Backup generators for what? You can’t run the entire terminal on backup generators; they’d be the size of a commercial power station.
A few years ago Atlanta Hartsfield had a fire in a substation. Which turned out to be one of the very few single points of failure in their total electrical infrastructure. They shut the place down and evacuated everybody because without electricity you don’t have fire alarms, intrusion alarms, etc.
You can’t operate a pubic indoor facility with a hundred thousand workers & customers inside without all that stuff working.
I’m going to partially disagree with this. I worked at a freight hub years ago and it had massive generators (3) to keep it running. They were the size of truck trailers. In the case of Heathrow they had generators but their Manager says aren’t sufficient for the entire system. Sounds like Titanic emergency boat planning.
Heathrow’s boss apologised on Friday, admitting backup generators were never powerful enough to run the airport as mass cancellations ensued.
A handful of British Airways flights were able to depart on Friday evening after a huge inferno at Hayes electrical substation in West London caused the airport to lose power.
Heathrow uses as much energy as a small city, so it is not possible for it to have the back-up power by itself to run its operation safely.
A source at Heathrow said it did however have back-up options for certain key systems, but kickstarting the alternative power supplies for the whole airport took time.
The systems need to be checked to ensure they are working properly.
A Heathrow source said its back-up diesel generators and uninterruptable power supplies in place all operated as expected.
If the back-up diesel generators and uninterruptable power supplies operated as expected that contradicts the statement about delays kickstarting the alternative power supplies.
It’s not 1940. Industrial generators start automatically. This is a major world airport. It should be able to handle a power outage which is an expected event.
The system was probably designed on the assumption that diversions would happen; that’s a totally normal thing. It’s not the power outage itself that’s the cluster fuck, so much as the duration of it. Loss of power for an hour is disruptive but recoverable; loss of power for a day fucks things up a lot more.
Which isn’t to say there’s no room for improvement, but I don’t think we know enough to say that the underlying assumptions were necessarily inadequate, except with the benefit of hindsight.
Unrelated: I travelled for business this week, both flights on a 787-8. That lower cabin altitude is nice. The seats are just as cramped as any other plane, but I definitely felt less shitty after the flight, and descent was much more comfortable on my ears! I also appreciated the cabin lighting and electric window shades. Just a pretty nice aircraft, overall.
I will add much warmer plane due to the composite construction. Made the mistake of bundling up for my transPacific flight and cooked all the way to Brisbane. Upper lockers were full and I’m not that agile wiggling out of warm layers.
Oh I definitely noticed that too! Leaning against the sidewall wasn’t nearly as cold as other planes! I had a thin cardigan on for the first flight and was comfortable. Coming home I wore a hoodie and was slightly warm but didn’t want to attempt to remove it as I’d end up beating up the man seated next to me with my elbows in the process! I had a pair of thick winter socks in my bag, as my feet often get cold on planes, but never needed them. I was going from LA to Montreal, so had to find a clothing balance there!
I also enjoyed examining every placard, door, safety feature, etc. I’m left questioning what the emergency exit locators look like under emergency lighting, and what the minimum dimension is for the lavatory ashtrays as these seemed rather skinny (just what is the standard diameter of a cigarette? I’ve never seen guidance on that!). The padded wall just aft of the emergency exit due to the sidewall protrusion into the cabin kind of sucks for legroom, but yay for head impact collision protection requirements!
I really enjoy the Dreamliner ever since it came out, quiet, warm and the fuel consumption per person of a Prius with 4 passengers.
The A380 was perhaps a tad more comfortable due to more space, was equally quiet and definitely more seat space in standard - I only did one DFW to Sydney marathon - that’s a long 17 hours.
Finally wised up and did Toronto to Japan in 12 hours and then Narita to Cairns direct in 7 hours once they had Dreamliners on both legs.
I usually fly cheap seats but partner treated me to biz class from Narita to Cairns as I was coming with a broken leg. Did not know the seat layout or how to get the table in front of me down. Lights were out as overnight flight .
Finally got sorted - I’d been a lot of stressful hours leaving a frigid Toronto with very poor AirCanada support for me …lucky I had my own walker.
Got support in Narita from nice young lady - bundled into cab to go to the other terminal and driver refused “too short, too short” and we had to get out and walk the 3km.
The whole support system for Jetstar was very new and no one knew anything. Again lucky I had my walker but finally was moving into the 787 and the only way they could do it was in a wheelchair from the outside of the plane up a lift with windows on both sides to a door designed for it on the side of the plane.
I was eye level but a bit back from the pilots and absolutely shocked at the sheer size of the aircraft as I could see nose to tail as I rose up the side of the plane.
Going down an airway gives you no sense of the size tho when I came into Narita Jetstar had no airway and the stairs to the tarmac did not fit and flattened out as they reached the tarmac. At least my leg was not broken at that point but still not very agile at 75.
There was no elevator from the tarmac to departure - I looked at 3 flights of aluminum open stairs and said no way ! Young girl finally came and led me through a labyrinth of construction to a working construction elevator.
Not the most comfortable trip coming home from burying my son,
Oh yeah…managed to drop a whole cup of tea on my seat partners brand new shoes she had just bought in Japan…
Did not realize there was a gap as lights were dimmed for sleeping. I was very glad to get home to Cairns.
That said I adore the Dreamliner and have had some wonderful experiences looking out those big windows at the Pacific at night. Magical.
Interior temperature depends a lot more on the whims of the cockpit; heaven help you if the co-pilot is fat; you’ll freeze in a meatlocker.
The 787 did have one big innovation: they added thermostat controls in the galley areas controlled by the FAs who are actually back in the cabin feeling the conditions. Rather than the traditional knobs in the cockpit adjusted by guess and by gosh, net of whining from FAs over the phone.
There’s been a step back from fully composite new designs due to the complexity and costs (especially around testing and certification, and proving repair procedures). New-ish aircraft have a lot of composite components, but attention has mostly turned towards engine upgrades for efficiency (and a fair bit of effort in the electric realm).
Note there aren’t really any major “clean sheet” aircraft in development right now; everyone is just doing upgrades and new variants on existing type designs.
I’d hesitate to say fully composite aircraft are “the future”, at least not for many decades to come. Too much success and opportunity with conventional airframes. It’s the future in the way “fly by wire” is the future. It’s been around for half a century, but many aircraft still don’t have it, because they are variants of planes that didn’t have it originally.
It’s hard for me to wrap my head around a graphite spun fuselage because of the size involved but I’m not an engineer. The Eiffel Tower was state-of-the-art but so was the de Havilland Comet.
Something to do with structural fatigue as the plane pressurized and depressurized if I recall. Fascinating story of them finally determining the issue.
Yes, I think that was always commonly understood. But the generally understood explanation was that the big square windows created weak points in the structure, and fatigue cracks formed at the corners of the windows as the plane pressurized and depressurized. I’m interested to hear what Petter says the actual cause was, what I have some free time to watch the video.
And in other news, which I’m slightly hesitant to put here because it almost feels like it belongs in Politics and Elections, the FAA has changed the official meaning of NOTAM back to “Notice to Airmen”. They didn’t give a reason for the change, but I’m going to go out on a limb and guess the gender neutral “Air Missions” was considered to be DEI or something.
