AIA's
Environment, Safety and Health Committee
recently conducted
AIA's
Environment, Safety and Health Committee
recently conducted three training workshops on
REACH, the European Union's Registration,
Evaluation and Authorization initiative intended
to regulate chemical use and products in EU
markets. The training modules are posted on
AIA's Web site at www.aia-aerospace.org under
Issues/Environment, Safety and
Health.
RTCA 203, the
US government and industry consensus
RTCA 203, the US
government and industry consensus group crafting
performance guidelines that could allow unmanned
air vehicles to fly in civil airspace, has
drastically pulled in its estimate for the date
when it expects to finish its sense and avoid
minimum performance specifications, widely
considered the key linchpin to enable civil UAV
operations. The US Federal Aviation
Administration will typically use RTCA findings
as the baseline for rulemakings or advisory
circulars. Meeting in Washington from 14-16
October, the group changed its estimated
completion date for the materials from 2019 to
2013, largely by easing a previous constraint
that the sense and avoid systems operate in all
airspace, including busier terminal areas (class
B, C and D). Under the new plan, specifications
will be written for UAVs that will nominally fly
in uncontrolled (class G) or other less-crowded
airspace (class E and A), operating out of
private airfields. Contingencies for cases where
the UAVs enter controlled airspace will be
included.
US general
aviation has seen its lowest-ever
US general
aviation has seen its lowest-ever number of
fatal accidents, but there was a slight increase
year-on-year in the total number of mishaps in
the sector, according to just-released
provisional figures from the US National
Transportation Safety Board.
There were 284
fatal GA accidents in 2007 compared with 306 the
previous year, which itself was a record low.
The number of resulting fatalities was also the
lowest ever at 486, but that still represented
nearly 90% of all aviation-related deaths,
according to the NTSB (see pie chart for sector
breakdown).
The fatal
accident rate was the second best ever at 1.19
fatal events per 100,000 flying hours. The best
ever rate, 1.16, was achieved in 1999. GA
activity in hours flown has reduced from nearly
29.5 million in 1999 to 23.84 million in
2007.
The US
National Transportation Safety Board issued an
The US National
Transportation Safety Board issued an "urgent
recommendation" to FAA to require that all Pratt
& Whitney PW2037 engines be removed from
service for inspection of the second-stage
turbine hubs when they have accumulated 10,880
flight hr. and/or 4,392 cycles, a warning driven
by the board's investigation of a Delta Air
Lines 757-200 uncontained engine failure on an
attempted takeoff from Las Vegas on Aug.
6.
American
Airlines, Boeing
American
Airlines' recently announced order of up to 100
Boeing 787 aircraft will require a significant
production increase by the plane maker,
according to an analysis. With 1,209 orders on
the books before the American announcement,
Boeing was planning to deliver 10 planes per
month beginning in 2012. To keep up with the big
new order, however, that may be ramped up to 14
per month -- a target the company has said it
could hit without a big investment in
infrastructure
Boeing
Boeing said
delivery of its new 787 Dreamliner to China
"probably" would be delayed, but the ongoing
strike made it impossible to say when passengers
would be able to travel in the ultra-modern
plane. The company's latest quarterly profit
fell 38 percent as a seven-week strike by its
assembly workers wiped out almost a month of
production at its Seattle-area plants. Boeing
has orders for almost 900 of the fuel efficient
787, 60 of which are from Chinese airlines,
which were to be delivered beginning in the
third quarter of next year.
Boeing
executives today slightly adjusted expectations
about the 787 schedule after the ongoing
strike by the International Association of
Machinists (IAM) ends. Jim McNerney, Boeing
chairman, president and CEO, now says the strike
delay will cause a
“slightly”
longer schedule slip for the 787 programme.
McNerney first told Wall Street analysts on a
third quarter earnings webcast that he expects a
day-for-day delay for the 787 as the nearly
eight-week-old strike continues, re-affirming
Boeing’s previous
statements.
Bombardier
Bombardier's
CSeries program could suffer a blow to its image
if the manufacturer does not secure a firm order
for the airliner in the relatively near future,
a senior aerospace analyst for Forecast
International predicts. Raymond Jaworowski says
current turmoil in the world's financial markets
and its knock-on effects to the airline industry
gives Bombardier "a little bit more time from a
public relations point of view" to lock down
CSeries orders.
Bombardier
says more than one-third of its 147 Global XRS
and Global 5000 super-large business jets
tied to an emergency airworthiness directive
issued on 9 October by Transport Canada have
been given a clean bill of health. The mandate
came after discovery of a seized bearing and
fractured bolt in the mechanism that connects
the elevator power control unit (PCU) to the
elevator of one aircraft and, on other aircraft,
two additional seized bearings but no fractured
bolts. The AD calls for inspecting and
lubricating the PCU attach joints of the
affected aircraft, those with certain actuators
that have accumulated more than 1,000h flight
time.
Bombardier,
JetCorp
JetCorp expects
to secure within the next few weeks a new
supplemental type certificate for converting
Bombardier CRJ100/200s into corporate
aircraft.
JetCorp business
development and customer support vice-president
Anthony Sanchez says it has completed one CRJ200
corporate conversion for an eastern European
customer and expects to secure an STC for the
interior modification by early November. He says
a second aircraft for another eastern European
customer is also nearly complete and both
aircraft should be delivered by
year-end.
JetCorp joins a
growing list of conversion centres offering
CRJ100/200 conversions as demand for the type
grows. Warren Hoppe, director of sales for
Bombardier Commercial Aircraft's asset
management group, says there are now about 25
CRJ100/200s undergoing or being committed to
conversions and this number is likely to
increase as airlines continue to offload 50-seat
regional jets.
Cessnas
Two single-engine Cessnas collided in a mountain
pass 14mi southeast of Grand Junction, Colorado
in clear weather the morning of 22 October,
leaving two badly damage high-wing aircraft but
no physical injuries to the six occupants
involved.
Senior US
National Transportation Safety Board
investigator, Arnold Scott, says the Cessna 180
with two onboard was descending from 16,500ft
(5030m) to 8,500ft on its northwest course to
Vernal, Utah when the midair occurred at 0857
Wednesday morning. Scott says the pilot was
looking out of the window at the landscape at
the time. “He deer hunts and
was looking for deer,” he
says.
The
pilot’s attention was brought
front and centre descending through 10,000ft
however when his passenger shrieked.
“(The pilot) looked up and
saw the other aircraft approaching
head-on,” says Scott. He then
pushed full forward on the yoke and felt an
impact that spun the aircraft 270 degrees. The
pilot told Scott that the upper 2/3 of the
vertical stabilizer and rudder were missing and
that it required full left aileron to maintain
control. The pilot set up an emergency landing
in a field below and flipped over on landing.
Surface elevation is approximately 5,000ft in
that area.
The Cessna 210,
reportedly carrying a
sheriff’s deputy and two
prisoners along with the pilot, was climbing
from 9,500ft to 10,500ft on its eastbound track
to Florence, Colorado when the midair occurred.
Scott says the pilot was talking by radio to the
FAA flight service station to activate his VFR
flight plan when he heard a
“bang” and
had thought he hit a bird. As a precaution, he
diverted to the Grand Junction airport, 14mi to
the northwest. When he attempted to lower the
landing gear for landing, a warning light
indicated that the nose gear had not extended.
After confirming the hang-up with a fly-by of
the tower, the pilot then tried to lower the
landing gear manually, to no avail. He then
landed with the nose gear retracted.
Cirrus Design
Cirrus Design's
new Perspective integrated avionics with
Garmin-supplied displays and synthetic vision
sets a new level of situational awareness for
smaller general aviation aircraft that will make
any manufacturer's offering without such
features antiquated. The new system in a
normally aspirated SR22-G3 on a demonstration
flight from a small airport in Maryland with
Cirrus mid-Atlantic sales representative and
pilot Boni Caldeira. Cirrus is offering the
Garmin cockpit as an option on normally
aspirated and turbocharged SR22-G3 light
aircraft for $48,000 more than the standard
Avidyne Entegra integrated cockpit.
Eclipse
Aviation
Eclipse Aviation
has established itself as the exclusive sales
agent for the 28 Eclipse 500 very light jets
belonging to defunct air taxi operator DayJet.
The aircraft have between 150 and 450 cycles of
flight time and none are fully equipped with the
latest Eclipse upgrades, including flight into
known icing and Avio NG version 1.5 integrated
avionics. JetsAmerica, a company that buys,
sells and manages VLJs, had offered $500,000
each for the aircraft to United Technologies
Finance, one of the lienholders of the fleet.
JetsAmerica says it had more than 20 investors
ready with $100,000 deposits, but it did not
receive a response from United
Technologies.
Mahindra
& Mahindra
Mahindra &
Mahindra and the country's National Aerospace
Laboratories are jointly developing a five-seat
light aircraft, and plan to manufacture two
prototypes each in 2009, it was revealed at the
show. NAL will be responsible for getting Indian
certification for the NM5-100, while Mahindra
subsidiary Mahindra Aerospace is responsible for
certification outside the country. The aircraft
is targeted at the air taxi, training, and
medical evacuation markets, and NAL and Mahindra
could jointly manufacture the type if there are
enough orders.
MJET,
Bombardier
Canada's MJET
plans to certificate early next year the first
Bombardier CRJ200 capable of flying VIPs over
5,550km (3,000nm) and is preparing to double
capacity of its Montreal completion center to
meet growing demand for CRJ business jet
conversions. The Canadian engineering company
early this year began work converting a CRJ200
from standard passenger airline to long-range
executive configuration for Calgary-based Corpac
Canada. Taif Rahman, co-chairman of MJET parent
Elisen Technologies, says the aircraft is
scheduled to be completed late this year and
supplemental type certificate for the new
Elisen-designed auxiliary fuel tank system early
next year should be secured in early
2009.
Mokulele
Airlines
FAA says
Hawaiian inter-island regional carrier, Mokulele
Airlines, was flying again this morning after
being asked to voluntarily ground its fleet
yesterday. The controversy began on Tuesday when
an FAA safety inspector discovered that carrier
had not given required training to its cabin
crew on the use of life preservers and fire
extinguishers. An FAA spokesman says the
inspection was "routine" and had "nothing to do
with any pending business arrangement between
Mokulele and any other airline." Mokulele is
scheduled to add four Embraer E-170s flown by
Republic subsidiary Shuttle America to its
operations on 19 November. Mokulele currently
uses a fleet of seven Cessna Grand Caravan 208Bs
to fly passenger service.
Piper
Aircraft, Williams International
Piper Aircraft
is working with jet engine manufacturer Williams
International to investigate a unique PiperJet
thrust augmentation system that could eliminate
the need for its much-touted automatic
horizontal stabilizer trim system to handle trim
changes generated by the aircraft's single
high-centreline FJ44-3AP turbofan engine.
According to Piper vice-president of
engineering, John Becker, engineers are now
experimenting using a Coanda effect device that
would channel the jet's exhaust in an
appropriate direction to reduce nose-down moment
created by adding power and nose-up trim changes
when decreasing power.
Regional Air
Express, Fairchild Metro
Regional Air
Express has completed flight-testing of
MT-Propeller's five-bladed prop for the
Fairchild Metro and expects to receive European
Aviation Safety Agency approval for the upgrade
in February 2009. The
Múnster/Osnabrúck-based airline says
the tests verified that the propeller lowers
internal cabin noise to 88dbA and significantly
reduces vibration. It adds that the composite
design, which replaces the Metro's existing
four-bladed propeller, will also reduce
maintenance costs compared with an aluminium
propeller. Regional Air Express intends to
retrofit its fleet of four Metros early next
year, following certification.
Southwest
Airlines
Airlines rework
schedules to fly only when, where demand is
high. Advanced scheduling systems are allowing
airlines to tailor their schedules to fly only
when demand is highest, meaning another blow for
travelers looking for deals. At Southwest
Airlines, for instance, an in-house schedule
optimization system allowed the airline to
rework its entire November schedule of 3,400
departures, and now, instead of flying the same
schedule every day, it flies a completely
different schedule on Saturdays.
United
Airlines
United Airlines'
"fuel-optimised" flight for the Asia and South
Pacific Initiative to Reduce Emissions (Aspire)
will depart from Sydney for San Francisco on 14
November using a Boeing 747-400. Signed by US,
New Zealand and Australian air navigation
service providers in February, the Aspire
agreement intends to accelerate the development
and implementation of operational procedures to
reduce the environmental footprint for all
phases of flight. United's "optimised" flight
follows a similar Air New Zealand 777 service
from Auckland to San Francisco on 12 September
and a Qantas A380 operation on 22 October
between Melbourne to Los Angeles.
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