Neither a grumble or glory, just a fyi.
Free Dc is down approx. 24 hours due to migration to datacenter.

https://youtu.be/5FWoorI9hqA
It looked very much like the break was oxidized already, but that can't be, as they should've found that at the big maintenance that plane went through a month before. But even this, the hairline fractures should've been found.

A simple NDT on that bracket and they'd have found the crack in the rear part of the bracket, not too sure about the front part - the cracks were nicely aligned. However what isn't so clear is how much of that bracket is hidden inside the wing part, if well cocooned then it might not be possible without some substantial work - and if that work was required why the "£$%^&*( wasn't it done.

In reply to robsmith's message of 21 Nov 2025:

A simple NDT on that bracket and they'd have found the crack in the rear part of the bracket, not too sure about the front part - the cracks were nicely aligned. However what isn't so clear is how much of that bracket is hidden inside the wing part, if well cocooned then it might not be possible without some substantial work - and if that work was required why the "£$%^&*( wasn't it done.

AFIK all required inspections were done to schedule. Now a lazy inspector could be the case, but how do you prevent that? Otherwise we are left with incomplete understanding of the loads and stresses on the parts so the wrong sizes and materials were designed in by Douglas Aircraft. I think that is what scares Boeing, FAA and NTSB into the total grounding of the fleet. They may never fly again.

What sucks is many of the DC-10's are now fire fighting aircraft and it will take a miracle to replace them, especially when the administration wants to rake the forest and hurt western states.

Lol it's been broken a lot longer than that. IMHO it been consistently borked since they introduced Winblows 10.
Microsoft admits that Windows 11 has been broken since July and has only now acknowledged the problem

Let’s face it, Windows 11 is a mess. It was only this month that Microsoft fixed Windows 10/11’s decade-old “Update and Shutdown” bug. This week, Nvidia has been forced to release a driver hotfix to address Windows 11 performance regressions in gaming. Now, Microsoft has confirmed that several core Windows 11 features are broken, and they have been since July.

Just what i didn't need- a weekend cyclone.

With Cyclone Fina now a category three system, what does that actually mean?

The BOM classifies tropical cyclone categories based on maximum mean wind speed.
Here's how the bureau describes category three:

Very destructive winds. Some roof and structural damage. Some caravans destroyed. Significant damage to crops and trees. Power failures likely.
Maximum mean wind speed of 118–159 km/h.
Typical strongest gust of 165–224 km/h.

It's been raining continuously for the last 6 hours, and the winds are 30km/h with 50km/h gusts.

At this stage it's forecast to pass by to the north of us, but 8-10 hours of gale force winds, with a few hours of 110kmh+ winds and gusts over 130km/h, it's going to be a long, long Saturday- especially once the power goes down (with winds like those, there's no change of it not going down...).
By sunrise Sunday it should be mostly over.

At least it gives me a legitimate reason not to mow the lawns today.

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Grant
Darwin NT.

Good luck, Grant and keep safe.

Thanks.
I've pulled down the shade cloth from over the car, motor bikes are parked up under the veranda along with the rubbish bins.
Managed to get this weeks' washing done and dried.
Kindle and laptop are charged up.

Now we just sit and wait.

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Grant
Darwin NT.

Well, wonder of wonders, i didn't lose power last night (although there are hundreds of reported outages). Lots of mobile phone/data issues due to loss of power (even with generator backup, they're usually only good for a few hours).

Early reports are lots of trees down, not much in the way of structural damage that doesn't involve trees, and the only damage i've found at my place so far is a metal panel blew out of my back fence.

The wind is now around 40km/h, gusts to 60km/h. Still the chance of squalls with gusts to 80km/h+, but the rain has pretty much stopped.
So the linesmen should be out and about assessing the damage and then make a start on fixing things up.





We really did get off extremely lightly, considering what could have happened IMHO.
As it is, it's expected to crank up to a Category 4 later today as it makes it's way west.

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Grant
Darwin NT.