Captain Steeeve Smells a RAT

Closer video analysis apparently reveals that the RAT had deployed during the initial climb of the Air India 787. Despite not having sat on a flight deck for seven years I was pleased to be able to recall that this occurs not only due double engine failure but due major electrical and hydraulic problems... although of course the first cause would lead to the second and third, which is what triggers deployment.

The BANG heard by the one survivor could it seems relate to an interruption to the flow of air through either engine, although again you could not rule out starvation of fuel to some extent leading to a mismanagement of that delicately-balanced airflow with that same result.

In the unlikely event of contamination the focus then shifts then to some extent to vaporisation of the fuel, and again history informs us... the most recent dual failure being attributable to ice clogging the fuel filters during the descent and approach of a British Airways Boeing 777 into Heathrow airport.

Jet fuel has an upper and lower operating limit, the former being circa 49C. Given the temperature was at least 43C at the airport on the day, superheated fuel that is more prone to 'boil' cannot therefore be discounted.

There was during my time flying a hullabaloo after the explosion in mid-flight of an airliner departing the US that was attributed to an electrical spark igniting the fuel vapour in a TWA 747.

Beside this there have been two instances of 737s exploding on the ground due an overheating of fuel in the tanks.

Key to all three incidents was high ambient temperature during a prolonged spell on the tarmac: which was undoubtedly the case in India. A feature of hot weather is that the air conditioning systems are working flat out during stop overs to keep you comfortable, though an undesirable by-product of that is the fact air-con units live close by the fuel-tanks.

Combine all of these sources of heat viz. solar radiation absorption, hot-air exhaust, thermal heating of apron and runway, collective body-heat and on and on... and the safe operating limit of 49C does not seem all that remote any more.

Like AI and its role in flight management, however, this could ultimately be a very modern problem: due human-induced climate change, hotter parts of the world are getting hotter.

Heavy ZEVI

Eager readers (Ed. both of you) will recall how I recently requested a look at the winners of a recent £80,000,000 round courtesy of the Department for Trade and though the round closed in March, it remains instructive. The fear has always been expressed that seeking grants in the UK is in itself a full-time job, which is why it invariably goes to firms who can draw on funds elsewhere to fund the application.

This is borne out by the first of the sixteen pages, where for instance Shell would hope to be in receipt of £30k of taxpayer revenue, having only made £24 billion in the last financial year in the UK.

The way grants often work is that third parties whom the government insist handle applications sprout like mushrooms and consume the bulk ~ or all in the case of individual applicants ~ of the funding.

Simple fact is, the individuals key to the advancement of the Industrial Revolution that began here would be most unlikely to qualify. They were however invited to participate in competitions like the Rainhill Trials at their own expense, although by the time Charles Parsons invented the steam turbine, even that had been quashed.

Shen Zen

From the world's biggest annual showcase taking place in Shenzen, a selection that includes drones which travel, float and swim... the latter boding well for the chances of monoskis launching from rest, aided only by an airscrew like those fitted on this.

AI

One reason for a drift away from mainstream media like UK newspapers or the BBC is firstly the evident bias built into the reporting, besides the corruption* inherent in paid-for media, plus the fact that much of it is fairly shit and no moreso in regard to aircraft accidents: where a far superior analysis is provided by the likes of Captain Steeeve here on YouTube as regards Air India's 787 accident.

Plus whilst I can't be bothered, I'm more qualified myself than most of the has-been 'contacts' available to the mainstream media: I've taught Indians how to fly airliners beside any number of years flying them myself, and was among the first to operate the first 787 flight simulator in Europe... at Gatwick itself, where Air India's 787 was headed. I've also an encyclopaedic knowledge of aircraft accidents, having once literally owned the encyclopaedia.

So here goes... and of the principal speculations, only Steeeve here appears to have nailed the third.

The first to rear its ugly head on YouTube was a failure to extend high-lift devices that airliners rely on to get airborne. Whilst based at Heathrow in fact my airline in concert with many others altered procedures to include this immediately following push-back rather than enroute to the runway. Plus the checklists now operate as an electronic to-do list that cannot be circumvented, plus the warnings should you set take-off thrust when these are not deployed are unmissable.

That said Boeings have been put through take-off runs with these devices retracted, as I recall from an incident with a 727 at Madrid.

Nonetheless as Steeeve points out, the take-off roll appears normal whereas aircraft of this size will struggle to get airborne at all along the length of the runway absent this particular check.

The second is a general loss of thrust, and here is what I (rather than 'we') know:

Large jet aircraft have got airborne and afterward lost all engine power and crashed due fuel contamination, specifically a Vulcan nuclear V-bomber out of West Malling and with water beside fuel in the tanks.

One reason for the above may have been the fact that the pitch up after take-off might have pooled the water at that point where it was drawn off to supply the jet engines. The only other obvious reason for loss of all engines however would be a bird-strike and though this has happened recently to a Boeing in Korea, nothing has happened here that points in that direction.

Nonetheless, and this might be key, the surviving passenger reported both a BANG and a flickering 'green and white' light after take-off. Should an engine fail, electrics are reconfigured and that causes momentary interruption to some supplies, beside the fact modern cabins use LEDs to alter the colour of the interior for your peace of mind; the effect of electrical transients on these systems is anyone's guess.

Bear in mind in either case that beyond a point you would normally have retracted it, the landing gear remained extended. This is an oddity, for in the event of failure of either engine to guarantee a climb-out the landing gear is among the first thing to address. The one exception to this is if the nominated 'pilot flying' (or captain should the captain wish to overrule) feels an impact is unavoidable, the landing gear may be left extended in to absorb much of its affect.

Which brings us to Captain Steeeve's conclusion, which is like the denouement of an episode of Agatha Christie's 'Poirot': instead of retracting the gear on the command of the pilot-flying, the non-flying pilot retracted the high-lift devices (i.e. the flaps at leading and trailing edges of each wing). This would cause a catastrophic reduction in lift and lead to a gradual sink toward the terrain. One reason this sink appeared to be relatively graceful is that as airliners approach a surface, additional lift stems from 'ground-effect': an entrapment of air that increases the efficiency of the wings.

Now having spent around a thousand hours watching crews train in flight simulators and studying accidents and incidents in the wider world, like Steeeve I view this as wholly plausible. Few passengers realise that even modern airliners have levers that are shaped to highlight what they do: flap levers capped with a little flap, or landing gear levers sporting a little wheel.

A pertinent accident I recall stemmed from a training captain's actions in Zurich, leaning forward to pull back both throttles to idle shortly after take-off. Exercises in simulators often focus on this phase, and the fastest way to reset simulated aircraft back to the runway is to pull the levers, drop the gear and hit RESET. It becomes a 'muscle memory' which the hapless captain used purely from habit in the real thing.

What's the take-away from all of this as regards our quest to build a 'flying' boat? Well aside from ground (or surface) effects experienced nearest either ground or water, as ever nowadays the question hinges on the extent to which our lives are automated. The sad fact is that crews continue to be responsible for most aircraft accidents and tho' there are few avenues left for them to effect, procedures nearest the ground are among the most critical.

In the way that you are safer now on the road in an automated EV, in many ways you would be so in 'intelligent' airliners that will make mistakes beyond imagination, but many fewer. For now though, in the event the wrong lever was selected, it may be more 'our' mistake than 'theirs'.

AI... Air India, or Artificial Intelligence?

* Next travelogue you read recommending one destination or other, remember that (a) it's on the airline's route network and (b) the journo was given free tickets.

Like a Candela in the Wind

One recipient of the UK government grant toward zero-emission vehicles ~ without us knowing the others in the absence of the results appearing in a readable format ~ was Artemis in Belfast, whose electric-powered ferry is being trialed on a route connecting Kirkwall in Scotland with various islands. No vessel is 'zero-emission' in the way no vehicle is, incidentally, but does tick a convenient box when it comes to spraying tax revenues around.

I've always wanted to travel on a hydrofoil, and visited the island of Thassos in the hope of catching one from Kavala on the Greek mainland. Sadly the Greeks stopped using them, as indeed the people of Hong Kong did a while back... meaning I was to take a ferry there much like those in Glasgow or Liverpool back in the day.

The only reasons in either case I can find for hydrofoils being dropped are twofold. Firstly, like the hovercraft they are comparatively heavy on fuel given the payload they are expected to lift, at least compared to the newer generation of multihulls powered by fuel-efficient diesel jet-pumps. Secondly and more notably, they do not come well out of encounters with sizeable flotsam and jetsam. This meant that like hovercraft they would spend much time in maintenance instead of ferrying people.

A third reason for the scarcity thought of hydrofoils was the difficulty of stabilising them at an ideal ride height, which would eventually lead both Boeing and the US Navy to largely ignore them. Electrification thus addresses two of three objections to the use of hydrofoils viz. they are powerful as well as efficient, whilst the travel can be stabilised by a flight controller of the sort fitted to every drone.

The aim with the TELEDRONE is to capitalise on all three and to create a vessel that is fast, efficient, cheap, seaworthy and undamaged by sub-surface obstacles. What's not to like?

For people providing grants, probably me.

The graphic illustrates the control system used by Candela in Sweden, who are set to dominate the application of e-foils to ferries and leisure-craft. And in a Byzantine twist, tho' chains were stretched across the entrance to the Golden Horn in 1453 the capitol fell to an army which dismantled its ships to carry them overland... be prepared to do the same with your e-foils.

 

On File

Due PVC Diligence

Before rushing into subbing the skirting for extruded PVC strip, however, it pays to consider its SG and the likely affect on both buoyancy and trim. Happily there is a wonderful resource in the shape of the European Council of Vinyl Manufacturers. As a member myself, I can tell you that they are based in Brussels where their annual jamboree and beer-fest is well attended by dozens of PVC devotees dressed only in orange polymers.

Turning to our screens, however, we can see that unlike laminated extrusions of a mixed density ~ hard on the outside and soft in the middle, like the curate's egg ~ they are exclusively heavier than water.

I fear I am going to have to build a static flotation tank in the garage, which is how the clinical obsession with boats that might fly often presents.

Strip Search

The only feature of the prototype unable to be sourced from Wickes, B & Q or the timber yard round the corner remains the hydroski, which heretofore has comprised a length of laminated uPVC skirting board. Nonetheless here in all its glory is a PVC section that looks to play the part admirably, seeing as it appears to be of a suitable thickness and width viz. either 4" or 5.5".

The only fly in the extrusion is the fact that it retails in minimum quantities of 25m, three off... requiring a low-loader and police escort.

Which frankly I deserve.

Zipline

I've probably filed several hundred patent applications and had many more ideas, and a good while ago it occurred to me that reeling out a pod with an independent means of manoeuvre would be a good deal safer than descending a helicopter to the ground to deliver personnel or payload.

And the thing about the current tech ~ which is ideal for building boats on a small scale and manufacturing them on a large ~ is it makes the commercial impossible possible.

Amazon's much-heralded mode of delivery was never going to work, because they are literally an easy target and as soon as humankind invented guns, it wanted to shoot things out of the sky. Goodyear airships, for instance, sustain a shot a week.

Take bikes and scooters for hire by app: most are abandoned or thrown in the canal where I come from. And the principal target for the current riots in LA? Driverless cars, because they don't have drivers who are likely to get out and shoot you should you be trying to torch them.

Enter then the fastest growing means of delivery out of Africa... and into California.

The drone is launched by catapult ~ as might our boat ~ and enters the hover at its destination. Previously it would drop product by parachute, which works in expanses of rural Africa but not so much in the suburbs of LA.

Instead the delivery box within the pod can be manoeuvred to a point in your back yard the size of a dinner plate, and in winds of up to forty m.p.h.

Key to all this is operational experience, and a robustness that springs from lessons learned. For at the smallest scale and at comparatively low cost you've the luxury to experiment.

And that's where we're coming from.

Power Fixation

A Christmas gift of yore that, like 'Rosebud' the sled, sticks in the mind was a hand-built model plywood boat with a two-stroke diesel not unlike the above. The boat a full three feet long, the engine had to be laboriously started with a length of leather drawstring. When eventually it started (aside some or other lake within one of many parks in Liverpool) my father would launch it from one side whilst we endeavoured to arrest it on the other before its imminent destruction.

Like many such projects, it proved more ornamental than practical and an electric motor ~ with which it was to be somewhat tamed ~ lay for many years in its box.

Firstly, I guess that decades on I'm undertaking that conversion in kind. Secondly it is a reminder that the opening test on water need not require a moveable rudder or indeed a throttle at all.

For like the first torpedoes it could be run at 'full chat' with only a deflector vane to arrest any undue torque and keep it travelling in a straight line.

The difference is too that nowadays there is YouTube, and a moving picture is worth a million words.

TRIG-GER Action

Apply for a Transport Research Innovation grant, which closes in a fortnight's time, on the basis you can't win if you don't buy a ticket.

Applications require a logo, which is a sign of the times I guess.

So I draft one, and tho' the work of five minutes in Pages I'm attached to it already.

There are Nine Million Bi... Drones in Beijing.

The figures are startling, the UK pledging to provide 100,000 drones to Ukraine the coming year instead of the 10,000 prior. The recent defence review unlike previous does not highlight China as a threat, not least am guessing because the drones used in Ukraine are primarily Chinese... because nobody else mass-produces them.

Reason being, private enterprise is more easily pursued in China and the US than it is in the UK, for all its good intentions.

A case in point is Malloy Aeronautics, which we touched on before. Started by a man from New Zealand decamped to Reading in the UK, it raised crowd-funding toward a flying motorcycle, which US company Survice co-developed at Maryland's university with view to selling it to the US military.

Along the way ~ as most of us have discovered ~ they decided developing drones to fly people was a fools errand compared to using them to drop supplies. Since then Malloy has become a part of BAE Systems, though there is barely a clue in the website.

Developing ideas in Britain to be taken elsewhere to be converted into a commercial product is, however, what we do best.

Purchasing product from 'enemies' with which to battle them has always been a part of Kipling's great game... the West provides more funds to Russia through oil and gas purchases than it does to its opponent in the shape of Ukraine.

Contrary Thinking

An advantage of stepping away from the vehicle from time to time is those insights that emerge from reflection. To date I've three frames in the wings: a first that one which needed to be fitted with a 20" airscrew instead of the 22" in stock, set for the national small boat collection in the UK should our design come good; a second like the first but fitted with said 22" propeller at its leading edge; a third identical while set for contra-rotating propellers at the rear that eliminates the need for a rudder.

The diagram shows how, tempting as it might be, one of these motors can't be fixed to the leading edge where it would 'walk' the deck in the same direction and have it going around in circles at low speed. Notice instead how with each propeller piercing the waterline, one yaws the craft in one direction and the other: the other.

At planing speeds, differential operation of each motor should roll the craft in one or other direction; though there'll only be one way of finding out...

There's been a decline of over 50% in the appearance of semi-colons over the past two decades, and in this post they roam free. I run a home for unwanted semi-colons in the UK, and you can donate at the merch page on the TELEDRONE website.

Strategic Defence Review 2025

Among the takeaways from this are emphases on a 'whole of society' effort toward defence of the realm ~ good luck with that ~ and an awareness that absent nuclear weapons it'll be drones doing the dirty work that we can't or won't.

I emailed the business lead at our national effort at deploying maritime autonomous drones over a fortnight ago, whose web page...

https://www.thalesgroup.com/en/countries/europe/united-kingdom/markets-we-operate/defence/maritime-solutions/end-end-capability-offering-maritime-sensors-supportmaritime-autonomy

...boasts of working to gain the trust of the small-and-medium enterprises expected to provide the innovations sought in the review.

Clearly not hard enough, however, if it meant replying to emails.

In the US companies manufacturing maritime drones use tags like 'Fight Tonight'. The public were invited to participate in the UK defence review, and I've suggested 'Can we get back to you?' instead.