And another one bites the dust. Seven engines down now and starting to fail at a slightly alarming rate now they are starting to accumulate some time on them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfomloUg2Gw If you can stand the RR PR they say that the engine casing is designed to protect the aircraft in the event of an fan blade coming adrift. Video contains an example of such, sorry can't stomach watching this again and pin pointing at what point in the video this happens BUT a "little birdie" told me just as in the Air china incident AIR's Dreamliner rego ZK-NZE suffered quite some damage and will be grounded for quite some time until Boeing can fix it. Worth noting the engine casing that protects the aircrafts critical systems and fuel tanks is only 2.5mm thick.
I am pleased for you mate. This issue is serious enough in my view such that I would not currently choose to book a Dreamliner flight. Not trying to be a scaremonger but now we have three failures in quick succession its crystal clear to me this is an extremely serious issue. How many more must fail before Civil aviation steps in and grounds all AIR planes with early variant Trent 1000 engines ?
Maybe, maybe not. Is it just a coincidence then that of the tens of thousands of operated flights over the years with this Trent 1000 engine type failures worldwide since this engine variant commenced in service many years have in total been seven BUT three of these seven failures have been on flights leaving Auckland in the last ten days when it has been most unusually hot here lately for this time of year ? Maybe its a combination of heat and humidity ? How do you explain this remarkable coincidence ?
Is this just an alarming coincidence or are these fan blades and the corrosion thereof now reaching a point where the structural integrity of these blades may now present a clear danger to the travelling public ?
I don't believe in the likelihood of such a remarkable coincidence especially now we have had three failures in very quick succession. Where there is smoke there is fire and without in any way pretending to be a jet engine engineer there is clearly a growing body of evidence that we have a very serious problem with these engines. RR official line as annunciated in a behind the paywall article on NBR Friday last week is that this will inconvenience AIR for the remainder of 2017 with the inconvenience gradually abating through the first half of 2018. For people who believe their PR they go on to say this issue can be managed through maintenance.
I understand this maintenance includes very short inspection intervals of the affected fan blades while airlines await fitment of new design blades. Disc: Looking forward to being a shareholder again in this great company when this issue has been properly fixed.