Re: AA flight 587: Bikefanclub.com

Thanks, MightySkunk.

Perhaps the NTSB and airplane designers where a bit "aggressive" in their weight (and thus fuel cost) saving methods. As eluded to in their report, much is still being learned about composites as well as metals. Unfortunately, their education and knowledge of these new material can have a high cost...

The only CF failure that allowed the user to "limp" home that comes to my mind was last year's Tour de France. As you may recall, Mayo rode over Armstrong's drive side chain stay cracking it. Of course the break wasn't discovered until after the stage, but after the crash, Armstrong was having difficulties with his bike and managed to ride smoothly enough to not exacerbate the problem. LOL, whether his finish that day could be called "limping home" is subject to debate.

F1 cars by their very nature are minimalist in design. I think (and I'm sure most agree) that by "pushing the envelope", frequent failures will occur. The problem is that the failures when using CF are much more spectacular since there is little warning, and cascading is rapid.

I don't follow F1 (or ski racing) and you seem to have some insight. So perhaps you could help confirm something I read a long time ago. In the early days of F1 and CF usage, the designers were wise enough to know they didn't know enough. They incorporated fiber optics into the components they built with the thought that the fragile glass fiber would break long before total failure. After a race/test, they would shoot a light into one end of the fiber optic and if they got light out of the other end, that meant the glass wasn't broken and thus the part in question wasn't over stressed. They would keep reducing material (minimalist) until the part wouldn't function as required or the glass broke, then build back up from there.

If this use of fiber optics is correct, I often wondered why it wasn't used in critical applications like tail assemblies in airplanes and forks on bicycles. Yes there is additional cost and bike forks may not warrant it since it would be much easier to just overbuild and have a higher safety margin. But in the airplane app, they fiber optic would greatly simplify maintenance and inspection.

I don't think you are drawing false comfort. You've had at least 5 experiences with catastrophic CF failure. That would make me gun shy. In fact, if we were to judge by your experiences alone, then I'd have to say the rest of us have a deluded sense of security! However, I do have faith in the engineers and designers of airplanes. I'm sure that if and when they conclude that some part needs to be fixed or rebuilt properly, it'll be done. Naive?? perhaps. But I have over one million air miles and am still alive... I know Calfee doesn't have the R&D resources to test frames like I'm sure he'd want, but overbuilding is one way to fix that. The gussets on his frames may be the key.

I hope you have a change of heart one of these days and buy a Calfee. Then you may feel more at home in this forum. Actually, I guess you do feel at home with 46 posts! It rather amazes me that you'd spend that much time in a forum for a product you don't own. There aren't enough hours in the day for me to do that.

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Skuke
95 Carbonframes Tetra Pro
92 Bridgestone MB-1
90 Moser 51.151

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