All Ops & safety articles – Page 1364
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News
Competing powers
"The EC competition commissioner's interest in the BA/AA alliance is curious - the competition department has failed to involve itself in more significant airline competition issues." By seeking to stamp his authority on the proposed alliance between British Airways and American Airlines, the European Commission (EC) competition commissioner, ...
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Infracstructure deterrent to growth
Lack of infrastructure could be an important deterrent to growth unless a rapid and comprehensive expansion of airports and air-traffic- control equipment is put in place. Air Transport Action Group director Thomas Windmuller, speaking recently at a conference in Bangalore on infrastructure, said that at least $5 billion is expected ...
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PPI finishes plating shop
Pacific Propeller (PPI) is close to completing a new plating shop at its Kent, Washington, site, which is aimed at expanding its propeller and control-assembly servicing and refurbishing capabilities. The shop will be used for zinc, chromium, hard chrome, cadmium and nickel plating and anodising of major propeller components, providing ...
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Reaching for free flight
Forecasts of extraordinary growth in civil air traffic have become commonplace. The details vary, but a projected doubling of traffic by 2010 and a tripling by 2020 are widely accepted. There is just one problem - those numbers are not feasible, given the existing operational infrastructure. The problem is worst ...
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737 rudder procedures
An emergency airworthiness directive requires US Boeing 737 operators to adopt new procedures to improve pilots' control following sudden uncommanded rudder movements. The new procedures, to be included in the 737 flight manual, also outline actions to deal with a jammed or restricted rudder. Pilots are advised to lower the ...
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Tu-224: different class of aircraft
Sir - In the article "Kato launches Sirocco to lead R-R-powered Tu-204 effort", Dr Ibrahim Kamel, president of the newly formed Sirocco, is quoted as saying that the Tupolev Tu-224 (Western-powered Tu-204) will cost about $36 million. You then say that comparative "sticker" prices for the similarly sized Airbus A321-100 ...
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Fokker will make selection of F28 retrofit engine in February
Plans to launch a re-engineing programme for the Fokker F28 Fellowship are gathering momentum, with a final engine selection expected in February. Programme partners Fokker Services and Perry Group plan a launch decision in April, depending on market response. Lion Boenders, product marketing manager at Woensdrecht, Holland-based Fokker ...
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Airbus issues hydraulic pump warning after A330/340 fires
Airbus Industrie has instructed all A330 and A340 operators to de-activate the aircraft's electrically driven hydraulic pumps, following a series of fires which has left at least two aircraft badly damaged. In the latest incident, an auxiliary pump is suspected of having overheated on a Malaysia Airlines (MAS)A330-300 ...
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FAA orders FJ44 turbine solution
The US Federal Aviation Administration is requiring immediate inspection and replacement of high-pressure turbine disks used in Williams Rolls-Royce FJ44 turbofans which have twice failed on Cessna CitationJets. The airworthiness directive (AD) affects the early-model FJ44-1A turbofan engines which power some CitationJets. The Directive orders immediate and recurring ...
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SIA's Indian airline investment clears another major hurdle
Singapore Airlines' (SIA) long-running plan to establish a new domestic Indian airline in partnership with the TATA Group has cleared one major hurdle, with approval from India's Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB). The deal could still be derailed by the country's civil-aviation ministry, however, which plans to ban foreign equity ...
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The boom returns for airliner orders
Airbus, Boeing and McDonnell Douglas (MDC)saw jet-airliner orders climb comfortably above the 1,000 mark in 1996, giving the big three aircraft builders their best year since the bonanza of the late 1980s. Production rates are also on the rise and due to hit record levels within the next two to ...
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European research group will study new blade-tip coatings
A consortium of nine European companies and research centres has launched a four-year project to develop advanced coatings for aero-engine turbine blade-tips. The work is aimed at achieving reduced tip-clearances, to improve engine performance without causing excessive wear in the blades. "When the blade tip rubs against the ...
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DC-XA crash cause
An unconnected hose led to the destruction of the Clipper Graham DC-XA technology-demonstrator vehicle at White Sands, New Mexico, on 31 July, 1996. A helium pneumatic-system brake line on one of the landing gears was unconnected, preventing pressurisation of the brake mechanism and extension of the gear. Source: ...
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Sabena revives study of off-shore contracts
Sabena has confirmed that it has resurrected cost-saving plans to employ flying personnel on out-of-country contracts. The proposal, which is still under study, would see pilots and cabin crew continue to be based in Brussels, but paid in Switzerland, probably via Sabena's partner Swissair, with the transaction made through a ...
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FAA softens order on Lycoming crankshaft
A PROPOSED airworthiness directive(AD) requiring repetitive inspection, and possible replacement, of crankshafts in certain Textron Lycoming engines has been modified to reduce its potentially serious impact on operators. The AD was prompted by failures of hollow-end crankshafts caused by corrosion-induced cracking. The original notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) ...
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Polynesian Otter crash
A Polynesian Airlines de Havilland DHC-6 Twin Otter crashed into a hill in stormy weather on its initial approach to Apia, Western Samoa, on 8 January, killing three of the five people on board. According to the carrier's managing director Richard Gates the aircraft, inbound from Pago Pago, American Samoa, ...
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Freight fright
THE AIRLINE-ACCIDENT statistics for 1996 (P31) suggest that there is a serious safety problem in the air-freight market. Over one-third of all fatal airliner accidents last year were to non-passenger aircraft: they caused the deaths of 158 aircrew and other occupants, and more than 350 further deaths of innocent third ...
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Indian ATC responsibility
Sir - It is beyond comprehension to understand how the Indian Government and, more importantly, its air-traffic-control (ATC) services can deny responsibility for the 12 November, 1996, mid-air collision between a Saudi Arabian Airlines Boeing 747-100B and an Air Kazakhstan Ilyushin Il-76 at New Delhi. Surely the 1,000ft ...
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The reliability of the GPS system
Sir - The report by the UK National Air Traffic Services (Flight International, 4-10 December, P6) indicates that the global-positioning system (GPS) is unreliable for sole-means navigation. I believe that it should be used with another aid, preferably an inertial-navigation system. The questions of reliability and the political ...
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Airbus Industrie and Wicat join in A310/A300-600 training upgrade
AIRBUS INDUSTRIE IS improving pilot training for the A300-600 and A310-300, with the help of Wicat Systems, to match that available for the A320, A330 and A340. Wicat is supplying new computer-based training (CBT) courseware and is developing a "free-play" trainer for the A310/A300-600 flight-management and -guidance system (FMGS), similar ...