Rare and sudden failure

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Levkovvvv
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Rare and sudden failure

Post by Levkovvvv »

So I am on my way from Prestwick to Bordeaux yesterday, the weather was rather crappy with strong turbulence during takeoff and climb, then I had about an hour of smooth sailing, and the turbulence started again. After about 15 minutes, shaking got seriously worse, and I could see the #2 MP needle start to go down. I have vfe off all the time (I like flipping switches :P ) and I hear the FE say "we need to reduce power so I hop over to the engineers seat, #2 oil pressure is near low but above red line, mp is low, and everything else seems ok. I try reducing power on #2, and the vibrations reduce significantly, I try bringing the power back up, the plane starts shaking again. So I feather #2, go through the shutdown checklist, and start my descent. Landed at the nearest airport on the descent route, about 100 nm short of Bordeaux. Maintenance hangar said #2 suffered rare and sudden failure, and career log said that company doesn't blame me for it.

It was an interesting experience, and I am wondering, did I do the right thing? I had 3 spinning, I could have made my destination easily, should I have continued or diverted to nearest? I know today, the procedure would be to divert, but how was the situation in the 1950s? :D
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cflord
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Re: Rare and sudden failure

Post by cflord »

You did the right thing! With the other 3 engines running just fine there is no reason to have kept that engine running (unless there was a greater emergency going on; which there wasn't). You could of opened yourself up to a greater catastrophic failure and possibly an engine fire had you kept it running and it came apart. As a crewmember, over the years I have had many single engine shutdowns (on 4 engine airplanes) and we shut them all down. Multi engine airplanes are designed to fly and land with various engines out. On some airplanes, shutting down an inboard engine is no big deal aerodynamically and it's hard to tell that you even lost an engine, especially on a cool day when there is lots of power available from the other 3 engines. Anyway, I hope the engine loss was a good learning experience for you.

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Levkovvvv
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Re: Rare and sudden failure

Post by Levkovvvv »

This was the first major failure so far, and it was an interesting experience, but my question wasn't weather or not to shutdown the faulty #2, but weather or not to divert, since I wasn't that far away from original destination, and I was over land, so plenty of landing opportunity if something else happened. :D I mean, people did some fairly weird things with planes back in the day, and it was considered acceptable, such as that story about removing an engine all together and flying the plane in for repairs :D
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Scott - A2A
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Re: Rare and sudden failure

Post by Scott - A2A »

If you have a major failure, like engine trouble, you should pick the closest suitable airport to land at. Based on the reaction from the airline, they backed up your choice. If you needlessly pressed on with a bad engine, that would have not been a wise choice unless of course, you were over water.

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trisho0
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Re: Rare and sudden failure

Post by trisho0 »

I have the A2A L-049 with the last update applied and stared with Cold and Dark in FSX (SP2). With all engines running I did take-off and after 2 minutes all 4 engines started flaming burning with lot of smoke. The plane went down to crash. Any thoughts?

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Ron Attwood
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Re: Rare and sudden failure

Post by Ron Attwood »

trisho0 wrote: 28 Mar 2020, 18:15 I have the A2A L-049 with the last update applied and stared with Cold and Dark in FSX (SP2). With all engines running I did take-off and after 2 minutes all 4 engines started flaming burning with lot of smoke. The plane went down to crash. Any thoughts?
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trisho0
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Re: Rare and sudden failure

Post by trisho0 »

Ron Attwood wrote: 28 Mar 2020, 18:50
trisho0 wrote: 28 Mar 2020, 18:15 I have the A2A L-049 with the last update applied and stared with Cold and Dark in FSX (SP2). With all engines running I did take-off and after 2 minutes all 4 engines started flaming burning with lot of smoke. The plane went down to crash. Any thoughts?
So many. But you wouldn't want to hear them. :D
It would be nice to find a Tutorial PDF not from Youtube. Any link to find a Tutorial manual?

AviationAtWar
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Re: Rare and sudden failure

Post by AviationAtWar »

You can find the Constellation manual by clicking your start menu, find A2A then locate the Connie manual.
If all four engines were on fire then I would suspect overheating. You may not have had the flight engineer active and the cowl flaps were closed?

trisho0
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Re: Rare and sudden failure

Post by trisho0 »

AviationAtWar wrote: 28 Mar 2020, 19:17 You can find the Constellation manual by clicking your start menu, find A2A then locate the Connie manual.
If all four engines were on fire then I would suspect overheating. You may not have had the flight engineer active and the cowl flaps were closed?
Those manuals for FSX and P3D I have them. They are not Tutorials. I am looking for Tutorial like PMDG did. Does exist that?

alan CXA651
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Re: Rare and sudden failure

Post by alan CXA651 »

Hi trisho0.
The A2A manuals , have power settings , for different phases of flight , i suspect you went beyond the max power , remember there are 2 power setting gauges on the engineers panel , RPM and BMP , the BMP sometimes reaches max before the RPM and sometimes its the otherway round , this is dependant on weather and altitude , also another thing you might have done is allow the prop to drive the engine by miss managing the MP/RPM , all the info is in the manual , it is heavy reading , A2A intro video explains the BMP/RPM the BMP is only on the engineers panel .
videos can be found in the FSX/P3D store purchase page when you click on the connie ,there is a load of pics and one video.
regards alan. 8)
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trisho0
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Re: Rare and sudden failure

Post by trisho0 »

alan CXA651 wrote: 29 Mar 2020, 00:56 Hi trisho0.
The A2A manuals , have power settings , for different phases of flight , i suspect you went beyond the max power , remember there are 2 power setting gauges on the engineers panel , RPM and BMP , the BMP sometimes reaches max before the RPM and sometimes its the otherway round , this is dependant on weather and altitude , also another thing you might have done is allow the prop to drive the engine by miss managing the MP/RPM , all the info is in the manual , it is heavy reading , A2A intro video explains the BMP/RPM the BMP is only on the engineers panel .
videos can be found in the FSX/P3D store purchase page when you click on the connie ,there is a load of pics and one video.
regards alan. 8)
Many thanks, I will take a look at videos and back to the manual again. But still, it would be nice to find tutorial in PDF teaching step by step. The manual doesn't look as a tutorial.

alan CXA651
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Re: Rare and sudden failure

Post by alan CXA651 »

Hi trisho0.
The manual is based on a later connie than the 049 so dont get confused if a piece of equipment cannot be found , its not meant as a tutorial , as airlines assumed you knew something about the aircraft , its more of a familiararity layout manual , the connie is hard to master , but once you do its a joy to fly .
If you are in career mode and you get a crying baby , it is an indication that you are climbing/decending to quick , and pressurisation is begining to be painful for the pax , you will be punished by the airline if you fly the connie to harshly .
regards alan. 8)
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