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Years ago, my father in law ( a heavy jet mechanic) got sent to China for two months as part of a team to diagnose and fix a recurring dutch roll complaint on a
by marcus0x62 2y ago
Years ago, my father in law ( a heavy jet mechanic) got sent to China for two months as part of a team to diagnose and fix a recurring dutch roll complaint on a particular airframe. This was for a A300-series flown by a large freight carrier.
The local mechanics couldn’t figure it out, so this team was assembled from the mechanics at headquarters to fix the plane.
They inspected the plane and found no damage. They had the pilots make multiple test flights - they could not reproduce the problem. The pilots were adamant that the plane was broken. Engineers from Airbus ended up flying out to assist. They couldn’t identify any problems.
After a few months of effort and a lot of very expensive dart throwing and parts swapping, they gave up. As far as anyone could tell, there was never anything wrong with the plane, and based on comments overheard from the pilots, they simply did not like this particular plane. It had been pulled from a boneyard and recertified, and they considered flying it beneath them.
FIL did come home with some cuban cigars and really high quality counterfeit Fluke multimeters he got from the local market, though.
- Waterluvian 2y agoEek… I’d never want to fly a plane that’s beneath me. I’d prefer it to be at the same altitude.
- moffkalast 2y agoWell unless you're an air launched cruise missile operator.
- denderson 2y ago#UnexpectedDrStrangelove ?
- bigstrat2003 2y agoTechnically any plane should be beneath you. Also above you, but beneath you too.
- Two4 2y agoMitch Hedburg? Is that you?
- ToucanLoucan 2y ago> and really high quality counterfeit Fluke multimeters he got from the local market, though. I got one of those years ago. Wouldn't trust it on any industrial shit but I've used it for residential electrical tinkering (plus smaller projects) for years, works great and has never had a single issue.
- marcus0x62 2y agoThese were used for mechanic-y stuff like basic voltage and circuit draw tests. They were fine for that, and the main benefit was that they were made with oil/solvent resistant coatings on the meter body and leads.
- FabHK 2y ago> they simply did not like this particular plane. …and employed a face-saving (though probably very expensive) way of communicating it.
- pfannkuchen 2y agoI suspect the face saving culture is holding China back significantly since it adds a ton of noise to interpersonal signal propagation. I wonder if the government is doing anything social engineering-y to try to reduce it?
- kstrauser 2y agoThe government is among the worst of the culprits. “We’re being accused of doing a bad thing? I know! Arrest the speaker and erase it from our version of the Internet!”
- jgalt212 2y agoseriously. Look at the Kardashians. They turned every embarrassing event into a money making opportunity.
- RobotToaster 2y agoYou think the Kardashians are a good model for government?
- jgalt212 2y agoOf course not. I meant it as an extreme counter-example.
- RobotToaster 2y ago> I wonder if the government is doing anything social engineering-y to try to reduce it? I know Xi Jinping launching an anti-corruption program was considered a pretty big deal, because it meant admitting that corruption exists in the CPC.