likely an outfit that's already making brakes for Russian airplanes. Now that supplier has to reverse engineer the brakes on the Boeing/Airbus airplanes since they need to be compatible with everything that interfaces to them. That in itself is a substantial task. Now they have to find suitable materials, assuming there aren't proprietary metallurgies or materials in the American brakes. After that engineering is done, they have to set up a supply chain, a manufacturing line, a quality control system, installation instructions (if they're copying something this may not be needed), and an ordering system. By this point, we'd be well into the millions of dollars if this was done in the US. And all of this has to be financially worthwhile over some time horizon, unless the airline is also going to foot the upfront cost of all this. And bear in mind that resources dedicated to this may have to be taken away from parts they're already building and making money on. So with all that, how likely is it to happen? I don't know but it's an interesting question.
- harha_ 3y agoIf they cannot fix the brakes, they probably can't fix anything else either. I smell an incident brewing...
- diimdeep 3y agoThat's dumb, here is an anecdote for you to enjoy about propaganda in USSR vs. propaganda in the USA told by George Hotz https://youtu.be/rzb2cuT9vaY?t=2977 https://youtu.be/rzb2cuT9vaY?t=2977
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- h4b4n3r0 3y ago[dead]
- a2xd94 3y agoEverything is completely and totally under control, comrades, no need for panic! These sort of statements by the Russian government truly invoke Chernobyl-like images in my mind ; deception piled upon lies piled upon misinformation with a cherry of whataboutism on top.
- 3LazTjBv-f 3y agoIt looks from outside that they are doing relatively OK. Ruble still didn't crater, the high prices of fossil fuels partially compensated lower exports. They try to increase the trade with China and India to offset sanctions. Of course, like it was said many times before, war economy works - until it doesn't. It will be very hard to time such collapse: it might be next week, next month or even not before the war itself ends.
- nocoiner 3y agoWhat’s going to be the effect of increased use of the engine? Airlines like to derate their engines for takeoffs that don’t require full performance in order to save wear and tear; how much quicker are the engines going to require overhaul due to extraordinary reverse thruster usage? I guess the brakes involve more rapidly consumable items, but this seems like a decidedly suboptimal solution when it knocks a good portion of operating life off an expensive precision jet engine. Sucks to fly in Russia, I guess.
- stainablesteel 3y agoi agree, its not like there's going to be shortage of brakes in the future, that's a rather simple component.
- mannykannot 3y agoIt's been a while since that was the case, even for road-vehicle brakes. Judging things by their apparent simplicity can be misleading - consider a wing, for example... There's a bunch of non-obvious things you can get wrong.
- WalterBright 3y agoI seriously doubt the thrust reversers significantly shorten the life of the engine for the few seconds they're on. All the reverser is is a couple of hydraulically operated clamshells that close over the exhaust stream forcing it to the side rather than back. Ironically, it doesn't actually "reverse" the thrust. The exhaust stream impinges on the clamshell, pushing the airplane backwards.
- MaxfordAndSons 3y agoOhhhh that makes so much sense than the halfbaked naive implementation in my head involving the turbine somehow reversing the direction of airflow entirely and sucking air from the back to the front.
- 3y ago
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- _fat_santa 3y agoWhile I agree that we should be sanctioning Russia, I think a carve-out should be made for things like commercial aviation parts. Eventually there will be an accident as a result of parts that can't be replaced, we don't need more lives lost to this war.
- dragonwriter 3y ago> we don't need more lives lost to this war. The supply of massive amounts of lethal aid suggests a policy decision that that’s exactly what we need, in the immediate term. (We don’t, OTOH, need civilian lives lost, but there is no such things as non-dual-use aircraft components.) Also, Russia could just not fly planes if they aren’t safe.
- TillE 3y agoCivil aviation is not a life-or-death necessity. This is precisely the purpose of sanctions.
- dgudkov 3y agoThe vast majority of West-built planes that are currently being operated in Russia are stolen from their owners (they were leased and then Russia simply didn't return the planes when the lease was ceased due to the war). Are you proposing to permit sending parts to repair stolen planes?
- gre 3y ago"The United States and Western allies have seized more than $300 billion in Russian central bank foreign currency assets frozen by sanctions." Really dumb way to doom the US dollar and the world banking system. I guess Russia took a few planes as consolation? https://www.reuters.com/world/yellen-says-legal-obstacles-remain-seizure-russian-assets-aid-ukraine-2023-02-27/ https://www.reuters.com/world/yellen-says-legal-obstacles-re...
- wiseowise 3y agoBecause West just decided to do it out of the blue and not in response to full scale invasion of the biggest country in Europe.
- supernova87a 3y agoWhy would you deactivate the brakes, rather than just tell the pilots "don't use the brakes unless it's absolutely necessary, and use thrust reversers instead"?
- King-Aaron 3y agoPossibly if the pads are at extremely low wear, you would only need to replace the pads/shoes when parts are available. But if you tell pilots 'just don't use them', then they will keep using them, and those pads/shoes could wear through and begin damaging other parts of the callipers which would result in more parts requiring replacement? Not an aircraft mechanic, but just making an assumption based on the similarities in cars
- KennyBlanken 3y agoJust as higher-end cars have brake pad wear sensors and sometimes caliper temperature monitors....commercial passenger jets, especially ones made in the last two decades or so, are instrumented up the ass. There's a Minimum Equipment List that specifies the minimum stuff a plane needs to be safe to fly, and under what conditions specific equipment can be bypassed or non-functional. I seriously doubt that overworn brake pads can be mitigated or ignored according to the MEL, and a pilot should be sweating bullets signing off to fly a plane that doesn't meet the MEL. ...at least in the modern, developed world. Which Russia is increasingly neither...
- King-Aaron 3y ago> Just as higher-end cars have brake pad wear sensors and sometimes caliper temperature monitors....commercial passenger jets, especially ones made in the last two decades or so, are instrumented up the ass. Never underestimate the power of snipping off a sensor and soldering in a resistor in it's place :P
- nnx 3y agoSimilar question: why would you blow up your own multi-billion pipeline, rather than just tell the operators "turn off the valves" ?
- moomoo11 3y agoI get that this isn't in USA but this is why I just zoom. Flying is such a unnecessary hassle, I don't really want to go somewhere dealing with airport shenanigans and nightmares. I'm not rich enough to fly private. Besides, flying has basically become like taking a public transit bus. It is unclean and passengers can be unruly (experienced an incident where person had to be arrested and removed from plane - drunk guy threw up in the aisle, etc.). I have flown 300k plus miles, and I'm done unless its an emergency.
- midoridensha 3y agoYou sound like an American who's only flown domestic. Air travel isn't nearly that bad when you fly internationally, especially on the Asian airlines. Air travel in the US these days is a nightmare, but it's not like that everywhere.
- alexey-salmin 3y agoPlanes 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.
- Simon_O_Rourke 3y agoThere 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.
- prennert 3y agoDue 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.
- saiya-jin 3y agoEvil capitalistic debris deployed from high orbit to destabilize Mother russia. Just like in 50s there was massive campaign against Colorado potato beetle, which was presented as being dropped from evil capitalistic American planes to harm crops... although the bug was already in Europe for decades and spreading eastwards on its own. The thing is, these propaganda campaigns are often quite successful, many people back there still believe this is what happened.
- Simon_O_Rourke 3y agoIn this instance the "foreign" in foreign debris is anything that's not part of the aircraft but gets sucked into the engine anyway. A goose for example could be considered foreign debris regardless of its citizenship status.
- everybodyknows 3y agoThe pilot of the Boeing 727 (maybe 737) I was in used reverser-only pushback from a gate, 20-30 years ago. This was in the USA. Highly memorable. However, no doubt much easier to keep a gate area clean, as opposed to a whole runway.
- aeternum 3y agoFor those wondering, this is what US/anti-Russia propaganda looks like.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- nocoiner 3y agoRussian propaganda: “We must invade a sovereign nation to eliminate the Nazis and implement a program of de-Nazification through vigorous ethnic cleansing!” US propaganda: “Russian airlines are unreliable and are making some questionable maintenance decisions.”
- sesuximo 3y agoAs an interesting aside, the word nazi means something slightly different to a Russian audience vs an American one. Or at least so I have read. I live in the US, and Nazi makes me think of an anti-Semitic 1940s German. But in Russia it seems to mean threat to Russians/oppressor. https://jordanrussiacenter.org/news/what-russians-think-when-they-hear-the-word-nazi/ https://jordanrussiacenter.org/news/what-russians-think-when...
- aeternum 3y agoRight, but US propaganda is more effective because it nudges the reader to make the important connections to the desired narrative themselves. IE: Russian airlines can't even afford/acquire new brakes -> sanctions are working and their economy is crumbling -> the war will soon be over and Putin will be lose power. Both methods take a tiny kernel of truth and spin it to be much more meaningful than what it is, but allowing the reader to make the final connection is much more inception-like and thus much more effective.
- spoonjim 3y agoThis is a sneak preview of what will happen in the US when China cuts us off
- SanjayMehta 3y agoThe 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.
- flohofwoe 3y agoOnly 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 ;)
- SanjayMehta 3y agoIndeed. The NYT and Washington Post are so much more reliable.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- cpursley 3y agoYou’re getting downvoted by people who never bothered to read “Manufacturing Consent”.
- SanjayMehta 3y agoI haven’t read that either but I’ve read NYT and WaPo for years. Will check it out, thanks.
- vogon_laureate 3y agoWell this is not a metaphor for anything. Nope.
- nottorp 3y agoNext: lithobraking?
- Havoc 3y agoThat’s terrifying
- SergeAx 3y agoMy friend is a private jet pilot, but also partially trained for commercial jets. He says that the article content is a nonsense. Here's his words, translated: The plane is always using brakes. Reverse thrust reduces landing distance by about 15%, and its main task is to reduce the load on the brakes and prevent overheating of the pads (which lose their effectiveness at high temperatures) and wheels (which would otherwise blow the fuse and release air from them, to prevent explosive destruction). All landing distances that are indicated in the manual and that are calculated by the [onboard] computer are calculated for serviceable brakes and WITHOUT taking into account the use of reverse thrust. With “brakes disabled” - how can you be sure that you will stop within a runway of a given length? There is no such data, no one has tested it. There are procedures for brake failure, but this is an emergency, there are no landing distances for these procedures, and in any case, pads are still used for emergency braking (it’s just that compressed air/nitrogen is supplied to their actuators instead of hydraulic fluid).
- eschneider 3y agoLuckily planes never have to land with an engine out. Oh, wait...
- sesuximo 3y agoI guess in an emergency you’d have to enable the brakes before landing (hopefully they aren’t too worn out already)
- mrguyorama 3y agoThis advisory is probably not "Disconnect the brakes" but rather "don't turn on auto-brake for landing and use brakes only for emergencies or sparingly" At least, I sure hope.