Model Airplanes

The ocean can seem like an acoustically disorienting place, with muffled sounds from near and far blending together in a murky sea of noise.

Now an MIT mathematician has found a way to cut through this aquatic cacaphony, to identify underwater sound waves generated by objects impacting the ocean’s surface, such as debris from meteorites or aircraft. The results are published this week in the online journal Scientific Reports.

Lead author Usama Kadri, a research affiliate in MIT’s Department of Mathematics, is applying the team’s acoustic analysis in hopes of locating Malaysia Airlines flight 370, an international passenger plane that disappeared over the southern Indian Ocean on March 8, 2014.

Since the aircraft’s disappearance, authorities have confirmed and recovered a few of the plane’s parts. However, the bulk of the aircraft has yet to be identified, as has any reasonable explanation for its demise.

Kadri believes that if the plane indeed crashed into the ocean, it would have generated underwater sound waves, called acoustic-gravity waves, with a very specific pattern. Such waves travel across large distances before dissipating and therefore would have been recorded by hydrophones around the world. If such patterns can be discerned amid the ocean’s background noise, Kadri says acoustic-gravity waves can be traced back to the location of the original crash.

In this new paper, Kadri and his colleagues have identified a characteristic pattern of acoustic-gravity waves produced by impacting objects, as opposed to other sources such as earthquakes or underwater explosions. They have looked for this pattern in data collected by

Article source: https://www.rdmag.com/news/2017/10/ocean-sound-waves-may-reveal-location-incoming-objects

The days of the Boeing 747 are numbered — but some travelers can take home a piece of this historic airplane.

Known lovingly as the “Queen of the Skies,” and widely acknowledged as the world’s first “jumbo jet,” the aging model is being phased out by many airlines. United Airlines is the most recent carrier to transition to other models, with their 747 fleet making a last international journey on October 29, and a final 1970s-themed domestic flight on November 7.

To celebrate the retirement of this world-changing airplane — which set the standard for size and passenger volume for decades — the airline is hosting an online auction exclusively for members of its MileagePlus rewards program.

To send the 747 off in style, frequent fliers can use their miles to buy fixtures, furniture, electronics and more from the United fleet. The airline has nine remaining 747 aircraft.

The auction kicked off with a number of fixed-price items; livery panels (priced at 80,000 miles) and iconic airplane windows (50,000 miles) — both from a plane that flew almost 100,000 hours over 26 years — have already sold out. 747 fans in need of new living-room furniture can still purchase a double- or triple-passenger row seat (275,000 and 250,000 miles, respectively) — though no guarantees about how comfortable

Article source: http://www.travelandleisure.com/airlines-airports/united-airlines/united-airlines-airplane-parts-auction

Printed headline:  Advanced Aftermarket

The Boeing 787 family’s versatility is changing airline planning strategies. Carriers are using the twin-engine aircraft on a variety of routes, from low-cost transatlantic hops to ultra-long-range connections between global hubs. Airlines also are using the aircraft’s combination of moderate capacity, long range and low seat-mile costs to bypass hubs, as routes to smaller cities such as Austin, Texas, and Nashville, Tennessee, illustrate. 

Boeing’s advanced design, including extensive use of composites and more reliance on electrical systems, means changes on the aftermarket side as well. Composites reduce risk of corrosion and fatigue, which significantly reduces the maintenance burden. Leveraging lessons learned from previous designs, Boeing created an airframe made of nearly 50% composites by weight. 

The experience gleaned from the Boeing 777 spotlights the durability leap that composites offer. The 777’s composite vertical fin requires about 35% fewer scheduled maintenance hours than the 767’s aluminum fin, despite being 25% larger. This leap is why 787 airframe maintenance costs are projected to be about 45% lower than those of the 767-300ER, Boeing’s calculations show.

Norwegian Air Shuttle

The 787 family is changing both fleet and aftermarket-support strategies.

This decline comes from both fewer heavy checks and fewer labor hours per hangar visit. The 787’s baseline program calls for a D check every 12 years or 24,000 cycles. Typical labor hours for the D check are estimated at just more than 10,500, meaning a typical 787 is projected to see about 22,000 hr. of heavy-check-related touch labor in a typical lifetime,

Article source: http://www.mro-network.com/airframe/composites-keep-787s-flying-nothing-it

PHOENIX – In 2008, a thriving company named Science Care Inc developed a 55-page national expansion plan. The internal document projected the yield on raw material to the decimal point and earnings to the dollar.

The goal: to maximize profits from the sale of human bodies donated to science. The company’s model for ensuring quality: McDonald’s Corp.

Science Care founder Jim Rogers aimed to provide customers with the same cuts from cadavers no matter which Science Care branch handled the order. That’s why he cited production methods perfected by Ray Kroc, the visionary who turned a hamburger stand into a fast-food empire, said an executive who worked closely with Rogers.

“He used the McDonald’s analogy that no matter where you go, you get the same exact thing,” the executive, former quality assurance director John Cover, said in a 2009 sworn statement.

“It was all about quality,” Cover said in a recent interview. “When you get a Big Mac, it’s going to taste like a Big Mac, whether you’re in Louisiana or San Francisco.”

McDonald’s and Kroc got rich selling hamburgers. Science Care and Rogers have made millions from human body parts.