All Ops & safety articles – Page 1398
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News
Too much too soon?
The outbreak of massive orders must surely have made the last quarter of 1995 a dream for aircraft salesmen - but does it mean a return to nightmares for airframe and engine manufacturers? Probably the biggest single fear for a manufacturer, after that of not having any orders, is that ...
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US manufacturers stay on top of orders league
In the third quarter of 1995, US aircraft manufacturers received net orders for 74 large commercial jet transports out of a total of 86 placed worldwide, according to the US Aerospace Industries Association (AIA). By comparison, US aircraft makers secured net orders for 79 aircraft out of a total of ...
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Engineers of many talents wanted
Sir - I have purposely waited to write this letter, so that I can ask the gentleman in charge of appointments at Airbus Industrie whether he has filled the advertised avionics-engineer position (Flight International, 23-29 August, P53). The advertisement includes the statement: "Candidates must be fluent in French, ...
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Cargo in control
Lufthansa Cargo achieved its long-sought independence at the start of 1995. The business has not looked back since. Kevin O'Toole/LONDON WILHELM ALTHEN, chairman of Lufthansa Cargo, is clearly a happy man. For the past two decades, he has campaigned for air cargo to be treated ...
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French domestic traffic boosted
THE ARRIVAL OF competition on French domestic routes has resulted in a dramatic increase in traffic originating at two of the busiest airports in the country. In the nine months to the end of September, passenger traffic at Marseilles-Provence Airport increased overall by 5.9%, following a growth of ...
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MAS chairman confirms big-twin plans
Paul Lewis/KUALA LUMPUR MALAYSIA AIRLINES (MAS) chairman Tajudin Ramli has confirmed plans to order new long-range widebody aircraft, worth $4 billion, by the end of the year, although he appears to rule out a decision in time for the Malaysian air show in early December. ...
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JAL's rating dips below 'A' grade
JAPAN AIRLINES (JAL) has lost its A-grade long-term credit rating following concerns over the speed of the group's recovery and the weakness of its balance sheet. Standard & Poor's (S&P) rating agency warns that JAL's recovery is likely to be "more gradual than anticipated". It highlights the pending ...
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Australia: not out for compulsory GPS
Sir - After reading the article "Locator rule irks Australian AOPA" (Flight International, 8-14 November, P26), I ought to point out that the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) of Australia does not want a compulsory global-positioning system (GPS). What it does say is that the GPS has proved to ...
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Board approves DASA cuts
Julian Moxon/PARIS GERMAN UNIONS have reacted angrily as Daimler-Benz Aerospace (DASA) received approval from its parent company to press ahead with plans to cut almost 9,000 jobs under the Dolores (dollar-low rescue) plan. DASA says that it remains "open to negotiations", but that the target of ...
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China approves foreign investment in Hainan
Paul Lewis/SINGAPORE THE CHINESE Government has, for the first time, allowed a foreign investor to buy into a Chinese airline, with the approval of a 25% share sale in Hainan Airlines to American Aviation Investment, a fund led by US financier George Soros. According to ...
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State aid boosts Air France performance
Kevin O'Toole/LONDON THE EFFECTS OF THE initial installments of state aid have begun to appear in the Air France results, with the carrier posting a modest pre-tax profit for the first half of it financial year. It warns that there will be redundancies to come, however. ...
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UK impounds 737 as rudder fault echoes US accidents
David Learmount/LONDON Ramon Lopez/WASHINGTON DC The UK Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) is launching a full-scale Inspector's inquiry into an incident involving a British Airways Boeing 737-200, which suffered violent roll oscillations during a test flight following maintenance. In the test flight on 22 October ...
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FAA issues an AD for GE CF6 turbofans
THE US FEDERAL Aviation Administration has ordered repetitive ultrasonic and electro-magnetic testing of General Electric CF6 engine high-pressure compressor (HPC) spools (Flight International 25-31 October). The Airworthiness Directive (AD) guards against fatigue cracking caused by hard-alpha inclusions (titanium-alloy impurities caused during manufacture) and dwell-time fatigue, a type of ...
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Canadair delivers Special Edition
BOMBARDIER HAS formally unveiled its Canadair Special Edition (SE) corporate jet - an adaptation of its CRJ regional airliner - and delivered the first example to Middle-East distributor TAG Aeronautics. The SE - first disclosed at September's National Business Aircraft Association convention in Las Vegas, Nevada - will ...
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BFGoodrich develops standby indicator
BFGOODRICH AEROSPACE has introduced a flat-panel standby attitude-indicator. The GH-3000 combines a colour liquid-crystal display with a solid-state inertial sensor in a 3ATI-size unit interchangeable with existing electromechanical standby instruments. The US companies Avionics Systems division says the $22,500 GH-3000 offers high reliability, with a design mean time ...
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Inconsistency in BALPA policy
Sir - The Independent Pilots Association (IPA) commends the letter from Chris Darke, general secretary of the British Airline Pilots Association (BALPA) on licence validations within the European Union (EU) (Flight International, 11-17 October, P49). The IPA is also concerned that licence validations have been issued to non-EU ...
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Austflight signs Shanghai manufacturing venture
Paul Phelan/CAIRNS Australian ultra-light aircraft manufacturer Austflight has signed a joint venture agreement with the Shanghai Aircraft Manufacturing Factory to build the Australian-designed Drifter SB582 two-seat ultralight aircraft in Shanghai. Under the agreement, the joint venture also plans to offer to supply components, to two other ...
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The first assembly missions
Flight 1A/R Nov 1997 Russia Russian Functional Energy Block (FGB) launched on the Proton, to provide propulsion, guidance, communications, 3.2kW electrical power and thermal control. One front-docking system, with forward and lower ports, and one rear docking system. Flight 2A Dec 1997 USA STS88/Endeavour ...
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Zeppelin prototype enters final assembly
Zeppelin Luftschiff-technik has begun final assembly of its New Technology (NT) airship prototype - the first rigid airship the company has produced since the Second World War. The 68m-long prototype, LZ N07, is scheduled for completion in July 1996, in time for an "official" first flight in early ...
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Pilot fatigue: no simple answers
Sir - The editorial "Regulatory fatigue" (Flight International, 1-7 November), augmented by pilots' views on P8, permits the reader only two possible conclusions. The first is that pilots in different parts of the world have different physiological characteristics as indicated by the fatigue levels ascribed to them by ...