"How much "pickle fork" construction knowledge do you have? "
More than you apparently. I'll say it again a bit differently, aeronautical engineers do not design aircraft with large components which are redundant.The airline spin doctors are suggesting the pickle fork cracks may safely be ignored - Oh yeah? they only support the wing and fuel tank loads - nothing to speak of really? And if you bothered to read the article I referred to there are plenty besides me who feel it's a major concern and wanted Qantas to ground their fleet and you said I was the only one?
CASA spokesperson Peter Gibson described the cracking as "a serious problem" but said there was "no evidence" to suggest Qantas's whole fleet should be grounded. So it's a serious problem but let's all ignore it?
I'm very happy for you to fly Boeing, please do so.
Reminds me a bit about the Concorde crash where the ground engineers forgot to refit an undercarriage spacer which kept the wheels in alignment. That plane was overweight, taking off with a tailwind, and already veering off the runway heading straight for another plane on the ground with the French President on board. The Captain through his misjudgement of many things on that day was forced to take off underspeed and the rest is history. But the French investigators dismissed the missing spacer claiming it had nothing to do with the eventual destruction of the aircraft and great loss of life. What a crock that was. (See John Hutchinson's account of the Concorde crash, he was a Concorde pilot for about 20 years.)
