All Ops & safety articles – Page 1169
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A340 variants beat range target despite their weight
Andrew Doyle/TOULOUSE After completing 320 days of windtunnel testing Airbus Industrie predicts that its A340-500 and -600 will marginally exceed nominal range targets . The better-than-expected aerodynamic performance will fully offset the fact that the empty weight of the -600 remains about 1.5t (3,300lb)above specification, while the -500 is 1t ...
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AA 2000 to open x-files?
What are the chances of Asian Aerospace turning into an X-rated show? Asia-Pacific holds the key to the next major aircraft programmes planned by Airbus Industrie and Boeing. The European airframer is carrying out market testing for its planned 550-seat A3XX all-new aircraft and expects the region to account for ...
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Swissair to rewire MD-11 cockpit areas
Swissair is to carry out an extensive programme of cockpit-area rewiring on its 19 Boeing MD-11s, starting in August. The airline's decision is based on analysis, since the September 1998 crash of one of its MD-11s near Halifax, Canada, of wiring routing in the forward fuselage, according to Swissair engineering ...
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Road to recovery
The gloom of the past two years has been replaced by a cautious optimism Chris Jasper and Max Kingsley-Jones/LONDON When the aerospace industry last gathered in Singapore, for Asian Aerospace '98, the sense of gloom was almost palpable. Subsequent events fully justified that pessimism. Only now are Asian orders beginning ...
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Lengthy service
The world's longest airliner, the 777-300, has been working for 18 months. Some of its key operators assess its progress Andrzej Jeziorski/SINGAPORE Max Kingsley-Jones/LONDON Although Airbus Industrie pioneered the widebody twinjet concept in the early 1970s, its rival Boeing has developed the configuration to its ultimate size and weight, with ...
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Insidious training
Perhaps the time has come to look again at the traditional content of pilot recurrent training. The fundamental emergency which all pilots know that they will face in their simulator session is engine failure at or soon after take-off decision speed (V1). In every simulated take-off they are ready and ...
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Mars exploration discussed
Representatives from four international space agencies met at the British National Space Centre in London this month to discuss their plans for Mars exploration. NASA intends to launch a Mars orbiter and lander next January, but these plans may change as a result of last year's investigations into the ...
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WAAS delayed as safety tests run into difficulties
Raytheon and US Federal Aviation Administration officials have held the first of a series of meetings to determine the impact of problems uncovered during acceptance testing of the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS). A 60-day stability test of the key satellite-based navigation system, intended to improve the accuracy, availability ...
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Coolant leak caused NMD test failure
A leak of nitrogen gas used to cool two infrared sensors on the US Ballistic Missile Defense Organization's experimental National Missile Defence (NMD) interceptor's exoatmospheric kill vehicle (EKV) was the cause of the failure of a $100 million test firing on 18 January. A problem with the infrared sensors ...
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Problem case
Setbacks to the US Federal Aviation Administration's satellite navigation centrepiece - the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) - just won't go away. The WAAS, designed to allow the US National Airspace System (NAS) to move away from its reliance on ground-based navigation aids to more accurate and efficient satellite-based ...
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Bad company
Asia's poor safety performers tarnish airlines in the region with good records David Learmount/LONDON By the end of the 1990s, South Asia and Asia Pacific had earned a poor reputation for airline safety, although not all of the region's airlines deserved it, but they suffer for the sins of others, ...
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BA and KLM post third-quarter losses
Chris Jasper/LONDON Frits Njio/AMSTERDAM British Airways has announced third quarter results which suggest it is on the way to a big full year loss, although a rise in yields suggests its new premium passenger strategy is paying off. European rival KLM has posted even poorer figures, but unlike BA ...
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Russians attach strings to opening up Polar routes
Paul Lewis/Washington DC The Russian Federation has agreed to a limited opening of the new transpolar and transSiberian routes to scheduled traffic, but is making full and open access conditional upon receiving international assistance to modernise its air traffic management system. At a recent International Civil Aviation Organisation-chaired ...
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Japan suffers another launch failure
Japan's space programme has suffered another severe blow with the failure of an M-5 rocket launch and the loss of the Astro-E astronomical observation satellite on 10 January. The failure is being attributed to a first-stage nozzle malfunction, and comes three months after the ¥34.3 billion ($320 million) in-flight ...
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Airbus lines up huge MAS order
Andrew Doyle/MUNICH Paul Lewis/WASHINGTON DC Malaysia Airlines (MAS) is in the final stages of negotiations with Airbus Industrie on an order for up to 80 aircraft, including 18 A340-500/600 widebodies and up to 62 examples of the A320 family. Industry sources say the aircraft types have been agreed ...
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SIA's Star acceptance gives Thai a codeshare headache
Andrzej Jeziorski/SINGAPORE Thai Airways International is considering quitting the Star Alliance as a result of rival Singapore Airlines' (SIA) entry into the group from April. Thai president Thamnoon Wanglee has reportedly warned that it could lose $10 million a year in codesharing revenues that will have to be ...
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MD-80 crash sparks emergency AD
David Learmount/LONDON Guy Norris/Los Angeles Operators of the Boeing MD-80 series, MD-90s and 717-200s and the McDonnell Douglas (MDC) DC-9 series are making urgent examinations of stabiliser jackscrews and other elements of the pitch-control system. The checks follow preliminary inspections of the wreckage of the Alaska Airlines MD-83, ...
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DoT earmarks $11 billion for FAA from record $55 billion allocation
The US Administration has earmarked a record $55 billion for US Department of Transportation (DoT) spending in fiscal year 2001, nearly $5 billion higher than the figure finally agreed for the current year. The US Federal Aviation Administration's share of the request is $11 billion, including $6.6 billion for ...
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Engine makers discuss A330-100 options
All three leading engine manufacturers are discussing with Airbus Industrie powerplant options in the 55-60,000lb-thrust (245-267kN) range for its proposed A330-100 medium-range 250-seat development. The aircraft is expected to combine an aerodynamically modified A300-600R wing with a shortened A330 fuselage. A quick solution is required to meet a projected ...
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SIA Overrun
Singapore Airlines (SIA) has replaced the nose landing gear of one of its Airbus A310-300s after a runway overrun at Kuching International Airport in Malaysia on 29 January. The aircraft landed in heavy rain, coming to a stop on soft ground about 20m (65ft) past the end of the runway. ...