Flight Safety Information December 19, 2012 - No. 253 In This Issue Lawmaker wants FAA to publish names of drone licensees Aviation laser beam warning (South Africa) Federation Council approves amendments to Air Code on flight safety (Russia) Jet Blue flight makes emergency landing in Long Beach Stealth Pilot Training Begins Despite Jet Delays PROS IOSA Audit Experts British Airways to equip 3,600 pilots with iPads Industry Urges Study To Highlight Pilot Shortage Gulfstream reveals new supersonic aircraft, inlet designs in patent filings The 22 Most Annoying Airport Security Checkpoints (PHOTOS) Lawmaker wants FAA to publish names of drone licensees The public may soon have the ability to search through the names of persons and organizations operating drones within the United States. Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Ed Markey introduced the Drone Aircraft Privacy and Transparency Act (DAPTA) Tuesday, which attempts to create guidelines and limitations on how the FAA issues drone licenses. The FAA is projecting that the number of licenses for domestic commercial drones could increase in the next five years, to exceed 10,000. The bill is the latest in the debate by federal, state and local officials over the use of domestic drones for law enforcement and other government purposes - such as scientific research - and commercial use. While there is agreement over the benefits of drone use within the national borders, such as spotting wildfire and assessing natural disasters, privacy advocates remain concerned about their capacity to carry and fire weapons and conduct wide-ranging surveillance. Markey's bill would also require a warrant to be obtained if a drone is used for law enforcement or intelligence purposes, require license applicants to detail a plan for data retention, and mandate that the FAA create a public searchable database of drone operation licensees on its website. Markey said that he hopes the advancement of the legislation will ensure that "these 'eyes in the skies' don't become 'spies in the skies.'" DAPTA follows on the heels of a letter sent to the FAA by Markey and Texas Republican Rep. Joe Barton in April asking about the potential privacy implications of non-military drone use. The FAA responded, admitting that privacy is a "blind spot" in its oversight of non- military drones, which Barton called "misguided and wrong." The congressmen, both co-chairs of Bi-Partisan Congressional Privacy Caucus, first issued a discussion draft of the DAPTA in August. Privacy advocates from the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) also expressed their support for DAPTA. On the state and local level in California, the debate is alive and well. California State Sen. Alex Padilla introduced a bill in early December that would make California the first state to regulate drones. Padilla has expressed concern over the privacy, civil liberties and public safety implications surveillance drones would have. "As this technology advances and becomes more widely used, it is imperative that we have clear standards in place for their safe and reasonable use and operation in order to protect the public," said Padilla in a statement. He also authored a bill that was signed into California law earlier this year that regulates the deployment of autonomous vehicles on California's roads and highways. On the county level, the Alameda County Sheriff's office in California recently attempted to acquire grant money to buy a surveillance drone. Berkeley city officials are also considering a proposal calling for a ban on drone flights above the city, as well as on law enforcement purchase and use of drones. http://dailycaller.com/2012/12/19/lawmaker-wants-faa-to-publish-names-of-drone- licensees/#ixzz2FVTHhCTa Back to Top Aviation laser beam warning (South Africa) Anyone using laser beams to blind pilots would face prosecution by the authorities, warns the Civial Aviation Authority. Durban - The South African Civil Aviation Authority has warned that anyone using laser beams to blind pilots would face prosecution by the authorities. The authority said in a statement on Tuesday that "a safety hazard which is increasingly becoming a nuisance to our pilots is the use of laser beams to blind pilots on approach at airports in areas such as Lanseria and Durban". "The continued use of laser beams on pilots can have devastating consequences for the industry, and anyone found to be engaging in this activity will face prosecution by the authorities," said the authority's acting director of civil aviation, Poppy Khoza. The authority urged all industry players, especially those engaging in flying, to exercise caution by adhering to all civil aviation regulations, especially during the festive season. "The festive season is generally a very busy period for flying, and therefore I would like to urge the flying community to practise caution and adhere to safety standards during this period," said Khoza. "In times like these, we are all encouraged to go back to basics and do proper planning before flying," she said. Passengers were also encouraged to abide by the aviation security regulations by adopting safe flying habits by observing the required weight for their luggage and hand luggage taken into the cabins. According to Khoza, this year has been a safer year in terms of fatalities resulting from aircraft accidents in the civil aviation space. Khoza said that, generally, flying was known to be the safest mode of transport, "and we encourage our industry to uphold this record as we work towards protecting the lives of our passengers". She said the objective of reducing aircraft accidents by half by 2014 remained a target for the rest of the South African civil aviation industry. "However, this target can only be achieved if the industry adheres to the required safety and security standards as prescribed," she said. - The Mercury http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/aviation-laser-beam-warning-1.1442737 Back to Top Federation Council approves amendments to Air Code on flight safety (Russia) MOSCOW, December 19 - RAPSI. The Federation Council has approved a governmental law according to which the Air Code will have a new article on the safety of civil airplane flights in line with the standards of the Convention on International Civil Aviation. Senator Sergei Shatirov said that the adoption of the law will help to avoid restrictive measures from foreign states on Russian air carriers, since it has been drafted to correspond to the provisions of the Convention on International Civil Aviation. "Furthermore, the law will create a legal basis for the functioning of an effective civil aviation safety management system and will facilitate the increase of control and quality in air transportation," Shatirov said. The senator said that the law stipulates that the aforementioned system would be implemented in Russia in accordance with the standards of the International Civil Aviation Organization. The Russian government will have to establish the procedure for a number of legal entities to develop and use this flight safety management system. Shatirov said that Russian Aviation will be collecting and analyzing data on the dangers and risk factors affecting flight security. It will store and share this information in accordance with international standards. http://rapsinews.com/legislation_news/20121219/265836518.html Back to Top Jet Blue flight makes emergency landing in Long Beach LONG BEACH - A Jet Blue plane destined for San Francisco made an emergency return flight Tuesday to the Long Beach Airport, after the crew determined that jetliner had a mechanical problem. The engine automatically shut down due to a mechanical failure, but it was unclear what caused the problem, officials said. No one was injured on the 7:25 a.m. flight, which had been about 4 miles out at the time, according to airport spokesperson Stephanie Montuya-Morisky. The plane landed back at Long Beach Airport at about 8:15 a.m., officials said. There were 125 passengers on the flight, and they were booked on another flight, the spokeswoman said. http://www.presstelegram.com/breakingnews/ci_22217745/jet-blue-flight-makes- emergency-landing-long-beach Back to Top Stealth Pilot Training Begins Despite Jet Delays Marines welcome F-35Bs to Yuma, Arizona. Yesterday the Air Force officially cleared its pilots to begin formal training on the military's small fleet of early-model F-35A Joint Strike Fighters. The clearance followed a 46-day examination of the new plane's systems at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. "The team at Eglin went through a rigorous process to lead the way for F-35A training," said Gen. Edward Rice, the head of Air Education and Training Command. Prior to Rice's go-ahead, only test pilots had flown the slowly growing fleet of so-called "fifth-generation" F-35s stationed at Eglin and at bases in Arizona, California and Maryland. There are three versions of the jet: the Air Force's lightweight F-35A, the Marines' vertical-landing F-35B and the larger, heavier Navy F-35C meant for at-sea carrier ops. But the green light for training doesn't mean the stealth fighter - which costs $105 million a copy not counting development - will be ready for combat anytime soon. Indeed, the Air Force still hasn't officially decided when it will declare its JSFs operable, although 2018 has been mentioned. The rush to train stealth fighter pilots places the Air Force in the same camp as the Marine Corps, which stood up a combat-designated JSF squadron last month despite the unit possessing a mere three F-35Bs. Of the U.S. military branches slated to get their own versions of the JSF, only the Navy is holding off on forming frontline squadrons or training pilots. At present the F-35 can't drop bombs or fire missiles. Its custom helmet-mounted sight doesn't work and Lockheed Martin's engineers are still tweaking the jet's design. And as late as this summer the JSF, which has been in development since 2001, still had a "scrap rate" of 16 percent, meaning roughly one out of every six parts on jets in production had to be removed and reworked or totally thrown out and replaced. That's double the scrap rate for most earlier warplanes at equivalent stages of development, according to the Pentagon. With ongoing design work and a possible six-year gap between initial training and actual combat readiness, what's the rush? Officially, the Air Force's plan is to incrementally ramp up its training program, from 36 pilots next year to a peak of hundreds annually. "We designed the system to start very slowly," Rice told Aviation Week. The first few dozen fliers trained on the F-35 will become instructors for other instructors and, eventually, for combat pilots, thus carefully laying the foundation for 40 years or more of JSF operations involving a planned fleet of 1,763 Air Force F-35As and potentially tens of thousands of aviators in total. But Ty Rogoway, an independent aviation analyst and blogger, is skeptical. The F-35 is designed to be easy for beginner pilots, with docile handling and intuitive electronics. Currently, basic training for a new JSF pilot requires a total of 130 hours of instruction spread over six weeks of classroom studies, followed by six weeks of flying. It shouldn't take six years to build up the JSF training base, and "training for training's sake is a waste of taxpayer dollars," Rogoway wrote. (An hour of flying in an F-35 could cost $50,000 or more, according to an estimate by Center for Defense Information analyst and stealth skeptic Winslow Wheeler. Today's F-16s cost less than half that per hour.) "If the jet's envelope is so restricted and its mission systems are not even operable then we are paying tens of thousands of dollars an hour to have pilots whiz around in these things, for what?" Rogoway asked. "It seems like a PR stunt to me." He may have a point. The hurry to begin training could reflect worry within the Pentagon and Lockheed Martin over the $396 billion JSF program's worsening reputation and sales prospects. Training flights might look like progress at a time when the F-35, which at a projected $1 trillion over 50 years to buy and operate is history's priciest weapons program, desperately needs good news. Note also Lockheed's recent, dubious claim that the JSF will actually grow more stealthy over time, the opposite of the historical trend for radar-evading jets. The F-35s development is jointly funded by a consortium of 10 countries, including the U.K., Canada, Italy and Australia. The partners were supposed to buy hundreds of JSFs, helping drive down the per-plane cost. But in recent months several of the developer states have cut back or canceled their orders for the new jet, citing uncertainties over schedule, price and performance. Just last week Canada nixed plans to buy 65 F-35s to replace its aged F/A-18s, blaming the cancellation on a threefold cost increase over Lockheed's original estimate. Earlier the U.K. had cut its own F-35 order by two-thirds and Italy by a quarter, and Australia had pushed back by several years its planned purchase of at least 70 JSFs. Japan, which selected the F-35 only last year to replace four dozen ancient F-4s, has already threatened to cancel its JSF order if the acquisition bill rises. So far the wavering foreign support has not affected the Pentagon's F-35 acquisition. This week the Defense Department signed a $3.8-billion contract with Lockheed for the purchase of a fifth batch of new JSFs numbering 32. But looking ahead, shrinking foreign orders could boost the price of an F-35 and force foreign governments in particular to cut back even more on their purchases of the new jet. That feedback loop of escalating cost and decreasing quantity, called the "death spiral," has effectively killed off or severely curtailed many U.S. warplane programs. The death spiral is why the Air Force possesses just 180 or so F-22s instead of hundreds more, and only 20 B-2 bombers rather than six times that number, as originally intended. "We are moving along; we are hitting all parts of the envelope; we are seeing a high- performing, fifth-generation airplane," Steve O'Bryan, Lockheed's vice president for F-35 business development, assured reporters this summer. The facts do not necessarily support such a rosy view. But if the F-35 is going to avoid the death spiral and survive in its current form, O'Bryan's claim needs to at least appear to be true to foreign buyers of the new plane. The Air Force's confident commencement of JSF flight training, six years before any frontline pilots are even needed, could be just the thing to restore confidence in the troubled stealth fighter. Even if it is technically unnecessary. http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/12/stealth-pilot-training-begins/ Back to Top Back to Top British Airways to equip 3,600 pilots with iPads All 3,600 British Airways pilots are to receive an Apple iPad Tablets are beginning to take flight at major airlines, with British Airways now rolling out Apple iPads to all 3,600 of its pilots. The deployment, part of the airline's £5 million ($8.1 million) investment to deploy iPads to cabin crew and ground staff, will see the pilots use the iPads to access real-time data like flight information as well as present and historic customer details. TabTimes spoke to British Airways on the day of the announcement and while further details on the deployment were scarce, there was also the suggestion that the iPads will enable pilots to interact better with ground staff before coming into land. This roll-out isn't the first to come from British Airways, which has handed out over 2,000 iPad 2s to cabin crew and ground staff since beginning its tablet initiative back in November of last year. Other notable airlines to have recently embarked on tablet roll-outs include Emirates, American Airlines, Qatar Airways and Canadian airline WestJet. http://tabtimes.com/news/traveltourism/2012/12/18/british-airways-equip-3600-pilots- ipads Back to Top Industry Urges Study To Highlight Pilot Shortage As the first wave of age 65 pilot retirements begins this month, a coalition of industry, academic and government officials are pushing for an in-depth study to highlight what they fear is a looming pilot shortage. The coalition - an informal group that has met periodically over the past 18 months - asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to conduct the study, saying, "The aviation industry is entering an era of unprecedented pilot staffing challenges as a result of a struggling economy, bankruptcies, mergers, increasing flight training costs, manufacturing declines and numerous new public laws and regulations." The organizations met with GAO late last month to discuss the need to look at the potential for a pilot shortage and ramifications to the industry. The organizations then followed with a formal pilot study proposal outlining all the factors that such a study should entail. Typically such study requests come directly from Congress, but GAO has the authority to initiate a study without such a request. The coalition comprises a range of airline, general aviation, business aviation and academic representatives. But it also includes Flight Standards Director John Allen, who has made the potential pilot shortage one of his personal priorities. Allen told Aviation Week last summer he believed that first they must determine that there is a potential crisis and that the issue should be studied. "We have to understand whether it will be a problem," Allen had said, noting that the agency was sensitive to past claims of shortages that haven't surfaced. However, a number of factors are combining to suggest that the problem is looming this time, he said. Airlines are bracing for substantial retirements as the first wave of age 65 retirements begin. The military supply of trained pilots has slowed substantially. And new rules mandated by Congress for all Part 121 pilots to obtain a air transport pilot certificate are further exacerbating the potential shortage, industry officials believe. Boeing, a member of the coalition, has suggested that the industry will need about 4,000 new pilots each year. In its proposal to GAO, the coalition notes that the industry is facing "unprecedented pilot attrition rates coupled with diminished pilot availability caused by a decline of new entrants into the profession and a dramatic reduction in the availability of military trained pilots that have been a primary source of airline pilots since World War II." Metrics are showing declines in nearly all sectors, from the number of commercial pilots, general aviation active pilots and new pilot starts. The number of new private pilots has dropped by 10,000 each in the past couple of years, the coalition says. "As the airlines hire the few qualified pilots available, a lack of pilots would severely impact corporate and charter operations of general aviation," the coalition says, adding, "With few pilots choosing to enter the field of aviation as a career, universities and flight training providers will see a continued drop in enrollment." A University of North Dakota study has tracked the flight training declines, the groups say. "Available data suggests that the consequences of an inadequate pilot supply are potentially disruptive and harmful to not only the aviation industry but to local, national and global economies," the groups say, adding this could lead to disrupted service to smaller communities. The coalition believes a study needs to determine how severe a pilot shortage could be, how long would it last, what sector would be affected first, and what are the safety and economic impacts. The study should look at both supply and demand side, including pilot graduates, financial support, public laws and regulations affecting training, airline pilot retirements, global pilot demand, training capacity and fleet growth. http://www.aviationweek.com/Article.aspx?id=/article-xml/awx_12_18_2012_p0- 530148.xml&p=2 Back to Top Gulfstream reveals new supersonic aircraft, inlet designs in patent filings Gulfstream has released new drawings of a supersonic business jet design in patent application forms, revealing features such as a telescoping nose, highly-sloped fuselage and variable-geometry wings. The drawings from patent filings dated in April and August emerge less than two months after a Gulfstream executive said the company is "very close" to overcoming the noise problem that prevents commercial supersonic aircraft from operating over populated areas. They also reveal a configuration significantly evolved from Gulfstream drawings released in 2007 and 2009 for a concept aircraft identified in trademark applications as the "Whisper". In July, Gulfstream resubmitted an application for the Whisper trademark, describing its intended use for a supersonic aircraft featuring quite-boom technology. Gulfstream also has been assigned an experimental aircraft designation by the US Air Force for an undisclosed supersonic aircraft called the X-54. Previous versions of Gulfstream's supersonic aircraft concept featured a long slender nose, a conventional fuselage cross-section that peaks just aft of the cockpit and fixed- geometry wings. In the latest drawings, the telescoping nose - a legacy of the company's "Quiet Spike" experiments - appears to be thicker and is divided into six distinct sections at full extension. A side-view drawing reveals a highly sloped fuselage that peaks slightly aft of the leading edge of a highly-swept wing. The top-view drawing shows the mid-fuselage mounted wing also sweeps forward by as much as roughly 30°. A cabin section is illustrated with five oval windows, or one fewer than the 13.7m (45.1ft) interior cabin length of the Gulfstream G450. The drawings were part of Gulfstream's application for a patent describing the invention of a "relaxed isentropic inlet" for a supersonic inlet, which is intended to achieve supersonic compression in ways that do not increase certain kinds of inlet drag. Such an inlet also should reduce sonic boom noise without degrading engine performance, according to the application. http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/gulfstream-reveals-new-supersonic-aircraft- inlet-designs-in-patent-filings-380364/ Back to Top The 22 Most Annoying Airport Security Checkpoints (PHOTOS) Anyone who flies has suffered the agony of long security lines, intrusive X-ray scans or pat downs and confusing rules. But which airports incite the most frustration? As part of our first-ever airport survey, Travel + Leisure asked readers to rate the check-in and security process at 22 major domestic airports. We're highlighting the lowest-ranking airports --those with the most annoying security checkpoints -- and have researched the factors and headline-making incidents that may have contributed to readers' opinions. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is an easy scapegoat, and security expert Bruce Schneier understands the frustration with the federal agency. "Airport security is just so focused on details like shoes or liquids, whatever the terrorists did last time. It's like saying, 'I'm worried about burglaries, so I'm gonna put all my effort on the third window on the left.'" "Early on, TSA had some real challenges that they really didn't understand, but I think they're doing a lot more right these days that people just don't see," counters Jeffrey Price, a professor of aerospace science at Denver's Metropolitan State University. He points to recent innovations like the PreCheck program for frequent flyers, risk-based screening and alternative screening procedures for passengers under 12 and over 75 years of age. Predicting and avoiding long airport security lines is becoming a science unto itself. The TSA has created an app where passengers can post airport security waiting times. But days and sometimes weeks go by between updates, making the app only marginally useful. Ifly.com posts average wait times for all major U.S. airports, broken down by checkpoint and time of day. But again, its times are estimates based on the TSA's historical averages, not what's happening in the given moment. And it's that continued uncertainty and inability to plan that travelers dread. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/travel-leisure/annoying-airport-security- checkpoints_b_2286138.html Back to Top Space Travel Marked by Landmark Developments in Private Flight With NASA's retired shuttles mothballed in museums, 2012 saw a new kind of spacecraft blaze its own path toward the International Space Station. In May, the Dragon space capsule - developed, owned and operated by California-based SpaceX - was launched from atop a Falcon-9 rocket, becoming the first private craft to dock with the ISS. A feat achieved by only a few governments, the docking, says SpaceX chief Elon Musk, signaled more than a mere technological breakthrough. "This was a crucial step," Musk said of the unmanned mission that was completed in conjunction with NASA. "It makes the things in the future, and the ultimate path toward humanity becoming a multi-planet species, much, much more likely." Designed to carry cargo or crew, the Dragon capsule is slated for a manned test within three years. Also working with NASA, Orbital Sciences Corporation, which has developed the Antares rocket and Cygnus cargo craft, has a planned 2013 demonstration flight to the space station. At Kennedy Space Center for SpaceX's second successful ISS mission in October, NASA administrator Charles Bolden said these partnerships spur innovation and benefit the U.S. space program. "We're handing off to the private sector our transportation to the International Space Station so that NASA can focus on what we do best - exploring even deeper into our solar system, with missions to an asteroid and Mars on the horizon," he said. NASA officials have said the agency, via partnerships, is on track to launch astronauts from the United States within five years. Presently constructing the Space Launch System, the largest rocket ever built, NASA engineers are also developing the Orion capsule, a craft designed to take astronauts 15 times farther than the International Space Station. With Orion's unmanned trial mission set for 2014, interest in NASA's next generation vehicles has been growing. "I'm glad to see the whole space program is going on because, I don't know, it seemed to me at least that all was kind of dead," said teenager Andrew Clancy at an April science festival in Washington. "But it's alive and well and looks great." Acting as a lead investor that offers expertise and advice in addition to funding, NASA has secured contracts with three U.S. companies that are working on vehicles for manned missions to low-Earth orbit. Boeing, for example, is working on its Crew Space Transportation-100 capsule, which is designed to carry seven people and land on the ground. SpaceX is also developing vehicles similar in shape to late 20th century lunar capsules. Nevada-based Sierra Nevada Corporation, however, is developing a winged spacecraft called Dream Chaser, whose shape more closely resembles a plane or a retired space shuttle. "It's the same contest we played out in the 1950s - wings versus gumdrops [capsule- shaped vehicles]," said Howard McCurdy, a public affairs professor at American University in Washington. "Nobody knows at this stage which is the superior technology." http://www.voanews.com/content/landmark-development-in-private-space- flight/1567580.html Back to Top Dear CAPT NORHALIM MOHD YUNUS, Safety surveillance on foreign air operators is necessary to ensure safe air travel operations. Many States, in line with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO)'s Standards, have introduced their own Foreign Operator Surveillance Programme (FOSP). In response to this, the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), together with the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) is jointly organising the inaugural EASA-CAAS Foreign Air Operator Ramp Inspection Seminar. Brought to you by the SAA's Marketing & Promotions team www.saa.com.sg 1 Aviation Drive Singapore 499867 Tel: (65) 6543 0433 Fax: (65) 6542 9890/6543 2778 Email: saa@caas.gov.sg Copyright © 2012 Civil Aviation authority of Singapore. All rights reserved Unsubscribe from this e-mail Curt Lewis