All Ops & safety articles – Page 1392
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News
UK may delay Swanwick ATC opening
Andrew Doyle/LONDON THE UK CIVIL AVIATION Authority is expected to decide by the end of January whether to delay the planned opening date of its £350 million ($535 million) Swanwick air-traffic-control (ATC) centre which is being built near Southampton by US company Loral. Major software ...
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Burkhart Grob sacks half of its workforce as funding deadlock threatens Strato 2C
Andrzej Jeziorski/MUNICH GERMAN COMPOSITE-aircraft manufacturer Burkhart Grob has sacked half of its employees because of continuing delays in the release of Government funding for the Strato 2C high-altitude research programme. The whole project now faces cancellation. Grob has made 131 of its staff redundant, shattering ...
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A little learning is a dangerous thing
Sir - In reply to Mark Aroney's letter (Flight International, 13-19 December, 1995, P43), I am an aviation professional holding flight-crew and engineering licences granted from the different countries in which I have worked. For safety reasons, there is only one common language of communication in aviation, and ...
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Sea change
Japan may be about to wave goodbye to convention as it tackles the problem of airport congestion. Michael Fitzpatrick/TOKYO USER-FRIENDLY is not a term you could use to describe New Tokyo International Airport at Narita. It is a Y21,650 ($210) taxi ride away from Tokyo, ...
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Researchers glimpse potential in ceramics
Martin Hindley/LONDON APPLICATIONS FOR lightweight, toughened ceramics could be found, in the jet engines of the future, US researchers claim. Materials scientists at Cornell University in New York have developed a technique for "tempering" ceramics - improving their crack resistance at temperatures of up to ...
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Australian training plan sparks row
AUSTRALIA'S FLYING training industry has condemned an Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) plan for its restructure, calling the regulatory proposals "...over-regulation and an attempt to create more jobs in CASA". The review recommends sweeping increases in minimum experience and training for instructor ratings at all levels, with ...
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No alternative to BALPA/BA deal
Sir - Ivor Bennett has got the wrong end of the stick in his letter "Inconsistency in BALPA policy" (Flight International, Letters, 22-28 November 1995, P68). The facts are as follows. Early in 1995, British Airways proposed the introduction of "cadet cruise-only" pilots, on to the Boeing 747-400 ...
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US/UK air-safety bilateral finalised
THE USA AND THE UK have signed a bilateral aviation-safety agreement, which eases the oversight of aircraft and simulator certification, as well as maintenance operations. An agreement with the Netherlands was made in 1995 and the US Federal Aviation Administration is also working with Canada, France and Germany ...
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Airlines turn to ultrasonic/ eddy-current wheel testing
METOPTIC International is marketing what it claims to be the world's first system for testing aircraft wheels, which combines the use of eddy currents and ultrasonics. Eddy-current inspection systems are used to detect surface faults on the outer surface of a wheel hub, while more sophisticated ultrasonic ...
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Boeing re-asserts its lead in recovering airliner market
Kevin O'Toole/LONDON BOEING RE-ASSERTED its dominance of world airliner markets in 1995, revealing a total of 346 new orders for the year, more than treble the result of either Airbus or McDonnell Douglas (MDC). Ron Woodard, president of Boeing's Commercial Airplane Group, is upbeat about ...
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Air safety takes a dive
David Learmount/LONDON THE AMERICAN Airlines Boeing 757 crash in Colombia on 20 December contributed to a plunge in world airline-safety figures during the last six months of 1995, following the most promising first half-year period in history. Provisional figures show that there were just over 1,200 deaths in ...
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Airborne chooses 767 freighter
Graham Warwick/ATLANTA US CARGO CARRIER Airborne Express has agreed to acquire 12 used Boeing 767-200s for conversion to freighters, and plans to acquire between ten and 15 additional aircraft for a total investment of $600 million over eight years. The 767s will be the first wide-body aircraft operated ...
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FAA changes its mind on 747 conversions
Ramon Lopez/WASHINGTON DC THE US FEDERAL Aviation Administration admits that it has made a mistake in approving modifications by GATX Airlog, which turned ten Boeing 747 passenger aircraft into freighters, and it has proposed an airworthiness directive (AD) severely restricting cargo weights. The FAA is ...
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Airbus pressured to speed up A3XX studies
Julian Moxon/PARIS A STRING OF major airline orders involving the Boeing 747/777 combination is increasing pressure on Airbus Industrie to "accelerate its studies" into a rival programme known as the A3XX. "We can't leave the 747 to dominate the market," says an Airbus source, "so ...
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US airlines 'will make $2 billion'
Ramon Lopez/WASHINGTON DC US SCHEDULED airlines are expected to report net profits of $2 billion for 1995, says the US Air Transport Association (ATA) in its year-end report. The ATA says that long-haul carriers earned $2.2 billion in the first nine months of the year, ...
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Eurocontrol invites tenders for POEMS radar
EUROCONTROL, THE European air-traffic management organisation, has issued an invitation to tender for the development of two Pre-Operational Mode S (POEMS) radar ground stations. Manufacturers have been invited to bid for the construction of two new ground stations in France and the UK, with a third station in ...
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Downwind turns: more to do with pilot perception
Sir - In reply to the letter "The dangers of down-wind turns" (Flight International, 13-19 December, 1995), I believe that Mr Maskens is barking up the wrong tree. The dangers of low-level turns have nothing to do with "the sum of potential and kinetic energy", but everything to do with ...
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Las Vegas lasers shut down
Alan Staats/PHOENIX Hotel and casino operators in Las Vegas have been ordered to suspend their laser displays following an incident involving a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 first officer being temporarily blinded by a burst of laser light. The event occurred even though the hotel involved ...
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Pilot performance records may be disclosed in USA
THE WORK records of commercial pilots would be open to inspection under proposed US legislation designed to keep sub-standard pilots out of the cockpit. The new rules would permit the transfer of relevant pilot employment and training records between airlines. When a transfer of information is requested and ...
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DHL expands its Panama presence
DHL WORLDWIDE Express is to invest $30 million over the next three years to expand its Latin American and Caribbean network. Initially, the fast-package carrier will upgrade its Panama hub with a new automated sorting system and introduce a Boeing 727-200F freighter service operated by new Panamanian carrier DHL Aero ...