I flew B727s for two airlines. The stick shaker (stall warning) was powered by the Essential Radio bus, which was powered by the essential 115 Volt bus. The power source was selected by the Flight Engineer (in our shop, normally selected to engine 3). If number 3 engine failed, and the F/E failed to change switch position, the stick shaker would be inop. Hence Essential power-set to operating generator was the first thing the F/E would do in the event of an engine failure.
Perhaps a similar situation in the DC10 (I’m only typed in the B727 and B707/720)
The point is, placing blame or responsibility on any part of a complex machine and/or process is a long, complex thing to do. Casually throwing around “facts”, especially about things people seem ready to be afraid of, is a terrible idea. And we all know very well that human error is the cause of an awful lot of accidents and injuries.
I read somewhere that in order for the FE to switch the power supply for the stick shaker to the other engine’s generator, he would have had to unstrap himself and that’s a lot to ask considering that they just took off, and was probably busy scanning the instruments as for all he knew the engine failed
I wouldn’t blame the sioux city crash on a bad design as planes of that era needed more than 2 engines due to regulation. The Boeing 747 had a complete hydraulic failure 4 years before sioux city. An improperly repaired pressure bulk head failed. Cabin air pressure blew off the rudder where all the hydraulic lines terminated. Even worse was that the pilots were circling above mountains instead of Iowa corn fields. 4 out of 505 survived.
Denny Fitch, who was a DC10 training pilot , practiced differential thrust in the simulator after learning about the 747. By happenstance, he was on that crippled DC10 as a passenger and he guided it to a runway where the firefighters and paramedic were waiting
Another incident of complete hydraulic failure was a DHL a310 whose hydraulics was damaged by RPG. That’s the first time a jet landed in one piece without hydraulics
Quite true, but the 727, L1011, and other three-holers, including modern ones from Dassault, all manage to put 3 engines on the plane without running every hydraulic system right next to the center engine.
They mount the center engine in the rear body of the aircraft - the part that most people think is an engine is just an air intake which sits in front of an S-shaped duct that routes the air downward and into the real engine, which gives them a lot more room to space vital systems away from a single point of failure. At the very least, you can run the lines far away from each other so that a single event which breaches one hydraulic line probably won’t get the other 2 because they aren’t in the same place.
Douglas decided to mount theirs high, essentially in the vertical stabilizer, to the point that the hydraulic lines had to be in very close proximity to the engine and each other, which meant that any problem happening with that engine endangered the main hydraulic system and both of its backups.
At the very least they should have thought of the possibility of a problem happening at that single fail point and installed hydraulic fuses which would have clamped off the leak when it happened and left the pilots able to control the plane. But they waited until after the Sioux City disaster killed more than 100 people to take that step - one which should have been obvious from the get-go.
It wasn’t just a safety issue, but the high-mount engine produces more drag and is therefore less efficient too, and the high mounting makes it harder to get to for maintenance purposes. At the end, the DC-10 and MD11 (which is basically a stretch DC-10 with different wings) were the only airplanes to go with the high-mount center engine. All the other tri-jets - even the Tupolev 154 built by Russians in an era when Russia wasn’t exactly known for caring about safety or fuel efficiency - were built with the lower-mount center engine fed by an S-duct.
Not at all. On the F/E’s electrical panel, there’s a rotary switch that can be used to put “essential” A/C and D/C source to any of the three engine generators, the APU (auxiliary power unit) or external power.
One quirk about the 727 is that the APU cannot be run in flight, as with other planes. While the 727 was being designed, the airline execs couldn’t decide if they wanted the APU or not. It was an afterthought, and had to be located in the keel beam area, with the exhaust through the upper part of the right wing. Other planes have theirs in the tail.
Don’t forget Bonanza and the Addams Family. I’m sure all these fine family favorites are on cable TV if we just look for them. Fred Gwynn was good as Herman Munster, but John Astin was out of this world as Gomez Addams.
“Gunsmoke” was on for over twenty years, and was the number-one watched show for four of them.
As far as “The Munsters” goes, the show didn’t exhibit violence, sex, or other undesirable ideas. And were it not for the new competition, “Batman”, many feel it would have lasted longer.
I can remember watching all of the above shows except “my mother the car” just didn’t care for the westerns, and still don’t. I even remember when “the flintstones” was prime time.
Yeah and don’t forget Highway Patrol and Sea Hunt to name a few. I have both cable and an antenna. The cable runs two main TVs at atrocious rates and have four running off the antenna. No $12 one though where I am. I need a big one in the attic. Get “Decades” and a couple other oldie networks. Never used the antenna until a couple years ago when everything went digital and had to pay for each TV on cable.
