All Ops & safety articles – Page 1420
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News
ARIA Il-96 order in the balance
AEROFLOT RUSSIAN International Airlines (ARIA) has signed a contract for the delivery of 20 Ilyushin Il-96 wide-body transports, subject to the approval of a financing package from the US Exim Bank. The $1.5 billion contract is for ten Il-96T freighters and ten Il-96M passenger aircraft, to be delivered ...
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Another 777 suffers depressurisation
THE FOURTH FLIGHT-test Boeing 777, returning from the Paris air show, suffered a pressurisation failure while en route from Washington DC to Seattle on 14 June. The incident was a less-serious recurrence of the loose duct-clamps, which caused pressurisation losses on two other 777s. The aircraft had not ...
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United studies 727 life-extension
UNITED AIRLINES IS examining the possibility of extending the lives of its Boeing 727s in an effort to reduce fleet-renewal costs. The carrier's work on head-up displays (HUDs) and enhanced-vision systems (EVS) has helped move it towards a life-extension decision. United has been increasingly voluble in its questioning ...
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High-speed ATR 72 tops AIR product agenda
A HIGH-SPEED version of the 74-seat ATR 72 is likely to be the first product developed by the new regional alliance formed by the ATR consortium (Aerospatiale and Alenia) and British Aerospace. ATR says that it is "studying possible engines" for a higher-speed version of the ATR 72. ...
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Four engines on offer for A340 stretch
AIRBUS WILL begin evaluating four engine options for the stretched version of the A340 in the fourth quarter of the year, says vice-president, engineering, Bernard Ziegler. The consortium says that it would "...prefer to offer a choice of engines, but that depends on the manufacturers". "We're working with ...
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Robinson advised on R22 design
AUS FEDERAL AVIATION Administration special report recommends design changes, additional flight restrictions and more flight testing as part of an effort to reduce Robinson Helicopter R22 and R44 accidents. The report stops short of accepting a recommendation from the US National Transportation Safety Board to ground the two-seat ...
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The Shuttle/Mir missions
The objectives were: to gain engineering and operational experience in conducting research on an orbital space station; to characterise the environment relative to micro-gravity and life sciences; to better understand past and future investigations; to conduct specific investigations in medical support, life ...
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Vulcain main-propulsion system
The Ariane 5 cryogenic propulsion system consists of the main engine, feed lines, valves, pneumatics and tank-pressurisation systems and is the responsibility of France's Soci,t, Europ,en de Propulsion (SEP) which, as a prime contractor, leads a group of 37 European companies "Our objective was to develop an extremely ...
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Now hear this
The risks posed by simultaneous air-traffic-control transmissions will increase with traffic density. David Learmount/LONDON Inadvertent simultaneous transmissions on air-traffic-control frequencies "...can result in messages being misunderstood or lost and have been a factor in some aircraft safety-related incidents". So says a UK Civil Aviation Authority ...
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Moller plans four-seat VTOL experiment
MOLLER International, manufacturer of the M200X experimental two-seat vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft, aims to fly a four-seater, the M400 Skycar, before the end of 1995. Moller is expected to give more details of plans for the Skycar at the Paris air show, which opened on 10 ...
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Safety procedures are efficient
Sir - The article "Confidential safety" (Flight International 24-30 May, P49) makes some controversial statements, which need correcting: it is not only airlines which have to report "those relatively serious events which result in physical harm to people and damage to equipment". UK Civil Aviation Investigation of Air ...
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EC sets open-skies schedule
Julian Moxon/BRUSSELS THE EUROPEAN Commission (EC) wants to achieve a full open-skies air-transport agreement with the USA within five years, and will ask European transport ministers at the end of this month for a mandate to carry out negotiations. In a 20-page draft proposal to ...
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Thawing the frozen East
User fees could pay for the modernisation of Russian far-east airspace. Kieran Daly/LONDON The task of modernising the air-traffic management/control of the former Soviet Union is awesome. For those faced with the challenge, it is hard to know where to begin. The signs are, however, ...
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No definition
The European Commission (EC) does not want member nations of the European Union (EU) to negotiate bilateral air-transport agreements with foreign countries - especially with the USA. It has long wanted to take on that duty itself, on behalf of the EU as a whole. The trouble is that the ...
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Safety concerns hit Express One
EXPRESS ONE International, the Dallas, Texas-based cargo and charter carrier, has grounded its 39-aircraft fleet voluntarily after a US Federal Aviation Administration audit discovered serious safety concerns. The FAA says that Express One International, which operates Boeing 727s and McDonnell Douglas DC-9s, failed to produce documentation on compulsory ...
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Reverse gear is being considered
Sir - The idea of a powered landing gear, or reverse gear for aircraft, is receiving the consideration of the Italian Office of Intellectual Property (file RM95A00318 0f 17 May, 1995, for the granting of a patent) to try to save the fees for pushback. Airbus Industrie says ...
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Logic behind greater thrust
Sir - I was surprised to read in the article "GE looks at increasing GE90 thrust levels" (Flight International, 26 April-2 May, P6) that the preferred approach to achieving greater power is by removing one or two high-pressure stages from the core. Such a change would allow a ...
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Instruments blamed in UK Bandeirante crash
STORMY WEATHER, combined with the apparent failure of at least one artificial horizon, may prove to have been contributory factors to the Knight Air Embraer EMB-110 Bandeirante crash on 24 May (Flight International, 31 May-6 June) says the investigators' preliminary report. All 12 people on board died when ...
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BAe/ATR finalise deal as Germany looks to Asia
THE REGIONAL-aircraft joint venture between British Aerospace and ATR partners Aerospatiale and Alenia has been signed and intense negotiations are now expected to take place at the Paris air show over bringing Daimler-Benz Aerospace (DASA) into an enlarged consortium. Speaking in the run-up to the air show, new ...
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UK airports fit approach monitors
PRECISION AIR traffic control (ATC) approach-monitoring equipment has become fully operational at London's Heathrow and Gatwick airports, says the UK Civil Aviation Authority. Known as the approach-monitoring aid (AMA), the system - the first of its kind - alerts the tower controllers to aircraft deviations from a normal ...