Flight Safety Information October 7, 2013 - No. 206 In This Issue Anti-Drug Plane Crash in Colombia Kills Four, U.S. Army Confirms Korean Air jet returns to DFW after problem American Airlines Flight 289 emergency landing at O'Hare... 9-year-old boy sneaks on Delta jet for Minneapolis-to-Las Vegas flight Fatal crash glitch hits 3 British Airways flights Nigerian aviation agency grounds Associated Airline Pilatus Britten-Norman BN-2A-8 Islander fatal accident Lack of manpower raising air safety risk in India Furloughing FAA Inspectors And NTSB Investigators May Violate International Aviation Treaty A Tired Pilot Is a Tired Pilot, Regardless of the Plane Next GFSC Meeting 06 November 2013, Abu Dhabi ISASI NERC Meeting (19OCT2013) Think ARGUS PROS Airbus lands landmark $9 billion order with JAL The Lear Jet Turns 50 - But It Almost Didn't Make It Off the Ground Etihad to hire 1,000 pilots Watch for: AVIATION MAINTENANCE & ENGINEERING EXCHANGE Anti-Drug Plane Crash in Colombia Kills Four, U.S. Army Confirms Three Americans and a Panamanian Air National Guardsman were killed in a plane crash in northern Colombia yesterday morning near the border of Panama, the U.S. Southern Command said in a statement. Two Americans survived the crash in the remote jungle area and were rescued by Colombian military forces and taken to a hospital in Bogota. The DH-8 aircraft was contracted by the U.S. government to provide detection and monitoring of drug trafficking routes in the coastal region of Central America as part of Operation Martillo, according to the statement. The plane lost communications over the Western Caribbean before crashing near the city of Capurgana, with no indication it was shot down. "We express our sympathies to the families of the deceased," General John Kelly, commander of U.S. Southern Command, said in the statement. "The U.S., Panama, Colombia, and all of our partners in Operation Martillo remain committed to our longstanding cooperative relationship for counter-narcotics operations." http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-06/anti-drug-plane-crash-in-colombia-kills-four-u-s-army- confirms.html *************** Status: Preliminary Date: Saturday 5 October 2013 Time: ca 01:00 Type: de Havilland Canada DHC-8-200 Operator: United States Air Force - USAF Registration: registration unknown C/n / msn: First flight: Crew: Fatalities: / Occupants: Passengers: Fatalities: / Occupants: Total: Fatalities: 4 / Occupants: 6 Airplane damage: Written off Airplane fate: Written off (damaged beyond repair) Location: Acandí, Chocó Province (Colombia) Phase: En route (ENR) Nature: Military Departure airport: ? Destination airport: ? Narrative: A U.S. military surveillance plane crashed near Acandí, Chocó Province, Colombia, killing four occupants. Two were injured. The airplane operated on a maritime counter-drug patrol mission in the Panama-Colombian border area. The registration was reported to be N35PIT, but such a registration number does not exist. Probably N35PIT meant N353PH, N354PH or N356PH. These three DHC-8 aircraft are operated on behalf of the U.S. government / military. www.aviation-safety.net Back to Top Korean Air jet returns to DFW after problem DFW AIRPORT - A Korean Air jet safely returned to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport Sunday afternoon after developing a problem shortly after takeoff. Airport spokesman David Magaña said KAL Flight 32 ran into an unspecified problem after it lifted off on a scheduled 14-hour flight to Seoul at noon. "My heart is still pounding," said WFAA anchor Shelly Slater, who was a passenger on the aircraft. "We start taking off, and literally within a minute, a minute-and-a-half of taking off, I see a giant flash - like fire - and you hear a loud 'pop.'" WATCH: Shelly Slater talks about her experience Slater said it was clear to everyone there was a major problem on board. "You can tell the captain's trying to figure out, 'What just happened, and what do I need to do to make this plane safe?'" she said. But instead of landing immediately, the Boeing 777-200 circled over Tarrant County for about an hour to jettison most of its fuel as a precaution. The FlightAware website traced the path of the big jet's holding pattern. "When you're a mom of two, the whole time I just had tears running down my face thinking about my boys," Slater said. "I hugged them tight this morning, and I told them that I loved them and I'd see them soon. I wanted to keep that promise." The twin-engine aircraft landed without incident at DFW about an hour after takeoff as emergency equipment was standing by along the runway. The jet was able to taxi back to Gate 14 at Terminal D, where passengers deplaned. "When you cover the news, you don't expect to be in the news," Slater said. "It certainly gives you sympathy for the people that you talk to and the people that you interview." Airport spokesman David Magaña said in a statement that fire crews found no hazards after the plane landed. According to the Korean Air website, the Seoul-bound flight was rescheduled for Monday because of "aircraft operational condition." http://www.wfaa.com/news/local/Korean-Air-Lines-jet-returns-to-DFW-after-problem-226669811.html Back to Top American Airlines Flight 289 emergency landing at O'Hare October 6, 2013 (CHICAGO) (WLS) -- An American Airlines Boeing 777-200 leaving Chicago for Shanghai enountered a flock of birds during takeoff, causing the captain to declare an emergency return to O'Hare Airport, an AA spokesperson said Sunday. The aircraft landed safely. Fifteen crew members and 237 passengers were on board. The plane returned to the gate and was taken out of service for maintenance. The passengers, who were on Flight 289, will depart for Shanghai on another airplane at about 2:30 p.m. Sunday, the spokesperson said. The aircraft left O'Hare at 10:50 a.m. and returned at 11:14 a.m. http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=9276879 Back to Top 9-year-old boy sneaks on Delta jet for Minneapolis-to-Las Vegas flight MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- A 9-year-old Minneapolis boy was able to get through security and onto a plane at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport without a ticket, an airport spokesman said Sunday. Security officials screened the boy at airport shortly after 10:30 a.m. Thursday, Metropolitan Airports Commission spokesman Patrick Hogan said. The boy then boarded a Delta flight that left for Las Vegas at 11:15 a.m. The flight crew became suspicious and contacted Las Vegas police, who met the crew upon landing and transferred the boy to child protection services, Hogan said. Video also shows the boy at the airport Wednesday, Hogan said. He grabbed a bag from the carousel and ordered lunch at a restaurant outside of the security checkpoints, Hogan said. He ate and then told the server he had to use the bathroom, left the bag and never returned to pay. The owner of the bag was identified, and the bag was returned to him, Hogan said. Delta and the Transportation Security Agency said in separate statements that they were investigating. The boy was expected to return to the Twin Cities, but Hogan didn't know Sunday if that had happened yet. http://blog.gulflive.com/mississippi-press-news/2013/10/9-year-old_boy_sneaks_on_delta Back to Top Fatal crash glitch hits 3 British Airways flights A NEW air safety crisis has been exposed after three British Airways flights were hit by the same glitch which led to a crash which claimed 228 lives. Two of the aircraft made emergency landings last year after their systems went haywire in the same way as an Air France Airbus four years ago. The 2009 flight went down in the Atlantic after suffering technical problems which still affect many types of Airbus aircraft. They centre on the pitot tubes which feed vital air speed data to the pilots and plane's computers. The probes are fitted with heaters to stop them icing up, but limited power means they can freeze and cause the computers to shut down the autopilot, forcing the crew to regain control of the aircraft, often in hazardous weather conditions. After the crash, replacement of the French pitot tubes with newer American ones was speeded up in larger Airbuses. But a dossier obtained by the Sunday Express reveals the same tubes used in the doomed jet disrupted three British Airways flights last year. In the first, on April 20, a BA Airbus 321 carrying 183 passengers from Stockholm to Heathrow flew into storm clouds as it approached London. Weather conditions sent the instruments haywire, forcing the pilot to divert to Stansted, where he touched down safely without the instruments telling him his air speed. British Airways, safety, crisis, flights, crash, BABA Airbus was on its way to Heathrow when poor weather affected instruments [GETTY] We train our pilots to the very highest standards Spokesman for BA The second incident happened on June 16, when the same aircraft, flying from Edinburgh to Heathrow with 183 passengers and crew, lost its autopilot while climbing through clouds. The crew took manual control and again made an emergency landing at Stansted. On August 20 a similar British Airways Airbus hit a -23C air pocket at 26,800ft, causing the instruments to malfunction. This time they were reset and the aircraft continued on its flight. The Air France Rio to Paris flight crashed with no survivors, including six Britons, because the co-pilots were not trained to fly the jet manually at high altitude after the autopilot shut down. Aviation expert Adrian Gjertsen said: "Ice and aeroplanes do not work very well. Aeroplanes are designed to pass through it but not remain in it." A spokesman for BA said: "We train our pilots to the very highest standards including how to respond to these type of events." http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/434652/Fatal-crash-glitch-hits-3-British-Airways-flights Back to Top Nigerian aviation agency grounds Associated Airline following accident that killed at least 13 ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) - Nigeria's Federal Aviation Agency says authorities have grounded all aircraft belonging to Lagos-based Associated Airline following a plane crash that killed at least 13 passengers. Spokesman Yakubu Dati said Monday the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority suspended all the company's operations on Friday, the day after the crash of a plane chartered for the short flight from Lagos to the Ondo state capital of Akure. The Associated Airline Embraer-120 nosedived to the ground minutes after taking off from the domestic terminal of Lagos' Murtala Muhammed Airport. It was carrying 13 passengers, seven crew members and the body of a former Ondo state governor. The casket was recovered. Commissioner Muktar Usman of the Accident Prevention and Investigation Bureau said Monday that officials have started a readout of the plane's flight recorders. Back to Top Pilatus Britten-Norman BN-2A-8 Islander fatal accident (Puerto Rico) Status: Preliminary Date: Sunday 6 October 2013 Type: Pilatus Britten-Norman BN-2A-8 Islander Operator: Air Flamenco Registration: N909GD C/n / msn: 239 First flight: 1971 Engines: 2 Lycoming O-540-E4C5 Crew: Fatalities: 1 / Occupants: 1 Passengers: Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 0 Total: Fatalities: 1 / Occupants: 1 Airplane damage: Written off Airplane fate: Written off (damaged beyond repair) Location: 6,5 km (4.1 mls) W off Cayo Luis Peña (Puerto Rico) Phase: En route (ENR) Nature: Cargo Departure airport: Ceiba-Jose Aponte de la Torre Airport (TJVR), Puerto Rico Destination airport: Culebra Airport (CPX/TJCP), Puerto Rico Narrative: A Britten-Norman BN-2A Islander airplane crashed at sea off Cayo Luis Peña, Puerto Rico, killing the pilot. The airplane was carrying Sunday newspapers and was heading to Culebra Airport at the time of the accident. www.aviation-safety.net Back to Top Lack of manpower raising air safety risk in India New Delhi: India may have modernised its air traffic management services but lack of adequate manpower is raising major air safety risk, according to an outfit representing AAI employees. Of the 3,250 sanctioned posts, about 840 posts in the Communication, Navigation and Surveillance (CNS) wing of the Airports Authority of India (AAI), state-run airport operator and navigational service provider, are lying vacant. AAI has installed whole lot of new CNS facilities -- 15 Instrument Landing System ILS, 13 radars, 38 ATS Automation systems, 14 ADS-B, 3 ASMGCS-- since 2009. However, the increase in number of flights to various airports have stretched the watch hours for the CNS staff deployed there. The CNS Officer's Guild, in a September 17 letter, appealed to the AAI Board to remove this crisis of manpower shortage in the organisation. "The CNS executives are overburdened and are under tremendous stress and fatigue. The scarce available manpower is being rotated, combined and/or at times facilities are left unmanned. "This is highly dangerous and against the interest of aviation safety. It is therefore, our earnest appeal to the Hon?ble Board Members of AAI to expedite the creation of additional manpower in CNS Discipline," said Subit Kobiraj, General Secretary the Guild. The Guild says there is a need for around 1,200 additional personnel. But, AAI Board has turned down the proposal for creation of 'Interim' additional manpower for CNS discipline, saying that already 840 posts were lying vacant, Kobiraj said. "There are around 3,250 sanctioned posts in the CNS, of which about 840 have not been filled, despite the fact that new CNS-ATM facilities have been installed at various places in the country. "The existing manpower had to maintain those facilities. Sometimes some of the facilities are left unattended or combined with other units, accruing air safety hazard," said Kobiraj, adding we have sought Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh's intervention. The Guild , in their letter to Singh, said the safety of air traffic services need not be emphasised further. "....Let this be made amply clear that compromise to man and maintain the operationally critical CNS equipment has already led to serious air safety hazards. The sustenance of state-of-the-art CNS infrastructure will crumble, leave aside the envisaged dreams of world class air traffic services," the letter said. The Guild alleged that many of the CNS and Air Traffic Management (ATM) facilities have been commissioned without considering appropriate CNS manpower requirement. The ill effects of such disregard towards CNS manpower requirement may not be visible instantly but will surely result in an aviation disaster, it said. In order to sustain Air Navigation Services in desired manner and to mitigate accruing air safety hazards, additional CNS manpower is most urgently required at all levels be it at Senior Management level, Supervisory level or at induction level, Kobiraj said in his letter. The US' Federal Aviation Authority, in its recent audit, had also raised concerns over the various posts lying vacant in key aviation safety areas, including that in the office of the country's civil aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation. http://zeenews.india.com/news/nation/lack-of-manpower-raising-air-safety-risk-in-india_881414.html Back to Top Furloughing FAA Inspectors And NTSB Investigators May Violate International Aviation Treaty By: John Goglia FAA's furlough of 3,000 aviation safety inspectors and NTSB's furlough of its accident investigators may put the United States in default of its treaty obligations under the Chicago Convention and the obligations of member states of the International Civil Aviation Organization. The Chicago Convention is the main aviation treaty setting the standards for air safety among the 192 contracting states of ICAO, an agency of the United Nations. Violating its treaty obligations could have significant repercussions for US airlines if the inspectors and investigators are not immediately put back to work. ICAO requires that the US have a system for insuring that all aircraft operating over its territory regardless of country of registry, and all US-registered aircraft wherever they operate, comply with applicable safety regulations. The FAA's system requires adequate numbers of aviation safety inspectors. According to Loretta Alkalay, the FAA's former top lawyer in NY, "it's hard to imagine that the FAA can meet its ICAO obligations without 3000 inspectors. After all, it's impossible to perform required surveillance and oversight functions without inspectors." In addition to safety oversight, the US is required by ICAO to insure that persons who violate air safety regulations are prosecuted. It is these furloughed inspectors whose job it is to investigate and prepare violations of the federal aviation regulations for prosecution by the FAA's lawyers (who are also largely furloughed by the government shutdown). The US is also required by ICAO to conduct accident and incident investigations. Furloughing NTSB accident investigators could run afoul of this requirement. Failure to comply with ICAO standards could have repercussions for US airlines. After all, the US has aggressively audited the Civil Aviation Authorities of ICAO member states. If a country's CAA does not meet minimum standards, airline operations from that country to the US are limited and no new entrants are allowed. Among the areas looked at by the FAA in its audits of foreign countries is whether the CAAs have adequate infrastructure to insure proper compliance with safety requirements - that infrastructure includes adequate and properly qualified personnel. Calls to the FAA for comment were not returned. http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngoglia/2013/10/02/furloughing-faa-inspectors-and-ntsb-investigators-may- violate-international-aviation-treaty/ Back to Top A Tired Pilot Is a Tired Pilot, Regardless of the Plane The FAA's fatigue rules should be the same for cargo jets as for passenger airlines. Otherwise, everyone is at risk. By CHESLEY 'SULLY' SULLENBERGER AND JIM HALL News broke recently that two pilots reported falling asleep while operating a long-haul Airbus 330 flight to the U.K. full of passengers. For an unknown length of time, autopilot kept the aircraft flying. Before the Aug. 13 flight, the pilots had slept only five hours over the previous two nights. The event brings yet another reminder of the dangers posed by fatigued pilots. The Federal Aviation Administration will soon address the issue, implementing long-overdue new fatigue standards for pilots. But those requirements won't apply to cargo aircraft pilots, not even when they're flying a Boeing 747 halfway around the world. By excluding cargo pilots from its new rules, the FAA is failing to adhere to its mission of making safety the first priority in aviation. If the FAA believes even one life lost in an accident is too many, shouldn't that principle also apply to cargo pilots? The cockpit of a Boeing 747-8 airliner is seen during the Paris Air Show in Paris, France, on Tuesday, June 21, 2011. The new regulations revise hours-of-service rules that better reflect today's knowledge of human fatigue. The rules set a 10-hour minimum rest period before flight duty, a two-hour increase from the previous standards. This gives pilots a chance to get eight hours of sleep before a duty period instead of the five or six hours they so often get now. A pilot will also only be allowed so much flight duty time in a 28-day period. Pilots and the National Transportation Safety Board have sought these changes for decades, but it took the apparently fatigue- induced regional airliner crash near Buffalo, N.Y., in 2009 to finally prompt Congress to require changes. Cargo pilots need stringent regulation, as their jobs can be even more tiring than flying a passenger plane. A cargo pilot faces extreme demands-longer flights, more time zones crossed, and work scheduled overnight when they are least alert and perform worst. Fatigue creeps up on pilots, slowly diminishing crucial mental capacity for decision-making. Reaction times slow down and situational awareness decreases as pilots tire. A 2013 survey by the British Airline Pilots Association showed that more than half of British pilots admitted to nodding off during flight, and that one in three said they awoke to find the other pilot asleep. The effects of fatigue resemble those of alcohol impairment, but they are much less measurable. The FAA can, however, still impose standards to prevent pilots from reaching exhaustion. On Aug. 14, a UPS cargo airliner crashed on approach to Birmingham, Ala. The two pilots lost their lives. Although still under NTSB investigation, this flight fits the profile of countless cargo operations, including flying overnight. The aircraft crashed into an open field, but it easily could have crashed into a nearby neighborhood, or into any number of communities near airports all over the country-just as the plane that crashed in Buffalo did. Yet the FAA sees no need to impose fatigue prevention rules on cargo pilots. The agency has made the ridiculous claim that such a rule would prevent only one cargo airliner crash in 10 years and save a mere $31 million in damages. Does anyone believe that if a cargo 747 or Airbus crashed near a major airport the financial impact would be so low? UPS, for one, doesn't. The major cargo carrier holds insurance of $1.5 billion for a single aircraft accident. The FAA's analysis understates or ignores factors such as passengers aboard cargo aircraft, which can number as high as 10; the value of cargo on the aircraft; or deaths, injuries and damage on the ground. In 1992, a 747 cargo jet crashed into an apartment building shortly after takeoff from Amsterdam, killing the four people aboard the plane and 43 on the ground. Whether there are packages or people behind the cockpit door, pilot fatigue exists just the same. And it threatens the lives of pilots and bystanders on the ground alike. Similar shortsightedness led the FAA in the 1990s to exempt cargo operations from rules requiring collision avoidance systems (called TCAS) on planes. Since cargo and passenger airliners share the same airspace and use the same runways, the purported safety benefits didn't exist. The terrible midair collision over India in 1996, which killed 349 people, woke the FAA up to the danger. Following that tragedy and a near miss between a cargo airliner and Air Force One in 1997, the FAA required cargo airliners to be equipped with the same anticollision software. Everyone-including, eventually, the FAA-agreed in the 1990s that regional passengers deserve the same level of safety as those on major airliners, and that all aircraft should have collision warning systems. Pilot fatigue standards merit the same equitable application. Let's not wait for another disaster to catch the FAA's rule-making error. Mr. Sullenberger, CBS News's aviation and safety expert and a retired airline pilot, is CEO of Safety Reliability Methods Inc. Mr. Hall, former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, is the managing partner of Hall & Associates LLC, a safety consulting firm. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303722604579115153395583242.html?mod=rss_opinion_main Back to Top Subject: NOTICE - Next GFSC Meeting 06 November 2013 To: "GFSC Membership" Dear GFSC Members, The GFSC Executive Committee is please to announce the details of the next Gulf Flight Safety Council meeting. The details are as follows: Date: Wednesday 06 November 2013 Venue: Gulf Centre for Aviation Studies, Al Bateen Airport, Abu Dhabi Time: 0830 - 1600 We would like to once again thank GCAS for their generous support in sponsoring the venue for this meeting. Thanks and kind regards, Mark Captain Mark Trotter Secretary - Gulf Flight Safety Council membership@gfsc.aero www.gfsc.aero Mobile: +971 50 120 9503 Back to Top Back to Top Back to Top Airbus lands landmark $9 billion order with JAL European manufacturer breaks into territory long held by Boeing Airbus scored a landmark order for its jetliners with Japan Airlines Co. worth more than $9 billion on Monday, breaking into territory long-held exclusively by Boeing Co. For the first time ever, JAL placed an order with Airbus, for 31 long-haul A350 jetliners carrying a catalog price of 950 billion yen ($9.75 billion) with an option to buy 25 more, the two companies said. Deliveries will start in 2019 and the new planes will be rolled out over six years. J.P. Morgan kicks off earnings season - and thank goodness for that, because there may be a very empty economic calendar to trade off. And Alcoa, Yum Brands, Wells Fargo are set to report next week. Laura Mandaro has the Next 24. The win for Airbus is the clearest example of the longer-term effect on Boeing's relationship with stalwart customers like JAL after three and a half years of delays to its flagship 787 Dreamliner program, for which it was the second customer. The tension came to a head during the grounding of the jet earlier this year, with JAL executives openly questioning the long-term exclusivity that had marked the airline's relationship with the plane maker. The unit of European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co. has tried to aggressively to court both Japan Airlines Co. and ANA Holdings Inc. JP:9202 -3.23% ALNPF +5.77% for decades, only succeeding in placing a handful of short-haul A320 jets with the latter. JAL President Yoshiharu Ueki said the Dreamliner problems played no role in his company's decision to go with Airbus. The JAL chief said the A350 met its selection criteria for a safe, high-quality aircraft with the financial support of the manufacturer and a rollout timetable that matched its replacement cycle. The loss for Boeing BA +1.70% comes as the American manufacturer struggles to keep up globally with its European rival. As the year enters its final quarter, Airbus holds a lead over Boeing in net orders world-wide. The European plane maker has garnered 1,062 net orders to Boeing's 890 through the end of September. Boeing regained the top spot from Airbus in 2012, holding both more orders and deliveries for the first time in more than a decade. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/japan-airlines-airbus-to-announce-landmark-order-2013-10-06 Back to Top The Lear Jet Turns 50 - But It Almost Didn't Make It Off the Ground The Lear Jet first flew in 1963 and within a few years would become synonymous with private jets. Here an early model 23 is the first private jet at the Van Nuys airport. Today the airport north of Hollywood is home to more than 250 private jets. Fifty years ago today, Bill Lear stood on a runway and watched his life savings lift off from an airport in Wichita, Kansas. He was 61, and had amassed a fortune in the consumer electronics age. But the jet age was upon us, and the serial entrepreneur saw a chance to build a business around his passion, flying. Lear Jet would become synonymous with private jets and set the standard for decades, due in equal measure to Lear's insistence on high performance and a savvy marketing strategy that relied on social media long before anyone knew what that meant. But the story almost ended just a few months after that momentous first flight when the original prototype came down almost as quickly as it went up, then erupted in flames just beyond the runway. Lear could only watch in dismay as his dream literally went up in smoke. "Number one crashed," recalls Clay Lacy, a longtime friend and business associate with Lear, who died in 1978. "It was the best thing that ever happened to Bill Lear." When the Lear Jet first flew on October 7, 1963, there was nothing on the civilian market that could come close to its performance. Suddenly anybody could fly as fast as the airlines. The Lear Jet wasn't the first civilian jet for sale, but the jets that came before were bigger, much more expensive and never came close to offering the same convenience as the tiny jets from Wichita. Today the original Lear Jet 23s and 24s are fading away because their thirsty and noisy engines are costly to operate, and not neighbor friendly at many airports. But they can still outperform the majority of private jets currently being produced. Lacy believes the Lear Jet set the bar high for every jet that came after it. And still today airplane manufacturers are trying to keep up with the little jet that almost ended its life burning in a Kansas field. Suddenly anybody could fly as fast as the airlines. The company, which today is part of Bombardier, started in 1960 when Lear saw an opportunity to create an airplane capable of keeping up with the jet airliners growing increasingly popular in the late 1950s. At the time, many of the country's biggest businesses flew aircraft like the Douglas DC-3 or Beech Model 18. These twin engine propeller airplanes were roomy but slow, plodding along at less than 200 mph. Lear knew that companies making business aircraft who couldn't keep up with the new Boeing 707 and Douglas DC-8, which fly at 550 mph, would fall behind, literally and figuratively. "If you guys don't do it, I'm going to do it," Lear told aerospace leaders in Wichita, according to Lacy. Wichita was the home of Cessna, Beechcraft and many other aviation heavyweights. Everyone chuckled, but Lear got the last laugh. Lear had a long history of innovation. Beyond his work on the first car radio in the late 1920s - he and Paul Galvin created the name "Motorola" for the new product - Lear also developed early autopilot systems and radio direction finders in the 1930s. While still hard at work with his airplane business, he invented the 8-track cassette player in 1964, originally called the Lear Jet Stereo 8. Eager to get started with his private jet idea, Lear bought an airplane factory in Switzerland after the country abandon plans to build a small fighter jet. After a rough start in Europe, Lear had everything packed up and moved to Wichita early in 1963. Lacy asked him at the time why on earth he'd set up shop in his competitors' back yard. His answer is familiar to anyone in Silicon Valley: "Can you think of any place where I can steal more engineers?" Lear wanted to build a jet that could cruise at Mach 0.8 (~530 miles per hour) and fly at 41,000 feet. This would make it nearly as fast as the new jetliners, and fly even higher. He wanted the airplane to be relatively simple to fly, making it possible for civilian pilots with little or no jet experience to transition into the new hot rod airplane with a reasonable amount of training. Lacy says every time a decision had to be made, Lear opted for simplicity, while keeping the performance. In the end he says Lear's engineers may have done the detailed design, but the man at the helm shaped it into the reliable, high performance airplane it would become. Everything was going well, and Lear saw his plane make its first flight on Oct. 7, 1963. Then came that fateful day in 1964, when the prototype took off on a flight to test single engine performance. It was an anxious time for Lear, because by that time he was running perilously low on money. He worried that a prolonged certification program would doom the company. The first Lear Jet ever built crashed. But then, the miracle. The first Lear Jet ever built crashed. "They took off with the spoilers up, and an engine shut down," Lacy says. The spoilers are meant to slow the airplane when it's time to descend, and it is nearly impossible to take off if they are left up. The guy in the captain's seat was a Federal Aviation Administration pilot. He and the Lear pilot sitting next to him had neglected to put the spoilers down for takeoff. The airplane wallowed into the air, and the pilots realized something was wrong. They tried, and failed, to get the second engine started. Neither of them noticed the spoilers. The airplane didn't get much more than 10 or 20 feet into the air and eventually settled back down into the field, where a wing tank ruptured and it caught fire. Nobody was hurt in the accident. At first it seemed like a disaster, but soon Lear was able to turn the accident into exactly the break the company needed. "He was getting low on money," Lacy says. "And he had it insured for $500,000." With the FAA at the controls, there was no suspicion of insurance fraud. Even better, Lear was able to make some calls to well-placed friends in Washington. "The FAA wrecked my airplane," he told them. The FAA soon assigned enough people to speed along the certification program, and Lear was handed a type certificate for his new jet just two months after the accident (and only nine months after the plane's first flight). The first small business jet in history was finally ready for sale. The speed and budget with which Lear went from idea to certification is remarkable. Today, developing a new jet can cost more than $1 billion and take more than a decade (see: Eclipse jet). The nine-month certification of the Lear Jet 23 cost just $14 million. Lacy admits that, "things were different, the value of money, but not that much different." Lacy and Lear would become close friends early on. Lacy was a United Airlines pilot who sold airplanes on the side. He convinced his boss at the airplane dealership, Allen Paulson - who would one day own business jet maker Gulfstream - that they should sign on as a distributor. Paulson considered the idea for a while, and eventually told Lacy he wanted to make a quick trip to Wichita to see the Lear Jet. "Why don't you fly me back there in your P-51, and I'll have a look at it," Allen said to Lacy. Once in Wichita, the ride in the Lear Jet sealed the deal. "He was blown away," says Lacy. There wasn't a private airplane on the planet that could keep up with the Lear Jet 23, which even outperformed most commercial and military aircraft. "It will out climb an F-86," Lacy says, referring to the North American Aviation fighter jet that ruled the skies during the Korean War. Lacy flew the F-86 in the California Air National Guard and says the Lear Jet 23 could beat it to 40,000 feet. "The Lear takes 14 minutes, and that's just normal climb," he says. "If you really try, it will get there in seven." Anyone who wanted to travel fast and travel in style bought one. Lacy and Allen's west coast Lear Jet dealership outsold every other dealer in the country. The list price was $495,000. Frank Sinatra bought one. Danny Kaye was another customer, and soon became a partner in the Lear Jet dealership. Big businesses like Boise Cascade and the then ubiquitous Rexall Drugs bought Lear Jets as well. Anyone who wanted to travel fast and travel in style bought one. Lear knew Lacy, based at the Van Nuys airport just north of Los Angeles, would be the secret to his marketing strategy. Lacy recalls sitting at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel with Bill Lear when he pulled out the Beverly Hills phone book. "Bill asked, 'How much does it cost to fly the Lear Jet for an hour?'" With gas at 18 cents a gallon and the cost of maintenance and upkeep, they figured $135 an hour. Lear handed Lacy the phone book. "Call anybody you think will talk about the Lear, take them for a flight," he said. "I'll pay you $185 an hour to cover it." "We flew a lot of people," Lacy says. "One of the reasons for flying people in Hollywood, whether they were going to buy it or not, was to get them talking about it. Get that household name." The plan worked. Beyond making countless celebrity flights, the Lear Jet was featured on TV programs like The Dating Game, where winners would be whisked off to Las Vegas or San Francisco. Within a few years, the Lear Jet name had become part of popular culture. By the late 1960s, Lear had sold his company to the Gates Rubber Company and with it went the dealerships (and the name was contracted to Learjet). Clay Lacy went on to start the first jet charter business at the Van Nuys airport with a single Lear Jet in 1968. Today he manages a fleet of 55 jets, including the first Lear Jet he ever owned, serial number 12. And Van Nuys is now home to more than 250 private jets. Learjet changed hands a few times after Lear sold the company, and today the company's newest models continue to roll off the Bombardier assembly line. The Canadian company acquired Learjet in 1990 and currently offers four different models. The new versions still carry the same impressive performance as the original, with cruise speeds over 500 miles per hour. The new Learjets continue to be popular aircraft, though jets from Cessna and Gulfstream fly faster and further. At 82, Clay Lacy still flies regularly. He has more than 53,000 hours flying experience, and many of those are in the older (and newer) Lear Jets, "it handles so damn good, like a little fighter plane." Lacy recently flew one of his Lear 24s at the Reno Air Races. He had a smoke system installed and flies a complete aerobatic routine in the business jet. He's also used Lears extensively for filming movies, including all of the air-to-air scenes in Top Gun, as well as just about every commercial for the airlines. "It's a good thing he shot for high performance, for the moon so-to-speak," Lacy says of Lear's original plan. "Or the whole industry might be behind a little." http://www.wired.com/autopia/2013/10/lear-jet-50th/ Back to Top Etihad to hire 1,000 pilots At present, the airline has over 2,300 pilots and a cabin crew with more than 4,000 men and women. Exclusive premiere of "Emirati High Flyers"at Etihad Airways Training Academy Auditorium. "We have 520 cadets now out of which 450 are Emiratis," said Captain Saleh Awadh Alfarjalla Al Ameri, senior vice-president of aviation security and the pilot cadet programme at Etihad Airways, while speaking at a ceremony in which a documentary "Emirati High Flyers" was released. The 30-minute documentary to be telecast on national television has filmed the dreams and aspirations of three young Emiratis including adventures girls. All the three youngsters achieved what they wanted to do in life, by flying Etihad Airways' jets. Captain Al Ameri said the fast-expanding airline was planning to have 1,000 Emirati pilots, due to its on-going route expansion programme, in the coming five to six years. The airline would have 45 per cent Emirati pilots in 2020, Al Ameri said. At present, the airline has over 2,300 pilots and a cabin crew with more than 4,000 men and women. Abu Dhabi University, he said will commence a four-year Bachelors' in Aviation programme from next year. Earlier, an inspirational documentary on the three pilots was shown to the audience, which included top executives, cadets and trainees at the Etihad Airways Academy. The documentary showed how two young Emiratis Hassan Al Bloushi, first officer; Fasial Al Naqbi, first officer; and Ayesha Al Mansoori turned their childhood passion to fly into reality by taking advantage of the opportunities provided by Etihad Airways' Pilot Cadet programme. Ray Gammell, Etihad Airways chief people and performance officer speaking on the occasion said: "We are the fastest growing airline in commercial aviation history and our progress from a start-up airline to world's leading airline has been nothing short of phenomenal." Giving details on the cadet Pilot Programme, he said "there are 387 UAE nationals taking part in the programme." Since it started in June 2007, 209 Emirati men and women have successfully graduated to start a flying career, he said. "Of these people, we now have 141 first officers and 76 second officers in the skies." http://www.khaleejtimes.com/kt-article-display- 1.asp?xfile=data/uaebusiness/2013/October/uaebusiness_October106.xml§ion=uaebusiness Back to Top AVIATION MAINTENANCE & ENGINEERING EXCHANGE Published weekly on Wednesday. Curt Lewis