Week of Cone’: Activist Group Is Protesting Driverless Cars by Disabling Them With Traffic Cones
https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvjv48/week-of-cone-activist-group-is-protesting-driverless-cars-by-disabling-them-with-traffic-cones

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Woops. That buggered the holidays.

A P&O cruise ship packed with holiday-makers has collided with an oil tanker while being battered by a storm, leaving some on-board injured.

A P&O cruise ship has collided with an oil tanker off the coast of Spain, injuring some passengers on-board.

There were thousands of cruisegoers on-board the Britannia, the flagship of the P&O fleet when it was battered by a storm off the coast of Palma de Mallorca on Sunday.

Footage posted onto social media shows the ship swaying in the gale force winds and breaking free after the mooring holding it snapped. The ship was then blown by the winds towards the other vessel.

Some cruisegoers were injured by falls, or flying debris.

There has been 120km/h winds and torrential rains in Mallorca, with an amber weather alert in place across the island on Sunday......

A lifeboat was damaged beyond immediate repair in the collision, and that reduced the legal carrying capacity of the cruise ship. Some passengers had to be flown home.

Another flying fan thingy falls out out of sky yesterday in Florida...
A rescue helicopter crashed into a Florida apartment complex, killing fire captain and a resident

The three-member crew was heading to an emergency medical rescue to take the patient to the hospital. A video posted online shows flames coming from the midsection of the helicopter as it is trailed by a long plume of smoke. The helicopter then appears to break in half as it begins to spiral, plunging to the ground. A video from another angle showed that the helicopter’s blades were not turning rapidly.

Tony said that even as the crew members were declaring a mayday to the airport’s control tower and trying to save their helicopter, they were also radioing paramedics at the medical emergency to let them know they would have to take the patient to the hospital.

Another flying fan thingy falls out out of sky yesterday in Florida...
A rescue helicopter crashed into a Florida apartment complex, killing fire captain and a resident

The three-member crew was heading to an emergency medical rescue to take the patient to the hospital. A video posted online shows flames coming from the midsection of the helicopter as it is trailed by a long plume of smoke. The helicopter then appears to break in half as it begins to spiral, plunging to the ground. A video from another angle showed that the helicopter’s blades were not turning rapidly.

Tony said that even as the crew members were declaring a mayday to the airport’s control tower and trying to save their helicopter, they were also radioing paramedics at the medical emergency to let them know they would have to take the patient to the hospital.

Juan Browne has a good report https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0nL4LYczmY Don't ignore the manual when it says "LAND IMMEDIATELY!"

Juan Browne has a good report https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0nL4LYczmY Don't ignore the manual when it says "LAND IMMEDIATELY!"

Which can be a problem if there isn't anywhere you can put down at that particular moment.

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Grant
Darwin NT

What would you do if trucks kept backing into your house? Past tenant moved out, but North Side homeowner is hoping to stay

A neighbor who has lived in the same block for decades estimates that the house has been crashed into “at least a couple of hundred times” over the past 10 years.

It's a scary thought that there are so many drivers driving, that shouldn't be. Especially so given that they are heavy vehicles.

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Grant
Darwin NT

A farmer I knew a few years back had a similar problem, and devised a typical farmer solution for the problem - a HUGE reinforced concrete block, standing s feet above the ground, and 12 feet below the ground, said block was painted to look like a feed storage bin. After the first couple of truck hit it word got around and for the next few years no other vehicle dared go near it. The fun really started when the local authority decided to realign the junction, the block won that debate!

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

Sounds similar to what a homeowner did in the neighborhood I grew up in.

One side of property lined up with a two lane main thoroughfare parallel to the wooden back yard fence where speeding cars were occasionally crashing into and tearing down part of fence. After the 3rd wrecked fence in a short time being replaced they installed 3 foot tall reinforced concrete bollards behind fence in yard. Several months later, a speeder going 40+ MPH crashed into fence and hit one of the bollards totaling car ...

Severely injured driver sued homeowners attempting recovery of $$$ for damages to car and self. Case went to trial, driver lost case and had to pay for homeowners attorney fees along with damages to property.

Unfortunately the average CDL operator should not be operating anything. It used to be somewhat rare to see trucks rolling on streets marked "NO TRUCKS" Today it is rare to not see a truck there. Too much automation in the drivers cab. GPS that picks unsuitable, but it is the shortest route, cell phones, dispatch text messages, you name it. Recently I have seen several traffic signals ripped out and every one of them was a hit and run. In a couple cases I don't even think the driver noticed he hit anything. One stopped to let a couple of cars go after it had fallen on his trailer. Scrapped 40 feet across his trailer when the traffic cleared. That's really bad.

Not saying four wheel is any better, but usually they at least know they hit something.

Then you should see them at truck stops. Makes people of WalMart look normal.

Time to require every truck to rat out the driver when they screw up.

Recently I have seen several traffic signals ripped out and every one of them was a hit and run. In a couple cases I don't even think the driver noticed he hit anything.

In most cases, that's down to the driver unaware of the road & his vehicle.
However there are occasions when that is not the case.I can recall a double incident many years ago that I now find hilarious.
The City Council didn't & even went as far as threatening legal action if I didn't pay for the damages.Drove up to the address we were delivering to.
Did delivery with no problem. Drove off heading to the next drop.
Road was wide enough but led to a dead end.
There was a nice road on the right ( another dead end), so reversed down it so I could turn around.
No pavements (sidewalks) just grass verge on both sides.
Unfortunately, there was a street name sign low down held by 2 chains on 2 small bollards diagonally located.
On pulling forward after reversing, rear tail bar got caught on one of the chains, which led to that sign going for a little drive. :-)
But that was not the problem what was is this: apparently, I smashed the street lamp & was only made aware of this some months later.
As far as I knew then as now is that street lamps in the UK are between 5 & 12m high.
That lamp as well as the others on that road were 3.6m high (approx 11.85' high).
Height of vehicle 11'3".
City council forgot to take into account the overhanging section of the lamp containng the cage & bulb.
Never did end up paying for it. :-)

Now for some light relief. :-)
ROFL

Now that brings back memories as a kid and a teenager being pulled over by cops after riding down some of the hills that we had around the area. LOL

Yes they'd give you a stern warning, but they couldn't do a thing back then. It's a totally different story these days.

Cheers.

I had fun doing that earlier this century - in my late 50s or early 60s. My village has a 20 mph (32 kph) speed limit, and is built on the side of a hill. One of the main roads out has a flashing red speed limit sign, triggered by a motion detector: easy to set off with a sturdy off-road bike.

There was another sign opposite the pub: for a while, it showed your actual speed as you approached it. I had visions of a 'high score' board in the pub games room...

I had fun doing that earlier this century - in my late 50s or early 60s. My village has a 20 mph (32 kph) speed limit, and is built on the side of a hill. One of the main roads out has a flashing red speed limit sign, triggered by a motion detector: easy to set off with a sturdy off-road bike.

There was another sign opposite the pub: for a while, it showed your actual speed as you approached it. I had visions of a 'high score' board in the pub games room...

Well, someone did put a high score sign under a "your speed is" sign near my abode. Someone else took offense. After that the sign no longer gives the speed if you are more than 9 over, it just says slow down.

The UK AAIB (Air Accident Investigation Branch) has released its report into the fatal crash of a helicopter in Leicester.
First a link to the report itself, well the page where you get the whole report - it's big....
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/aaib-formal-report-leonardo-aw169-g-vskp-fatal-accident-at-king-power-stadium-leicester-on-27-october-2018

An animation outlining what happened:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFocqR563Bk

There's a whole lot more on the AAIB's website, but that should do for starters.

It's interesting to read that the AAIB has placed some actions on EASA (the pan-Europe air certification body) as well as the manufacturer of the helicopter.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

Thanks for that.


So:

The investigation found the following contributory factors for this accident:

• The load survey flight test results were not shared by the helicopter manufacturer with the bearing manufacturer in order to validate the original analysis of the theoretical load spectrum and assess the continued suitability of the bearing for this application, nor were they required to be by the regulatory requirements and guidance.
  
  
• There were no design or test requirements in Certification Specification 29 which explicitly addressed rolling contact fatigue in bearings identified as critical parts; while the certification testing of the duplex bearing met the airworthiness authority’s acceptable means of compliance, it was not sufficiently representative of operational demands to identify the failure mode.
  
  
• The manufacturer of the helicopter did not implement a routine inspection requirement for critical part bearings removed from service to review their condition against original design and certification assumptions, nor were they required to by the regulatory requirements and guidance.
  
  
• Although the failure of the duplex bearing was classified as catastrophic in the certification failure analysis, the various failure sequences and possible risk reduction and mitigation measures within the wider tail rotor control system were not fully considered in the certification process; the regulatory guidance stated that this was not required.
  

That was a deadly failure that was waiting to happen...

Sounds like the pilot did everything he possibly could right up to the last moment...


Fly safe?
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

From the BBC report.

The wear on the rotor bearing was also found to have built up over a period of time and could not have been predicted, according to the inspectors.
Examination of the bearing was only required once it had been used for 400 hours, but the helicopter had only been flown for 331 hours when the crash occurred.
One of the "contributory factors" was that regulations do not require maintenance checks to review the condition of used bearings against their original design, the AAIB said.

i know hindsight is often mentioned in many incidents, but who sets the requirements for certification?
Would the issue still have been detected had it been 300 hours instead of 400?

i know hindsight is often mentioned in many incidents, but who sets the requirements for certification?

In this case it was EASA who set the rules, and approved the maintenance schedule. This being done by reviewing the documentation for the aircraft, both in whole and its constituent parts. This documentation includes "life time testing", and "operational stress life testing" - in the case of bearings the former is quite easy to perform, but the latter is a lot more difficult.

Would the issue still have been detected had it been 300 hours instead of 400?

Your second question is not so easy to answer, as, particularly with helicopters, but true of just about every mechanical means of transport, it depends on the duty cycle history. For example 400 hours may be a gross under estimate of the life when used in a helicopter that is used for long "straight" flights in calm winds, but for one that does lots of short hops with lots of twisting and turning in gusty wind conditions the "true" life may only be 200 hours.

{edit to add} You do ask some very good questions, and those were two that many wouldn't even think about - great questions :-)

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

Thanks for the explanations.

{edit to add} You do ask some very good questions, and those were two that many wouldn't even think about - great questions :-)

Thanks again.
After spending all that time in logistics, I've seen much, not all of it nice.
I gained a CPC long before it became a "thing" for drivers.
It was a requirement if one wanted to enter management in the transport industry.
It was also a requirement for transport companies that at least one of their managers held a CPC as it was a requirement for a company to hold an Operators License.
I ended up as a transport manager, but only lasted 10.5 months before I resigned.
Couldn't handle the B/S or office politics.
Ah getting out of the depot every day & being your own boss, poodling along at your own pace (to a degree), getting back, parking up & going home.
What fun. :-)

Oh & the fun having a go at managers about taking an un-roadworthy vehicle on the road.
These days...
...with any form of transport...