Flight Safety Information October 18, 2013 - No. 216 In This Issue Search After Laos Crash Lacks Manpower, Equipment Laos crash turns spotlight on safety amid Asia's aviation boom Spirit Jet Uncontained Engine Failure: How Serious Is This? Someone shoots at TV station's helicopter in New Mexico Researchers evaluate electronic flight bags for Air National Guard pilots CFM says jet engine testing going to plan Flight crews train to survive all kinds of aircraft emergencies at Long Beach facilities Think ARGUS PROS PETA to Air Canada: Set New Standard for Animal Safety POSITION AVAILABLE:...Air Safety Investigator GRADUATE RESEARCH SURVEY Search After Laos Crash Lacks Manpower, Equipment (AP) Exasperated officials in Laos said Friday they lack the equipment and manpower to locate the fuselage and more than 20 bodies still unaccounted for two days after a plane crashed and disappeared into the Mekong River. International experts were scheduled to arrive later in the day from France, Singapore and Thailand to help with forensics and locating the flight data recorder, which could help explain why the virtually new Lao Airlines ATR-72 turboprop crashed. Lao Airlines flight QV301 crashed Wednesday as it prepared to land in stormy weather at Pakse Airport in southern Laos. All 49 people on board, more than half of whom were foreigners, are presumed dead. As of Friday afternoon 27 bodies were found, said Yakao Lopangkao, director-general of Lao's Department of Civil Aviation. He said rescuers still had not pinpointed the location of the plane's fuselage in the vast, muddy waterway. Lao Transport Minister Sommad Pholsena expressed open frustration as he awaited the arrival of more help at the crash site. "It's very difficult to find (bodies) under water," the transport minister told reporters. "If we could find (the plane), we would have found it already." Lao Airlines has said the plane ran into extremely bad weather as it prepared to land at Pakse Airport. No further details on the investigation or circumstances of the crash have been released. The crash occurred about 7 kilometers (4 miles) from the airport. Witnesses interviewed on LTV, Lao national television, described a heavy storm and dark skies when the accident happened around 4 p.m. One man said he heard a thundering noise overhead and looked up to see a plane shaking violently as it flew through the tops of trees. "It looked like it was bouncing in the sky," he said. "Then the plane came lower and lower. Then there was an explosion and, 'Boom!'" he said, adding that he didn't see the crash but saw flames from a distance. "There was fire shooting high up." The plane is believed to have then skidded from land into the water and sunk. According to the airline, 44 passengers and five crew were on the flight. The passengers included 16 Lao nationals, seven French, six Australians, five Thais, three Koreans, three Vietnamese and one person each from China, Malaysia, Taiwan and the United States. A person who had been listed as a Canadian was instead added to the list of Vietnamese. Thailand is deeply involved in the search, providing skilled manpower that its poorer neighbor lacks. Thai Transport Minister Chadchart Sittipunt said the Thai Navy initially sent scuba divers but their work was complicated by strong currents, deep water of up to 10 meters (32 feet) and poor visibility in the muddy river. He said Navy trawlers were being sent Friday to sweep the river with nets to try to locate the fuselage, along with a Thai forensics team to help identify bodies. "We think the plane broke into two pieces. The tail of the plane contains the black box," Chadchart said in a telephone interview after meeting with his Lao counterpart in Pakse. "It is believed that many bodies of the passengers are still stuck in the plane, or else they would have surfaced on the river." The Thai Air Force said it had sent a C-130 military transport plane with specialists and equipment including a large scanner to locate metal objects. He said a team of Singaporean experts was flying in Friday with equipment to help locate the so-called "black box," or flight data recorder that stores technical data from the flight and records pilot conversations. France's accident investigation agency said in a statement that it was sending four investigators to help Laos with the probe into the cause of the crash. The statement said the team would work with technical advisers from ATR, the French-Italian manufacturer of the aircraft, which has said it delivered the plane to Lao Airlines in March. http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/bodies-recovered-mekong-laos-plane-crash-20597531 Back to Top Laos crash turns spotlight on safety amid Asia's aviation boom Workers retrieve a section of a Lion Air Boeing 737 which crashed in Bali, April 17, 2013. Dozens were injured but there were no fatalities. (CNN) -- As air crash investigators pick over the wreckage of flight QV301 -- the Lao Airlines plane that crashed in bad weather on Tuesday with 50 people on board -- concerns over air safety are growing as the number of flights in South East Asia increases. A steep rise in air traffic in countries like Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia -- fueled by a boom in tourism -- means domestic air regulators are having to contend with creaking infrastructure and a lack of experience in maintaining internationally recognized standards. Laos has a patchy record on air safety, logging 30 fatal air accidents since the 1950s according to the Aviation Safety Network, though data shows things have started to improve in the past decade. The story in other emerging markets in South East Asia tells a similar story. Both the U.S. State Department and Britain's Foreign and Commonwealth Office have issued travel warnings directly related to the aviation industry in Myanmar -- also known as Burma -- following an incident in 2012, when an Air Bagan plane carrying more than 60 passengers crashed on Christmas Day. Asiana 214's fateful last seconds A closer look at plane's evacuation The State Department has warned travelers to keep in mind Myanmar's sometimes shadowy record regarding its civil aviation report card. "The safety records of Burma's domestic airlines are not open to the public, nor is public information available concerning the Burma government's oversight of domestic airlines," it says on its website. But Myanmar aims to change that by setting its sights on the release of a national civil aviation policy to prepare for the traffic boom that threatens to overwhelm its inadequate air transport infrastructure. Government forecasts predict annual visitors to rise to six million in 2017 from its current 1.5 million annually, and its fast growing airline industry has received applications from four airlines owned by Burmese nationals, adding to the seven domestic carriers currently. Shukor Yusof, an aviation analyst with ratings agency Standard and Poor's, said standards differed dramatically across the South East Asian region. "It varies from country to country and airline to airline. In first world countries, Singapore Hong Kong and Malaysia, there are few concerns about the safety of aviation because they've had a long track record," Yusof told CNN. "But then you have developing markets in Indonesia and Indochina -- and Myanmar is another country which is up and coming -- where it's really up to the operators to keep abreast with different maintenance and training requirements. "Increasingly with the growth of low-cost airlines in the region, there will be issues surrounding safety especially in countries that are well known for safety." The growth of discount carriers in Indonesia is phenomenal -- they are actually driving the market in the whole region Shukor Yusof He said infrastructure in Myanmar would be under strain if it didn't keep pace with the growth of the market. Overcrowding is already an issue in Myanmar where of the 600,000 people who visited Myanmar by air last year, 500,000 arrived in Yangon, its former capital. according to industry reports. In August this year, Myanmar's Department of Civil Aviation announced plans to improve and expand Yangon International Airport and Mandalay International Airport, as well to develop the new Hanthawaddy International Airport 50 miles (80 km) north of Yangon. "The equipment and facilities in Myanmar are quite old and with the rise of tourism they really need to get up to speed and get foreign experts to come in and help develop that market as quickly as they can," Yusof said. "We are not seeing that happen as swiftly as we'd like to." He said Indonesia was the real emerging market in the South East Asian aviation industry, but it also needed to catch up with respect to infrastructure requirements. "The growth of discount carriers in Indonesia is phenomenal -- they are actually driving the market in the whole region but investment in infrastructure and airports and technology is not keeping pace with the growth of aviation economics in that country. "The story is the same all over Indochina excluding Thailand, of course. In places like Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar, they need to do more than simply open the doors to tourism. "Safety is fundamental if you want a functioning aviation industry." Back to Top Spirit Jet Uncontained Engine Failure: How Serious Is This? By: John Goglia Report that a Spirit Airbus A319 jet made an emergency landing shortly after take-off from Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport because of an uncontained engine failure was apparently serious enough to get the NTSB to call in investigators off of their government shutdown furlough yesterday. While engine shutdowns in flight happen often, an uncontained engine failure is a much rarer event and is a cause for concern. Jet engines are designed to withstand extremely high temperatures but because the temperatures push the limits of metal technology, these high temperatures sometimes cause the metal to fail. Usually, pilots will get a warning that the engine temperature is higher than normal and will shut down the engine before there's a catastrophic failure. An emergency landing is mandatory even without a catastrophic failure because most jet aircraft flying today have only two engines. In this case, with a reported uncontained engine failure, the incident is potentially much more serious. An uncontained engine failure means that pieces from inside the engine were ejected with sufficient force to penetrate the outer housing of the engine. This will be of particular concern to engineers and government officials because that outer housing is designed and manufactured to prevent this type of material from being ejected from the engine. Pieces that leave the engine with enough force to penetrate the outer housing are like shrapnel and can do extensive damage if they hit the aircraft. Uncontained engine failures have led to catastrophic accidents such as the DC-10 crash in Sioux City Iowa in 1989. Other accidents have also been caused by uncontained engine failures. In the Sioux City accident, shrapnel from the failing engine caused hydraulic lines that control the aircraft to be severed. With the government shutdown finally over, I hope that both the FAA and NTSB can get back to focusing on this and other significant safety issues. http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngoglia/2013/10/17/spirit-jet-uncontained-engine-failure-how-serious-is- this/ Back to Top Someone shoots at TV station's helicopter in New Mexico ALBUQUERQUE (AP) - Officials at an Albuquerque television station say someone fired shots at its parked helicopter, causing more than $100,000 in damages to the aircraft. KOAT officials say Albuquerque police are searching for the driver and passenger of a car spotted at the scene of the shooting last Thursday night. They say shots were fired into Sky 7 as it was parked at KOAT. The station aired a story on the incident Wednesday and showed a surveillance photo of the gold car being sought in the case and the yellow-and-red helicopter that was damaged. http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/article_a0fffb4a-8836-5d47-ab7e-3c91cf11ef59.html Back to Top Researchers evaluate electronic flight bags for Air National Guard pilots A pilot tests an electronic flight bag in this flight simulator. Researchers are evaluating the use of tablet computers to replace large volumes of paper manuals and charts now carried by pilots. Image: GTRI When pilots encounter an in-flight emergency they consult with manuals, emergency procedures and other reference materials contained in their flight bags for information on how to respond. In the future, these cumbersome flight bags could be replaced by "electronic flight bags" consisting of a lightweight tablet computer loaded with electronic versions of documents that today are printed on paper. A tablet computer could easily store an entire library of aeronautical publications and charts and also include the most up-to- date versions. Researchers at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) are currently assessing the usability of electronic flight bags by Air National Guard pilots. Electronic flight bags could improve safety, operational effectiveness and efficiency for crew members, plus save paper and printing costs. The Federal Aviation Administration has already approved in-flight use of Apple iPads as electronic flight bags by commercial pilots. "The Air National Guard asked us to conduct an operational utility evaluation of various tablet computers to determine whether they were feasible as electronic flight bags and whether standardized hardware and software platforms could be selected for use by all of their squadrons," said Byron Coker, a GTRI principal research engineer who is leading the project. This work is supported by the Air National Guard Air Force Reserve Command Test Center in Tucson, Ariz. Coker's collaborators on this project include research engineer Thomas Glimmerveen and student Joshua Fordham, who are based in GTRI's Warner Robins, Ga. Field Office, and research engineer Thomas Norris, who is based in GTRI's Tucson, Ariz. Field Office. "Air Combat Command requested that we execute an operational test of the electronic flight bag due to some critical paper flight products that will no longer be printed in 2015," said Lt. Col. Rogelio Maldonado of the Air National Guard Air Force Reserve Command Test Center. "The electronic flight bag has shown great promise and is likely to revolutionize cockpit management by consolidating flight products and providing the means for quickly navigating all resources." With GTRI's assistance, pilots of A-10 and F-16 aircraft have executed flight simulator missions to test and evaluate two commercially-available tablets loaded with a software app developed by GTRI researchers called "QuickTOs" and commercially available flight planning apps. The flight simulator missions include emergencies, such as a cockpit fire or engine failure, which require the pilot to refer to the "QuickTOs" app that that enables quick access to technical orders. "Technical orders can contain several hundred pages of safety procedures, technical information and instructions pertaining to the aircraft that need to be flipped through quickly in an emergency to find the relevant information and checklists," explained Coker. "We electronically formatted the publications for our app and added links so that the documents could be easily and quickly organized, navigated and read on a tablet." The flight simulator missions also include executing landing approaches in simulated weather conditions that require the pilot to use instrument approach procedure charts. These charts are frequently updated due to the constantly changing environment around airports and must be reprinted and distributed to pilots each time a new version becomes available. Using electronic approach charts could greatly reduce paper and printing costs and increase the ease and speed of obtaining up-to-date charts. To date, more than a half-dozen multi-hour flight simulator missions have been conducted, each with several emergency procedures performed. Before the flight simulator tests began, the GTRI researchers conducted a market survey of tablets that could be used as electronic flight bags. They evaluated 24 touchscreen devices commercially available based on the following criteria: battery life, weight, ruggedness, night-vision goggle compatibility, glove compatibility, performance, physical size, screen size and software compatibility. They evaluated devices that operated on Android, Apple iOS and Hewlett-Packard operating systems. Air National Guard pilots then evaluated the tablets that scored highest against the criteria and judged each device's ease-of-use and functionality as an electronic flight bag. The pilots judged whether each device functioned better, the same or less well than the standard paper publications and whether each device would support the basic requirements for flight and possibly even provide information not previously available. As a result of the evaluations, two tablet computers were selected for flight simulator testing. Future work on this project will include additional flight simulations, followed by electromagnetic interference tests and real flight testing of the devices. "Once we get the necessary approvals to begin flight tests, we will conduct them for about a year to gather enough data so that we can provide our recommendation for how the Air National Guard should move forward with fielding electronic flight bags," said Coker. Based on the initial simulator missions, Coker believes the electronic flight bag could be integrated as part of the pilot's kneeboard-a clipboard strapped to the pilot's knee that keeps flight-pertinent information, such as charts, maps and approach plates, close at hand during flight. Source: Georgia Institute of Technology http://www.rdmag.com/news/2013/10/researchers-evaluate-electronic-flight-bags-air-national-guard-pilots Back to Top CFM says jet engine testing going to plan PARIS (Reuters) - CFM International, the world's largest maker of jet engines by number of units sold, said on Wednesday that testing of a new powerplant for the next generation of narrowbody passenger jets was going to plan. CFM, a joint venture between General Electric (GE.N) and France's Safran (SAF.PA), is developing the LEAP-X engine for the Boeing 737 MAX and Airbus A320neo, as well as a Chinese competitor now under development, the Comac C919. "We are on track and on schedule for all three programs and have had no showstoppers that we can see," Chaker Chahrour, executive vice president of the Cincinnati-based engine maker, told reporters in a conference call. CFM is the sole engine supplier for the Boeing 737, but competes with a consortium led by United Technologies' (UTX.N) Pratt & Whitney for deals to power the Airbus A320 range. The competition for engine sales echoes bitter rivalries between the world's two largest planemakers. For the next generation of A320 jets due to enter service from the middle of this decade, the LEAP-X engine will compete with Pratt & Whitney's 1100G but will remain the sole available engine choice for the Boeing 737 MAX. The arrival of new engines offering significant fuel savings has triggered a record wave of orders for the medium-haul aircraft as airlines try to contain one of their chief costs. CFM chief executive Jean-Paul Ebanga said CFM had sold 5,000 of its LEAP-X engines on top of a similar backlog of the model installed on existing Airbus and Boeing jets, the CFM56. "With the sales (of aircraft) in the pipeline we will see much more significant orders down the road," he added. CFM and Pratt & Whitney both claim the edge in offering fuel savings on the 150-seat Airbus A320neo, the European planemaker's most popular model. CFM executives said their engine would burn at least 1 percent less fuel compared with Pratt & Whitney's engine on the A320neo and at least 2 percent less on the larger A321neo. Over time, that gap could widen to 2 and 3 percent respectively, they added. Pratt & Whitney was not immediately available for comment. Back to Top Flight crews train to survive all kinds of aircraft emergencies at Long Beach facilities Aircare West Coast Training Center co-manager and instructor Frank Hayes assists students train in the water at the LBSU pool. Aircare Solutions Group is comprised of business aviation products and services that combined, provide crew member emergency procedures training, tele-medical assistance, and crew staffing to flight departments worldwide. Aircare West Coast Training Center co-manager and instructor Frank Hayes assists student Adam McCain as he is dunked in simulating an underwater plane crash, in a during training at the LBSU pool. Long Beach >> The shouts came frantically and repeatedly. "Leg, body, leg!" Then more commands. Stern and unyielding, barked by Kaitlyn Doyle, a slender 24-year-old woman with long blond hair. "Get in the raft," she said. "Get in the raft!" One by one, they came, jumping gingerly into the giant orange flotation device. "You can fit 18 people in here," someone shouted. "There are only 12 here. Move over." The group moved closer together, shoulders touching shoulders. Everyone leaned against the back of the raft, moving 12 pairs of legs to the middle. All wore life jackets, those flimsy yellow models you see during an aircraft safety demonstration - the ones most passengers ignore. But on this day, all participants were calm. Occasionally, they even laughed. That's because this was training, part of a three-day course for flight attendants and pilots assigned to private jets. The goal of the program, put on by a Washington-based company called Aircare Solutions Group and mostly held in a hangar at Long Beach Airport, is to prepare flight crews for any emergency - including a "water landing," a term that is probably a bit of a euphemism. (Crash might be more accurate.) Hence, the giant raft, which on this warm, sunny afternoon floated in an outdoor swimming pool at Cal State Long Beach, about 30 feet from some puzzled college kids at water polo practice. Inside, the trainees explored various pouches, tucked in the side of the raft. There was plenty of food, mainly in the form of flat, long, 1,000-calorie cookies. "They taste like graham crackers," the instructor said, cheerily. There were a bunch of flares, some meant for day and others night. The nighttime ones had three round nubs on the top of the package so evacuees could feel them in the dark. The students played with a Rube Goldberg-esque contraption that turns sea water into drinking water, provided evacuees were willing to pump - and pump and pump and pump - to make it work. They also discovered a hidden pouch that, if used correctly, would collect rainwater, safe for drinking. Then one participant - a pilot with a crewcut - discovered something tiny hidden in a plastic bag. It was a mini Bible, roughly 2-by-1 inches, maybe 50 pages long. Then the instructor asked one last question. If someone died in the raft, what would they do? "Throw him overboard," came the replies, without delay. Yes, the instructor said. "No reason to keep them aboard." They could use the Bible for last rites. TESTING RESOLVE Pattie Adams, a slight, fit, 63-year-old former United and Pan Am flight attendant, runs the show here. She knows that many of the situations for which she trains flight crews rarely happen. But her mission is to test their resolve, to see if she can push students over the edge. Tears flow fairly often. Occasionally, someone throws up. On the morning before the group went to the Cal State Long Beach swimming pool, one flight attendant simply left the course. She couldn't take the stress. "We do not want to sugarcoat it," Adams said. "There will be another accident. It is the nature of it. As crew members, our job is to protect people." In the classroom - in this course she had 10 students - Adams quickly shuffles through slides that both prepare crew members and scare the bejesus out of them. Occasionally, perhaps when she sees a student dozing, she employs the Socratic method. "What is hypothermia, Adam?" she asks one student. If marooned in a jungle, the students learn, they should build a smoky fire - one that will allow emergency crews to find them. If ditching in Alaska, they should immediately take shelter from the wind. "That is what will kill you," she warned. In that situation, evacuees should never eat snow. Then she moved to the sea, telling students they could survive for weeks if they followed her instructions. Most important: Never drink ocean water. "No, really," Adams said. "It's not a good way to go. It'll make you insane." In the classroom, students learned tips they would later use in the swimming pool. If for some reason they could not immediately find the raft, they might need to float on their backs for a while in the open sea. In that case, their best bet at survival would be to scrunch up their entire bodies in a plastic garbage bag, knees to chest. (Flight attendants should bring bags from the galley with them in an evacuation.) In a garbage bag, they learned, they could live up to eight hours in 65-degree water. Without one, Adams told them, they likely would succumb after two hours. Sometimes class members joke that they would rather die than live for several days or weeks in an emergency raft. They say they'll probably die anyway, or that it was all part of God's plan. Adams doesn't like that talk. "That's not true," she said. "People have survived. You can survive. But you have to have your wits about it." ASSERTING CONTROL For passenger airlines, the federal government requires flight attendants to undergo similar training once a year. There's no requirement for private jets, but many reputable operators send crews to Aircare Solutions Group, which also has U.S. training centers in New Jersey and Texas. It is challenge to teach emergency procedures to this group because on private jets - even more than on passenger airlines - flight attendants learn to be subservient to passengers. Martin Hamilton, the company's vice president for marketing, said that in an emergency, flight attendants must shift their tone within seconds, or the passengers won't listen. "You must go from Clark Kent to Superman," he said. Many of the exercises require students to assert control. Repeatedly, flight attendants practice pre-crash commands in a tractor-trailer-size simulator almost identical to a jet interior. The machine rocks and rolls, and eventually it fills with smoke. Yelling "Evacuate! Evacuate! Evacuate!", flight attendants guide passengers to the exit. And sometimes, "passengers" - or other students who are told to act obstinately - purposely ignore the commands. In another tutorial, flight attendants learn how to put out small, stubborn fires with fire extinguishers. The biggest mistake first-timers make is not getting close enough to the flames. "You want to get them to a place where they are not thinking, 'Oh, woe is me,' " said Jeffrey Roberts, Aircare Solutions Group's chief executive. "They need to get past the emotional side, and say, 'This is my time.' " The tests can be intense. Hamilton's favorite is the water egress dunker, a contraption used in the swimming pool that traps students underwater, upside down, while strapped into a rough approximation of an airplane seat. To get out, students must unbuckle the seat belt, punch open a Plexiglas window, swim out and float to the top. Sometimes, students become disoriented and mistakenly swim to the bottom of the pool. Flight attendants and pilots probably will never find themselves trapped underwater like this. But instructors use the exercise to persuade students that they can fix most problems - provided they stay calm. In her classes, Adams wants them to wait almost 10 seconds before they first attempt to escape. Students learn they should control their emotions, or "manage the panic," before reacting. "We tell them to count to eight," Adams said. "And we have a joke. It's one. Then eight." On a recent afternoon, Doyle, who regularly flies on a Gulfstream 450, tried out the dunker for the first time. Doyle called the experience a highlight of training, and she earned a big cheer from her classmates when she finished. But not even she lasted eight seconds before trying to escape. "I started counting," Doyle said. "I got to four. Then I was like, 'OK. I'm good.' " http://www.dailybreeze.com/general-news/20131017/flight-crews-train-to-survive-all-kinds-of-aircraft- emergencies-at-long-beach-facilities Back to Top Back to Top PETA to Air Canada: Set New Standard for Animal Safety When PETA caught wind of Air Canada's recent loss of Larry-a dog who was forced to fly "cargo" to his new home-we wrote the airline an urgent letter asking it to change its live-animal transit policy. Larry-an Italian greyhound who had already lost so much, including his beloved guardian to cancer-went missing more than a week ago after an Air Canada employee let him out of his crate in San Francisco during a flight delay. Packed with "absorbent material[s]" like baggage, Larry had been scheduled to fly "cargo" to meet his new family in British Columbia. Larry's story is not unique. Every year, frightened companion animals are lost, injured, and even killed after airline employees let them out of their carriers during layovers-and many are never seen again. Others are cooked alive or die of hypothermia when cargo-hold temperatures become deadly in minimally ventilated spaces meant to transport luggage, not living beings. Not only is PETA asking Air Canada to prohibit the flying of animals in aircraft cargo holds, we're also asking Air Canada to convert two rows of seats in every aircraft into cabin kennels for dogs who can't fit under seats- a move that will surely enhance Air Canada's standing among customers. Air Canada has already shown itself to be a leader among airlines by banning the shipment of primates destined for laboratories last year. By charging a premium price for safe companion-animal seating, Air Canada would continue to be a compassionate industry stand-out to animal guardians who are willing to pay a little extra in order to keep their family members safe. To learn more about what you can do to keep your animals safe while traveling, read PETA's vacation tips. http://www.peta.org/b/thepetafiles/archive/2013/10/15/air-canada-missing-dog.aspx Back to Top POSITION AVAILABLE: Air Safety Investigator A contract position opening at Boeing Aerospace Company Contract positions are open to US Citizens or Green Card holders only Boeing #739555 Air Safety Investigator Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD Rate: Up To $60.00 per hour DOE Aviation Safety Official (including ground safety officials and flight safety focal) to provide oversight for Flight Test model product. The functions include: (1) Weekly reporting, (2) Site Safety Surveys, (3) FORA_s , and (4) Incident/Accident response. This position act as the focal for ground and flight operations for the sites test article(s). The ASO also provides pre-mishap/incident response for test products. They conduct investigations and provide status to Boeing Safety management on a weekly basis. They provide investigative services for incidents that occur at their site or assist other sites as required. Ground Safety Officials provide safety audits to support flight test operations and manufacturing compliance to procedures, standards and government regulations. Ground Safety audits employ checklists to address site or airplane specific requirements to prepare the airplane for flight test operations. Participates in company safety processes and initiatives. Participates in field investigations. Supports production safety flight incident investigations and conduct safety surveys at operating locations under Defense Contract Management Agencies (DCMA) requirements. Candidate must have a broad background in test safety environments, processes, systems and tools and 10- 15 years of flight test experience. Aviation safety and systems safety experience is required. Experience leading an organization is preferred. Please forward current resume to: todd@worktek.com Todd Gerber Sr. Technical Recruiter Triad Systems International Back to Top GRADUATE RESEARCH SURVEY: Dear Colleagues, Hello - I am currently a Senior Researcher at Saint Louis University and have graciously been offered the opportunity by your moderator to post a web link for the remainder of Oct 2013 to my web-based, dissertation research survey. My career has spanned 33 years in four flavors of aviation. My first job was spent hunting submarines with the US Navy on active duty for eight years and then an additional 12 1/2 years in the US Navy Reserves. My corporate career was spent in aerospace at McDonnell Douglas / Boeing where I spent all of my 23 years on advanced development projects, things that are not in the mainstream, yet. A very influential assignment was with Boeing's Air Traffic Management group. We were way ahead of the state-of-the art in 2001 and were advocating a space-based infrastructure with significant automation for both the airplanes and how they would be managed (not controlled as they are today). The essential guts of these ideas exist today in the FAA's NextGen program. Now, I am pursing a final career chapter in academia. Concurrent through these three career phases has been my continual General Aviation participation, since 1978, as a Private, Commercial and Certified Flight Instructor pilot. It is a very expensive hobby, but there is no better way to travel than to fly yourself, if you can swing it. My dissertation research is exploring the factors which may be essential for passenger travel on unmanned, autonomous airliners. Current public policy concerns with unmanned systems are focused more on privacy. A longer-range view envisions unmanned systems continuing to make inroads into all segments of aviation. The likely last adaptation of unmanned technology would be passenger airlines. Thus, my dissertation is focused on the trust, safety and cost factors that may make you (1) more comfortable traveling on such an airliner, (2) factors that would make you less comfortable traveling on such an airliner and, (3) factors that do not matter in this decision. For this research I have chosen to use a fractional factorial survey. It is factorial because multiple factors (8), at two opposite levels each, are embedded in a short, one-page, story which you read. And, it is fractional because while there are 256 possible combinations of these factors in the story, you will randomly be presented with one of 16 versions of the story (a ?16 fraction of 256). The survey link leads to one lead-in question, the 1-page vignette, five follow-up questions and four demographic questions. Total completion time takes about 5-7 min, unless you would choose to comment, which you are most welcome to do. Will you please consider having your voice counted in the evaluation of a potential future of commercial aviation? Here is the link to the survey: this: https://slu.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_1Mrk8KmQOjMbblr Thank you !! Sincerely, Matt Vance Parks College of Engineering, Aviation and Technology Saint Louis University 3450 Lindell Boulevard McDonnell Douglas Hall, Room 1036 St. Louis, MO 63103 office: 314-977-8244 svance1@slu.edu Curt Lewis