"Eeyore" wrote in message
...


Arfa Daily wrote:

"Meat Plow" wrote
On Wed, 27 May 2009 14:10:55 +0100, "Arfa Daily"
wrote:
"Adrian Tuddenham" wrote
Arfa Daily wrote:
"Adrian Tuddenham" wrote
Eeyore wrote:

The EU Commission should be strung by their necks from lamp-posts
for being a bunch of technically ignorant ****s. Why do they
think
lead was used
in solder in the first place ? For fun ?

In the past I have many times agreed with your facts, but I have
often disagreed with your way of expressing them. On this
occasion I
am
with you all the way.

Let's hope the first aeroplane to crash because of lead-free
solder
has only Brussels diplomats and anti-lead campaigners on board.

As far as I know, at this point in time, the avionics industry still
has an exemption from having to use the stuff. Now I wonder why that
could be
... ?

They may be exempt, but what might they do when they can't get the
proper stuff any more because no manufacturer can afford to run two
production lines for the same product simultaneously and daren't risk
getting them muddled?

1) Set up special production lines.
2) Stop making avionics.
3) Change the rules and use lead-free.


There are no plans at the moment, from what I can gather, for
manufacturers
to stop producing leaded solder, nor for distributors to drop it. There
is
much 'legacy' equipment out there, which is manufactured in leaded
solder,
and should not, as a consequence, be repaired using lead-free solder,
according to published wisdom from those who should know. There is no
legal requirement to use lead-free for the purposes of effecting such
repairs.
As well as avionics, there are a number of other exemptions in
important
fields such as medical equipment, and some military areas. Again, I
wonder
why
that could be ... ? As far as I understand it, the American military
will
not
tolerate the stuff being used in any of their equipment. How eminently
sensible of them. Pity we haven't got the same courage of our
convictions
to stand up to the green mist brigade on this side of the pond ...

Maybe after the Eurofighter fleet is grounded because of avionics
failures linked to LF solder?

Hope they don't use it to solder them Airbuses together

So do I, my friend, as I am about to get on one for the first time in
October. All of my previous cross-pond jaunts have been in properly built
747s, which have a proper yoke for the driver to hang on to, and
'automatics' that can be switched off. There's something fundamentally
wrong
about a plane that has to be flown with a left-handed joystick, and which
employs a robot driver hidden away somewhere, which believes it knows
more
about how to fly a plane, than the human guy and his chum in the co-seat,
who have 40 years flying experience between them ... :-\

Shame that the most common cause of airliner accidents is still 'pilot
error' !

Graham


Seems that today, an Air France Airbus A330 en route from Rio to Paris with
238 people on board, has gone down without warning over the Atlantic. Hard
to see what the pilot might have done wrong with the thing at 38000 ft in
the cruise ...

Apparently, it disappeared off African trans-atlantic ATC radar, at around
3am, our time.

This is not instilling a lot of confidence in me, regarding flying on one of
these things in October, instead of my usual Boeing ... :-|

Arfa