All Ops & safety articles – Page 1341
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News
NASA aims to cut drag with control-surface research
NASA has begun test flights of an adaptive control-surface experiment which it hopes could lead to drag reductions of up to 3% for commercial aircraft, worth roughly $140 million a year in reduced fuel savings. The tests are taking place on the Lockheed L-1011 TriStar operated by Orbital ...
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El Al sell-off hinges on Sabbath flying
An Israeli Government committee has recommended the full privatisation of national carrier El Al, although the politically sensitive issue of flying on the Jewish Sabbath, which has dogged previous attempts at a sale, has yet to be resolved. The inter-departmental committee proposes the flotation of all the airline's ...
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Licences cannot be given away
Sir - In his letter "Should licence rules be adapted?" (Flight International, 28 May-3 June, P66), Mark Crane writes on the subject of the European Joint Aviation Requirement (JAR) 66 Notice of Proposed Amendment and qualification for the issue of an aircraft-maintenance basic licence (AMBL). Currently licensed or ...
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CityLine record
Lufthansa CityLine carried more than 3 million passengers for the first time during 1996, helped by the growth of its fleet which is now exclusively built around regional jets. Although the regional carrier saw sales grow by more than 20%to above DM1 billion ($590 million) in 1996, the company's pre-tax ...
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The cost of free flight
RUNNING an orderly air-traffic-management (ATM) system using airways, by definition, confines aircraft to a fraction of the airspace available. At a time when the skies are becoming increasingly crowded - particularly in Europe - any ATM system which fails to use all available airspace is, therefore, giving up part of ...
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EC proposes to extend powers
The European Commission (EC) is proposing to give itself sweeping new powers over air-transport competition, including extending its authority to rule on mergers outside the European Union(EU). The proposals, if approved by the Council of Ministers, would give the Commission significant influence over alliances, co-operative joint ventures and ...
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Europe's long-range twin
Austrian Airlines will in August 1998 become the first European operator of the A330-200 The A330-200 shares flightdeck commonality with the other Airbus fly-by-wire aircraft Emirates is replacing its fleet of A300-600Rs and A310-300s with R-R Trent-powered A330-200s The first wingbox being manufactured by ...
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Power shortage
According to current folklore, engine makers don't actually make any money out of building engines: they give them away, and then hope they will recoup the cost out of spares and maintenance in years to come. The engine makers, at least in public, will reject that as a wild exaggeration, ...
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Competition: or is it not competition?
Sir - Am I the only person to have identified a huge degree of inconsistency recently among European Commission (EC) Transport Commissioner Neil Kinnock and his cohorts in Brussels of competitive issues? As an example, following the Office of Fair Trading report into the proposed alliance between American ...
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NTSB wants 1900 CVRs improved
Beech 1900 regional-aircraft operators should be required to inspect and repair deficient cockpit-voice recorders, the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has recommended. Safety Board investigators say that they had trouble understanding crucial radio transmissions from the United Express Beech 1900 which collided with a Beech King Air ...
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Boeing plans heavier 777-200IGW
Boeing plans to boost the maximum take-off weight (MTOW) of the 777-200IGW (increased gross-weight) variant by 7,000kg, allowing the aircraft's maximum range with 375 passengers to be stretched to about 14,000km (7,600nm). The jump to the new 294,200kg MTOW level was approved after the completion of structural tests ...
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Cathay prepares to modify gearboxes on Trent 700s
Cathay Pacific and Dragonair are hoping that fitting modified engine-gearboxes to their Rolls-Royce Trent 700-powered Airbus Industrie A330-300s will clear the way for the grounded aircraft to return to service by early this week. Both carriers voluntarily grounded their 15 A330s on 24 May, following an inflight engine ...
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Boeing orders fuel-tank checks on all 747s
All Boeing 747 operators will receive a service bulletin (SB) this month detailing inspection procedures for centre-wing fuel tanks, the manufacturer says. The SB relates to the continuing investigation into the July 1996 crash of a Trans World Airways (TWA) 747 which has "-determined that the centre-wing tank ...
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MDC advances crack checks on MD-90s
McDonnell Douglas (MDC) MD-90s will have to be checked for airframe fatigue cracking earlier than originally estimated, results from the fatigue-test airframe and other structural analysis have revealed. It will be years before the lead airframe in service reaches the newly designated 16,000-cycle point, when the first checks ...
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Africa faces the call to improve ATC
Measures to improve airport, air-traffic-control (ATC) and communications infrastructures in Africa have been agreed at an International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) meeting in Abija, Nigeria. ATC safety standards in Africa were recently condemned by organisations such as the International Federation of Air Line Pilots and the International Air ...
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Air France leaps into profit
Air France has posted its first profits since 1989, although the upbeat results from the mainline airline were tainted by deepening losses at its strike-hit sister company, domestic carrier Air France Europe. The profits at Air France mark a successful end to the three-year restructuring programme which was ...
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Airbus intensifies research efforts into human factors
Airbus Industrie is stepping up human-factors research in preparation for the service entry of several new ultra-long-range aircraft under development. In one initiative, the consortium is studying a "Pilot Guard" system for maintaining pilot alertness on very-long-range flights. Tests of an initial version of the system are due ...
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Top executives leave ANA
All Nippon Airways (ANA) has been hit by a major high-level personnel shake-up, with the airline's top five senior executives and chairman all announcing their resignations, only days after the company's president Seiji Fukatsu was forced to quit. Almost one-third of ANA's 32-member board of directors are to ...
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MAKing aviation work in the CIS
The CREATION OF THE MAK (Interstate Aviation Committee) in December 1991, as the first intergovernmental body to be formed by the then-new CIS, was an acknowledgement of the need to present a common approach to major questions of aviation among the countries of the former Soviet Union. While most aviation ...