Glass cockpits and the "blue screen of death"

[airtac]

I know all this electronic whizzo stuff has backups but something like this makes me wonder.............
I had a total electrical failure (both alternators fried themselves) in a mixmaster a few years ago while IMC and the battery was able to handle the load on the arrival and ILS approach (about 30 minutes) but I was starting to get uncomfortable before I broke out at about 1400 AGL---don't know if there would have been enough power to carry me through a missed approach.  I would have been looking for VFR airports in the vicinity if ceilings had been lower.
--This is quoted from latest AVWEBFLASH;
It's often said that aircraft accidents are the result of a series of seemingly innocuous events strung together and the crew of a Qantas Boeing 747 might agree with that. The flight from London to Sydney was 15 minutes from touchdown for a scheduled stop at Bangkok when it lost power from all four engine-driven generators. Backup batteries kept all those displays in front of the pilots glowing through a safe landing but the battery power likely wouldn't have lasted more than another 45 minutes and that would have knocked out the radios and all of the electronic instruments. "In this case it looks as if it has gone to the last stage of emergency power for communication and navigation," Dr. Arvind Sinha, director of aerospace at RMIT University in Melbourne, told the Sydney Morning Herald. "After that it comes down to the skill and experience of the crew." He added that the loss of all four generators is "unheard of" but Murphy can and does find a way, this time through a sink with a clogged drain in the first-class galley. [more] The sink is right over the electrical distribution unit and Boeing engineers evidently considered the potential for leaks when they put it there. A drip tray is installed to catch any overflow from the sink but the tray on this aircraft was cracked. The water (likely loaded with soaps, acids and other electrolytic substances) leaked through the crack and into the power unit, shorting out the whole works. Qantas fixed this airplane and checked all others before letting them in the air again. Qantas spokesman John Borghetti said the crew did as it was trained to do to arrive at a safe outcome and no similar problems were found on the other planes.

[Oddball]

but what about the R.A.T (Ram Air Turbine) could they of deployed that?

[airtac]

but what about the R.A.T (Ram Air Turbine) could they of deployed that?

GOOD QUESTION ---wasn't mentioned, only reference was to battery power---perhaps the circuits that were shorted also were needed to utilize power from the RAT thereby rendering it useless
Ask Baradium, he's more attuned to most things in the airline industry---or Gman, he's got big airplane experience..........

BTW, I talked to a Cirrus owner last night who has had 2 screen failures (in VFR conditions, fortunately)

[Fabo]

Thats why I hate GA EFISes Besides, clockwork gauges are more fun!

[Baradium]

but what about the R.A.T (Ram Air Turbine) could they of deployed that?

GOOD QUESTION ---wasn't mentioned, only reference was to battery power---perhaps the circuits that were shorted also were needed to utilize power from the RAT thereby rendering it useless
Ask Baradium, he's more attuned to most things in the airline industry---or Gman, he's got big airplane experience..........

BTW, I talked to a Cirrus owner last night who has had 2 screen failures (in VFR conditions, fortunately)

I not sure that the 747 has a Ram Air Turbine.    The thing has 4 engines with generators and an APU and it's cable flown.

The airbus birds have the turbine because they are fly by wire and thus need electrical power to be controlled.   The 747 is all mechanical.  If you lose all hydraulics you lose power assist, but can still fly the plane and you don't need electrical power for the power assist.  I believe the ram air turbine in the airbuses isn't meant to do anything much more than drive primary control systems (so it's not like the whole plane can run on it).

In the airbus's I believe the turbine also drives a hydraulic pump.   Once again, without electrical power the airbus birds are not controllable, while a 747 is, thus the R.A.T. on an Airbus.

Keep in mind that this aircraft's standby instruments were likely air or vacuum driven so that even if they had lost all electrical power they would have lost radios but still have been perfectly capable of landing the aircraft safely.

Of course, the article also didn't mention the APU.


I haven't heard, but I assume that the Boeing fly-by-wire birds may incorporate a ram air turbine. 

[Baradium]

BTW, I talked to a Cirrus owner last night who has had 2 screen failures (in VFR conditions, fortunately)

All these glass cockpits in the GA birds have dual displays.  So if he's had a screen failure, he moved everything to the other display?

If he had a complete system failure it's one thing, but a display failure shouldn't be much of an event.


I have much more that I don't like about Cirrus than the display.