Flight Safety Information July 26, 2016 - No. 145 In This Issue How Were They So Wrong About MH370? Saudi Arabia to Support Countries Failing to Apply Air Safety Norms EPA Takes First Step Toward Regulating Aircraft Emissions Airbus Patented an Aircraft to Carry Other Planes Up Above the Clouds Turkish Airlines just fired 211 employees for 'behaviors conflicting with the interest of our country Baldwin Teams with FAA, Mitre on Safety Data Sharing Thai Airways plans to resume direct flights to US next year AOPA ASI Awards Cirrus Aircraft the Inaugural Joseph T. Nall Safety Award Lufthansa, Honeywell, and Airbus combine technologies to reduce runway incursions, boost safety Boeing to Women: Aviation needs you! How the FAA Killed Supersonic Flight-And How It Can Revive It. NTSB Course...Title...Managing Communications Following an Aircraft Accident or Incident Scenes from Oshkosh...A-26 Nose Gear Failure ISASI 2016, Reykjavik, Iceland...17 to 20 October, 2016 (ISASI) DFW Regional Chapter (DFRC) Summer Meeting, September 8, 2016 Graduate Research Request Graduate Research Survey How Were They So Wrong About MH370? It wasn't supposed to end like to this. Earlier today, ministers from the three nations responsible for finding Malaysia Airlines Flight 370-Australia, China, and Malaysia- announced that they would stop looking for the lost jet once the current 46,000-square- mile search zone is completed this fall. The decision was essentially an acknowledgement that they'd come up empty-handed in their quest to find the plane that disappeared from the face of the Earth in March 2014 with 239 people on board. This after two years of official assurances that success was right around the corner. Why had they been so confident in the first place? How could they have been wrong? Why had they been so confident in the first place? How could they have been wrong? And if the plane isn't where it was supposed to be, where else could it have gone? We've gone through two years of clues and conspiracy theories and false starts. But to understand how we've come to this point, it's necessary to review the clues that search officials possessed, and how they interpreted them. Calculating the Direction of Flight There were two reasons why investigators felt certain the plane had flown toward a specific area of the southern Indian Ocean. The first was publicly acknowledged, the second kept secret. The first reason had to do with signals exchanged between the plane and an Inmarsat satellite. On the night of March 8, 2014, 40 minutes after takeoff, MH370 suddenly went electronically dark over the South China Sea. Every form of communication it had with the outside world was turned off. The plane then pulled a 180, flew back over peninsular Malaysia, headed up the Malacca Strait, and disappeared from radar. Then, surprisingly, three minutes later, it began communicating again. A piece of equipment in the back of the plane called the Satellite Data Unit (SDU) sent a log-on request to an Inmarsat satellite perched in a geosynchronous orbit high above the Indian Ocean. For the next six hours, the SDU stayed in contact, automatically sending intermittent pings that were automatically recorded by Inmarsat computers on the ground. The transmissions didn't contain any data per se, but in the weeks that followed investigators discovered they could mathematically wring from it clues about where the plane had gone. There were two types of data. The first, called Burst Timing Offset (BTO), indicated how far the plane was from the satellite at a given time. Investigators used that data to create a set of "ping rings;" you may remember seeing the maps overlaid with these lines showing where the plane must have been at a given time. The BTO info is fairly precise, providing an accuracy of within 10 km (about 6 miles). The second type of data is Burst Frequency Offset (BFO), which measures the effect of Doppler shift and other factors on the aircraft's signal. BFO turned out to be much more complicated and fuzzier than the BTO data. For a time, investigators hoped that they combine it with BTO values to narrow down the plane's endpoint, but this proved impossible. However, BFO does provide an unambiguous indication that the plane flew south over the Indian Ocean, not north to Asia. After much mathematical wrestling, the investigators realized that by the clever use of statistics, they could figure out where the plane went using BTO data alone. They used supercomputers to generate a huge number of random routes and test them to see which fit the observed data. The result: MH370 probably flew straight and fast, around the speed commercial jets usually fly, and ended up somewhere along a 500-mile stretch of the final ping arc. This was the official methodology that Australian officials presented to the public. Behind the scenes, they had another piece of information that the Malaysian government didn't want leaked to the public: That the FBI had examined the flight simulator that the plane's captain, Zaharie Shah, kept in his basement. It found deleted files for a flight that ended in fuel exhaustion over the southern Indian Ocean. This flight didn't match up exactly with the ping ring data, but to U.S. and Australian investigators it provided compelling confirmation that the captain had indeed planned a suicide flight into the remote southern Indian Ocean. They were convinced that they were on the right track. Defining the Search Area In October 2014, search ships began steaming up and down the final ping arc, towing sidescan-sonar equipment that could image the seabed in photographic detail. Many expected the plane TO be found in short order. When it wasn't, the question became: how far out from the 7th and final arc would they need to search? To answer that question, experts took a closer look at the final pings from the SDU. Their suggestion: What if the SDU, which we know had already re-logged on with the satellite once before (almost unheard of in normal aviation) had dropped out and logged back in yet again? Their reasoning was that the plane probably ran out of fuel, causing the engines to stop and their generators to stop delivering power to the satcom system, but then an emergency generator kicked in and the SDU powered up and logged back on. At the time of the final ping, then, the plane had been without engine power for eight minutes. What searchers need to figure out was how far the plane could have traveled after that. The crucial factor was whether a pilot had been at the controls. If the cockpit was unmanned-if Zaharie had taken a suicide pill after turning toward the empty ocean, for instance, or the captain and first officer had killed one another in a struggle for control-then the end would have come quickly. Based on past accidents and flight simulations, the searchers decided that an out-of-fuel 777 with no pilot would have entered a spiral dive and crash within 20 nautical miles. Add in a fudge factor of another 20 miles, and searchers ended up with a search box that stretched 40 nautical miles on either side of the final ping arc. It was also conceivable, however, that Zaharie had been alert at the controls at the moment of fuel exhaustion. If that were the case, then the plane wouldn't necessarily have spun out of control. Zaharie could have held the wings level and let the plane glide all the way down to the surface. In that event, the plane could have traveled another 100 nautical miles in either direction. In the end it came down to practicality. Searching an area of four-mile-deep seabed 500 miles long and 80 miles across was a task of unprecedented ambition. Even searching one 200 miles wide seemed crazy. So investigators decided the pilots were most likely unresponsive by the end of the flight, and expressed absolute confidence in their verdict: The plane would be found within the narrower search area. Lead Australian crash investigator Peter Foley put the champagne on ice in November 2014, telling News.com.au that "the 1988 Moet is chilling nicely." Nothing There By July 2015, searchers had looked at seabed out to a distance of 15 nautical miles inside the final arc and 23 nautical miles outside it. Nothing. As the months flew by, the official search plan was starting to look shaky. This is when the doubts crept in. Did the plane really go south after all? Could the BFO data have been misunderstood, or even perhaps maliciously spoofed by ingenious hijackers? Were the conspiracy theorists right all along? Then, on July 29, a beach cleanup crew on Réunion Island in the western Indian Ocean found a piece of the plane's right wing on a pebbly beach. That issue, at least, appeared to be settled: the plane was somewhere in the ocean. In months that followed, more aircraft pieces turned up on nearby islands and on the coast of Africa. The search pressed on. And still-nothing. Here we are today, a year later, and still not a trace of the plane has been found on the seabed. The searchers have scoured more than 90 percent of the seabed search area, a rectangle extending from 30 miles inside the arc to 50 miles outside it. What assumption had been faulty? Where did things go wrong? The most obvious candidate is that the plane wasn't pilotless at the end. "If it was manned it could glide for a long way," the director of Fugro, one of the companies conducting the search, told Reuters this week. "You could glide it for further than our search area is, so I believe the logical conclusion will be well maybe that is the other scenario." If he's right, then a logical course of action would be to keep looking further outward from the final ping arc. Now that 46,000 square miles have been scanned, searching another 115,000 doesn't seem so crazy. Sure, we'd be following a $130 million, two-year fruitless search with one on the order of $325 million and five years, but that doesn't seem so extravagant when you realize that a single 777 costs $250 million. The problem is that there's no guarantee the plane would turn up in the extended area, either. What if a different assumption is the faulty one-for example, the flight-path calculation? Maybe the plane took a lower-probability route that veered further to the north. Indeed, several studies of debris drift routes suggest that the plane hit the water somewhere in that direction. "The best guess that we think is that it's probably around the Broken Ridge region, which is slightly to the north of the area that they're looking at," Western Australian University oceanographer Charitha Pattiaratchi told the South China Morning Post. We may never know. Today's announcement of the looming end of the search means neither of these possibilities will be explored. Although China, France and Malaysia are technically "suspending" the search until "credible new information" turns up, no one really believes that this will ever happen. It's game over. Three months ago, Martin Dolan, then head of the Australian agency leading the seabed search, told the Guardian that he still felt it "very likely" that the plane would be found in the current search area because the investigators' technical analysis was "a very reliable proposition." It was the latest-and ultimately the last-in a series of official assurances that stretched back two years. What's now clear is that behind that the search leaders' confidence was not based on well-grounded certainty but rather on a calculated gamble. That gamble didn't pay off. https://www.yahoo.com/news/were-wrong-mh370-161553438.html Back to Top Saudi Arabia to Support Countries Failing to Apply Air Safety Norms Saudi Arabian Airlines flight SVA 226 is isolated on the tarmac after its passengers and crew were evacuated following a bomb threat, at the Barajas airport in Madrid, Spain, February 4, 2016. REUTERS/Andrea Comas Riyadh - Saudi Arabia announced it will reveal regional initiatives to boost air safety and security during the Global Aviation Ministerial Summit that will be held in Riyadh under the patronage of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Salman bin Abdulaziz, on August 29-31, 2016. Captain Abdul Hakim Al-Badar, assistant vice president at Saudi Arabia's General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA), said that the Kingdom would financially support a program launched by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) aimed at assisting countries that are unable to implement international standards and norms related to air safety. He added that the amount of funding would be announced during the summit. Badar said that Saudi Arabia was considered a safe country with regards to air safety, adding that tight cooperation was maintained between security bodies and the civil aviation authority. He also noted that terrorism was currently one of the major threats to airports' security, adding that the Kingdom has previously dedicated more than USD 100 million to the United Nations Action to Counter Terrorism. Badar said that security measures at airports were updated regularly to face emerging challenges and threats. During a press conference held on Sunday at GACA's headquarters in Riyadh, Badar said that a recent study conducted by ICAO showed that the number of travelers around the world would increase from 3.3 billion travelers in 2014 to 7 billion travelers in 2034. ICAO also estimated that the aviation sector's global contribution to the gross national product would increase from USD 2.4 trillion to USD 6 trillion in 2034. The number of jobs provided by this sector will also reach 105 million jobs, compared to 58 million offers in 2014, according to the study. Badar said that the Saudi aviation strategy was aimed at promoting air safety based on the most advanced security standards and implementing relevant international laws and regulations. The summit will be attended by more than 55 transport ministers from various countries around the world. Badar said the event will be the first of its kind to be organized at this global level, where participants and guest speakers represent more than 150 countries from around the world, in addition to organizations and global civil aviation authorities. The summit will see the sharing of best practices to improve cooperation in areas of safety and security, in addition to promoting regional initiatives and supporting coordination with other regional and international organizations. http://english.aawsat.com/2016/07/article55355103/saudi-arabia-support-countries- failing-apply-air-safety-norms Back to Top EPA Takes First Step Toward Regulating Aircraft Emissions July 25 - Environmental advocates will maintain pressure on the Environmental Protection Agency to propose greenhouse gas standards for aircraft after the agency concluded those emissions endanger human health and the environment. That July 25 finding, issued under Section 231(a) of the Clean Air Act, triggers a requirement for the EPA to set emissions limits for the aircraft, though the agency declined to say when a proposed rule would be issued. It did say future regulatory efforts are anticipated to be at least as strict as those expected to be formally approved by the International Civil Aviation Organization in March 2017. "EPA has already set effective [greenhouse gas] standards for cars and trucks and any future aircraft engine standards will also provide important climate and public health benefits," Janet McCabe, the agency's top air official, said in a statement. The endangerment finding (RIN:2060-AS31), long sought by environmental advocates, concludes carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride from certain aircraft engines contribute to climate change. It does not apply to small piston-engine planes or to military aircraft. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy signed the finding July 25. It goes into effect 30 days after publication. According to the agency, 89 percent of U.S. aircraft emissions are covered under the EPA's finding. U.S. aircraft generate 3 percent of total domestic greenhouse gas emissions and account for 29 percent of global emissions from the sector. 'Plenty of Time.' Environmental advocates thanked the agency for at last having the endangerment finding in place, but told Bloomberg BNA there is plenty of time left in the Obama administration for a proposed rulemaking. "We ask that EPA issue proposed standards as soon as possible and certainly before the end of this administration," Vera Pardee, senior counsel at the Center for Biological Diversity, told Bloomberg BNA. "I'm not saying the final rules can come out before the end of the Obama administration, but the proposal should not be a problem at all. It could be done in the next two or three months if they want to." Ongoing litigation is the best option advocates have to quicken the regulatory process. Both the Center for Biological Diversity and Friends of the Earth asked a federal district court in April to impose a strict deadline on EPA to take action ( Ctr. for Biological Diversity v. EPA, D.D.C., No. 16-cv-00681, 4/12/16 ). Pardee said her group would push for a decision in the case "as quickly as possible" after briefing concludes in August. "I'm hoping and praying and suing to try to make it happen," she said of trying to get a proposed rule before the end of the Obama administration. Airlines Commend Action Airlines for America, which represents major airlines including American Airlines, Southwest, United and FedEx Express, commended the EPA for the endangerment finding but said it was crucial that any future regulatory actions align with international standards. "As aviation is a global industry, with airlines operating internationally and aircraft manufacturers selling their aircraft in international markets, it is critical that aircraft emissions standards be set at the international level and not imposed unilaterally by one country or set of countries," Vaughn Jennings, a spokesman for the group, told Bloomberg BNA. "Thus, we commend EPA's action, which will enable the ICAO [carbon dioxide] certification standard for future aircraft to be adopted into U.S. law consistent with the Clean Air Act, U.S. treaty obligations and in harmony with the international community." In public comments on the proposed finding, various segments of the airline industry did not oppose the endangerment finding itself but vocally objected to calls for stronger standards than those likely to be approved by ICAO. http://www.bna.com/epa-takes-first-n73014445255/ Back to Top Airbus Patented an Aircraft to Carry Other Planes Up Above the Clouds To improve energy efficiency Flying up in the stratosphere is great. It offers thin air where planes can cruise with less drag and turbulence, which makes this layer of the atmosphere the perfect place for a light, unmanned aircraft to operate for long periods of time. But it's tough for planes to get up that high in the first place. The stratosphere starts at about 30,000 feet, and climbing that high in a plane puts large mechanical demands on the aircraft, requiring a reinforced airframe and a lot of engine power. Airbus recently filed a patent for a type of carrier aircraft, known as a high-altitude platform system, that could transport heavier planes with more equipment up above 60,000 feet and deposit them there. The advantage to this strategy is that the aircraft deposited by the carrier platform would not need the thrust capabilities required to reach the stratosphere on its own, allowing it to carry more science and communications payloads. Some aerospace companies, including Airbus, are working on plans to put unmanned aircraft up in the stratosphere that would operate for months or even years on end, conducting research or offering utilities similar to satellites. Solar drones make sense for this purpose, but an aircraft powered by solar panels needs to be incredibly light to ascend up into the placid stratosphere. Airbus's patent is fairly vague, describing multiple options for an auxiliary aircraft that could attach to the top, bottom, or sides of the primary aircraft. The design of the carrier would depend on the aircraft that is being carried, so it will likely be some time before we know how Airbus plans to move forward with these ideas. In one of their fun and goofy videos, PatentYogi imagines the auxiliary aircraft carrying what looks like a space zeppelin up into the stratosphere and deploying it there. This isn't an entirely new idea. Aerospace company Scaled Composites is currently developing a massive aircraft to carry SpaceX rockets up into the atmosphere where they could then launch to space after being dropped, requiring less fuel. When launching something requires a lot of fuel, the best way to make it more efficient is apparently to add another airplane. http://www.popularmechanics.com/flight/a22029/airbus-patent-carry-other-planes/ Back to Top Turkish Airlines just fired 211 employees for 'behaviors conflicting with the interest of our country' Turkish Airlines announced on Monday that it has fired 211 employees for what the company called "attitudes and behaviors conflicting with the interest of our country." The announcement comes 10 days after a failed coup by members of the Turkish army. According to Turkish Airlines, the employees' contracts were terminated because their performance did not "align with the necessary actions" the airline is taking against FETO - an organization the Turkish government claims is behind the attempted coup. Turkish airlines issued the following statement to clarify the company's decision to terminate the employees: "As of today, labor contracts of 211 Turkish Airlines employees have been cancelled. Active starting July 22, 2016, contracts are cancelled given the nonfulfillment of performance standards and align with the necessary actions we are taking against the FETO structure and attitudes and behaviors conflicting with the interest of our country and company. As Turkish Airlines, united with all of the heroic and honorable Turkish people, we have acknowledged our responsibility to terminate malevolent, illegal attempts. Under any circumstances, we have and will continue to fulfill our responsibility to contribute to democracy." Following the failed July 15 coup in which 265 people reportedly were killed, the Turkish government has taken nearly 3,000 soldiers suspected of involvement into custody. Turkish Airlines was named the seventh best airline in the world this month by leading consumer aviation website Skytrax. The Turkish government holds a 49% equity stake in Turkish Airlines. http://www.businessinsider.com/turkish-airlines-211-employee-fired-coup-purge-2016-7 Back to Top Baldwin Teams with FAA, Mitre on Safety Data Sharing Thanks to a newly forged agreement with Mitre Corp. and the FAA, Baldwin Aviation can now act as a gateway for its clients to share relevant safety information with the FAA's Aviation Safety Information Analysis and Sharing (ASIAS) program. The ASIAS program connects approximately 185 data and information sources across government and industry, including voluntarily provided safety data. ASIAS works closely with the FAA's Commercial Aviation Safety Team and the General Aviation Joint Steering Committee to monitor known risks, evaluate the effectiveness of deployed mitigations and detect emerging risks. The industry and FAA then cooperate to mitigate those risks and monitor the effectiveness of the solutions. "The objective of this initiative is to make aviation safety and reporting flight data monitoring data sharing easy and seamless through our clients' Baldwin software application," said Baldwin Aviation CEO Don Baldwin. "Based on Baldwin's master MoU, our clients will execute a one-page agreement with Baldwin that will allow access to ASIAS, as well as receive output through Baldwin." http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/business-aviation/2016-07-25/baldwin-teams- faa-mitre-safety-data-sharing Back to Top Thai Airways plans to resume direct flights to US next year THAI AIRWAYS International plans to resume flights to the US west coast next year and add more destinations in China after taking a year off to achieve international safety compliance. The national carrier is also now energetically firing off marketing and sales gimmicks and clearing up flight-management and service issues in order to become profitable and beat the tough competition. Charamporn Jotikasthira, president of THAI, said yesterday that either Seattle or San Francisco would be returned to its direct-flight network by next year. One of these two cities will help the airline reclaim market share from long-haul routes. They are better situated for connecting flights than cities further south such as Los Angeles. The resumption of service to the United States follows the International Civil Aviation Organisation's lifting of the ban on Thai airlines for safety problems. However, THAI may wait until Thailand's Civil Aviation Department has been upgraded from Category 2 to Category 1 on the US Federal Aviation Administration's list for the same problems. The airline said it would likely propose the plan to US authorities by itself as it confident of complying with US safety standards. The flag carrier plans to add more destinations in China after authorities there lifted the ban on THAI over safety reasons, after the ICAO's claims in February of last year that Thailand's aviation practices did not meet international standards. THAI is also considering resuming flights to Moscow and Tehran in the high season starting in October. THAI will receive two new Airbus A350 aircraft this year and five Airbus A350s and two Boeing 787s next year. The airline will implement its new fare system next month and new sales system in the first quarter of next year to enhance competitiveness. The solution is expected to help increase sales especially through the online channel by more than 3 per cent. Next month will also see a new management system that should help improve particularly connecting flights. The airline expects this new system to increase revenue by 3 per cent. A new on-board service called "service ring" will be implemented very soon. Charamporn and his safety-standard staff yesterday updated the media on THAI's latest safety-compliance efforts, saying the airline had been working with Scandinavian Airlines to create a joint plan for safety and risk management. THAI will begin using this solution in September to prevent unexpected incidents. All of THAI's 25,000 staff are urged to watch out for any suspicious objects or persons and report them directly to the corporate compliance department established earlier. Its July 1-20 average load factor was 76.8 per cent, up from the same period last year. The airline is not worried about the impending divorce of Britain and the European Union, since European tourists still travel to Thailand because it is cheaper than going to the US. http://www.nationmultimedia.com/business/Thai-Airways-plans-to-resume-direct-flights- to-US--30291388.html Back to Top AOPA ASI Awards Cirrus Aircraft the Inaugural Joseph T. Nall Safety Award FREDERICK, MD - The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) Air Safety Institute (ASI) honored Cirrus Aircraft this year with the first annual Joseph T. Nall Safety Award. "Over the past decade Cirrus has earned one of the best safety records in the industry, and we are proud to acknowledge their work with the Joseph T. Nall Safety Award," said ASI Senior Vice President George Perry. "Cirrus has doubled down on safety, working with its owners group and making investments in training and transition courses, to lower the accident rate for Cirrus aircraft to less than half the industry average." Cirrus created a video-intensive, type-specific training program called "Cirrus Approach" that emphasizes deciding in advance when to use the Cirrus Airframe Parachute System (CAPS). At the same time, the company and its tight-knit pilot group, the Cirrus Owners and Pilots Association (COPA), set out to create a culture in which pilots who pulled the chute were applauded - not criticized or second-guessed - for their actions. The results have been remarkable. In 2015, with more than 6,000 aircraft flying, the number of fatal accidents involving Cirrus airplanes fell to the lowest level since 2001 when fewer than 300 Cirrus aircraft had been produced. ABOUT THE AIR SAFETY INSTITUTE AOPA's Air Safety Institute is dedicated exclusively to providing continuing pilot education and safety programs for general aviation. It is funded by donations from individual pilots and organizations, which support the cause of improved general aviation safety. Since 1950, ASI has served all pilots and aviation enthusiasts - not just AOPA members - by providing free safety education, research, and data analysis. ASI offers award-winning online courses, nearly 200 live seminars annually throughout the U.S., flight instructor refresher courses, safety videos, accident case studies, and other materials to keep pilots safe and well informed. To learn more, visit ASI at www.airsafetyinstitute.org. http://www.aviationpros.com/press_release/12235773/aopa-asi-awards-cirrus-aircraft- the-inaugural-joseph-t-nall-safety-award Back to Top Lufthansa, Honeywell, and Airbus combine technologies to reduce runway incursions, boost safety COLOGNE, Germany, 26 July 2016. Officials at Lufthansa Group, Honeywell Aerospace, and Airbus have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to jointly develop a runway safety solution combining Airbus' Runway Overrun Prevention System (ROPS) and Honeywell's SmartLanding technologies for Lufthansa's fleet of aircraft. This goal is to combine the strengths of ROPS and SmartLanding technologies, ensure its availability for a maximum number of aircraft types, and set a higher standard for runway safety. Lufthansa engineers will contribute to the solution design and evaluation with the involvement of flight crews from the early stage of development. The ROPS performance-based alerting system developed by Airbus assists crews in preventing runway overruns. Certified by the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), ROPS is in operation on approximately 430 aircraft, including A320, A330, A350, and A380 commercial passenger jets, and has been selected by operators of 1,500 aircraft to be delivered. ROPS is included in the solutions portfolio of Airbus' wholly-owned Flight Operations and Air Traffic Management subsidiary NAVBLUE. Honeywell's SmartLanding system reduces the risk of runway excursion by alerting pilots if the aircraft is approaching the runway too high, too fast, or is not configured properly for landing. SmartLanding is a software enhancement to Honeywell's Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System (EGPWS), installed on more than 30,000 airline and business aviation aircraft. Through a software upgrade to EGPWS, SmartLanding improves pilot situational awareness and helps break the chain of events that can lead to a runway excursion, by providing aural and visual alerts upon approach only if the aircraft has not met established safety criteria, officials describe. Airbus, a division of Airbus Group, is the global commercial aircraft manufacturer with the most modern, comprehensive, and efficient family of airliners, ranging in capacity from 100 to more than 600 seats. Airbus has sold more than 16,500 aircraft to around 400 customers and, provides customer support and training through an expanding international network. http://www.intelligent-aerospace.com/articles/2016/07/lufthansa-honeywell-and-airbus- combine-technologies-to-boost-runway-safety.html Back to Top Boeing to Women: Aviation needs you! With over 2 million new pilots, cabin crew and technicians expected to be collectively needed in the next 20 years to meet rising demand within commercial aviation, Boeing has a message to women - the industry needs you! Boeing's 2016 Pilot & Technician Outlook, released today at the EAA AirVenture Oshkosh fly-in convention in Wisconsin, specifically outlines a need for 617,000 new pilots - about 31,000 per year - through 2035. This figure represents a gain of about 11% over last year's forecast with the largest increase in demand attributed to the Asia-Pacific region, followed by North America and Europe. During the same time period, industry will also require some 679,000 new technicians, with the need most acute in Asia-Pacific, according to Boeing. And for the first time ever, the airframer has included cabin crew in its annual forecast, predicting a need for 814,000 flight attendants over the next 20 years. "Boeing is a big proponent of getting more women... into the aviation community overall, but certainly as pilots and technicians because of the need," Sherry Carbary, VP Flight Services at Boeing Commercial told journalists late last week in a media briefing about the new report. Women pilots represent only six percent of the total pilot population, according to Women in Aviation, International, so it's a "huge opportunity", noted Carbary. Female executives at Boeing have been trying to get the word out by talking about aviation job opportunities for women (and men) at high schools around the world. "We're really fortunate to have at Boeing one of the premier aviation high schools in the United States," said Carbary in reference to the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM)-focused Raisbeck Aviation High School in Tukwila, Washington, where students are "all actively interested in becoming pilots, technicians and engineers. So part of it is promoting that." "You hear that women don't want to be pilots because they don't want to be away from families [but] cabin crew are away from their families, and women can help fill that [pilot] void," added Carbary. Boeing sees a big need for new pilots in the next 20 years. It hopes more women will consider the profession to help meet demand. Image: Boeing Boeing this week is taking its message to EAA AirVenture Oshkosh, the annual gathering of aviation enthusiasts at Wisconsin's Wittman Regional Airport, and to the affiliated KidVenture event, where it will be "talking to girls" and "actively promoting" these aviation professions, Carbary told RGN. Boeing says it continues "to watch attrition in technicians closely". Image: Boeing In developing its annual Pilot & Technician Outlook, Boeing looked at a number of factors, including forecasted fleet growth - it believes some 39,620 new airplanes will be needed over the next 20 years, of which 71% will be narrowbodies and 23% widebodies - as well as aircraft utilization around the world, attrition rates, crewing specific to aircraft type and airline business model, and regulatory requirements around the world. Carbary said Boeing decided to include cabin crew in its forecast for the first time because "they are essential to not only safety and comfort of the passengers, they are true differentiators for airlines and their business models". Some 37% of new cabin crew positions will be available in the fast-growing Asia-Pacific region. Image: Boeing Though women have traditionally been well represented in the flight attendant profession, the overall need for cabin crew in the next 20 years is substantial at "40,000 per year", noted Carbary. That's a "pretty significant number, and when put together for pilots, technicians and cabin crew, significant resources are needed", she concluded. https://www.runwaygirlnetwork.com/2016/07/25/boeing-to-women-aviation-needs-you/ Back to Top How the FAA Killed Supersonic Flight-And How It Can Revive It If not for Federal Aviation Administration meddling in supersonic flight innovation, we could zip around the world in a fraction of the time. Andrea Castillo | July 26, 2016 Flying is the worst. With each commercial flight, Americans get groped, jostled, cramped, and corralled like cattle. But the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) isn't the only government agency that needlessly adds to our jet-setting woes. If not for Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) meddling in supersonic flight innovation, we could zip around the world in a fraction of the time. Five decades ago, the future of aerospace engineering was incredibly bright. As international rivals raced to put humans into space, scientists applied new technologies to improve the speed, comfort, and safety of terrestrial air travel. The U.S.-based McConnell Douglas and Boeing spearheaded the era of commercial jet transportation with the introduction of the Douglas DC-8 and Boeing 707 in the late 1950s. Our European friends got into the aviation game in the 1970s with the Airbus A300, while Lockheed Martin followed up with the L-1011 TriStar around the same time. With competition and research came innovation. By the mid-1970s, engineers were building "supersonic" aircraft capable of traveling well above 767 miles per hour (mph), the speed of sound. In one decade, the top airplane speed on record more than doubled, from 698.5 mph in 1952 to 1,665.9 mph in 1962. By 1976, U.S. military pilot Eldon W. Joerz managed to navigate the Lockheed SR-71 "Blackbird" to a blazing 2,193 mph, almost three times the speed of sound. Commercial crafts never traveled quite that fast. But supersonic civilian flight was indeed once a reality. From 1976 to 2003, passengers in a hurry could hop on a majestic Concorde supersonic airliner in London's Heathrow Airport and arrive in New York City in a little over three measly hours. Try the same on a boring old Boeing 747 and you're looking at a travel time of at least 7 or 8 hours. Very few of us have enjoyed the thrill and convenience of a supersonic flight. This is partly due to economics: Both the Concorde (1,350 mph) and the Soviet Union's Tupolev Tu-44 (1,200 mph) faced early retirements for financial reasons. But this does not explain why top airplane speeds have lagged behind for so many decades. Today, most airlines cruise at altitudes well below the speed of sound, with a standard Boeing 747-B clocking in at a ho-hum 570 mph cruising speed. My Mercatus Center colleagues Eli Dourado and Michael Kotrous recently dug into airspeed data compiled by Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), an international sports aviation measurement and standard-setting body. Their finding: Innovation in air travel speeds came to a grinding halt after Joerz's still-unbroken record-setting feat in 1976. You can thank the FAA for this continued mediocrity in air travel. In 1973, amid ample developments in supersonic flight, the FAA bizarrely decided to prohibit supersonic travel (SST) over the US. Why? When an aircraft travels faster than the speed of sound, it generates shock waves that become compressed into one super-loud "sonic boom." The FAA and other civilian activists were concerned about the potential damage that SST flights could do to the environment or to civil infrastructure. Unfortunately, evidence-based policy-making did not guide the FAA's supersonic ban. Knee-jerk techno-skepticism did. When the development of the Concorde was announced in 1962, a group of anti-SST scientists and concerned laypeople rallied to stop the march of progress in aviation. A Swedish aeronautics engineer named Bo Lundberg provided much of the academic antagonism, publishing articles through his aviation research institute suggesting that the public would reject the nuisance of SST sonic booms. A British primary-school teacher and environmentalist named Richard Wiggs also activated the public in an anti-SST campaign. His Anti-Concorde Project took out full-page ads in papers of record, alarming readers that the "sonic bangs" would be "by far the loudest noise they have ever heard." His other large argument-that British and French taxpayers should not have been compelled to subsidize the development of the Concorde- will be more sympathetic to Reason readers. But unfortunately, the misleading and paranoiac public-outrage campaign disseminated by the Anti-Concorde Project and the allied Citizens League Against the Sonic Boom served as the catalyst for innovation-killing policies. Obviously, very few of us would tolerate aviation technology that-elegant and rapid though it may be-ripped holes through homes and shattered windows with each passing flight. Supersonic flights that merely made annoying, but non-destructive, booms every now and then might generate some heated discussion, but that's something that more people could live with. What is imperative is that scientists and policymakers have enough time to sift through factual evidence before assessing what level of risk or downside the public is willing to tolerate. To their credit, the FAA did team up with NASA and the U.S. Air Force to preemptively test and measure the outcomes of SST from 1958 through 1968. Contrary to the city- shattering rhetoric emanating from the anti-SST crowd, the sonic booms generated by SST over land in the U.S. were predictable and mild. In several of the tests, people down below did not notice that anything was amiss at all. In one test over St. Louis in 1962, only about 35 percent of the interviewees were even mildly annoyed by the sonic booms at all and less than 10 percent thought about registering a formal complaint (only 1 percent bothered to actually do it). In another series of tests over Oklahoma City in 1964, the scientists carefully selected a representative sample of buildings to observe the effects of regular SST flights on day-to- day life for half a year. A surprising 73 percent of the participants felt they could live with the everyday effects of SST travel without any issue. Around 40 percent of respondents said they believed SST caused structural damage to their home, but the scientists were unable to find physical evidence for this themselves. Perhaps the participants were simply imaging things, or perhaps the scientists were not being as judicious as they should in finding damage. More research was needed. To better understand the specific structural effects of SST travel, scientists constructed an entire miniature town of fake "houses"-like those atomic testing sites so favored in Hollywood movies- at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico in 1964 and 1965 to get an inside peak into just how well those windows and tiles would hold up. Sixteen types of buildings were created, fitted out with standard construction materials of varying quality to get a better idea of how homes of all income brackets would fare. After almost 1,500 booms, the results were broadly encouraging: plasters of all kinds were just fine, glass only chipped when poorly mounted (and not by much), and stucco held up. And if you were worried about the chickens, fear not-sonic booms do not negatively affect egg hatchabliity. Alas, paranoid conjectures about crumbling cities and bursting eardrums proved more salient to policymakers than measured data on plasterboard resiliency. The FAA ban on supersonic flight over the U.S. has persisted to this day, and with it, our continued misery in the skies. But things could be changing. The Denver-based start-up Boom Technology is developing aircraft to travel at speeds up to 1,451 mph-twice the speed of sound. Airspace veteran Virgin is teaming up with Boom to revive the London-New York SST route blazed by Concorde so many decades ago. And speaking of Concorde, its passionate fans in Club Concorde just might pull off their crazy dream of crowdfunding enough money to put the beloved beauty back in the sky. Japan and NASA are jumping into the heady world of SST travel as well. Yet all of this capital investment will be for nothing if policy remains the same. Allowing SST over U.S. territory would do a lot to improve the profitability odds for this historically- challenging market. The FAA has an opportunity to open the gates to major innovation by making one small policy change: Remove the outright ban on supersonic travel. Instead, designate a minimum noise level that entrepreneurs must target to be airworthy. That's it! The agency has considered this policy before, but remained unfortunately stubborn in a 2008 statement: it will not issue a noise standard until the "noise impacts of supersonic flight are shown to be acceptable." But this Kafkaesque stance is virtually no different from an outright ban: entrepreneurs can't show which noise impacts of SST flight are "acceptable" without have a definition of "acceptable" to shoot for. Fortunately, as technologists and even policymakers begin to see airspace as another platform for innovation, the appetite for "permissionless innovation" policy-reforms is growing. The FAA could be a champion for the next great American industry as soon as it decides to change. Andrea Castillo is program manager for the Technology Policy Program at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. She is the coauthor of Bitcoin: A Primer for Policymakers (Mercatus). http://reason.com/archives/2016/07/26/how-the-faa-killed-supersonic-flight Back to Top NTSB Course Title Managing Communications Following an Aircraft Accident or Incident Co-sponsor Airports Council International - North America (ACI-NA) Description The course will teach participants what to expect in the days immediately following an aviation accident or incident and how they can prepare for their role with the media. ID Code PA302 Dates, Tuition and Fee September 29-30, 2016 $1034 early registration, by August 28, 2016 $1134 late registration, between August 29 - September 24, 2016 $100 processing fee will be added to tuitions for all offline applications. A tuition invoice can be ordered for a $25 processing fee. Note: payment must be made at time of registration. Times Day 1: 8:30am - 5pm Day 2: 9am - 3pm Location NTSB Training Center * 45065 Riverside Parkway * Ashburn, Virginia 20147 Status OPEN. Applications are now being accepted. Apply to Attend SIGN UP FOR THIS COURSE HERE http://www.ntsb.gov/Training_Center/Pages/PA302_2016.aspx CEUs 1.3 Overview * How the National Transportation Safety Board organizes an accident site and what can be expected in the days after an aviation disaster from the NTSB, FAA, other federal agencies, airline, airport, media and local community * Strategies for airline and airport staff to proactively manage the communication process throughout the on-scene phase of the investigation * How the NTSB public affairs officers coordinate press conferences and release of accident information and what information the spokespersons from the airport and airline will be responsible to provide to the media * Making provisions for and communicating with family members of those involved in the accident * Questions and requests likely encountered from the airlines, airport staff, family members, disaster relief agencies, local officials and others > Comments from course participants > See the 219 organizations from 28 countries that have sent staff to attend this course Performance Results Upon completion of this course the participant will be able to: * Be better prepared to respond to a major aviation disaster involving a flight departing from or destined for participant's airport * Demonstrate greater confidence in fielding on-scene questions about the many aspects of the investigation and its participants, including what types of specific information may be requested * Identify the appropriate Public Affairs roles for the various organizations involved in an accident investigation. * Be more productive in the first few hours after an aviation disaster by understanding which tasks are most important and why * Perform job responsibilities more professionally and with greater confidence given the knowledge and tools to manage the airport communications aspect of a major aviation disaster Who May Attend This course is targeted to who, in the event of an aviation disaster, will need to provide a steady flow of accurate information to media outlets and/or other airport, federal or local authorities. Accommodations Area hotels and restaurants Airports Washington Dulles International (IAD): 10 miles Washington Ronald Reagan National (DCA): 30 miles Baltimore/Washington International (BWI): 60 miles More Information Email StudentServices@ntsb.gov or call (571) 223-3900 http://www.ntsb.gov/Training_Center/Pages/PA302_2016.aspx Back to Top Scenes from Oshkosh A-26 Nose Gear Failure Photo credit: Jay Selman/www.airlinersgallery.com Back to Top ISASI 2016, Reykjavik, Iceland 17 to 20 October, 2016 The International Society of Air Safety Investigators (ISASI) will hold their 47th annual seminar at the Grand Hotel Reykjavik, Iceland, from the 17 to 20 October 2016. The seminar theme is: "Every link is important" Papers will address this theme in conjunction with other contemporary matters on aviation safety investigation, including recent case studies, new investigation methods and aviation safety trends or developments. Registration and details of the main seminar, tutorial and companion programmes are available at www.esasi.eu/isasi-2016. We look forward to seeing you in Iceland Back to Top RSVP by contacting Erin Carroll, DFRC President by September 1 Email: erin.carroll@wnco.com or Telephone: (214) 792-5089 Back to Top Graduate Research Request You are being invited to consider taking part in a research survey on the influence of the psychological contract (the unwritten expectations between an employee and their employer) on a pilot's safety behaviours. I am seeking to understand if this part of the employment relationship has an influence on the safety behaviours of pilots. My focus is primarily on the European aviation environment. This survey is being undertaken as part of my Master of Science (MSc) in Air Safety Management at City University, London. I am undertaking this research in a purely independent capacity for my own personally funded studies. The results of this survey will only be used to support my dissertation. All data will be kept anonymous. No personally identifiable information will be collected. All answers reported in the analysis of the survey will be made without any connection to you. If you have experience working as a pilot, preferably for a European commercial air transport operator, and wish to take part please click on the link below. https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/pilotspsycon Thank you for your support Kathryn Jones Back to Top Graduate Research Survey Helicopter Pilot Trust in Automation Study My name is Nick Currie and I am a helicopter pilot currently working towards my Masters of Aviation Safety at Florida Institute of Technology. Part of my program requires me to research a topic related to my field of expertise in order to satisfy the requirements of a Master's level thesis. My thesis is focused on the topic of trust in automation. More specifically, how much helicopter pilots trust two types of Enhanced Flight Vision Systems(EFVS): Enhanced Vision Systems (EVS) and Synthetic Vision Systems (SVS). The most common type of EVS technology is Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR), and the most common type of SVS technology is a 3D moving map display. I am interested in gathering responses from any helicopter pilot regarding their trust in each of these system's capabilities. If you have used one, both, or neither of the systems, I am still very interested in gaining your input in this study. Ultimately, by completing this research, I hope to develop a list of recommendations to improve EFVS automation to aid the pilot in accomplishing their primary tasks. The survey (see link below) takes no more than 10 minutes, and it asks a series of 12 questions on each display. Please consider taking a few minutes of your time to help improve this growing field of cockpit automation. Thank you for your time and consideration. Survey Link - https://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/2788023/Enhanced-Flight-Vision- Systems Nick Currie Curt Lewis