I made a booboo

 This along with 2 older post are scheduled to drop on my scheduler thingie. since I am out of town in Tennessee visiting my mom and my pops.  

   This post is hard for me to write...

Several weeks ago I had gone to meet a good friend of mine at a city south of where I live, we met at a diner in the small city in the middle of the state.  I was there as was my wife and my son.  It was a good visit.  We were talking about many different subjects and he happen to mention that he bought a new pistol, a Sig and he had a new holster and pulled it out of his briefcase and showed it to me and I with out thinking about it pulled put my "Smif" holster and all and held it like this...and compared it to his holster, and it was a very nice holster made with some really exotic leather

                                                                   This is how I held the "smif"

then put it back on again.  Didn't think about it until we were leaving, and I happen to see one of the waitresses, she was terrified, All I could see were her eyes, she was wearing a hat and a mask, her eyes wide open and pinging back  and forth at me and everyone else.  I immediately felt like crap.  I had made a subconscious assumption that everyone is "people of the gun" because it was middle Georgia and everyone are "country people" and everyone else acted normal except her, and it did bother me immensely.   I try to be very considerate of other people because you don't get converts if you scare the crap out of people and I am called "Mr. Manners" by my wife, I can't help it, I try to be polite to people at all times unless they are dicks then the manners stop.  I was troubled by this and my wife picked up on it and I explained what happened and she responded that she didn't even notice and I replied "Well I did and I feel like crap because of it"   I am troubled because I scared the shit out of someone by my having a braincramp.  I berated myself for my momentary mental slipup and swore I wouldn't screw up again.  Perhaps I didn't do anything wrong, but in my mind I messed up and embarrassed "the people of the gun" by my poor manners.

MH17 video results "How the Airplane crashed"

  I saw this video last week and watched all 20 minutes of it.  To me the Dutch did an incredible job piecing this together.  It is sobering to see what a SAM can do to a commercial aircraft.  Granted Boeing does build a good airplane...the 777 isn't designed to survive a SAM hit. 

Asiana and Boeing argue over blame for the Asiana 777 crash

As people know that have been reading my blog for a long time, know that I work in the aviation industry and I do like airplanes.  The Boeing 777 has an enviable safety record.  I don't like working on them out of personal preference, the airplane is a great airplane, and it is a BIG airplane and to work on it, basically involves tall ladders or man lifts.  I am an older person and not as limber as I once was and climbing up and down ladders after a while gets telling on the body so I tend to work the narrow bodies( MD-88's, 737's, 757's and Airbus 320 series aircraft.)  They are lower to the ground and to an older person...That ain't a bad thing. 
     I was reading from Aviation week and ran across this article and I figured I would post it along with some pictures I "googled" on the internet.  since I am a simple person and I like pictures.   I am a visual kind of guy.    What I got off this article is that the lawyers are posturing again,   and nothing is said about the culture in the cockpit.  Anybody that works in the aviation industry will know what I am talking about. 

April 07, 2014
Credit: NTSB

The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board might be six months from declaring the probable cause and contributing factors in the Asiana Airlines 777-200ER crash in San Francisco last July, but two main participants in the investigation, Asiana and Boeing, have already formed their own conclusions.

In documents submitted to the NTSB and published on March 31, both the airline and the manufacturer contend that a basic lack of monitoring and failure to follow airline and industry standards for abandoning an approach led the pilots into a situation where airspeed and altitude were too low to avoid crashing into the sea wall in front of Runway 28L, but the agreement stops there.
Asiana says its pilots were blindsided by lack of a timely low-speed aural alert and an autopilot flight-director system mode—flight-level change (FLCH)—that is inconsistent with practically all other modes in that it allows the autothrottle to go into a “hold” mode with engines at idle and no low-speed “wake-up” to prevent the aircraft from flying too slowly. Boeing, however, says the 777 and its automation systems and training materials were not at fault in the crash, but rather the pilots were not adept at visual approaches and did not take advantage of several opportunities to abandon the unstable arrival before it was too late. Asiana provides 11 recommendations in its submittal; Boeing offers none.
It is unclear how any of the posturing could influence the NTSB's determinations on the accident, or any of the more than two dozen civil lawsuits filed in the weeks after the crash, actions that blame both Asiana and Boeing for the accident. Given the potential liability in admitting to deficiencies while cases are ongoing, it is not surprising that Boeing is not offering recommendations on how to improve its aircraft, even if the company is internally contemplating changes to low-speed alerting systems or modifications to the autothrottle logic. Changes to the 737NG autothrottle and low-speed alerting systems, both of which played a role in the crash of a Turkish Airlines 737-800 crash in Amsterdam in February 2009, took more than three years to reach the fleet, either in the form of a service bulletin or an airworthiness directive.
In the meantime, Boeing is staunchly defending the 777 FLCH mode, noting that aircraft equipped with the mode have performed 55.6 million successful landings, which it says equates to more than three landings per minute, every minute of every day for the past 32 years. FLCH is normally used for changing altitudes in cruise by selecting the mode and entering the target altitude on the mode control panel.
In the San Francisco crash, Boeing says the pilots “erroneously” pushed the FLCH mode button at 1,600 ft. while descending on autopilot toward the runway, causing the autopilot to climb toward a preset altitude of 3,000 ft. that had been set in case of a missed approach. The pilot-flying in the left seat, who was completing his transition training to become a 777 captain after flying the A320 as a captain for five years, turned off the autopilot and pulled the throttles to idle thrust to descend, an action that in FLCH mode puts the autothrottles in “hold.” On the flight deck, a green box in the flight-mode annunciator area of the primary flight displays would have highlighted the word “Hold” for 10 sec.; but no associated audible announcement would have cued the pilots to the mode change. In interviews, the pilots said they had assumed the autothrottle would have maintained the 137-kt. approach speed they had set in the mode control panel, despite their having had recent training in the nuances of FLCH.
Regardless of the mode, Boeing says, the crew failed to monitor airspeed, thrust and altitude to verify a stable arrival.

“At 500 ft., the approach was not in compliance with the industry-standard stabilized approach criteria for sink-rate and thrust settings,” states chief engineer for air safety investigation Michelle Bernson in the Boeing submission. “A go-around should have been initiated.” Below 500 ft., she states, there were “numerous clues”—visual and tactile—that showed the aircraft's speed was decaying, the aircraft's thrust setting was incorrect, and the aircraft was increasingly below glidepath. The aircraft ultimately slowed to 103 kt., well below its 137-kt. target speed before the pilots attempted a go-around.
Thomas Haueter, a technical consultant for Asiana, says the automation design, combined with the high workload approach, may have been an accident in waiting. “You're in a situation where the autothrottle does not wake up to the set airspeed and it does not wake up as you get near stall,” he says. Haueter, veteran NSTB investigator who retired in 2012, says none of the three pilots on the flight deck remembers pushing the FLCH button on the mode control panel, although Boeing notes the cockpit voice recorder captured “sound of click” at the same time the flight data recorder shows the FLCH mode activated, confirming “that the button was pushed.”
Boeing questions the pilot-flying's fitness for handling the 777, noting that in the most recent training flight before the accident, the instructor noted that he was not well organized and deviated “from multiple standard operating procedures.” During interviews after the accident, the Korean pilot-flying said, in English, that the approach into San Francisco was “very stressful” and that he was “very concerned” about his ability to perform a visual approach there.
Asiana doubts at least part of that assessment, noting that there was not a professional Korean translator in the room, the pilot sustained a broken rib that he had not yet been treated for, and his use of the word “stressful” in English was not as intended. Asiana had asked the NTSB to review the recordings of the interviews, but the NTSB says it did not retain a copy. “That's not typical,” says Haueter. “Normally we kept absolutely everything until the [final] report was adopted.”
Pilots on the morning of the crash were flying the “Quiet Bridge” visual approach that Asiana says kept the aircraft high and fast—compared to a normal instrument approach—until fairly close to the runway. Controllers instructed Flight 214 to maintain 180 kt. until 5 nm from the airport, more than 40-kt. above its planned final approach speed of 137 kt.
In January, two crews of professional pilots gathered by the NTSB for a “simulator observational study” demonstrated that the Asiana pilots were not unique in getting behind the aircraft on the approach. The study used crews of pilots from Boeing and from the FAA. All “flew” a 777 simulator at Boeing in Seattle. Each crew performed 10 test flights, five of which simulated a “standard” approach profile; the balance followed the accident profile, including the altitude and speed restrictions that air traffic controllers issued to the accident crew. Asiana says the results indicate that both crews “had difficulty” achieving a stabilized approach by 500 ft. under the conditions matching the accident profile. “In fact, the aircraft was considered unstable due to excessive sink rates on four of the 10 test flights conducted under conditions matching the accident profile,” according to Asiana.

The NTSB also evaluated go-around scenarios with the crews, determining that a “normal” go-around would have been possible 12 sec. before ground impact on the accident flight. Asiana notes that the 777's “quadruple chime” low-airspeed caution sounded 11 sec. before impact on Flight 214, and the crew took an additional 3 sec. before advancing the throttles for a go-around. Boeing, however, says that the low-airspeed alert (the quadruple chime), which sounded 11 sec. before the crash, “provided a timely caution of decreasing airspeed.” Asiana is asking the FAA for a dedicated low-speed aural alert that will provide pilots with adequate time to perform a go-around. Boeing's low-speed warning was originally developed for issues at altitude, and the chime is also used “with more than 70 other potential issues,” states the airline.
Asiana also uncovered some concerns about FLCH that were raised by the FAA in 2011. In a “response item” from 787 certification testing that Asiana obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, the FAA had “strongly encouraged” Boeing to make changes to the 787 flight-management computer system to provide autothrottle “wake-up” capability to maintain a minimum flying speed in all autothrottle modes. Those modes are shared by the Boeing 777, 747 and 767.
The response item shows that an FAA pilot was performing certification stalls with artificial ice contours on the 787 in September 2010 when the concern first arose. “When in a descent such as FLCH with autothrottle in (hold) mode, and the descent has to be manually interrupted for something such as a traffic alert, the autothrottle will stay in (hold) mode and will not wake up [as] it does when you capture the original altitude,” the response item reads. “The speed will decrease well past maneuvering speed.” The FAA ultimately closed the item, but with the request for a software change to the flight-management computer at some future time.

The FAA discussed the origin of the response item during a December 2013 public hearing on the Asiana crash, but did not mention its request to Boeing to change the FLCH mode.
“Given [that it was not a safety or regulatory compliance issue], at that point, [the FAA pilot] believed it was an area where there still could be improvement and he worked with Boeing to include additional information in the flight manual to explain that the autothrottle on the 787 would not wake up from the autothrottle hold,” said Stephen Boyd, manager of the FAA's airplane and flight crew interface branch, of the 2011 response item.
Boeing's former chief test pilot, John Cashman, called the issue a “misunderstanding” of when the autothrottle would wake up and when it would command speed. “In the end, when [the FAA pilot] understood that this design has 210 million flight hours, he felt it was not as critical of an issue,” said Cashman during the December 2013 hearing.
Similar concerns had been voiced by the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) during its validation of the FAA certification for the 787. EASA noted that the lack of a wake-up function in FLCH represents an “inconsistency in the automation behavior” to the pilots. “Inconsistency in automation behavior has been in the past a strong contributor to aviation accidents,” the agency stated.
Boeing makes the case that an FLCH mode that tries to control speed in two ways—through the elevator, as designed, but also through the autothrottle, as requested—will represent an inconsistency in its design philosophy and could prove unstable. “To do this would violate [our] design philosophy—that the pilot is the final authority for the operation of the airplane,” states the manufacturer. “This philosophy has led Boeing to avoid designs in which the aircraft overrides the crew's selected automation modes. There are some scenarios, such as when the aircraft is operating in a symmetric thrust condition due to engine problems, in which such a change could be potentially dangerous.”

777X...Mini Jumbo war in the horizon as Boeing and Airbus go head to head with new airplane.

As those who read my blog on a regular basis know that I work in the aviation business.   So anything that is coming down the pike as far as innovation and changes has my interest.   I pulled this off Reuters and Bing for more background.   I have worked on the Boeing 777 and it is a big airplane, you don't realize how big they are until you are next to them.

    

• 
  View PhotoReuters/Reuters - The Boeing logo is seen at their headquarters in Chicago, April 24, 2013. Boeing Co's first-quarter earnings jumped nearly 20 percent, handily beating analysts' estimates and showing little …more 

By Alwyn Scott and Tim Hepher

SEATTLE/PARIS (Reuters) - Boeing has started offering its long-awaited 777X long-range jet, paving the way for a 'mini-jumbo' war with European rival Airbus, industry sources said on Wednesday.

The move backed by Boeing's board means that the commercial aircraft division can begin taking orders for a revamped version of its top-selling wide-bodied jet, the 777, which could include folding wingtips and new engines from General Electric .

Boeing declined to discuss the outcome of Monday's board meeting but said it was pushing ahead with the project to update the twin-engined jet, in service since the 1990s.
"We are taking the next step when it comes to engaging customers on the 777X," spokesman Doug Alder said. The company has "begun to discuss additional technical, pricing and schedule details with customers", he added.

Reuters reported on April 24 that Boeing was ready to go ahead with the project "within weeks", after one of its key customers, British Airways , placed a $6 billion order for A350-1000 jets from rival Airbus .

Until now, Boeing has enjoyed a virtual monopoly in the lucrative market for large twin-engined jets, boosting its margins, but Airbus has started challenging that position with its 350-seat A350-1000, due to enter service in 2017.
Boeing's response is a substantial overhaul in the design of the 777, expected to enter service around 2020.
BOOST FOR SUPPLIERS
People familiar with the matter said the Boeing board had approved the so-called "authority to offer", allowing sales to proceed. The people declined to be identified because they are not authorized to discuss actions of the board.
After attracting enough orders, Boeing would go back to the board for permission to start developing and building the jet.
If launched, the program would bring billions of dollars of business to suppliers of aircraft parts. In March, Boeing chose General Electric to develop the engines, renewing their exclusive partnership on the most recent 777s.
The 777X is a planned successor to the industry's most popular large twin-engined aircraft seating more than 300 passengers. The original 777 was introduced in 1995 and is the last new plane Boeing developed before the 787. Its most popular version is the more recent 777-300ER.
The 777X would compete from around the turn of the decade with the Airbus A350-1000 to carve up a potential market of at least 2,000 aircraft worth about $500 billion over 20 years.
The cost of the 777X development has not been disclosed but after industrial delays followed by a grounding of its 787 Dreamliner, Boeing will hope that upgrading a familiar jet costs significantly less than the $15 billion for an all-new aircraft.
"Boeing has been waiting to see what happened with the A350-1000, and the BA order clearly swung their decision," said Agency Partners analyst Nick Cunningham in London.
"It could be an awesome competitor, given the success of 777-300ER, but I suspect it will end up having most of the cost and risk of a complete new program."
Emirates, which runs the biggest fleet of 777s, is among those clamoring for the cost-saving 777X as early as possible.
Airbus says that its carbon-composite A350 is lighter and cheaper to run than the 777X, which will keep a metallic body. Boeing is expected to argue that an all-new wing and new engine will make the 400-seat 777X cheaper to operate per seat.
Industry sources say that Boeing has been offering the plane informally for months, while fine-tuning the design with focus groups of airlines and lessors. It has also been offering a stretched version of its 787 Dreamliner after a similar but unannounced board decision taken late last year, they added.
HEAD TO HEAD
Until this week Boeing had held off granting the formal "authority to offer" the 777X as it juggles the looming threat from Airbus with the need to avoid undermining the value of a large order backlog of existing 777s.
Now that the 777X is being offered to customers, the next move could begin within 12 months, making the end-of-decade timetable feasible, analysts said.
Timed to dominate discussion at the June 17-21 Paris air show, Boeing's decision allows the 777X to go head to head with the A350-1000 in contests at big hitters such as Japan Airlines or Gulf carriers led by Dubai-based Emirates.
After losing to Airbus on part of British Airways' fleet renewal plans, industry sources say that Boeing is already in informal talks to persuade the European airline to place a parallel order for the main model, the 777-9X.
The 777-9X would have about 406 seats and a range of more than 8,100 nautical miles, aiming to leapfrog the 350-seat A350-1000, two sources briefed on Boeing's plans said.
It would have a new carbon-composite wing and folding wing tips to increase wing span without needing more parking space, which would incur additional airport fees. Boeing also is thought to be considering a smaller, longer-range 777-8X.
The head of Qatar Airways said on Wednesday that he would be "very interested" in both models.

    Now here is some information on  the 777X that I found compliments of Flight Global

Even as its 1000th 777 rolled off the line on Friday 2 March, Boeing was working on its blueprints for the next generation of its hugely successful twinjet.
The airframer is now advancing towards a probable late-2012 launch of a conceptual 777X family that the company's internal assessments tout as the most efficient commercial aircraft ever developed.
Boeing spent 2010 and 2011 honing its concept for the three-member 777X-family aircraft as a competitive response to the larger Airbus A350-900 and -1000. Boeing envisages the concept's firm configuration being established in 2015, flying in late 2017 or 2018 and entering service by 2019.
"We're working towards being in a position toward the end of this year to talk to our board. That's assuming the business case closes, that's assuming the technical trades are ones that close," says Boeing Commercial Airplanes chief executive Jim Albaugh.
When its hand was forced by American Airlines's narrowbody order in July 2011, Boeing scrambled to revive its 737 re-engining study as a formal programme. Although at the time its basic features were well understood by the airframer, much of the sharpening of the 737 Max's configuration and performance has come after its unveiling, rather than prior to its launch.
While the industry's attention in 2011 was focused on its plans for the single-aisle segment, Boeing was beavering away on the 777's successor. Its concept for the stretched 777-9X, -8X, and a distantly conceived ultra-long-range -8LX, is now at a significantly advanced point, including completion of a first round of wind tunnel testing, say those familiar with the planning.
"We always work with customers on future 777 improvements and what we can do to remain the market leader. We have been working hard on developing options to improve on the 777's popularity and we feel very comfortable with where we are in that process," says Boeing, declining to confirm details of its 777X concept.
Looking to further bolster its dominance in the widebody segment, if Boeing's conceptual jet is made real the airframer will have entirely reshaped its widebody portfolio. It also has the potential to make the 777 the first twin-aisle programme to reach 2,000 deliveries.
Emirates, which today operates more than one in every 10 777s built, calls the concept "an excellent aircraft", says Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, the airline's chairman, who was briefed on Boeing's latest designs on 3 March.
The steps Boeing took to get to its first 1,000 deliveries, an incremental approach that updated the 777 from the earliest A-market -200, -300 and long-range -200ER to the re-engined GE90-powered -300ER, -200LR and Freighter are again at play, but a more significant jump on the -8X and -9X appears to be in the offing.
Currently, Boeing conceptualises a three-product family that stretches the fuselage of the 777-200ER and -300ER to establish two new three-class 353- and 407-seat aircraft, becoming the 777-8X and -9X.
The redefinition of its widebody line will place roughly 15% breaks in seat counts from the 242-seat 787-8 all the way to the 467-seat 747-8I, with five 8,000nm (14,800km) aircraft, while its high-capacity 12,400km (6,700nm) 787-10X and ultra-long-range 777-8LX would offer range flexibility between 323 and 353 seats, respectively.
If launched under its current conceptual specifications, say those familiar with the details, the 777-9X would yield a 21% improvement in per-seat fuel burn and a 16% improvement a cash operating cost per-seat over today's 777-300ER.
Such jumps in efficiency are more usually reserved for clean sheet aircraft, and simply put, the long-range twin would be Boeing's most efficient jetliner ever developed, even exceeding the conceptual performance of its 787-9 and -10X.
The 407-passenger, 76.48m (250ft 11in) long 777-9X, a four-frame stretch of the 777-300ER, would likely lead the new family. It would be powered by two General Electric GE9X engines, each providing 99,500lb of thrust, and have a maximum take-off weight (MTOW) of 344t (759,000lb).
The smaller 353-seat, 69.55m 777-8X, a ten-frame stretch of the 777-200ER, would follow the -9X with a significantly derated 88,000lb GE9X engine and 315t MTOW. It would be a direct competitor to the A350-900 and promises similar cash and fuel economics improvements over its -200ER predecessor as the -9X will over the -300ER.
A possible third family member sharing the 777-8X's fuselage length, would create the 777-8LX, an ultra-long-range shrink of the 777-9X with common MTOW, providing a mission range of 9,480nm, 85nm longer than the 9,395nm offered by the 777-200LR it would replace.
The reduced fuel burn and extended range may, for the first time, open the prospect of profitably operating flights between Sydney and London, without the requirement for a kangaroo stop in Southeast Asia.
Aerodynamically, a reshaped wing-to-body fairing could be available on today's 777 and carried over to the 777X. Additionally, a hybrid laminar flow control system to reduce drag, first developed for the 787-9, is also being studied for the new family, along with 127cm (50in) extensions on the composite horizontal stabiliser.
Under the skin of the new 777X family, which is likely to be advanced aluminum-lithium alloy, Boeing's concept envisages maintaining a 60% systems commonality with today's 777 offering, moving to a 38.3cm flight deck display arrangement similar to that of the 787. The aim, say those familiar with the planning, is to cut the 777/787 to 777X pilot transition time from five to 2.5 days.
In the cabin, Boeing looks to remove 4in from the 777X by carving the sidewall and frame shape, accommodating a more comfortable 10-abreast economy arrangement and nine-abreast premium economy offering.
Yet, those familiar with the planning caution that concepts are meant to evolve, and point out that just a year ago Boeing's New Small Airplane concept was the frontrunner to replace the 737, rather than re-engining.
"Coming off a record orders year for the 777 and an overall backlog extending beyond 2015, we have time to make the right product decisions aligned with technologies and the best timing for our customers," says Boeing.