Model Airplanes

The family of an Indonesian man killed in a Lion Air jet crash is suing Boeing, alleging that the accident may have been caused by a problem with the flight-control system in its newest 737 plane.

The father of Rio Nanda Pratama filed the lawsuit Wednesday in the US state of Illinois, where the plane manufacturer is headquartered, over the death of the young doctor who was to have married his high-school sweetheart this week.

Pratama’s fiance Intan Syari, 26, has made headlines after she posed alone for photos in a wedding gown that she was to have worn at the couple’s nuptials in Indonesia.

Syari said her husband-to-be had asked in jest that she carry on with the photo shoot if he did not return from what turned out to be a fatal trip.

The 26-year-old man was among the 189 people killed when the Boeing 737-MAX plunged into the Java Sea on October 29, less than 20 minutes after leaving Jakarta on a routine flight to Pangkal Pinang city. There were no survivors.

The 737-MAX in question had only begun service for budget carrier Lion Air in August.

Questions have swirled about Boeing’s alleged failure to tell airlines and pilots about changes to an anti-stall system that is being investigated for its possible links to the crash.

The jet’s engines are heavier than those installed on prior versions, meaning the plane can stall under different conditions.

Boeing made modifications to the anti-stall system without informing air carriers and their crews, according to the Allied Pilots Association.

“The

Article source: https://www.emirates247.com/news/world/indonesian-jet-crash-victim-s-family-sues-boeing-2018-11-16-1.674893

A Russian Soyuz FG rocket, identical to one that malfunctioned during launch last month and forced a space station-bound crew to execute a dramatic abort, successfully boosted a cargo ship into orbit Friday. The launch clears the way for resumption of crewed flights next month.

With its engines throttled up to full thrust, the Soyuz rocket, carrying a Progress cargo ship loaded with 2.8 tons of supplies and equipment, blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 1:14 p.m. EST (GMT-5; 12:14 a.m. Saturday local time), climbing directly into the plane of the space station’s orbit.

Two minutes after liftoff, the four liquid-fueled strap-on boosters making up the rocket’s first stage were jettisoned as planned and the flight continued under the power of of the Soyuz FG’s central second stage. The third stage then took over, boosting the Progress MS-10/71P supply ship into its planned preliminary orbit about eight minutes and 45 seconds after liftoff.

The Oct. 11 abort was blamed on a malfunction in the system used to jettison one of the four first-stage boosters. The strap-on crashed into the rocket’s central core stage, triggering a computer-orchestrated emergency abort for Soyuz MS-10/56S commander Alexey Ovchinin and NASA astronaut Nick Hague.

Both men landed safely about 250 miles from the Baikonur Cosmodrome launch site, but Russia’s workhorse Soyuz rockets were grounded while engineers sorted out what went wrong.

The problem was quickly traced to a bent, or deformed, mechanism in the separation system. No details were

Article source: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/russian-rocket-launch-clears-way-for-resumption-of-crew-flights/

Boeing failed to communicate with 737 Max operators new procedures for addressing cases in which the airplane’s automatic stall prevention system commands the nose of the airplane downward.

This, potentially resulting the kind of steep dive that appears to have led to the fatal crash of Lion Air Flight 610, according to pilot union officials quoted by the Wall Street Journal.
Meant to improve pitch response at high angles of attack and prevent pilots from raising the airplane’s nose too high, the maneuvering characteristics augmentation system (MCAS) in the 737 Max 8 and Max 9 does not appear in the 737 NG. Engineers made the change to address differing stall characteristics in the Max resulting from its heavier CFM Leap-1B engines. MCAS can, however, force the airplane into a dive under circumstances such as faulty inputs from its angle of attack sensors, potentially leading to a crash, according to an emergency airworthiness directive issued by the FAA.

The November 7 AD required a revision to the chapters in the airplane flight manual dedicated to certificate limitations and operating procedures for addressing runaway stabilizer. It also highlighted the procedures to follow in the event of runaway horizontal trim caused by faulty angle-of-attack inputs to the airplane’s flight control system. According to the AD, analysis performed by Boeing showed the defect could lead to repeated nose-down trim commands of the horizontal stabilizer, thereby compromising aircraft controllability and leading to excessive nose-down attitude, “significant” altitude loss, and, ultimately, a crash.

“We are issuing this AD

Article source: https://www.blueprint.ng/boeing-guidelines-on-737-max-stall-protection-system-under-fire/

(for more about Power Words, click here)

aerial     Of or taking place in the air.

aerospace     A research field devoted to the study of Earth’s atmosphere and the space beyond or to aircraft that travel in the atmosphere and space.

air pressure     The force exerted by the weight of air molecules.

annual     Adjective for something that happens every year.

atmosphere     The envelope of gases surrounding Earth or another planet.

battery     A device that can convert chemical energy into electrical energy.

Broadcom MASTERS     Created in 2011 by the Society for Science the Public, Broadcom MASTERS (Math, Applied Science, Technology and Engineering Rising Stars) is the premier middle school science and engineering fair competition. Broadcom MASTERS International gives select middle school students from around the world a unique opportunity to attend the Intel International Science Engineering Fair.

carbon     The chemical element having the atomic number 6. It is the physical basis of all life on Earth. Carbon exists freely as graphite and diamond. It is an important part of coal, limestone and petroleum, and is capable of self-bonding, chemically, to form an enormous number of chemically, biologically and commercially important molecules.

carbon dioxide (or CO₂)     A colorless, odorless gas produced by all animals when the oxygen they inhale reacts with the carbon-rich foods that they’ve eaten. Carbon dioxide also is released when organic matter burns (including fossil fuels like oil or gas). Carbon dioxide acts as a greenhouse gas, trapping heat in Earth’s atmosphere. Plants convert carbon dioxide into oxygen during photosynthesis, the process they use to make their own food.

diameter     The length of a straight line

Article source: https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/blog/eureka-lab/prepping-drone-exploration-mars