Flight Safety Information January 25, 2013 - No. 021 In This Issue NTSB: 787 probe far from complete U.S. Sees Extended 787 Inquiry Antarctic search for 3 Canadians still delayed by weather Airplane struck by lightning makes emergency landing (Video) ALPA: Confidential Safety Reporting Programs Essential to Aviation Safety Air India is world's third least safe airline: Report Thirty Indonesian Pilots Grounded for Flying Overtime PROS IOSA Audit Experts The Billion-Dollar Bet On Jet Tech That's Making Flying More Efficient TSA catches someone going through Reno airport security without being screened MTSU, China aviation group reach agreement In 2050, Flight Time From Europe to Australia Will Be 90 Minutes NTSB: 787 probe far from complete U.S. safety regulators are nowhere near finishing an investigation into a battery fire on the Boeing Co 787 Dreamliner, a top official said on Thursday, raising the prospect of a prolonged grounding for the plane. Deborah Hersman, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, made clear that investigators have found a series of "symptoms" in the battery damaged in a Jan. 7 fire in Boston, but not the underlying cause of the problem. "We are early in our investigation, we have a lot of activities to undertake," Hersman told a news conference. The damaged auxiliary power unit battery removed from a Japan Airlines Boeing 787 Dreamliner passenger jet is seen in this picture provided by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board. "This is an unprecedented event. We are very concerned. We do not expect to see fire events on board aircraft. This is a very serious air safety concern." She rebuffed multiple questions on how long the investigation would take, making clear it could be weeks or more. She also would not say when the 787 would fly again, which is in the hands of the Federal Aviation Administration. The Dreamliner has been grounded worldwide since a plane by All Nippon Airways made an emergency landing in Japan on Jan. 16 after a battery incident, which Hersman said may or may not have been a fire. That emergency landing came after a fire occurred on a Japan Airlines Co Ltd 787 on the tarmac in Boston. Boeing said it welcomed Thursday's briefing on the 787 investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board and said it continued to assist the NTSB and the other government agencies investigating two recent 787 incidents. "The company has formed teams consisting of hundreds of engineering and technical experts who are working around the clock with the sole focus of resolving the issue and returning the 787 fleet to flight status," said Boeing spokesman John Dern. "The safety of passengers and crew members who fly aboard Boeing airplanes is our highest priority," Dern said. France's Thales, which makes the 787 battery system, declined to comment. The NTSB and its Japanese equivalent are working together on their probes, though Hersman again insisted the work was still in the early stages. "It is really very hard to tell at this point how long this investigation will take. We have all hands on deck," Hersman said. "We're working as hard as we can to identify what the failure mode is here and what corrective actions need to be taken." Series of delays The 787 program was already years behind schedule before last week's grounding, which means Boeing cannot deliver newly manufactured planes to customers. That means customers like United Continental Holdings Inc. may have to wait even longer for planes on order. The company's United Airlines already flies six Dreamliners. "History teaches us that all new aircraft types have issues and the 787 is no different," United Continental Chairman and Chief Executive Jeff Smisek said during the carrier's earnings conference call. "We continue to have confidence in the aircraft and in Boeing's ability to fix the issues, just as they have done on every other new aircraft model they've produced." Smisek said Thursday the carrier still expects to take delivery of two more 787s in the second half of the year. Boeing has already delivered 50 of the 787s. Around half have been in operation in Japan, but airlines in India, South America, Poland, Qatar and Ethiopia are also flying the planes, as is U.S. carrier United. The grounding of the Dreamliner, an advanced carbon-composite plane with a list price of $207 million, has already forced hundreds of flight cancellations worldwide. Competition from Airbus The head of Boeing's European rival Airbus said it would study the 787 Dreamliner design review and make any changes to its future A350 jetliner that may be needed as a result of the U.S. findings. "We believe so far we have a robust design, however we will draw the lessons from the 787," Airbus Chief Executive Fabrice Bregier told Reuters Television at the World Economic Forum in Davos. "We will look at the recommendations and guidelines of the FAA and if by chance we need to change it we have plenty of time because this aircraft, the 350, will be delivered to our first customers not before the second half of 2014 ... so it is not a challenge and it is not a burden for us." Billed as Europe's response to the Dreamliner, the A350 is due to enter service next year using lithium-ion batteries but without the same reliance on electrical systems as the 787, something Airbus says will put less burden on the batteries. However, Airbus has so far declined to comment on how it would tackle a battery fire if one did break out on board. http://www.nbcnews.com/business/ntsb-787-probe-far-complete-1C8104258 Back to Top U.S. Sees Extended 787 Inquiry Investigators Say Cause of Battery Fires Remains a 'Very Open Question'. By ANDY PASZTOR (WSJ) U.S. air-safety investigators said they remain stumped by "the sequence of events" that caused a lithium-ion battery to experience internal short circuits, overheat uncontrollably and burst into flames inside a parked Boeing Co. BA +1.37%787 in Boston earlier this month. In the most detailed update yet of the intense fire aboard the Japan Airlines Co. 9201.TO 0.00%Dreamliner Jan. 7, investigators Thursday appeared to largely eliminate few issues-hinting that the battery charger isn't likely to be the primary culprit-but stressed that they are still searching for the precise cause. Deborah Hersman, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, told a packed news conference in Washington, D.C., that "we still have to figure out why those events occurred" inside the battery "and what initiated them." The board didn't provide a rough timeline for identifying the cause, and Ms. Hersman said it's "still a very open question" whether an internal battery defect or some type of external electrical malfunction was to blame. More than two weeks after the event-and despite a global investigation that has two shifts of safety board staffers delving into what happened-investigators haven't publicly suggested a theory about what specifically led to the blaze on the ground at Boston's Logan International Airport. The safety board disclosed that the fire, though it was contained in a relatively small space, became so intense that it took firefighters more than an hour and a half to fully extinguish. The Boston incident and a second burning battery aboard an All Nippon Airways Co. 9202.TO +0.56%787 during a domestic flight last week prompted the world-wide grounding of all 50 of the cutting-edge aircraft starting on Jan. 16. Japanese investigators are conducting a separate probe of that event, which ended with a safe emergency landing and evacuation after the pilots detected smoke and received cockpit warnings about battery problems. Thursday's developments are a high-profile setback for Boeing because from the beginning of the grounding, the Chicago plane maker has been hoping for a quick investigation and speedy return of its Dreamliners into the air. While the news conference offered scant signs that the safety board's experts are on the verge of a breakthrough in their investigation, Ms. Hersman gave Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration plenty of notice that the probe will cover broad design and certification issues. That's likely to mean months of intense scrutiny of the testing and risk analyses conducted before the FAA approved Dreamliners to carry passengers in 2011. Boeing said it continues to cooperate with investigators and regulators, while hundreds of its engineering and technical experts are "working around the clock with the sole focus of resolving the issue and returning the 787 fleet to flight status." In the statement, Boeing also said it is eager for U.S. and Japanese authorities "to determine the cause of these events, and we support their thorough resolution." The FAA, which also hasn't sketched out any timeline, has said it is committed to ensuring the safety of the planes before allowing them to resume flying. Investigators "will certainly be looking at the certification process," Ms. Hersman said, adding that teams of engineers and experts will "want to make sure the risks were well understood and they were addressed" before the planes entered service. National Transportation Safety Board An investigator for U.S. air-safety agency NTSB looks inside the Boeing 787 that is under investigation at Boston's Logan airport. . One of Boeing's biggest Dreamliner customers, United Continental Holdings Inc., UAL +2.16%suggested passengers wouldn't avoid the 787. United Chief Executive Jeff Smisek said Thursday that he remained confident in the jet and Boeing's ability to resolve the problems. "I have no doubt that customers will flock back to that aircraft," he said on a call with reporters, without mentioning whether United is planning specific steps to ease the transition of getting its six Dreamliners back into operation. Noting that modern jetliners aren't supposed to experience even a single onboard fire, Ms. Hersman opened her update by saying "the significance of these events" shouldn't be underestimated. Later on, she called the Dreamliner's crisis "an unprecedented event" and "a very serious air-safety concern." In her comments, the NTSB chairman supported the FAA's decision to keep the planes on the ground until causes of the battery incidents are fully understood and corrective actions are implemented to make sure they don't recur. The two agencies, which sometimes spar over the need for additional safety improvements, this time have been working closely together, according to industry and government officials. . The safety board's wide-ranging probe, which is loosely coordinated with the investigation under way in Japan, includes checking battery-manufacturing issues; dissecting the innards of bulging and deformed cells inside the battery; and running tests to determine why circuitry specifically intended to prevent the batteries from overheating and experiencing "thermal runaways" failed to work. The 787s batteries are supplied by Japan's GS Yuasa Corp. 6674.TO 0.00% Also on Thursday, Japanese regulators said they hadn't found any potential problems or defects during inspection of the battery maker or the burnt battery removed from the ANA plane that made the emergency landing. "We haven't heard of any [problematic] things yet," said Shigeru Takano, a director with the transport ministry's air transport safety unit, but work is continuing. Suggesting the NTSB faces what could be a long journey, Ms. Hersman said U.S. investigators are "prepared to do the methodical, diligent work" to pinpoint the root cause of the Dreamliner's problems. She also pledged to "compare and collaborate" with Japanese officials to pursue common threads. One of the biggest questions confronting investigators, Ms. Hersman said, is understanding why the battery on the JAL jet ended in flames "when there were so many protections" designed to isolate it quickly from the plane's novel electric grid if major problems cropped up. So far, U.S. investigators have been frustrated by the lack of clear-cut lead. Examination of the battery charger showed only "one minor finding," according to the board, and the NTSB chairman noted "we do not have any data that shows the battery was overcharged." Back to Top Antarctic search for 3 Canadians still delayed by weather Plane circles site of beacon signal but weather prevents visual contact Efforts to find a Twin Otter aircraft missing in Antarctica with three Canadians aboard remain on hold because of poor weather, a rescue official in New Zealand told CBC News this afternoon. The missing Twin Otter, operated by Calgary-based Kenn Borek Air, had been transmitting an emergency beacon signal since late Wednesday night, local time, but it now appears the battery has died. New Zealand's Rescue Co-ordination Centre, which is handling the search, said rescuers circled over the site of the signal Friday morning, near the northern end of the Queen Alexandra Range, but heavy cloud cover and winds prevented rescuers from making visual contact. ·Antarctica winds halt search for 3 missing Canadians "When conditions ease, the intention is to set up a forward base at a location approximately 50 kilometres from the beacon site, from which to launch operations to the site," said rescue mission co-ordinator Kevin Banaghan. Steve Rendle, another official with the Rescue Co-ordination Centre, says skies are expected to clear Saturday morning local time, which should allow rescue teams to fly over the area. The Canadian pilot of the missing Twin Otter was identified by his wife as Bob Heath of Inuvik, N.W.T. (Courtesy Lucy Heath) The Canadian's plane is grounded roughly halfway between the South Pole and McMurdo Station, a U.S. research facility in Antarctica where two helicopters, equipped with mountain survival gear, remain on standby pending a change in the weather. "Weather conditions remain very challenging and are forecast to continue for the next 12 hours," Banaghan said. "However, over the next 24 hours, winds in the area are forecast to drop from 170 km/hr to 35 km/hr, with cloud forecast to lift and become scattered." The pilot of the missing aircraft has been identified by his wife, Lucy, as Bob Heath from Inuvik, N.W.T. Mark Cary, a former pilot with the airline, said he flew with Heath on a number of occasions and described him as an experienced aviator who was well versed in cold- weather survival techniques. "I'm very, very confident that if this crew indeed survived getting the aircraft on the ground that Bob is the kind of individual that would be able to survive until rescuers could get to him and his location," he said. Kenn Borek Air, is yet to confirm the names of those aboard the aircraft. Jim Pearce, a retired pilot with the company who flew with Heath described him as "probably one of the most experienced Antarctic pilots in the world today. It's a very very challenging place to work, and a very very challenging place to fly." He said that Kenn Borek Air would have provided the three Canadians with the best survival gear available. "They'd have extreme cold weather gear available, and the most up-to-date survival packs," he said The missing plane had been flying from the South Pole to an Italian base in Antarctica's Terra Nova Bay. A spokesman for the U.S. National Science Foundation has said the flight was in support of the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development. No signal from beacon Earlier rescue efforts were thwarted by the poor weather. A DC-3 spent about six hours circling the area, hoping to make visual contact and drop a satellite phone to the missing crew. However, poor visibility and high winds forced the DC-3 to return to McMurdo Station, a U.S. research facility. Weather conditions were said to include solid cloud, heavy snow and winds up to 170 km/h. Michael Flyger, a spokesman with New Zealand rescue centre said earlier Thursday that in addition to the long distances and the terrible weather conditions rescuers must face, the search effort will confront the issue of altitude. When the rescue beacon was transmitting, it was coming from a location about 4,000 metres above sea level, Flyger said. "With that comes problems around oxygen, comes problems around wind chill and temperatures," he said. "Certainly, it's not an easy place to get into, but we've got some pretty good people who are absolutely itching to get in there and help to assist." http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2013/01/24/antarctica-canadian-plane- rescue.html Back to Top Airplane struck by lightning makes emergency landing (Video) Turkish Airline Plane Engine Burning because of it Struck by Lightning ANKARA, TURKEY (AP) -Turkish Airlines (A321) say a plane with 114 people aboard made an emergency landing after it was struck by lightning and one of its engines caught fire. It said the plane, en route to Izmir from Istanbul, was preparing to land at Izmir when the lightning struck late Thursday. The pilot quickly activated the motor's own fire- extinguishing gear, declared an emergency and landed safely. The company said Friday no one was hurt. Amateur video taken from the ground and broadcast by private NTV television showed a flame shooting in the night sky. Turkish airplane hit by lightning strike (inside plane) The state-run Anadolu agency said residents in Izmir who witnessed the flame rushed to the airport for news of the plane. *********** Date: 25-JAN-2013 Time: 00:05 Type: Airbus A321-231 Operator: Turkish Airlines Registration: TC-JRI C/n / msn: 3405 Fatalities: Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 114 Other fatalities: 0 Airplane damage: Unknown Location: Izmir - Turkey Phase: Approach Nature: Scheduled Passenger Departure airport: LTBA Destination airport: LTBJ Narrative: Flight TK-2348 from Istanbul-Atatürk International Airport (IST/LTBA) to Izmir-Adnan Menderes Airport (ADB/LTBJ) experienced an in-flight engine fire. The airplane landed safely at the destination airport. Media reports indicate the engine fire might have been a result of a lightning strike. www.aviation-safety.net Back to Top ALPA: Confidential Safety Reporting Programs Essential to Aviation Safety OTTAWA, Jan. 23, 2013 /CNW/ - The Air Line Pilots Association, Int'l (ALPA)-the world's largest nongovernmental aviation safety organization-issued the following response to CBC TV's program "Power & Politics with Evan Solomon" that aired on 22 January. "Safety Management Systems (SMS) are a valuable tool to enhance safety in aviation and other transportation industries in Canada. SMS aid airlines by helping to identify and mitigate safety risks that have not been anticipated by regulators. As a result, SMS programs are critical to ensuring the highest safety standards are maintained and to providing a continuous means of identifying hazards before they become serious. "Equally important is the concept that nonpunitive and confidential safety programs remain a foundation for heading off safety risks before incidents or accidents occur. "ALPA maintains unequivocally that a nonpunitive, confidential safety reporting program is essential, especially when it comes to identifying and responding to human factors issues. "Canada is a world leader in adopting SMS programs in its marine, rail, and aviation industries. SMS programs ensure continuing safety by combining the appropriate levels of incentive for front-line employee reporting, internal auditing and regulatory oversight. "When Transport Canada or the airlines consider releasing any Transport Audit to the public, they must ensure that any confidential reporting referenced or used as the basis of that audit remain strictly confidential. This is absolutely essential as the confidentiality of information given in a SMS is the very backbone that ensures its authenticity and timeliness." Founded in 1931, ALPA is the world's largest pilot union, representing nearly 51,000 pilots at 35 airlines in the United States and Canada, including the 2,800 Canadian flight crewmembers who fly for Air Transat, Bearskin, Calm Air, Canadian North, CanJet, First Air, Jazz Aviation, Kelowna Flightcraft, and Wasaya. Visit the ALPA website at www.alpa.org. SOURCE: Air Line Pilots Association, Intl Back to Top Air India is world's third least safe airline: Report India's national carrier is ranked 58th among 60 listed airlines by Hamburg based Jet Airliner Crash Data Evaluation Centre. WASHINGTON: Air India has been rated world's third least safe airline after China Airlines and TAM Airlines, according to a report from a website that monitors plane crashes around the world. India's national carrier is ranked 58th among 60 listed airlines by Hamburg based Jet Airliner Crash Data Evaluation Centre (JACDEC). Finnair is now the world's safest airline, followed by Air New Zealand, Cathay Pacific and Emirates, according to JACDEC Safety Ranking 2012. None of the top nine ranked airlines had lost an aircraft or had a fatality during the 30- year period, but many had also not been active for the full 30 years. Not one North American carrier made the top 10 list, but none of them made the bottom 10 either. The centre calculates its annual rankings based on aircraft loss accidents and serious incidents over the past 30 years. The resulting index relates that information to the revenue per passenger kilometer (rpk) earned by the airline over the same period. There were 496 fatalities on commercial passenger flights last year, according to the report, two fewer than in 2011. The most significant involved a Dana Air flight which crashed in Nigeria, killing 169 people, and a Bhoja Air flight which crashed in Pakistan, killing 127. A total of 30 planes were destroyed and there were 44 "hull losses", or aircraft write- offs, one less than the previous year. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/Air-India-is-worlds-third- least-safe-airline-Report/articleshow/18179387.cms Back to Top Thirty Indonesian Pilots Grounded for Flying Overtime Thirty Indonesian pilots have been temporarily banned from flying for exceeding the maximum working limit in the air. "Exceeding flying hours causes fatigue and affects flight safety," said Bambang Ervan, spokesman of the Transportation Ministry, as quoted by Tempo.com on Thursday. He refused to give details of the airlines. Each pilot's grounding term would be adjusted according to the length of their overtime. The ministry limited the flying hours of a pilot to only nine hours in a day, 30 hours in a week, 110 hours in a month and 1,050 hours in a year. For cabin crew, their maximum limit - which includes flying hours - is 14 hours in a day, with at least nine hours rest before the next flight. Bobby Mamahit, head of the human resources development at the Transportation Ministry, said the lack of pilots in Indonesia was one of the underlying reasons behind pilots working overtime. Bobby told Tempo.com that Indonesian airlines needed 4,000 additional pilots, adding that the country needed on average between 700 and 800 pilots per year. Alvin Lie, an aviation observer, recently told Tempo.com that it was airline management who forced pilots to work overtime. "If they [pilots] refused overtime, the next month they would not be given flying hours [by the airline], so their income would drop to only a basic salary," he said. But Bambang said that the pilots should be able to reject the request of the airlines to work overtime, rather than face sanctions from the government as the airlines would not be sanctioned. "Pilots are the ones who suffer the loss if they fly overtime," Bambang said. http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/home/thirty-indonesian-pilots-grounded-for-flying- overtime/567551 Back to Top Back to Top The Billion-Dollar Bet On Jet Tech That's Making Flying More Efficient UTC Chairman Louis Chênevert United Technologies CEO Louis Chênevert took the biggest gamble of his career on something called a geared turbofan. In a modern jet airliner there are really just two ways to increase fuel economy, the most critical selling point in an era of tiny margins and volatile costs for carriers. One way is to increase combustion temperatures so fuel is burned more efficiently. But engines are already operating at levels above 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit, the melting point of the turbine blades that propel the plane, forcing engineers to dream up exotic cooling systems and turn to special coatings and unwieldy materials like ceramics. The other possibility is to increase bypass, or the amount of air the fan on the front blows past the engine. The problem: Bypass fans operate most efficiently at slow speeds, while turbines like to spin fast. Reconciling the two is no easy feat. But engineers at Pratt & Whitney, UTC's storied aeronautical division, had an idea. While UTC's Connecticut archrival, General Electric, went with higher combustion temperatures, Chênevert, at Pratt at the time, backed a seemingly riskier solution of putting a gearbox on the front of the engine to slow down the turbine shaft and drive the fan. If it worked the new engines would cut fuel burn by more than 15% compared with competing turbojets and produce half the noise, allowing airlines to push more flights through urban airports. "Anything that's going to burn 15% less fuel is like Christmas to the airlines," says Philip Abbott, British publisher of Aircraft Engines . "Once this sort of thing catches on, especially in this business, it tends to boom." Skeptics questioned whether a gearbox was an unnecessary complication for a jet engine. The addition of the Fan Drive Gear System added only seven moving parts, but the 18-inch-diameter gearbox had to be engineered to withstand thousands of high- stress takeoffs and landings without maintenance. If it failed it would likely mean the end of the commercial jet business for Pratt & Whitney, which grew famous for the Wasp engines used in thousands of B-24 bombers during World War II and the ubiquitous JT8D jet that powered Boeing 727s and DC-9 jetliners but lately had been in decline. Chênevert never worried. Recruited to the small-aircraft engine unit of Pratt & Whitney in 1993 before taking over the whole division in 1999, he spent several years overseeing the production of small jet turbines with gearboxes to drive helicopter blades and turboprop propellers. "I'd manufactured more gearboxes probably in the aviation industry than anybody else," he says. He convinced then CEO George David to sign off on development costs of more than $100 million a year, small relative to UTC's $4- billion-a-year R&D budget but hardly insignificant (upwards of $1 billion) over time. Turns out he was right. And now his very big bet is paying off in a very big way. With 3,000 orders in the 24 months since the PurePower Geared Turbofan engine was unveiled, it is proving to be one of the most successful launches in the history of the aircraft business, expected to double Pratt's jet engine revenues-about $12.2 billion in 2010-by 2020. The sweetest moment came in January 2013 when Brazilian manufacturer Embraer announced it had selected the UTC engine for its next line of large regional jets, displacing incumbent General Electric's. The geared turbofan has put Pratt in the enviable position of supplying the most power plants for the most popular airliners for the next couple of decades: single-aisle jets that will absorb much of the travel boom in emerging markets. By the end of this decade "we're going to see volume at Pratt that we haven't seen in 25 to 30 years," says Chênevert, a 6-foot-6 Quebec native whose speech bears strong hints of his French-speaking upbringing. It's the tastiest win since Chênevert took over Hartford-based UTC when David retired in 2008. David was a tough act to follow: A Harvard grad and international yachtsman, David has captivated the press with his marital and maritime adventures (including an ugly divorce from a Swedish countess in 2009 and a near-death experience in the 2011 Fastnet regatta, when his 100-foot racing boat capsized). Chênevert is not nearly as glamorous. He earned a degree in production management from the Université de Montréal and spent his early career overseeing assembly workers at a General Motors factory in Canada. The most exciting entry on his social calendar lately is the upcoming birth of his third grandchild. But Chênevert has maintained David's rigorous focus on high free-cash flow and conservative accounting. The company generated about $5.5 billion in cash (earnings before depreciation and taxes but after necessary capital expenditures) on sales of $55.8 billion in 2011 from operations, including Pratt aircraft engines and Hamilton Sundstrand controls, Otis elevators and Carrier heating and air-conditioning equipment. He deftly sidestepped the financial crisis that nearly drove GE into insolvency, because UTC never built up a finance arm dependent upon commercial paper markets for funding. "Post '08, the one thing people have learned is having access to commercial paper is critical when it's choppy out there," he says, in a subtle dig at GE Chief Jeffrey Immelt. "He's a very effective operating executive," David says of his successor. "He knows how to get projects conceived, scheduled, funded and completed." He also maintained David's practice of expensing the costs of developing new products against current earnings, instead of capitalizing them. That means shareholders have already absorbed the entire expense of developing the geared turbofan and can immediately begin enjoying the dividends. The geared turbofan wasn't Chênevert's only challenge. While UTC has performed well in recent years-a better than 1,000% return under David from 1994 to 2008 and another 35% return under Chênevert-the company needed to diversify away from the volatile defense business and increase its international presence. Chênevert took a big step toward that goal last year when he completed the $18.4 billion acquisition of Goodrich, the largest takeover in aerospace history. Chênevert initiated the talks with Goodrich's then chairman Marshall Larsen and pushed the deal through, hungry for Goodrich's jet-engine nacelles, landing gear and thrust reversers to complement aircraft engines. "A company like Goodrich only comes around once in a lifetime," he says. Now UTC gets less than a fifth of its revenue from military aviation, including Sikorsky helicopters and engines for the new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Half comes from a diversified collection of nonaviation businesses with heavy exposure to China and other growing emerging markets. (Otis recently moved its business development office from Connecticut to China, because elevator sales there dwarf the entire North American market.) And aviation is now skewed toward the commercial business, which is poised to double (measured in revenue passenger miles) over the next ten years as millions of emerging market consumers grow affluent enough to fly. Chênevert's next goal: extract more savings from UTC's labor-intensive manufacturing operations. He's already cut 25,000 jobs and taken $2 billion in charges. Operating margins, a key measure of efficiency, rose from 13.5% to 15.1% since he took over. Now he's promising $400 million in similar "synergies" from the Goodrich acquisition. "There's a lot to be gotten," he says. "There's another decade ahead." http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfisher/2013/01/23/the-billion-dollar-bet-on-jet-tech- thats-making-flying-more-efficient/ Back to Top TSA catches someone going through Reno airport security without being screened The suspect who "pushed passed" Reno-Tahoe International Airport security a little after 9 a.m. Thursday is being questioned by airport police, but there is no information on the suspect's motive and authorities are not releasing a name. "The agent never lost sight of the suspect and we continued to pursue the suspect with a variety of security footage," Reno Airport spokesman Brian Kulpin said. Kulpin said he did not know if the suspect was a ticketed passenger or where the suspect was headed. There are no injuries, he said. "At this point we are waiting for more details and how it happened," he said. Earlier update A passenger went past a security checkpoint without being screened this morning at the Reno-Tahoe International Airport, prompting a call to airport police and the passenger's arrest. Airport spokesman Brian Kulpin said Transportation Security Administration workers never lost sight of the passenger who did not board a flight, so no flights were affected and airport operations were not interrupted. Airport police were questioning the person after his arrest, Kulpin said. The incident happened around 9 a.m. "We have no information right now as to why this individual did this," Kulpin said. http://www.rgj.com/article/20130124/NEWS01/130124007/ Back to Top MTSU, China aviation group reach agreement The Beechcraft King Air 350 Extended Range will be used for geophysical and geochemical exploration in the Tibetan plateau. With its nationally recognized aerospace program as a focal point, Middle Tennessee State University has joined with other groups in the establishment of an agreement in principle this week to work together to help train Chinese pilots on their new Beechcraft King Air 350 Extended Range airplane currently housed in Smyrna. Along with state Sen. Bill Ketron, a Republican from Murfreesboro, officials from MTSU, the Civil Aviation Authority in China, China-based Flying Dragon General Aviation Co. Ltd., Franklin-based PacUS LLC and Smyrna-based Corporate Flight Management announced the agreement Thursday during a morning meeting in the new Student Union Building. Civil Aviation Authority in China officials discussed their interest in helping MTSU and Corporate Flight Management gain approval for training pilots on the new plane. "We're now in a position to provide training expertise and the support they will need," MTSU President Sidney A. McPhee said, in reference to the Chinese civil aviation authority. "We are ready to go with this initiative. One of our goals is partnerships with business and industry. The aviation industry in China is about to explode. FedEx and UPS are just waiting for this." Mike Vaughn, president of PacUS LLC, orchestrated all parties coming together on the agreement. "Today, the success is realized," Vaughn said, sharing that it all began two years ago when MTSU held a general aviation conference with the China National Aerospace University at the Murfreesboro Municipal Airport. "Since then, our business has grown," he said. "We are comfortable doing business with China as Tennesseans. Trade is part of our heritage, and we are proud to represent our state through commerce. Today is a milestone for us, and we look forward to more sales and visits from China in the future." The Beechcraft King Air will be based in Qinghai, in the foothills of the Tibetan plateau. The airplane will fly with a rear-tail, boom-mounted magnetometer used for geophysical and geochemical exploration in the Tibetan plateau. Valued at more than $10 million, the U.S. export deal was arranged by PacUS LLC, and its Hong Kong affiliate, CFM China Ltd. Vaughn added that wheels will be turning in all the application processes "in the next 30 days or so." Speaking through interpreter Jenny Wei, an MTSU aerospace graduate student who interns for Corporate Flight Management and PacUS, Chinese team leader Renhao Zhang said he "is excited to be here for the acceptance of the aircraft (King Air)," and "glad to see the cooperation" between all parties. Zhang represented the Civil Aviation Authority in China Northeast Division. He was joined by fellow Northeast Division associates Bo Liang and Bin Yang, and Guowei Wang of China Flying Dragon during both today's announcement and their weeklong visit to Middle Tennessee. Ketron, representing Gov. Bill Haslam, spoke of how this alliance means "the opening of doors and creation of jobs, helping the economy." The Civil Aviation Authority in China is the equivalent to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration. Ron Ferrara, who is serving as the interim chair of the MTSU aerospace department, said students would benefit from "more exposure to international students, and it might open opportunities for them overseas." The airplane is housed at Corporate Flight Management's hangar at the Smyrna Airport. Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China also is interested in purchasing maintenance services here. Negotiations for selling the planes began in 2011 when Chinese Aero Geophysical Survey Remote officials visited Tennessee. The plane, which is the first of its type in China, will be delivered to Harbin, China, for their Aero Geophysical Survey Remote Sensing Center for Land and Resources, a division of China's Ministry of Natural Resources. Company officials are currently in Rutherford County for the final on-site inspection before the plane is shipped to China. http://www.murfreesboropost.com/mtsu-china-aviation-group-reach-agreement-cms- 34190 Back to Top In 2050, Flight Time From Europe to Australia Will Be 90 Minutes A hypersonic "SpaceLiner" would whisk up to 50 passengers from Europe to Australia in 90 minutes. The futuristic vehicle would do so by riding a rocket into Earth's upper atmosphere, reaching 24 times the speed of sound before gliding in for a landing. Many challenges still remain, including finding the right shape for the vehicle, said Martin Sippel, project coordinator for SpaceLiner at the German Aerospace Center. But he suggested the project could make enough progress to begin attracting private funding in another 10 years and aim for full operations by 2050. The current concept includes a rocket booster stage for launch and a separate orbiter stage to carry passengers halfway around the world without ever making it to space. Flight times between the U.S. and Europe could fall to just over an hour if the SpaceLiner takes off - that is, if passengers don't mind paying the equivalent of space tourism prices around several hundred thousand dollars. "Maybe we can best characterize the SpaceLiner by saying it's a kind of second- generation space shuttle, but with a completely different task," Sippel said. SpaceLiner passengers would have eight minutes to experience the rocket launch before they reached an altitude of about 47 to 50 miles (75 to 80 kilometers). That falls short of the 62-mile (100-km) boundary considered the edge of space, but even a suborbital flight would allow SpaceLiner to glide back to Earth at hypersonic speeds of more than 15,000 mph (25,200 kph). Relying on Rocket Power The rocket-powered design stands out compared with other proposed hypersonic jets, which feature new air-breathing engine concepts. European aerospace giant EADS previously unveiled a hypersonic jet concept that would rely mainly upon air-breathing ramjets to reach cruising speeds of Mach 4 - faster than the supersonic Concorde's Mach 2 performances but far slower than the SpaceLiner's Mach 24 goal. SpaceLiner's European project planners say their reliance upon proven rocket technology could allow their vehicle to fly sooner rather than later. They plan to use liquid oxygen and hydrogen rocket propellants so that the rocket engines leave only water vapor and hydrogen in the atmosphere. "We will not try to improve the performance of the engine but would like to have it more reusable," Sippel told TechNewsDaily. The empty rocket stage from SpaceLiner would return to Earth immediately after launch in preparation for reuse. An aircraft could grab the rocket stage in midair, tow it toward an airfield and release it for an autonomous gliding landing. Chances of Survival But big challenges remain before SpaceLiner can take off. Researchers first must finalize a design shape capable of surviving the intense heat created by gliding at hypersonic speeds through the upper atmosphere. New cooling technologies and improved heat shielding for SpaceLiner's wing "leading edge" could help in that case. Launching like a rocket rather than taking off like an aircraft means SpaceLiner would remain restricted to suitable launch sites with uninhabited areas down range. The SpaceLiner also would need a careful flight path during its final landing approach - the "sonic boom" shock that accompanies aircraft traveling faster than the speed of sound can damage buildings on the ground at low altitudes. "The profile of the vehicle is very similar to a rocket-propelled vehicle," Sippel explained. "We only have a small corridor in which we can fly safely and economically." SpaceLiner's design will make use of study results from a FAST20XX (Future High- Altitude High-Speed Transport 20XX) project funded by the European Union and backed by researchers from Germany, Austria, Spain, Switzerland, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Sweden. It can also draw lessons from upcoming efforts such as Project ALPHA by Aerospace Innovation GmbH - a space plane that aims to launch in midair from an Airbus A330 aircraft. But future success ultimately depends upon the success of space tourism efforts by companies such as Virgin Galactic. If enough people prove willing to pay top dollar for suborbital flights as part of their travels around the world, Sippel envisions a fleet of SpaceLiners eventually making 10 to 15 flights per day. http://mashable.com/2013/01/24/hypersonic-spaceliner/ Curt Lewis