blandy

I think we agree on the problem. My concern is based around a question, which is “can you confidently give me an example of any government regulator that’s done or is doing a good job?”

Arsenal's at 4:30 on Sunday 14th. The Bournemouth game, though you're right, it's gonna be on the 21st, not 20th, because we play Lille on the Thursday before, so Bournemouth fans can't arrange their travel, perhaps. It'll be a 2pm kick off, I'd imagine, but they should have set it out by now. It's not on telly. Yes that kind of disregard for fans is galling and wrong. Personally I'm not at all in favour of a government regulator, I think it's a really bad idea. Yes there's a problem. No the solution is not a government regulator, IMO.

My experience is military aircraft manufacturing not civil, but anyway I’m unaware of the fitting of bolts being monitored in the way you describe for whole aircraft. I don’t think in this case incorrect torque specification, or component failure, or incorrect or inadequate bolt specification or quality is (from what we know) a credible cause of the door failure. If the parts had failed, given this incident occurred months ago, there would have been aircraft grounded until the bolts in all of them had been replaced. For a few years (admittedly a long while ago now) I ran a team whose whole job was monitoring and investigating all failures (including human error) across several different aircraft build programmes, mainly Typhoon, and for all sorts of reasons this one absolutely shouts “human error” ( based on available reporting and the absence of any mention of component failure). If it had been component related a whole ton of stuff would have happened by now and been reported, given the scrutiny on Boeing following the crashes.

I disagree. Sunderland (when they were decent) and Spurs new grounds are much better for atmosphere than their old grounds. Bolton no change, Arsenal no change, Man City no change at worst. In terms of Villa and any new ground, I’d imagine that like with the Spurs ground, design for good acoustics would be part of the plan.

That van’s a Commer isn’t it?

The process, whether controlled by systems or by humans is essentially the same. If someone inputs that they have done the task and then a supervisor inputs that they have checked, the system says “ok”. In terms of FMECA/FMEA and supporting FTA and hazard analysis it would (in aerospace) be something like this: A top level catastrophic hazard of “loss of structural integrity”. Below that, all possible contributing hazards, from bird strikes, to fatigue, to engine break up and debris penetrating the structure, and (for doors and panels) failure or loss of fastenings. In terms of this door panel it was (or should have been) held in place by 4 bolts, plus n rivets. Failure/loss of (say) 1 bolt would have been determined at the design stage not to cause loss of the door, maybe also 2 bolts, ditto, so the engineering and design mandates 4 bolts to make the hazard of loss of door ALARP. In addition, build/ maintenance processes would clearly require the 4 bolts to be fitted correctly and to be of the required quality and integrity and strength. Boeing’s license to build and certify aircraft, as granted by the FAA, would be predicated on production processes which would include SQEP fitters, inspectors, QC, QA etc and build instructions and records being clear, correct and unambiguous. Tool control, parts control…all kinds. Those are and were almost certainly all in place. The difficulty arises because 2 people (at least) failed to do what they were required to do, and very possibly more than two people. We don’t know why they didn’t. That’s what needs resolving. Its likely that part of the reason they didn’t is the too linked/non independent oversight of Boeing which the FAA is supposed to have, but which US Politics has at best allowed to wither and at worst has actively enabled/ encouraged in the name of US Corporate interest. This has led to Boeing becoming lax in managing safety, as recent incidents have shown. So on one level it’s a US Government creeping failure and on another it’s disgruntled/ tired / rushed technicians failing to do their job. It’s not a pattern failure like defective batch of bolts, it’s not a design or engineering failure, like specifying low quality components or not requiring enough bolts to hold the panel in place. It’s a manufacturing/ maintenance failure caused by willful or accidental personnel (fitter) error, compounded by a second personnel error (inspection).

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It was a repair wasn’t it? But whichever, it’s rule number one that safety is paramount. A fitter didn’t fit the bolts, an inspector didn’t check and nothing was picked up by QC. That’s an appalling process failure and human failure. I didn’t fit the bolts because I was in a rush + I didn’t check the bolts were fitted because of time pressure. It’s not excusable. Management might be awful, but there’s just no excuse.

We're too far off topic to take this further, I think. But I would suggest it is unlikely (though not impossible) to be as you postulate. I'd be happy to say why, but it's not for here. What is relevant to the US politics thread is the relationship between Boeing and the FAA, which over time US political decision making has been brought far too close, such that Boeing does too much self policing, rather than be regulated and overseen by a truly independent FAA. It's part of what I was getting at earlier when talking about the US Gov't sees it as a national soft tool to prioritise large US companies such as Boeing against real and potential international rivals - to use Boeing as an arm of the US state, almost, to gain influence and other benefits from Boeing having a dominant world position, and have other nations dependent upon a US large company. It's also obviously very protectionist. As a consequence of this America first type of approach, which long predates Trump's sloganeering, the US has allowed safety to be compromised and actually damaged their reputation and Boeing's. Because there are basically only (currently) 2 really large passenger aircraft manufacturers in Boeing and Airbus, and both have huge orderbooks, the commercial impact won't be as big as it perhaps deserves to be. But if China or Japan or wherever sets up a rival, then they will be in big trouble in the long term.

It’s not 100%. Typically the sequence is like this: The build instructions tell the fitter to go get a sealed bag of parts for the job from a precise location (shelf 10, pigeon hole 15). In the bag are (say) 4 M12 nuts and 4 M12 bolts. The build instructions tell the fitter to fit the 4 nuts and bolts into the 4 holes in the door panel and to use loctite type x or to torque them to x Nm, or whatever. Then when they’re done to record that they did it in a build log. The job of the (in this case) mechanical supervisor is to check the work of the fitter. Unless the fitter is a novice, it’s unlikely the supervisor will do more than visually check the bolts and nuts are fitted. They might watch the fitter do the job from next to them, or from slightly further away. Given the fitter might install hundreds of fasteners in a day there’s a degree of reliance on dip checking and just visually checking, rather than, for example physically checking the correct torque has been applied, or that loctite was used, or that the captive nuts are fully captive, or etc. as applicable. There won’t be 1:1 supervisor to fitter ratio. The supervisor will have several fitters to oversee. Then there’s QC, who start with the build log for the section of the aircraft (eg left centre fuse). They check all the paperwork has been completed, no jobs left incomplete, all are signed for by fitter and supervisor, maybe they might pick a sample panel, or actuator or whatever and go and inspect that. It’s doubtful that “tightness” is or can be checked. In real life, most aircraft fasteners are not bolts that need separate nuts, they are either bolts that go into threaded holes and use thread lock, or are (generic term) rivets. Because this was basically a door that was, we’re told, bolted shut on build, as it wasn’t wanted by the customer airline, I suppose bolts might have been the means of doing that, but the only way to totally verify its correctly tightened and thread locked is to try and turn it…which could break the thread lock. So summary, someone didn’t fit all the fasteners correctly, someone else didn’t check or didn’t spot that. Both signed to say they had done the job/they didn’t sign that they done it, but somehow QC didn’t spot an unsigned log entry in the build log and then the FAA processes which allow self regulation and certification also … TL:DR if the culture is wrong it can happen. The process is only as good as the people following it. The above is a bit of a simplified version.

I wondered what that big yellow thing in the sky was. Some people said it was this mystical “sun” thing, but now I know it’s Eurostat’s number 7 marker. Mystery solved.

Rushed, or ill trained, or careless, or tired, or slapdash, or … Weren’t in place does not seem credible. Weren’t followed seems certain. It does not suggest cost cutting, it suggests (to me) an absence of safety culture, or a workforce that is extremely disgruntled to the extent that it, or some of it, has become lax, negligent, slapdash, whatever you want to call it.

The door problem was a build quality and QC issue, absolutely. The previous issue, with the flight control computer causing sudden dives and 2 crashes. That was a design and engineering and safety analysis and corporate culture and … issue. And much much worse. Also, in aircraft manufacturing putting profits and share price before quality is a complete, day 1, absolute no no and is or should be completely obviously a false assertion anyway. There’s nothing that hits profits and reputation and share prices like crashed airliners and dead passengers and crew. To stay on topic, the US political culture of both parties has always been very protective of big American companies and always sought to use them as part of wider American policy. “Soft control and influence”, if you like. Over time Boeing, in this example, almost became part of the state and that’s an enormously dangerous thing, because that broke the model of external, independent, safety oversight.

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No. Old posts (wrongly) posted in the VP upgrade thread have been moved across to this thread, which was started just the other day, (thankfully) by @thabucks. But the thread shows posts in the order they were posted (wherever).

Government portal https://www.planningportal.co.uk/permission/common-projects/outbuildings/planning-permission from the drop-down select your local authority and follow the steps it gives. If you’re Brum, then this is the result https://www.birmingham.gov.uk/info/20090/allotments/174/allotment_rules/7 There’s more info on the link than that extract, obviously Ah, bollex, that’s for allotments, but the process and website should help

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What VT? No such thing. Never was. Just your fever dream. Snap out of it! This post will self destruct in 10 seconds.

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They’ve got some neck celebrating that!

With the election being on a Thursday, if it’s in term time, then many students will be unable to get to their home town to vote, so are better off voting where they go to uni, surely. At least they get to vote that way. Yes I know postal votes and proxy votes, but still. Obviously if the election is in half term, then the opposite applies, but they spend more time at the uni town than home town, don’t they?

It’s two things isn’t it. The second sentence, sure. The first one not necessarily why attempts are being made to remove him. He’s been charged with multiple felony counts. Not yet convicted (or found innocent) but there’s a strong argument that if convicted he should not be eligible to stand. Unfortunately the legal system is so slow with appeals and stuff, that his lawyers have managed to delay any likelihood of conviction until after the election date.

That seems the most likely way they will write the new rules, I agree. I guess clubs will try and weedle some support staff off the costs, by giving them job title roles which are, what's the word?, ambiguous or obfuscating - it'll be hard to write a list of what is and isn't "Football role" - Manager - easy, yes. First team coach - ditto. But other coaches, say for the Under 21s or youth team - what if they do coaching of both the youth and first team, or the goalkeeper coach also works with the women once a week? or if the analyst also works on the women's games... some of the costs can be hidden/excluded, no doubt. Scouts - are they looking for youth team players (excluded) and then they "just happen" to have spotted an older player...Does the video analysis team also make the odd promo video for marketing and so the club might try and say "oh, him, he does our social media video editing...so doesn't count."