Classic British Flight Sim

Hi Chaps..

A picture spells a thousand words and I've been sent a few (2 of which I'm posting) which show what happened to an AA MD-83 last weekend at DFW. She'd gone in for maint.. part of which was to check for corrosion.




As soon as weight went onto the rear jack position, it became evident just how corroded the old girl was.. in that area at least! Glad I don't have to fly on one!

ATB
DaveB

Coming soon to a beer can factory near you. Can you imagine the awful noise that was made when the jack punched through the skin?

Brian

I certainly can imagine it ...would have sounded just like the sound a jack makes when it punches through the skin of an MD-83

Yes...that's not going anywhere now

Why was it so Tail heavy?

On the plus side it looks as though it hasn't flown since 2007

Garry Russell wrote: Why was it so Tail heavy?

Because Garry, that's what happens to (as Dave put it) "old girls". ...Thier tail's get heavy.

I think the kids today call it "junk in the trunk"

I think it's because the jacks under the wings slid forward when the jack under the tail punched through the skin. I hope that makes sense.

Brian

Hi Brian

Yes that does, the tail drops a bit and it slides into unbalance

If that is corrosion I wonder about the rest of the fleet?

Maybe it was just a jacking error which might account more for the slip

Thanks for that Garry.

On the plus side it looks as though it hasn't flown since 2007

Well it was out and about in April http://www.airliners.net/photo/American ... 2097244/M/

And I think SAS are the only airline still regularly flying the MD series into the UK - used on both the LHR and MAN flights alongside the B737.

I have my doubts about corrosion. I suspect it's more likely a badly/incorrectly placed jack or forgotten weight that overloaded the jack pad. We had a 727 at Denver do this when someone forgot to unload the aft lav and galley. Everything seemed fine for a little while, then all of a sudden (about 3 feet in the air) the jack pad failed and the plane came crashing down. As with any tail-engined aircraft, they are pretty tail heavy even when empty, so the jacks don't have to necessarily slide for the plane to sit on its tail. I saved a few 727 tail sits during my fueling days because someone forgot to secure the tail stand or tail stairs and catching the plane starting to tip before it went all the way back and either stuffing a bunch of fuel in the center tank to bring it back forward or getting back and securing the tail.

I still like the way that FedEx secures the planes. They not only use a tail stand to help keep the plane off its rear, they also strap the nose gear down. They've never had one go "tail low" when using that procedure.