Wright Squawks

Loss of control - training the wrong stuff?

2012-02-11T18:35:00.003+08:00

By: David Learmount

30 Jan 2012

The world's best consolidated airline pilot training courses produce, at graduation, young pilots with manual and mental flying skills that are probably as sharp as they will ever be.

But what then? The sharp young pilots will be working in today's ultra-reliable, highly automated aeroplanes, operating the same uneventful flight cycles every day - even if on different routes. Is it all downhill for their skills from that point onwards?

Line flying does not provide the on-the-job experience that flying in classic aircraft once did, so where is the stimulus going to come from to keep their skills up to scratch?

This is a question that needs answering, according to the UK Civil Aviation Authority's head of flight crew standards, David McCorquodale. So he and his team have set about researching whether degradation of crew skills is anecdotal or real, and the study is being driven by relentless evidence that quite a few crews worldwide have lost control of serviceable aircraft.

There may only have been a few such events on a global statistical scale, but they have been regular, and since airline crashes of any kind are now very rare, the number of loss of control (LOC) accidents is significant within that total. There have been nine fatal LOC airline accidents since 2000, all of which were avoidable. But 1,128 people died in them.

LOC accidents were less common as a proportion of total airline mishaps 30 and more years ago, but now LOC has forced itself to the top of the CAA's "Significant Seven" aviation safety priorities list.

When pilots lose control of a serviceable aircraft, it is presumed to happen as a result of incorrect reactions to what they see - or what they think they see. As a result, the CAA has commissioned a study of what pilots monitor on the flightdeck, how they do it and how they react to what they perceive.

McCorquodale admits no-one is certain of all the factors that lead to LOC, but they suspect that the knock-on effects of high levels of automation play a part. The authority had set up the Loss of Control Task Force several years ago, which reported at the end of 2010. The new pilot monitoring study is a direct result of what the task force found.

MULTIPLE APPROACHES

Meanwhile, so as not to lose time while the monitoring study continues, training standards inspector Capt David Simmonds says all UK commercial pilots will in March receive a DVD demonstrating jet upset recovery techniques.

Understanding why pilots do what they do entails understanding how they gather their information before they make decisions, said McCorquodale: hence this "pilot monitoring research programme", which is being carried out for the CAA by consultancy ESE Associates.

McCorquodale says it is not only a matter of employing techniques such as eye-tracking to check instrument scan, but also an examination of pilot behaviour, how pilots monitor each other, what interaction the monitoring produces and whether it is effective.

The CAA has already drafted a summary of results from the first phase, which has been concerned with establishing facts. In the second and third stages, the agency will set about designing training aids - including videos - and finally an implementation plan, says McCorquodale.

The intention is to convey to pilots the facts about pilot monitoring best practice, as determined by analysis of the data extracted during the research.

Meanwhile, other issues are also under examination. The CAA accepts that pilots are not trained in the best use of automatic systems, and that the current statutory testing schedule that pilots undergo every six months during their recurrent training/checking is no longer appropriate for modern aircraft.

CAA training standards inspector Capt Andy Gaskell concedes not only that the recurrent simulator routine at airlines that have not adopted an approved alternate training qualification programme (ATQP) - most of them - is predictable for the pilots, but also that about 75% of the simulator time is spent on testing and only about 25% on training. This makes it a lost opportunity for raising standards. That balance should be reversed, he says.

There is a significant shift in the way new or revised regulations are being applied, says Gaskell, transferring to the airlines the responsibility for monitoring safety performance and for acting on the findings.

The regulators continue to exercise oversight through periodic checks, but now, with operational flight data monitoring (FDM) and safety management systems (SMSs) compulsory at airlines, the authorities will exercise their oversight differently.

Instead of inspecting directly for mistakes or omissions, they will inspect the airlines' FDM and SMSs to see if they are discovering their own mistakes and taking action to rectify them. "We are going to be digging to see what they are doing about what they find," says McCorquodale, adding wryly: "We have the data, so they can't hide."

Adopting an ATQP is seen by the CAA as an important part of the answer to improving the effectiveness of future pilot recurrent training. This is a tailored training programme that acknowledges what is unique about each airline - for example: the types it operates; the kind of flying it does (long/short haul, major hubs or regional airports, harsh/benign weather environment); and even where it hires its pilots from.

Training has to take into account the fact, for example, that an airline hires from a specific national or regional culture, or rosters a high proportion of multicultural crews. Each airline's plan for its ATQP has to be approved by the national aviation authority.

So far the CAA has approved ATQP at British Airways, EasyJet, Virgin Atlantic, Thomson Airways and Thomas Cook, but this is a relatively recent development and ATQP has hardly been adopted in continental Europe. So far the USA is the most enthusiastic applicant of the system.

Emirates rosters multicultural crews most of the time, and has a crew resource management training programme that acknowledges this fact and helps crew members to work together effectively, whatever their cultural history.

But special needs can show up at any time during a pilot's training, including the ab-initio phase. Anthony Petteford, Oxford Aviation Academy's head of ab-initio training at its base in Kidlington, UK, is currently training pilots for Hong Kong-based Dragonair under the multi-crew pilot license (MPL) system.

MPL enables airlines to train pilots tailored to their aircraft types and their operations right from the start, so in a way the MPL course is the ab initio training equivalent of an ATQP

The Hong Kong-born trainees need more time learning landing skills than usual, says Petteford, possibly because they are city-dwellers and are thus not accustomed to open spaces, high speeds and high spatial closing rates. So additional landings is what they get. It's the simple application of more time where it's needed, which is what ATQP is all about.

POSITIVE INDICATIONS

There is no question, according to McCorquodale, that those airlines and national aviation authorities that have used the MPL route for their pilot training have been "delighted" with the results.

While the CAA says it recognises that it is early days yet, and that it will be desirable to monitor the line flying performance of MPL graduates all the way through to command before they are able to deliver a final verdict, there is solid confidence in the quality of output according to all the evidence gathered so far.

MPL enables airlines to train pilots tailored to their aircraft types and their operations right from the start, so in a way the MPL course is the ab initio training equivalent of an ATQP.

Dragonair MPL graduates are bound for the right-hand seats of the airline's Airbus A330s as well as of its A320 fleet. If putting ab initio pilots straight into the right-hand seat of a widebody sounds like a first, it is not, says McCorquodale. Back in the 1970s, British Airways put ab initio graduates from its own Hamble training course straight into the right-hand seat of its Lockheed TriStars.

There is an emerging consistency in the views of those who embrace the human output of high quality consolidated ab initio training, whether the graduates follow the MPL or traditional commercial pilot licence (CPL) route.

This, the argument runs, is more likely to provide a robust product than the modular approach involving hours-building in bush flying, agricultural work, instructional flying or other methods of accumulating time in the air.

While this system might produce a well-rounded aviator, equally it might not. It is rather hit-and-miss and, as Petteford says, just as likely to permit the development of bad habits as it is to produce useful and beneficial experience.

JET ORIENTATION

This issue of training completeness and discipline compared with randomness and relatively unsupervised development is one of the issues the LOC Task Force dealt with in its recommendations.

Here is one of the recommendations: "Mandate a jet orientation course for all pilots who do not complete an MPL course. They must complete a JOC [jet orientation course] before presenting for their first type rating on a complex and highly automated type."

The reason for this, says McCorquodale, is that many student pilots have serious problems facing their first type rating on a modern, complex jet. An MPL prepares the student for precisely this challenge, whereas the modular route, depending on what experience the pilot achieves during it, may provide little or no experience of jets and the speed at which things happen in them, or of managing sophisticated flight management and aircraft control systems, and it is in these aircraft that LOC events have been occurring.

Of course updating out-of-date recurrent training requirements is not an issue for the CAA alone, although national authorities have some latitude in how they apply International Civil Aviation Organisation training standards and recommended practices locally.

McCorquodale says the CAA "has taken pains to get involved in both ICAO and European Aviation Safety Agency rulemaking subcommittees" and believes it can help influence positively the way training regulation is being written.

The CAA believes it can help influence positively the way training regulation is written

Parachute problem grounds some Lockheed F-35 jets

2012-02-09T21:24:00.000+08:00

From www.reuters.com

By Andrea Shalal-Esa

WASHINGTON | Mon Jan 30, 2012 6:39pm EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon on Monday said it was temporarily suspending high-speed ground and flight operations of more than 15 Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter jets after discovering improperly packed parachutes under the pilot's ejection seat.

The move affects six Air Force variants of the F-35 fighter jet based at Edwards Air Force Base in California, which means flight testing there will be halted until the parachute issues are resolved, according to Lockheed spokeswoman Laurie Quincy.

The suspension also affects nine F-35 fighters to be used for training at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, and three planes that are nearly completed at Lockheed's Fort Worth, Texas, factory, according to Lockheed and the Pentagon's F-35 program office.

It will not affect eight F-35 test aircraft at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland, because they had received older ejection seats whose parachutes were properly packed, the Pentagon and Lockheed said in a joint statement.

It estimated that it would take about 10 days until the first set of repacked parachutes were available.

The grounding, first reported by Reuters earlier Monday, comes as the $382 billion F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program braces for a third restructuring in three years.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta last week announced another slowdown in procurement to allow more time for development testing, and to avert costly retrofits if problems arise.

Panetta gave no details, but Reuters has quoted sources familiar with the budget plans as saying the Pentagon will postpone buying an additional 179 F-35 jets over the next five years, pushing their procurement off until after fiscal 2017.

Richard Aboulafia, defense analyst with the Virginia-based Teal Group, said the parachute problem added to a spate of negative news on the radar-evading fighter plane, which is being designed for the U.S. military and eight partner countries.

"There's a perception that they're moving too fast on production before ironing out all of the problems, and this is going to reinforce that perception," said Aboulafia.

He said the Pentagon was also clearly tapping the F-35 -- the largest U.S. weapons program -- as a bill-payer to help the department reach required cuts in Pentagon spending.

SOME TO BE REPACKED IN 10 DAYS

The Pentagon's program office, in a joint statement with Lockheed, said the affected ejection seats were packed in reverse order by privately owned UK-based Martin Baker Aircraft Corp, apparently due to improperly drafted procedures.

The F-35 program office said it was working with Lockheed and its subcontractors Martin Baker and BAE Systems to get the parachutes repacked as quickly as possible. It said the first set of repacked parachutes should be available in 10 days.

The Pentagon said the problem affected six F-35A jets at Edwards Air Force Base and six A-models and three short takeoff Marine Corps models at Eglin Air Force Base.

The planes in Florida were only performing ground testing, which could continue, it said.

The parachutes on those jets will be repacked correctly before the Air Force begins training F-35 pilots there this summer.

Three planes that were nearing the end of production in Fort Worth would also be affected, which means they would not be able to have their first flight until the repacked parachutes arrive.

"All of the other planes in production are far enough from being finished that it won't impact their normally scheduled first flight date," Lockheed's Quincy told Reuters in an emailed statement.

(Reporting By Andrea Shalal-Esa; Editing by Derek Caney, John Wallace and Steve Orlofsky)

How Long Is Too Long to Ride in Coach?

2012-02-08T18:28:00.002+08:00

Coach -- Adverb: In economy class accommodations in an aircraft or train: "flying coach".

The following article was Posted on January 19, 2012, 11:53 AM. at the Middle Seat terminal -- a Wall Street Journal blog @ http://blogs.wsj.com

By Scott McCartney

Corporate travel policies often allow business-class tickets for flights longer than nine or 10 hours. Personal travel policies may be different — we all may have a limit for how far we’ll fly in a coach seat.

I know, some travelers say 15 minutes may be too much to endure grumpy employees and cramped space – and pay extra fees for the privilege. For most others, 12 hours might be the limit, or 15 hours, maybe more.

Longer flights are working their way into airline schedules, and this week’s Middle Seat takes a ride in coach on the longest flight by distance with a coach cabin. It may seem contradictory, but being on a plane for a very long stretch can actually save time – if you avoid a connection somewhere. On average, people pay more for the privilege.

Singapore Airlines pioneered ultra-long flying with 18-hour treks from the U.S. to Singapore nonstop. That airline decided that 18 hours was too long to be in coach – those flights go with planes fitted with only 100 business-class seats. Actually, customers decided – demand for business class was much greater.

And once you’ve been in coach for more than 15 hours, you can understand why.

More of this type of flying is coming. Greater fuel efficiency, produced by new engines and more aerodynamic designs, has given newer jets longer range. The latest offerings from Boeing and Airbus all can travel more than 8,000 nautical miles (9,200 statute miles) before stopping for gas. The Airbus A380, for example, has range 1,000 nm longer than traditional 747; the just-introduced Boeing 787 can go 2,000 nm farther before refueling than the plane it is replacing, the 767-300.

In addition, older models have extended range with strengthened bodies and bigger landing gear and wheels to carry the weight of more fuel. A long-range version of the venerable 777-200 can travel 9,395 nm – farthest in the world now for commercial airliners. The 777-200 went into service in 1995 with a range under 5,250 nm. The difference: one carries 53,515 gallons of jet fuel, the other 31,000 gallons

It also has to carry a lot of water for all those parched passengers

Black swan

2012-02-05T09:16:00.002+08:00

What is a black swan?

From www.dictionary.com

black swan
— n 1. a large Australian swan, Cygnus atratus , that has a black plumage and red bill

2. a phenomenon that occurs even though it had been thought to be impossible

[sense 2 from the fact all swans were thought to be white until black swans were discovered in Australia]

Now for the article entitled " A Black Swan Event " regarding the Qantas A380 uncontained engine failure.
This article is from http://flightsafety.org/

A Black Swan Event

Saving a crippled A380.

By J.A. Donoghue

Singapore — First came the matter of determining how much of the Airbus A380 was still functioning. Then the issue was maintaining control of the crippled aircraft flying on the edge of a stall during approach with marginal aileron control effectiveness. Finally there was the problem of sitting over a rapidly spreading pool of jet fuel in an aircraft with white-hot brakes and an engine that refused to shut down.

The uncontained engine failure on a Qantas A380 on Nov. 4, 2010, did not precipitate a catastrophic accident, and 469 people returned safely to the ground at Singapore, said the Qantas Flight 32 captain, Richard de Crespigny, because five experienced pilots in the cockpit — three in the regular crew and two check captains — worked as a unified team with cool heads and a singleness of purpose.

In his keynote speech opening Flight Safety Foundation’s 64th International Air Safety Seminar in Singapore in November 2011, and in an extensive interview with AeroSafety World, de Crespigny detailed the accident. What follows are just a few of the significant details of this incredibly complicated situation.

The triggering failure that launched the drama was the uncontained failure, while climbing through 7,000 ft, of the airplane’s no. 2 Rolls-Royce Trent 972 three-spool turbofan, perceived in the cockpit as “two bangs, not terribly loud,” de Crespigny said. The aircraft damage caused by the heavy, high-speed engine parts leaving the nacelle created what he called “a black swan event, unforeseen, with massive consequences.

“What did we know? We knew that engine no. 2 had failed, there was a hole in the wing, fuel was leaking from the wing and we had unending checklists. What we didn’t know is that no. 2 had had a failure of the intermediate pressure turbine, engine no. 1 had also been damaged, we had 100 impacts on the leading edge, 200 impacts on the fuselage, impacts up to the tail and seven penetrations of the wing, going right through the wing and up through the top. We had lost 750 wires…. We lost 70 systems, spoilers, brakes, flight controls. … Every system in the aircraft was affected.

“Flight controls were also severely damaged. It wasn’t just the slats; we [lost] a lot of our ailerons … lost 65 percent of our roll control,” de Crespigny said. The situation was made worse, he said, because, with fuel flowing out of the left wing, the aircraft was laterally unbalanced.

“We were getting pretty close to a [cockpit work] overload situation,” working through the checklists, canceling the alarms. “It was hard to work out a list of what had failed. It was getting [to be] too much to follow. So we inverted our logic. Like Apollo 13, instead of worrying about what failed, I said, ‘Let’s look at what’s working.’ If all we could do is build ourselves a Cessna aircraft out of the rubble that remained, we would be happy.”

Wanting to be well prepared and drop as much fuel as possible before making what would still be an overweight landing, de Crespigny entered a holding pattern. “We had seven fuel leaks coming out of multiple parts of the wing. At 50 tonnes overweight, and no [working] fuel-jettisoning system, this was our jettisoning system.”

Fortunate to have the longest runway in Southeast Asia available to them, the crew still had slim margins. Taking into account the known problems — including no slats and no drooping ailerons on final — the crew computed that the aircraft could be stopped 100 m (328 ft) before the runway end.

“We briefed the approach, and then — one of the more emotional events of the crisis — we did … three control checks. We proved the aircraft safe for landing in a landing configuration. We did a rehearsal for the landing with the gear down,” using gravity to drop the gear, he said, “flaps out and at approach speed, and the aircraft proved out.”

Knowing that the fly-by-wire stick would mask the aileron movement needed to maintain attitude, de Crespigny “went to the control page to look at the percentage of effort of the flight controls we had remaining. We had normal flight controls except for the ailerons, and there we’d lost 65 percent of our roll control, lost both outer ailerons, lost one of the mids, and we were left with … one mid and the high-speed ailerons, small and inboard.

“But we also had imbalances” due to fuel issues, he said. “I was very concerned about controllability. So we did the control check, and as I rolled the aircraft up to about 10 degrees of bank, we looked at the flight controls [ECAM page] and it looked like we were using like 60 to 70 percent of the remaining ailerons just to do a very gentle turn.

“I could easily reach maximum deflection of the ailerons, and when you reach that point, the spoilers come up next. You keep getting roll control by dumping more lift, increasing your stall speed. I was really worried, [knowing I had] to be so careful to not get the spoilers coming up. I had to keep the heading and yaw as accurate as possible, so I decided to use the automatic pilot for the approach — its accelerometers sense small changes and put in tiny corrections earlier than I will.”

Manual thrust control can allow for unbalanced thrust, which would induce destabilizing yaw. “We had a long approach, so to get stable thrust I exactly matched [engines] one and four and locked them down, and used engine three to adjust the approach speed, using that [engine] because it is inboard and produces less yaw. So I had accurate heading control, controls were not used very much, and with only one engine used to fine tune the speed, [we maintained] minus 2 kt to plus 3 kt for the whole approach.”

Another pilot in the cockpit warned, “‘Richard, you can’t be fast.’ During approach, our air speed margin was very small. Put in 3 kt, we run off the end of the runway.”

As it turned out, he couldn’t be slow, either. “I slowed down 1 kt and we got a speed warning,” he said. “That was unexpected, absolutely. We clearly didn’t have a 17 to 18 percent stall margin. We had two speed warnings” during the approach, and “in the flare, we got a stall warning.”
“We landed 40 tonnes overweight, a relatively good landing. When we stopped, the brakes said 900 degrees C (1,650 degrees F), but it takes five minutes for heat to get to the sensor, so 900 degrees on stopping meant that those brakes were going to go well beyond 2,000 degrees C.”

However, on landing “fuel sloshed to the front” and began gushing out of the holes in the wing leading edge. “The auto-ignition point of kerosene is 220 degrees C, so we were concerned.” Happily, the Singapore crash rescue crew’s response was superb, de Crespigny said. “Firemen came in and put foam down over the fuel, over the brakes, and the temps started going down.”

Finally, though, the engine no. 1 refused to shut down, further delaying evacuation. But with the threat of fire mitigated, the aircraft was evacuated before the engine was killed with massive amounts of fire-fighting foam.

Air Force Drone Operators Report High Levels of Stress

2012-02-02T16:35:00.000+08:00

By ELISABETH BUMILLER

Published: December 18, 2011 on www.nytimes.com

WASHINGTON — Nearly half the operators of drone aircraft have high levels of job-related stress, mostly linked to long and erratic work hours because of a tremendous increase in the use of the aircraft, the Air Force said in a new study.
In a survey of nearly 1,500 Air Force members, including 840 operators of Predator, Reaper and Global Hawk drones, the Air Force found that 46 percent of Reaper and Predator pilots and 48 percent of Global Hawk sensor operators reported what the Air Force termed “high operational stress.” It did not specifically define high operational stress but said operators were judged to have it if they rated their stress levels as 8 or above on a scale of 0 to 10, with 10 representing the most stress.

A smaller but still significant number — including a quarter of Global Hawk sensor operators — had what the Air Force called “clinical distress,” which was defined as anxiety, depression or stress severe enough to affect an operator’s job performance or family life.

The Air Force has long known anecdotally of the job pressures on drone pilots, who use joysticks and computer screens to fly their aircraft, most typically over Afghanistan, from bases in the United States. But the study, conducted by the Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, was the first to try to quantify the strains.

The operators in the study were divided into three groups of people who work hand in hand: Pilots who remotely fly the drones, sensor operators who control the cameras that bring the battlefield into view and mission intelligence coordinators who communicate with troops on the ground. There was also a difference among the drones in the study: Predators and Reapers are armed, and Global Hawks are not.

In one surprising finding that challenged some of the survey’s initial suppositions, the authors found limited stress related to a unique aspect of the operators’ jobs: watching hours of close-up video of people killed in drone strikes. After a strike, operators assess the damage, and unlike fighter pilots who fly thousands of feet above their targets, drone operators can see in vivid detail what they have destroyed.

“The going-in assumption was that we were placing these guys under a great amount of stress because of all this video feed,” said Col. Kent McDonald, the chief of neuropsychiatry at the school of aerospace medicine and one of the study’s two authors.

In one-on-one interviews with 85 operators, the authors found that many felt a sense of accomplishment in protecting troops on the ground. Soldiers and Marines who get pinned down in insurgent fire in Afghanistan often call in airstrikes to get themselves out of trouble, and a drone that comes buzzing overhead is a highly welcome sound. Guided by communications with American troops on the ground, drone operators are then able to aim their missiles directly at insurgents. “These guys are up above firing at the enemy,” Colonel McDonald said. “They love that, they feel like they’re protecting our people. They build this virtual relationship with the guys on the ground.”

Wayne Chappelle, the chief of aerospace psychology at the Air Force school and the study’s other author, said he learned in the interviews that ground troops sometimes sought out the operators by e-mail after a successful strike. “They would want to just say, ‘Hey, thanks, man,’ ” Dr. Chappelle said.

Both Dr. Chappelle and Colonel McDonald said that 4 percent or less of operators were at high risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder, the severe anxiety disorder that can include flashbacks, nightmares, anger, hypervigilance or avoidance of people, places or situations. In those cases, the authors suggested, the operators had seen close-up video of what the military calls collateral damage, casualties of women, children or other civilians. “Collateral damage is unnerving or unsettling to these guys,” Colonel McDonald said.

The percentage of troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan at risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder was 12 to 17 percent, the authors said.

In contrast to nearly half of drone operators’ reporting “high operational stress,” 36 percent of a control group of 600 Air Force members in logistics or support jobs reported stress. The Air Force did not compare the stress levels of the drone operators with military pilots who fly planes in the air.

The biggest sources of stress for drone operators remained long hours and frequent shift changes because of staff shortages. The Pentagon has about 7,000 aerial drones, up from 50 a decade ago, and in the next decade expects its number of “multirole” drones — ones that spy as well as strike, like the Reaper — to nearly quadruple, to 536. The Air Force is training more remote pilots, 350 this year alone, than fighter and bomber pilots combined. There are about 1,100 drone pilots in the Air Force.

The study did not include drone operators for the Central Intelligence Agency, which uses drones in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Iran.

Private Jets

2012-01-31T15:14:00.000+08:00

From a Reuters article published in mypaper dated March 14th 2011

The photo shows a Bombardier Global Express XRS which cost US$ 55 million. With the aviation industry now booming in the world's second largest economy, China's passengers are expected to account for a quarter of the world's 800 million new travellers by 2014. And the executive jet market is expected to ride the crest of this wave.

Forbes latest global rich list showed the number of Chinese billionaires doubling over the past year to 115. This is the first time any country other than the United States, which has 413 billionaires, had more than 100.

But China has around only 200 private aircraft, according to official estimates, far fewer than the 11,000 i nthe US.

Embraer Executive Jets forecasts a global market of more than 10,000 business jets worth US$210 billion in the next 10 years, with China expected to take the lion's share.

Tests poke holes in FAA's electronics ban on takeoff and landing — but does it matter?

2012-01-29T15:44:00.000+08:00

By Chris Ziegleron December 26, 2011 02:32 pm on www.theverge.com

.

Will the fallout from Alec Baldwin's ill-timed Words With Friends move ultimately lead the FAA to drop its ban on many types of consumer electronics during critical moments of a commercial flight? It's not just Baldwin, of course: The New York Times' Nick Bilton has taken the Federal Aviation Administration to task in the last several weeks over the ban. It's an issue that's certainly in the forefront right now, perhaps more than ever before; Kindles and iPads have moved from novelties to standard-issue equipment in many travelers' carry-ons, and it's not a surprise that everyone wants to use them. Adding to the frustration, different members of the aviation industry — from private firms to the FAA itself — have given nebulous and often conflicting answers on why the devices are banned in the first place.

In his latest piece, Bilton actually commissioned his own series of radiation tests, where he finds that a Kindle is emitting about 30 microvolts per meter — barely enough to register a blip. The argument that an entire aircraft cabin of Kindle users would collectively generate enough RF to interfere with cockpit systems doesn't hold water, either: the radiation from multiple devices isn't simply summed like that (as one of his interviewees notes, if that were the case, you wouldn't be able to enter an office full of PCs without donning protective gear). Adding to the confusion is that the FAA has a number of odd exceptions to its ban, including electric shavers and voice recorders. Bilton tested a voice recorder and found that its radiation level was roughly in line with that of the Kindle, so justifying the ban using the potential for RF interference alone is seemingly a non-starter.

It's completely fair and reasonable for travelers to demand a complete and consistent explanation for why Kindles, iPads, iPods, and similar devices aren't permitted on takeoff and landing. It's also completely reasonable, though, for the FAA to continue enforcing a ban until it can be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is zero safety risk to either passengers or crew. The airline industry is notoriously bureaucratic, but there's a very good reason for that: every aspect of commercial aviation needs to be meticulously vetted, tested, re-vetted, and re-tested to maximize safety at all costs. Changes in the rules frequently take many years to enact and enforce. It's no coincidence we're able to safely send hundreds of millions of passengers at 550mph through mid-air every year, and a brutal regulatory environment plays a big role in that — perhaps more than in any other business. Even a 0.00001 percent increase in risk to the aircraft is unacceptable.

It's unclear why electric shavers and voice recorders are permitted under the current rules, but there are a few important differences to consider. Presumably, the FAA never imagined — even under its wildest models — that a majority of an aircraft cabin would be using shavers or voice recorders simultaneously. Even if radiation isn't a primary concern, there are many factors that need to be considered regarding any wide-scale change in passenger behavior during the most critical parts of a flight. What's more, I wouldn't put it past the FAA and pilots to distrust "airplane mode" altogether: its behavior isn't regulated by law, and flight attendants don't have the manpower to verify that passengers' devices are set to airplane mode anyway. Shavers and voice recorders don't have Wi-Fi or cellular radios (although I would definitely buy a Wi-Fi enabled shaver, no questions asked).

To be fair, there are millions of hours of real-world flight time where a few passengers have discreetly left devices turned on — come on, we've all done it — and those flight hours have been completely uneventful. Ultimately, though, this is a very simple risk / benefit analysis: if and only if regulators (and the aviation industry at large) can agree without a hint of dissent that these devices are 100 percent safe should they be allowed during takeoff and landing. Ten extra minutes of Angry Birds isn't worth the smallest sliver of added risk, no matter how theoretical or how remote.

F-35 production a troubling example of Pentagon spending

2012-01-26T10:12:00.000+08:00

Reported By Walter Pincus, Tuesday, December 27, 6:33 AM on http://www.washingtonpost.com

There are 56 F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighters being assembled at Lockheed Martin’s facility in Fort Worth. But because only 20 percent of the testing for the most advanced fighter-bomber in U.S. history is completed, each will probably have to get million-dollar-or-more fixes later.

The F-35 is already the most costly U.S. weapons program underway at about $385 billion. But that figure may go higher with overrun of the per-plane contract price for the 56 craft being assembled — along with the future multimillion-dollar fixes likely to be required for them — and the 15 F-35s completed but not yet delivered to the military services.

The plane is being built with the most sophisticated stealth technology, but initial flight tests have turned up hot spots and cracks associated with metal and composites used on most new aircraft. The development of the software controlling the F-35’s major warfighting functions, the most complex ever planned for an airplane, has been delayed so that the last block will not be introduced to the aircraft until at least June 2015.

Earlier this month, Vice Adm. David J. Venlet, executive officer for the F-35 program, said in an interview with the online service AOL that he recommended slowing down current production lines to reduce the replacement costs that will be necessary in aircraft produced before testing is completed.

Production had already been slowed twice. Then-Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates pushed back the building of 122 aircraft in February 2010 as problems became apparent, and again in January as he lowered near-term production for another 124 planes, boosting future production needs.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) took the Senate floor on Dec. 15 and described the F-35 fighter program as “a mess.”

What upset the senator was not just that the cost of each plane had risen nearly 100 percent from its original estimate of $69 million to $133 million today, or the fact that testing was only 20 percent complete while more than 90 planes had already been bought, or the fact that software — key to 80 percent of the stealth plane’s warfighting capability — wouldn’t be ready for another four years.

It was, he said, that the Pentagon had “sold this program as a fifth-generation strike fighter that would — more so than any other major defense procurement program — be cost-effectively developed, procured, operated and supported.”

McCain faulted the Pentagon for using what he called “a concurrent development strategy to procure a high-risk weapon system.” Production of the first airplanes began as testing was in its infancy.

McCain said the Pentagon was attempting “generational leaps in capability” but at the same time moving before the underlying design was stable. Developing needed technologies and being able to integrate them remain risky and manufacturing processes are still “immature,” he said.

A Government Accountability Office report from April said the forecast was for “about 10,000 more [engineering design] changes through January 2016.” The GAO added, “We expect this number to go up given new forecasts for additional testing and extension of system development until 2018.”

2012-01-23T12:06:00.002+08:00

NAVAIR press release as posted on http://www.aviationnews.eu

The Navy demonstrated early integration of the future of naval aviation Nov. 18 when it launched F-35C test aircraft CF-3 with its new electromagnetic aircraft launch system (EMALS).

Testing the F-35C on EMALS provided an early opportunity to evaluate technical risks and began the process to integrate the carrier variant Joint Strike Fighter with the future carrier fleet aircraft launching system.

“The test flight went well,” said Navy test pilot Lt. Christopher Tabert. “It felt very similar to the steam test launches we did this summer [in the F-35C]. It was quite an honor for me to play a small part in our launch today.”

This summer, the F-35C test team completed more than 50 steam catapult launches to perform an initial structural survey and collected steam ingestion data. The steam ingestion data produced robust results, allowing a reduction in the number of test launches by four.

Along with the steam launch data, the EMALS launch testing also provided information for the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defence as the UK proceeds with including EMALS in the Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carrier.

In the past 12 months, the EMALS team launched a T-45 Goshawk, an E-2D Advanced Hawkeye, a C-2A Greyhound and several F/A-18 aircraft with and without stores.

Both EMALS and the F-35C are currently in test and evaluation, and represent technological leaps from the Navy’s current fleet. EMALS is set to install on the future USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78).

“What a great way to punctuate this year’s Centennial of Naval Aviation events,” said Ms. Kathy Donnelly, senior executive for aircraft launch, recovery and support equipment engineering at Lakehurst. “Our team is paving the way for the next hundred years today.”

The F-35C carrier variant of the Joint Strike Fighter is distinct from the F-35A and F-35B variants with its larger wing surfaces and reinforced landing gear to withstand catapult launches and deck landing impacts associated with the demanding aircraft carrier environment. Initial carrier trials for the F-35C are scheduled for 2013. The F-35C is undergoing test and evaluation at NAS Patuxent River and Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst before delivery to the fleet.

EMALS is a complete carrier-based launch system designed for the future USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) and all future CVN 78-class aircraft carriers. EMALS has six subsystems and will expand the operational capability of the Navy’s future carriers by permitting higher sortie rates and reduced costs compared to legacy systems. CVN 78 is more than 30 percent complete, with some production EMALS components already delivered to the shipyard to maintain a 2015 delivery schedule

New Air-Sampling Shoe Scanning Device Developed

2012-01-20T09:13:00.001+08:00

Posted by Airport International's Global Correspondent on 23/11/2011 @ http://www.airport-int.com

Researchers in the US report having come up with an airport security system that can collect shoe particle samples for subsequent analysis on site.

The prototype could allow airport shoe-scanning procedures to become quicker and more streamlined, according to a document published by the American Institute of Physics on 21 November 2011. This describes how the researchers - based at NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) - have developed this technology into three, distinct variants.

One of these is integrated into a booth-type facility, into which airport passengers would step, never having to take their shoes off at any point.

"Air jets are located in strategic locations and are used to dislodge particles from the shoe surface, and a large blower establishes a bulk flow field that ensures all liberated particles are transported in the appropriate direction", head researcher Matthew Staymates explained in the American Institute of Physics' press release.

New Shoe Scanning Device

If adopted commercially, he added, the new shoe-scanning device - which can collect data material within just seconds - would need to be teamed up both with a product that can collect particles and with chemical analysing equipment - features beyond the remit of the shoe-scanning technology programme in its present state.

"NIST's role was to uncover the fundamental connection between fluid dynamics and trace aerodynamic sampling, and use our findings to help in the development of next-generation sampling approaches", Staymates added.

Air-Sampling Shoe Scanner

While the air-sampling shoe scanner has now been developed, private firms need to get involved to progress it to market, he concluded.

Further details of this technology were presented by Staymates at the recent APS Division of Fluid Dynamics Meeting, staged between 20-22 November in Baltimore.

In March 2011, the Transport Security Administration announced a requirement for 100 new-generation SSDs (shoe-scanning devices) to equip airport across the US. Airport shoe-scanning's been a passenger requirement since 2006 and a selective measure since 2001, when Richard Reid - the infamous "shoe-bomber", attempted to detonate explosives in mid-flight.

With its headquarters in Maryland, NIST is comprised of several laboratories including Engineering, Physical Measurement and Information Technology. Its mission statement is to ‘Promote U.S. innovation and industrial competitiveness by advancing measurement science, standards, and technology in ways that enhance economic security and improve our quality of life.'

US military adds armed robotic helicopters to fleet

2012-01-17T22:00:00.000+08:00

Posted on www.spacewars.com by Staff Writers
Washington (AFP) Nov 9, 2011

The US military plans to add a lethal new drone to its fleet -- a robotic helicopter for the US Navy equipped with laser-guided rockets, defense giant Northrop Grumman said Wednesday.

The armed Fire Scouts will mark a new era in naval warfare, offering an alternative to pilots flying attack helicopters or fighter jets off warships and reflecting a broader shift to robotic technology across the US military in recent years.

An unarmed version of the MQ-8B Fire Scout is already flying surveillance and reconnaissance missions for the US Navy, using cameras and sensors inside a cone on the aircraft's nose.

Northrop Grumman won a contract in September worth $17 million to outfit the choppers with 70 mm rockets, with racks capable of carrying eight or 14 of the weapons on an aircraft, the company said.

"The operational system will be delivered by 2013," company spokesman Warren Comer told AFP.

The Fire Scout joins two other armed drones in the US arsenal, the Predator and the Reaper, which are unmanned planes that have become the weapon of choice in covert CIA strikes against suspected Al-Qaeda militants and their associates in Pakistan and elsewhere.

"By arming the Fire Scout, the Navy will have a system that can locate and prosecute targets of interest. This capability shortens the kill chain and lessens the need to put our soldiers in harm's way," George Vardoulakis, Northrop's vice president for tactical unmanned systems, said in a statement.

The Fire Scout, which had its first test flight in 2000 and first landed on a naval ship at sea in 2006, is due to be deployed on new littoral combat ships under construction.

The helicopter, which is seven meters (23 feet) long and three meters (about 10 feet) high, can reach an altitude of 20,000 feet (6,000 meters), fly at a speed of more than 115 knots (200 kilometers) per hour and stay in the air for more than eight hours, employing sensors and radar to track targets.

The US Navy has a fleet of about 15 Fire Scouts and plans to build 168 of the helicopters, according to the Pentagon.

The Fire Scout has been deployed to Afghanistan to help target insurgents and one of the unmanned helicopters went down in the NATO-led air campaign over Libya in June.

Last year, US commanders in Washington considered shooting down an unarmed Fire Scout when it strayed off course and flew toward the US capital after losing ground communications

Boeing begins work on 1000th 777

2012-01-15T21:44:00.000+08:00

777 program reaches milestone faster than any other twin-aisle airplane

Posted on www.boeing.com on Nov. 9, 2011

Boeingworkers today began assembling the 1,000th 777. The airplane is a Boeing 777-300ER (extended range) model. It will be delivered to Dubai-based Emirates Airline in March 2012.

Emirates is the largest 777 customer with 95 777s currently in its fleet; the 1,000th 777 will be its 102nd.

Production began with loading of the 97-foot (29.5 meter) wing spar – the main support structure for the wing – into a giant tool that automatically drills, measures and installs more than 5,000 fasteners into the spar. The spar components are built in Auburn, Wash., by Boeing Fabrication employees.

"We reached this milestone in only 16 years, eight years sooner than the runner up the 747, because of the enormous popularity of the airplane by the airlines that operate it, and the passengers who fly on it," said Larry Loftis, vice president and general manager of the 777 program. "Sixty-four airlines have ordered 1,295 777s. The numbers prove that the 777 is the world's preferred airplane. In fact, it's preferred 1,000 times over."

A ceremony to mark the start of production was held today in Everett. Additional employee thank-you events will be held as the airplane moves through the 49-day build process.

"We couldn't have reached this milestone without the innovation and inspiration of the thousands of employees here at Boeing and at the more than 500 suppliers around the globe that build the 777," Loftis said. "We thank them and honor them for their contribution to aviation history," he said.

2012-01-11T22:00:00.002+08:00

All Nippon Airways Boeing 787 takes off for the airplane's inaugural commercial flight to Hong Kong at Narita International Airport in Narita, east of Tokyo, Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2011(AP Photo/Itsuo Inouye)

Updated: October 30, 2011 on http://lubbockonline.com
By SCOTT MAYEROWITZ
ASSOCIATED PRESS

The plane that will change the experince of flying lives up to its promise
There has been plenty of hype surrounding the 787, a long-range plane marketed as The Dreamliner that carried its first passengers Wednesday on a four-hour flight from Tokyo to Hong Kong. It has been called "revolutionary" and "a game-changer."

ABOARD ALL NIPPON AIRWAYS FLIGHT 7871 — It’s the plane that is supposed to change the experience of flying.

No more stuffy noses, dry throats or severe fatigue. Larger windows to provide a stronger connection to the world outside. And mood lighting that can either ease jet lag or turn the plane into a nightclub at 40,000 feet.

And for the most part, Boeing’s 787 succeeds. Flying it is more enjoyable. But it’s still flying. Just because the plane is new doesn’t mean the food will taste better or you won’t be stuck in front of a kicking kid.

There has been plenty of hype surrounding the 787, a long-range plane marketed as The Dreamliner that carried its first passengers Wednesday on a four-hour flight from Tokyo to Hong Kong. It has been called “revolutionary” and “a game-changer.”

And, indeed, a sleek design makes the plane stand out the moment you step on board. A higher ceiling — at least the perception of one — reduces claustrophobia. And natural light pours in, creating a welcoming feeling.

Maybe that 10-hour flight won’t be so bad after all. Maybe.

The biggest benefit should come from features that fight jet lag. Those couldn’t really be experienced by the 240 reporters and aviation enthusiasts who made the relatively short inaugural flight.

They include a doubling of the humidity, to 16 percent, and bringing the cabin’s pressure closer to what it feels like on the ground. Planes are normally pressurized to 8,000 feet, higher than any point on the East Coast. Air inside the 787 is made to feel the equivalent of 6,000, slightly higher than Denver. The pressure and humidity changes should lead to fewer headaches and leave passengers with more energy after long trips.

The short flight also didn’t provide for a test of the full impact of LED lights that slowly change color, another feature designed to fight fatigue. The impact was felt when the cabin lit up in a funky rainbow display, turning the plane into something out of “Saturday Night Fever.” Add some loud music and it’s not too hard to imagine a bachelor or bachelorette party at 40,000 feet.

The lighting concept is being rolled out on other aircraft, including new models of the narrow-body 737. European aircraft maker Airbus also offers something similar on new A320s.

Another feature a passenger should notice on the 787 is the windows. The plane’s strong carbon-fiber frame, which allows for the humidity and pressure improvements, enables windows 30 percent larger than those on traditional aluminum-body planes.

Just don’t expect window shades. Boeing replaced them with an electronic tinting feature. Click a button below the window and it slowly starts to darken. The window never becomes completely blacked out — you can still see out — but enough light is blocked to make sleeping possible. Not that anybody was trying to sleep during the boisterous inaugural flight. At the very least, you can picture little kids playing with the windows for hours.

Boeing also tackles the problem of crowded overhead bins. Getting bags into the bins, and opening and closing them when they are heavy and full, was easier than on any other plane.

The plane’s manufacturer says they are the largest bins on any plane, with enough room for one carry-on bag per passenger. While the bins are much larger, the only way that seemed feasible was with identically rectangular bags stacked in optimal order.

The plane is also supposed to be much quieter, both for passengers inside and people on the ground. Engines with a wave pattern in the metal lower the roar, although Boeing won’t say by how much.

And a lighter plane allows for more padding to protect passengers from noise and vibration. Wednesday’s flight seemed quieter, but a handheld sound meter registered noise levels similar to Boeing’s 777. (Maybe those soothing lights were playing tricks on the mind.)

The most-promising feature of the 787 will come on later models: a turbulence-dampening system. Accelerometers in the plane’s nose will register a sudden drop and sent a signal through fiber-optic cables to the wings. What would have been a 9-foot drop is cut to 3. No other plane has this technology.

Airlines have already purchased almost 800 of the original 787 because of promised fuel savings and the ability to open up new routes. Japan’s All Nippon Airways is the first to fly it. United Continental will be the first in the U.S. sometime late next year.

There are some features that Boeing can’t control. Individual airlines determine how much legroom passengers get. They also pick between a roomy eight-across seating arrangement or a more cramped nine-across layout.

All Nippon has eight seats in each row and installed a double armrest for the middle seats, providing a few extra inches of personal space.

And in the end, isn’t that all we want?

Boeing encouraging airlines to switch to iPad navigation charts

2012-01-08T11:45:00.000+08:00

Published 7:21 a.m. CDT, October 6, 2011 on http://www.chicagotribune.com

Boeing Co. is pitching iPad-based navigation charts to airlines as an alternative to carrying volumes of paper manuals in cockpits as a new generation of pilots that is more comfortable with modern gadgets takes to the skies, a company official said Thursday.

"Everybody's looking at it (in Asia). Nobody's yet pulled the trigger, they're trying to understand the value, trying to close their business case," Sherry Carbary, the vice president for flight services at Boeing Commercial Aviation Services told Dow Jones Newswires in an interview.

United Continental Holdings Inc. has bought 11,000 units of the device manufactured by Apple Inc. and Alaska Airlines has done away with paper manuals, Carbary said.

Airlines can simply download the application from the iTunes Store of Apple and get instrument charts and airport diagrams from Jeppesen, a Boeing unit, directly on the iPad. Updates will be automatically added to the application, making the process completely paper-less. Jeppesen will offer similar applications for Android devices in the future.

Jeppesen is the world's biggest navigational information, operations management solutions and flight training products and services provider by number of users. Pilots, ship operators and railway companies use Jeppesen charts and data for navigation.

Carbary, who oversees Boeing's flight crew, maintenance and cabin safety training as also navigation and crew operations services, said pilots can use the tablet computer in their "down time" while on the flight deck to refresh themselves on the latest updates to manuals or for training.

"From a pilot's perspective, you can be much more productive because you can not only look at your navigation charts while you are flying ... you can go and review your manuals. So, you could actually even do some of your training while you are flying," she said. "That's the philosophy and a lot of airlines are looking at it."

Boeing, which has forecast the global airline industry will need about 460,000 pilots and 650,000 technical staff over the next 20 years, is seeking to do away with paper-based training where possible.

"We're trying to change from a paper-based training methodology in a classroom. For example the 787 was our first step into all digital. You can actually take it (training material) to your hotel room or home and do some of the training," Carbary said.

Banned by Many Airlines, These Bulldogs Fly Private

2012-01-05T10:56:00.001+08:00

October 6, 2011
By CHRISTINE HAUGHNEY
on www.nytimes.com

When Louie York flew cross country on Sept. 15, his route from New York was anything but direct. First came a stop in Chicago and then one in Omaha, where he endured a six-hour layover.

Next were Denver, Phoenix and, finally, Los Angeles, 18 hours later. The capper: a seven-hour drive home to the San Francisco Bay Area.

Such is life for travelers like Louie, a French bulldog whose breed has been banned from most commercial airlines — not for the dogs’ bark or bite, but because so many have died in flight.

Many airlines now forbid brachycephalic breeds, also known as short-faced or snub-nosed dogs, from their planes. That has caused great inconvenience for the owners of the affected dogs, which include popular breeds like pugs and bulldogs, but has opened a niche for a few companies that cater specifically to pet travel.

Pet Jets, which began offering charter plane service for pets two years ago, said these breeds made up about a quarter of their passengers. Pet Airways, a two-year-old airline dedicated to transporting pets, has seen a similar trend: of the roughly 4,900 dogs it has flown, about 25 percent were brachycephalic breeds.

On a recent Pet Airways flight from Republic Airport in East Farmingdale, N.Y., 5 of the 15 canine passengers were brachycephalic breeds, including Louie. In the terminal, wealthy and middle-class pet owners crossed paths. The scene at the check-in counter was certainly unusual: a bulldog and pug panted as they waited behind Louie and his owner, Rusty Rueff.

“We always make a joke: He flies private and we fly commercial,” Mr. Rueff’s wife, Patti Rueff, said.

Mr. Rueff handed over Louie’s blue blanket and a plastic bag with his dog food and Pepcid AC. A Pet Airways worker gave Louie his boarding pass: a paper collar, wrapped around the dog’s neck. Louie responded by sending heart-wrenching glances toward his owner, seeming to protest his abandonment. But Mr. Rueff, who was rushing to catch his own flight on American Airlines that night, said the dog’s well-being outweighed any feelings of guilt, even with the $840 price for a one-way cross-country ticket.

“If he throws up or gets sick or goes bonkers, there’s going to be a human being there,” Mr. Rueff said. “That makes it worth it for us; we’re paying for peace of mind.”

Airlines have always had varying restrictions on animal travel. There are a few carriers, like Alaska Airlines, Frontier Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines and Sun Country, that still allow brachycephalic breeds to fly in cargo. And most animals are generally allowed to fly in the passenger cabin if they weigh less than 20 pounds, as some French bulldogs and many pugs do.

But the clear trend among commercial airlines is toward an outright ban on brachycephalic breeds.

American Airlines banned brachycephalic breeds of dogs and cats shortly after four bulldogs died on its planes in a three-month period in 2010. Delta stopped accepting French, English and American bulldogs this year, after three bulldogs died from January to March.

United and Continental Airlines, which had two bulldogs die in their care this spring, banned brachycephalic dog breeds from flying during the summer, lifting the restriction on Sept. 16, when temperatures began to drop.

According to the federal Agriculture Department, 189 animals died on commercial flights from June 2005 to June 2011; of those animals, 98 — more than half — were brachycephalic breeds.

The breeds, which also include Persian and Himalayan cats, have smaller openings to their noses and elongated soft palates on the roofs of their mouths, which make breathing more difficult for them, veterinarians said. Those breathing problems can be magnified in stressful situations like air travel, and further exacerbated in extreme heat.

The airlines’ growing no-fly lists have set off a debate between pet owners and veterinarians about whether these dogs should fly at all.

Some veterinarians who have operated on the dogs to open up their nasal passages said that surgery could help somewhat with breathing and perhaps make flying safer. Other veterinarians refuse to sign medical paperwork allowing the dogs to fly in cargo.

“I’m seeing more people who want to travel with their pets in the last 10 years,” said Amy Attas, a veterinarian who runs a house call service, City Pets. “The first conversation I have with people is, ‘Why are you bringing your dog in the first place?’ Every veterinarian has known: don’t fly a brachycephalic dog, because dogs regulate their body temperatures through their noses.”

Many bulldog owners only drive their dogs. Robert Rodenski, president of the Bulldog Club of America, said the club encouraged owners to rent motor homes and drive to their conferences, even if they were traveling cross country. For the club’s November show in Vienna, Va., Mr. Rodenski said some bulldog owners from California were sharing campers and splitting the driving.

“Our folks have gone more to motor homes,” Mr. Rodenski said, describing how his fellow bulldog owners travel. “They realize that there are problems with shipping any dog on an airline.”

Even university mascots are not immune.

Butler University’s 63-pound mascot, an English bulldog named Butler Blue II, flew twice in 2010. But his owner, Michael Kaltenmark, said that on the first flight, from Indianapolis to a Duke University men’s basketball game in New Jersey, the bulldog traveled in the pressurized cabin of a Southwest Airlines plane chartered by the team. On the second flight, to a Final Four game in Houston, the dog flew in the cabin on a private flight.

“If we had to fly him in the cargo hold, we would have just driven,” Mr. Kaltenmark said.

One of the nation’s best-known bulldog mascots, Uga, from the University of Georgia, seems to be coping with the new restrictions. Uga typically flies on short-haul private flights to football games, and when he flies commercial, he uses Delta, his owner Sonny Seiler said.

Even though Delta has banned most bulldogs, an airline spokesman, Anthony Black, said Uga could fly in the cabin because the airline classified him as a “high-profile animal,” like the Target mascot, Bullseye. (There have been eight English bulldogs deemed worthy of being an Uga; the previous one died after only three months on the throne.)

But Uga’s handler must buy first-class tickets for himself and the dog to fly.

In any case, Mr. Seiler said he had options for Uga, whose role is currently being filled by a stand-in, Russ.

“If they felt uncomfortable, then doesn’t matter,” Mr. Seiler said of Delta’s new policy. “We will fly him in another way. We will fly him in a private plane.”

U.S. Navy May Cut Carrier's Life in Half To Save Money

2012-01-02T10:23:00.001+08:00

By CHRISTOPHER P. CAVAS
Published: 6 Oct 2011 20:05
http://www.defensenews.com

Under heavy pressure to find real cuts, U.S. Navy officials are considering decommissioning a nuclear aircraft carrier halfway through its planned lifespan, two Pentagon sources confirmed.

The carrier George Washington could become a victim of large-scale Pentagon budget cuts. Navy officials caution that no final decisions have been made. (MC3 Andrew Ryan Smith / U.S. Navy) The USS George Washington's three-year-long refueling overhaul, scheduled to begin in 2016, would be canceled under the scheme, and the ship would be decommissioned as its reactor fuel ran out.

Along with the carrier, the Navy could also disband one of its 10 carrier air wings - a move that would save roughly as much money and people as cutting the ship.

Decommissioning the GW would leave the Navy with a 10-ship carrier fleet, a move that would need to be approved by Congress. U.S. law currently mandates an 11-ship force.

Navy officials would not confirm or deny the story.

"Until the 2013 president's budget request is submitted to Congress in February 2012 and becomes part of the public record, all decisions are pre-decisional and it would be inappropriate to discuss specific details," Navy spokeswoman Lt. Courtney Hillson said Oct. 6.

The Pentagon is under a White House directive to find at least $464 billion in cuts over the next 10 years, and more severe reductions could be coming should the congressional "super committee" not be able to agree in the coming weeks on a budget reduction plan.

Navy officials early this year considered stretching out the carrier construction program - taking six or seven years to build the Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) rather than the current five - and some factions urged delaying the John F. Kennedy (CVN 79) by several years. Those considerations now seem to have gone by the wayside, and budget officials are focusing on the refueling overhauls as a way to reduce the force.

The Nimitz-class carriers now in service are designed with 50-year service lives, which include a major refueling and complex overhaul (RCOH) at the midlife point. The Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) is now in the final year of her RCOH, and the Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) is scheduled to enter Newport News Shipbuilding in Newport News, Va. - where all the carriers are built and the RCOH overhauls done - next summer.

The Navy already is spending money for Lincoln's overhaul, and awarded Newport News a $206 million contract in February to continue planning and preparation work.

Asked Sept. 15 if the Lincoln overhaul might be canceled, Adm. Gary Roughead, then the chief of naval operations, shook his head, no. "There would be a lot of wastage on CVN 72 if you were to do that," he said.

But there were no such statements about the George Washington.

No contracts have been let for the GW overhaul. Although the savings won't appear for a few more years, the reductions would still take place within the 10-year window.

If the scheme goes forward, the ship could be decommissioned between 2016 and 2021. The deciding factor could be monetary, or a simple matter of how much nuclear fuel remains in the ship's two reactors.

Easing the situation is the fact that the George Washington is based in Japan, where the U.S. Navy shares facilities at Yokosuka naval shipyard with the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force. The Japanese government contributes to the carrier's upkeep, and the dockyard has an excellent reputation for maintaining ships.

The GW also may be able to run longer past her half-life refueling point because she doesn't need to steam thousands of miles from the U.S. to reach the Western Pacific, the ship's normal operating area.

But with the GW out of service, the Navy would also save millions by not operating the ship for another 20 or more years. Not only would the ship's crew of about 2,700 people not be needed, but many thousands of future sailors won't need to be trained. A similar number of sailors come with each carrier air wing.

The Navy wouldn't need the 70-plus aircraft in the wing, and wouldn't need to train those pilots and aircrew and pay to fly the planes.

A price could be paid, however, in a higher operating tempo for the remaining carrier fleet. Like the submarine force, it's possible that deployments of seven or eight months, or more, could become the norm.

Political Firestorm

Whether or not the Navy requests permission to decommission the ship in the 2013 budget request may be a moot point with a presidential election coming in 2012. Congress raised its collective ire only a few years ago when the service asked for permission to temporarily drop to a 10-ship fleet during the time when the Enterprise is decommissioned in 2013 and the Ford is commissioned in 2016. But when the request was resubmitted in an off-election year, virtually no objections were raised.

One veteran observer opined that the Navy could cancel or defer the refueling overhaul, but leave a specific request to decommission the ship until after the election.

UAVs Expected In NAS By 2013

2011-12-30T22:42:00.000+08:00

From www.avweb.com

Facing increasing pressure from both industry and the military to allow greater freedom to unmanned aerial vehicles, the FAA is expected to start integrating small UAVs (generally 55 pounds or less) into the National Airspace System as soon as 2013, the National Defense Industrial Association said this week. The FAA formed a committee in June to create rules that would govern that integration. Rick Prosek, manager of the FAA's unmanned aircraft program office, told the NDIA at a recent conference, "We are plowing through the small-UAS rule to put that on the street." Under current rules, anyone who wants to fly a UAV of any size freely in the NAS must obtain an FAA waiver. The proposed new rules could be published as soon as December.

The new rules will detail the procedures for operators to launch, fly, and land the small UAVs, the NDIA said. In April, the Army demonstrated for the FAA a sense-and-avoid system using the MQ-1C Gray Eagle, at El Mirage, Calif., for over 11 hours, according to the NDIA. Pressure to allow UAVs more freedom to fly is building as used drones from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan return to the U.S., but airline pilots and air traffic controllers warn against rushing. "We want to make sure, before this cake is taken out of the oven, it is fully baked," said Sean Cassidy, national safety coordinator with the Air Line Pilots Association. Chris Stevenson, of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, told the NDIA the introduction of unpiloted aircraft would alter virtually every page of their handbooks. "We have more questions than we have answers … This is a big, big cultural change," he said.

CORRECTED-Airbus expands order record, Boeing set to rebound

2011-12-29T16:42:00.000+08:00

By Tim Hepher on www.reuters.com

PARIS | Thu Dec 22, 2011 6:33am EST

PARIS (Reuters) - Airbus is on course to end 2011 with well over 1,600 orders, pushing Boeing (BA.N) to the lowest market share of their 40-year rivalry, but Boeing has stored up momentum for a comeback as both companies put fresh vigour into their most-sold jets.

Although Boeing took a year longer than Airbus to revamp a key model to meet demand for lower fuel costs, both enjoy strong demand as Asian growth and the replacement of old aircraft in the United States blot out the euro crisis, at least for now.

The dominant jetmakers track each other more closely in deliveries, which drive revenues and are considered a gauge of competition. Airbus is expected to remain ahead for the ninth year running as it meets a record goal for 520-530 deliveries.

Airbus has 1,529 firm orders so far this year, including an eight-plane deal announced since its November data.

The number already represents a new record for the European planemaker, which outsold Boeing for most of the past decade, sparking trade friction between Europe and the United States.

This year's lead is particularly pronounced because of demand for the revamped version of its 150-seat A320 jetliner.

The jazzed-up A320neo aims to provide 12-15 percent in fuel savings due to new engines. Boeing has responded with the 737 MAX, a refresh of its most popular model that also involves new engines. Armed with data, both companies say their offering is better.

Underlying Airbus orders are higher still at 1,609 including a previously announced 80-plane deal with Republic Airways that did not immediately enter the order book.

That leaves 174 provisional A320neo orders still to be confirmed, many of which may trickle through in coming days judging by a pattern of chasing deadlines in previous years.

They include provisional orders for a total of 63 airplanes from Mexico's Volaris and Colombian AviancaTaca.

The industry will also be watching to see whether U.S. lessor Air Lease Corp (AL.N) completes a draft order for 36 A320neo planes this year after its influential founder Stephen Udvar-Hazy expressed skepticism even while ordering the jet.

The California-based company has said it is negotiating with Airbus over its future A350, providing some potential leverage.

2012 REBOUND

Boeing, by contrast, has 894 orders so far this year. Business is up since 2010, but Boeing slumped behind Airbus in the 2011 race as it hesitated over whether to match the A320neo or build a more ambitious new aircraft at the expense of near-term sales. It chose the first option by launching the 737 MAX.

"For nine months as Boeing hesitated, they left the A320neo almost alone on the market," Louis Gallois, chief executive of Airbus parent EADS (EAD.PA), told analysts in remarks released this week.

Boeing has effectively ceded 2011 in volume terms to its arch-rival, but may spring further orders before the end of the year.

The only real suspense is over whether Boeing will achieve a 40 percent market share in 2011, the lower end of a 40-60 band that many analysts regard as the framework for a stable duopoly.

Currently it has a volume share of 37 percent and would need to sell over 180 aircraft by end-year to get back to 40 percent, with the target moving away from it as Airbus closes more deals.

The picture for Boeing may not be as bleak as a single year's figure would suggest. On average the rivals remain close.

Boeing has almost 800 provisional contracts for the 737 MAX waiting to be completed, including 462 for which the names of the buyers have not yet been disclosed.

Some may come through in coming days, but the bulk are expected to slip beyond the New Year, giving the company a head start for what many analysts expect to be a bounce-back in 2012.

The company also stuck close to its rival in value terms after a record slew of more than 200 orders for its 777 mini-jumbo.

The $300 million 1990s long-range jet is enjoying a second honeymoon with airlines after Airbus failed to allay criticism of its competing A350-1000, due out in 2017. While Airbus has been in the driving seat for narrowbodies this year, analysts say Boeing is still setting the pace for many larger jets.

The two companies are preparing for a major battle over a $16 billion order expected to cover approximately 180 aircraft from United Airlines (UAL.N) in the first quarter, including possibly 130 of the latest generation of revamped 150-seaters.

The aircraft makers are also expected to push hard over the holiday season to complete aircraft deliveries for 2011.

Airbus has already said it will beat a previous record of 510 deliveries and is expected to reach its goal of 520-530, though this implies its second-busiest December schedule after 2009.

Steady deliveries are seen as the lifeblood for both planemakers in 2012 as doubts gather over the economy and the ability of airlines to pay for their aircraft. Barring global recession, the industry insists for now financing is secure.

Airlines Count Down to Safest Year on Record

2011-12-29T11:26:00.003+08:00

By DANIEL MICHAELS and ANDY PASZTOR on http://online.wsj.com

This year is on course to be the safest ever for commercial aviation, with roughly one passenger death for every 7.1 million air travelers worldwide, although aviation officials warn that improving accident statistics mask lingering dangers.

With only days left, 2011 appears set to eclipse the postwar record low rate of passenger fatalities, set in 2004 at one per 6.4 million passengers, according to Ascend, a consulting firm in London. This year also appears set to end with among the lowest total number of passenger deaths, at 401 to date, despite a sharp rise recently in the number of flights and passengers worldwide. In 2004, 344 passengers died in commercial aviation accidents, but the industry carried 30% fewer passengers on many fewer flights, according to Ascend. The figures exclude acts of terrorism.

"Safety is improving and it's improving faster than the industry is expanding," said Paul Hayes, director of safety at Ascend.

The record is best for carriers flying Western-built planes. This year, they have experienced one major crash per three million flights worldwide, roughly 49% better than in 2010 and roughly three times better than 2001, according to the International Air Transport Association, a global trade group. The figure represents the industry's best performance since IATA began collecting crash records in the 1940s. Including Russian-built and other types of airliners, the global accident rate fell slightly to about two crashes per million flights, or seven times higher than the rate for Western-built planes such as those made by Airbus—a unit of European Aeronautics Defence and Space Co.—Boeing Co., Bombardier Inc. and Embraer SA.

The year is also closing with another notable record: the longest period in modern aviation without a single fatal airliner accident, according to Harro Ranter, president of the Aviation Safety Network, a nonprofit organization that tracks accidents and incidents. Since Oct. 13, when a propeller plane crash in Papua New Guinea killed 28 passengers, nobody has died in an airliner, which is generally defined as a commercial, multi-engine airplane carrying 14 or more passengers. The longest previous such period was 61 days, in 1985, according to Mr. Ranter.

While the year's records are noteworthy, they don't guarantee future safety—and could even undermine it by breeding complacency, warned Bill Voss, president of the Flight Safety Foundation, a global advocacy organization. "We have such a fantastic record" improving safety globally that airlines and governments are tempted to say, "look how well we have fixed it, we're done now," he said.

Some safety yardsticks have not improved in many years, while recent accidents and incidents have exposed areas that still need work: safety on the ground at airports, the training of pilots to handle sophisticated computers, and greater awareness of flight hazards in some developing countries. Most of the aviation fatalities in 2011 occurred in Russia, Iran and African countries that have long faced air-safety problems, such as Angola and Congo

The major accident rate in North America, for example, has remained flat at about one in 10 million flights, while in Africa the rate is roughly 40 times greater, according to IATA. But African aviation overall is generally far less dangerous than a few years ago, thanks to concerted efforts by local aviation officials and international regulators.

In more developed countries, ground accidents seem stubbornly resistant to stepped-up safety efforts by industry and regulators. Planes running off runways continue to be the most common type of hazard, totalling almost one-fourth of all crashes involving Western-built jets, although they account for a much smaller proportion of deaths. Causes include pilots descending without proper preparations for landing and crews failing to properly enter data or monitor flight computers. Safety officials say better training and discipline are part of the solution, but more-permanent remedies remain elusive.

Rarer but far more severe are so-called "loss of control accidents," when a functioning aircraft suddenly makes a catastrophic maneuver, according to Ilias Maragakis, an analyst at the European Union's European Aviation Safety Agency. At a conference EASA held in October about the phenomenon, he said that no single factor is to blame, so combating loss-of-control accidents "requires coordinated actions from multiple actors in aviation," such as airlines, regulators and equipment makers. One immediate response from regulators has been to require increasingly realistic training in simulators, including teaching high-altitude stall recovery techniques.

Another major safety threat stems from pilots who become confused by cockpit computers or who rely on automation too much. Such pilots can get into fatal difficulties when they are suddenly forced to revert to manual flying skills in an emergency. The increasing computerization of jetliners and similar big changes to flying mean "we need to admit that fundamental changes need to occur," including how pilots are recruited, trained and tested, Mr. Voss told an international safety conference in Singapore last month.

That shift is one of many that safety experts say are necessary to further reduce accidents. Historically, improvements have come largely from better equipment and pilot training. Experts believe that in the future, however, the biggest advances will come primarily from analyzing huge volumes of data about a broad array of incidents, culled from multiple carriers across the globe.

The technique "allows us to find that rare, high-risk event that a single carrier" could never identify or counter by itself, according to Ken Hylander, the top safety official at Delta Air Lines Inc. and the head of a joint FAA-industry safety team.

Early versions of such forward-looking data analysis played a major role in cutting U.S. accident rates since the late 1990s, and they are being embraced by regulators and airline executives in scores of other countries. Now, the FAA and U.S. carriers are trying to involve foreign counterparts in similar dissection of safety data retrieved from actual flights and voluntary pilot reports.

The trend is gaining particular momentum in Russia and across Latin America.

Yet sharing safety data across borders poses huge technical and legal challenges. As a result, not a single foreign carrier is fully participating in — or providing safety data for — the FAA's most ambitious threat-analysis system.

In seeking common causes of crashes around the world, "no longer is there a clear distinction between domestic and international accidents," said Deborah Hersman, head of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, at a speech to the United Nations' aviation body in Montreal earlier this month.

FAA Clears Next Generation Santa One for Takeoff

2011-12-27T02:00:00.000+08:00

click here to go to FAA website for details

US Air Force: We want to use biofuels

2011-12-27T00:52:00.000+08:00

by Staff Writers
Washington (AFP) July 19, 2011
http://www.biofueldaily.com

The US Air Force is ready to switch to biofuels to help power its warplanes but the price of alternative fuels remains too high, military officials said Tuesday.

Anxious to reduce its reliance on oil, the Air Force has approved the use of synthetic fuels for nearly all its aircraft and expects to get the green light for biofuels by the end of 2012, Undersecretary Erin Conaton said.

"The big thing we're trying to do is to send a clear message to industry that the Air Force wants to be in a position to purchase biofuels and to use that operationally for our fleet," Conaton told AFP.

"But in order to do that, we need industry to be able to produce in the quantities we need at a cost-competitive price."

Biofuels cost a prohibitive $35 a gallon, about 10 times the price of conventional jet fuel, or JP-8.

"The biofuels that are available now are just nowhere near the cost of what we can buy JP-8 for," Conaton said.

With the biofuels industry still in need of more private investment, the US military has joined forces with commercial airlines "to try to send the right message" to the alternative fuels industry, she said.

"We're ready whenever they're ready to produce it."

Tests have shown fighter aircraft and cargo planes can fly on a blend of biofuels and traditional jet fuel with no sacrifice in speed or performance, she said.

Conaton spoke as biofuels industry representatives and military officials gathered for an energy conference Tuesday in Washington where alternative fuels will feature high on the agenda.

US officials see the country's dependence on foreign oil as a national security risk and an increasing financial burden.

To promote energy "security," the Air Force has set a goal to have half of its domestic fuel needs drawn from alternative sources by 2016.

The biofuels tested on military aircraft, known as hydroprocessed renewable jet fuel, are derived from the camelina plant, animal fat and various waste oils.

The military and commercial airlines are also testing "alcohol-to-jet" fuel produced from cellulosic feedstock, including switch grass, grains and sugar.

Conaton said the Air Force had plans to test the ATJ fuel on A-10 ground attack aircraft.

Following the Air Force's lead, the Navy and Army are also working to promote the use of alternative fuels in ships, ground vehicles and bases, with Navy Secretary Ray Mabus arguing that the military can help generate enough demand to lower the price of biofuels.

Mabus told NPR earlier this month that "if we establish the market, the price is going to begin to come down."

The Air Force's consumption of fuel is equivalent to a major commercial airline, or about 2.5 billion gallons a year.

Air Force GPS program receives international award

2011-12-24T22:37:00.000+08:00

Posted 10/5/2011 @ http://www.af.mil

by Staff Sgt. Richard A. Williams Jr.
Air Force Public Affairs Agency

10/5/2011 - ARLINGTON, Va. (AFNS) -- The Air Force Global Positioning System program was recognized Oct. 4 by officials at the International Astronautical Federation with a special award during the 62nd International Astronautical Congress in Cape Town, South Africa.

The IAF, which celebrates its 60th anniversary this year, established a one-time 60th anniversary award to honor the occasion and "recognize an organization or key individual for a singular and successful project in the field of space applications, space science and exploration, which could demonstrate through its implementation, that measurable benefit to humanity has been achieved," according to the IAF website.

Nominated by the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics, the space-based navigation and timing system was selected as the award recipient by the IAF for the "uniqueness of the GPS program and the exemplary role it has played in building international collaboration for the benefit of humanity."

Gen. William L. Shelton, the Air Force Space Command commander, accepted the award in Cape Town on behalf of the Air Force.

"This is a tremendous honor for the Air Force, Air Force Space Command and everyone on our GPS team," said Under Secretary of the Air Force Erin Conaton. "We are proud to have developed and invested in this remarkable system that our Airmen continue to operate, sustain and modernize for the benefit of billions of people.

"In addition to being a vital asset for our military and our nation, GPS is an international treasure that enables countless economic transactions," she said. "Its contributions to the global economy are enormous -- by one estimate more than $100 billion every year."

GPS is a space-based radio-positioning system that provides precision navigation and timing information to military and civilian users worldwide, officials said. Since its origin more than 30 years ago, GPS has evolved into an indispensible resource that enables technologies employed by users every day in a variety of government and private sectors, to include agriculture, banking, transportation, weather, and defense.

In its official award nomination package to the IAF, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics stated, "No other single space product, program or system has led to human benefits that are even remotely close to those that have resulted from GPS."

Wishing All My Friends A Blessed and Merry Christmas

2011-12-24T15:42:00.001+08:00

Santa Claus, like all pilots, gets regular visits from the CAA...

I am sure no reindeer was harmed in the shooting of this clip.

First UK biofuel flight - aviation history or PR stunt?

2011-12-21T22:32:00.000+08:00

From http://www.edie.net

6 October 2011, source edie newsroom
Luke Walsh

Thomson Airways has become the first UK-based airline to run a biofuel powered fully commercial passenger flight in what is being hailed either as a breakthrough for sustainable aviation or dismissed as a PR stunt.

Today (October 6) the plane, a Boeing 757-200 carrying 232 passengers, took off from Birmingham Airport for Arrecife at 2.25pm for a four hour flight.

According to Thomson Airways the flight reinforces the carrier's position at the 'forefront of sustainable aviation'.

With an emission rate of 75g CO2 per passenger kilometre flown the biofuel powered flight has, according to the airline, a 'significantly lower than average emission rates' for both low cost and full service scheduled carriers.

Thomson Airways managing director, Chris Browne, said: "This is a very exciting day for Thomson Airways and a further step in our commitment to invest in sustainable aviation biofuel.

"We firmly believe the adoption of sustainable biofuels by airlines will help achieve the Government's carbon budget which commits the UK to reduce its carbon emissions by 50% by 2025.

"Most strikingly, sustainable biofuel has the potential to reduce aviation emissions by up to 80% in the long term."

The flight has already been backed by the UK government with aviation minister, Theresa Villiers, saying: "I very much welcome Thomson Airways' announcement and wish them well with this project.

"The government believes that sustainable biofuels have a role to play in efforts to tackle climate change, particularly in sectors where no other viable low carbon energy source has been identified - as is the case with aviation."

However, FoE called the flight 'a hollow PR stunt' paving the way for 'rainforest destruction'.

The biofuels used, which Thompson claim are sustainably sourced through a business in the Netherlands and independently accredited, include virgin plant oil from the US and babassu nuts from Brazil which are both in 'short supply', according to FoE.

FoE biofuels campaigner, Kenneth Richter, said: "Biofuels won't make flying any greener - their production is wrecking rainforests, pushing up food prices and causing yet more climate-changing emissions.

"The government must curb future demand for flights by halting airport expansion, promoting video conferencing, and developing faster, better and affordable rail services."

The Navy and Marine Corps Select Lockheed Martin/Kaman Unmanned K-MAX for Afghanistan Deployment

2011-12-18T22:18:00.000+08:00

From www.spacewar.com
by Staff Writers
Owego NY (SPX) Oct 06, 2011

The Marine Corps will deploy the Lockheed Martin and Kaman unmanned K-MAX to Afghanistan next month.

The decision follows the successful completion of a five-day Quick Reaction Assessment for the U.S. Navy's Cargo Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) program. A formal report, released last week by Commander Operational Test and Evaluation Force, confirmed that the unmanned K-MAX exceeded the Navy and Marines' requirement to deliver 6,000 pounds of cargo per day.

"This announcement underscores K-MAX's strong performance and the strength of the Lockheed Martin/Kaman team," said Dan Spoor, vice president of Aviation Systems in Lockheed Martin's Mission Systems and Sensors. "We are fully prepared to deploy our system and augment Marine Corps ground and air logistics in Afghanistan."

K-MAX will be the Navy's first-ever cargo unmanned aircraft system to deploy in an operational environment.

The deploying team recently concluded training and flight tests at its base in Twenty-nine Palms, Calif., and is currently preparing the aircraft for shipment into theater. The team consists of active duty mission commanders, air vehicle operators and Lockheed Martin employees.

"I am very confident in both the team and the K-MAX UAS to successfully perform their missions while deployed," said Rear Admiral Bill Shannon, Program Executive Officer for Unmanned Aviation and Strike Weapons.

"K-MAX has the capability to quickly deliver cargo, thus getting troops off the roads and allowing them to focus on other missions."

"We are extremely honored to have been selected for deployment by the Navy," said Sal Bordonaro, division president at Kaman Helicopters. "We are committed to providing the Marine Corps with the life-saving unmanned capability of our proven airframe, reducing the risk to our forces by taking the cargo resupply mission from the ground to the air."

Since partnering in 2007, Lockheed Martin and Kaman Aerospace have successfully transformed Kaman's proven K-MAX power-lift manned helicopter into a UAS capable of autonomous or remote controlled cargo delivery.

Kaman designed the K-MAX platform, and Lockheed Martin has designed the helicopter's mission management and control systems to provide the K-MAX with exceptional flight autonomy

Deterrent Grass Could Stop Airport Bird Strikes

2011-12-15T15:04:00.000+08:00

Posted by Airport International's Global Correspondent on 25/08/2011 - 12:40:00

Scientists Develop New Weapon for Bird-Strikes... by NewsLook

Airport bird strikes could become a thing of the past if a newly-developed type of grass is put into widespread use. Conceived and produced in New Zealand, the material may provide a solution to a problem that costs the aviation industry an estimated $1.4bn dollars each year.

The so-called Jackal grass seed incorporates a type of fungus that produces an unpleasant taste for birds and other creatures, giving it deterrent properties suitable for airport settings, especially around runway and taxiway areas.

Birds that eat the grass, which is now being sold as Avanex, aren't harmed by it, but it does make them sick afterwards. It's been undergoing testing since the late 1990s and, as a result, scientists are confident that the fungus-infected grass is enough of an avian deterrent to stop birds eating it again, once they've tried it.

Bird Deterrent Grass

The bird deterrent grass was developed by Doctor Pennell and colleagues at AgResearch - a state-owned New Zealand biotech firm.

"Bird strike is a $1.4 billion problem for the aviation industry...and if we can reduce the attractiveness of an airport to birds, then we don't have to use guns and flashing lights to chase them away", he explained, in comments quoted by One News.

To date, the anti-bird strike grass has been trialled at New Zealand's Christchurch Airport: its now being planted at other sites, including Hamilton and Auckland airports. Of course, the product has applications beyond airport use - potentially, it could be deployed at any location where birds are considered undesirable. But the large, open spaces in and around airports are a long-term location of choice for birds, suggesting they're where Avanex could really come into its own.

Airport Bird Strikes

Data published in 2009 estimated that the annual airport bird strike total stood at about 7,000 incidents and that was just in the US. In around 15 per cent of these events, subsequent aircraft damage occurred. The infamous Hudson River landing took place when the Airbus airliner involved passed through a flock of birds and illustrated, quite graphically, the dangers involved.

Three months ago, Avanex was awarded the prestigious Australasian DuPont Innovation Award for Performance Materials. In a press release published to highlight this achievement, Cameron Henley from PGG Wrightson Turf - the company responsible for Avanex' commercial expansion - described it as a "...remarkable international accolade for a technology developed in New Zealand by AgResearch, holding potentially significant safety benefits for airports and sports facilities worldwide."

"We are proud to be a part of the development of this exciting technology and to bring Avanex to the market", he added.

Low FLying Hours Harrier aircraft for sale

2011-12-12T18:57:00.000+08:00

Year of Construction: 1998
Total Time Airframe: 1291 Hours.
Total Time Engine: 870 Hours

**THIS HARRIER IS COMPLETE AND READY TO FLY**
SPARES & SUPPORT PACKAGE AVAILABLE INCLUDING SPARE LOW TIME SERVICEABLE ENGINE

You can buy a Jaguar and some other aircraft type or a Martin Baker ejection seat.

Click here to go to Everett Aero website; the company that is selling them.

When biofuels aren’t environmentally friendly

2011-12-09T19:45:00.005+08:00

ubm-aviation.msgfocus.com

In the clamour to go green – or at least create this perception – it is easy to assume that biofuel will be an environmentally-friendly solution to some of aviation’s biggest problems.

But what if the reality is that they cause more damage to the environment than traditional fossil fuels?

That is the argument being put forward by an increasing number of environmental campaigners. In the latest example, Friends of the Earth has attacked the UK’s first commercial flight to run on biofuels as a “hollow PR stunt”. One of the engines on today’s Thomson Airways flight from Birmingham to Lanzarote will be partially powered by a biofuel made from waste cooking oil. But the campaigners say this fuel is not even close to being viable – having calculated that each of the 232 passengers onboard the flight would have to save all of their chip fat for 100 years in order to provide enough to power the aircraft.

They claim that this is symptomatic of a general lack of sustainable biofuel, which will inevitably cause (and has caused) airlines to turn to unsustainable sources, which in turn will have a devastating impact on the environment. "Biofuels won't make flying any greener - their production is wrecking rainforests, pushing up food prices and causing yet more climate-changing emissions,” said Friends of the Earth campaigner Kenneth Richter.

It is easy to sneer at environmental groups, but there is one point here that is irrefutable.

While groups like Friends of the Earth initially praised the potential of biofuels, their view has shifted dramatically. The natural oils used in many biofuels are highly valuable commercially, and the desire to grow them has led to an extraordinary and unprecedented destruction of rainforests. A particular problem is palm oil. Its usage has been linked to previous biofuel flights, but the problem is even more widespread than this. Palm oil is used in a huge number of everyday products – but is not clearly identified in most ingredients lists. Thus, consumers are unwittingly contributing to the widespread destruction of rainforests, the loss of animal species, and are generally causing more environmental damage than they realise.

It is this lack of knowledge on a wider scale that is partly causing this crisis, and many pressure groups have demanded legislation that makes it clear to consumers when palm oil has been used, giving them the “freedom of choice” to help stop the massive rainforest destruction.

Some groups are, by extension, calling for a suspension of biofuel use in aviation. Thomson, while conceding that the fuel it is using is in short supply, reaffirmed that the waste cooking oil is entirely sustainable, and said it was “proud to be flying with biofuel”.

But what happens when airline demand increases and the supply of sustainable fuel runs out?

Jason Holland, Editor, Aircraft Technology Engineering & Maintenance
jason.holland@ubmaviation.com

Boeing and Lion Air Pioneer Precision Satellite Navigation Technology

2011-12-06T14:45:00.004+08:00

Published October 5, 2011 | By Marcel van Leeuwen
http://www.aviationnews.eu

RNP debuts in South Asia for capacity, safety and environmental benefits.

Boeing and Lion Air, an all-Boeing Next-Generation 737 operator, are pioneering the use of precision navigation technology in South Asia with the introduction of Required Navigation Performance (RNP) flight operations. RNP enables airplanes, using global positioning systems, to fly precisely predefined flight paths without reliance on ground-based navigation stations.

Lion Air, together with Boeing and the Indonesian Directorate General of Civil Aviation, successfully performed validation flights to test tailor-made RNP Authorization Required (RNP AR) procedures at two terrain-challenged airports, Ambon and Manado, Indonesia.

“We look forward to seeing these procedures fully implemented so we can realize the substantial economic and safety benefits provided by this program,” said Captain Ertata Lananggalih, managing director of Lion Air. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation Indonesia intends to implement RNP at other airports in the country.

Lion Air is employing the most advanced version of RNP — RNP Authorization Required — that navigates the world’s most challenging terrain. RNP helps reduce airplane flight miles and provides for idle-power descents that save fuel, reduce emissions and noise and enhance safety.

“Boeing is leading the way in designing and implementing performance-based operations such as RNP,” said Neil Planzer, vice president, Air Traffic Management, Boeing Flight Services. “It’s part of our commitment to help our customers maximize the superior capability and technology inherent in their airplanes.”

Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen, designed, charted, and helped certify the instrument flight procedures, while Boeing Flight Services led the overall project, conducted an RNP Safety Assessment, and trained Lion Air’s leadership, dispatchers and flight crews. Boeing worked with Indonesia’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation through the construction of a national regulatory framework necessary to fully certify the airline for RNP operations under ICAO guidelines.

Lion Air is the launch customer for the Boeing 737-900ER and the largest customer and operator of the Boeing 737-900ER in the world. The airline took delivery of its 50th Boeing Next-Generation in September. The Lion Air Group operates an extensive route network in Indonesia with 488 daily flights across 71 destinations. Lion Air has 49 Boeing 737-900ERs in its fleet today, with an additional 178 slated for delivery.

Global Hawk settles at Robins

2011-12-03T16:35:00.000+08:00

Posted 9/23/2011 on http://www.robins.af.mil

by Jenny Gordon
78th Air Base Wing Public Affairs

9/23/2011 - ROBINS AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. -- An RQ-4 Global Hawk arrived at the Museum of Aviation Tuesday, after traveling on board a C-5 Galaxy cargo plane from Beale Air Force Base, Calif.

The unmanned aircraft, which has flown more than 7,000 combat hours, was recently retired from the Air Force.

It is scheduled to be on elevated display in November in the Century of Flight Hangar. The Robins museum is only the second museum in the Air Force to obtain a Global Hawk aircraft.

"The museum is very pleased to be receiving this Global Hawk UAV for display," said Ken Emery, museum director. "It has served extensively in Iraq and Afghanistan with 357 combat sorties supporting combat operations. It represents a modern mission that the Warner Robins Air Logistics Center supports, and represents some of the latest technology and missions of the Air Force."

The aircraft's last flight was in May from a base in southwest Asia.

It eventually was flown to Beale, then Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., before arriving at Robins. During its service, it flew more combat sorties than any other Global Hawk. It was part of Block 10, part of the Air Force's first group of production aircraft.

At Robins, the Command & Control, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Division, C2ISR, of the center's Aerospace Sustainment Directorate performs program management for the RQ-4 Global Hawk, as well as other unmanned aircraft systems.

The Global Hawk is a high altitude, long- endurance unmanned aircraft system. It includes an integrated sensor suite which provides worldwide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capability.

First Aircraft Landing On A Ship, 101 Years Ago on January 18, 1911

2011-12-03T04:09:00.004+08:00

From wwww.avweb.com

First Aircraft Landing On A Ship, 101 Years Ago

Now that it's 2012, the Centennial of Naval Aviation is officially over, but the Navy nonetheless took note this week that 101 years ago, on Jan. 18, 1911, a pilot landed his airplane on a ship for the first time. A temporary platform, 120 by 30 feet, was built across the afterdeck of the armored cruiser Pennsylvania, anchored off the San Francisco waterfront. The ship's crew rigged a series of ropes across the platform to catch hooks attached to the landing gear of Eugene Ely's Curtiss Pusher biplane. Thousands of spectators lined the shore to watch the historic attempt. Ely flew around the ship to set up the landing course, then came in toward the stern. "Ely was prepared to handle the existing tailwind, but apparently did not expect the updraft that struck his lightly-loaded plane just as it reached the platform," says the Navy website. "Fortunately, he responded quickly, dove, and snagged the arresting gear about halfway up its length."

The ropes were weighed down by sandbags, and pulled the pusher to a smooth stop. As a precaution, the ship's crew had also rigged canvas awnings in front and to the sides to catch the airplane in case of an overrun or a swerve off the platform. "This arrangement was a clever one, worked well, and in general pointed the way to the arresting gear and safety barrier system that is employed on the Navy's aircraft carriers to this day," says the Navy. At EAA AirVenture last summer, AVweb's Jeff Van West spoke with retired Navy pilot Bob Coolbaugh, who built a replica of Ely's Pusher and flew it to the airshow.

Retired Navy pilot Bob Coolbaugh had a vision: In 2008, he set out to build a replica of the first aircraft to make an arrested landing on a ship (an intentional arrested landing, anyway) in time for the 2011 Naval Centennial of Aviation. He knew the design was not an easy bird to manage in even in the best of conditions and was even told he'd kill himself in the first five hours. With the help of some friends, he completed his replica 1911 Curtis Pusher and has accumulated over 80 hours — and about 2,500 miles — flying it from airshow to airshow. It's an exhausting bird to fly, but Coolbaugh says exposing people to the earliest roots of aviation makes it all worthwhile.

NTSB Identifies Record-Keeping Loophole

2011-11-30T21:00:00.000+08:00

One reason we don't know more about why Boeing aircraft suffered fuselage skin cracking can be tied to regulatory decisions made by the FAA. A Southwest Airlines 737-300 suffered a crack in its fuselage on April 1, and an American Airlines 757-200 suffered a tear in its skin last year. Both incidents led to the discovery of symptoms that could lead to similar problems on other jets. In the case of the 737, rivet work was questioned. In the case of the 757 the NTSB determined that the aircraft's skin was of nonconforming thickness -- it was thinner than it was supposed to be. But Boeing's records of how those and other affected planes were built and inspected were missing ... as directed by the FAA.

A study of the manufacturing processes for the jets could explain why or how each situation came to pass. Without the associated paper trail, such a study is not possible. In 2009, the FAA revised rules previously devised in 1964 that set limits for how long manufacturers should keep records of their manufacturing and inspection processes. Per the old rule, manufacturers records should be kept for two years. The new rule requires that record are kept for five years and 10 years in the case of critical components. Southwest's jet, which saw a 5-foot section of the fuselage tear open at 34,000 feet, was built in 1996, so Boeing kept no records. The American Airlines jet entered service in 1990 so, again, no records are available. The NTSB found that "incorrect manufacturing" led to the problem on the 757. And thanks at least in part to the FAA's 5-year rule, there were limits on what else the bureau could find. "Therefore," said the NTSB, "a cause for the manufacturing non-conformance could not be identified."

MUSIC integrates unmanned, manned aircraft

2011-11-27T17:01:00.000+08:00

Source : www.army.mil -- the official homepage of the U.S. Army

MICHAEL ARMY AIRFIELD, Utah, Sept. 16, 2011 -- The Project Offices for Unmanned Aircraft Systems, Apache Attack Helicopter and Armed Scout Helicopter conducted an exercise showcasing advancements made in aircraft interoperability, referred to as the Manned Unmanned System Integration Capability, or MUSIC, Exercise at Michael Army Airfield, Dugway Proving Ground, Utah, today.

The MUSIC exercise is the largest hybrid aviation exercise ever attempted, and will help shape the future of full-spectrum Combat Aviation Brigades and the Army.

The advances in the interoperability of these systems give Soldiers an advantage in the battlefield, by providing them with a lethal weapon that offers better communication, quicker sharing of data and more effective collaboration.

"MUSIC is intended to be a showcase for innovation, integration, and ultimately interoperability," said Tim Owings, Deputy Project Manager of Unmanned Aircraft Systems for the Army.

The seven featured aircraft included the AH-64D Apache Longbow Block II, OH-58D Kiowa Warrior, MQ-1C Gray Eagle Unmanned Aircraft Systems, or UAS, RQ-7B Shadow UAS, RQ-11B Raven small UAS, Puma All Environment Capable Variant and the MQ-5B Hunter UAS, which all have the capability to shoot and stream live video. These aircraft also possess the ability to exchange and use the information as needed, whether it is to conduct surveillance or reconnaissance of a given area.

Combat Aviation Brigades will have the ability to control several different unmanned aircraft through a single Universal Ground Control Station, or UGS, in a rapid manner. The common hardware and software provided by UGS supports interoperability across each of the aviation platforms.

A single operator is then able to take control of a given payload, or sensor, on the aviation platform by using the One System Remote Video Terminal. The operator can steer the aircraft's payload in any direction to conduct surveillance and reconnaissance of an area. The OSRVT is then able to receive video not only from the Gray Eagle, Shadow, and Hunter, but also from other small unmanned aircraft such as the Puma and Raven, along with manned platforms Apache and Kiowa.

Not only is MUSIC helping shape the future of CAB units and the Army but its creating connections across joint boundaries to include the Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps, said Maj. Gen. William T. Crosby, the Program Executive Office, Aviation.

MUSIC will hold similar exercises every two years to demonstrate its continued technological advances.

More information about the MUSIC Exercise can be found at http://2011music.org/.

A380 Experience Drives A350 Maintenance Approach

2011-11-24T16:53:00.000+08:00

By Robert Wall wall@aviationweek.com
MADRID
http://www.aviationweek.com

Airbus is looking to avoid some of the issues it has had on A380 health monitoring messages as it develops the A350 twin widebody.

With the A380, there have been complaints that too many fault messages have added rather than subtracted to the maintenance burden for operators. But on the A350, that should not be the case. “We will have roughly 30% fewer messages compared with the A380,” Marc Virilli, senior director for Airbus said at Aviation Week’s MRO Europe conference.

One of the changes Airbus is making to reduce message volume is to focus on those that are key to aircraft dispatch reliability. There will be no maintenance message sent if there is no affect on operations, he notes.

There are other areas, too, where A380 lessons are being built into the A350’s development. For instance, additional tests will be conducted early to gauge reliability at supplier level and integration benches on the aircraft.

On the A380, Airbus – owing to program delays – had a lot of flight test period to gather reliability data. Nominally, at least, that should not be the case on the A350, even though that program has suffered its own schedule slippage.

To help gain some of that service operational data, Airbus has decided to maintain the fleet of five flight test aircraft in an airline-like system, using the draft technical documentation that would later be issued to customers. That should help expose any system maturity issues.

The NYPD now has anti-aircraft capability.

2011-11-21T11:13:00.000+08:00

NYPD's Kelly says cops could take down an aircraft

By PHIL HELSEL

Last Updated: 6:06 PM, September 25, 2011
http://www.nypost.com

The NYPD now has anti-aircraft capability.

New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly tells "60 Minutes" that the NYPD has "some means to take down a plane" in what he termed an "extreme situation," during an interview tonight on CBS, according to a transcript of the exchange.

Under fire by some for police counterterrorism tactics highlighted in a series of Associated Press articles, Kelly doesn't elaborate to interviewer Scott Pelley exactly how cops could take down a plane, but when asked point-blank whether the police have the equipment and training to pull off such a feat, Kelly responds, "Yes"

"Do you mean to say that the NYPD has the means to take down an aircraft?" Pelley asks.

To which Kelly responds: "Yes, I prefer not to get into the details but obviously this would be in a very extreme situation."

"You have the equipment and the training," Pelley follows up.

"Yes," Kelly answers.

In the interview, Kelly also says NYPD officers are in far-flung locales like Abu Dhabi and Jordan.

"They’re there to act as trip wires or listening posts," Kelly said. "Is there anything going on there that (as I say) can help us better protect the city."

Kelly says thousands of heavily-armed cops, a growing network of cameras downtown -- the number will swell from 2,000 to 3,000 in Lower Manhattan -- and radiation detectors ringing the city are necessary because New York remains in the crosshairs.

"We’re the number one target in this country. That’s the consensus of the intelligence community. We’re the communications capital. We’re the financial capital. We’re a city that’s been attacked twice successfully. We’ve have 13 terrorist plots against the city since September 11th. No other city has had that," Kelly says.

In one plot detected by police counter-terrorism unit, would-be bombers used a monster movie reference to hatch their plan, Kelly says.

"We had received information in some communications that the bridge in the Godzilla movie was being observed as a possible target, "Kelly says, in reference to the scene in the 1998 movie of the same name, where the creature becomes entangled in suspension wires on the Brooklyn Bridge. "That’s how they characterized the bridge."

It wasn't the only movie reference during tonight's sit-down. Kelly borrowed a line from "Casablanca," where Humphrey Bogart warns the Nazis that some sections of the Big Apple would be too rough to take on in his closing message to modern-day evildoers.

"If you see the movie 'Casablanca,' and you have Humphrey Bogart talking to Colonel Strasser. And he says that he would advise the Nazis to think twice about invading certain parts of New York City," Kelly says.

"Well that’s our message. “Stay away.”

Boeing’s Dreamliner Problems Aren’t Grounded Yet

2011-11-18T11:19:00.000+08:00

From http://www.businessweek.com

The 787s are getting closer to actually flying, but they’re unlikely to be profitable for many years

By Susanna Ray
Ray is a reporter for Bloomberg News

Boeing’s (BA) skill at marketing the fuel-sipping benefits of its 787 Dreamliner has far exceeded its ability to actually build the plane. That’s left the maker of the much-hyped, long-delayed aircraft with more than $16 billion in inventory tied up in planes under construction, forcing it to stash 35 nearly finished jets outside its plant in Everett, Wash., and at facilities as far away as Texas.

The aerospace giant received some good news on Aug. 26 when it gained regulatory approval to begin delivering the world’s first plastic-composite jetliner. However, most of the 787s in the works will be sitting on the tarmac for months more as they complete construction, eating into the returns of a program that’s already unlikely to log a true profit before the tail end of this decade. “This is like dinner in the anaconda right now,” says Bill Batcheller, chief investment officer at Tower Wealth Management. “It’s a big bulge in the middle of the balance sheet, and it’s got to work its way through.”

Counting all those mothballed 787s, plus four aircraft in the factory and six test jets, Boeing has more planes on hold than Virgin Atlantic Airways has in service. That’s put a crimp in the aerospace giant’s finances: Working capital as a percentage of sales is approaching 50 percent, vs. less than 25 percent in 2009. Explains Wolfgang Demisch, a partner at Demisch Associates, an aerospace financial consultant: “It’s like they’re dragging a boat anchor equivalent to 25 percent of their sales, which is at the expense of the profitability of their enterprise.” Boeing’s stock has fallen 34 percent since the first 787 delay in October 2007.

Boeing has some help in carrying the cost. It created a production system for the 787 using suppliers around the world to build most of the plane; most don’t get paid until Boeing does. Also, airlines generally shell out about 60 percent of the price of a plane in installments leading up to its delivery. Boeing spokesman Chaz Bickers says the planemaker expects inventory growth to moderate as deliveries progress. Boeing’s “strong core operating performance and cash management” provide a foundation to support the 787 program as well as the latest update of the 747 jumbo jet, he says.

Boeing can “eat some of the dirt of the inventory cost” by using so-called program accounting that allows long-running aircraft and defense programs to allocate costs across a large number of expected unit sales, says Demisch. The more planes Boeing expects to sell, the greater it can spread out the costs on its books. The company won’t disclose the size of that accounting block signaling its assumptions on 787 finances until it reports third-quarter earnings in October.

Boeing has probably spent $300 million to build each 787 so far and will realize revenue of as little as $50 million apiece for the early models, Barclays (BCS) analysts Joe Campbell and Carter Copeland estimate. Douglas Harned, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein (AB), says that the 45th plane to be built will probably cost Boeing at least $184 million. That would make the average cost (adjusting for a learning curve) over the first 1,000 jets at least $116 million per plane, he projects—one reason Harned says it’s unlikely the 787 program will show a positive gross margin on those planes.

Struggles with new materials and manufacturing processes extended testing to 20 months instead of the eight originally planned. That meant about half the 787s in inventory were already built before Boeing pushed back deliveries again last year after a fire during a test flight. (Jim Albaugh, chief of the Boeing Commercial Airplanes unit, says “once our customers get this airplane, they’ll forgive us for the fact we’re a little late.”) Each of the partially built planes is in a different state of readiness, since Boeing kept improving processes after the jets began rolling out in 2009. They’ve undergone waves of repairs based on testing tweaks; many jobs remain, including replacement of electrical panels redesigned after the test flight fire.

Production has been stalled at a rate of two planes a month for more than a year, and Boeing repeatedly has frozen the final assembly line in Everett for catch-up sessions, including a four-week pause last month. “Anytime you’re building an airplane out of sequence, the amount of work that’s required probably goes up by a factor of 10, because they have to unbuild all the things you built on top of whatever you have to change, and then build it all back,” says Demisch. “It’s cost that will be added to production and make the likelihood of a profit on this program over the next half-dozen years very, very low.”

The bottom line: Boeing will deliver its first 787 Dreamliner in September after three years of delays and an inventory buildup of more than $16 billion.

Actor John Travolta has signed up to promote Bombardier's Learjet, Challenger and Global business jets as a "brand ambassador."

2011-11-15T01:09:00.002+08:00

John Travolta to promote Bombardier's three families of business jets
By: The Canadian Press

Copied from http://www.winnipegfreepress.com

The world's largest business aircraft manufacturer says the actor and producer recently added a pre-owned Challenger 601 aircraft to the 11 different jets he's qualified to fly.

The Oscar-nominated actor also owns a Learjet 24 and previously owned a small Canadair De Havilland plane.

"Business aviation has always made sense to me in that it offers flexibility, privacy, security, and most importantly, timesaving — meaning I have the ability to keep up with my busy schedule and have more time for my family, which is very important to me," he stated in a news release.

Travolta, 57, starred in Saturday Night Fever (1977), Grease (1978) and Urban Cowboy (1980) and continues to make movies.

The other brand ambassadors for Bombardier include classical pianist Lang Lang, conductor Valerie Gergiev and former astronaut Eugene Cernan.

Travolta also promotes Australia's Qantas Airlines and Breitling watches.

Bombardier spokeswoman Danielle Boudreau declined to provide financial terms of Travolta's contract, but said he is familiar with the company's offering.

"He has been in Montreal to visit our manufacturing facilities and meet with some of our employees and hopefully he will be coming back soon," she said from Los Angeles.

Bombardier sells 11 models of business aircraft and has nine facilities around the world providing pilot and technical training on its planes.

The leading manufacturer of business and commercial planes, along with railway cars had US$17.7 billion of revenues for the fiscal year ended Jan. 31.

Boeing counting on 787 Dreamliner to help reclaim top spot

2011-11-12T13:51:00.000+08:00

From www.washingtonpost.com

By Susanna Ray, Published: September 26

Sept. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Boeing Co. hands over the first 787 Dreamliner today to end more than three years of delays for a plane that the company says will become a benchmark for decades for technology and passenger amenities.

All Nippon Airways Co. will take delivery at a ceremony in Everett, Washington, of the first jetliner with a fuselage made of carbon-fiber reinforced plastic materials. Struggles with those composites and manufacturing process pushed back the jet’s entry into service seven times since 2007.

Boeing is counting on the Dreamliner to help it reclaim the top spot in industry sales lost to Airbus SAS in 2003. The composite body is lighter than traditional aluminum, cutting fuel use, and upgrades such as LED lighting and larger windows are designed to improve passengers’ in-flight experience.

“We’ve developed a set of technologies that will serve as the backbone of our airplanes for the next 30 years,” Scott Fancher, the 787 program chief, told reporters yesterday at a briefing in Everett.

The twin-engine 787 is Chicago-based Boeing’s best-selling new jet ever, with 821 orders from 56 customers. Boeing is working to boost production to 10 a month, a record for wide- body aircraft, after the setbacks increased costs, sent 787 inventory ballooning to $16.2 billion through June and upset airlines’ timetables for adding new routes.

Carriers have penalty clauses written into contracts for late deliveries. All Nippon has worked with Boeing to receive 767s and 777s to blunt the effect of not getting the 787 in May 2008 as planned. Satoru Fujiki, All Nippon’s senior vice president for the Americas, declined to give financial details.

‘Quite Confident’

“We have waited three years, and finally we have reached first delivery,” Fujiki told reporters yesterday in Everett. “We are quite confident in Boeing’s ability” to meet delivery targets as production ratchets up.

The 55 787s on order at All Nippon would make the Tokyo- based airline the biggest operator of the plane. It plans to offer the first passenger flight on Oct. 26 as a special trip between Tokyo and Hong Kong.

The jets will start on shorter routes within Japan, because the first ones are overweight and not as fuel-efficient, Fujiki said. Regular domestic service will start Nov. 1 between Haneda and Okayama and Hiroshima, followed by intercontinental service between Haneda and Frankfurt in January after the carrier receives several more of the planes.

Share Performance

Boeing rose 79 cents, or 1.3 percent, to $59.51 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading on Sept. 23, snapping a streak of four declines. The shares have fallen 41 percent since the initial 787 delay was announced almost four years ago.

“I’m sleeping better than I have been for awhile,” said Dan Mooney, Boeing’s vice president of development for the 787- 8, the initial Dreamliner variant being built. “But our next challenge is getting that production system stable.”

The Dreamliner is Boeing’s first new jet in 16 years, after the 777, the planemaker’s biggest twin-engine aircraft. The company doesn’t expect to develop another new plane until next decade, after deciding in July to upgrade the engines on the 737 instead of building a replacement jet.

The 787 promises to be 20 percent cheaper to operate than comparably sized jets, due to the lightweight materials and a new all-electric system that doesn’t divert air from the engines for power. Boeing is marketing the plane, which seats 210 to 290 people, for long-haul routes such as Tokyo-New York that have been the domain of larger aircraft.

‘Biggest Challenges’

“This airplane is positioned to capitalize on one of the biggest challenges in aviation -- the operating cost of fuel and maintenance,” Fancher said. “This is positioned to challenge those head-on.”

The 787’s new Rolls-Royce Holdings Plc engine, an option along with a General Electric Co. model, collects data every few seconds and transmits it so parts can be waiting for any repairs at the plane’s next stop, according to the London-based manufacturer.

Boeing drew from a decade of research by psychologists and architects to make air travel more comfortable for passengers with the 787.

The bigger windows feature dimming glass that replaces window shades; bigger luggage bins that still allow for more headroom; and LED lighting that highlights new archways. Because plastics don’t corrode like metals, cabin air can have more humidity and be kept at a higher pressure, so travelers feel they’re at a lower altitude than on other planes.

Boeing will continue to refine the 787’s interior, said Kent Craver, regional director of passenger satisfaction and revenue for Boeing.

“This is going to be the new baseline for all future airplanes,” Craver said.

Deer Jet Gets ARGUS Platinum

2011-11-09T15:16:00.000+08:00

Deer Jet Gets ARGUS Platinum

Deer Jet, China's largest business jet operator, has become the only one with an ARGUS Platinum Rating. The designation, the most prestigious awarded by the independent audit organization, is reserved for the best of the best in terms of service, safety and equipment. Of 2,000 operators that have submitted to the voluntary audit, only 87, most of them in the U.S., have received the Platinum ranking. "The award means Deer Jet has reached the highest operational level of the industry. It will be more trusted by the top 1,000 enterprises of the world, given more business opportunities," said ARGUS CEO Joseph Moeggenberg.

Deer Jet is a subsidiary of Hainan Airlines, China's fourth largest airline, and is based in Beijing. It currently has 39 of the country's roughly 70 business aircraft and just welcomed a big addition to its stable. On the 15th anniversary of the Boeing Business Jet (BBJ), Deer Jet accepted a new BBJ. It also flies the Airbus ACJ 319, along with a range of Gulfstream and Hawker Beechcraft models.

Click hereto go to Deer Jet website

Platinum Rating - The highest level of ARG/US safety ratings is awarded to those operators who meet the criteria for Gold, and successfully pass an ARG/US on-site safety audit. The ARG/US audit is a true process audit administered by trained and experienced aviation auditing professionals to evaluate the operator against industry best practice standards. A Platinum rating requires a functioning Safety Management System, and clear and workable Emergency Response Plan, and appropriate written standards, implementation, and records for all major aspects of Operations and Maintenance within a flight department or Charter company (see ARG/US Audits ).

Click hereto go to ARGUS (Aviation Research Group/ U.S.) website

Photo above shows Deer Jet's ACJ. ACJ stands for Airbus Corporate Jet. Deer Jet is the first Chinese operator to dedicate an ACJ to VVIP charter flights. The Deer JEt ACJ is based in Beijing, from where it will be well placed to offer nonstop VVIP charter flights throughout China and most of Asia-Pacific. The Airbus ACJ’s intercontinental range will also allow it to offer one-stop flights to most cities in the rest of the world.

Deer Jet’s ACJ was outfitted with a VVIP cabin by the Airbus Corporate Jet Centre in Toulouse. It seats up to 29 passengers.

World's first manned flight with an electric multicopter

2011-11-06T03:22:00.002+08:00

Airbus Concept Cabin

2011-11-06T00:07:00.000+08:00

Airbus invites the passengers of 2050 to discover its Concept Cabin - a whole new flying experience inspired by nature. Charles Champion, Airbus Executive Vice President Engineering, says: "Our research shows that passengers of 2050 will expect a seamless travel experience while also caring for the environment. The Airbus Concept Cabin is designed with that in mind, and shows that the journey can be as much a voyage of discovery as the destination. Whichever flight experience is chosen, the passenger of 2050 will step out of the Airbus Concept Cabin feeling revitalised and enriched."

Trash bag aircraft -- T.B.A.C

2011-11-03T11:59:00.000+08:00

A high school student at Advanced Technologies Academy in Las Vegas, Nevada managed to launch an aircraft using trash bags. The trash bag aircraft traveled for hundreds of miles and rose to thousands of feet while capturing thousands of images of the Earth. The trash bag craft consisted of household equipment and only cost $50.

Click here to go to project website for more information and videos.

LA woman allegedly pointed laser beam at aircraft

2011-10-30T00:03:00.001+08:00

By:The Associated Press | 09/25/11 11:16 AM
The Associated Press.

A Los Angeles County woman is behind bars for allegedly pointing a laser beam at an airliner and a sheriff's helicopter.

Sheriff's Capt. Mike Parker said Sunday that 27-year-old Kimberly Rogers was arrested Friday night at a home in Compton.

Officials say air traffic controllers at Los Angeles International Airport reported that an airliner had been targeted by a laser. A sheriff's helicopter was dispatched to the area and soon it was targeted as well.

The helicopter's pilot managed to direct patrol deputies to the origin of the laser beam and Rogers was arrested.

Parker says she is being held in lieu of $20,000 bail.

The powerful lasers are marketed as tools to point out stars at night. When aimed at aircraft, they can temporarily blind pilots and cause retina damage

Japanese Defense Ministry shows world's first spherical flying machine

2011-10-28T23:10:00.000+08:00

By Randolph Jonsson
20:25 October 26, 2011
http://www.gizmag.com

Star Wars fans (like me) will get a vague sense of deja vu when they see this flying sphere in action. Weighing in at about 12 ounces (350 g), the 16-inch (42 mm) diameter flying ball can launch and return vertically, maintain a stationary hover and zip along at up to 37 mph (60 km/h). Coupled with the ball camera we reported on earlier this month, it could become a valuable reconnaissance platform. Who knows? In time, more advanced autonomous versions might actually be used to train would-be Jedi knights. Once again, life imitates art.

Announced last summer by the Technical Research and Development Institute at Japan's Ministry of Defense (JMD) and recently unveiled at Digital Content Expo 2011, the world's first spherical air vehicle will likely be deployed in search and rescue operations deemed unsuitable for traditional aircraft. As for other possible uses, the sky just may be the limit.

"Because the exterior is round, this machine can land in all kinds of attitudes, and move along the ground. It can also keep in contact with a wall while flying. Because it's round, it can just roll along the ground, but to move it in the desired direction, we've brought the control surfaces, which are at the rear in an ordinary airplane, to the front," said a JMD spokesperson.

For something that looks so ungainly, the rig exhibits surprising stability. Thanks to three onboard gyro sensors, the device effectively maintains its orientation and altitude, even after collisions. Numerous control surfaces also assist with attitude control. The current prototype, which cost about US$1,400 in parts, can maintain a hover for a respectable eight minutes. Now, if only someone would perfect that light saber we've all been waiting for.

The DigInfo.tv video above shows the flying sphere in action.

World’s Largest Airport Under Construction in China

2011-10-27T17:45:00.000+08:00

Posted by Airport International's Global Correspondent on 15/09/2011 - 14:15:00

http://www.airport-int.com

China has started to piece together what is set to become the largest airport on earth. Once finished, the world's largest airport will be approximately equivalent to the island of Bermuda in size and boast no less than nine runways, allowing it to serve 370,000 passengers every single day.

To be constructed on a 21 square mile plot, Beijing Daxing International Airport is scheduled to become operational in 2015 and its development is taking place out of necessity, more than anything else. Beijing Capital International Airport's Terminal 3 - which is larger than all five Heathrow terminals - was only opened three years ago but neither it nor the city's other hub, Beijing Nanyuan, has the capacity to handle the sheer volumes of traffic expected to enter and leave China in coming years.

"The existing airport in Beijing has an annual capacity of 75million passengers", China Civil Aviation University Professor Cao Unchun stated in comments quoted by The Telegraph. "Last year, it handled 73 million. In two years, it will be totally packed and it cannot be expanded infinitely."

World's Largest Airport

The prospect of the world's largest airport brings with that of new rail services, too, since it will be sited some 60 minutes away from the centre of Beijing.

Beijing Capital Airport's Terminal 3 was opened in connection with the 2008 Olympic Games. Flight-wise, the airport's now at the point where no more can be added, according to Civil Aviation Administration head Li Jiaxing.

Beijing Daxing International Airport's development programme reportedly got underway last month, with workers having erected signs at the site stating ‘Construction of a New Airport City for the Capital'.

Chinese Airport Construction

Last year, no less than 268 million people got on an airliner operating from one of China's 175 airports - that's over 16 per cent more than in the previous year.

Over 50 new airports are expected to be added between now and 2016 through a massive, ongoing Chinese airport construction programme while, over the coming 20 years, it's thought that China will need to purchase over 4,000 new commercial aircraft, again to meet travel demand.

Kukula's Top Gun Ad

2011-10-24T11:16:00.000+08:00

Kukula

Click here for more humour from Kulala airlines.

USAF Raptors Cleared to Fly After Grounding

2011-10-21T17:30:00.001+08:00

Image copyright USAF

Posted at http://www.armedforces-int.com by Armed Forces International's Aviation Expert on 20/09/2011

The USAF's Boeing F-22 Raptor combat jet fleet will be returned to flight, after a four-month grounding.

The flight ban was imposed in connection with concerns that the stealth air superiority fighter's oxygen supply system was malfunctioning.

Flight report records had highlighted no less than 12 individual accounts of pilots having experienced ‘hypoxia-like symptoms" over a 36-month period, including one episode where lack of oxygen may have caused a pilot to black out while making his final approach to land. As a result, officials placed flight restrictions on all serving Boeing F-22s on 3 May 2011 and a robust series of investigations into the Raptor oxygen issue was launched.

According to the Air Force chief of staff, General Norton Schwartz, these investigations have given enough data to make a "return to flight...prudent and appropriate".

USAF Raptor Grounding

The USAF Raptor grounding lift won't be immediate and, prior to its activation, all F-22s will be put through "an extensive inspection of the life support systems...with follow-on daily inspections."

In addition, USAF Raptor pilots will carry extra protective equipment and be subject to testing themselves. "We're managing the risks with our aircrews, and we're continuing to study the F-22's oxygen systems and collect data to improve its performance", General Norton Schwartz added.

Raptors Cleared To Fly

With the Raptors cleared to fly, the maximum permitted altitude at which they can operate, previously confined to 25,000 feet, will now be doubled up to 50,000 feet.

The total USAF Raptor fleet comprises of over 160 airframes and will eventually reach a figure of 187, at an estimated cost of $150m apiece. The first fifth-generation to enter operational service, the Raptor's not yet been deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, nor has it participated in the NATO no fly-zone patrol flights over Libya.

US military officials have stated that the Raptor will never be exported, implying that it will only ever serve with the USAF.

First flown in September 1997, it's equipped the USAF since 2005. The type features a pair of thrust-vectoring Pratt and Whitney turbofans, which produce a maximum of 70,000+ pounds of static thrust and which can shift direction across a 20 degree axis. This gives the F-22 exceptional agility, while it has a top speed of over Mach 2 and a range greater than 1,600 nautical miles, when fitted with additional fuel supplies.

In March 2011, a Raptor achieved a speed of Mach 1.5 during a biofuel supercruise test flight.

Aicraft spares web store

2011-10-18T19:07:00.000+08:00

Source : PRESSWIRE
Date : 14.09.2011

aeroinv.com launches web store. "aeroinv.com" is a trading name of Aero Inventory UK) Limited, Aero Inventory Plc

Parts supplier aeroinv.com has announced the world wide launch of its new web store. The company has doubled the amount of stock it holds at its Singapore hub in the last three weeks, to more than $100m. According to the company, customers can purchase new surplus condition parts online within a few clicks on a 24/7 basis for overnight, daily, weekly and C & D maintenance checks

Click hereto go to the store's website

Pilot refuses to give way

2011-10-16T12:20:00.000+08:00

From www.flightglobal.com

China's Juneyao faces CAAC sanctions after safety breach

By Ghim-Lay Yeo

China's aviation authorities have imposed temporary restrictions on Juneyao Airlines' operations after one of its pilots ignored air traffic control orders to give way to another aircraft urgently seeking to land at Shanghai's Hongqiao airport.

On 13 August, the South Korean pilot of a Juneyao Airbus A320 refused to give way several times to a Qatar Airways Boeing 777-300ER which had declared an emergency and was attempting to land at the airport.

After investigating, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC)'s East China Regional Administration ordered Shanghai-based Juneyao to cut its capacity by 10% for three months. It has also stopped the airline's expansion plans and prevented it setting up new subsidiaries and leasing new aircraft.

The carrier was also ordered to stop hiring foreign pilots temporarily and review the capabilities of its foreign pilots.

It must put its foreign flight crew through at least 40h of ground training within 30 days, focusing on civil aviation procedures in China, under the supervision of the CAAC.

The licence of the South Korean captain of the Juneyao A320 involved in the incident has been revoked, and he has been banned from working in China. The co-pilot's licence has been suspended for six months.

The CAAC said the Qatar 777 was originally bound for Shanghai's Pudong airport on 13 August, but was among 20 aircraft that could not land because of a thunderstorm. It diverted to Hongqiao and the pilot requested permission to land.

Its crew told air traffic control the 777 was running low on fuel and had only 5min flying time left. Controllers arranged for the 777 to land ahead of other aircraft and requested other inbound aircraft to give way.

But the crew of Juneyao flight HO1112 rejected this command, citing insufficient fuel levels. Subsequently, the 777 flight crew issued a Mayday call, which led to another command to the Juneyao flight crew.

"During the entire process, air traffic controllers commanded flight HO1112 to give way six times in the space of seven minutes, but the flight crew rejected this each time," said the CAAC.

The 777 eventually landed safely after air traffic controllers employed "other measures", the CAAC added.

Inspections of both aircraft after landing showed the 777 had a remaining fuel weight of 5,200kg (11,500lb) and a flying time of 18min. The Juneyao A320 had a fuel weight of 2,900kg and a flying time of 42min.

Calling the Juneyao flight crew's behaviour a "serious violation" of aviation regulations, the CAAC said the crew had violated the "career integrity" of pilots.

It said the flight crew of the Qatar 777 had acted appropriately, but the pilots had failed to gauge the aircraft's fuel levels accurately. The CAAC has referred the matter to the Qatari civil aviation authorities.

In response to the CAAC's order, Juneyao said its flight crew has expressed regret over the incident and that the carrier would carry out the agency's orders.

"Juneyao takes the lesson from this episode seriously and will work hard to improve itself and further improve pilot training," said the airline. "The company promises safety is our top priority, and we will commit ourselves to protecting our customers and providing the best service."

Qatar Airways said its 777 captain declared an emergency en route to Hongqiao so as not to compromise flight safety. It said it was "working with the local authorities in China to establish the full facts of the incident".

Juneyao has been ordered to cut its capacity for three months

"Air traffic controllers commanded flight HO1112 to give way six times, but the
crew rejected this" says CAAC

Radio controlled F16 jet fighter with on-board micro camera

2011-10-13T20:53:00.000+08:00

From http://www.worldcarfans.com

A micro camera is installed onboard an r/c plane F-16. The camera transmit live the video to ground and I wear video goggle to fly the plane in real time like if I was in the cockpit. The camera replace the head of the pilot and the movement of the cam is control by the movement of my head on ground via a head mount gyroscope (head tracker)

The whole system cost me around $1500 including the plane. But it is many hours of hand made modifcation. You can start with simpler video system that cost around $500 and install it on your own r/c plane. Search for FPV on the web for more info.
Source: fpvpilot.com

NTSB asks for longer hoses on cockpit oxygen masks

2011-10-10T10:11:00.001+08:00

Extracted from http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2011/08/12/360696/ntsb-asks-for-longer-hoses-on-cockpit-oxygen-masks.html

DATE:12/08/11

SOURCE:Air Transport Intelligence news

By John Croft

The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has asked the FAA to increase the length of the hoses that connect cockpit oxygen systems to the masks that airline crew don during cockpit smoke events per emergency checklists.

The recommendation, issued 12 August, is directly related to an in-flight cockpit fire on a United Airlines Boeing 757-200 that diverted to Washington's Dulles airport en route from New York to Los Angeles.

Although the fire was caused by faulty electrical connections on the windshield heating system, a problem that had been widespread on several models of Boeing aircraft and is the subject of an airworthiness directive, the NTSB is also concerned with problems the pilots had in dousing the fire.

"The captain reported that he left his seat because the flames were in front of him and he needed to immediately reach the fire extinguisher, located on the back wall of the cockpit next to the jumpseat," says the NTSB in the recommendation. "The captain stated that, as he moved toward the fire extinguisher, his oxygen mask and smoke goggles were 'torn off' because he had reached the end of the hose attached to the oxygen mask."

"He removed the fire extinguisher, put the mask and goggles back on, and discharged the extinguisher until it was empty," the report continues. "The captain reported that the fire was suppressed but reignited within seconds and that, as he moved toward the cockpit door to retrieve a second extinguisher from the cabin crew, his mask and goggles came off again. He retrieved the extinguisher, put his mask and goggles back on, and discharged the extinguisher, fully extinguishing the fire.

NTSB notes that the FAA had been alerted to the problem as early as 2007, but the agency had responded that flight crew oxygen masks were meant to be used "in the event of decompression rather than while fighting an in-flight fire", according to the recommendation. Rather than the stationary oxygen systems in the cockpit, the FAA recommends that pilots use portable protective breathing equipment (PBE) for fires both in the cockpit and the cabin.

"The NTSB clearly recognises that portable PBE is necessary equipment in combating an in-flight cabin fire but [believes] that it may be of limited use while fighting an in-flight cockpit fire when oxygen masks are available and likely already donned, in accordance with operator and FAA guidance," the recommendation argued.

Bolstering NTSB's argument is that pilots by regulation must be able to don oxygen masks in 5 seconds versus 11 seconds for a PBE, "a difference that significantly increases the time that a crewmember could be exposed to smoke and fumes".

Along with hoses that will allow at least one crewmember to reach the fire extinguishers or other safety equipment, the NTSB is also recommending changing the In-Flight Fires advisory circular to make it clear when pilots should use built-in versus portable breathing devices for cockpit and cabin fires.

Airbus Beluga swallows first A350 wing cover

2011-10-07T12:08:00.004+08:00

From www.flightglobal.com

By David Kaminski-Morrow

Airbus is preparing to transport the first A350 upper wing-cover from Germany to the airframer's main wing facility in the UK.

It has loaded the upper cover, manufactured at its Stade plant, onto one of its A300-600ST freighters for transit to Broughton over the next few days.

The covers are 32m (105ft) long and 6m wide. Airbus said the components are the "biggest single civil aviation parts made from carbonfibre ever".

Spain's Illescas manufacturing facility is producing the lower wing-cover, and this is also set to be flown to Broughton.

MIT faces possible $175,000 FAA penalty

2011-10-04T21:31:00.003+08:00

From http://thehill.com
By Ian Swanson - 02/09/11

One of the nation’s most prestigious universities faces a possible $175,000 penalty from the Federal Aviation Administration.

The FAA has proposed the civil penalty for alleged violations of the Department of Transportation’s Hazardous Materials Regulations by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The FAA alleges MIT sent a fiberboard box containing 33 electronic devices to FedEx for transport from Cambridge to Seattle a little more than two years ago.

The package ended up in smoke and flames, according to a release from FAA, while it was being moved on a conveyor belt at a FedEx sorting facility. The news release said two of the electronic devices, which consisted of lithium batteries attached to “a circuit board and tube-like container,” heated and melted, causing the surrounding cushioning and packaging to catch fire.

The FAA alleges the package was not properly labeled and marked, so FedEx employees did not know it contained hazardous material. The FAA also alleges MIT employees were not properly trained and tested to handle hazardous material.

MIT has 30 days from receipt of the FAA’s enforcement letter to respond to the agency.

Automation in the air dulls pilot skill

2011-10-01T09:45:00.001+08:00

By JOAN LOWY, Associated Press – 18 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — Pilots' "automation addiction" has eroded their flying skills to the point that they sometimes don't know how to recover from stalls and other mid-flight problems, say pilots and safety officials. The weakened skills have contributed to hundreds of deaths in airline crashes in the last five years.

Some 51 "loss of control" accidents occurred in which planes stalled in flight or got into unusual positions from which pilots were unable to recover, making it the most common type of airline accident, according to the International Air Transport Association.

"We're seeing a new breed of accident with these state-of-the art planes," said Rory Kay, an airline captain and co-chair of a Federal Aviation Administration advisory committee on pilot training. "We're forgetting how to fly."

Opportunities for airline pilots to maintain their flying proficiency by manually flying planes are increasingly limited, the FAA committee recently warned. Airlines and regulators discourage or even prohibit pilots from turning off the autopilot and flying planes themselves, the committee said.

Fatal airline accidents have decreased dramatically in the U.S. over the past decade. However, The Associated Press interviewed pilots, industry officials and aviation safety experts who expressed concern about the implications of decreased opportunities for manual flight, and reviewed more than a dozen loss-of-control accidents around the world.

Safety experts say they're seeing cases in which pilots who are suddenly confronted with a loss of computerized flight controls don't appear to know how to respond immediately, or they make errors — sometimes fatally so.

A draft FAA study found pilots sometimes "abdicate too much responsibility to automated systems." Because these systems are so integrated in today's planes, one malfunctioning piece of equipment or a single bad computer instruction can suddenly cascade into a series of other failures, unnerving pilots who have been trained to rely on the equipment.

The study examined 46 accidents and major incidents, 734 voluntary reports by pilots and others as well as data from more than 9,000 flights in which a safety official rides in the cockpit to observe pilots in action. It found that in more than 60 percent of accidents, and 30 percent of major incidents, pilots had trouble manually flying the plane or made mistakes with automated flight controls.

A typical mistake was not recognizing that either the autopilot or the auto-throttle — which controls power to the engines — had disconnected. Others failed to take the proper steps to recover from a stall in flight or to monitor and maintain airspeed.

The airline industry is suffering from "automation addiction," Kay said.

In the most recent fatal airline crash in the U.S., in 2009 near Buffalo, N.Y., the co-pilot of a regional airliner programmed incorrect information into the plane's computers, causing it to slow to an unsafe speed. That triggered a stall warning. The startled captain, who hadn't noticed the plane had slowed too much, responded by repeatedly pulling back on the control yoke, overriding two safety systems, when the correct procedure was to push forward.

An investigation later found there were no mechanical or structural problems that would have prevented the plane from flying if the captain had responded correctly. Instead, his actions caused an aerodynamic stall. The plane plummeted to earth, killing all 49 people aboard and one on the ground.

Two weeks after the New York accident, a Turkish Airlines Boeing 737 crashed into a field while trying to land in Amsterdam. Nine people were killed and 120 injured. An investigation found that one of the plane's altimeters, which measures altitude, had fed incorrect information to the plane's computers.

That, in turn, caused the auto-throttle to reduce speed to a dangerously slow level so that the plane lost lift and stalled. Dutch investigators described the flight's three pilots' "automation surprise" when they discovered the plane was about to stall. They hadn't been closely monitoring the airspeed.

Last month, French investigators recommended that all pilots get mandatory training in manual flying and handling a high-altitude stall. The recommendations were in response to the 2009 crash of an Air France jet flying from Brazil to Paris. All 228 people aboard were killed.

An investigation found that airspeed sensors fed bad information to the Airbus A330's computers. That caused the autopilot to disengage suddenly and a stall warning to activate.

The co-pilot at the controls struggled to save the plane, but because he kept pointing the plane's nose up, he actually caused the stall instead of preventing it, experts said. Despite the bad airspeed information, which lasted for less than a minute, there was nothing to prevent the plane from continuing to fly if the pilot had followed the correct procedure for such circumstances, which is to continue to fly levelly in the same direction at the same speed while trying to determine the nature of the problem, they said.

In such cases, the pilots and the technology are failing together, said former US Airways Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, whose precision flying is credited with saving all 155 people aboard an Airbus A320 after it lost power in a collision with Canada geese shortly after takeoff from New York's LaGuardia Airport two years ago.

"If we only look at the pilots — the human factor — then we are ignoring other important factors," he said. "We have to look at how they work together."

The ability of pilots to respond to the unexpected loss or malfunction of automated aircraft systems "is the big issue that we can no longer hide from in aviation," said Bill Voss, president of the Flight Safety Foundation in Alexandria, Va. "We've been very slow to recognize the consequence of it and deal with it."

The foundation, which is industry supported, promotes aviation safety around the world.

Airlines are also seeing smaller incidents in which pilots waste precious time repeatedly trying to restart the autopilot or fix other automated systems when what they should be doing is "grasping the controls and flying the airplane," said Bob Coffman, another member of the FAA pilot training committee and an airline captain.

Paul Railsback, operations director at the Air Transport Association, which represents airlines, said, "We think the best way to handle this is through the policies and training of the airlines to ensure they stipulate that the pilots devote a fair amount of time to manually flying. We want to encourage pilots to do that and not rely 100 percent on the automation. I think many airlines are moving in that direction."

In May, the FAA proposed requiring airlines to train pilots on how to recover from a stall, as well as expose them to more realistic problem scenarios.

But other new regulations are going in the opposite direction. Today, pilots are required to use their autopilot when flying at altitudes above 24,000 feet, which is where airliners spend much of their time cruising. The required minimum vertical safety buffer between planes has been reduced from 2,000 feet to 1,000 feet. That means more planes flying closer together, necessitating the kind of precision flying more reliably produced by automation than human beings.

The same situation is increasingly common closer to the ground.

The FAA is moving from an air traffic control system based on radar technology to more precise GPS navigation. Instead of time-consuming, fuel-burning stair-step descents, planes will be able to glide in more steeply for landings with their engines idling. Aircraft will be able to land and take off closer together and more frequently, even in poor weather, because pilots will know the precise location of other aircraft and obstacles on the ground. Fewer planes will be diverted.

But the new landing procedures require pilots to cede even more control to automation.

"Those procedures have to be flown with the autopilot on," Voss said. "You can't afford a sneeze on those procedures."

Even when not using the new procedures, airlines direct their pilots to switch on the autopilot about a minute and a half after takeoff when the plane reaches about 1,000 feet, Coffman said. The autopilot generally doesn't come off until about a minute and a half before landing, he said.

Pilots still control the plane's flight path. But they are programming computers rather than flying with their hands.

Opportunities to fly manually are especially limited at commuter airlines, where pilots may fly with the autopilot off for about 80 seconds out of a typical two-hour flight, Coffman said.

But it is the less experienced first officers starting out at smaller carriers who most need manual flying experience. And, airline training programs are focused on training pilots to fly with the automation, rather than without it. Senior pilots, even if their manual flying skills are rusty, can at least draw on experience flying older generations of less automated planes.

Adding to concerns about an overreliance on automation is an expected pilot shortage in the U.S. and many other countries. U.S. airlines used to be able to draw on a pool of former military pilots with extensive manual flying experience. But more pilots now choose to stay in the armed forces, and corporate aviation competes for pilots with airlines, where salaries have dropped.

Changing training programs to include more manual flying won't be enough because pilots spend only a few days a year in training, Voss said. Airlines will have to rethink their operations fundamentally if they're going to give pilots realistic opportunities to keep their flying skills honed, he said.

Sporty design marks 5,000th Cirrus plane

2011-09-30T16:47:00.002+08:00

Duluth-based Cirrus Aircraft is celebrating a major milestone: its 5,000th airplane. And they made this particular SR22 extra-special.

By: News Tribune staff, Duluth News Tribune
http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/210330/

Cirrus’ 5,000th airplane has a flashy race-car-inspired paint job and interior to celebrate the company’s production milestone. (Photo courtesy of Cirrus Aircraft)

Duluth-based Cirrus Aircraft is celebrating a major milestone: its 5,000th airplane. And they made this particular SR22 extra-special.

“For starters we built only one like this,” Valerie Blanchenay of Cirrus said in an e-mail. “The special features of this aircraft include a unique asymmetrical paint scheme and the sports-car-like interior.”

The plane sports a gloss black, carbon-fiber spinner and is the first Cirrus to use gloss black paint on areas like the wheel pants and wingtips. The inside is completely black, except for sunburst yellow accent stripes that echo the outside color and feature a “5 Thousand” logo integrated in the seat design for owner Joe Whisenhunt of Little Rock, Ark., Blanchenay said.

“The overall design is race-car inspired, the black interior offers a high-tech performance feel, with stitched-leather details and carbon-fiber panel accents,” she said.

The sporty Cirrus SR22 will usher in the world of “Xi,” a new edition that allows buyers to customize their Cirrus, she said.

In 11 years, Cirrus has produced and sold more aircraft in a shorter period of time than any other aviation company, according to Cirrus.

That’s despite the company — and the general aviation industry in general — being hard hit by the recession as airplane orders fell sharply. Cirrus deliveries dropped from a high of 721 in 2006 to 264 last year. However, the piston market, which includes Cirrus, has performed better than the rest of the general aviation manufacturing industry.

Going To The Bathroom On U.S. Commercial Aircraft Could Be Fatal

2011-09-28T18:24:00.002+08:00

This AD was prompted by reports that the current design of these
oxygen generators presents a hazard that could jeopardize flight safety. However sources on the internet revealed that the so called "hazard" is actually a "terorist risk"

Click here to go to FAA website. Open the pdf file

This procedure required that the pilot in command be notified that the oxygen generators in the lavatories had been rendered inoperative, and instructed the pilot in command to brief the crew that in the event of a rapid decompression the lavatories needed to be checked

According to ECA aviation security experts, this move will create a safety hazard when there is a decompression in the aircraft at high altitude. In the event of decompression crew and passengers located in toilets will not be able to get oxygen, possibly resulting in unconsciousness but, in the worst case scenario, in death by suffocation. There are currently no alternative safety equipments or procedures in place to avoid such a situation. To our surprise passengers are not seem to have been informed about the risks they now incur when going to the restroom.

At a normal altitude of 35000 feet the time a person has to reach an oxygen mask is 30 seconds before falling unconscious. A pilot or a crew member has to get an oxygen mask within 10 seconds before his/her judgment starts to alter. At a higher altitude and with the oxygen rarefaction this period falls to 5 seconds. As mentioned by the FAA, Pilots and cabin crew are trained to face decompression events but with no doubt it will take them more than 30 seconds to reach their seat, put their own oxygen mask and start checking all the lavatories on board. This is without mentioning that they may be themselves in the toilets at that time.

In case of decompression the pilots will try to get the aircraft down to a safe altitude as soon as possible. But mountain relief or other aircrafts in the vicinity might temporally prevent the descent procedure. In case one of the pilots is in the toilet the remaining pilot will have to perform this procedure on its own with this added stress factor of not knowing if his or her colleague will make it back to the cockpit.

Particle Physicist Discovers Fastest Way For Airlines To Board Passengers

2011-09-25T09:21:00.001+08:00

From http://consumerist.com
By Ben Popken on August 30, 2011 1:00 PM

As a scientist at Fermilab, Dr. Jason Steffen normally thinks about smashing particles together at great speeds. Great energy and speed are not usually associated with the airline boarding process, so it might seem odd that an insight into making how we get on planes would occur to someone who works next to a 3.9 mile particle accelerator. But occur it did, and now the first real-world test of his theory shows that it cuts boarding time in half.

In his method, first, alternate rows on one side of the plane board, but just the window seats. Then the other side boards, in alternate rows with one row between each passenger. Again, window seats only. Then back to the other side, with the middle seats this time. And so on. The result is a beautiful choreography as rows of passengers simultaneously stow their luggage and take their seats in tandem. The video below makes how the system works clear.

The reason why it works is because it makes optimum use of the aisles, allowing each passenger to freely flow from the center aisle, to luggage stow, to their seat. There's maximum elbow room, and minimum crotch and butt scraping.

Steffen figured out this system after running several simulations with a Monte Carlo optimization algorithm, which Wikipedia informs me is, "especially useful for simulating systems with many coupled degrees of freedom, such as fluids, disordered materials, strongly coupled solids..." Sounds like an accurate description of my last flight to Phoenix.

So how long before we see airlines start to use this? We'll see. Airlines didn't care at all when Steffen first published his theory back in 2008, even though that it showed that the current way of boarding was pretty much the slowest possible way you could do it. But now that there's real-world data to back it up, airlines, which are in dire need of anything to help them save time, might just let this idea take off.

ANA, Boeing Set Date for First 787 Dreamliner Delivery -- September 25th 2011

2011-09-22T18:32:00.000+08:00

Boeing and ANA will celebrate delivery of the first 787 Dreamliner on Sept. 26 in Everett, Wash., after contractual delivery occurs on Sept. 25. Events throughout the day on Sept. 26 will commemorate delivery of this game changing airplane to its launch customer.

"The airplane is ready. ANA is ready. And, Boeing is ready," said Jim Albaugh, president and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes. "This airplane begins a new chapter in aviation history."

ANA's airplane will arrive in Tokyo on Sept. 28, following a Sept. 27 departure from Everett, Wash., and will be greeted by ANA employees, media and Japanese partners. Details of events in Everett and Tokyo will be provided in the weeks ahead. Many of the events will be webcast live, allowing people around the world to participate in the celebration.

Shinichiro Ito, president and CEO of ANA Group, said, "As launch customer, we are delighted to be taking delivery of our first 787 Dreamliner. This aircraft will enable us to offer new standards of service and comfort to our passengers and will play an important role in our international expansion strategy as we seek to become Asia's number one airline."

ANA launched the 787 program with a record-setting order of 50 airplanes in April 2004. The airline has played a key role in guiding the design of the Dreamliner.
The Boeing 787 Dreamliner is an all-new commercial jetliner that brings new efficiencies to airlines and delivers superior comfort to passengers. The airplane features the industry's largest windows, a lower cabin altitude and cleaner air. These features combine to allow passengers to arrive at their destinations more refreshed.

NASA to study aircraft engine icing puzzle

2011-09-19T21:34:00.000+08:00

From www.upi.com

CLEVELAND, Aug. 18 (UPI) -- NASA says it has begun a study of why airplanes flying in or near tropical regions in the summer can have an engine fill up with ice, freeze and then shut down.

The phenomenon, known as engine core ice accretion, has been documented more than 150 times since 1988, prompting NASA aviation safety experts to prepare a flight test program in northern Australia to learn more about the occasional hazard and try to determine what can be done to prevent it, a NASA release said.

"It's not happening in one particular type of engine and it's not happening on one particular type of airframe," Tom Ratvasky, a NASA flight research engineer said. "The problem can be found on aircraft as big as large commercial airliners, all the way down to business-sized jet aircraft."

No accidents have been attributed to the phenomenon but there have been some close calls.

In 2005, both engines of a Beechcraft business jet failed at 38,000 feet above Jacksonville, Fla., forcing the pilot to glide the aircraft to an airport, dodging thunderstorms on the way down. Engine core ice accretion was blamed.

Scientists say they suspect the trouble occurs around tropical storms that move moist air from low altitudes to high altitudes where temperatures are very cold, creating high concentrations of ice crystals.

"We need to understand what that environment is out there and, even though it may be a rare case, be able to fly through those icing conditions unscathed," Ratvasky said. "Or if we can find ways of detecting this condition and keep aircraft out of it, that's something we're interested in doing."

NASA Workers Create Space Shuttle Made of People for Tribute Photo

2011-09-16T11:54:00.013+08:00

NASA's 30-year space shuttle program has literally relied on a cast of thousands to launch astronauts into orbit. Those diehard space workers have given their passion form in a new photo that shows a life-size shuttle made only of humans.

In the new photo, released March 18, thousands of shuttle workers at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., gathered in an empty parking lot to pay tribute to the space shuttle program. A time-lapse video of the event shows the crowd gradually converging to create the life-size outline of a space shuttle surrounded by a ring of people.

NASA's massive Vehicle Assembly Building provides a backdrop for the image. The 52-story structure is where space shuttles are attached to their external tanks and twin solid rocket boosters before launch.

"The unique photo opportunity was designed to honor the space shuttle program's 30-year legacy and the people who contribute to safely processing, launching and landing the vehicle," NASA officials said in a statement.

NASA is retiring its three flying space shuttles (Discovery, Endeavour and Atlantis) this year to make way for a new space exploration program aimed at sending astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit.

The shuttle Discovery completed its final space shuttle mission, STS-133, this month after 39 spaceflights. Endeavour will fly its final mission in April, with Atlantis slated to launch on its final voyage in late June. [Photos: STS-133: Discovery's Final Mission]

President Barack Obama has directed NASA to shift its space exploration goal from returning astronauts to the moon to sending a human expedition to an asteroid by 2025.

NASA's space shuttle fleet began launching into orbit on April 12, 1981 when the Columbia orbiter blasted off on the first mission: STS-1. The space agency will have flown 135 missions by the end of the program.

After their final missions, all three space shuttles will be retired to museums. NASA is expected to announce which museums will get the three space-flown shuttles, as well as the test orbiter Enterprise – which was used for landing tests only – on April 12.

United Continental rolls out iPads for EFBs

2011-09-13T13:28:00.000+08:00

From Aviation Industry News

Just look at the amount of fuel savings

United Continental has announced the deployment of 11,000 iPads to United and Continental pilots in a transition to paperless flight decks. The iPads will replace printed flight manuals, navigational charts and other documentation. Distribution began at the beginning of August 2011, and will be completed by the end of the year. The electronic flight bags (EFBs) are loaded with Jeppesen’s Mobile FliteDeck app, featuring interactive data and global geo-referenced terminal charts. The EFBs are intended to deliver operational, cost and environmental savings of 16m sheets of paper and 326,000 gallons of fuel per year

A Drone Crashes Into A C-130

2011-09-10T02:15:00.000+08:00

By By Sam Biddle on www.gizmodo.com.au

This must have been incredibly terrifying! Imagine rumbling along in your massive C-130 gunship over Afghanistan, when KABOOM, a UAV slams into your wing and tears a big chunk out if it. Now imagine having to land like that.

sUAS News relays the following dispatch from the scene:

On closer inspection I could see a part of the one blade had been broken off the No 2 Engine which seemed to not have feathered fully, the massive hole in the left wing had broken the fuel tank, and was told that they believe the wing, main spar and wing box was also bent.

I’m still wondering if she will ever get airborne again but if not, she had done one hell of a last flight and the crew must have done an amazing job getting the wounded bird down on what is one of the more challenging runways I’ve ever seen. Not often that you get to hear of survivors of a mid-air collision.

No word on how the RQ-7 drone fared after the smash — probably not well! — but it must have been one hell of a battering ram. Each RQ-7 weighs up to 170kg with a full payload, and travels at speeds up to 217km/h. Now imagine that hitting you while you’re tens of thousands of feet in the air — probably worse than a lot of anti-aircraft fire. Major congratulations to the crew for bringing the air truck down safely, and for not peeing their pants in the process. The best and the brightest, for real.

Supercool Helicopter Clip

2011-09-06T14:26:00.000+08:00

2011-09-03T20:28:00.002+08:00

From www.spacewar.com
Lockheed Martin Developing Unmanned Autonomous Technologies
by Staff Writers
Washington DC (SPX) Aug 19, 2011

The U.S. Army awarded Lockheed Martin a $47 million contract to develop, demonstrate and deliver autonomous technologies for unmanned air systems in support of in-theater unmanned cargo resupply missions.

Under the contract, Lockheed Martin and Kaman Aerospace will demonstrate intelligent autonomous technologies for unmanned aerial systems using the K-MAX helicopter platform.

The Army's Aviation Applied Technology Directorate is investing in mature technologies that will enhance unmanned cargo resupply capabilities by improving autonomous operations, increasing delivery accuracy and reducing ground control station operator workload. Prior to being deployed for cargo resupply missions, the technology will be demonstrated in an operationally realistic environment on the unmanned K-MAX.

"Lockheed Martin's experience, resources and proven K-MAX platform will allow us to meet the Army's objectives," said Dan Spoor, vice president of Aviation Systems at Lockheed Martin Mission Systems and Sensors.

"We are eager to develop and demonstrate the latest autonomous technologies using the mature and low-risk K-MAX platform."

The 6,000 lb power lifter can fly at a higher altitude with a heavier payload than any other rotary wing unmanned system. With its four-hook carousel, the unmanned K-MAX can also deliver more cargo to more locations in one flight.

Since partnering in 2007, Lockheed Martin and Kaman Aerospace have made significant investments to provide a rapid response to an urgent military service need. The team has met all milestones to date and recently began electromagnetic environmental effects testing at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., as part of the Navy and Marine Corps Cargo Unmanned Air Systems program.

Superfast Military Aircraft Hit Mach 20 Before Ocean Crash, DARPA Says

2011-08-31T17:32:00.000+08:00

Published on www.space.com on 18 August 2011

A superfast unmanned military plane traveled at 20 times the speed of sound and managed to control itself for three minutes before crashing into the Pacific Ocean in a recent test, military officials said.

The prototype Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 (HTV-2), billed as the fastest aircraft ever built, splashed down in the Pacific earlier than planned on Aug. 11 shortly after launching from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base on its second-ever test flight.

The HTV-2 experienced some sort of anomaly, prompting the vehicle's autonomous flight safety system to guide it to a controlled splashdown, according to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which oversaw the flight.

Despite the problem, the aircraft reached speeds around Mach 20 (about 13,000 mph) and was able to control its flight for several minutes, officials said. [Photos: DARPA Hypersonic Glider's Mach 20 Test]

"HTV-2 demonstrated stable, aerodynamically controlled Mach 20 hypersonic flight for approximately three minutes," said DARPA director Regina Dugan in an Aug. 14 statement. "We do not yet know the cause of the anomaly for Flight 2."

The HTV-2 is part of an advanced weapons program called Conventional Prompt Global Strike, which is working to develop systems to reach an enemy target anywhere in the world within one hour. It launches on a rocket, then comes streaking back to Earth at enormous speeds, at times heating up to temperatures of nearly 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit.

DARPA officials said last week that the Aug. 11 test flight collected more than nine minutes of data during the entire mission.

The first test flight of the HTV-2 took place in April 2010. That flight lasted about nine minutes, also ending when the aircraft detected an anomaly and crashed itself into the ocean. [10 Military Aircraft That Never Made it Past Testing]

An analysis conducted by an independent engineering review board prompted engineers to adjust the HTV-2's center of gravity and make several other changes before the second test. Those fixes apparently corrected the first problem, officials said.

"An initial assessment indicates that the Flight 2 anomaly is unrelated to the Flight 1 anomaly," said Air Force Maj. Chris Schulz, DARPA HTV-2 program manager.

Another independent review board will look into what went wrong with the second flight test in the coming weeks, DARPA officials said.

Boeing 787 Dreamliner Receives FAA, EASA Certification

2011-08-27T21:26:00.004+08:00

Source Boeing
Published August 26, 2011
Photo: Rob Vogelaar, ZAPP

EVERETT, Wash., Aug. 26, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Boeing (NYSE: BA) received certification for the all-new 787 Dreamliner from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) during a ceremony at the company's Everett, Wash., facility.

FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt presented the U.S. Type Certificate, which verifies that the 787 has been tested and found to be in compliance with all federal regulations, to 787 Chief Pilot Mike Carriker and 787 Vice President and Chief Project Engineer Mike Sinnett, both of whom have worked on the program since the day it began.

Babbitt presented the amended Production Certificate 700 to John Cornish, vice president of 787 Final Assembly & Delivery, and Barb O'Dell, vice president of Quality for the 787 program. The Production Certificate adds the 787 to the list of Boeing Commercial Airplane production systems that have been found to be compliant with all federal regulations.

Boeing Commercial Airplanes President and CEO Jim Albaugh said, "Certification is a milestone that validates what we have promised the world since we started talking about this airplane. This airplane embodies the hopes and dreams of everyone fortunate enough to work on it. Their dreams are now coming true."

Patrick Goudou, executive director of EASA, presented Dan Mooney, vice president of 787-8 Development, and Terry Beezhold, former leader of the 787 Airplane Level Integration Team, with the European Type Certificate for the 787.

Scott Fancher, vice president and general manager of the 787 program for Boeing, wrapped up the event addressing the broad team of those who worked on the program.

"This is truly a great airplane. From the advanced materials and innovative technologies to the improved passenger experience and unbeatable economics, the 787 really is a game-changing airplane," Fancher said.

Air France 447: Smart planes still vulnerable to human error

2011-08-26T09:06:00.002+08:00

On flight 447, the handoff from computer to pilots proved fatal for the 228 aboard.

By Peter Garrison

August 14, 2011
On the night of June 1, 2009, in a place as remote as any on earth, the human and the digital worlds did battle. Both lost.

With the release of a third interim report by the French accident investigation bureau, what happened to Air France Flight 447, the Airbus that disappeared in the mid-Atlantic two years ago with 228 aboard, is now pretty clear. The big twin jet was inadvertently mishandled by the pilot who was flying it. He got it into an extremely unusual position, and neither he nor the other two pilots with him could figure out what was happening or how to fix it.

For the next three minutes the airplane, its fuselage slightly nose-high as though approaching a landing, dropped toward the sea while the baffled and terrified pilots struggled to make sense of the indications on their instruments. But they never did what they needed to do — get the nose down, so that the airplane would be pointing in the direction it was going — to allow the Airbus, which was perfectly sound and intact, to recover and continue on its flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.

The problems started with an unusual accumulation of ice crystals in the airplane's three pitot tubes, probes that measure speed by capturing the pressure of the oncoming air. Losing reliable airspeed information, the autopilot turned the airplane over to its human minders, as it was designed to do. For some reason — perhaps he thought the speed was too high — the pilot who was flying the airplane pulled it up into a climb, rapidly gaining several thousand feet. This in turn led to an aggravated stall.

A stall in an airplane has nothing to do with the engines. It is a matter of the wings suddenly losing some of their lift and gaining a great deal of drag. A fully developed stall is something that no airliner is ever supposed to experience. There is ample and unmistakable advance warning. In training, pilots merely approach the stall, receive the warning, then "fly out of it." But for some reason, despite the warning, 447's pilots never understood the situation. They seemed paralyzed. Was the airplane too slow or too fast? Which instruments were reliable? In fact, except for the probes measuring airspeed, they all were, but unfortunately there was no single integrated display on the instrument panel that could, like Microsoft Flight Simulator, let the pilots view the airplane from outside. Such a display, by making clear what the never-before-seen combination of instrument indications meant, would have saved them.

The Airbus A330, like other new-generation airliners, is controlled by a computer, in theory a sort of super-pilot, never tired or distracted, with lightning-fast reflexes and an encyclopedic knowledge of how best to fly. The human pilot still uses the stick and throttles in the traditional way, but commands go to the computer, which in turn executes them. If the pilot tells the airplane to bank too steeply or fly too slowly or too fast, the computer will not comply. Its "laws" are intended to protect against pilot errors that, far more often than mechanical failures, have led to accidents.

The transition from mechanical to digital flight controls has brought about a shift in the way pilots are trained. Basic flying skills — the ability, for instance, to recover from unusual situations or to intuitively sense what an airplane is doing or is about to do — receive less and less emphasis. Testable knowledge of airplane systems and standardized flight procedures takes precedence.

This is the future; the trend will not be reversed. Modern airplanes fly themselves, and pilots become, increasingly, information managers. Someday airplanes, like elevators, could dispense with human operators altogether, though passengers may always prefer to be greeted by an avuncular four-striper in the cockpit door, however inferior his flying skills may be to those of a well-programmed computer. There will still be accidents, particularly horrifying because they will be mindless and automated, but fewer than in the era of hands-on, seat-of-the-pants pilots.

But we are still in transition, and Flight 447 fell victim to a philosophical inconsistency. The computer was supposed to protect the pilots from themselves, but in a pinch it threw up its hands and abruptly turned over control to a startled and unprepared human crew.

The proper response to a loss of airspeed information in steady cruising flight is to change nothing: Maintain power and altitude, and the airplane will be fine. The computer could easily have done this, but the programmers who designed the A330's flight management system evidently thought it wiser to let the pilots take charge. They never imagined that a pilot would get it so terribly wrong. Why would he command a sudden climb, hold the airplane's nose up until it stalled, and keep holding the nose up — exactly the opposite of what was needed — for more than three agonizing minutes?

Why? Because he was a human being. That is what the programmers forgot.

Peter Garrison writes a monthly accident-analysis column for Flying Magazine.
Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times

MIT Helps Update Aircraft Carrier Technology

2011-08-24T18:34:00.001+08:00

From www.avweb.com

By Mary Grady, Contributing editor

Crew members aboard U.S. aircraft carriers still use a scale model with miniature airplanes to keep track of all the activity on the deck, but the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is developing a computerized system to simplify that process. Prof. Mary Cummings and her students in the Humans and Automation Lab have designed a "deck operations course of action planner" that can track flight data and create new deck operation schedules. The team created a display that shows a map of the carrier deck. Crew, vehicles, and aircraft would be outfitted with sensor tags that transmit their position to the display. Side panels show the type and number of aircraft in line to land and launch, and flight schedules. The team recently successfully demonstrated the system for the Office of Naval Research, which is funding the five-year project.

The system is not meant to be fully automated, but to provide suggestions that a human operator can accept or change. For example, a deck handler may see on the schedule that a pilot with a history of shaky landings is due to land. Based on this anecdotal knowledge, the handler may choose to move the plane up in the landing schedule. "If he botches it [the first time], we have enough time to give him another try," said student Jason Ryan. "That's something that's hard to program into systems, but it's something that a human can look at and understand." The planner could be especially helpful for managing the growing fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles, said Mark Steinberg, program officer for the ONR. "The long-term goal is, we would like to have unmanned autonomous systems on board, which require special procedures where you'd have to clear everything off the deck and implement certain safety measures," Steinberg said. "We would like to make this as easy as possible as we introduce more and more UAVs onto carriers."

F22 Raptors grounded due to OBOGS problems

2011-08-22T18:37:00.001+08:00

From www.avweb.com

Toxic Raptors Still Grounded, Pilots Losing Currency
By Glenn Pew, Contributing Editor, Video Editor

An investigation that grounded the fleet of F-22 Raptors back in May "has since expanded to include all aspects of the aircraft," according to the Air Force Times, leaving deliveries on hold and pilots hoping for simulator time. There are less than 160 Raptors deployed (accounting for roughly $65 billion) and two F-22 simulators -- one at Langley and another at Tyndall Air Force Base. The actual jets have been grounded because they appear to be poisoning their pilots. Tests have found multiple toxins in the blood of Raptor pilots affected by symptoms similar to hypoxia while flying the jets. And the Air Force hasn't been able to source the problem, leading to a cascade of complications.

The blood tests turned up chemicals from oil fumes, burned antifreeze and propane, according to the Air Force Times. "There is a lot of nasty stuff getting pumped into the pilots' bloodstream through what they're breathing from that OBOGS [On-Board Oxygen Generation System]. That's fact," one former F-22 pilot said. "How bad it is, what type it is, exactly how much of it, how long -- all these things have not been answered." Deliveries have been effectively halted because government test pilots can't fly the jets under the grounding order. Classes of incoming Raptor pilots have had their training altered and active pilots from as far away as Alaska and Hawaii have been seeking sim-time at either of two simulators on the east coast. According to Stars and Stripes, pilots must undergo complete re-qualification if they haven't flown in 210 days. The military is working to develop shorter re-qualification training and instructor pilots will be the first ones through the program when the jets come back online. What was first thought to be an oxygen-delivery problem leading to hypoxia -- and the possible cause of a fatal crash last November -- is apparently more complicated.

Boeing 747-8 Freighter type certificated

2011-08-20T21:38:00.000+08:00

SEATTLE, Aug. 19, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Boeing (NYSE: BA) received U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) certification Friday for the new 747-8 Freighter, passing two of the final landmarks on the airplane's journey to entry into service. The FAA granted Boeing an Amended Type Certificate (ATC) and an Amended Production Certificate for the 747-8 Freighter, while the EASA also granted the company an ATC for the airplane.

With these certificates, the program is in the final stages of preparing to deliver the first 747-8 Freighter to launch customer Cargolux in early September.

"This is such a great day for everyone on the 747 team," said Jim Albaugh, president and CEO, Boeing Commercial Airplanes. "Over the last several years, this team has overcome challenge after challenge. Through their hard work and dedication, they have ensured that the 747, the Queen of the Skies, will fly for decades to come."

The drive to certify the 747-8 Freighter was a team effort, said Elizabeth Lund, vice president and general manager, 747 Program. "This is a day to express our profound thanks to everyone at Boeing and at our suppliers who played a part in designing, building and testing this airplane," she said. "It's a day to thank our colleagues at the FAA and EASA for all of their hard work. And it's a day to appreciate our customers for their commitment to the program."

The Amended Type Certificate acknowledges that the FAA and EASA have certified that the design of the 747-8 Freighter is compliant with all aviation regulatory requirements and will produce a safe and reliable airplane. The airplane logged more than 3,400 hours of flight testing and many thousands more of ground, part, component, materials and other testing on the road to certification.

The Amended Production Certificate shows the FAA has validated that the Boeing 747 production system can reliably produce airplanes that will conform to the airplane's design. EASA accepts FAA oversight of Boeing production certificates as sufficient for its regulations, as FAA accepts EASA oversight of European manufacturers' production certificates.

The 747-8 Freighter is the new high-capacity 747 that will give cargo operators the lowest operating costs and best economics of any freighter airplane while providing enhanced environmental performance. It is 250 feet, 2 inches (76.3 m) long, which is 18 feet and 4 inches (5.6 m) longer than the 747-400 Freighter. The stretch provides customers with 16 percent more revenue cargo volume compared to its predecessor. That translates to four additional main-deck pallets and three additional lower-hold pallets. The 747-8 Freighters will be powered with GE's GEnx-2B engines.

Russian stealth fighter Sukhoi Tu-50

2011-08-18T23:08:00.001+08:00

Article and photo from www.spacewar.com

Russia set to show off its first stealth fighter
by Staff Writers
Moscow (AFP) Aug 16, 2011

Russia was due Tuesday to unveil its first stealth fighter to the public, lifting the curtain on a secret project designed to flood the market with cheaper versions of veteran US jets.

The Sukhoi Tu-50, being developed jointly by Russia and India, made its maiden flight at a Far East air base on January 29, 2010 but is being presented to the public at the MAKS airshow outside Moscow for the first time.

Two prototypes of the single-seater fighter are expected to fly over the Zhukovsky air field in a show of Russian military confidence in the much-delayed project.

Russian officials said the final version of the jet will not be ready until the end of 2016. India was reported to be interested in up to 200 T-50 fighters for its air force while Russia was planning to order at least 150.

"The T-50 jet will provide the backbone not only of the Russian air force but also that of India," said Mikhail Pogosyan, president of the United Aircraft Corporation state aviation holding company.

"Russia's cooperation with India on this project will help it promote the fifth-generation jet on the foreign market," the RIA Novosti news agency quoted Pogosyan as saying.

Pogosyan had previously voiced plans to develop up to 1,000 jets over the coming decades, while state television said Russia hoped to control up to a third of the stealth fighter market in the coming year.

India, Russia's biggest arms client, agreed to develop the project in tandem with Moscow during a December 2010 visit to New Delhi by President Dmitry Medvedev.

The agreement put new life into a project that was first mooted in the late 1980s, when the Soviet Union identified a need to replace its existing Mig-29 and Su-27 jets.

The first US prototype of a stealth fighter -- the F-22 Raptor -- emerged nearly two decades ago and Russia only awarded the development contract in 2003.

Russia's state media reports last year said up to $10 billion was being poured into the jet's development but that the fighter would cost no more than $100 million.

The US raptor sells at $140 million a piece, a price tag that prompted Washington to order a halt in new jet purchases in 2009.

Fight For The Sky

2011-08-16T14:41:00.003+08:00

Click here to view a black and white US World War II documentary.

It is very interesting.

Drink Flying

2011-08-16T00:59:00.001+08:00

Alcohol consumption adds to Indian safety concerns

Over the past two years more than 50 pilots in India were found to have had excessive alcohol levels before flights. Of the 57 pilots caught in random blood tests conducted between January 2009 and November 2010, only 11 were dismissed. Others received a three-month suspension, but some were let off with only a fine or a warning letter, according to the UK’s Daily Telegraph.

US frequent flyer reaches 10 million miles

2011-08-11T17:28:00.003+08:00

Photo from http://stuckattheairport.com

Test from www.bbc.co.uk (10th July 2011)

It took Thomas Stuker 29 years to reach the milestone with United Airlines
A US businessman has been rewarded for his loyalty to one single airline company after accumulating 10 million air miles.

Thomas Stuker, a sales consultant, reached the milestone after a flight from Los Angeles to Chicago.

He has boarded 5,962 United Airlines flights and flown the equivalent of 400 times around the globe.

As a reward he will never have to queue at airports, always get upgraded and has even had a plane named after him.

Flying evolution

Mr Stuker reached the milestone after arriving to his native Chicago on Saturday.

“If I go a week without a flight something's not right”
Thomas Stuker

It took him 19 years to accumulate his first five million miles and another 10 years to double the mileage.

"So we figure that we're going to be here in five years when you hit 15 million miles, because you're cutting it in half every time," Martin Hand, United's Vice-President of Customer Experience, was quoted as saying by NBC.

Before boarding the flight to Chicago, Mr Stuker admitted that many years ago he was scared to death of flying.

"I couldn't get on an aircraft, it really bothered me," he told America's National Public Radio.

"But now it's evolved to a time where if I go a week without a flight something's not right."

Mr Stuker has now enough reward points through the airlines' frequent flyer programme to take several foreign holidays a year - assuming he can find the time.

Addtional text from http://stuckattheairport.com

The milestone didn’t go unnoticed. There was champagne and other festivities during the flight, and when the plane arrived at O’Hare International Airport, United CEO Jeff Smisek and other airline executives and employees were on hand with a few gifts.

In addition to the airline’s first titanium Mileage Plus membership card, the airline put Stuker’s name on the fuselage of a Boeing 747 airplane. (He already has his name on one of United’s 777s.) He also received a special shipment of his favorite wine and commemorative book listing every single United flight he has flown since he joined Mileage Plus, with personal messages from long-time United employees and executives

Boeing 747-8F completes Type Certification tests

2011-08-08T08:31:00.002+08:00

Photo from wwww.flightglobal.com and text from IFALPA Daily News Service by Mike Mellors

Boeing has announced that its B747-8 Freighter completed its certification flight test schedule on Tuesday (2nd August 2011) after two of the new aircraft landed at Paine Field.
One of the aircraft, RC522, completed testing of the flight management computer while the other, RC523, completed function and reliability testing.
Boeing explained that the freighter programme had flown “more than 1,200 flights and 3,400 hours since its first flight Feb. 8, 2010. During that time, the five-airplane test fleet was used to gather data for more than 1,700 FAA certification requirements”. It had tested the capabilities of the aircraft “far beyond what they are expected to encounter in normal service”.
Launch customer Cargolux is expected to receive the first delivery next month following certification from the FAA.

Fake aircraft canopy

2011-08-06T02:21:00.001+08:00

Look at the three photos above carefully and you will soon realise that you are looking at th bottom of the aircraft instead of the top. The painted "canopy" makes you think that you are looking at the top of the aircraft when it is actually the bottom.

Text from http://mdao.grc.nasa.gov

Q: Some fighter aircraft have phony canopies painted on their undersides. Why?

A: For the same reason many animals, such as some moths or butterflies, have fake eyes on their bodies or wings. In a fight with a bird, a moth might escape if the bird mistakes a bright, fake eye on the moth's wing for the real thing. The bird bites the "eye," and the moth escapes with just a nick taken out of the wing. Likewise, in a dogfight, an enemy fighter might mistake a fake canopy for the real thing and become confused as to the actual orientation and direction of flight of the target aircraft. All it may take is a split second of indecision in the mind of the enemy for the target to gain an advantage and either escape or become the hunter instead of the hunted. Some ships have used "dazzle" paint schemes in the past to the same effect. Such paint schemes were certainly visible, but they broke up the ships' outlines and made direction and speed calculations difficult for targeteers' firing solutions.

If you can confuse your opponent in air-to-air combat, even for a moment, you might be able to gain a favorable position on him! Forward-swept wings may also cause a momentary disorienting effect.
- The Aeroquiz Editor

August 2 – This Day In Aviation History

2011-08-03T00:11:00.001+08:00

From http://www.aviationearth.com

In 1909… The first flying machine purchased and put into service by a government is the Wright Flyer. The US Army accepts its first airplane and pays the Wrights $25,000, plus a $5,000 bonus, because the machine exceeded the speed requirement of 40 mph. (OTM)

In 1911… The first woman in the United States licensed as a qualified pilot is Harriet Quimby, a drama critic. (OTM)

In 1917… Squadron leader E. H. Dunning of the British Royal Naval Air Service becomes the first pilot to land an airplane on the deck of a moving ship when he puts a Sopwith Pup down on HMS Furious. (F&F)

360 degrees view of Space Shuttle cockpit

2011-07-27T20:54:00.003+08:00

Ever wonder what the cockpit of a Space Shuttle looks like?

Click here to go to the website.

You can use your mouse to move around the cockpit as well as just watch it rotate. Up and down will show you the entire upper flight deck.
Hint: Drag your cursor for horizontal or vertical scanning and use your scroll wheel to zoom in or out.

TriChute Safe Landing System

2011-06-23T01:06:00.000+08:00

Reported on http://www.generalaviationnews.com/
Aviation Safety Resources (ASR) has been awarded patent No. 7934682 from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for its TriChute Safe Landing System. The new patent revises and updates the technology from a previous patent.

The TriChute Safe Landing System is designed to equip general aviation aircraft with a pilot-controlled mechanism that lands passengers and aircraft safely in the event of an in-flight emergency. The technology activates a series of ballistic systems that separate the passenger compartment from the fuel-containing wings and deploys three parachutes that bring the passengers and wings down in separate, controlled level landings.

“The fact is, three parachutes are better than one,” said Dario P. Manfredi, ASR president. “ASR’s TriChute technology expands and improves upon existing single-chute designs which are limited to smaller aircraft. The TriChute system is designed to safely land six-passenger aircraft and, down the road, even commuter jets, larger fixed aircraft and helicopters.”

The additional patent adds to the strength of the company’s intellectual property portfolio, which includes the original TriChute safety system (U.S. Patent No. 5,009,374) proven and tested in 1967 by Manfredi’s father, Dario J. Manfredi, using a specially equipped Stinson Voyager in an FAA-sanctioned flight at Lakehurst (NJ) Naval Air Station. The system worked as designed, separating the wings and bringing the fuselage down safely with little or no damage. Click herefor a video of that test flight,

In addition to ASR’s two patents, the company’s application for a sensor-based Smart Recovery System (SRS) has been accepted for both national and international review and is in the final stages of approval with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, company officials said.

Applying sensor systems currently available in commercial and military aircraft to general aviation aircraft, the Smart Recovery System detects the environment in which the aircraft is operating and makes decisions based on monitoring data. The system immediately evaluates an emergency situation, identifies the devices and systems available on the aircraft, and then automatically deploys the appropriate device and/or system in the safest manner unless overridden by the pilot.

The system is designed to deploy whatever safety systems are available on the aircraft to rectify an in-flight emergency, such as verbal warning systems, fire extinguisher systems, autopilot, flight control systems, airbags and ballistic parachuterecovery systems including the TriChute Landing System.

“Most pilots will fly their entire careers without ever needing the protection provided by ASR technology,” Manfredi said. “Pilots don’t think about safety systems. They don’t plan for accidents caused by loss of control or failure of one or more components of delicately balanced flying systems …including the pilots themselves! But every year some 5,000 general aviation pilots are forced to face near-death crises and 20% never live to tell about it. Avionic companies have made great strides in creating new features, however, none begin with a comprehensive diagnostic and instant awareness or offer the integrated solutions promised by our Smart Recovery System and backed up by our TriChute system.”

Click here to go to Aviation Safety Resources for more information.

Alcoa Develops New Lighter Alloy for Aircraft

2011-06-20T00:41:00.001+08:00

Reported on 10th June 2011 on http://www.aerospace-technology.com

Alcoa has unveiled a new-generation alloy and technology, which it claims can lower the weight of aircraft by up to 10% and improve fuel consumption.

The alloy has been developed by mixing aluminum with lithium, which improves the alloy's density by 7% and results in significantly lighter products, but with the same strength and stiffness.

Alcoa says the aircraft made from these materials can weigh up to 10% less than composite-intensive ones and allows for a 12% increase in fuel efficiency.

The new alloys and technology can also lower the cost of manufacturing and repairs by up to 30%.

Alcoa's new aluminum alloy and advanced structural technologies use sheet, plate, forgings and hard alloy extrusion products across aircraft structures, including aircraft wings and fuselage elements.

Click here to go to flightglobal.com for more details.

Alaska Airlines distributes iPads to pilots

2011-06-17T21:29:00.000+08:00

From http://atwonline.com

In a move to both enhance flight safety and reduce its impact on the environment, Alaska Airlines has begun distributing iPads to its pilots to replace up to 25 pounds of required paper flight manuals. The carrier said it has "been exploring the idea of an electronic flight bag for several years."

The 1.5-lb. iPads will be issued to all the carrier's pilots by mid-June, following a successful trial by 100 line and instructor pilots in conjunction with the Air Line Pilots Assn. this past winter and spring. "When the iPad hit the market, we took one look at it and said 'this is the perfect fit,'" said AS VP-Flight Ops Gary Beck.

The iPads will include the "GoodReader" app, loaded with PDF versions of 41 flight, systems and performance manuals, reference cards and other materials that can be updated with a tap of the screen. The iPad is stowed during takeoff and landing under US FAA regulations, as it is considered a Class 1 electronic device.

Along with the "GoodReader" App, the airline is also exploring the possibility of moving to electronic navigation charts on the iPad. Together, these two initiatives, which AS has dubbed, "Bye, Bye Flight Bag," could produce an estimated savings of 2.4 million pieces of paper. It expects project costs to be offset by “lower paper, printing and distribution expenses and reduced fuel consumption as some weight is removed from the aircraft."
.

Wichita pilot's milestone birthday has its ups and downs — 50 of them

2011-06-14T21:17:00.000+08:00

BY BECCY TANNER
The Wichita Eagle
as posted on www.kansas.com

James Oliphant loves Kansas.

The Wichitan wanted to do something special this year as the state celebrates its 150th anniversary and he observes his own 50th.

He's a pilot.

So he came up with the idea of flying to 50 Kansas airports — as close to his May 19 birthday as he could — to raise $5,000 for the American Cancer Society.

"I wanted to fly on my birthday anyway because I can," Oliphant said. "I didn't want to do it just for myself. I thought that would be selfish. I'd fly for charity."

He chose the American Cancer Society because he's had several family members and friends battle cancer.

On May 16, Oliphant, who works for an aircraft insurance agency, flew more than 1,100 miles to 50 airports in 11 hours.

"I never left our great state," Oliphant said. "It would be the equivalent of flying from Wichita to Cleveland."

From Wichita Mid-Continent Airport west to Dodge City, north to Norton, east to Topeka and southeast to Burlington, he hopscotched across the state, ending the day at Stearman Field near Benton.

"I wanted to end at Stearman because that's where I took my first lesson in 1994," he said. "I remember, that's when I prayed that I wouldn't tear up an airplane, and now I'm coming in after 50 landings."

He dodged turkey vultures "all over the place" and a prairie dog at Hill City —"He thought I was a big bird," Oliphant said. He waited patiently for a deer to cross the airport in Wamego.

"I am a Kansan by birth and I love this state," Oliphant said. "It is much prettier than people give it credit. There is so much geography to experience — things that if you don't get off I-70 or the major roads, you miss out on."

Flying at an altitude of about 2,000 feet in his Mooney 201 plane, he saw the effect of the drought on western Kansas. And he saw the wind turbines near Kinsley and Ellsworth, the crushed-rock country roads along the Smoky Hills and the Flint Hills at sunset.

"They had just burned the pastures, and everything was turning green. Oh man, I tell you, it was so beautiful, it just looked like it had been spray-painted with green flocking. Cows were grazing on the hills, and the sun was giving shadows and depth beyond comprehension," he said.

Although the marathon flying expedition is over, Oliphant said he's not through raising money. He has raised $3,000 so far and wants to raise $5,000 by July 15.

That's when the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life will be held at Cessna Stadium on the Wichita State University campus.

To find out how to donate to his team or other Relay for Life teams, visit www.relayforlife.org. His team is named 50/50 Flight For Life.

Relay for Life is a major fundraising event for the society, said Dana Kemp, regional communications director for the High Plains division of the American Cancer Society.

So, when it comes time for Oliphant to turn 55, will he fly to 55 airports?

"I doubt it. It was a long day," he said.

But, he says, he will continue exploring Kansas from the air. There are, after all, 139 public airports.

It's a lot of ups and downs.

"I loved it. It wasn't just flying from airport to airport, each one had a different challenge," Oliphant said. "Some were tough to figure out how to get in safely and get out."

New FAA fines take aim at pointing lasers at aircraft

2011-06-09T15:31:00.001+08:00

From http://www.militaryaerospace.com

Marjorie Cortez Deseret News
Deseret Morning News (Salt Lake City)
June 7, 2011
Contributing: Jed Boal, Marc Giauque

SALT LAKE CITY
People who shine lasers into aircraft cockpits could be subject to fines up to $11,000 per incident as part of new civil fines announced by the Federal Aviation Administration. In Utah, where 36 such incidents were reported by the Salt Lake City International Airport in 2010, the new fines could play a role in reducing the number of such incidents. Fifteen such incidents have been reported thus far this year, according to airport officials.

Utah's 2010 experience tied Miami International Airport for the 13th-highest rate of laser events in the nation. In January, an AirMed helicopter leaving the University of Utah was hit by a powerful green laser at night in the cockpit. The pilot said he has been tagged by a laser four times in the past three years. Rob Stantus, program manager with AirMed, said the new fines are welcomed. "One of the things to remember is that these (lasers) are not toys people are shining at aircraft," Stantus said. "The potential for injury to our pilots and the danger that poses to pilots flying the aircraft, crews and patients we are transporting lends light to the serious nature of these laser incidents ? not only to helicopters, also to commercial aviation around the valley." Chief Warrant Officer Ken Sampson of the Utah National Guard experienced a laser "hit" two years ago while flying a helicopter above Bluffdale. Although neither he nor his co-pilot lost control of the chopper, the potential for harm is great. The new fines may help discourage this activity. "In my opinion, I think it's a good call," Sampson said. A recent legal interpretation by the FAA determined that directing a laser beam into an aircraft cockpit could interfere with a flight crew while operating an aircraft, a violation of federal aviation regulations. Nationwide, reports of laser events have increased from nearly 300 in 2005 to 2,836 in 2010. The highest number of events occurred at Los Angeles International Airport, with 102; Chicago O'Hare, 98; and 80 each at Phoenix Sky Harbor and San Jose International. FAA officials say the spike in incidents can be attributed to the agency encouraging pilots to file reports, the availability of inexpensive laser devices on the Internet; stronger lasers and the introduction of green lasers, which are easier to see than red lasers. "Shining a laser into the cockpit of an aircraft is not a joke. These lasers can temporarily blind a pilot and make it impossible to land the aircraft, jeopardizing the safety of our passengers, pilots and air transportation system," said FAA administrator Randy Babbitt when announcing the fines. In 2004, a Delta Air Lines pilot at the Salt Lake airport sustained eye damage when a laser was shined into the cockpit of the passenger jet he was piloting. He was five miles from landing. The plane, according to press reports at the time, landed without incident. A doctor confirmed that the pilot suffered retinal damage. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, in announcing the civil penalties, said the department's top priority is the safety of the traveling public. "We will not hesitate to take tough action against anyone who threatens the safety of our passengers, pilots and air transportation system," LaHood said during the announcement. The new fines come on top of criminal penalties for shining lasers into aircraft. Federal legislation to outlaw the activity is pending in Congress. However, a number of cities and states have criminal penalties for intentionally shining lasers at aircraft. In Utah, it is a class C misdemeanor to point a laser pointer at a law enforcement officer and an infraction to point a laser at a moving vehicle.

Rolls Royce

2011-06-09T11:47:00.000+08:00

FROM IFALPA Daily News Service - Thursday 2 June 2011
BY Mike Mellors

1910 - Charles Rolls (1877 - 1910) achieves the first non-stop double crossing of the English Channel. Starting and finishing at Dover the flight, using a Wright biplane, lasted one hour, 35 minutes.

In 1901 having become an ‘aeronaut’, he helped found the Aero Club. Two years later he became involved in a sales venture in London selling expensive French cars. One day a friend introduced him to F. H. Royce who was just beginning to build high quality motor cars. Although they had had little in common they became friends. In 1904 they agreed that Royce would build cars and Rolls would sell them so Rolls-Royce was born. A month after his Channel crossing he was killed when the tail-plane failed on his French-built Wright while he was descending at a flying meeting at Bournemouth. The design of the tail-plane, which was an addition and not sanctioned by the Wrights, appears to have been carelessly executed and the aircraft itself was faulty in construction. Though he was flying at a low altitude, about 20 feet, he suffered a cracked skull and became Britain`s first aircraft fatality

747 Fun Facts

2011-06-05T08:57:00.001+08:00

Parts

A 747-400 has six million parts, half of which are fasteners.

A 747-400 has 171 miles (274 km) of wiring and 5 miles (8 km) of tubing.

A 747-400 consists of 147,000 pounds (66,150 kg) of high-strength aluminum.

The 747-400 has 16 main landing gear tires and two nose landing gear tires.

The 747-400 tail height is 63 feet 8 inches (19.4 m), equivalent to a six-story building.

Wings

The 747-400 wing weighs 95,000 pounds (43,090 kg), more than 30 times the weight of the first Boeing airplane, the 1916 B&W.

The 747-400 wing measures 5,600 square feet (524.9 m 2 ), an area large enough to hold 45 medium-sized automobiles.

Four World War I vintage JN4-D "Jenny" airplanes could be lined up on each of the Boeing 747 wings.

How much weight does an additional 6-foot (1.8-m) wingtip extension and winglet add to the 747-400 wing? None! A weight savings of approximately 5,000 pounds (2,270 kg) was achieved in the wing by using new aluminum alloys, which offset the weight increase of the wing tip extension and winglet

Engineering and Testing

Seventy-five thousand engineering drawings were used to produce the first 747.

The first 747 completed more than 15,000 hours of wind-tunnel testing.

The original 747 flight test program, which led to the airplane's certification for commercial service in December 1969, used five airplanes, lasted 10 months and required more than 1,500 hours of flying.

Flight

The 747 fleet has logged more than 42 billion nautical miles (77.8 billion kilometers), equivalent to 101,500 trips from the Earth to the moon and back.

The 747 fleet has flown 3.5 billion people - the equivalent of more than half of the world's population.

The 747-400ER range is approximately 7,713 nautical miles (14,297 km).

A 747-400 typically takes off at 180 mph (290 km/h), cruises at 565 mph (910 km/h) and lands at 160 mph (260 km/h).

For a typical international flight, one 747 operator uses about 5.5 tons (5,000 kg) of food supplies and more than 50,000 in-flight service items.

Engines

Engine thrust has grown from 43,500 pounds (19,730 kg) per engine on the early 747s to as much as 63,300 pounds (28,710 kg) on the current model.

The diameter of the 747 engine cowling is 8 feet 6 inches (2.6 m).

Fuel

The 747-400ER can carry more than 63,500 gallons of fuel (240,370 L), making it possible to fly extremely long routes, such as Los Angeles to Melbourne, Australia.

A 747-400 that flies 3,500 statute miles (5,630 km) and carries 126,000 pounds (56,700 kg) of fuel will consume an average of five gallons (19 L) per mile.

The 747-400 carries 3,300 gallons (12,490 L) of fuel in the horizontal (tail) stabilizer, allowing it to fly an additional 350 nautical miles.

Interior

The award-winning Boeing Signature Interior is available on both the 747-400 and 747-400ER.

At 31,285 cubic feet (876 cubic meters), the 747-400 has the largest passenger interior volume of any commercial airliner, which is equivalent to more than three houses each measuring 1,500 square feet (135 square meters).

The 747-400 has a redesigned "flexible" cabin interior that allows airlines to rearrange seats and class configuration overnight (in eight hours). They also permit 48-hour conversion times for changes in galley and lavatory locations.

Airline cargo handlers use the 747-400's lower-lobe cargo handling system to load or unload more than 65,000 pounds (30,000 kg) of cargo - the equivalent of 625 pieces of luggage combined with 20 tons of revenue freight - in less than 15 minutes.

The Wright Brothers' first flight at Kitty Hawk, N.C., could have been performed within the 150-foot (45-m) economy section of a 747-400.

There are 365 lights, gauges and switches in the new-technology 747-400 flight deck, reduced from 971 on earlier 747 models.

Air France 447 Pilot Error? Probably, but …

2011-06-02T23:33:00.002+08:00

Air France 447 Pilot Error? Probably, but …

By Robert Mark on June 1st, 2011 on wwww.jetwhine.com
You can hear Robert in the youtube clip above

It’s been an exciting few weeks in the search for Air France 447. In just 20 days or so, searchers located the fuselage and both the cockpit and flight data recorders in 13,000 ft. of water on the floor of the South Atlantic. More victims are also still entombed in that fuselage as experts try to figure out how to recover them without destroying the bodies in the process.

Then last Friday came the French BEA transcript of the last few minutes of the flight before it pan caked into the water from seven miles above the ocean killing all 228 people aboard, as well as a few indisputable facts. Essentially, the airplane was out of control – completely stalled actually – almost from the moment the autopilot and autothrottles kicked off due to ice-clogged pitot tubes. The question of course is why were three experienced pilots – admittedly some more experienced than others – unable to make the aircraft fly at some point during the three and half minute drop to the water?

As I explained to a Fox TV News anchor Saturday afternoon, the scene inside the cockpit certainly would have been chaotic with darkness adding to the turmoil of heavy rain, turbulence and an array of warning lights and chimes all threatening certain death at the same moment. It would be tough for anyone to think clearly in that environment. Be that as it may, the pilots were paid and given the responsibility of being able to do just that … or were they?

Some reports claim the Air France pilots were never trained to deal with multiple failures surrounding events like they experienced that night. While it’s important to withhold final judgment of the cause of the 447 crash, it is clear that the pilots were either unable to recognize the attitude of the airplane at any point, or were unable to convince the aircraft to follow their commands. Did they hold the aircraft in the nose up condition then as the data recorder suggests? This is the part of the investigation we’ll need to wait for.

A Little History

Pilots losing control of an airplane is not a new event however. USAir lost a Boeing 737 on approach to Pittsburgh in 1994. The final words of the captain as the airplane nosed into the earth was “Help me pull,” thinking they were diving. Like the Air France accident, the USAir aircraft was stalled all the way to the ground.

An American Eagle crew lost control of their ATR-72 and crashed after their aircraft also stalled during an encounter with ice in 1994. In January 2009, a Colgan Air Dash 8 Q400 crashed on approach to Buffalo when that captain misinterpreted a stick pusher for a stall and caused the aircraft to fall from the sky killing all 50 aboard.

So was this an unfortunate technology-induced accident or was the crew merely as far behind the aircraft as some of these other unfortunate aviators? Sure these French pilots never recovered from the stall, but was it because they were not properly trained to handle this kind of chaos, or did the Airbus A330 try something on its own that these aviators were unable to remedy?

The question is not whether or not the pilots are responsible for the crash, for surely they are … pilots are always responsible, especially the PIC. A stalled wing is a situation every new pilot sees, almost from their first training flight.

The TV folks asked me, “Was there anything the pilots could have done to make their airplane fly again.” There was only one correct answer. “Absolutely. They could have reduced the angle of attack to a point where the airplane would once again fly.”

But they never did.

The real question is why?

787 air con pack

2011-05-31T11:09:00.002+08:00

Air France 447 FDR data show aircraft remained stalled in final minutes of flight

2011-05-31T10:29:00.004+08:00

Reported by Perry Flint on http://atwonline.com

Air France 447 took less than four minutes to fall from approximately 38,000 ft. into the waters of the South Atlantic following the disengagement of the autopilot on the Airbus A330-200, according to an interim report released by the French BEA Friday that is based on CVR and FDR analysis (ATW Daily News, May 17).

BEA stated that following disengagement of the autopilot and autothrust, which apparently occurred after an "inconsistency between the speeds displayed on the left side primary flight display and the integrated standby instrument system" that "lasted for less than one minute," the aircraft climbed to 38,000 ft.; the stall warning was triggered and the airplane stalled. After taking command of the aircraft, "the inputs made by the pilot flying were mainly nose-up," and the aircraft remained stalled during the 3 min. 30 sec. it took to drop to the ocean. "The angle of attack increased and remained above 35 degrees. The engines were operated and always responded to crew commands."

According to the report, the captain was taking a scheduled rest at the onset of the crisis, which began approximately 2 hr. 10 min. 5 sec. into the flight. Around 10 seconds later the pilot not flying said, "So we've lost the speeds," and then "alternate law…" Under alternate or direct law, angle of attack protections are no longer available, BEA noted, but "a stall warning is triggered when the greatest of the valid [AOA] values exceeds a certain threshold."

The captain re-entered the cockpit approximately 90 sec. after the autopilot disengaged but the airplane never was stabilized. The recording stopped at 2 hr. 14 min. 28 sec. The last recorded values were a vertical speed of -10,912 ft. min., a ground speed of 107 kt., pitch attitude of 16.2 degrees nose-up, roll angle of 5.3 degrees left and a magnetic heading of 270 degrees.

Click here for the full text of the BEA report. There terms PF and PNF stands for Pilot Flying and Pilot Not Flying.

F15 lands with one wing

2011-05-17T07:25:00.000+08:00

Tu-154 control problems

2011-05-15T09:32:00.000+08:00

http://www.aviationnews.eu
Russian Air Force chief Col. Gen. Alexander Zelin confirmed on Friday that last week’s incident with a military passenger plane was caused by the failure of the on-board flight control system.

The Russian Air Force Tupolev Tu-154B-2 started wavering uncontrollably at a very low altitude shortly after taking off from the Chkalovsky airfield near Moscow on April 29.

“The plane behaved in such a manner because its control system failed in the air,” Zelin told reporters. “Everything was all right before takeoff.”

The pilots managed to land the plane on their second attempt. The plane, which was reportedly flown for the first time in 10 years, did not sustain any damage.

Zelin said the pilots showed high professionalism in saving the aircraft and would be decorated for valor and courage.

Russian military prosecutors have launched a probe into the incident. Zelin said the results of the investigation would be made public.

The Tu-154B is a Soviet-designed plane that entered service in the 1970s and is now only used for domestic flights by lesser airlines in Russia and the former Soviet Union.

Russia’s flagship airline Aeroflot took its 23 remaining Tu-154s out of service in January 2010 over safety concerns.

Russia’s transport watchdog ordered domestic airlines to ground their Tu-154Bs after a Kolavia Tu-154B exploded in a fireball before takeoff from Surgut, in Siberia, in January, killing three people.

Source: Russia News

A380 hit by lightning caught on video

2011-05-14T00:42:00.002+08:00

By Gaby Leslie, Yahoo! UK

A man was lucky enough to capture this footage of two bolts of lightning striking an airplane minutes before it landed at Heathrow airport.

All five hundred passengers on-board the Emirates Airbus A380 escaped unharmed after two powerful lightning bolts hit the aircraft in a thunderstorm.

During the four-second-long video, the powerful lightning strikes can be seen touching the body of the aircraft from all sides.

Optionally manned/unmanned aircraft -- the Firebird

2011-05-12T08:42:00.001+08:00

double click on video to go to full screen as the side is truncated

Northrop Grumman video unveiling its Firebird optionally manned/unmanned aircraft. Designed and built by Scaled Composites as the Model 355, the Firebird is a medium-altitude long-endrance unmanned aircraft to compete with the General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper/Predator B, but with the option of build flown manned.

From http://www.dailymail.co.uk

It has been hailed as the future of the spy plane. An intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft that can be flown either robotically or with a pilot aboard was unveiled yesterday. The Firebird will allow the U.S. military to simultaneously gather real-time high-definition video, view infrared imagery, use radar and eavesdrop on communications, it is claimed. Incredibly, it has an interface like a memory stick that can be plugged into a PC without the need for additional software.

Measuring 34ft-long and 9.7ft-high, the twin-tailed plane can reach a maximum altitude of 30,000ft and has a maximum flying time of between 24 and 40 hours, depending on its configuration.
Its wing span is 65ft and it has a pushed-propeller at the rear of its fuselage.

The Firebird, which performed its first flight in February 2010, was designed and built in California's Mojave Desert by Scaled Composites and unveiled yesterday by U.S. aero defence firm Northrop Grumman.
The aircraft was designed with the certainty of cuts in U.S. defence spending in mind.

'Firebird addresses future budgetary constraints by combining the best of our piloted and unmanned systems,' said Paul Meyer, a spokesman for Northrop Grumman

Rick Crooks, Firebird program manager, described it as an adaptable system that is highly affordable because of the number of different missions that can be accomplished in a single flight.

The company did not say how much it cost to develop the aircraft
The Firebird will be demonstrated from May 23 to June 3, during a U.S. Joint Forces Command exercise dubbed Empire Challenge 2011.

The exercise will be hosted at Fort Huachuca in Arizona, and include locations across the U.S. and in several other countries.

ASH CLOUD

2011-05-10T11:24:00.001+08:00

ASH CLOUD: New study details volcanic ash protocol for aviation
By Kerry Reals
From www.flightglobal.com

Last April's decision to close much of Europe's airspace as a result of the volcanic ash cloud that spread across the continent following the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland was "well grounded", according to a new scientific study. The study also recommends a protocol to assess the risks to aircraft from similar events in the future.

The research, carried out by the University of Copenhagen and the University of Iceland and published on 26 April in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, analysed particles collected immediately after the Icelandic eruption.

It concludes that the particles could have led to engine failure as well as abrasion to an aircraft's exterior because they were sharp enough to sandblast aircraft windows, bodies, wings and engines.

"There is no doubt from the shape and size of the particles that they would have been a danger to aircraft and melted quickly in a jet engine, causing it to fail," says the study's co-author Dr Susan Stipp, adding that "what was unknown was when to reopen".

This was down to guesswork, with aviation authorities "acting blind", which is why Stipp and her colleagues "worked in the evenings and at weekends" to come up with a protocol.

The size, shape and hardness of volcanic ash particles are the "key parameters" for assessing the risk to aircraft of similar events in the future, says the study.

Instruments to determine these parameters are available in earth and materials science laboratories. BET surface area measurements provide the size data, while scanning electron microscopy analysis provides the shape data. X-ray diffraction calculates mineral composition to determine the hardness and melting temperature of the particles.

"Together with estimates of the mass of ash produced, plume height, grain size distribution and the dispersion rate, these data would provide input for modelling to predict the hazard level for aircraft," says the study. Other data, such as wind speed, would need to be provided for modelling purposes.

To access information quickly following a similar event in the future, "aviation authorities would need to make contact with a lab or two" in advance, says Stipp.

"It doesn't have to be our lab - it could be anyone with these instruments." If arrangements with laboratories are made in advance, results from volcanic ash samples could be available "within several hours". Therefore, "to be effective, aviation authorities would need to set this up ahead of time", says Stipp.

Happy the Barn Owl on 'flight trials'

2011-05-02T19:57:00.001+08:00

From http://www.dlr.de

The secret of efficient bird flight – DLR measures the shape of a barn owl wing in flight
26 April 2011

The flight of birds is still largely unexplored; in particular, the movements performed during the beat of a wing and the airflow around the wing remain a puzzle to scientists. The German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR), in collaboration with RWTH Aachen University (Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen) and the German Armed Forces University in Munich (Universität der Bundeswehr München) is addressing this question. Starting on 26 April 2011, the scientists will be photographing the wings of an owl while in flight inside a closed room at RTWH Aachen University to obtain information about the how the shape of the bird's wing changes during flight. This calls for basic research. Since the launch of the project in 2008, the team of scientists has succeeded in studying owl wings during gliding flight; the forthcoming measurements will be focussing on the wing beat phase.

The results obtained will not only help to determine the airflow around the wing, enabling the flight of birds to be better understood, but will also be incorporated into modern aviation. "It's not as though we are going to apply these results to an A380 – its flight characteristics bear no resemblance to those of an owl. But the research results can be applied to smaller, unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs," explains Andreas Dillmann, Head of the DLR Institute of Aerodynamics and Flow Technology.

Researching the sequence of movements in flight

It is not easy to study the shape of a bird's wing during flight. In contrast to a mechanical device, whose location is known, it is not possible to forecast where a living creature will be next. "In some of the tests, the owl may fly slightly higher, or slightly lower; it all depends. Although this may cause difficulties, the owls should not be influenced in any way, since we want to ensure that the flight is as authentic as possible," explains Thomas Wolf from the DLR Institute of Aerodynamics and Flow Technology. To determine the position of the owl in the room and the shape of its wing surface area, Wolf projects a pattern onto the upper and lower sides of the owl's wings and records it using state-of-the-art video technology. Afterwards, he and his colleagues can assign various image points to this pattern on the computer, from which they can calculate the shape of the wing surface. This enables researchers to track the sequences of movements. The optical measuring system has an accuracy of approximately 0.5 millimetres. The entire wing has been analysed during gliding flight, with the exception of the leading edge. Currently, the curvature of the wing prevents this part from being measured accurately; software to accomplish this is under development.

After the work is done – Thomas Wolf with Happy the barn owl These trials will use eight cameras, four taking photographs from above and the other four from below. The dot pattern will be projected onto the wings of the owl from above and below as well. This projector-based measuring system can also be useful for the aviation sector; some mechanical components, such as a turbine, cannot be 'painted' with patterns or templates for accurate measurement purposes – the paint would burn off when the turbine started. However, if an optical measurement check for quality control purposes is required, it is possible to apply such a pattern through the use of projectors.

Food as a flight incentive

The flight path for the two owls, Happy and Tesla is approximately seven metres long. The owls always fly one at a time. To give them an incentive to fly, bird food is placed at the far end of their flight path. This does not always work: "Sometimes, the owls just don't want to fly. Whenever that happens, we simply go and get something to eat and come back at about two in the morning, when our owl felt like flying," explains DLR scientist Thomas Wolf. The welfare of the animals was taken into consideration during the flight tests. The research project is scheduled to run until June 2012. For future tests, DLR is developing a camera system to accompany an owl on its flight, which will be used on a 30-metre flight path.

NTSB Reports Flaws In 737 Rivets

2011-04-30T19:21:00.000+08:00

http://www.avweb.com

NTSB inspectors examining parts of the Southwest 737 fuselage that ruptured in flight on April 1 reported Monday that they found some rivets didn't fit properly into their holes, and some of the holes were slightly offset or irregular in shape. While the NTSB update was purely factual, with no analysis, The New York Times said that according to experts, the findings may reveal manufacturing defects. "It means the assembly was wrong, it means the wrong tools were used, it means they were careless in drilling the holes, and maybe the drill was dull," John J. Goglia, a former NTSB member, told the Times. Rivet holes that are irregular in shape would not disperse the stress of pressurization/depressurization cycles as evenly as a perfectly round hole would, Goglia told the Times. Boeing had no comment on the report.

The flight was at 34,000 feet when the rupture occurred, opening a hole in the fuselage 9 inches wide and 59 inches long, causing depressurization of the cabin. The flight crew conducted an emergency descent and diverted to Yuma International Airport, Yuma, Ariz. The aircraft has been delivered to Southwest in June 1996, and at the time of the accident, it had accumulated 48,740 hours of service and 39,781 cycles (a cycle is a takeoff and landing), the NTSB said. Inspections that were mandated after the accident turned up four 737s with crack indications at a single rivet and one with crack indications at two rivets. All of those aircraft had flown between 40,000 and 45,000 cycles, the NTSB said. The NTSB investigation is continuing.

Boeing 737 versus Airbus A320

2011-04-27T22:10:00.000+08:00

The 737 series is the best-selling jet airliner in history. The 737 has been continuously manufactured by Boeing since 1967 with 6,638 aircraft delivered and 2,186 orders yet to be fulfilled as of December 2010. 737 assembly is centered at the Boeing Renton Factory in Renton, Washington.

Many 737s serve markets previously filled by 707, 727, 757, DC-9, and MD-80/90 airliners, and the aircraft currently competes primarily with the Airbus A320 family.

There are on average 1,250 737s airborne at any given time, with one departing or landing somewhere every five seconds.

As of 28 February 2011, a total of 4,582 Airbus A320 family aircraft have been delivered, of which 4,496 are in active service. In addition, another 2,357 airliners are on firm order. According to Airbus, it ranked as the world's fastest-selling jet airliner family according to records from 2005 to 2007, and as the best-selling single-generation aircraft programme.

Emergency Vision Assurance System

2011-04-15T09:21:00.001+08:00

From www.flightglobal.com
By David Kaminski-Morrow

Seven months after its fatal Boeing 747-400F fire, freight operator UPS is to fit a system to its fleet which enables pilots to see their cockpit instruments in the event of smoke.

The Emergency Vision Assurance System essentially comprises an inflatable transparent bubble, pressurised with filtered cockpit air, which overlays the instrument panel and provides a smoke-free viewing window.

Installation will begin on UPS' Boeing 767s and subsequently on the 747-400 and MD-11 fleet, the "primary over-water aircraft", says the carrier.

"Full fleet equipage will be a multi-year process as the company works to obtain proper certifications and cycle aircraft through modification," it adds.

Two UPS pilots were killed in the 3 September 2010 crash after the 747's cockpit filled with smoke in cruise, rendering the instruments unreadable as the crew attempted to return to Dubai.

UPS says it is fitting the vision system following a recommendation from a joint safety task force comprising representatives of the carrier and the Independent Pilots Association. "This new equipment will add yet another layer of safety," says UPS Airlines president Mitch Nichols.

VisionSafe manufactures the system. It claims the process of deployment in an emergency takes 15-20s and says the equipment is independently powered with "virtually no installation" required.

Safety task force member Capt Bob Brown says the system is "an important step forward" and that the carrier and the pilots' association have "mobilised quickly to research and recommend fire-safety enhancements".

A380 Clips Tail of Another plane

2011-04-13T09:02:00.001+08:00

From Flightglobal
By David Kaminski-Morrow

Extraordinary video images have emerged of an Air France Airbus A380 colliding with a Comair Bombardier CRJ700 during taxiing at New York JFK.

Air France has grounded the aircraft, which suffered damage to its left wing, while the CRJ has similarly been taken out of service with damage to its empennage.

The Air France jet was operating flight AF007 to Paris Charles de Gaulle on 11 April. The carrier says it was transporting 495 passengers, 22 cabin crew and three pilots.

A spokesman for Air France says the A380 "clipped the tail fin" of the Comair jet – which had arrived from Boston as flight DL6293 – while the CRJ was parked.

"It only caused material damage," he says, but confirms both aircraft have been grounded. He adds that Air France has been placing affected passengers on alternative flights.

JFK ground control communication records show that, at about 20:05, the A380 was given instruction for runway 22R, and was cleared to turn left on taxiway A and hold short of taxiway E.

After another aircraft called to request clearance to taxiway KD, the A380 was told to give way to opposite direction traffic, which the crew acknowledged.

But less than a minute later the pilots of the CRJ700 crew, using the callsign Comair 553, told JFK controllers: "Send a truck, they just hit us at [taxiway] Mike."

Another aircraft, initially instructed to follow the A380 to KD, was then told by controllers: "Don’t make the left on Alpha. Air France, they think they might have hit somebody.

"Emergency crews were summoned to the intersection of taxiways A and M on the southwestern side of the airport.

Controllers informed emergency services of the incident and added that the CRJ crew was evacuating passengers. The A380 crew was also asked to shut down the engines of the aircraft, at the request of the emergency response teams.

Emergency AD on 737

2011-04-12T21:18:00.001+08:00

An Emergency Airworthiness Directive was issued by FAA in response to the recent Southwest 737 incident

Click here for full details of the AD

Click here for the wikipedia article on the incident.

Fatigue trials for EASA certification for Airbus A400M

2011-04-09T03:06:00.000+08:00

http://www.aerospacetestinginternational.com

Airbus Military has successfully completed the number of required simulated flight-cycles on a full-scale test airframe to achieve civil type certification of the A400M by the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). The test program is required to simulate flights at least one year ahead of the actual operations performed by the aircraft. The test specimen at Dresden, known as MSN5001, has undergone 1,665 cycles, five times the maximum number of flights expected to be recorded annually by each A400M in service, in order to give a large safety margin. By mid-2012, 25,000 simulated flights will be performed, equating to 2.5 times the A400M's design-life.