All Safety News – Page 1444
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The precision- and non-precision-approach debate
Sir - I refer to "Why a precision approach is safer" (Letters, Flight International, 17-23 April, P62), in which Dimitris Vourdoubas and Capt John Raby argue the pros and cons of attempting to fly a non-precision approach to a constant slope. Unfortunately, non-precision approaches vary, not least in ...
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Regional repercussions
Regional jets headline this year's US Regional Airline Association show, with the debut of Embraer's EMB-145 and the debate on turboprop safety. Graham Warwick/ATLANTA MORE THAN 18 months after an American Eagle ATR 72 crashed near Roselawn, Indiana killing all 68 people on board, repercussions of the accident ...
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BFGoodrich strikes with new Stormscope thunderstorm detector
BFGOODRICH Aerospace has introduced the WX-950 Stormscope thunderstorm-detection system, billed as the only lighting detector with two modes of operation. In cell mode, the WX-950 uses a ranging algorithm to map thunderstorms. In strike mode, the system records and displays individual lightning strikes. While cell mode was developed ...
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Regional and utility aircraft directory
Fokker's demise is the most dramatic in a series of upheavals taking place throughout the regional-aircraft industry Compiled by Andrew Doyle and Jennifer Pite/LONDON Graham Warwick/ATLANTA FOKKER IS DOWN, the count almost over, but the winner is far from clear: not the customers left with unfulfilled orders for ...
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Ilyushin sells first production Il-103
ILYUSHIN HAS SOLD the first production version of the five-seat Il-103 to an undisclosed customer. The aircraft, is believed to have been sold to a South African client who undertook demonstration flights in April. The Il-103 is produced at the Lukhovitsy plant near Moscow, which is a member of MAPO ...
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Zimbabwe Government loses patience with Fokkers
THE ZIMBABWE Government has told Air Zimbabwe to terminate its leases on two Fokker 50 turboprops, following concerns about their performance and their adverse effect on the country's tourist industry. After a parliamentary committee concluded that the aircraft were not suitable for operations from hot-and-high airports during the ...
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FAA icing rules change
MOST US REGIONAL-airline operators of turboprop-powered aircraft will face minor operational restrictions rather than costly modifications, according to the finalised Federal Aviation Administration rules about flight in icing conditions (Flight International, 7-13 February). Major anti-icing system design changes like those demanded for the ATR 42 have not been required. ...
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NTSB criticises FAA on 737 FDR
NATIONAL Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), chairman Jim Hall has criticised the US Federal Aviation Administration, for rejecting the Boards call for an immediate upgrade, of Boeing 737 flight data recorders (FDRs). Proposed new rules about the retrofit of modern FDRs on commercial passenger-carrying aircraft will soon be issued ...
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Digital ATC
AIT Recorders has developed a digital air-traffic-control (ATC) data-recording system, which it claims can simultaneously record all radar, voice and environmental data entering an ATC centre, using digital compression techniques. The UK company's Comfile 2000 Digital Recorder uses DAT cassettes as the storage medium, along with a 1Gb hard disk ...
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Financial analysts are divided on Delta Air Lines figures
FIRST-QUARTER results from Delta Air Lines, which included a massive write-down to cover the last major chunk of its cost-cutting drive, have raised a mixed response from financial analysts. The carrier reported its best-ever operating results for the first quarter, but the net profit came in below ...
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Air France Europe 'may disappear', says Blanc
Julian Moxon/PARIS AIR FRANCE Group president Christian Blanc has threatened the workforce of Air France Europe with the "disappearance" of the airline if Draconian measures to restore performance are not under- taken in the next two years. At a board meeting on 25 April, Blanc ...
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Bombardier shows Australian maritime-patrol Dash 8s
BOMBARDIER is conducting a 12-country demonstration tour with the first of three de Havilland Dash 8-200 maritime-patrol aircraft for Surveillance Australia. The tour began in Scandinavia, and is continuing through the Mediterranean, Middle East and Asia, with the aircraft due to arrive in Australia in June and enter service in ...
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China wins control of Hong Kong airlines
Paul Lewis/HONG KONG SWIRE PACIFIC has ceded control of Dragonair and lost to China its absolute majority interest in Cathay Pacific Airways, in a far- reaching settlement ending a year-long battle for control of Hong Kong's airlines. Under a deal struck just 14 months before ...
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Airbus bids to slash A310 costs to rival Boeing 757
Paul Lewis/TOULOUSE AIRBUS INDUSTRIE is studying ways of cutting the cost of its A310 aircraft, in an effort to revive sales and counter proposed higher-gross-weight developments of the Boeing 757. According to Adam Brown, Airbus vice-president for strategic planning, the company is looking at a ...
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Flight Dynamics plans HUDs for more 737s
FLIGHT DYNAMICS plans to increase its dominance of the market for head-up displays (HUDs) on civil transports by certificating its system for Category III operations on five Boeing 737 models by mid-1999. The schedule calls for certification of the 737-400 and -500 to Cat IIIa by the end ...
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AST becomes the first victim of UK training policy
David Learmount/LONDON THE UK'S OLDEST flying training school has become the first victim of a Government policy loophole enabling UK pilots to gain UK commercial pilot's licences in foreign training establishments. The 60-year-old Air Services Training (AST) at Perth, Scotland, announced on 26 April that ...
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Unique Internationalism
THE UK'S OLDEST flying-training school is to close. Air Service Training (AST) blames not the now-ended airline recession, but its own regulator for allowing overseas schools with lower costs to train ab initio pilots for the full UK commercial pilot's licence, and its Government for giving UK students tax incentives ...
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DASA ready to finalise sale of Dornier unit to Fairchild
Ramon Lopez/WASHINGTON, DC DAIMLER-BENZ Aerospace (DASA) hopes to complete the sale of of its Dornier Lufthahrt regional-aircraft manufacturing unit to US manufacturer Fairchild Aircraft before the end of the month, according to Manfred Bischoff, DASA's president and chief executive. Speaking in Washington on 30 April, ...
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Australia to make TCAS compulsory for transports
AUSTRALIA's Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) plans to order the use of the traffic-alert and collision-avoidance system (TCAS) for transport aircraft. CASA has circulated an industry discussion paper following a 1995 Bureau of Air Safety Investigation (BASI) report recommending that TCAS be compulsory for all public-transport Australian ...
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3D keeps engines on-wing
Andrew Doyle/LONDON AEA Technology, of Didcot, UK, has patented a three-dimensional (3D) stereoscopic television system for use with standard rigid boroscopes, which it believes could have wide-ranging applications as an aerospace maintenance inspection tool. The TV3 system is designed to enable engineers to carry out ...