Bryan;
There was an interesting book written about that Comet fatigue problem. As I
recall, the problem was finally diagnosed as being the cabin
pressurization/depressurization cycling that caused airframe fatigue
cracking. The cracks started on the top of the fuselage around the sharp
radius corners of an antenna opening. Finding pieces of the downed Comets to
analyze was difficult due to the deep water crash sites of the first two to
go down.
Regards, Neil Tucson, AZ
-----Original Message-----
From: Bryan A. Savage Jr [mailto:basavage@earthlink.net]
Sent: Monday, November 26, 2001 12:20 PM
To: Nt788@aol.com
Cc: land-speed@autox.team.net
Subject: Re: Fwd: (no subject)
RE: Subject: A300 crash
Thanks Jack. Very interesting.
This situation reminds me of another airliner using the latest structural
materials that killed three plane loads of people before the cause was
proven and it was withdrawn from service. Note that I say proven.
The theory was "catastrophic airframe failure due to metal fatigue" but
they wouldn't quit flying the Comet until it was proven. The proof
came shortly after 3# disappeared on a flight over the ocean.
The result of their failure to stop flying the the plane after the first
one disappeared contributed to the elimination of the British from
the passenger aircraft industry.
What they didn't know killed a lot of people and created an unpleasant
situation in the engineering community. The "experts" were divided,
fairly evenly, about the theory until the moment the plane under test
had a catastrophic failure as predicted.
The Comet was such a beautiful plane...
Bryan ( some insiders call it the Scarebus )
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