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Post by Dave Homewood on Apr 27, 2007 18:50:36 GMT 12
The current modifications that are being made to our two RNZAF Boeing 757's will see a new cargo door installed at the front of the fuselage, and airstairs fitted to the door at the rear of the fuselage, as well as a whole new avionics package.
I was wondering, will this make our 757's unique? Or have the cargo door and airstairs mods been made to other 757's?
The front cargo door is apparently going to make the planes much more versatile in their military role, with options being completely fitted for passengers; half passengers, half cargo, totally cargo, VIP kit and passenger fit-out, etc.
In the cargo role, will the door be big enough to allow in vehicles? If so, could the Boeing airfreight the LAV 4?
Just wondering.
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Post by beagle on Apr 27, 2007 20:08:45 GMT 12
Dave and members.. The cargo door that will be fitted to the forward l/h side will be I am sure the same size dimensions as the 727 one, being a standard boeing modification or standard fit to cargo 737/727/757. One reason being that the fuselages are the same diameter etc. The difference with the one being fitted to the 757 is that it will be windowless. so if going on a trip, ask for a seat on the r/h side or down aft of the wind.
The airstairs that will be fitted, according to information I have will be an after market mod that, since the a/c is taller than a 727/737 and not the same retractable airstairs that went into a cavity under the floor. Some of Air NZ's 737-200's had them. I am pretty sure the air stairs that the 757 will be recieving will infact fold away in a fashion similar to those used on the P3-K and there will be acabinet made for them to slide into just forward of the r/h rear door. The toilets that are mid galley will be also removed and reinstalled down aft All the seat will be fitted to pallets so that the aircraft can be role changed very quickly. I remember when I was at 40 Sqn, we played around with some pallets and seats as the MFC at the time was trying to have a sats herk configured with seats like the 727. He left soon after we tried things and it died a slow death. The other different thing that people will notice is that behind the cockpit will be ahatch that will have a set of stairs that can be lowered for air crew to be able to enter the aircraft with, aka B1-B Lancer style.
As for your question regarding getting vehicles in ad out of the door, when i wa son 40 Sqn I was inside the cabin when they tried and successfully manouvered a landrover through the door.
I also see that new above head baggage cabinets will be installed. I also see that a new VIP suite is being sought with lie flat sleeper seats, tables etc, image it being like air NZ's new ones, would b the envy of other Prime Ministers. There are numerous avionics modification but will not go into those details. Yes it will be a fab aircraft to operate and be so much usefull other than just a grunt hauler. oops...
The place where I get this info from has also stated that an engine upgrade will be also done, it says a 75% thrust increase, which I think is a keying eror. 75% I think will rip the engines from the wings. so I hope this goes some way to answer your questions.
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Post by Calum on Apr 28, 2007 0:37:08 GMT 12
I can't see a LAV fitting in. (RNZAF Should get a C-17 :-))
I'd guess (and its a guess) that all these mods would likely have been done before to civy 757's and would probalt have STC's . Otherwise the engineering required to certify them could be expensive.
As an aside IIRC the 757's are leased aircraft and not owned by the RNZAF. hence I'd expect that doing mods that don't have STC's could lead to the RNZAF having to de-mod the aircraft at the end of the lease.
Beagle may know more
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Post by beagle on Apr 28, 2007 4:56:04 GMT 12
pretty sure you will find the name H Clark on the ownership papers.
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Post by phil on Apr 28, 2007 8:09:32 GMT 12
We definately own the 757s. They are not leased. The decision was made to purchase them becuase of the liability involved with flying them into war zones, as well as our requirements to modify them.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Apr 28, 2007 10:53:07 GMT 12
Thanks guys. I have been nothing but impressed by the Boeing 757's in RNZAF service and think that this will make them even better. And if that 75% thrust upgrade is right can we expect to see them looping at airshows?
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Post by beagle on Apr 28, 2007 19:58:45 GMT 12
loop, maybe not, but a barrel role, possibly... winglets would be nice.
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Post by Calum on May 2, 2007 14:39:37 GMT 12
thanks Phil/Beagle.
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Post by beagle on May 27, 2007 21:39:34 GMT 12
as for winglets, the price to do this against flying hours would probably not be viable as compared with civillian models which spend more time in the air. as a side note, if you have seen them, the latest new Virgin Blue B737-800's have a new nodule on the roof which house antenna for better ICE so they can get local tv channels etc. The drag from them negates the fuel efficiency from having the winglets fitted, then again if they took the wingleys off, would fuel costs go up, a bit of a catch 22 situation.
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Post by phil on May 27, 2007 23:10:57 GMT 12
We have the pictures at work of the first 757 getting the chop, and quite a big hole it is too.
I think I'll sit down the back from now on.
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Post by beagle on May 28, 2007 5:45:20 GMT 12
hi Phil, would be great to see any as the air force web site is pretty pathetic when it comes to images. they said they would keep updating the herk images but the same ones from when they first inducted it are still there. None from the Orion. there was a bit in the Air Force magazine a month or so back which gave an update on them which was good but nothing on the site. Oh well, I supposse we can't have it all. So whats the goss on the king Air crash, back in the air pretty soon or mor than what they originally thought. who is running S&S there now, Mel Chambers
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Post by 30sqnatc on May 28, 2007 18:40:12 GMT 12
I can't see a LAV fitting in. (RNZAF Should get a C-17 :-)) Underslung load. Eight additional wheels to assist landing gear
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Post by Kereru on May 28, 2007 20:58:13 GMT 12
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Post by Radialicious on May 28, 2007 21:21:39 GMT 12
Bags not be the bloke that had to stitch drill the hole for the big door. It is a scary job cutting into the skin of an airframe for any kind of mod. I had to stitch drill a hole in the top of an A-4 fuselage years ago when the High Intensity strobes were being fitted. Definitely a case of measure twice (or ten), cut once. I'll bet there are some strict controls on cutting a cargo door out of a Boeing.
Re the drag of the IFE blister on Virgin 737's. A lot of consideration has to go into adding anything to the outside of an airliner.
In the old days the 727 was the subject of NZ ATPL flight planning exams. There was a table for calculating the increased fuel burn for when the tail bumper failed to retract after takeoff. Even though it was a small projection into the airflow, it created a huge amount of drag. Mind you a nicely faired blister would be produced to provide absolute minimum drag.
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Post by Radialicious on May 28, 2007 21:43:07 GMT 12
As an aside, in the current ATPL flight planning exam there is a question regarding calculation of 'Penalty Fuel'. This is extra fuel required to carry extra fuel (if that makes sense). The question I had when I sat that exam was based on a B767 being required to carry an extra 750kg of fuel for forecast delays at the destination. The penalty of carrying this extra fuel (or weight) was that the overall trip fuel required was suddenly more because the aircraft was now 750kg heavier. This increase in trip fuel required meant that penalty fuel in the order of another 400ish kg had to be carried on top and would be burned as a result.
Jet airliners as a result try to carry the minimum amount of fuel to get them to their destination and or their planned alternate. It costs too much money to take any more than what is required.
HOWEVER, there is sometimes an operational benefit in taking a lot more than what is necessary. When fuel is substantially more expensive at airports away from home, the crew can elect to 'tanker' fuel if certain conditions can be met. There are careful calculations carried out to weigh up the penalty of carrying the extra gas versus fuel cost savings around the world.
That is one of the reasons that airlines now charge like wounded bulls for excess luggage. In the airlines ideal world, passengers would be as thin as a rake and carry no bags at all.
Getting way off track now, there used to be an Emirates B777 that flew from Oz to Auckland and back every night. Its payload profit wasn't all that important compared to the cost of an overnight park at the Aussie airport. The airline took a punt that even if they lost money on the return flight, it mightn't be as much as the guaranteed cost of the overnight park.
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Post by Dave Homewood on May 28, 2007 22:10:54 GMT 12
That's some quite interesting stuff regarding the fuel there Al.
Did you see that programme 'Mayday' last night? I guess you airline pilots may not want to watch such series, but I found it rather incredible. It detailed an incident I'd not heard of before but was apparently the world's worst airliner tragedy. It took place in the Canary Islands where at Grand Canariat airport some bloody terrorist planted a bomb in the airport florist shop. It blew up, injuring one person. It is bad enough in itself but it set off a chain of events that saw the airport closed, and all flights that were en route to the airport were diverted to a little tinpot airport on an island 30 minutes away. That airport soon filled up with aircraft sitting and waiting on the ground for Grand Canariat to reopen. Eventually it did. However by that time fog had rolled in, and by the time two 747's (one from KLM and the other from Pan Am) were to take off, the runway was completely socked in. The airport had no ground radar, and no visibility for most ofthe runway.
The KLM plane had been told to go to the end of the runway, turn and wait. Pan Am was trundling along a 3 miles an hour behind trying to find the turning where it would hold while KLM took off. Due to a communication breakdown, the PAN Am plane went past its turning and was heading to the next off-ramp. It was just beginning to turn off the runway when the KLM 747 had begun its run, without clearance. Boom, the KLM hit the PanAm and nearly 600 people were killed in the crash. Just awful, even the computer graphics were extremely jarring to watch.
The point is, the KLM pilot had elected to refuel at this airport rather than at Grand Canariat because he felt everyone else who'd been waiting would also want to refuel and this would save queuing up. His co-pilot and navigator argued with him, but as he was KLM's senior pilot and rather headstrong, he won the argument. The doco suggested that his aircraft may have lifted off without the extra wait (they had spotted Pan Am too late and tried to lift, but just caught the top of the jumbo, causing the KLM to crash further down the runway).
The entire thing was incredible how so many circumstances came together in just the exact right order to cause the most amount of mayhem possible. The tower crew were not even aware of the crash till a plane circling above reported he could see flames on the runway. When the fire crew was despatched they found the KLM jet and began putting it out. The fog was so thick they were totally unaware for 20 minutes that a few hundred metres away a second jumbo sat ablaze with 50 survivors on the wing awaiting rescue whilst hundreds more burned to death inside. Totally unbelievable and worse than any of the aviation horror movies I've seen.
To change the subject, I agree that cutting the hole for that door would be one heck of an exacting job. I wonder if they'd use a computer with a lazer or something to mark it out? I guess being a Boeing company, if they stuff something up they should know how to fix it, or have parts to replace it, hopefully.
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Post by Radialicious on May 29, 2007 23:35:18 GMT 12
That Teneriffe accident is one of the best examples of the Swiss cheese theory. If you slice Swiss cheese into slices you are left with cheese with a whole lot of holes. On any one day, none of the holes line up to allow you to see through the cheese. This vision can be thought of as a threat. Often, one slice will prevent an accident from happening. In Teneriffe and in the case of Concorde, there were enough slices and enough holes to allow the worst case scenario. The holes that aligned to bring down Concorde were uncanny. On the day, there was a deferred defect in the trunnions of the main landing gear that made it tend to track in one direction on takeoff. It was noticed by a number of crews but easily accounted for. On the day there was a such and such crosswind on the runway that was well inside limits of the aircraft. On the takeoff roll, because of these conditions, the jet drifted to one side of the runway. On any normal day this would have been fine and corrected as the takeoff continued. However, on that day there was a strip of aluminum on the runway that had fallen from a dodgy repair to a DC-10 (I think) cowling. Of course Concorde ran over this FOD and a tyre disintegrated. The tread of this tyre flew off and 'bitch-slapped' the underside of the wing. It didn't penetrate the wing but the concussion of the impact sent a shock wave through the wing fuel tank. This wave split the wing skin forward of the engines and the rest is history. Removing any one of those circumstances would have prevented the accident.
There is a photo on the 'net of the captain of the Pan Am B747 cowering on the grass in front of the inferno of his jet as it burned. Not a nice place to be.
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Post by Dave Homewood on May 30, 2007 0:19:36 GMT 12
The captain survived? They didn't seem to make that clear in the doco. The co-pilot was interviewed, and he said that the captain fell through the floor into the cargo hold so I assumed he'd been burned up in there.
Yes, fate sure does play a hand in aligning events in such disasters. You never know when the tiniest adjustment spells doom. The Chaos Theory isn't it?
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Post by beagle on Jun 16, 2007 20:45:28 GMT 12
Anybody seen any images of the work being done on the 757 yet. I have seen the rig they will use to place against the a/c and do the cutting and removing and refitting of te cargo door but that is all.
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Post by phil on Jun 16, 2007 21:59:49 GMT 12
They sent some out on the email system at work, about 5 images of the hole being cut in stages, but I can no longer find them. Perhaps one of the other air force guys has them?
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