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Qantas A 380 suffers in-flight RR Trent 900 engine failure

November 4, 2010

Updated: https://ktwop.wordpress.com/2010/11/04/qantas-grounds-all-a-380-flights-following-in-flight-failure-of-rr-trent-900/

Sydney Morning Herald

A Qantas A380 has been forced to return to Singapore’s Changi Airport after pilots were forced to shut down one of its four engines. QF32 was bound for Sydney with 443 passengers and 26 crew on board when the engine failed. “Qantas flight QF32 was en route from Singapore to Sydney, the number two engine has shut down, so as a precautionary measure we are taking it back to Singapore,” a Qantas spokeswoman said.

 

The wrecked engine after the plane landed in Singapore.

The wrecked engine after the plane landed in Singapore.Photo: AFP

 

Indonesian authorities said there had been some sort of explosion over the island of Batam, just south of Singapore. Elfhinta radio quoted a police officer in Batam, Eryana, saying parts of the plane had been found. “We are still collecting debris,” he said.

In a recent similar incident, an engine exploded on a Qantas flight to San Francisco on August 30, with debris tearing holes in the engine cover.

The Qantas A 380’s have 4 Rolls Royce Trent 900 engines.

The RR Trent 1000 destined for Boeing’s Dreamliner has had some problems during testing.

A month ago on 28th September, a Singapore Airlines A380 also suffered a failure of one of it’s 4 Trent 900 engines.

An engine problem on a Singapore Airlines A380 superjumbo airliner was a “non-event” in technical terms, the chief executive of the company that built it said yesterday. Singapore Airlines said the plane carrying 444 passengers from Paris to Singapore was forced to return to the French capital on Sunday when the as-yet unspecified problem was detected two and a half hours into the flight.

The A380 is the world’s largest passenger airliner and Singapore Airlines (SIA) is the first to take delivery of it, having ordered 19 with an option for six more. Speaking in Paris, Louis Gallois, chief executive of Airbus manufacturer EADS, called the incident “a complete non-event”.

“Engine failure on a four-engine aircraft does happen and nobody should think of it as a drama,” Gallois told journalists. “In technical terms, it is not an event.”

Background: (Wikipedia)

The A380 can be fitted with two types of engines: A380-841, A380-842 and A380-843F with Rolls-Royce Trent 900, and the A380-861 and A380-863F with Engine Alliance GP7000 turbofans. The Trent 900 is a derivative of the Trent 800, and the GP7000 has roots from the GE90 and PW4000. The Trent 900 core is a scaled version of the Trent 500, but incorporates the swept fan technology of the stillborn Trent 8104. The GP7200 has a GE90-derived core and PW4090-derived fan and low-pressure turbo-machinery. Only two of the four engines are fitted with thrust reversers.

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Posted in Australia, Aviation, Engineering, Technology | 13 Comments »

Solar power subsidies go wrong even in Australia

October 31, 2010

The evidence that subsidies are inherently unhealthy and can be counter-productive continues to grow :

Now the Sydney Morning Herald reports that in NSW

HOUSEHOLDS will pay an extra $600 on their electricity bill over six years to cover the $2 billion cost of the failure of the state government’s overly generous solar power scheme. If elected in March, the opposition will have the scheme, which runs to the end of 2016, reviewed by the auditor-general so that it can decide on its future.

From midnight last Wednesday, the government slashed from 60¢ to 20¢ per kilowatt hour the tariff paid to households installing solar panel systems because the surging number of applications has blown out the scheme’s cost.

In reports tabled in Parliament last week, the government disclosed that it had been advised that even after slashing the tariff for solar panels, it anticipated 777 megawatts of solar panels would be installed by the time the scheme closed. Already, 200 megawatts of capacity has either been installed or ordered. The reports detailed the total cost to households is forecast to reach $1975 million by 2017, placing a burden on homes at a time when power prices are rising sharply already.

The government refused to indicate when it first became aware that the initial 50-megawatt target had been breached, which triggered an automatic review of the scheme. The government began that review in August. However, Country Energy, one of the largest distributors in NSW, was informing solar industry officials as early as May that the target had already been reached. Even so, the government ”dithered until August” before holding its review, with the report only completed last week, opposition climate change spokeswoman Catherine Cusack said yesterday.

‘Labor’s billion-dollar blowout will be passed on to families who will pay at least an extra $100 per year on their electricity bills every year until 2017,” she said. The total cost to families in some regional areas could be $1000.

The NSW scheme paid existing solar clients 60¢ per kilowatt hour for all energy produced; other states have ”net” schemes that pay for surplus power after domestic use is taken off. NSW had the most generous scheme – now the least. Victoria’s net scheme pays 60¢ per kilowatt hour, Queensland pays 44¢ and Western Australia pays 40¢.

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Posted in Australia, Economy, Energy, Environment | 2 Comments »

Increased snowfall in the Antarctic over the past 30 years: Must be global warming

October 26, 2010

When Good Measurements become Bad Science

Analysis of ice cores, drilled at Law Dome just inland from Australia’s Casey Station in the Antarctic shows increased snowfall in the Antarctic over the past 30 years.

http://news.curtin.edu.au/news/wa-drought-linked-to-greater-snowfall-in-the-antarctic/

Dr Tas van Ommen, Principal Research Scientist with the Australian Antarctic Division in Hobart will be presenting his research results from the analysis of ice cores during a seminar ‘Antarctic Ice Cores and Australian Climate’ at Curtin University on Monday 25 October.

But inevitably global warming is then invoked on the basis of speculation and correlations.

Analysis of ice cores drilled at Law Dome, a site just inland from the Antarctic Casey station, has revealed that snowfall variability may be linked to climate in the Australian sector of the Southern Ocean and southwest Western Australia.

Dr van Ommen said the ice cores provide a record of annual variations in snowfall and provide a record that stretches back over 750 years.

“Over the past 30 years, the cores indicate that there has been a significant increase in snowfall in that area,” he said.

“This inversely correlates to the occurrence of a significantly lower rainfall and subsequent drought that has been experienced in the southwest of Western Australia. “So when there’s extra moisture at Law Dome, the same circulation pattern is starving Western Australia of moisture.”

Further work is underway to explore these connections and understand the reasons behind them. However, these events of greater snowfall in the Antarctic and drought in WA also coincide with human induced changes in the atmosphere that may be contributing to global warming.

“The snowfall increase we see in the last 30 years lies well outside the natural range recorded over the past 750 years,” Dr van Ommen said.

The item only becomes newsworthy because of this “coincidence” and the speculation that this increased snowfall may be linked to the drought with reduced precipitation in Western Australia which may be linked to “global warming” !!

Coincidences and inverse correlations do not a science make!

But the tag “global warming”  brings in the funding.

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Posted in Alarmism, Australia, Climate, Science | Comments Off on Increased snowfall in the Antarctic over the past 30 years: Must be global warming

Commonwealth Games- Australians dominate the medals but athletes leave Delhi on a sour note

October 15, 2010

The Australian team totally dominated the Games with their haul of 177 medals including 74 Golds. But some of their athletes seem to have been involved in vandalising the Games village. Just high jinks perhaps.

Rank Country Gold Silver Bronze Total
1. Australia 74 55 48 177
2. India 38 27 36 101
3. England 37 59 46 142
4. Canada 26 17 32 75
5. South Africa 12 11 10 33

Zee News reports that

Some Australian athletes destroyed electrical fittings and furniture in their tower in the Games Village on Tuesday and Wednesday.
According to a newspaper report, the athletes shouted slogans against Indian ace batsman Sachin Tendulkar, who was named ‘Man of the match’ and ensured India’s victory in the Bangalore match, and tossed a washing machine down from the eighth floor of their tower.
According to newspaper sources in Delhi police, this hooliganism by Australian athletes started on Tuesday when Tendulkar scored a double century to force Australia out of the match. Irked by this match-winning performance, they first damaged electrical fittings and fixtures in their block. The report also says that Delhi Police, which received a complaint about this vandalism, has downplayed the incidents to prevent them from growing into a diplomatic embarrassment for Australia.
Meanwhile, confirming these vandalism reports, Australia’s Commonwealth Games boss Perry Crosswhite on Friday denied involvement of any Australian athlete in the incident at the Games Village.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports:

An Australian athlete was sent home from the Commonwealth Games for bad behaviour this week and a washing machine was dropped from a balcony in Australia’s section of the athlete’s village after the closing celebrations.

No one was injured by the washing machine but Perry Crosswhite, Australia Commonwealth Games association chief executive, said he was disappointed by the incident on Thursday night.

“We don’t know who did that,” Crosswhite told journalists today. “Delhi police came around and they’ve done a report and an investigation and we’ll hear about that.”

But by all accounts it was a spectacular closing ceremony and a qualified success. It was a long way away from being the fiasco that had been feared.


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Sydney shivers! Can’t be climate must be weather.

September 30, 2010

Temperatures in Los Angeles must be due to climate but the cold in Sydney is probably only weather !!!

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

After their coldest winter in 13 years Sydney residents have just experienced their coldest September in five years. “September was an unusual month in terms of the lack of warm days across much of south-eastern Australia,” weatherzone meteorologist Brett Dutschke said.

When both daytime and overnight temperatures were combined, Sydney’s average temperature this month came in at just under 17 degrees. This made it the coldest September in five years, despite being one degree above the long-term norm. It was also the coldest September in terms of daytime temperatures in three years.

Sydney Winter Festival 2010

As far as rainfall goes, Sydney failed to receive the long-term monthly average of 69mm, despite having the normal number of rain days, 10. The city gained only 42mm, the lowest for September since 2007.

“With La Nina likely to peak in the next few months, we are expecting rainfall to increase, trending to near or above average into summer,” Mr Dutschke said. “During this period, daytime temperatures should be near or below average. Overnight temperatures are likely to be close to normal.”

Residents of Melbourne have just experienced their coldest September days in 16 years, Mr Dutschke said. Warmer days ahead will provide Adelaide residents with a good thawing out after enduring their coldest September in 18 years, Mr Dutschke said.

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Posted in Australia, Environment, Weather, Winter | Comments Off on Sydney shivers! Can’t be climate must be weather.

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