All Ops & safety articles – Page 1417
-
News
Belgium comes up with wrong number on Sabena sale offer
Herman de Wulf/BRUSSELS BELGIAN JOURNALISTS, keen to find out the latest in the tense political negotiations over the sale of Sabena, have been flocking to a small rural grocery in the heart of Belgium's peaceful countryside. The bizarre incident started with a fax from the ...
-
News
US regionals balk at FAA proposals
Ramon Lopez/WASHINGTON DC THE US REGIONAL-airline industry is trying to water down the US Federal Aviation Administration's programme to bring Part 135 regional carriers up to the same safety and training standards as the Part 121 major long-haul US carriers. The 90-day comment period on ...
-
News
Chek Lap Kok date put back
Paul Lewis/SINGAPORE THE EXPECTED completion date of Hong Kong's new Chek Lap Kok Airport has been pushed back to April 1998, following the signing of a long-awaited agreement with China on the overall financing of the project. The Hong Kong Government has admitted for the ...
-
News
BA urges restraint on open-skies deal
Kevin O'Toole/LONDON British Airways chairman Sir Colin Marshall has called on US transportation secretary Federico Pena to resist pressure to force the pace on a UK-US open-skies agreement in the current round of bilateral negotiations. He also cautions against rushing European moves towards an open-skies policy. ...
-
News
American to replace Omega with FMS/GPS
AMERICAN AIRLINES plans to buy flight-management/global-positioning systems (FMS/GPS) to replace Omega navigation systems in up to 400 Boeing 727s and McDonnell Douglas MD-80s and DC-10s. A selection is planned by September. American is the first major airline to plan a fleet-wide GPS retrofit programme. Rockwell-Collins, which plans to ...
-
News
Japan to study third Tokyo airport
JAPAN'S MINISTRY OF Transport is to launch a study into building a third new airport for Tokyo, as part of a long-term plan to relieve congestion at the Narita and Haneda airports. The feasibility study is contained in the ministry's next five-year plan for airport development between ...
-
News
Atlantis Aerospace and IVEX join study of low-cost FTDs
Graham Warwick/ATLANTA ATLANTIS AEROSPACE and IVEX have joined forces with Atlantic Southeast Airlines (ASA) to study the potential use of low-cost flight-training devices (FTDs) to meet pending regulations requiring US regional carriers to use simulators for pilot training. The initiative is a follow on to ...
-
News
Boeing tests 777 fatigue solution
Guy Norris/LOS ANGELES BOEING IS FLIGHT-testing a strengthened aerodynamic fairing on the Rolls-Royce Trent 800-powered 777 after the discovery of fatigue cracks following its first flight on 26 May. It is also determining whether the problem could affect General Electric and Pratt & Whitney-powered versions. ...
-
News
Grob 115 lifespan is 60,000h-plus
Sir - In your flight test of the PZL Koliber (Flight International, 7-13 June, P111), you say that, "difficulties arose because no training aircraft had been certificated in years". The Grob G115C and D have not only had full US Federal Aviation Regulations Part 23 certification since 1993, but have ...
-
News
Cleaning up
The international civil-aviation community is bracing itself for the next imposition of environmental standards for aircraft. These new standards should lead to a significant reduction in the impact of airliners on the environment, which can only be welcomed. Unfortunately, there is a danger that individual pressure groups pandering to local ...
-
News
Fokker chooses Collins GPS for JetLine
FOKKER HAS SELECTED Rockwell-Collins' AVSAT-900 flight-management/global-positioning system (FMS/GPS) as standard on its JetLine series of regional aircraft. The Collins system will replace a Honeywell FMS in the Fokker 70 and 100, beginning with 1997 deliveries. Fokker is the launch customer for Collins Commercial Avionics' AVSAT satellite-based avionics. The ...
-
News
Canadian team develops investigation tool
A TEAM OF ENGINEERS at Canada's National Research Council (NRC) has developed an information-management system capable of translating data from aircraft flight recorders into computer animations. The team, based at the Flight Recorder Playback Centre, part of the NRC's Institute for Aerospace Research, developed the ADAAPS (Aircraft Data ...
-
News
Has ValuJet broken the mould?
ValuJet has been rewriting the rules for low-cost US start-ups, but for how long can it keep on growing? Kevin O'Toole/ATLANTA ValuJet's success has been remarkable by any standard. With its own distinctive brand of low-cost operations, and scant regard for conventional wisdom, the start-up carrier has stormed ...
-
News
Australia cuts price of Qantas
THE AUSTRALIAN Government has slashed the expected price of its remaining 75% stake in Qantas, in a bid to boost the privatisation, which has been flagging in the face of weak financial markets and expectations of a poorer operating performance from the airline group. Estimates for the price ...
-
News
Eurocontrol 'on target' with ATC goals
Julian Moxon/BRUSSELS EUROCONTROL HAS inaugurated its new ECU 117 million ($87.5 million) Brussels centre with assurances that measures to improve Europe's air-traffic-control (ATC) system are "very much on target". Located near the Brussels airport at Haren, the building brings together Eurocontrol's headquarters, the Central Flow Management ...
-
News
Monarch to take on Alitalia leases
Gnter Endres/LONDON MONARCH AIRLINES is on the verge of taking over the contentious wet-leased Boeing 767-300ER operation, now provided by Ansett Worldwide Aviation Services on behalf of Alitalia. The new deal is an extension of a long-standing agreement between Monarch and Ansett, under which the UK ...
-
News
Airbus tests ATC datalink
AIRBUS INDUSTRIE, in association with Aerospatiale and the Eurocontrol air-traffic-control (ATC) centre at Maastricht, the Netherlands, has begun in-flight trials of equipment enabling ATC by datalink. The aircraft being used in the tests are green A320s being ferried from Airbus' Toulouse, France, assembly plant to Hamburg, Germany, for ...
-
News
Atlas adds to 747 freighter fleet
US CARGO AIRLINE Atlas Air has purchased three Boeing 747-200 Combis from Alitalia for conversion to full freighter configuration. The first converted aircraft is expected to enter service in the third quarter of 1995, and all three are to be in service by early 1996. The purchases take ...
-
News
Boeing wins first round of JAA certification row over new 737
David Learmount/LONDON BOEING HAS WON the first round of a battle to have its new 737 family of aircraft declared as derivatives by the European Joint Aviation Authorities (JAA). The move will allow the US company to claim "grandfather rights" and avoid having to meet current safety regulations ...
-
News
Satellite-navigation-approach first for Alaska Airlines 737-400
AN ALASKA AIRLINES Boeing 737-400 has been flown successfully on satellite-navigation (satnav)-based instrument approaches to a 300ft (90m) decision height at Juneau, Alaska without using any ground-based navigation aids. The pioneering flight was undertaken by Boeing and Smiths Industries as a proof-of-concept demonstration to the US Federal Aviation ...