"Nele_VII" wrote:

Gentlemen,

To paraphrase on of Sir Murphy's Laws,
"If it should break, it will break. If it shouldn't break, it will break".

I am just an armchair aviator, but I've seen a car (same manufacturer, but
from 1993) with broken bottom ball bearing on right wheel. (my car is 1974'
vintage, BTW 8-). The driver said 'it's that bl**dy hole in the middle of
the road, and I was doing 50Kmph". Since he was already aside, I turned my
wreck, pardon, my car, ))) and performed run over the hole... at 60KmPh.
Just a "bump", nothing happened. He just told me with a sore smile "don't
tell this to my insurance".

BTW, cars had the identical suspension/wheel mounting (Russian Lada, my
model 2101, his 2107). Both had original parts, bar mine that had steereng
rods (not bearings) changed in 1982...

S*it happens, that's it.

With such a lackadaisical attitude towards safety as that, little
wonder "**** happens" so much more frequently in Russia than it
does elsewhere in the industrialized world. The goal is to try and
reduce the amount of "**** happening."

Based on what you just wrote, it appears that your homeland is
Russia -- where manufactured products are produced under
less stringent QC (quality control) programs compared to the
QC programs found in the US, UK, France, etc. which ensure that
EVERY unit conforms with the approved design. The keyword
here is "consistency."

Aircraft especially must *consistently* conform to a higher standard
because obviously you can't merely just pull off to the side of the
road and call for help should something break in the air.

To use if your "pothole" analogy, if you happen to hit a pothole in
the sky (e.g: severe turbulence) and your wing fails catastrophically
in midair, you better have jam in your pockets because your ass is
toast.

The following recent tragedy indicates just how poor and INconsistent
the Russians are with regards to quality control. Aeros, a Russian
company that manufactures flexwings primarily for recreational use,
were buying anodized tubing from Antonov Design Bureau stock.

One year ago an experienced American flexwing pilot named Bert
Breitung was flying an Aeros wing when the left leading edge tube
failed during an approach to landing and rolled the craft inverted
causing Bert to auger straight in killing him instantly.

An American metallurgist subsequently inspected the damaged
tube from the fatal crash and found a crack in the wing leading edge
tube. The wing had been manufactured in September 1999
and had only 30 hrs. on it.

Even worse, after word of this fatal accident got out it was later
determined that he tubing that they were getting from Antonov had too
many scratches and flaws for it to look good anodized only so the
Ruskies were simply covering up the defects by also painting the
tubes!

Sleazy, unethical and potentially deadly practices such as the example
above are virtually unheard of here in the U.S. and rarely, if ever,
does a critical component such as a wing leading edge tube fail.

Which brings me back to the topic of the ALLEGED catastrophic failure
of F-4 ECM pods in combat over Vietnam. Had such incidents actually
occurred, rest assurred that the facts as to precisely WHY the pods
ripped away from the airplane would be widely known by the thousands
of dedicated professionals in the F-4 community whom were intimately
involved with flying and fixing the multi-million dollar jet.

-Mike Marron
CFII, A&P, UFI (fixed wing, weightshift, land & sea)