On Sun, 24 Mar 2013 19:55:12 -0400, Joe Gwinn
wrote:

In article , Larry Jaques
wrote:

On Sun, 24 Mar 2013 14:50:07 -0400, Joe Gwinn
wrote:

I just read the 18 March 2013 issue of Aviation Week. On pages 28-29,
there are two articles on the 787 battery investigation results and
proposed fixes.

What caught my eye, and apparently that of the investigators, was that
there was never an all-up test of the 787 battery charging system with
the actual Yuasa-made production battery. They were tested
independently, but there is no record of them ever being tested
together.

So, they're doing things like our CONgress critters do now, eh?
deep sigh "We need to pass this bill so we can see what's in it."
said Nancy Pugnosy.

Well, the individual companies (for battery and for charger) no doubt
satisfied their respective contracts. It's Boeing that should have
insisted of a full-up test, and it's the FAA that should also have
insisted that Boeing insist.

One would think that, given the frequency of problems in the
automotive and cell phone industries with lithiums, that someone would
have required some testing of a product which could kill hundreds of
people at a time if it malfunctioned in the same manner. But it
wasn't, in one of the highly most regulated industries in our nation.
Go figure.


This reminds me more of the NASA screwup that caused the Hubble to be
nearsighted - there was never a full-up optical test on the ground.
The problem was that they had two null-corrector results. The big
fancy null corrector said the optics were perfect, while the simple
crosscheck corrector said the optics were off. Perkin-Elmer, the
optics house that made the mirrors, offered to do a full up test for
something like $20 million, but NASA declined, and chose to believe the
complex null corrector. Oops.

What a horrible place to be, heading that dep't at that time, eh?


Anyway, the fixes are basically to isolate the cells better so if one
self-destructs, it cannot take the other cells with it, venting of
smoke overboard, better electrical insulation all around, and a lot of
black-box data recording so they can figure out root cause next time.

Did they ever ask Elon Musk what he had in mind? He offered to fix it
for them gratis.

No, they did not take Elon Musk up on it. Nor would I have, were I in
charge. The air safety crowd that does investigations is very good at
this stuff, and bone-crushingly thorough. SpaceX simply hasn't the
throw weight to compete.

So thorough that it passed right by them the first time. Hasn't he
already blown the doors off previously NASA-only records in numerous
events? That's weight to me. shrug


--
If we can ever make red tape nutritional, we can feed the world.
--Robert Schaeberle