Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.
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Secretary Antony Blinken’s Boeing 737 out of Davos had a critical failure. He had to switch planes.
”Secretary of State Antony Blinken was forced to change planes to return to Washington from Davos after his plane suffered what the traveling press was told was a critical failure related to an oxygen leak. Blinken and the traveling party boarded the modified Boeing 737 jet in Zurich on Wednesday after a day and a half of meetings at the global summit in Davos. The plane suffered the issue after boarding and the party was forced to deplane, according to traveling press.”
Well, in fairness it's not all that unusual to have one-off component failures on any aircraft. Stuff just happens. Same with vehicles. It's the system failures, management failures, communications failures, design failures, and shoddy assembly practices that is sinking Boeing. Ted not withstanding.
I agree. Any aircraft can have last minute issues Recently rode a A-319 around for 90 minutes on the ground while they “trouble-shooted.” before we returned to the gate and got off. Never said what the issue was. Boeing just has an image problem.
English is very flexible and forgiving of new expressions. An old timer like me, might have said that they "trouble-shot," all the while recognizing the clumsiness of the word. I recently heard a person on the radio use the Latin word "caveat" as a verb meaning to warn. That grated on my ears.
We have some long flights coming up and I don't want to hear anything but routine announcements from the flight deck.
English is very flexible and forgiving of new expressions. An old timer like me, might have said that they "trouble-shot," all the while recognizing the clumsiness of the word. I recently heard a person on the radio use the Latin word "caveat" as a verb meaning to warn. That grated on my ears.
I originally deliberated between trouble shot and trouble-shooted. Yes, from our vantage point, they trouble-shot. But @BenWP will notice I used quotation marks in my original post to signal I was attempting to replicate the language of the crew as accurately as possible while still writing in the past tense.
Re your coming flights - Boy, I’m with ya Ben after this last one of mine. I’ve been delayed leaving a city occasionally, but never before stranded at a connecting airport at 2:30 in the morning. Glad I’m still of “stable mind.” Might still be there … wandering around …
@BenWP - I know you’re a fan of aviation. I shooted shot a photo of the “wing lights” on our A319 landing in potential icing conditions at ORD. They are lighted (possibly deployed?), as I understand it, to inspect leading edges and engine intakes for ice. Rarely used. And, yes, the skipper was back in the cabin about than. I didn’t realize at the time what was going on.
@hank: I did realize you were quoting the flight crew, but winter boredom pushed me to comment. I never have seen a pilot inspecting the wings from the cabin.
As for winter, we had bad heavy snow here last week that caused multiple power outages in the Ann Arbor area (nothing new). However, this time there was a loud bang, the power went out, and the generator didn’t kick in for about a minute. I then discovered several circuit breakers tripped and eventually, after a lot of amateur electrician probing, found several recessed LED fixtures inoperative and a wall dimmer switch not working. A power strip emitted black smoke and a strong electrical fire odor, although it continued to carry current. The OS on the Mac plugged into that strip required a lot of recovery, including a system réinstallation. Replacement lights were easy to get because I had bought them originally at Home Depot. The wall switch had to be ordered and I can cancel my service call with the electrician, who is so busy he can’t even schedule me. DTE is reviled in this area.
Yikes. Some “bang.” Power surge apparently. Sounds like a lot of work,
We lucked out on the power. I did test run the gas generator out in the detached garage (avoid being inside if running it, even with doors & window open.) and brought a bunch of H/D extension cords in so they’d be pliable if needed. Years ago I had an external electrical box with a male plug mounted on the side of the house. And some switches inside which allow me to connect the generator into the house that way. The switching inside assures you can’t accidentally run hot current into the regular power lines and injure someone. BTW - 120 volts only. Even the decades old water pump runs on 120 volts.
Re Michigan - We folks enter a semi-hibernation period of several months I think. Get used to the slower pace. I find I read more, watch more TV & video, tinker around with investments more. It’s a rude awakening when the days warm up in April or May and we need to gear up for all the outside yard & home maintenance, plus other outdoor activity,
"I had an external electrical box with a male plug mounted on the side of the house. And some switches inside which allow me to connect the generator into the house that way. The switching inside assures you can’t accidentally run hot current into the regular power lines and injure someone."
@hank- Very similar to the setup that I installed at our weekend place on the Russian River.
@BenWP- You're damned lucky that your Mac is still with us. Perhaps that power strip was of the type that has protective circuity for over-voltage built in. If you haven't replaced that power strip, do that first thing.
@Old_Joe: I did install a new power strip/surge protector. I tried taking the old one apart to see what had burned, but it foiled me. My Macs dislike power outages and recovery is more difficult with an external back-up drive attached.
@BenWP- Well, I'm pretty sure that almost any computer dislikes power surges, so the Mac is no exception. But I'm surprised at the difficulty restarting from the external drive- generally, holding down the "option" key during restart will give you a choice of all available startup drives, and if the internal Mac drive was scrambled you should be able to restart from the external drive.
That works fine on our four Mac Minis. I use small portable OWC external drives which are formatted with four discrete partitions, allowing restart from a number of different operating systems- El Capitan, High Sierra, or Mohave. Those external OS drives contain just the actual operating systems- all actual work files are kept on a separate partition so that wipeout of an OS drive won't have any effect on more than 20 years worth of actual work files. The Minis are configured the same way- separate OS and work file drive partitions.
Every weekend before we drive up to our place on the Russian River I update the OWC external drive here at SF, creating one backup, and take that up to the RR and copy it to the internal Mini drive up there. That's a second backup, and completely synchronizes the work files on the Minis at SF and Russian River, so that I can easily continue work on something up there if need be.
Before coming back to SF I do the same thing all over again, copying the RR workfile drive to the OWC, then back to SF, copy back to the Mini there. By the way, I use backup software that looks at both the originating partition drive and the receiving partition drive, and only copies newer files that are either different from or not contained on the receiving drive, so it only takes 3 or 4 minutes for all of that.
That’s an amazingly disciplined back-up system you have, @Old_Joe. I could do a lot more than what I do. For each of the two iMacs, mine and my wife’s, we have an external drive that backs up files only using TimeMachine. Having a system back-up would be a lot safer. Thanks!
Thanks guys. Worrisome times for computer security. Just 1 issue I know of when someone got into my DejaOffice files on my primary ipad - 5 years ago. Don’t know what / if anything they took, but it wrecked my files. Restored everything from an old Apple backup of the whole system, which they do automatically every day. Of course, I needed to install a slightly dated backup to be safe - so that caused a few minor headaches.
Multiple Apple devices here, all with the same files, so some additional security there if just 1 is corrupted. Norton gets around $10 monthly to “protect” 3 devices. and Identity Guard gets near $19 for credit monitoring. Both are highly regarded - but sometimes it feels like throwing $$ down the toilet. One nice feature of IG is easy ability to lock / unlock your credit files as you see the need. I’m sure there are other less expensive ways to do that.
Last month Apple introduced “end to end encryption” for those automatic backups. You need to opt in. I’m hesitant to turn it on because they warn you they would not be able to help you recover your system files in the event you lose the 16-digit randomly selected password. All would be lost. But as I gain a better understanding will dive in.
Just a blurb from today’s Barron’s : (David Giroux discussing his investments)
”More recently, the Pratt & Whitney division had a problem with its GTF [geared turbofan] engine, which is forcing hundreds of engines to be remediated before their normally scheduled maintenance. “
Who woulda thunk? I had no idea these beasts are geared. I’ll have to try and hear those gear changes on the next flight. Likely they use a lower one for take-offs. Considering the smoothness of today’s auto transmissions, there may not be anything to notice.
Actually my particular perspective/method of backup didn't arise out of security concerns. It goes way back... what, maybe 30 years now? ... to my first computers- a Mac+ and then an SE30. Those things used OS 6, 7, and then later models used OS 8, 9.
Those operating systems crashed so often that I started splitting my work files and OS files just to keep sane. I was using the Mac+ and the SE30 to design and document the new SF 911 dispatch system. The Motorola engineer and I both used the Macs to coordinate and document the new installation. Those files were mostly contained on a huge stack of floppy discs. I kept some separate floppys with the entire OS on them, and I've been using that approach ever since.
The SE30 had one port for external devices, and I was able to drive a wonderful huge 19" black & white CRT monitor. What a pleasure after scrolling my ass off on the 9" Mac screens.
@hank- I'm not sure on this, but I don't think that the "gearing" includes "shifting". If I recall correctly the turbofans use gearing to drive different parts of the engine at differing speeds, but the speed ratio between the various fan components is fixed, and not "shiftable".
@hank- I'm not sure on this, but I don't think that the "gearing" includes "shifting". If I recall correctly the turbofans use gearing to drive different parts of the engine at differing speeds, but the speed ratio between the various fan components is fixed, and not "shiftable".
Thanks for the perspective. Wow. Even more sophisticated than I at first thought. The advance in technology has been truly amazing.
@hank - Yes, here's a diagram of the principles involved-
And a short excerpt from Wickipedia re a Pratt & Whitney engine:
The Pratt & Whitney PW1000G, also called the GTF (geared turbofan), is a high-bypass geared turbofan engine family produced by Pratt & Whitney. The first variant to be certified was the PW1500G for the Airbus A220 in February 2013.
The gearbox between the fan and the low-pressure spool allows each to spin at its optimal speed, allowing a higher bypass ratio for a better propulsive efficiency. Pratt & Whitney claims the engine is 16% more fuel efficient than the previous generation, and up to 75% quieter.
The first variant to enter service was the PW1100G for the Airbus A320neo in January 2016. The engine is used on the A220, A320neo family, Embraer E-Jet E2 and Irkut MC-21.
Thanks OJ - my feeble mind is trying to process all that. I’ll have to do some additional reading. My limited understanding is that there’s a compressor in there somewhere that compresses either (1) air before it is released or (2) a fuel / air mix before it is combusted. Possibly both.
It's really pretty straightforward, at least in principle: those big fan blades in the front rotate at an optimal speed suited to their configuration, and suck in huge amounts of air. The air has no place to go other than through the chamber and out the back. But that path is very constricted, so the air is forced to compress in order to do that. As it's compressed, it becomes heated because the molecules are being forced much closer together.
At some juncture as the air travels through the engine it's mixed with fuel and ignited. Now there's a very hot air/fuel mixture looking for someplace to go... out the back. This mixture passes through even more, but smaller, turbine blades. The gearing allows those turbine blades to rotate at a different speed which is optimal for their job.
On a non-geared turbine all of the various blades are on a common non-geared shaft, so they all rotate at exactly the same speed, which is a compromise and not optimal for either set of blades.
Thanks. Sounds like the hot exhaust & compressed air exiting at the rear supply the energy to turn the larger turbine blades in the front … . ? (obviously through a shaft). Kind of wild really.
I noted above that the A320neo uses that P-W engine. Just quickly perusing Airbus's website reminded me that the Europeans significantly improved on a very successful design without screwing things up the way Boeing did when they tried to improve on their 737.
Nothing I’d rather ride on than the A319 / 320 (whether neo or otherwise). Beautiful plane. Just right size. I think part of Boeing’s problem is they tried to compete against the 320 / 320 neo by upgrading / modifying a 40-50 year old plane - instead of starting over.
@BenWP - I don’t know whether you’ve flown a plane yourself, but would guess so. @Old_Joe has done some flying himself when younger as well as doing service in ATC. Probably a regret that I never took flying lessons. Cost, work schedule and some on & off eye problems led to a “no-go” for me.
Comments
Ted RIP.
We have some long flights coming up and I don't want to hear anything but routine announcements from the flight deck.
Re your coming flights - Boy, I’m with ya Ben after this last one of mine. I’ve been delayed leaving a city occasionally, but never before stranded at a connecting airport at 2:30 in the morning. Glad I’m still of “stable mind.” Might still be there … wandering around …
@BenWP - I know you’re a fan of aviation. I
shootedshot a photo of the “wing lights” on our A319 landing in potential icing conditions at ORD. They are lighted (possibly deployed?), as I understand it, to inspect leading edges and engine intakes for ice. Rarely used. And, yes, the skipper was back in the cabin about than. I didn’t realize at the time what was going on.As for winter, we had bad heavy snow here last week that caused multiple power outages in the Ann Arbor area (nothing new). However, this time there was a loud bang, the power went out, and the generator didn’t kick in for about a minute. I then discovered several circuit breakers tripped and eventually, after a lot of amateur electrician probing, found several recessed LED fixtures inoperative and a wall dimmer switch not working. A power strip emitted black smoke and a strong electrical fire odor, although it continued to carry current. The OS on the Mac plugged into that strip required a lot of recovery, including a system réinstallation. Replacement lights were easy to get because I had bought them originally at Home Depot. The wall switch had to be ordered and I can cancel my service call with the electrician, who is so busy he can’t even schedule me. DTE is reviled in this area.
We lucked out on the power. I did test run the gas generator out in the detached garage (avoid being inside if running it, even with doors & window open.) and brought a bunch of H/D extension cords in so they’d be pliable if needed. Years ago I had an external electrical box with a male plug mounted on the side of the house. And some switches inside which allow me to connect the generator into the house that way. The switching inside assures you can’t accidentally run hot current into the regular power lines and injure someone. BTW - 120 volts only. Even the decades old water pump runs on 120 volts.
Re Michigan - We folks enter a semi-hibernation period of several months I think. Get used to the slower pace. I find I read more, watch more TV & video, tinker around with investments more. It’s a rude awakening when the days warm up in April or May and we need to gear up for all the outside yard & home maintenance, plus other outdoor activity,
@hank- Very similar to the setup that I installed at our weekend place on the Russian River.
@BenWP- You're damned lucky that your Mac is still with us. Perhaps that power strip was of the type that has protective circuity for over-voltage built in. If you haven't replaced that power strip, do that first thing.
That works fine on our four Mac Minis. I use small portable OWC external drives which are formatted with four discrete partitions, allowing restart from a number of different operating systems- El Capitan, High Sierra, or Mohave. Those external OS drives contain just the actual operating systems- all actual work files are kept on a separate partition so that wipeout of an OS drive won't have any effect on more than 20 years worth of actual work files. The Minis are configured the same way- separate OS and work file drive partitions.
Every weekend before we drive up to our place on the Russian River I update the OWC external drive here at SF, creating one backup, and take that up to the RR and copy it to the internal Mini drive up there. That's a second backup, and completely synchronizes the work files on the Minis at SF and Russian River, so that I can easily continue work on something up there if need be.
Before coming back to SF I do the same thing all over again, copying the RR workfile drive to the OWC, then back to SF, copy back to the Mini there. By the way, I use backup software that looks at both the originating partition drive and the receiving partition drive, and only copies newer files that are either different from or not contained on the receiving drive, so it only takes 3 or 4 minutes for all of that.
OJ
Multiple Apple devices here, all with the same files, so some additional security there if just 1 is corrupted. Norton gets around $10 monthly to “protect” 3 devices. and Identity Guard gets near $19 for credit monitoring. Both are highly regarded - but sometimes it feels like throwing $$ down the toilet. One nice feature of IG is easy ability to lock / unlock your credit files as you see the need. I’m sure there are other less expensive ways to do that.
Last month Apple introduced “end to end encryption” for those automatic backups. You need to opt in. I’m hesitant to turn it on because they warn you they would not be able to help you recover your system files in the event you lose the 16-digit randomly selected password. All would be lost. But as I gain a better understanding will dive in.
”More recently, the Pratt & Whitney division had a problem with its GTF [geared turbofan] engine, which is forcing hundreds of engines to be remediated before their normally scheduled maintenance. “
Who woulda thunk? I had no idea these beasts are geared. I’ll have to try and hear those gear changes on the next flight. Likely they use a lower one for take-offs. Considering the smoothness of today’s auto transmissions, there may not be anything to notice.
Those operating systems crashed so often that I started splitting my work files and OS files just to keep sane. I was using the Mac+ and the SE30 to design and document the new SF 911 dispatch system. The Motorola engineer and I both used the Macs to coordinate and document the new installation. Those files were mostly contained on a huge stack of floppy discs. I kept some separate floppys with the entire OS on them, and I've been using that approach ever since.
The SE30 had one port for external devices, and I was able to drive a wonderful huge 19" black & white CRT monitor. What a pleasure after scrolling my ass off on the 9" Mac screens.
And a short excerpt from Wickipedia re a Pratt & Whitney engine:
At some juncture as the air travels through the engine it's mixed with fuel and ignited. Now there's a very hot air/fuel mixture looking for someplace to go... out the back. This mixture passes through even more, but smaller, turbine blades. The gearing allows those turbine blades to rotate at a different speed which is optimal for their job.
On a non-geared turbine all of the various blades are on a common non-geared shaft, so they all rotate at exactly the same speed, which is a compromise and not optimal for either set of blades.
@BenWP - I don’t know whether you’ve flown a plane yourself, but would guess so. @Old_Joe has done some flying himself when younger as well as doing service in ATC. Probably a regret that I never took flying lessons. Cost, work schedule and some on & off eye problems led to a “no-go” for me.