All Systems & Interiors news – Page 916
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Why lemons can make pilots sick
Gunter Endres/LONDON WHAT WOULD YOU do if you are a pilot and you smell lemons in the cockpit? You would most likely to assume that the cabin staff is serving a gin and tonic, or cleaning the toilets, and you would ignore it. What you probably will ...
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Duncan pushes turnaround performance
DUNCAN AVIATION IS guaranteeing customers a reduced turnaround time for the maintenance, refurbishment, or painting of light- and medium-sized business-jets. Lincoln, Nebraska-based Duncan's new PowerTurn programme specifies penalties if the company fails to redeliver the aircraft by the guaranteed date. "[Corporate] flight departments are increasingly expected to maximise ...
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O-ring anomalies delay the Shuttle missions
Tim Furniss/LONDON NASA HAS POSTPONED the launch of the Space Shuttle mission STS 69/Endeavour until late this month, to complete a review of hardware associated with O rings in the nozzle joints of the solid-rocket boosters (SRBs). Examination of the two boosters used for the ...
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Foreign interest raises Qantas flotation price
Paul Phelan/CAIRNS AUSTRALIA'S long-running airline-privatisation programme has come to an end with the flotation of the remaining 75% state holding in Qantas Airways. Despite early doubts over demand for the shares, the Australian Government estimates that it will receive around A$1.45 billion ($1 billion) from ...
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US-1A follow-on work begins
SHINMAYWA INDUSTRIES plans to modify an US-IA amphibian with new engines and avionics, to serve as a development testbed for a possible replacement search-and-rescue aircraft for the Japan Maritime Self-Defence Force (JMSDF). The company has been pressing Japan's Technical Research and Development Institute (TRDI) for funding to develop ...
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El Al to evaluate cockpit system
EL AL IS TO EQUIP two of its Boeing 747-200 freighters with a wall-mounted, removable integrated cockpit-information system developed by Elisra subsidiary, Avionitek. The evaluation could lead to the airline equipping the bulk of its fleet with the unit. The idea is to provide each member of ...
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Hot Bird tanks
Propellant tanks are being installed in Eutelsat's Hot Bird 2 satellite at Matra Marconi Space (MMS), Stevenage UK. MMS is also building the Hot Birds 3 and 4 (Flight International, 26 July-1 August). The 20 Ku-band transponder Hot Birds will be co-located at 13°E in geostationary orbit to provide direct-to-home ...
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Sun Country pioneers the use of GPS
MINNEAPOLIS-BASED Sun Country Airlines is the first carrier to obtain operation approval to use the global-positioning system (GPS) for navigation in oceanic and remote airspace. The US Federal Aviation Administration granted approval after a demonstration flight on 25-26 July from Boston, Massachusetts, to Santa Maria, Portugal. The flight ...
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USAir changes tack on unions...
USAIR HAS ABANDONED efforts to win $2.5 billion in union concessions over the next five years, and plans instead to negotiate labour savings in contract talks. The decision to drop the talks with four unions follows disclosure of a $113 million second-quarter net profit. Union workers appear to ...
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Pilot changes
THE EUROPEAN airline-pilot market - much to the chagrin of the pilots - is still very much a buyer's market. There are some signs that it is freeing up, with some major airlines starting to recruit (or at least showing an interest). There is not, however, a widespread shortage of ...
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Wilcox wins WAAS deal
Ramon Lopez/WASHINGTON DC THE US FEDERAL Aviation Administration has awarded Wilcox Electric a $475 million incentive-fee contract to develop and produce the world's first wide-area augmentation system (WAAS), which makes the global-positioning system (GPS) usable for all phases of civil flight. Award of the contract ...
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Other Oshkosh '95 news
LoPresti Aircraft has taken three firm orders for its F22 sport aircraft, which comes in two versions and starts at $129,000. It has verbal commitments for a further four aircraft. The company is deciding where to locate a factory and intends to manufacture complete aircraft by late 1996. General ...
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Born-again fighter
Israel's low-cost upgrade, for the venerable MiG-21, has entered the flight test stage. Arie Egozi/TEL AVIV THE UPGRADE prepared by Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) for the MiG-21 (Flight International, 15-21 March, P14) has been driven by the assumption that most potential customers want to enhance the aircraft's ...
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Mesa-backed airline to start UK service
NEW UK CARRIER Community Express Airlines is awaiting the delivery of the first of two Shorts 360-300s from Liberty Express in the USA, to inaugurate a domestic schedule. Community Express will initially link Birmingham with London Gatwick, most probably from early October. Expansion to connect Bristol, ...
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FANS datalink component becomes operational
A PROTOTYPE OF the new oceanic-sector workstation - the controller's link to the Future Air Navigation System (FANS) - is now in operational testing at the US Federal Aviation Administration's Oakland, California, air-route traffic-control centre. The workstation, called the telecommunications processor, represents the first phase of the ...
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DASA/Collins team succeeds with GPS-based landing tests
Andrzej Jeziorski/MUNICH A TEAM FROM Collins Commercial Avionics of the USA and Germany's Daimler-Benz Aerospace (DASA) has carried out successfully what is claimed by the companies to be the first fully automatic satellite navigation-based landing. The trials were part of the Boeing-led GPS Landing System ...
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All American airline dream
What is it about the airline industry that makes an entrepreneur's heart go of a flutter? Few people outside Houston ever grow up dreaming that they will one day start an oil company - though take note if your kid asks what the per-barrel price of East Texas crude will ...
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Technology tradeoffs
As the taxi pulls into the airport, the passenger's personal digital assistant (PDA) flashes the message that his flight is delayed for an hour, and asks him to confirm his inflight meal selection. He swipes his SmartCredit card through the taximeter, enters his personal authorisation code, adds a tip for ...
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Superjumbo or white elephant?
Mrs Akido is flying from Sapporo to Fukuoka to visit her mother. While the aircraft is taxiing to the runway, she goes through the safety procedure on her virtual reality screen. In the noise-proofed cabin she cannot hear the roar of the engines, nestling under the 80 metre wingspan, as ...
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Tomorrow's flight plan
They call it the autonomous aeroplane. An aircraft which can be navigated around the world independently of any ground navigation aid and which, rather less easily, can return to earth anywhere in any weather. Technically the concept is a practicable one. Whether it will be coming to an airport near ...