Follow the rules Your report (Flight International, 8-14 March) on the proposed European Joint Aviation Authorities TCAS-RA rule for pilots subject to European regulations is irritating because until November 2003, pilots were not forced, but only encouraged, to follow TCAS-RAs under International Civil Aviation Organisation document 8168 rules and procedures. Until November 2003, it said pilots "should" follow the RAs. The change to "shall" only came after the Uberlingen mid-air collision in 2002. Now, with this procedure being applicable in all ICAO member states, including Europe, why do we need another European decision to do the same, while we are already obliged to follow it under the ICAO rule? And what did European pilots do in the meantime, ie after November 2003? Did they ignore the RAs or follow them? Did they know about the change in the ICAO rule, did anyone tell them? Airline passengers could be interested in the answer as well. I still remember that everyone only too willingly blamed the Tupolev pilot for not following his resolution advisory under a rule which did not force him to do so, neither by ICAO nor his national regulation. That was more than unfair, I would say. The question remains: "Do we all really know what we are doing?" But definitely, we are talking much too much about safety instead of really doing something for it. Frank Fischer President, International Advisory Group Air Navigation Services, Switzerland
Flying car is the future Your feature on the forthcoming NASA personal air vehicle programme (Flight International, 8-14 February) is a welcome coverage of the much overlooked "flying car" field and the seldom mentioned NASA small aircraft transport system concept, which if successful will expand general aviation activity by several orders of magnitude in an area characterised by diminishing operations, stagnant production and sales. The idea of a flying car seems to be shunned like leprosy, yet the door-to-door single vehicle travel as you describe is exactly the flying car vision – a recent survey of British schoolchildren revealed that the most desirable trait in their "car of the future" is that it should fly. This is the future market for the "next generation" aircraft and it seems the kids have taken the flying car of Harry Potter to heart and perhaps we should not be embarrassed by the idea. Ross Nolan Aircar Industry, Sydney, Australia
Be smart with structures While I agree with Lance Cole (Flight International, 22-28 March) that much remains to be learned about the long-term issues affecting composite structures, surely the question is how do we overcome the problem so that the undoubted advantages of using composites can be realised. One answer is effective structural health monitoring or "smartstructures". One of the most significant developments in this area is optical fibre strain gauges that can be embedded in the structure or co-bonded to its surface. They are there for life and can therefore detect degradation as well as measure changes in operating spectrum. As they also measure temperature, they can be used during manufacture to monitor the curing process and prevent "badly cured" composites. This technology is being embraced by the offshore oil and gas and wind energy industries, but the aerospace industry seems reluctant to move from the mentality of metal structures and the use of traditional strain gauges, which are unreliable and not truly compatible with composites. Roger Caesley Dorchester, Dorset, UK
Passengers know best Your correspondent Peter Dennis (Flight International, 15-21 March) suggests that passenger opinion might be interesting if travellers were actually polled over the practice of conducting long-range, over-water flights in 180min ETOPS operations (a limit likely to be extended before long). I suggest that at least one poll has already been conducted with decisive results. At an Airbus press conference three years ago, Virgin Atlantic chairman Sir Richard Branson said he was buying A340-600s, "which had four engines because, among other things, passengers preferred that". Always a shrewd operator, he had clearly taken notice of what people had told him. Roy Allen Saham Toney, Norfolk, UK
One more link in the chain There were three events that characterised British Airways three-engined Boeing 747 flight (Flight International, 8-14 March) 1) The crew could not reach the planned cruise altitude because the engine failed before the climb was completed; 2) The crew were denied the reassessed cruise altitude because this was occupied; 3) The crew were not sure they could use all their remaining fuel. Decisions on whether to continue any planned flight should depend on whether a diversion is likely as it is better to divert sooner rather than later. In the BA case, the likelihood of diverting got gradually worse as each of the three events above materialised. It may have been more sensible to have diverted as soon as it was realised that the planned cruise altitude was not attainable. This provides a potential decision point. It seems contradictory to declare a fuel emergency and then claim the flight was safe. One more link in this chain of events might have proved otherwise. Mike Horswill Derby, UK
The FAA was right Without wishing to criticise the decision to continue this flight to the UK, after an engine surge and shutdown just after take-off from Los Angeles, I would tend to agree with the US Federal Aviation Administration's philosophy of not continuing for any significant distance with a failed engine. The crew did not, and could not, know precisely what the cause of the malfunction to that engine was and would, therefore, have been unable to guarantee that a second, third or even fourth engine would not have behaved in exactly the same way at some stage during the flight. Admittedly, the chances of subsequent problems (fuel pump apart) were remote on this flight, but imagine the headlines if, having decided to continue, a second or third engine had to be shut down in mid-Atlantic, perhaps due to some unknown, but common, problem affecting all four engines. It would appear that the replacement No 2 engine on this same aircraft has recently had a similar problem. Fortunately, the flight reached Manchester safely, but I believe it would have been more prudent to have obeyed one of the 10 major aviation safety rules that states: "If a malfunction or failure occurs, the cause of which is unknown, and there is no necessity to continue the flight, then land – and stay landed until the problem is fixed." Capt R Williams Taunton, Somerset, UK
How good are two engines? It seems to me that the crucial question to be considered when contemplating an 11h translatlantic flight on three engines in a Boeing 747 is not "how well will it fly on three engines", but rather "how well will it fly on two engines"? This is especially true if the number one engine were to be lost in this particular case. Significant fliight testing on three-engine performance had to have been done by Boeing to achieve certification, but how much flight handbook data was available to the British Airways crew on two-engine performance? Had they practised a heavyweight two-engine recovery in the simulator? J Allen Oliver Twinsburg, Ohio, USA
Funny old world So the US Federal Aviation Adminstration, which has officially sanctioned single-engined commercial flights in instrument flight rules meteorological conditions, is now leaving no stone unturned in the pursuit of the continued flight on three engines of a four-engined airliner? Funny old world isn't it? Peter Johnson Hucclecote, Gloucester, UK
Source: Flight International
