All Systems & interiors articles – Page 874
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News
Unwanted demands
According to the FAA, flight-deck automation confuses pilots too often. David Learmount/LONDON HIGHLY AUTOMATED aircraft with digital flight-management systems (FMS) often surprise pilots and sometimes leave them dangerously confused. This is the basic conclusion of the US Federal Aviation Administration from its two-year review of modern airline flight-decks. ...
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You have control
Several recent airliner accident reports have identified problems with cockpit automation as principal or contributory causes of the accidents. Much of the conventional reaction (especially by pilots) to these incidents is of the "automation must be stopped" or "automation has gone too far" variety. That reaction, in human terms, is ...
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US Safety Board sees need for post-Cali crash modifications
Ramon Lopez/WASHINGTON DC The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) says that newly certificated long-haul commercial passenger aircraft should have an automatic system for retracting speed brakes if the pilots start an emergency climb. The system could have saved the American Airlines Boeing 757, which crashed ...
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Rockwell consolidates Collins avionics business
Rockwell has brought together its Collins avionics and communications businesses into a single business unit, in a re-organisation, which follows the sale of the remainder of the group's aerospace interests to Boeing. The two Cedar Rapids, Iowa-based units, Collins Commercial Avionics and Collins Avionics & Communications, together with ...
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Honeywell talks to Lockheed Martin about APALS involvement
Guy Norris/LOS ANGELES HONEYWELL IS IN talks about becoming involved in Lockheed Martin's Autonomous Precision Approach and Landing System (APALS). The US avionics company confirms: "There have been talks, and we are certainly kicking it around." The discussions are led by Honeywell's Business and Aviation Systems ...
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NTSB proposes more 737 rudder system changes
Boeing will have to revise the design of 737 rudder control system components, develop a cockpit display showing rudder position, and establish service life limits for certain rudder control parts if several proposals under study by the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) are made compulsory. The aim is to ...
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Airbus pushes on with new versions of A340
David Learmount/TOULOUSE Airbus Industrie is to challenge Boeing's 777-300 stretch with an enlarged, rewinged A340 which carries as many passengers and flies further, says the European consortium's A330/ A340 commercial programme manager David Pound. The European consortium is effectively launching the -500 and-600 variants of the ...
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Saab to take 340 finishing in-house
Max Kingsley-Jones/LONDON SAAB AIRCRAFT is working on a programme to take all Saab 340 painting and interior finishing work in-house, from its UK subcontractor Hunting Aviation, by the end of this year. This marks the end of 13 years of subcontracting this activity in the UK ...
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Documentation shortfalls force IPTN to delay certification N250
Paul Lewis/SINGAPORE Industri Pesawat Terbang Nusantara (IPTN) has been forced to delay the maiden flight of its first N250-100 certification prototype, as the result of component documentation falling below US Federal Aviation Administration requirements. The second prototype N250, had been due to fly in May, but ...
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Kiwi files for Chapter 11 as ValuJet resumes flights
Kevin O'Toole/LONDON Kiwi International Airlines has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, blaming rising debts and the fall-out from the ValuJet crash and the grounding of Kiwi aircraft. Ironically, the filing took place on 30 September, the day that ValuJet returned to the air and at ...
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Airport growth
World airport passenger traffic grew 6.6% over the first half of the year, helped by the booming North American market, where numbers grew by more than 7%. Atlanta Hartsfield, boosted by the Georgia city's hosting of the Olympic Games in the summer, was the fastest- growing of all the major ...
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Firm evidencr on cause of TWA 800 explosion is elusive
WITH NEARLY 80% of the Trans World Airlines Boeing 747-100 now recovered from the sea off Long Island, New York, there is still no evidence of bomb or missile damage. At the same time, there has been further study into the centre fuel-tank explosion and whether it caused the 17 ...
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Slots of value
THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION (EC) is keen to overhaul the slot-allocation system at Europe's airports by creating a "market" in which some slots could be traded for money. It is right to be looking for an overhaul but, if it believes that airline services should exist as much for the customer ...
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BA fights for the continent
Kevin O'Toole/LONDON THE announcement of a new wave of restructuring at British Airways should have come as little surprise. In May, chief executive Bob Ayling followed the group's world-beating 1995 profits announcement with a stark warning that BA needed to make another £1 billion ($1.5 billion) in savings. ...
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American edges to regional goal
Graham Warwick/ATLANTA American Airlines and its pilots union have tentatively agreed a complex formula governing the introduction of regional jets by commuter arm AMR Eagle. The agreement foresees the acquisition of up to 218 45- to 70-seat regional jets by 2009, but limits AMR Eagle to a maximum ...
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JAL returns to Thomson Training fold with 767 machine
JAPAN AIRLINES (JAL) has ordered a Boeing 767-300 full-flight simulator from Thomson Training & Simulation (TTS). The Level D machine will be delivered to JAL's Haneda Airport, Tokyo, training centre in late 1997, along with a desktop flight-management-system trainer produced by TTS. The sales, is welcome news for ...
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Lufthansa criticises 747-X design
Andrzej Jeziorski/HAMBURG LUFTHANSA operations chief executive Klaus Nittinger has criticised recent changes in Boeing's design proposals for its 747-500/600X. "The aircraft has changed so drastically [since November] that it has moved far away from what we would like to see," says Nittinger. Lufthansa was enthusiastic about ...
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Airline news
British Airways is adding Barcelona, Helsinki, Lisbon and Glasgow to its London/ Gatwick network. GB Airways will operate on behalf of BA from Gatwick to Faro, Malaga and Oporto. BA is also extending its non-smoking trials from January 1997 to cover 90 per cent of its system-wide seats, ...
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They are United, but for how long?
Two years have gone by since United Airlines launched its employee stock ownership plan, which gave the carrier's pilots, machinists and non-contract workers a 55 per cent ownership stake in exchange for $4.9 billion in concessions. Since then the airline has seen unit costs drop by close to 7 per ...
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Land of the giants
Airlines appear unworried by the domination of Gecas and ILFC but manufacturers certainly are. Doug Cameron assesses current developments in the rapidly maturing operating lease sector. You don't need brains in a bull market. Developments in the operating lease sector over the last year bring, for some, uncomfortable echoes of ...