Originally Posted by spotwelder

Well, at cruising altitude, they can glide for a fair distance. Most of the failures at en-route are not related to single engine failure and then another failing. They tend to be fuel, mountain, weather, volcano, getting lost, shot down, structural break-up, bomb, hijack, etc. There is one aircraft out there that used to have engine failures every 600 hours or so, but that is a four engined freight beast, so do not worry.

The real concern is over the maintenance procedures for the twins, if a mistake is made by one person on one engine and they repeat it on the second... see BMi for that one, but mind you, they did the same on a Royal Flight 146 as well. So, make different techies work on different engines and you should be ok.

There is one particular issue that may occur, but seems now to be overcome, and that was a certain airline using the same engines under the wing of 767s as its 747s. The engines would be rotated between them as the slower cruising speed of the 767 was not optimal for engine life (apparently). Also, if there was a problem with the engine on the 747, then crews were encouraged to carry on and not shut down the engine, so that it would not affect the 767 reliability statistics. That concern seems to have gone away. However, I won't say which airline, particularly on this forum.

Personally, I have no problem with transatlantic twins. I sit on the AA and BA 777s enough out of LGW. I would much rather sit on a LHR 747, purely for the cupboard space with Pucci.


They had set the outside temp to something much higher to boost the thrust hence the elevator type departure.

The high temperature setting, usually around 57 C for the outside air temperature at the airport, actually reduces the thrust.

I never jumpseated on the SF's, but believe they had more room due to door 1L being further back and not just a 'hatch' to enter the aircraft through.

Yes, a bit more room. For those in the know, you take along a collapsing chair on the flight as well and go and sit behind the cockpit with a book in the old door one galley area in the cargo catch netting void. That is where the PF carries one extra container over the SF as the cargo net catches the containers, not the new bulkhead.

Happy landings, back to a 747-EMB135 interface issue. The barbie jet lost. I guess it could be "Tails of the unexpected".