INTERESTING ITEMS FROM AVIATION WEEK & SPACE TECHNOLOGY MAGAZINE
Check out www.aviationweek.com
March 15, 1999 issue of AW&ST - page 42 - Freighter Crash Investigators Focus on 747 Landing Gear - March 6, 1999 just prior to midnite - fair weather - Madras India - 747 freighter loaded with garments, medicines, machine tool spare parts, flowers, 3 cars, and 20 tons of cigarettes loses nose landing gear about 7,000 feet after touchdown - took 20 minutes for fire to break out - fire services were on the scene - witnessess said they were ineffective - "As the first truck began moving back along the fuselage, witnesses said the fire crews either ran away or sprayed foam in the wrong direction. As the fire intensified, the firefighters retreated completely. Finally, when the fire engulfed a wing of the aircraft, its fuel tanks exploded. All that remained were the nose and tail sections." Article written by Pierre Sparaco of the Paris AWST Bureau - 1 photo shows burnt out plane - the airport's only runway was closed for 14 hours.
March 15, 1999 AWST - pg 59 - Virtual Cockpit Eyed for Army Helo Pilots - pg 52 - Prowlers Exploiting Foes' Communications - pg 38 - NYC Wind Shear Radar Advances - pg 37 - Delays Prompt STARS Overhaul (FAA ATC upgrades) - pg 21 - Solar Eruptions can now be predicted days in advance - pg 20 - NTSB seeks redundant and improved "black boxes" - pg 15 - general aviation accident rates lowest since 1938 - fatal accident rates for US helos stagnant since 1993 (pilot error and bad weather more of a threat than engine and component failures).
****************************************
March 22, 1999 AWST - On April 10, the Denver FAA ATC office did a Y2K test - apparently everything went OK. Other interesting articles were - new NATO air defense centers are in op, Sea Launch (rocket) is profiled (ops centers shown), USA Missle Defense System gains support from Capitol Hill.
****************************************
March 29, 1999 AWST
"Versatility Hallmark of Bell"s New 427" by Ed Phillips
Bell is coming out with a new low cost twin-engine helo -initial deliveries will start in ?July 1999 - can carry 6 passengers and 2 pilots - cost is $2.2.million in 1999 dollars - direct operating costs per flight hour will be $438 - (chief competitors are MD Helos Explorer at $2.99M and Eurocopter EC135 at $2.57M) - 427 cabin is 13% larger than Bell LongRanger - 37 feet long - max speed 136 knots - 353 nautical mile range on 203 gallons of fuel (stored in 3 crashworthy bladder-type tanks installed in the cabin) - energy attenuating seats are certified to 12g - quiet cabin - smooth ride - EMS and public safety agencies will enjoy this aircraft.
2nd Item - A Iberia MD87 twinjet passenger plane landed successfully on a 2900' by 100" blanket of foam at Geneva Cointrin Airport on March 20 after the nose gear failed to extend.
*************************************
April 5, 1999 AW&ST
page 15 - Motorola Iridium project has revenue shortfalls projected to be $200M for the rest of 1999 and $800M for 2000
page 32 - improvement have been made to the USAF Motorola PRC112 survival radio that is used by fighter pilots - 1,000 of the upgraded radios have been purchased since 1996 - the updated radios have a 8 channel GPS receiver, a LCD screen, the ability to send 60 character messages, and the ability to send data bursts in clear or encrypted modes - rescue aircraft 60 to 100 miles away can home in on the radios (of course satellites 22,000 miles away can probably hear the radios also).
page ?32 - a Chineese 747 full of passengers almost taxied right in front of a departing freighter at OHare Airport at 0230 hours on April 1, 1999 - the pilot was instructed to turn right - he OKed the message and turned left - the planes missed each other by 50 feet
**************************************
April 12, 1999 - AW & ST
pg68 - biowarfare / pg69 - Pentagon flunks cyber test / pg 19 - Iridium to supply Dept of Defense with $219M worth of services / pg 21 shoulder launched missle threat versus US airliners report is circulating at Pentagon / pg 21 - North Korean missle test was a surprise to US military / pg 21 - half $$Billion overrun on missle program / pg27 - comms problems in Serbia / new biological weapon fighting foam by ?Sandia Labs in Albuquerque
*****************************
April 19, 1999 AW&ST - US Army will spend $7.1 million for airbags for pilots of UH-60A/L Black Hawk helos - F117 shootdown article - pg 41 recent satellite and rocket losses by USA set at $1.5 Billion - 1-888-Iridium (www.iridium.com)(Iridium leader sacked) - Y2K articles about FAA, airlines, and Pentagon - Paris Airports (Orly in 1998 handled 25M passengers)(Charles De Gaule CDG Airport, the largest in France, handled 38.6 Million passengers and 1 million metric tons of cargo in 1998, a 4th and last runway will be completed in 2001)
*****************************************
April 26, 1999 AW&ST - Laureate Awards for spectacular USCG helo rescue in Alaska and Australian yacht rescues - photo of Sanghai China jetliner crash show firefighters with bright green turnout and hoses with white helmets (?chiefs had yellow coats with red helmets) -
**********************************
May 3, 1999 - AWST - pg 21 - RC135 River Joint signal intelligence aircraft ?did not forward info to F117 over Yugoslavia ?resulting in shootdown - pg 48 - big triubles with iridium article (see ?6/15/99 sonofrcma) - pg57 - Miami Airport expansion - fire inspectors mad - no certificates of occupancy on file - 1 sprinkler head every 100 feet will be required instead of every 140 feet - $16 million will be spent on escape tunnels for terminals - pg 74 - editorial on Weapons of mass Destruction - pg 70 - help wanted - NASA HQ - Mars Exploration Program Director - $110,000 to $125,000 - pg 71 - ?Boeing - Wichita Kansas - 40 hrs per week - $6400 per month - Structural Analysis Engineer - no health insurance nor retirement - BSE required with 5 years experience
Investigators believe that a recent jetliner (MD-11) crash in China (that killed ?8/?30 people) may have been due to the pilots being confused by air traffic controllers giving them altitudes in meters instead of altitudes in feet.
************************
May 10, 1999 AWST - article about sightseeing flights over Antarctica - NASA guy rips satellite industry - major satellite loses require major overhauls in launch programs
**********
May 17, 1999 AWST - pg 15 All in the Timing - Mary Waller, a researcher in organizational behavior at the Univ of Il has concluded that Crew (cockpit) Resource Management training requires extra emphasis on "timing" (?sharing of workload among members?) - www.aviationsafetyalliance.org is kinda lame - pg 21 - foam concrete runway arrestor bed - pg 34 - Chineese Embassy bombing in Yugoslavia - 2 major errors - intelligence had correct street address of the correct target but couldnt find the address on a map - also, did not have correct address of the Chineese Embassy - pg 65 - Chinook improvements - pg 84 - editorial blasted TWA800 investigation - pg 58 - NTSB is reinterviewing TWA800 witnesses
*********************************
May 24, 1999 - AWST - pg 66 - Heads Up Displays May Help In Smoky Cockpit - pg 27 - Radiating Gizmos - the FAA has told the FCC that they no longer object to Ultra Wideband Devices - Time Domain Corp of Huntsville AL seeks to market the devices to search for survivors in rubble and to provide voice comms with location info for tactical teams - also can see people behind walls - FAA had been concerned that the UWB devices might interfere with aviation telecomm systems - pg 19 - flite testing of the Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC-3) missles has been delayed at White Sands Missle Range due to high forest fire hazards due to drought - Letters to Editors - several letters about pilot error on takeoff from San Fran in 747 which was reported in March 29 pg 39 AWST - junior piot used ?wrong technique to counter engine failure
****************
June 7, 1999 issue - pg 6 Letter to Editor - retired Russian General gives a simple mathematical formula for pilots to use when landing in order to maintain safe glideslopes - pg 6 LTE - Advantage of a Twin - explains why it is safer to take off in a 2 engine jet than a 4 engine jet (cause the twin is engineered to fly safely with 1 engine out which is the same as 50% power - 4 engine planes are engineered to fly safely with 1 engine out or 75% of power - ergo in normal ops the twin will have more "reserve" power (Ya gotta think this one thru) - pg 15 Happy Y2K Landing - international study of Y2K problems at airports - most places are OK - some locks were found to fail in the locked position and this is a "good" thing (unless you are a firefighter trying to gain entry) - pg 17 Internet Disclosures - Japan Airlines began putting info about its flight irregularities online - pg23 Mental Shift - a Rand Study for the Pentagon tells the military that they have to start using computers not only for mission planning but also for delving into the planning/decision processes of the enemy - the name of the report is "The Changing Role of Information on Warfare" - pg 30 - Microwave Weapons Await a Future War - microwave bombs can create a pulse near computers and destroy them - pg 36 Ultra Corp of Syracuse NY will develop a global communications network simulator for the USAF Research Lab Info Directorate under a $99,000 contract - this will give the USAF a big picture on its air /ground / space / voice / data / Internet needs for the future.
**********
June 21, 1999 - AWST - pg 8 LTE - Pratt and United engineers designed a flight simulator so powerful that when it simulated severe shaking during evasive maneauvers that it shook the computer boards loose - pg 17 Gyro On A Chip - IntelliSense Corp of Wilmington Mass has built a gyro on a computer chip and they will sell for about $250 each - pg 21 and 25 - "a decimal point was improperly written into some software" and caused the $800 million crash of a rocket at Cape Canaveral on April 30, 1999 (testimony to a House committee) - pg 28 - photos of Russian SU30MK fighter crash at Paris Air Show - both pilots ejected safely - "super maneuverable SU-30, whose thrust-vector control allows it to complete aerobatic figures that no other fighter can match" - has a great ejection seat - pg 41 - Executive Jet to spend $2 billion for new Horizons (50 exec jets + ?50 more) - pg 50 - multiple causes listed in Air Canada RJ Crash at ?fredericton - Captain was 4.5 seconds late in calling "flaps" during go-around (?icing problem also) - pg 51 - Boeing Safety Tool Provides Insight Into Human Factors Errors - Procedural Event Analysis tool (Technique) - studied 10 years of commercial hull losses - "flight crew compliance with established procedures was the single most effective safety (prevention) strategy available to airlines" - would have prevented 50% of crashes - I am not really sure what the analysis tool/technique is besides reading reports about old plane crashes - I wonder if they would have ever reported that 75% of all crashes was due to stupid Boeing engineers - is this really a safety prevention technique or a safety enhancement technique? - pg 52 - Midway Island is now a rescue airport for flights crossing the Pacific Ocean - 150 private workers staff the airport - 1 board certified doctor is at the airport hospital - Boeing is trying to get the FAA to allow its 2 engine jets to fly further over the oceans and this airport is a big factor in the decision
-------------------
September 6, 1999 AW&ST
page 34 - Aircraft on Radar Near TWA800 Remains Un-IDed - (on radar tapes - traveling back and forth at unknown altitude 20 miles from TWA800 at 350 knots)
page 35 - Carriers Plan Detours To Avoid Y2K in India
page 36 - Buenos Aeries FD at plane crash - color photo - red helmets - 1 white helmet = ?chief - black coats, pants, boots - yellow stripes on coats and pants - some yellow coats also
page 77 - TRW Aeronautical Systems/Lucas Aerospace has won a contract from the US Marine Corps to supply a mounted rescue hoist for its Bell UH-1N helos, beginning in January 2000.
page 81 - testing the F-22 : pilots and engineers work 12 hour crew-duty days (to deter bad decisions)
page 84 - USA is the number one arms exporter in the world in 1998 - $7.1 Billion (31% of world total) - French $6.2 Billion - UK $4.8 Billion - Russia $1.7 Billion
page 94 - Flame Resistant Fuel Line Cover - resists direct flame exposure to 2,000 degrees F - (typical protection to 400 degrees F now)
---------------------
September 13, 1999 AW&ST
pg S11 - USCG Cdr Frank Erickson flew a Sikorsky R-4 on the first helo mercy mission in January 1944, delivering blood plasma for injured sailors after an explosion on a US navy destroyer outside New York City harbor
pg 57 - Debate on Wiring Safety Moves to Capitol Hill (see Xerox)
pg 58 - Lone Jurists's Report Accepted 20 Years After Erebus Crash (on Antarctica) - unbelievable coverup! (see Xerox)
pg 67 - FAA, Union Target Mistrust Among Traffic Planners, Controllers - Hand held radios are installed at all the visited ARTCCs - only traffic managers at Atlanta, Chicago, and Memphis used the radios to communicate directly with ATC supervisors during high traffic periods - using radios saves ?20 minutes versus using telephones) - "(?FAA) Evaluators called the use of radios very effective."
pg 85 - Avionics - Software radios give Army helos C2 System - ++++
----------------------
October 4, 1999
pg 30 - Major Risks Surround Russia's Y2K Readiness - especially in regards to disaster response and disaster communications due to broken and obsolete comm gear
pg 32 - GPS rollover glitch detected - Defense Dept now fixing operations of some systems
pg 33 - Indian officials say they'll be Y2K ready - ATC system will be able to handle flite critical ops
pg 53 - Air France, French Railways Plan Code-Share Venture - TGV cruises at 186 MPH at carries 90% of passengers between Paris + ?Marseille - 10% go by plane (TGV = Train Grand Vitesse = Train Very Fast)
pg 61 - US Navy Explores New UHF Satcom
pg ?? - USA may lose ATC functions over the Pacific due to slowness in upgrading ATC equipment
-----------------------------------------------
from the 24 July 00 issue of Aviation Week & Space Technology pg 43 - www.iposerver.com/wap/globalenergy.wml has aircraft, pilot, airport, and navaids databases online for wireless application protocol cell phones pg 45 - In late May, a 717 enroute from Savannah to Atlanta lost all electrical power. This caused the loss of the cockpit displays, all communications, and all indicators. (I guess this means that they don't have a HT stashed away for backup radio comms). pg 39 - a study of 65 air traffic controllers shows that 45 minute and 120 minute naps are good - the study of FAA and Army controllers was summarized by Flight Safety Foundation of Alexandria VA [this doesnt jive with the reports that I have seen stating that 20 minute naps are the best]
-----------------------------------------------
