Airbus A380 Fleet Should Be Grounded, Say Engineers

[roamer]

Aircraft engineers in Australia have called for the entire worldwide fleet of Airbus A-380 super-jumbos to be grounded after cracks were found in some wings.

The faults were discovered in planes operated by Qantas Airways and Singapore Airlines.

Airbus say they have found the cause of the problem and insist the planes are safe, as Tim Allman reports.

http://www.bbc.co.uk...siness-16452878

Edited January 7, 2012 by roamer

[WilliaminBKK]

Let's hope they repair TG's before delivery.

I would have liked to hear what LH has to say on the matter, I trust their opinion over QF.

[rakman]

At least one of Singapore Airline's A380s along with 3 test A380s also had cracks in the aluminum wing rib feet, where the skin is attached to the ribs. The wing ribs alternate between CFRP (carbon fiber construction) and aluminum ribs. It appears to be an aluminum materials issue, AirBus has a fix for current aircraft (patches) and new productioin craft apparently will have new material ribs. AirBus also said the aircraft ribs should be inspected at their 4 year inspection period.

I guess we'll have to wait to see how this evolves.

Airliners.net and pprune.org have some nice comments on the issue.

[InterestedObserver]

Aren't those the same wings that had to be strengthened in order to pass certification testing?

[rakman]

Yes, but the primary strength is in the spars, main and secondary, and central skin area, not the ribs. The ribs form the shape of the airfoil and aren't as structurally important.

Nice video on the A380 wing making.

Very unique that AB puts a twist in the main panel. The wings are slightly different from the first few to the current production wings.

[tw25rw]

They had delays because of the complexity of the wiring.

The 787 had delays over the wing structure. They had to do some substantial rework.

[rakman]

The 787 delays were numerous for various reasons, but one delay was due to weakness in the wing/fuselage interface area, not the wing itself. The 787 wing was tested and passed to the 150% point, but was not stressed farther to failure. The A380 wing failed before the 150% point, was redesigned but not tested again to the 150% point.