Flight Safety Information June 26, 2017 - No. 127 Incident: AirAsia X A333 near Learmonth on Jun 25th 2017, engine shut down in flight after severe vibration Incident: Ryanair B738 near Milan on Jun 23rd 2017, smoke in cabin Incident: Delta MD88 near Bristol on Jun 23rd 2017, smell of smoke in cockpit Incident: Delta A333 near Amsterdam on Jun 23rd 2017, smell of smoke in cabin Incident: Jetblue E190 near Charleston on Jun 23rd 2017, smoke in cockpit EVAS - Cockpit Smoke Protection AAIB and BEA issue annual safety reviews AirAsia faces fresh probe after troubled Perth-Kuala Lumpur flight Risk of air accidents up after CAA cost-cutting, leaked report warns (UK) SOUTHWEST AIRLINES FLIGHT DIVERTED AFTER PASSENGER 'TRIED TO OPEN EMERGENCY EXIT DOOR' TSA considers forcing airline passengers to remove books from carry-ons PM 'satisfied' with aviation safety improvements (Thailand) Alaska Airlines to host eclipse-chasing flight in August Virgin Atlantic hails 22 per cent reduction in aircraft carbon emissions TEN POPULAR AVIATION APPS USED BY PILOTS AND AVGEEKS Adios, turbulence. Pilots have a new way to outfox you Ace of Ag: SD aviator operates rare ag pilot school Omaha jet management company Jet Linx reaches 100-aircraft milestone SpaceX launches and lands second Falcon 9 rocket in two days 2017 RAVN Air Group Safety Forum IOSA Auditor Training (IAT) Course BOWTIE RISK MANAGEMENT WORKSHOP...July 18 - 19, 2017 Incident: AirAsia X A333 near Learmonth on Jun 25th 2017, engine shut down in flight after severe vibrations An AirAsia X Airbus A330-300, registration 9M-XXE performing flight D7-237 from Perth,WA (Australia) to Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) with 359 people on board, was enroute at FL380 about 200nm southsouthwest of Learmonth,WA (Australia) when the left hand engine (Trent 772) suffered a blade fracture, ingested the blade resulting in severe damage in engine core and severe vibrations. The crew shut the engine down, drifted the aircraft down to FL200 and returned to Perth for a safe landing about 2 hours after the engine failure. Passengers reported a large bang was heard followed by severe vibrations and sounds like a spinning washing machine. They were instructed to brace for landing. Australia's emergency services reported they put their marine emergency services on stand by for a possible water landing of the aircraft north of Perth. The airline reported the aircraft returned to Perth due to a technical problem without confirming an engine issue. Emergency services were called as precaution only as part of the standard operating procedures. The passengers were rebooked onto other flights. On Jun 26th 2017 Australia's Transportation Safety Board (ATSB) reported the aircraft suffered moderate airframe vibration as result of an engine fault. The ATSB opened an investigation into the engine malfunction rated a serious incident. The investigation is estimated to conclude by November 2017. The engine vibrations heard and seen by passengers (Video: Powoejs Hahshs): http://avherald.com/h?article=4aac9f14&opt=0 Back to Top Incident: Ryanair B738 near Milan on Jun 23rd 2017, smoke in cabin A Ryanair Boeing 737-800, registration EI-FON performing flight FR-8886 from Brindisi to Milan Bergamo (Italy), was descending towards Milan Orio al Serio Airport when the crew declared emergency reporting smoke in the cabin. The aircraft continued for a safe landing on Bergamo's runway 28 about 10 minutes later and taxied to the apron, where emergency services examined the aircraft. The aircraft remained on the ground for about 10 hours, then resumed service. http://avherald.com/h?article=4aacb27e&opt=0 Back to Top Incident: Delta MD88 near Bristol on Jun 23rd 2017, smell of smoke in cockpit A Delta Airlines McDonnell Douglas MD-88, registration N984DL performing flight DL-1534 from Indianapolis,IN to Atlanta,GA (USA) with 147 people on board, was enroute at FL340 about 160nm northwest of Bristol,VA (USA) when the crew decided to divert to Bristol/Kingsport/Johnson City's TRI-Cities Regional Airport reporting smell of smoke in the cockpit. The aircraft landed safely and taxied to the apron. A replacement MD-88 registration N902DE reached Atlanta with a delay of 5 hours. The occurrence aircraft is still on the ground at TRI-Cities Airport about 22 hours after landing. http://avherald.com/h?article=4aac262a&opt=0 Back to Top Incident: Delta A333 near Amsterdam on Jun 23rd 2017, smell of smoke in cabin, runway surface identified as source A Delta Airlines Airbus A330-300, registration N803NW performing flight DL-161 from Amsterdam (Netherlands) to Minnepolis,MN (USA), was climbing out of Amsterdam's runway 24 when the crew requested to level off at FL060 reporting the cabin had just reported the smell of smoke, they were investigating. A few minutes later the crew requested to continue the departure route at FL060 but asked ATC to keep them within 50nm of the aerodrome. The crew then asked the controller whether runway 24 had been re-surfaced in the last month, which the controller affirmed (the re-surfacing works had been completed two weeks ago). The crew subsequently decided to continue their flight, requested to climb to cruise level about 10 minutes after levelling off at FL060, and reached Minneapolis for a safe landing on time. Runway 06/24, length 3,439 meters/11,280 feet, had been re-surfaced with Asphalt (Porous Friction Course) and returned to service on May 24th 2017. An unusual heat wave was affecting the Netherlands around the time of departure with the day of departure turning out to become the hottest day. http://avherald.com/h?article=4aab95bd&opt=0 Back to Top Incident: Jetblue E190 near Charleston on Jun 23rd 2017, smoke in cockpit A Jetblue Embraer ERJ-190, registration N187JB performing flight B6-913 from Westchester,NY to Fort Lauderdale,FL (USA) with 98 passengers and 4 crew, was enroute at FL380 about 110nm north of Charleston,SC (USA) when the crew donned their oxygen masks, reported smoke in the cockpit and diverted to Charleston for a safe landing about 20 minutes later. The aircraft vacated the runway, stopped just past the hold short line and was evacuated via slides. There were no injuries. A replacement Embraer ERJ-190 registration N307JB was dispatched to Charleston, resumed the flight and reached Fort Lauderdale with a delay of 6.5 hours. http://avherald.com/h?article=4aab8bab&opt=0 Back to Top Back to Top AAIB and BEA issue annual safety reviews The U.K. AAIB Annual Safety Review for 2016 contains information on the activity during 2016 and includes an overview of the 57 Safety Recommendations and Safety Actions published in the 36 field and 208 correspondence investigation reports during the year. It also includes information on the occurrence factors established from the AAIB investigations, with articles on the AAIB's use of simulators and drones in accident investigation. The French Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses (BEA) similarly published their annual report for 2016. During 2016 a total of 116 investigations were opened and 46 Safety Recommendations were issued. https://news.aviation-safety.net/2017/06/24/aaib-bea-issue-annual-safety-reviews/ Back to Top AirAsia faces fresh probe after troubled Perth-Kuala Lumpur flight PHOTO: The latest AirAsia incident follows at least four others in recent years. (Supplied: Wikimedia Commons) The "technical issue" responsible for causing a mid-air drama on an AirAsia X flight from Perth to Kuala Lumpur was just the latest safety incident involving the low-cost airline. Some aviation experts have urged caution as an investigation is carried out into what exactly went wrong on the flight, described by one passenger as like being in a "washing machine". "When you look at the number of aircraft movements every day, these [events] aren't one particular airline," aviation consultant Trevor Jenson said. "It is not unreasonable to [expect that], in the amount of hours that are flown, you do get these events. They are well and truly within the probabilities of millions of millions. "They are unusual events, they all have to be carefully investigated, [but] the great thing about aviation is we learn the lessons, that is why it is the safest means of transport." Yesterday's apparent engine failure does, however, add another chapter to AirAsia's history, following at least four other incidents or accidents involving the Malaysian carrier in the past three years. All 162 passengers and crew died when an AirAsia Airbus A320 stalled at high altitude during a flight from Indonesia's second largest city Surabaya to Singapore on December 28, 2014. The final report into the crash, released a year later, found the aircraft had a fault with its rudder limiter which went unfixed for 12 months before the crash. It also found pilot error was partly to blame for the accident. Foreign Correspondent later revealed thousands of Australians had flown 78 times between Bali and Perth on the same aircraft while it had the mechanical fault in the year leading up to the tragedy. Experts said airlines like Qantas would have never flown a plane with that sort of defect, while AirAsia said it had improved pilot training and maintenance standards since the crash Captain enters wrong coordinates An AirAsia X flight from Sydney to Malaysia was forced to make an emergency landing in Melbourne on March 10, 2015, after experiencing onboard navigation issues. A safety investigation later found the captain had entered the wrong departure flight path into the A300's navigation system just before take-off. The error put the plane off the coast of Cape Town, South Africa. The flight was cancelled but deteriorating weather in Sydney meant the aircraft, which was now limited to visual conditions, had to be sent to Melbourne - more than 6,000 kilometres from its intended destination. Plane flies too low over Perth An AirAsia A320 aircraft was on approach to Perth Airport on February 19, 2016 when it reportedly flew 300 metres too low in severe turbulence. The West Australian newspaper reported the plane, which was arriving from Bali, dropped as low as 457m near Royal Perth Yacht Club. The ATSB said air traffic controllers issued a "low altitude alert" and told the crew to abort their landing. The aircraft later landed safely. Gold Coast near-miss An AirAsia X plane departing Gold Coast Airport for Auckland, New Zealand suffered what the ATSB described as a "loss of separation" with an incoming Jetstar plane on July 21, 2016. The aircraft came within about 180m of one another after the AirAsia A330 climbed too quickly - well below the 305m minimum required vertical separation for passenger planes in Australia. The ATSB said both planes received a "traffic collision avoidance system" alert, with the crew of the Jetstar A320 "conducting a climb to increase separation". http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-26/airasia-faces-fresh-probe-after-troubled-perth-kl-flight/8651406 Back to Top Risk of air accidents up after CAA cost-cutting, leaked report warns (UK) Draft Civil Aviation Authority report criticised failings, including in monitoring of flight training and licensing of pilots Emergency services at scene of Shoreham airshow crash in 2014. An official report revealed the CAA had inspected just 2.8% of the airshows it approved in 2014. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images Cost-cutting and an overstretched workforce at the Civil Aviation Authority have increased the risk of air accidents in Britain, according to a leaked internal report drafted by the air safety regulator but never released. Inspectors at the CAA, which oversees flight safety, warned bosses that they did not have the resources to do their job properly, the draft report shows. There were "significant weaknesses" in the CAA's safety division, including the monitoring of flight training and the licensing of pilots, the report said. The provisional report - produced by the CAA's head of strategy and safety assurance at the request of senior directors but never published - warned that the problems it identified were "those most likely to feature as contributory causal factors in aircraft accidents". A staff survey detailed within the report showed that fewer than 10% of employees believed their colleagues had time to undertake important safety activities to an acceptable standard. Fewer than 20% of staff agreed that all of the organisation's important safety functions were adequately covered and that activities were "sufficient to assure ourselves that we are protecting the safety of the public". Damning findings in the safety assurance review included: * A large number of licences issued to pilots contained errors. * The CAA was failing to properly oversee flight training organisations. * "Significant staff reductions ... have led in some cases to insufficient access to expertise." * Important safety activities required by the European Aviation Safety Agency (the EU regulator) were "significantly behind schedule". * The CAA's "capability does not match the true demands". The review and survey was proposed by the CAA's safety action group and commissioned by safety director Mark Swan, amid a shakeup of the CAA. The group proposed the review "to ensure that the organisation continued to be fit for purpose to deliver effective safety oversight". While the review rated the overall fitness for purpose of the safety division as "adequate", it found that "in all areas reviewed, there is evidence that the resources available ... are at minimum levels. There is a general lack of resilience." It added: "The areas that appear to be currently suffering the most are those most critical to protect public safety." Questions had been raised about the CAA regime by accident investigators in the wake of the Shoreham airshow crash in August 2015, in which 11 people were killed after a plane crashed while attempting a stunt. The official report by the Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) revealed that the CAA had inspected just 2.8% of the airshows it approved in 2014, and did not require to see or approve risk assessments before permitting the Shoreham show to go ahead. Although the CAA was not directly affected by government cuts, it was pressured by ministers to embrace more "light-touch regulation", especially with regards to general aviation, which includes airshows. Grant Shapps, at the time a minister without portfolio, had demanded the "minimum necessary burden" for private flying in a so-called red-tape challenge to the CAA in 2013. The chief executive of the CAA, Andrew Haines, was appointed in 2009 with a brief to modernise the agency, and was incentivised to complete a transformation programme that saw the wage bill slashed. The regulator is funded by the airlines and operators it regulates, which have lobbied to lower the charges. The CAA pledged to freeze all its fees and charges, the source of its revenues, for three years in 2011 and by 2013 said it would be saving the equivalent of 120 full-time jobs. Insiders claim that pressure to run the authority as a commercial enterprise has diminished the CAA's capacity to monitor safety. A significant number of highly trained and experienced staff in the safety division have left the CAA in recent years. The union representing safety inspectors said a significant number of its members had left the CAA. Steve Jary, national secretary, aviation, at Prospect, said: "Put simply, they are no longer confident that they can do their job - keeping the public safe. But they can't speak out: about 30 have left with confidentiality agreements in their exit packages." A spokesperson for the CAA said: "The UK has one of the best air safety records in the world, and the CAA is recognised as one of the world's leading aviation regulators. "We are subject to rigorous independent safety audits by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). "Their audits show the CAA is consistently performing to a very high standard, in compliance with our regulatory duties, and often provides best practice guidance for Europe and other parts of the world - helping to protect UK citizens wherever they are travelling. "In addition, we assess our own performance. The 2014 safety assurance review was commissioned to ensure our regulatory oversight was responding to both current and emerging safety risks. The results helped to inform changes in how we organise our work and how we communicate within the organisation. "We have consistently protected frontline safety roles at a time when other parts of the public sector have had to undertake drastic cuts." https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jun/23/risk-of-air-accidents-in-uk-up-after-caa-cost-cutting-warns- leaked-report Back to Top SOUTHWEST AIRLINES FLIGHT DIVERTED AFTER PASSENGER 'TRIED TO OPEN EMERGENCY EXIT DOOR' Southwest flight from Los Angeles to Houston was almost five hours late Passengers flying on the world's safest airline say that their warnings about a potentially disruptive passenger were ignored - leading to an emergency diversion of their flight from California to Texas when a woman tried to open an emergency exit door mid-flight. Southwest Airlines flight 4519 had taken off on time from Los Angeles for a routine journey to Houston Hobby airport. But the airline said crew became concerned about one of the passengers and chose to divert to Corpus Christi airport, about 200 miles short of the intended destination. Passenger Henrietta Mokwuah told news station ABC13 that after pacing up and down the aisle, the woman "tore off a piece" of the emergency exit door. The woman was detained by police in Corpus Christi, while the plane eventually continued its journey nearly five hours behind schedule. Some passengers claimed that the woman had been behaving strangely at the gate before the flight from Los Angeles. Corey Chao, a passenger on the flight, tweeted: "I reported to the SWA gate agent, and they claimed security had been called. Then I see this person on flight an hour later..." Kristy Gillentine, a journalist who was travelling on the flight, said: "This is a clear failure of many people to #SEESOMETHINGSAYSOMETHING. Erratic passenger never should have been allowed on flight." She had earlier tweeted: "Emergency landing in Corpus Christi on @southwestair flight LAX-HOU due to unruly passenger. Ready to get on home now, please." Southwest Airlines has never suffered a crash in its 46 year history, during which it has flown around five billion passengers. In a blog post earlier this year, the Chairman and CEO, Gary Kelly, wrote: "I have a growing concern that, as a larger society, we are becoming more divisive and less civil toward each other." http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/southwest-airlines-flight-emergency-door-open-exit-diverted- los-angeles-houston-corpus-christi-a7807941.html Back to Top TSA considers forcing airline passengers to remove books from carry-ons The Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) is reportedly testing new safety procedures that could require airline passengers to remove books from their carry-on bags when going through security lines, raising privacy concerns. The Week reported that the TSA began testing the new security requirement for books and other paper products at airports in Missouri and California earlier this month. The new screening process could require passengers to remove all reading material and food from their carry-ons and place them in bins for screening, though the Wall Street Journal note changes have not been finalized. Travelers already have to remove laptops from carry-on bags and place them in a separate bin. An early May test in Kansas City, Mo., had travelers remove all paper from their carryon bags, but it didn't go well and was halted after a few days, the TSA told the Wall Street Journal. Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said in an interview with "Fox News Sunday" in late May that the department would "likely" expand the new carry-on policy nationwide. "What we're doing now is working out the tactics, techniques, and procedures, if you will, in a few airports, to find out exactly how to do that with the least amount of inconvenience to the traveler," Kelly said at the time. The American Civil Liberties Organization (ACLU) raised concerns over the proposed book policy in a recent post on its website, given that TSA agents could page through books as part of the search. "[B]ooks raise very special privacy issues," senior policy analyst Jay Stanley wrote. "There is a long history of special legal protection for the privacy of one's reading habits in the United States, not only through numerous Supreme Court and other court decisions, but also through state laws that criminalize the violation of public library reading privacy or require a warrant to obtain book sales, rental, or lending records." The ACLU urged the TSA to train its agents in the privacy concerns surrounding examining passengers' books and papers and proposed the agents allow passengers to wrap their books and papers in another material, like a sleeve, to protect their contents. http://thehill.com/policy/transportation/tsa/339349-tsa-considers-forcing-airline-passengers-to-remove-books-from- carry Back to Top PM 'satisfied' with aviation safety improvements (Thailand) PRIME Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha has expressed his satisfaction over improvements in aviation safety management and hopes that the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) will lift its "red flag" status on Thailand soon, government spokesman Sansern Kaewkamnerd said yesterday. While the PM expressed optimism, Transport Minister Akom Termpitaya-paisit said last week that 10 small |airlines may have to cease operations by September due to their poor safety management. Thailand has been on the red-flag list since June 2015 when the ICAO |notified the aviation authorities that their supervision of the industry was substandard. The ICAO will evaluate Thailand's aviation safety management again by September to make a decision on whether the red flag rating can be lifted, an official at the Transport Ministry said. The Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand (CAAT) has re-examined safety management for the entire airline industry in recent years and awarded certification for some airlines. So far, six major airlines based here have got Air Operations Certificates (AOC) in recent months, Sansern said. Main carriers cleared These are the national carriers Thai Airways International, Bangkok Airways, Thai AirAsia, Nok Air, Nok Scoot and Thai AirAsia X, he said, noting that these airlines cover 80 per cent of Thailand's international routes. By September this year, the CAAT would be able to issue AOC certification for 12 airlines, he said. The 10 airlines, which may not get certification, would have to cease their operations by September 1, Akom said last week. But that outcome would not pose a significant impact on Thailand's aviation industry because they are mostly small operators, he said. Prayut instructed the Transport Ministry to speedily enforce the plan to improve safety in the Thai aviation industry by the end of this month, enabling the ICAO to examine the work on schedule by September, Sansern said. The aviation authority has followed guidelines suggested by the ICAO |to improve safety standards for the industry, he said, noting that the Cabinet has already endorsed a new aviation bill in order to have an up-to-date law to regulate aviation. The new law, if passed, would replace the 1954 aviation law, he said. "The ICAO has praised the government's efforts and progress to improve the country's aviation safety in order to fix up the problems and build up confidence for the industry," he said. "Passengers' safety is our priority." http://www.nationmultimedia.com/news/national/30319084 Back to Top Alaska Airlines to host eclipse-chasing flight in August Alaska Airlines will be chasing the first coast-to-coast total solar eclipse in United States history since 1918. On August 21, a special charter flight for select astronomy enthusiasts and eclipse chasers will allow passengers to see the eclipse from more than 35,000 feet above the earth. The flight will depart Portland at 7:30 a.m. and fly off the coast of Oregon, allowing passengers on board to be among the first of millions to witness the eclipse. Though the flight is invitation-only, Alaska Airlines is giving one person and a guest a chance to win a seat on the flight. The contest begins July 21 on Alaska Airlines' social media channels. While the partial eclipse will be visible from all over North America, the total eclipse will only be visible from specific locations across the United States. The airline says flights to the prime Pacific Northwest viewing destinations of Redmond, Ore. and Sun Valley, Idaho are already filling up for the week of the eclipse. http://www.kiro7.com/news/local/alaska-airlines-to-host-eclipse-chasing-flight-in-august/541321868 Back to Top Virgin Atlantic hails 22 per cent reduction in aircraft carbon emissions A330 Virgin Atlantic aircraft Virgin Atlantic and its sister company Virgin Holidays have published their annual sustainability report, highlighting achievements including a 22 per cent reduction in aircraft carbon emissions over the last nine years. Total aircraft CO2 emissions across the two companies have reduced from 5,218,451 tonnes in 2007, to 4,082,195 tonnes in 2016. Virgin said that the carbon savings "have largely been delivered thanks to a multi-billion dollar fleet investment in Boeing 787 aircraft, as well as a range of fuel saving initiatives such as single engine taxiing, real-time weather technology which helps pilots make smarter route choices, and rigorous weight management of all products on the aircraft". Virgin Atlantic also pointed to carbon-reducing initiatives including a partnership with "clean tech" company Lanza Tech, to create low carbon fuel through the recycling of carbon in waste industrial gases, and the carrier's order of 12 fuel-efficient Airbus A350-1000s due to enter service from 2019. The sustainability report also highlighted initiatives around in-flight food, including Virgin Atlantic's partnership with the Sustainable Restaurant Association, and a focus on removing food which contributes to deforestation, for example the menus from the Caribbean using rapeseed oil, saving 100 tonnes of palm oil per year. Virgin said it also recycled over one million amenity kits last year, with over half reassembled into new kits, while used sponges from headsets are set to be used to surface an equestrian centre. Virgin Atlantic's CEO Craig Kreeger said that 2016 had been "a landmark year for sustainability at Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Holidays", adding that "Despite political and economic headwinds we remain fully committed to our sustainability programme and will continue to drive new ways to reduce carbon emissions, and promote responsible supply chain and tourism practices". More information on the carrier's sustainability programme can be seen at virginatlantic.com/changeisintheair. virginatlantic.com https://www.businesstraveller.com/business-travel/2017/06/26/virgin-atlantic-hails-22-per-cent-reduction-aircraft- carbon-emissions/ Back to Top TEN POPULAR AVIATION APPS USED BY PILOTS AND AVGEEKS The mobile expansion of real time information continues to increase as today's pilot boards their aircraft with an electronic tablet loaded with the most useful navigation and weather apps - and may include a flight simulation game. Flight schools and airport terminals world wide rely on the glass screens of their smart technology, including syncing with their digital watch, as the app updates software available through specialized servers. In our research, over 400 apps exist on both the iTunes and Android stores offering pilots, airport personnel, or an aviation journalist the ability to file flight plans, view cloud tops and winds aloft information, and to view airport closures in an instant. Here are 10 great apps that we love: Ten: Instagram Yes, the social media site has taken off and is the top place to receive updates and media from aviation's top military and civilian pilots or airshow teams. 2017 has seen a strong increase in the way military, commercial, and private pilots have put their in-flight short videos, images, and while including updated information. Sites such as the Navy's Blue Angels, Air Force Thunderbirds, commercial airlines, and the aerobatic pilots, such as GEICO Skytypers, allow avgeeks the ability to stay connected in real time. Aviation news feeds such as Military_Flight, AVGeekery, or AirshowNewsbriefs are a few of the Instagram accounts which distribute real time news updates, and allow the public to communicate on current topics. Nine: My Radar Weather Radar is likely the most used live radar we've seen by pilots and airport personnel across the United States, Europe, and Japan. My Radar displays animated weather, and its pinch and swipe display allows app owners the ability to zoom in on a two mile stretch of weather. The app uses your phone's gyros and GPS to accurately pinpoint your location first with a blue dot. My Radar is free, however My Radar Pro is a small fee, and are available on both iTunes and Android devices. Eight: Periscope Want to watch Live video from the flight line of your favorite airshow or airport? This free app offers the user the ability to tune in to live events in the air or on the ground based on your search preference. Both civilian and military sides of aviation are "scoping" the airfields providing live video feeds. "Periscope gives us the ability to share activities that people may not otherwise see," explained Skytypers and airshow spokesperson Brenda Little. "We have shared what an air show looks like from the announcer's stand and quick interviews with the maintenance team or pilots prior to takeoff." Periscope can sync with your Twitter account to promote your broadcast at the same time you go Live. Seven: Flight Pilot Simulator 3D has been rated the top flight sim app for Android and iTunes. Colorful HD graphics highlight the feel of this game as you use easy to learn controls to maneuver your aircraft from take-off to landing. The app takes one to flight school as you learn the ease of the on screen controls, such as the throttle and brakes - including what angle to hold the device. Past players call it addictive. We call it a fun way to pass an hour at the terminal. Free to install, there are in game fees based on your performance level. Six: Flight Aware is likely the best application to keep an eye on your upcoming commercial flight. Simply input your airline name and flight number at the top of the screen, and FA will update with any changes to the flight time and gate number. Click on the brief flight details to open up a full page for in flight data and route map synced via GPS. "Whether I'm flying my Beech Debonair at home or my A300 at work, I think my favorite app of the 8 or so that I use regularly is FlightAware," said John Bowen, A300 Captain and active General Aviation instructor. "It allows me to preview my route with my expected ATC clearance, my friends and family can track my flights, and I can view my flight performance after I land." Five: Cloud Ahoy is the pilot in training's debrief logbook. This app excels as it tracks your flight profile from takeoff through landing. For many pilots, the question of how nominal their approach and landing was is answered as the app offers an updated 3D model of the glide slope. Speed calculations and altitude is given with time stamps in GMT and local. Today's top aerobatic pilots love this app as they use Cloud Ahoy to review their airshow performance track, and learn just how they did that afternoon. This app is only available in iTunes. Four: LiveATC is the only online application offering the most air traffic control feeds across America and the globe. Live audio (delayed forty seconds due to Internet routing) from the headset of pilots and controllers, LiveATC can help future pilots learn the right and wrong ways to deliver quick departure information to the tower. The average aviation geek interested in tuning in need not know the airport code, just the country; state; city. LiveATC will draw you in with the ability to listen-in to most air shows and the conversation between the air boss and the aerobatic aircraft pilot. This app even comes with a sleep timer to allow LiveATC to close after 60 minutes. One note, from time to time, a popular tower feed may be off line. Available on both iTunes and Android. Three: Flight Radar 24 is one of the most popular air traffic radars on the planet. This app provides aircraft flight information with pinpoint accuracy across the globe. Tap on any aircraft to learn its flight details, or tap on an airport icon for arrival and departure boards, delays, and flight status plus weather conditions. Flight Radar 24 is available free on both Android and iTunes. There are a few in app purchases, however the majority of the app is free. Two: ForeFlight 9. It's pricey for the individual but again, you get what you pay for, and this app is tops. ForeFlight takes flight planning to a new level. And, this app is not just targeted to civilian and commercial pilots. ForeFlight's Military Flight Bag offers military pilots secured access to DoD flight publications. "We use ForeFlight daily for just about everything," noted pilot Steve Kapur of the GEICO Skytypers Airshow Team. "We get information about the local area, routing, and weather - both current and forecast. I use it daily to prepare information for our morning briefing and others use it to develop our cross country plans." ForeFlight is only available in the iTunes app store. One: Garmin Pilot is the top GPS app for the open skies. File your flight plan, navigate around storms, and keep an accurate log book with this app. Pilots can view real time VFR/IFR charts and read new METARs, TAFs, Winds Aloft, PIREPs, AIRMETs, SIGMETs, Area Forecasts, and NOTAM's. According to Garmin Pilot officials, "Turn your iPad or iPhone into the ideal cockpit companion. Garmin Pilot puts full- featured navigation - including our decades of experience with rich, interactive mapping, 3D Vision, aviation weather, global flight plan filing, electronic flight bag capabilities, optional traffic/weather, pilot logbook and more - right at your fingertips." A drop down icon at top left will allow pilots many options to navigate in flight. GPS-based course direction and altitude readings along with the real time map motion as the flight progresses is a top highlight of the Garmin app. Select Airport Info for local traffic patterns and elevation as you prepare for landing. A standard annual subscription cost is $75.00, while a premium subscription is $150. Many other apps we use probably should have made our Top Ten. Let us know what favorite aviation apps you use and cannot live without. Use the chat thread below to exchange thoughts with fellow avgeeks and pilots. http://www.avgeekery.com/ten-popular-aviation-apps-used-by-pilots-and-avgeeks/ Back to Top Adios, turbulence. Pilots have a new way to outfox you Airplanes with better Wi-Fi aren't just good for passengers -- they help pilots avoid troublesome turbulence too. What kind of flier are you? I like the window seat. Once I'm sitting on a plane with my seatbelt fastened, I rarely get up again. This is mostly because I'm usually asleep before the plane even reaches the runway. But it's also because when turbulence inevitably hits, it's much better to be already seated and plugged in than pottering about getting in the way of the trolley. But turbulence may become a thing of the past if Honeywell gets its way. Best known for making smart home products, Honeywell also works in avionics, and it's showing off its new JetWave system for faster in-flight Wi-Fi and its vision for the connected aircraft. While faster Wi-Fi means better video streaming and FaceTime chats for passengers, it could also be beneficial to pilots, who now have reliable connectivity and access to real-time weather data. That connection also means data about the condition of the plane can be beamed ahead to maintenance crews on the ground. The result could be fewer delays, faster turnaround times and a smoother flight for you with pilots able to chart a smarter course around trouble spots. Honeywell predicts that by 2025, there will be 25,000 Wi-Fi-connected planes in the world. It's already upgrading 20 airlines with its JetWave technology, including planes belonging to Lufthansa, Singapore Airlines and Qatar Airways. It boasts a maximum speed of 50 megabits per second, although it's more realistically around 30Mbps, or triple the speed of your standard home broadband connection. The Honeywell-customized Boeing 757 boasts faster Wi-Fi because of an antenna mounted to the top of the aircraft, allowing it to grab signals from satellites above. It's less clumsy than the traditional system in which planes grab cellular signals from towers on the ground. Honeywell, is the upstart in this game. GoGo, the leader in providing in-flight Wi-Fi service, also has a next- generation satellite system, called 2Ku, that it says outperforms all other services in the market. Other companies building their own high-speed satellite-based networks include Panasonic and Viasat. When the Honeywell plane landed in London, I went on board to see how it would result in a less stomach-churning flight. Flying smooth Almost as soon as the "fasten seatbelt" signs turned off, I rushed to the jump seat in the cockpit, watching the pilots over their shoulders. They were using new GoDirect in-flight apps created by Honeywell, which show the flight plan they've created with multiple overlays. With clear indications of where they'll find turbulence using crowdsourced and up-to-date weather reports, they were able to make route modifications in a split second. Their flight plans updated in real time to reflect the changes. Honeywell's app allows pilots to update the flight plan in real time. Spotting turbulence is an inexact science, which explains why so many of us experience it. A pilot usually creates a flight plan several hours ahead of takeoff, or even the night before, using existing weather reports,which include some kind of turbulence forecast. This method has its limitations. "Once you take off, it's old news, it's out of date already," said Nate Turner, a private pilot, flying teacher and product manager at Honeywell. Pilots will talk to air traffic control to see if there's information from other pilots, and turbulence reports are shared by word of mouth, but it's not the most efficient system, said Turner. In the cockpit, there's a radar that can see for hundreds of miles ahead, but this detects precipitation and clouds without giving any real indication of whether you'd encounter any instability. Also, once the flight plan is set, it's usually tricky to make a change. Turner and his private passengers have already experienced the benefits of the Honeywell system. "I was flying up to Idaho a few weeks ago, and I was able to see exactly where the turbulence was going to be," he said. "I requested an altitude higher than that, and right away I got out of the turbulence and it was clear sailing going ahead." The app also condenses existing charts and information into 3D approach charts, which allows the pilot to visualize the landing, which is especially useful at tricky or unfamiliar airports. The future is on the way, without delay Another benefit of all this connectivity is, of course, data. With up to 25,000 sensors on board, a plane can generate hundreds of terabytes of information over the course of each flight. Getting that information to the ground crew at the destination ahead of time means they'll know exactly what needs taking care of when a plane lands, reducing delays in the process. If you're a frequent flyer, that's music to your ears. Honeywell is also using this connectivity to introduce real-time tracking, although it faces a lot of competition. It has started trials with United Airlines in the US to stream black box data straight to the cloud. In the future, this will have the potential to help avoid situations such as the inability to locate Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which went missing in March 2014 and was never recovered. I enjoyed a smooth flight around the east coast of England, but it turns out that no matter how good the turbulence- predicting mechanisms are, there's no accounting for low-lying British clouds. When our flight was making its final descent into London Stansted Airport, the plane started bobbing about. The flight of the future is promising, but it's clear there will be some bumps along the way. https://www.cnet.com/news/adios-turbulence-pilots-have-a-new-way-to-outfox-you/ Back to Top Ace of Ag: SD aviator operates rare ag pilot school MADISON, S.D. - For $43,000 of tuition money and six months of your time, Morris Riggin can turn you into a certified aerial ag applicator. He's taught dozens since starting at age 19. Riggin, 56, owns Riggin Flight Service of Madison. The school turns out 20 to 30 ag pilots every year. It is one of only four schools of its kind nationwide. Riggin's flying history spans 100 years, with stops in Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota. Things lifted off with great-uncle Guy Riggin, who grew up with his younger brother William (Morris' grandfather) on a 1,200-head sheep farm near Devils Lake, N.D. Guy trained to be a World War I fighter pilot and shipped out to Europe just as the Great War ended. As the story goes, Guy used his muster-out pay to buy a train ticket "as far as he could go" from New York City. That turned out to be at Havre, Mont., where he started farming. "He always wanted an airplane, so as soon as he could afford it he bought an old biplane" for recreation and farm use, Morris says. Big Sky Guy While Guy farmed at Havre, William continued to farm at Devils Lake where Morris' father, Wayne, grew up. Guy taught his nephew Wayne how to fly. Wayne solo-flew at age 16 in about 1933 and soon acquired his commercial pilot's license. When World War II came along, Wayne became a war-time flight instructor, working for a contractor out of Mississippi. After the war, the company looked into a new market - crop dusting. "They said, 'We don't know anything about it, but would you like to hang around and do it?' That's how Dad started spraying," Morris says. Wayne established Riggin Flight Service in 1947. He would teach other crop dusters - often ex-military pilots, with ground flaggers. Before crop dusting became common in the North Dakota, Wayne spent summers crop dusting in Mississippi. He'd come back to Devils Lake in the winter to help care for 1,200 sheep and hunt coyote and fox from the air for bounty money. He sold the sheep in the mid-1950s to concentrate on flying. In 1959, Wayne's airplane hangar burned, destroying all five of his airplanes. In 1961, Wayne moved the Riggin Flying Service to Milbank, S.D. Morris was born in 1960, the only son with three sisters. When the family flew home to Devils Lake for family events, Wayne let Morris, 8, steer the plane. "I was flying before my feet would reach the pedals," Morris recalls. "He said, 'You just follow that compass: Devils Lake is north.' " Aces of ag After high school in 1979, Morris took the airplane mechanic course at what is now Lake Area Technical Institute at Watertown, S.D. He sprayed at Watertown, then Milbank, S.D., and in 2003 took a summer stint as a bush pilot in Alaska before returning to work at Aberdeen, S.D. In 2010, Morris was hired to manage the Madison Municipal Airport, and he could keep his flight school going on the side. Riggin Flight Service has developed a niche for ag pilots as the need has grown. Planes are getting bigger and "insurance companies really insist that pilots have some formal training," he explains. There are other schools in Georgia, Florida and Louisiana, but nothing this far north. "We fly in a lot of wind. You need to know when to stop spraying because of the wind and the thunderstorms that moves through up here," he says. Conversely, ag pilots now increasingly are worrying about calm winds - temperature inversions, which can lead to drift damage. Things are more complicated today. Now pilots often put five or six chemicals in a load, sometimes mixed in a specific order. Some chemicals require to be decontaminated for several hours before new chemicals can be loaded. Nothing new Riggin owns 13 airplanes, but uses three in his ag training school - a two-seat Piper PA-18 Super Cub, made in 1952; a Call Air A-9, a single-seat, made in 1966; and a Cessna 140, built in 1947, for instrument training. "We don't have any new stuff for the school," Riggin says, grinning. Ag pilot students must be 18 to get a commercial license. The current crop is from Minnesota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Kansas and Oregon. Students typically live in Madison and fly every day when the weather is fit. The process usually lasts six months. Students learn in "tail-draggers" - planes with a little wheel in the back versus tricycle gears with a nose wheel up- front. "The center of gravity is behind the pilot so it's actually kind of pushing you," he says. Heidi Stoeppler, 27, who grew up in California, has been a flight instructor for two years. She grew up in the country near Bakersfield, Calif., and watched crop dusters treating almonds, walnuts and cherries, as well as wheat, corn and vegetables. "I'd ride my bike out to watch them spraying, and they told me I spent so much time out there, they might as well put me to work," Stoeppler says. Stoeppler loaded planes for that company, then moved to Montana to load firefighting planes. While in the Black Hills of South Dakota, she became aware of Morris, and he offered her training and an instructor job. She's hoping to do some ag spraying this summer, perhaps in Kansas. The basics Riggin uses the first 40 to 60 hours to qualify students for a private license. The next 40 hours are for instrument school. Flying by instruments isn't needed for ag piloting, but graduates require flexibility to do things other than ag work. "Then we put them through the ag school, which is 25 to 30 hours," Morris says. All of this contributes toward 250 hours to receive a commercial pilot's certificate. Instructors teach how to find the field, then scout the field for obstacles. "You're looking not only for stuff in the field you could hit, but stuff a mile around - towers, and now there's drones flying all over so we want to keep an eye on those." A GPS gets the pilot to the right field. Once at the field, the pilot marks an "AB line," essentially telling the GPS where the edge of the field is. The GPS automatically divides the field into whatever the swath width is, and the pilot tells it when to move to a new swath until the end. Part of the trick is to fly low and watch a 1½0foot-wide GPS light bar, mounted on the cowling, and keep it within 5 feet of either side of the centerline. "That actually takes a fair amount of concentration and skill," Morris acknowledges. They teach how to "fly low" - 10 feet off the ground - and make specific, safe turns, which is one of the most challenging parts. Turning a loaded plane involves a wide swing. Live load One of Riggin Flight Service's advantages is that it teaches pilots with the planes loaded with water. Students learn "emergency quick water dumps" as one of the counter-moves to engine failures and emergencies. Morris says it takes a person with patience and attention to detail to be a pilot - especially the spray pilots. About 90 percent of the students who start the course finish it. Some aren't cut out to fly low or get up at 5 in the morning. These days, more ag pilots are coming from the city than the rural areas. One student who didn't complete the course asked Riggin the difference between an alfalfa and a corn field. "It's a lot easier to teach farm kids how to be a spray pilot than a city kid how to be a farmer," he says. "You do need to know a fair amount about the crops to be successful." One dropout that surprised Riggin was a veteran Army medevac helicopter pilot who had a record of flying helicopters into "hot" war zones. "I gave him a demo ride. We flew down across the field (one time) and on the way back, he said, 'That's enough of that: I've never been so scared in my life!' He got out the airplane, and that was it." Riggin has two sons who are pilots, but they are in other businesses at this time. Commodity prices make a big difference in the returns for ag aviation, but that's cyclical. Beginning spray pilots can earn $30,000 a year. Experienced pilots can make $100,000. "A few years ago when corn was really high priced, we were putting fertilizer on corn, micronutrients," he says. "Corn isn't so high (priced) now. We haven't sprayed any corn in two years." There are 4,000 spray pilots in the United States - only a handful of women. The average age is 56 - Riggins' age. It will take 200 to 300 new pilots to replace them as they retire, and the industry is not keeping up. Riggin says he's doing all he can to change that. For information, go to " target="_blank">www.rigginflightservice.com. http://www.wdaz.com/news/4288210-ace-ag-sd-aviator-operates-rare-ag-pilot-school Back to Top Omaha jet management company Jet Linx reaches 100-aircraft milestone "A hundred airplanes is a phenomenal benchmark," said Jet Linx President and CEO Jamie Walker. The trick to making money with airplanes is to not own them. Jet Linx learned that lesson four years after the Omaha company started in 1999, giving up ownership of its jets and shifting to aircraft management and a private jet travel card service. Now, Jet Linx is celebrating its 100th managed jet - actually, the fleet stands at 101 today - and ranks No. 3 in the highly fragmented industry of managing and renting out expensive air vehicles as a service to their owners. "A hundred airplanes is a phenomenal benchmark," said Jet Linx President and CEO Jamie Walker. He hosted about 400 clients, staff members, vendors and others Friday for supper at downtown Omaha's Blatt Beer & Table restaurant, followed by a private concert by the band Smash Mouth at Slowdown. No. 1 in managed fleet size is Executive Jet Management of Zurich, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway's NetJets, with 160 aircraft. No. 2 is Gama Aviation, based in Hampshire, England. Jet Linx added 38 aircraft last year and is headed for 110 by the end of 2017. Walker attributed that growth, about 30 percent a year in revenue, to the people running its network of 14 local private airport terminals, alongside the 95-member staff at its operational headquarters near 132nd and Pacific Streets. From pilots to airplane polishers, Jet Linx has 485 employees. Joe Moeggenberg, president and CEO of air travel data company Argus International of Cincinnati, said Jet Linx's local network is a unique structure in private jet management, an industry with 2,300 businesses, nearly all of them tiny, that manage private jet airplanes. Jet Linx - an Argus customer - has a cost advantage because most of its flights start or end at its network cities, Moeggenberg said, meaning fewer expensive empty-cabin flights. Aside from a few jets managed exclusively for their owners, Jet Linx's card customers can book any of the airplanes made available at the owners' discretion. Jet Linx handles fueling, maintenance, safety checks, hangar storage and other services, including employing pilots, as well as scheduling and tracking flights for Jet Linx's card members, more than 200 in Omaha and 1,300 total. Card members are guaranteed hourly rates - $3,500 to $8,500, depending on the size of the plane - as well as flight access and safety standards, Walker said. Their travel fees cover Jet Linx's costs and supply revenue for the aircraft owners, often cutting net operating costs by 50 percent. But no matter how well you manage costs, Walker said, there's an industry truism: "You cannot make money owning an airplane." Besides operating expenses, aircraft prices are high, especially for long-range aircraft. Jet Linx's fleet includes seven-passenger Beechjet 400s that can travel 1,400 miles on a tank of fuel, often priced around $700,000, and 14-passenger, $20 million-plus Gulfstream 450s with a 5,000-mile range. Walker said some businesses would end their company flight operations if they had to absorb all the costs. By bringing in revenue from travel card customers they can keep the convenience and time savings that jets offer. Besides Omaha, Jet Linx's local offices are in Atlanta; Dallas; Denver; Detroit; Forth Worth, Texas; Houston; Indianapolis; Nashville, Tennessee; St. Louis; San Antonio; Scottsdale, Arizona; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Dulles Airport in Washington, D.C. Jet Linx is majority owner of each location, with a local partner as minority owner. "We need somebody locally who gives us that credibility and trust and support in that community," Walker said, plus contacts to recruit as travel card members. Besides reduced "dead-head" flight costs, he said, the terminals provide local-style, personalized service for card members and aircraft owners. The local Jet Linx partner typically becomes "the jet guy" in each city, he said. Later this year Jet Linx's local offices will celebrate the 100-aircraft landmark. Jet Linx was founded by Denny Walker, Jamie's father and now chairman. He is former head of MemberWorks Inc., an Omaha-based card membership company. Jamie Walker said Jet Linx has room to grow, with plans to open about two locations a year. He said another dozen or so U.S. cities meet Jet Linx's requirements for airport services and other standards. http://www.omaha.com/money/omaha-jet-management-company-jet-linx-reaches--aircraft- milestone/article_cac185a8-6f1e-53a4-b01f-dfb72025cc77.html Back to Top SpaceX launches and lands second Falcon 9 rocket in two days The Falcon 9 rocket accelerates downrange south from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California after Sunday's liftoff with 10 Iridium Next satellites. Credit: SpaceX Two days after launching a Falcon 9 rocket from Florida, SpaceX sent another mission into orbit Sunday from California's Central Coast with 10 new satellites for Iridium's voice and data relay network. Like Friday's flight from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the Falcon 9's first stage plunged back through the atmosphere and made a propulsive vertical landing on a barge stationed several hundred miles downrange from the launch site. The back-to-back launchings and landings set a record for the shortest turnaround between two SpaceX flights from different launch sites, a milestone the company could repeat as it reactivates a damaged launch pad at Cape Canaveral later this year and begins service from a Texas spaceport as soon as next year. The last time two orbital-class U.S. rockets of similar type lifted off two days apart was in March 1995, when a Lockheed Martin Atlas 2AS rocket and a similar Atlas-E launcher flew separate missions from Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg Air Force Base, delivering an Intelsat broadcast satellite and an Air Force weather satellite to space. Russian Soyuz rockets, on the other hand, have flown the same day from different launch pads, most recently in March 2015, when Soyuz boosters took off two hours apart from the Baikonur Cosmodome in Kazakhstan with a three-man space station crew and from the European-run space base in French Guiana with two Galileo navigation payloads. A four-day delay in SpaceX's previous launch from Florida, which carried a Bulgarian-owned communications satellite to orbit on a previously-flown, reused Falcon 9 booster, set up the weekend doubleheader. Sunday's mission began at 1:25:14 p.m. PDT (4:25:14 p.m. EDT; 2025:14 GMT), the instant when the Falcon 9 rocket could dispatch its 10 satellite passengers directly into one of the six orbital pathways populated by more than 60 Iridium communications spacecraft. The 229-foot-tall (70-meter) Falcon launcher lifted off from Space Launch Complex 4-East at Vandenberg, the primary launch site on the U.S. West Coast. After climbing through a soupy fog bank enshrouding the hillside launch pad, the Falcon 9 steered through clear skies on a southerly trajectory with its nine Merlin 1D main engines producing 1.7 million pounds of thrust, chugging a super-chilled combination of RP-1 kerosene and liquid oxygen propellants. After consuming most of its propellant, the first stage dropped away from the Falcon 9's upper stage to begin a descent toward a SpaceX barge in the Pacific Ocean. Four upgraded titanium grid fins, flying of the first time Sunday, extended from the top of the 14-story first stage and helped steer the rocket on its glide back to Earth. The booster ignited a subset of its Merlin engines twice, first to slow down for re-entry through the atmosphere, then to brake for landing. A four-legged landing gear opened at the base of the booster just before touchdown, and the rocket braved high winds and challenging seas as it dropped through a low cloud deck onto the football field-sized drone ship, dubbed "Just Read the Instructions," around eight minutes after blastoff. The rocket will return to port in Southern California in a few days for inspections and possible reuse. Elon Musk, SpaceX's founder and chief executive, said the new, larger grid fin design is more robust than the Falcon 9's previous aluminum fins, which had to be shielded against the extreme heat during re-entry, then replaced before the first stage could fly again. The new fins are cast in a single piece of titanium and cut to form their shape, Musk tweeted. He said the titanium fins are "slightly heavier" than the shielded aluminum fins, but the upgrade offers more control authority for stabilization and steering as the pencil-like 14-story booster glides back to Earth. The Falcon 9 rocket can land in heavier winds with the upgraded fins, Musk said. An up-close view of the Falcon 9's redesigned titanium grid fins. Credit: SpaceX "New titanium grid fins worked even better than expected," Musk tweeted after Sunday's landing. "Should be capable of an indefinite number of flights with no service." The billionaire entrepreneur also gave a brief update on SpaceX's efforts to recover pieces of the Falcon 9 rocket's payload fairings, the nose cone that protects satellites during the first few minutes of each launch. SpaceX intends to guide the fairing parts, which jettison from the rocket like a clamshell, with tiny thrusters and gently land them in the ocean with a parafoil. "Getting closer to fairing recovery and reuse," he tweeted. "Had some problems with the steerable parachute. Should have it sorted out by end of year." While the first stage made its daring descent, the second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket fired its single vacuum-rated Merlin engine into a preliminary parking orbit. After sailing over Antarctica, the upper stage reignited the Merlin engine for three seconds to reach a targeted 388-mile-high (625-kilometer) orbit to begin releasing the 10 Iridium satellites. Fastened to a two-tier dispenser specially designed and built by SpaceX, the 1,896-pound (860-kilogram) satellites separated one-by-one at intervals of approximately 90 seconds. The deployments were complete by T+plus 1 hour, 12 minutes. SpaceX and Iridium officials declared the launch a success, and ground controllers established radio contact with all 10 of the new satellites to verify they survived the trip into orbit. "Ten for ten, it's a clean sweep," said Falcon 9 product manager John Insprucker, who provided commentary on SpaceX's live webcast of the mission. "We can tie a broom to the Falcon 9." Sunday's launch targeted Plane 3 of the Iridium constellation, which is designed to have 66 satellites spread out evenly in six orbital planes around Earth. One of of the satellites will fill a hole in Plane 3 where one of Iridium's aging communications platforms failed last year. Credit: Gene Blevins/LA Daily News It was the second of at least eight Falcon 9 flights to deliver 75 next-generation satellites to replace Iridium's network with upgraded services and new spacecraft designed to operate for the next 15 years. Twenty of the satellites are now in space with the conclusion of Sunday's mission. Iridium ordered 81 of the new-generation "Iridium Next" satellites in 2010 from Thales Alenia Space, a French aerospace contractor. Thales partnered with Orbital ATK to build the spacecraft in an assembly line fashion in Orbital's factory near Phoenix. "Right now, it's two down with six more launches to go," said Matt Desch, chief executive officer of Iridium, in a post- launch press release. "Our operations team is eagerly awaiting this new batch of satellites and is ready to begin the testing and validation process. After several weeks of fine-tuning, the next set of 'slot swaps' will begin, bringing more Iridium Next satellites into operational service, and bringing us closer to an exciting new era for our network, company, and partners." "Specifically for this launch, five satellites ... will go into mission in Plane 3, replacing existing satellites, or in one case, filling a hole in our network we've had for the last year or so," Desch said in a pre-launch conference call with reporters. "Four satellites will be sent drifting down to Plane 2, where three of those satellites are expected to go into mission and one will be positioned as a spare." One more satellite launched Sunday will drift to Plane 4 and go into operation there next year. It takes 10 or 11 months to reposition an Iridium satellite to another orbital plane. Artist's concept of an Iridium Next satellite. Credit: Thales Alenia Space The satellites will boost themselves to a higher altitude - around 485 miles (780 kilometers) above Earth - in the coming weeks and months, rendezvousing with the older spacecraft each is intended to replace. Desch said the satellites launched Sunday will replace aging members of the Iridium fleet that lifted off on a Russian Proton rocket from Kazakhstan in September 1997, and on two Boeing Delta 2 rockets from Vandenberg in March 1998 and February 2002. The first-generation satellites were designed to last eight years, but most of them are still providing service, more than 20 years after the first batch of Iridium spacecraft reached orbit. "Iridium Next features the same unique interconnected satellite architecture as the original constellation, which is the key feature that distinguishes Iridium from all other commercial satellite operators," Desch said. "Cross-links, as we refer to them, allow our satellites to bounce data and voice calls around the world nearly instantaneously, creating a true web of coverage around the entire planet, the key advantage of our network and one of the biggest reasons for our growth and success." Improved service for Iridium's nearly 900,000 subscribers will also come with the new satellites. Besides faster connections on voice calls and data relays, the modern satellites are the cornerstone of Iridium Certus, which the company says will link customers on-the-go via an L-band network that is not as susceptible to interference from poor weather and other factors. Desch said the Certus initiative will provide Iridium customers with up to 1.4 megabits per second of L-band connectivity, up from 128 kilobits per second available with the existing satellites. "Certus is an L-band service built for reliability, coverage, mobility and able to be certified for safety services to ships and the cockpits of aircraft," he said, adding that Certus will go to market in early 2018. Artist's illustration of the Iridium network. Credit: Thales Alenia Space Iridium's clients include the U.S. military, oil and gas companies, aviation and maritime operators, and mining and construction contractors. Piggyback payloads on the Iridium satellites orbited Sunday will help commercial companies track and stay in contact with airplanes and ships outside the reach of land-based radars. All of the Iridium Next satellites host radio receivers for Aireon, an affiliate of Iridium established in partnership with air traffic control authorities in Canada, Ireland, Italy and Denmark. "Aireon technology is hosted by us on every Iridium Next satellite and is poised to change how the world views the skies," Desch said. "The only way to really provide 100 percent global aircraft tracking and surveillance in realtime is through the Iridium network and our unique cross-link functionality that's provided by our satellites." Don Thoma, Aireon's CEO, told reporters his company's service will help usher air traffic control into the modern era, making for more efficient use of airspace over oceans, where ground-based radars cannot see aircraft on intercontinental flights. "When aircraft leave terrestrial airspace, they fly very rigid formations, typically conga lines or highways in the sky, along fixed routes to ensure that the aircraft maintain safe separation distances from one another, and make sure the air traffic system is as safe as it is," Thoma said. "That's all in the process of being changed," he said. "There's a major upgrade by the world's air traffic control organizations to move from a radar-based technology to a new GPS-based technology called Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast, or ADS-B." While ADS-B signals were originally meant to be received by ground stations and other aircraft, the Aireon payload on each Iridium Next satellite can detect them from space. "ADS-B will provide realtime, very accurate, frequent updates on aircraft location to air traffic control," Thoma said. "What Aireon represents is the ability to provide that not just over land-based areas, but over the entire world." Touting financial and environmental benefits in fuel costs and pollution reductions, Thoma said Aireon's position data will help ensure airplanes are not lost over remote oceans, like the case of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370, a Boeing 777 that went missing with 239 passengers and crew in March 2014. "We'll be able to pick up those (position) signals and provide them in realtime to air traffic controllers," Thoma said. "This will truly be a revolutionary aspect of air traffic control, not only supporting the surveillance across remote areas like the oceans, but also providing a backup capability and additional gap-filling surveillance over significant parts of land masses around the world." The first eight Aireon payloads aboard Iridium Next satellites launched in January are already receiving ADS-B position signals, he said. Nine of the 10 Iridium Next satellites launched Saturday also have antennas to monitor maritime traffic for exactEarth, a Canadian company, and Harris Corp. of Melbourne, Florida, according to Nicole Schill, an exactEarth spokesperson. Like all eight of Iridium's launches booked with SpaceX, Sunday's flight used a brand new Falcon 9 first stage. SpaceX has racked up two successful launches with recycled Falcon 9 boosters, including Friday's mission from Florida, which coincidentally was powered by the first stage that sent the first 10 Iridium Next craft to space in January from California. "I believe previously-flown boosters are fantastic," Desch said. "I think it's revolutionizing the industry. I think it's fantastic, in the future, for the availability and cost of launches." Desch said he was inclined, for now, to continue launching Iridium satellites on newly-built Falcon 9s. "Our using them or not using them is not a statement around the quality or capability of those boosters," he said. Instead, Desch would like to see a steeper discount for flying on a reused Falcon 9 booster than SpaceX currently offers. Perhaps most importantly, he said, is determining whether a switch to a previously-flown Falcon 9 rocket will get Iridium's satellites up sooner. Iridium's first 10 satellites were supposed to launch last September, but the flight was grounded until January in the wake of a Falcon 9 rocket explosion in Florida. A manufacturing bottleneck at SpaceX's headquarters near Los Angeles delayed the second Iridium Next flight from April to June. "When would they be available, and would they improve the current launch plan we have with brand new rockets that I basically contracted for a number of years ago, and have budgeted for and have paid for?" Desch said. "That's the first thing. Will they improve my schedule because schedule, to me, is very, very important." "Secondly is the cost, and really the cost and risk are kind of aligned," he said. "I believe the risk is pretty low right now, but it's not zero because it's a new thing." He said the reduced cost of a reused Falcon 9 is "minor right now, at least in our perception of it." "If that changes as there are additional launches, I'll reconsider that, but right now I think we've made the right decision." "While we are currently flying first-flown launches, I'm open to previously-flown launches, particularly for maybe the second half of our launch schedule - maybe in 2018 - but I really want to see the answers to all those questions before we'd ever make that kind of decision," Desch said. The next Falcon 9 flight is set for takeoff from Kennedy Space Center's launch pad 39A some time next month. It will send an Intelsat high-throughput communications satellite toward its perch in geostationary orbit more than 22,000 miles (35,000 kilometers) over the equator. Vandenberg is set to host its next Falcon 9 launch in late August, when it will loft a long-delayed Taiwanese Earth observation satellite, according to Taiwanese news reports. Then 10 more Iridium satellites are set to go up on another Falcon 9 from Vandenberg some time in early fall. https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/06/25/spacex-launches-and-lands-second-falcon-9-rocket-in-two-days/ Back to Top The 2017 Safety Forum is fast-approaching and we are excited to share this community engagement event with all of you. The Forum will focus on Safety, Just Culture, Human Factors, and Professional Development in Aviation and allow for interaction with industry-leading experts. We hope you'll join us and take advantage of this unique opportunity. The Forum will begin at 10:00 a.m. on Friday, July 14 and end 2:00 p.m. The location of event: 4700 Old International Airport Rd. Anchorage, Alaska 99502 On-site registration opens at 9:00 a.m., Friday, July 14 at the entrance of the Ravn Alaska Headquarters building Lunch and door prizes will be given following the presentations. Guest Speakers Dave Prewitt is President of Dave Prewitt Consulting, LLC in Melbourne, Florida specializing in safety management system development, improving safety culture, auditing and accident investigation. Dave served as Vice-President Flight Operations at AAR Airlift in Palm Bay, Florida. AAR operates both fixed and rotary wing aircraft on contract around the world. Tony Kern, Ed.D., (CEO, Convergent Performance) is one of the world's leading authorities on human performance in time-constrained, error- intolerant environments, and has written and lectured on the subject around the globe for nearly two decades. George H. Snyder, (CEO, GHS Aviation Group, LLC.) has been recognized for his contributions to global aviation safety by the Associate Administer of the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Minister of Construction and Transportation (KMOCT) for the Republic of Korea, and the IATA Senior Vice President of Safety and Flight Operations. Concurrently with his position as President and CEO of GHS Aviation Group, Captain Snyder has held executive level advisory roles for several major international Flag Carriers as well as serving on Board- level Aviation Safety and Security sub-Committees. FOR QUESTIONS ABOUT THE EVENT, CONTACT US AT SAFETY@FLYRAVN.COM Ravn Alaska 4700 Old International Airport Road Anchorage, AK 99502 © 2017 Ravn Alaska. All rights reserved. Back to Top IOSA Auditor Training (IAT) Course Our accredited IATA Operational Safety Audit ("IOSA") Auditor Training ("IAT") Course is designed to familiarize aviation professionals with the standards, methodology, and documentation of the IOSA. Course curriculum will introduce you to the IOSA terminology and the process of the audit. The course is a prerequisite for becoming a qualified IOSA Auditor. You will also receive: ? An introduction to IOSA's Electronic Audit System (Q5); ? IOSA manuals and IOSA Standards and Recommended Practices ("ISARPs"); ? An interpretation of standards; and ? Post audit documentation requirements. Where: Arlington, Virginia 22201 When: August 21, 2017 - August 25, 2017 Contact: Ashley Orasin IOSA Administrative Assistant Morten Beyer & Agnew tel: 1 703 276 3200 ext. 400 email: aorasin@mba.aero www.mba.aero Back to Top BOWTIE RISK MANAGEMENT WORKSHOP July 18 - 19, 2017 American Airlines Training & Conference Center 4501 Highway 360 South, MD 929, Fort Worth, TX 76155 This hands-on workshop will introduce a high-level view at ways your organization can enhance safety and efficiency immediately. It will then quickly move to provide the foundation to build risk models and culminate with experience creating and managing your own risk models. The workshop will introduce event reconstruction analysis using the IncidentXP software tool and incorporating the learnings into your BowTie risk models. DAY 1 - MACRO VIEW OF METHODOLOGY & CONSTRUCTING BOWTIES: Begins with benefits of BowTie Risk Methodology including the foundational concepts behind the methodology and methods to quantify safety/risk data to create measurable tracking systems. Hands-on training will enable participants to gain full experience in designing and creating BowTie models including an introduction to BTXP software. DAY 2 - FUNCTIONAL RISK MANAGEMENT: INCIDENT ANALYSIS AND BOWTIE SOFTWARE: The seminar continues the training on the industry-leading tool - BTXP software, with more advanced capabilities. This course is not intended for "IT software experts," rather, the focus is on the safety/risk management professional responsible to execute the organization's safety/risk management requirements. Training will include incident analysis and review of the functionality of IncidentXP software. The program covers: * How BowTie techniques work and why they are effective * Quantitative methods to assess safety performance * Identification of hazards, threats, consequences and barrier management * Constructing a BowTie within your own industry utilizing your own subject matter experts * Basic overview of BTXP software - a demo in simplicity supporting your risk management efforts * Incident analysis & IncidentXP functionality and relationship to BT models Cost: $975.00 per person includes course materials, 30-day trial licenses of BowTieXP software, lunches and breaks. A 5% additional credit card fee will be applied. For more information: terry.eisenbart@thealoftgroup.com 505.306.5326 The Aloft Group, LLC, is a U.S. firm based near Washington D.C., We are a consulting team whose principals and expert associates offer extensive experience in general risk management using BowTie methodology, airport and airline operational risk management, airport and airline field safety services, and safety performance management. For more information: www.thealoftgroup.com. Curt Lewis