Flight Safety Information April 15, 2019 - No. 076 In This Issue American Airlines to keep entire fleet of 737 Max jets grounded until mid- August Boeing Has Made 96 Flights to Test Software on Troubled Max Jet, CEO Says Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg Faces Mounting Pressure From 737 MAX Crashes Incident: Neos B763 at Barcelona on Apr 14th 2019, engine shut down in flight Accident: Summit L410 at Lukla on Apr 14th 2019, runway excursion on takeoff and collision with two helicopters Incident: Edelweiss A320 at Zurich on Apr 13th 2019, bird strike Incident: SAS CRJ9 at Stockholm on Apr 13th 2019, nose gear problem on departure Incident: Finnair A319 near Stockholm on Apr 13th 2019, loss of cabin pressure Incident: United B772 over Pacific on Apr 12th 2019, pilot ill Incident: Delta B739 at Santo Domingo on Apr 12th 2019, slat problem Incident: Aeromexico E170 at Chihuahua on Apr 10th 2019, wing tip strike on departure With close industry ties, FAA safety chief pushed more delegation of oversight to Boeing Boeing's Disaster Could Turn China Into Aviation Superpower Professor of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Shares Insight on the Recent Boeing Plane Crashes Dart Aerospace Receives FAA/EASA Certification for EC/H130 Flotation System AIRBUS LIFTS PROPOSED BELUGAXL FLEET TO SIX AIRCRAFT Stratolaunch giant aircraft completes historic first flight Jet Airways pilots defer strike before crunch creditors meeting: report Lockheed Martin Proposes 'Early Gateway' to Put Astronauts on the Moon by 2024 GRADUATE RESEARCH SURVEY Aircraft Cabin Air Conference Fly Safely | Fly With AvSax Call for Nominations For 2019 Laura Taber Barbour Air Safety Award American Airlines to keep entire fleet of 737 Max jets grounded until mid- August American Airlines 737 Max planes will remain grounded until at least Aug. 19. In an effort to plan for the busy summer travel season, all of American Airlines' 737 Max planes will remain grounded through at least Aug. 19, though American may put the jets back in the air in the event of a recertification, according to a letter from the CEO to employees at the airlines obtained by ABC News. The grounding will amount to about 115 cancelled flights per day through Aug. 19, or about 1.5% of American's total flights each day this summer. "We are highly confident that the MAX will be recertified prior to this time," American Airlines CEO Doug Parker said in the letter. "But by extending our cancellations through the summer, we can plan more reliably for the peak travel season." A Boeing 737 MAX 8 airplane being built for Spain-based Air Europa rolls toward takeoff before a test flight, Wednesday, April 10, 2019, at Boeing Field in Seattle. Boeing, which manufactures the 737 Max 8 and Max 9, continues to work on a software fix for the grounded jets that will be certified by the Federal Aviation Administration. A preliminary report issued in early April showed the Ethiopian Airlines jet that crashed on March 10 suffered a damaged sensor that caused the jet's horizontal stabilizer system to kick in. Despite initially turning the system off, the pilot later turned it back on and the jet nosedived into the ground. A malfunctioning horizontal stabilizer system also caused a Lion Air flight to crash last October. U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao assured members of Congress on Wednesday that once the FAA receives Boeing's proposed software enhancements for the 737 Max MCAS function "it will be thoroughly reviewed to ensure the solution has addressed all pertinent issues." "Let me emphasize that the FAA will not approve Boeing's proposed changes until the FAA is satisfied that it safe, and preserve the preeminence of the United States as a gold standard in aviation safety," Chao said during a House Appropriations Committee hearing. Parker emphasized his concern for safety in the letter, saying, "Families everywhere are counting on American Airlines for their summer vacations, family reunions, trips to visit friends and adventures overseas. Our commitment to each other and to our customers is to operate the safest and most reliable operation in our history." All 737 Max jets were grounded on March 13 by the FAA, in an announcement by President Donald Trump, in the wake of two crashes in six months -- one last October off the coast of Indonesia and another in March in Ethiopia. A total of 346 people were killed in the two accidents. The FAA and U.S. carriers had held off on grounding the 737 Max even as other countries around the world did so. The U.S. finally relented days later. American Airlines joined Southwest in announcing it would ground the 737s through August. Southwest announced its decision to ground Max jets through Aug. 5 last week. American Airlines had previously announced on April 7 that it would cancel approximately 90 flights per day through June 5, "in an effort to provide more certainty and avoid last minute flight disruptions." The announcement Sunday extends that order. The airline warned investors last week that the grounded jets were likely to impact first quarter revenue. "The company now expects its first quarter total revenue per available seat mile (TRASM) to be approximately flat to up 1.0 percent year-over-year vs. its previous guidance of flat to up 2.0 percent," American Airlines said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. "This change is due primarily to the impact of the government shutdown, the grounding of the company's MAX fleet, and the removal from service of the 14 737-800 aircraft." American is the second-largest operator of 737 Max 8s in the U.S., behind Southwest. https://abcnews.go.com/US/american-airlines-entire-fleet-737-max-jets- grounded/story?id=62383585 Back to Top Boeing Has Made 96 Flights to Test Software on Troubled Max Jet, CEO Says Workers stand under the wing of a Boeing 737 MAX airplane at the Boeing Renton Factory in Renton, Washington on March 27, 2019. Boeing has made 96 flights to test a software update for its troubled 737 Max jet after recent crashes, according to the company's CEO. (DALLAS) - Boeing has made 96 flights to test a software update for its troubled 737 Max jet, according to the company's CEO. Dennis Muilenburg said Thursday that more test flights are planned in the coming weeks as Boeing attempts to convince regulators that the plane is safe. The Max was grounded by regulators around the world last month after deadly crashes involving the plane in Indonesia and Ethiopia. In both cases, faulty information from a sensor caused anti-stall automation to kick in when it wasn't needed and push the plane's nose down. Pilots struggled to counter the plane's actions but were unable to avoid crashing. Muilenburg, who spoke at a leadership forum in Dallas, said Boeing representatives have met with pilots and airline officials in the U.S., the United Kingdom, Singapore and China to discuss the changes it is making. Separately, Democratic Sen. Edward Markey of Massachusetts introduced a bill in Congress Thursday requiring plane makers to provide airlines with all safety equipment now considered optional and to do so without an additional charge. Markey said safety equipment that had not been installed on the Boeing 737 Max jets in Indonesia and Ethiopia might have saved them from fatal crashes. He says the equipment could have alerted crews to false readings from sensors implicated in those crashes. Markey says plane makers shouldn't treat safety features as luxuries that can generate additional fees like premium seats and extra bathrooms. Boeing says its planes are equipped with "all critical features" necessary for safety. It has said it will provide two features missing in the two crashed planes free of charge. http://time.com/5569045/boeing-max-jet-test-software/ Back to Top Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg Faces Mounting Pressure From 737 MAX Crashes Dennis Muilenburg Dennis Muilenburg has earned a reputation as a high-energy CEO, bicycling 140 miles a week, sometimes taking groups of employees along for high-speed bonding sessions. The 55-year-old may need every ounce of energy he's got as he faces one of the worst crises for Boeing in over 50 years: two crashes that killed 346 people, linked to the automated flight controls of the 737 MAX and leading to the grounding of the company's bestselling plane. The stakes for Boeing, and its CEO, are huge. The 737 accounts for 33% of Boeing's revenue and almost 50% of its profit, according to Berenberg analyst Andrew Gollan. Deliveries have been halted since the plane was taken out of service worldwide after the March 10 crash of an Ethiopian Airlines plane, airlines are demanding compensation, and the company faces scrutiny from Congress, a Department of Transportation inquiry and a federal criminal probe. The stock (BA) has fallen 10%. Lawsuits filed by relatives of the dead and shareholders could take years to conclude. Over the past few weeks, the 34-year Boeing veteran has been traveling heavily to shore up support from airline customers and investors. An aerospace engineer by training, Muilenburg has kept a close eye on the Boeing team rewriting the faulty flight control program; last week he went up in a plane that tested out its effectiveness. But many observers are giving Boeing and Muilenburg poor marks for their public handling of the crisis. Until late last week, Muilenburg was largely invisible and the company's public statements, while expressing sympathy for family and friends of the deceased, were short on substance. "I give them a B," says Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a professor of leadership at the Yale School of Management. Muilenburg needs to put a human face on Boeing, he says, and get out in public and engage with the media to try to correct misperceptions and address the many questions about what went wrong, even if he doesn't have ready answers to offer. Muilenburg hasn't shown the media sophistication of his predecessor, Jim McNerney, who'd previously helmed GE's prized aircraft engine division and 3M. "He's got a catastrophe as his training ground," says Sonnenfeld. Preliminary reports from the investigations into the crashes of Lion Air Flight 610 in October and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 last month suggest that the pilots of both planes struggled to counter a flight control program called MCAS that erroneously pushed the planes' noses down due to malfunctioning angle-of-attack sensors. After Ethiopian investigators released their report last Thursday, Boeing put out a video statement by Muilenburg in which he said Boeing accepted responsibility for the role that MCAS played as one of the "chain links" in the two accidents. Aviation regulators in other countries have questioned the Federal Aviation Administration's certification of the MCAS system and its initial reluctance to pull the 737 MAX out of service; several have said they won't just take the FAA's word that it's safe to fly again, making it uncertain when the plane will return to the skies worldwide. With the prospects of a quick resolution fading, Boeing announced last Friday it would throttle back 737 production to 42 a month from 52-a sharp reversal from its plan to raise output to 57 by the summer. Analyst Richard Epstein of Bank of America/Merrill Lynch downgraded the stock to neutral Monday, estimating that Boeing likely won't be able to resume deliveries for six months and won't get back on pace until 2021, reducing earnings through 2023 before interest and taxes by $13.7 billion. Whether Muilenburg's job is threatened or not may depend on the stock price, says Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace analyst with Teal Group. The board is loyal to Muilenburg, observers say, and his record so far has given them little reason to doubt having signed off on then-CEO and chairman McNerney's decision to promote him to the top job in 2015 at age 51. The hard-charging, detail-oriented engineer presented a strong contrast to McNerney, a liberal arts major at Yale and Harvard M.B.A. who rose up through the ranks at General Electric when it was a star factory under Jack Welch. Native to Iowa, Muilenburg grew up milking cows every morning on his family farm and graduated from Iowa State before going straight to work at Boeing. Health-conscious and rail thin, he drinks Diet Mountain Dew to get a calorie-free caffeine fix and has been known to order turkey sandwiches with no mayo. Though he's cut head count, Muilenburg has cultivated a more positive relationship with the workforce than McNerney, who clashed with the machinist's union and infamously joked of workers "cowering" from him. However, Muilenburg has followed in McNerney's footsteps with a laser focus on financial discipline, including boosting profits by wringing discounts from suppliers. Muilenburg has even gone a step further, moving to make more components in house and aiming to more than triple sales from lucrative aftermarket maintenance and services to $50 billion a year. Like his two predecessors, Muilenberg has continued to sweeten the pot for investors, devoting roughly 95% of operating cash flow to the company's steadily rising dividend and share buybacks. The stock has taken off, climbing fourfold from February 2016 to a peak of $446 at the beginning of March, compared with a 63% rise for the Dow industrials over the same period. The March selloff has only pushed the stock back to where it stood at the end of January. But to Aboulafia, the flawed design of the MCAS flight control system, combined with the continuing problems with the KC-46 tanker and delays in the crewed space-launch program are further evidence for criticism he's leveled at Boeing for almost two decades: that the company's focus on shareholder rewards has come with a "deprioritization and perhaps under-resourcing of engineering." Boeing says it's maintained R&D spending at a steady level and has a healthy corps of 56,000 engineers. The question of how MCAS was certified has raised concerns over whether Boeing has gained too cozy a relationship with the FAA; a wildcard going forward is whether any evidence of wrongdoing will emerge. If whistleblowers had any damaging information we likely would have heard it by now, says Mark Dombroff, an aviation attorney at LeClairRyan and former head of the Department of Justice's aviation division. He expects that the DoJ will seek to determine within 90 to 120 days whether there's a case to pursue. Aviation experts are optimistic that Boeing's software patch and training revisions will solve the 737 MAX's safety problems. Boeing's disclosure this week that it logged zero orders for the MAX in March generated negative headlines, but with a whopping 15,000 total narrow-body orders placed over the past seven years, there aren't really any airlines left with sizable needs, says Aboulafia, with the notable exception of Chinese carriers. Any trade deal between the U.S. and China that would change the balance of trade will likely include Boeing sales. Boeing's last major crisis came in 2013, when the 787 was grounded for three months due to battery fires, two years after the plane entered service following years of production snafus and spiraling costs. While the financial stakes were large, no lives were lost. The last time Boeing faced a safety crisis of a comparable nature to the current one was the mid-1960s, when four new 727 jets crashed in a span of four months. Like then, Boeing faces the task of convincing a fearful public that the MAX will be safe to step into again. Sonnenfeld says Muilenberg needs to take a page from James Burke, the late CEO of Johnson & Johnson, who pulled off the tall task of convincing Americans that Tylenol was still safe after seven people were killed by cyanide-laced capsules in 1982. "It's going to take the CEO to be out there." https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeremybogaisky/2019/04/12/boeing-ceo-dennis- muilenburg-faces-his-greatest-challenge/#3fc43ce6d7c3 Back to Top Incident: Neos B763 at Barcelona on Apr 14th 2019, engine shut down in flight A Neos Boeing 767-300 on behalf of Arkia, registration I-NDOF performing flight IZ-272 from Barcelona,SP (Spain) to Tel Aviv (Israel), departed Barcelona's runway 07R when during the initial climb the left hand engine (CF6) emitted a number of bangs and streaks of flames prompting the crew to stop the climb at 3000 feet. The crew shut the engine down and returned to Barcelona for a safe landing on runway 07L about 20 minutes after departure. Arkia reported an Italian Boeing on behalf of Arkia returned to Barcelona due to a malfunction in one of the engines. The passengers disembarked, Arkia is working to arrange alternative flights to take the passengers to Tel Aviv. http://avherald.com/h?article=4c6b11f8&opt=0 Back to Top Accident: Summit L410 at Lukla on Apr 14th 2019, runway excursion on takeoff and collision with two helicopters A Summit Air Let L-410, registration 9N-AMH performing a flight from Lukla to Ramechhap (Nepal), was taking off from Lukla at about 09:00L (03:15Z) when the aircraft veered off the runway, collided with a helicopter destroying the helicopter and came to a stop after colliding with a second helicopter. 3 people died in the accident, 4 people were airlifted to hospitals with injuries. The airport reported the first officer of the L410 as well as two security officers on the ground were killed, the captains of the L410 and the destroyed Manang Air helicopter were airlifted to Kathmandu and are in stable condition. The helicopters involved belonged to Manang (9N-ALC) and Shree Air (9N-ALK). http://avherald.com/h?article=4c6ab4e7&opt=0 Back to Top Incident: Edelweiss A320 at Zurich on Apr 13th 2019, bird strike An Edelweiss Airbus A320-200, registration HB-IJM performing flight WK-504 from Zurich (Switzerland) to Pristina (Kosovo), was climbing out of Zurich's runway 32 when the crew stopped the climb at about FL220 and requested to be kept around the aerodrome while burning off fuel for about 45 minutes before returning to Zurich. The crew subsequently advised they had a bird strike into the #2 engine (CFM56, right hand) on departure and the engine had developed vibrations. The aircraft burned off fuel and landed safely on Zurich's runway 34 about 65 minutes after departure. A replacement Swiss Airbus A320-200 registration HB-IJI reached Pristina with a delay of 3 hours. http://avherald.com/h?article=4c6a6ace&opt=0 Back to Top Incident: SAS CRJ9 at Stockholm on Apr 13th 2019, nose gear problem on departure A SAS Canadair CRJ-900, registration EI-FPO performing flight SK-1767 from Stockholm (Sweden) to Prague (Czech Republic), was climbing out of Stockholm's runway 08 when the crew stopped the climb at FL100 due to a problem with the nose gear and decided to return to Stockholm for a safe landing on runway 01L about 55 minutes after departure. A passenger reported the captain announced they had a nose gear indication and needed to return to Stockholm. The aircraft remained on the ground for about 2 hours, the captain announced that no fault had been found, perhaps an erroneous indication. The aircraft subsequently departed again. The aircraft reached Prague with a delay of 3 hours. http://avherald.com/h?article=4c6a64c2&opt=0 Back to Top Incident: Finnair A319 near Stockholm on Apr 13th 2019, loss of cabin pressure A Finnair Airbus A319-100, registration OH-LVI performing flight AY-1361 from Helsinki (Finland) to Manchester,EN (UK) with 139 people on board, was enroute at FL360 about 70nm northeast of Stockholm (Sweden) when the crew needed to perform an emergency descent due to the loss of cabin pressure. The aircraft diverted to Stockholm for a safe landing about 15 minutes after leaving FL360. A replacement A319-100 registration OH-LVK was dispatched from Helsinki to Stockholm, resumed the flight and reached Manchester as flight AY-1363 with a delay of 4 hours. The occurrence aircraft remained on the ground in Stockholm for about 5 hours, then positioned back to Helsinki reaching a maximum FL100 and is still on the ground in Helsinki about 10 hours after landing back in Helsinki. http://avherald.com/h?article=4c6a625f&opt=0 Back to Top Incident: United B772 over Pacific on Apr 12th 2019, pilot ill A United Boeing 777-200, registration N229UA performing UA-917 (dep Apr 11th) from San Francisco,CA (USA) to Auckland (New Zealand) with 247 passengers, was enroute at FL330 about 400nm southsouthwest of Honolulu,HI (USA) when the crew decided to divert to Honolulu reporting one of the four pilots on board had become ill. The aircraft landed safely in Honolulu about one hour later. The airline confirmed the aircraft diverted to Honolulu after one of the four pilots on board fell ill. The passengers were provided with meal vouchers while waiting for a replacement crew to continue the flight. The aircraft remained on the ground for about 7.5 hours, then departed again and reached Auckland with a delay of 8.5 hours. http://avherald.com/h?article=4c6a600c&opt=0 Back to Top Incident: Delta B739 at Santo Domingo on Apr 12th 2019, slat problem A Delta Airlines Boeing 737-900, registration N881DN performing flight DL-391 from Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic) to New York JFK,NY (USA) with 168 people on board, was climbing out of Santo Domingo's runway 35 when the crew stopped the climb at FL100 due to a problem with the slats. The aircraft burned off fuel and returned to Santo Domingo for a safe landing on runway 35 at a higher speed (about 190 knots over ground) about 2 hours after departure. The aircraft remained on the ground for about 11 hours, then departed again and reached New York with a delay of 13 hours. https://flightaware.com/live/flight/DAL391/history/20190412/1006Z/MDSD/KJFK http://avherald.com/h?article=4c6a5de4&opt=0 Back to Top Incident: Aeromexico E170 at Chihuahua on Apr 10th 2019, wing tip strike on departure An Aeromexico Embraer ERJ-170, registration XA-SAC performing flight AM-2039 from Chihuahua to Monterrey (Mexico), was accelerating for takeoff from Chihuahua's runway 18L at 18:53L (00:53Z Apr 11th) when the aircraft, still on the ground with the main gear, rolled left causing the left wing tip to strike the ground. The aircraft dragged the wingtip over the ground for a considerable distance (a surveillance video suggests about 400 meters/1310 feet), the main gear became airborne with the left wing tip still on the ground and the aircraft finally became fully airborne, climbed out to safety and returned to Chihuahua for a safe landing. A replacement ERJ-170 registration XA-ACI reached Monterrey with a delay of 3.5 hours. http://avherald.com/h?article=4c697887&opt=0 Back to Top With close industry ties, FAA safety chief pushed more delegation of oversight to Boeing Ali Bahrami (left), manager of the transport airplane directorate with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) testifies during a Boeing Co. 787 Dreamliner battery hearing at the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, April 23, 2013. (Jonathan Ernst / Bloomberg) By Dominic Gates Seattle Times aerospace reporter In 2012 the Department of Transportation's Inspector General sent investigators to interview Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) technical staff in Renton, where engineers working under manager Ali Bahrami were responsible for certifying new planes developed by Boeing. The investigation substantiated employee allegations that FAA managers did not always support efforts by their technical experts to ensure Boeing complied with safety rules. It found "a negative work environment" where safety engineers feared retaliation "for attempting to hold Boeing accountable." Now, two fatal crashes of Boeing's 737 MAX have brought new scrutiny to the close-knit relations between the regulatory agency and the industry, to the FAA's practice of delegating most safety analysis for new Boeing airliners to Boeing itself, and to shortfalls in the FAA's final oversight role. With the MAX crisis jolting public faith in both Boeing and the FAA, Bahrami, now the executive at FAA headquarters in Washington D.C. specifically tasked with ensuring aviation safety, faces the daunting task of restoring confidence in his agency and in the process of certifying aircraft as safe. Hank Krakowski, former chief operating officer at the FAA, says, "Ali, coming from the certification branch in Seattle, is uniquely qualified to manage through this current situation." But Michael Collins, a just-retired aerospace safety engineer who worked under Bahrami here, sees him as representing what's gone wrong at the FAA. "He helped foster a culture among management in Seattle of delegating more than the FAA technical specialists were comfortable with," said Collins. "When the FAA's safety engineers had an opinion different from Boeing's, he tended to side with Boeing." Personifying tight FAA/industry relations Bahrami, 64, was born in Iran and came to the U.S for his education not long before Ayatollah Khomeini's 1979 revolution. That year, having already earned a B.S. degree in engineering, he completed his M.S. at the University of Michigan and like many educated Iranian exiles decided not to return to his newly theocratic homeland. Instead, he took a job as an engineer with Douglas Aircraft in southern California, where he spent 10 years. Bahrami joined the FAA as an engineer in 1989, then rose to become in 2004 manager of the Transport Airplane Directorate in Renton, which oversees the safety of the operating fleet of U.S. commercial aircraft as well as the certification of new airplane models. During his tenure in Renton, Bahrami spearheaded efforts to delegate more inspection and certification work to industry, and specifically to outsource much of the safety analysis of new Boeing jets to Boeing itself. In 2013, Bahrami made a move reflecting the tightly intertwined relationship between regulator and industry. Just months after overheated batteries in flight caused the worldwide grounding of Boeing's recently introduced 787 Dreamliner - a jet that Bahrami had shepherded through certification - he left the FAA for a lucrative lobbying job as a vice president of the Aerospace Industries Association,representing the big U.S. aerospace companies. That fall, testifying for the trade group before the House Subcommittee on Aviation, he painted the regulatory process as too slow and asked for changes to make it "more responsive to industry." "We urge the FAA to allow maximum use of delegation," Bahrami told Congress, now wearing an industry hat. "It would be detrimental to our competitiveness if foreign manufacturers are able to move improved products into the marketplace more quickly." Then in 2017, he returned to the FAA executive ranks at just one level below the top job: Based at FAA headquarters, he's now associate administrator for aviation safety, overseeing 7,200 employees and a budget of $1.3 billion. Former National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) chairman Jim Hall succinctly summed up his view of Bahrami: "He's been the agent for Boeing's self-certification." Bahrami, in emailed responses to questions, defended the delegation of safety analyses to Boeing and other private companies, and disputed Hall's characterization. "Delegation is not self certification," he said. "Our staff remains engaged throughout the certification process." The U.S. aviation system, he insisted, "has never been safer." Boeing controls certification Today's reality is that when Boeing designs a new airplane, almost all the hands-on safety evaluations and tests are done by employees of Boeing or Boeing's suppliers who are authorized to represent the FAA. These Authorized Representatives (ARs) file written documents that are then evaluated for compliance and signed off by FAA technical specialists. A Seattle Times investigation published last month showed that the safety analysis of a new flight control system on the 737 MAX that played a major role in the fatal crashes of a Lion Air jet last October and an Ethiopian Airlines jet last month was done entirely by Boeing. In addition, FAA engineers complained of being asked to delegate even more of the work to Boeing than originally agreed and of a constant schedule pressure during MAX certification. They said they were often given insufficient time to finish the evaluations - which in that case were sometimes signed off not by the technical staff but by managers or even just delegated back to Boeing for a final decision. In the case of the MAX's suspect flight control system - called Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS - as a result of flight testing in the final year of certification, Boeing made significant changes to how it worked, including in certain circumstances increasing by a factor of four the system's authority to move the horizontal tail so as to push down the nose of the plane. Those changes were never communicated back to the FAA technical staff, who had seen only a system safety analysis prepared before the changes. Drawing on Boeing's expertise As the 2012 Inspector General (IG) investigation indicates, there was constant tension throughout Bahrami's tenure as FAA boss in Renton between the agency's technical staff, who wanted stringent application of the safety regulations, and managers who pressed for more speed and ever more delegation to Boeing. Mike McRae, a former senior aerospace engineer at the local FAA office, retired in 2013, a month before Bahrami left for his four-year stint working for industry. McRae said he retired unhappy with the direction of the safety agency and management's lack of support for technical staff. He described Bahrami as a very capable bureaucrat who merely implemented the policy of increased delegation that was pushed from FAA headquarters. When Bahrami came in as boss, the policy was already firmly in place, mandated by Congress under heavy lobbying from Boeing and other giant aerospace companies. "He was a product of that culture," said McRae. "He was inclined to delegate more. He thought we had to get the companies to take more responsibility for safety." "That's not irrational," he said. "Delegation is an unfortunate necessity. You can't fund an old-school regulatory FAA." But McRae added, "I personally think they took it too far." Bahrami himself argued, both from inside the FAA and when he spoke for industry, that there's no alternative to delegation. The FAA has only about 1,300 personnel in its certification offices around the country, compared to the 56,000 engineers at Boeing. At a 2013 NTSB hearing after the 787 was grounded due to overheating lithium-ion batteries, Bahrami testified that he had only 20 to 25 staff working on the jet's certification, so the FAA had to rely on 950 Boeing ARs to oversee and approve the detailed work. FAA personnel who certified the 787 never visited the battery manufacturer in Japan nor the company in France that designed the surrounding battery system. Boeing ARs handled all of that. And two IG audits have turned up shortcomings in the broader delegation process. An audit in 2011 found 45 instances between 2005 and 2008 where the agency had not carefully reviewed certification plans in advance, including one plan that didn't comply with the regulations governing aircraft flight controls. A 2015 audit revealed that the previous year the agency had performed direct oversight of only 4 percent of the ARs conducting certification work on behalf of the FAA at aerospace suppliers. Bahrami co-chaired an extensive review of the airplane certification process in 2012. Tellingly, he was the only FAA representative on the review committee along with eight representatives of industry. The co-chair was Christine Thompson, a senior manager of Boeing's airplane certification organization. That review recommended that because "the FAA has limited capacity," it should "maximize delegation to the greatest extent." A year later, now testifying for the industry, Bahrami told the House committee that due to lack of resources and budget the FAA simply cannot perform all the technical audits required to certify planes as safe. "Expecting FAA to keep pace with industry ... is not in the realm of possibilities," he said. Answering questions this month via email Bahrami said that this delegation of work to industry "enables regulators to leverage expertise at manufacturers' facilities." He added that the shortage of engineers throughout the aviation industry means the public sector must compete with the private sector in attracting talent. "Given the complex nature of today's aviation products, it is virtually impossible for regulators to have all necessary expertise in every FAA office throughout the country, especially when global manufacturing models continue to evolve and grow," Bahrami wrote. Mo Yahyavi, a former top executive at Boeing who ran the 747-8 program while that big jet was being certified in 2010, said Bahrami came with his team and toured the Everett production line as the test planes were being built, to verify and validate Boeing's work on the design and testing. "I really was impressed with the guy as a hands-on person and trustful," said Yahyavi. Earlier in his career, Yahyavi was himself designated an FAA representative at Boeing specializing in propulsion systems, and was given extra training for that role in how to interpret and define how the jet's software worked with its mechanical systems. He said ARs at Boeing all have such specialized expertise. "There's no way a certification organization like the FAA can understand and verify and validate everything by itself. They depend on the manufacturer's engineers." "The system was working," Yahyavi concluded. "I wouldn't change anything." The gold standard of air safety Until the MAX crashes, regulation of aviation safety in the U.S., where 2.6 million passengers fly every day, has been the model for every other country. The last commercial passenger airplane lost in a crash in U.S. airspace was 10 years ago. In the decade since, airlines have flown 7.4 billion passengers safely to their destinations on 90 million U.S.-regulated flights with exactly one passenger death: on a Southwest Airlines 737 last year when an engine disintegration in flight blew out a window. That's a remarkable record, not even closely approached by any other form of transportation. Former NTSB chair Hall believes the historically high level of air safety is based on years of experience and care, that's now at risk from excessive delegation to industry. He points to the Volkswagen emissions scandal as evidence that "greed drives industry to do things that do not benefit society." And he's not impressed by Bahrami's argument that the FAA doesn't have the resources. "I have a hard time understanding anyone who sells increased industry participation by essentially saying that the agency he represents is incapable of doing its job," said Hall. "Safety depends on checks and balances," he added. "When you don't have the checks in place, things get out of balance." In the wake of the two MAX crashes, Congress has been scrambling to hold hearings and demand accountability. The House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure has requested records from Boeing and the FAA as part of its investigation into the 737 MAX certification process. And yet Congress itself has backed that process, with prodding from the industry. The latest legislation, the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018, passed into law just weeks before the Lion Air crash last October, requires the FAA to "delegate fully" unless the head of the agency determines there is specific public safety reason to limit the delegation. In such a case, the FAA is instructed to work with the industry partner to return it to full authority. Furthermore, if any certification glitch occurs to slow down an airplane program, the FAA must automatically elevate the issue to management and resolve it within a time period agreed with the manufacturer. Hall says the reason for such provisions is straightforward: The heavy lobbying of Congress by Boeing and other aerospace companies. U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, the ultimate boss of the FAA, is the wife of Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. But the influence is bipartisan. In the late 1990s, the deputy FAA administrator and for a time acting administrator was Linda Hall Daschle, wife of U.S. Senator Tom Daschle, then Democratic Senate Minority Leader. Linda Daschle left the FAA to work as an aerospace lobbyist. Former FAA chief operating officer Krakowski defends the role of manufacturers in ensuring the safety of their own products. While there is always commercial pressure to meet schedules, he said, jet manufacturers face a more existential pressure to make their airplanes safe. "If you don't, the ramifications for Boeing and the airlines are evident right now" with the MAX crisis, he said. "I think there is a moral driver (to protect passengers) that Boeing does understand, but also, from a business point of view, the consequences they are living with right now are an additional driver." Yet somehow, this complex safety ecosystem failed on the MAX. Krakowski said that the missed flaws in the MCAS flight control system that seem to have caused both recent crashes mean something went wrong not only at Boeing and the FAA, but also at the major airlines, where the flight technical departments "typically know every nut and bolt on the airplane and how it should operate." "All three own a piece of this. Nobody raised a hand and said, wait a minute, let's talk more about this system," he said. "I'm thunderstruck nobody caught this." https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/with-close-industry-ties-faa- safety-chief-pushed-more-delegation-of-oversight-to-boeing/ Back to Top Boeing's Disaster Could Turn China Into Aviation Superpower For decades Boeing and Airbus have operated the world's largest duopoly, dominating commercial aviation. The Chinese will end that. Boeing's mishandling of the MAX-8 crisis could well end up giving the Chinese a chance to do something that no other nation has successfully achieved: break the global duopoly in commercial airplanes of Boeing and Airbus. Boeing is desperately trying to limit the damage to its reputation caused by two catastrophic MAX-8 crashes in five months. As it turns out, the greatest long-term harm to the company's business is likely to be in China. The Chinese were the first to ground the MAX-8 after the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 in March and soon afterward the Chinese placed a massive $35 billion order for 300 jets from Airbus. For more than a decade Boeing and Airbus have been competing to meet China's seemingly insatiable appetite for commercial airplanes. It is estimated that air travel in China is growing so fast that in the next 20 years the nation's airlines will need at least 7,400 new airplanes. Long before the grounding of the MAX-8, Airbus was clearly ahead of Boeing in China. Nearly a quarter of Airbus sales are in China, compared to 14 percent for Boeing. Boeing and Airbus have built the most powerful duopoly the world has ever seen. Between them the two companies have virtually locked up the market for commercial jets of every size. Any country or company taking them on faces a daunting price of entry. To develop a modern jet from scratch can cost up to $25 billion, even for Airbus or Boeing with generations of expertise to build on. "Those who claim to understand Chinese strategic thinking seem to agree on one thing: they always play the long game. So unlike Trump." A newcomer has to learn how to design and build the most complex machine in public use to the highest standards of safety. It involves an amalgam of some of the most advanced technologies in the world. But that is not enough. A new jet also has to be supported by a global chain to service and maintain the fleet of jets in a timely way to exacting standards set by the airlines. Attempts by other countries to do this have not turned out well. The Russians are selling the Sukhoi Superjet, a small single-aisle design that suffered a severe blow in 2012 when it was being demonstrated in Indonesia to prospective buyers and crashed, killing 37 aviation industry executives. The few airlines now using it have complained about its unreliability. The Japanese are flight-testing the Mitsubishi Regional Jet, a project that has been delayed five times since being launched in 2013. This entirely conventional design should have been relatively easy to execute but has been dogged by technical glitches that reveal that the Japanese are still on a steep learning curve in aviation. Many analysts doubted that the Chinese could fare better. They had nothing like the scientific experience of the Russians, who were once world leaders in advanced aerodynamics. If the Russians could screw up so spectacularly surely the Chinese would truly flunk the same test. But from the beginning the Chinese were cautious in their ambitions; the temptations of hubris-of making too big a leap-were avoided. How they finally made the decision reveals a lot about their philosophy of how to break into a field where their knowledge was thin and experience non-existent. Those who claim to understand Chinese strategic thinking seem to agree on one thing: they always play the long game. So unlike Donald Trump. To begin with, they targeted the most profitable market, for the basic airline workhorse, single-aisle jets carrying between 160 and 200 passengers on domestic routes. China alone will need around 9,000 new airplanes in the next 20 years and most of them will be single-aisle. This meant that there were two Western designs for them to learn from, the Boeing 737 and the Airbus A320. The 737 was the most venerable, originating in the 1960s and, as the MAX-8 crisis has shown, its age is evident. The A320 was designed in the 1980s and was the first commercial jet to use fly-by-wire flight controls and a far higher degree of cockpit automation. On the face of it the Chinese were choosing between one design that remained in many respects 60 years old and one that was 30 years old. They chose to make a clone of the A320 that they named the C919 (C for Comac, the government-financed company tasked with the mission.) When the program was launched in 2011 many of the technologies that were novel when Airbus created the A320 were by then commonplace. And in one key respect the A320 was outdated: It was built mainly of metal while both Airbus and Boeing had since adopted non-metal composites for large parts of the airframe of their latest jets because composites are as strong as metal but lighter in weight and more easily molded into more efficient aerodynamic surfaces. The Chinese stuck with metal and in opting for the clone Comac produced an airplane that was outwardly virtually indistinguishable from the A320. That was the easy bit. Most jets that sit at an airport gate look the same but under their skin it's a different story. Each planemaker's proprietorial knowledge lies deep in thousands of details, much of it in technology and intellectual property controlled by western companies. To proceed Comac had to set up partnerships with many of those companies, including one of the largest, UTC Aerospace Systems, part of America's United Technologies, Rockwell Collins, Honeywell and the French technology colossus, Thales. The engines also come from the Franco-American alliance of Safran and General Electric. This dependency has now been overshadowed by Trump's trade war with China. Last October Vice President Mike Pence warned: "We will continue to stand strong until Beijing stops the predatory practice of forced technology transfer." Just how "forced technology transfer" is defined was unclear. Most aerospace projects involve international partnerships. Some of the technology used in building an airliner also crosses over into military applications but none of it would qualify as a state secret and certainly none of that required for the C919 is classified. Airbus has, however, accelerated China's learning curve in producing commercial jets by establishing an assembly plant for the A320 in China, now 10 years old. This plant does not build a jet from the ground up. It follows a model that Airbus uses in Europe. Major sections of the airplane are built in plants dispersed throughout Europe and then shipped to final assembly lines in France and Germany. The same major sections-fuselage, wings, engines, landing gear-are flown to China to be mated on the final production line there. The internal cabin fittings are also carried out as custom-ordered by an airline. This has enabled the Chinese to have hands-on experience of some of the most exacting stages of building an airliner, like joining the wings to the fuselage, channeling the complex wiring (a detail that the Japanese mishandled on their regional jet) and attaching the engines and fuel systems. Boeing was slow to appreciate how much Airbus's success in China was due to its willingness to let the Chinese learn at first hand all the secrets of a production process that can produce in Europe more than 50 airplanes a month-a rate that China will not reach for years to come. Last December Boeing finally opened a similar assembly plant in China for the 737 MAX series. And the 737 MAX series will fly again. Thousands more will probably be sold. But the lethal mistakes made in giving the design yet another upgrade have exposed the limitations imposed by the age of its airframe. China will be able to exploit this opportunity to establish the C919 as an Asian-built airplane that will be supported by the world's largest domestic airline market. The conservatism of its design will be seen as a virtue if it proves to be competitive and reliable. As Airbus have done with the A320, Comac will be able to keep the C919 competitive with new generations of engines. Most of the improvements in an airliner's efficiency- lower emissions, less gas guzzling, greatly reduced sound-come from rapidly advancing jet engine technology. Along with some relatively easy aerodynamic tweaking the C919 should be around for decades to come. And the Chinese designers have already moved on. They are developing a larger widebody jet to compete with the Boeing 787 and Airbus A350 to be ready by 2025, this time partnering with the Russians. There will no doubt be setbacks on the way, but the Boeing-Airbus duopoly will for sure eventually lose its dominance of the skies. https://www.thedailybeast.com/boeings-737-max-8-disaster-could-turn-china-into- aviation-superpower Back to Top Professor of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Shares Insight on the Recent Boeing Plane Crashes Over the course of six months the Boeing 737 Max 8 airplane model has been involved in two crashes, killing over 300 people in total. The similarities between the two crashes brought the model into question. Prof. Perrine Pepiot, mechanical and aerospace engineering, weighed in on the mechanics of the crashes based on preliminary data. The first of the two crashes, Lion Air Flight 610, occurred in Indonesia on October 29, 2018. The latter of the two, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, crashed on March 10 en route to Nairobi, Kenya. "Safety is key for aircrafts, I am not sure if there is any other instance of such a thing to have happened. You can be very unlucky, Malaysian Airlines for example, was very unlucky a few years back," Pepiot said. However, unlike crashes in the past, Flights 302 and 610 both demonstrated similarly faulty machinery. "The two consecutive [Malaysian Airlines] accidents clearly had two different features associated with them. Here [with the Max 8's] we had the same characteristics, which in aeronautics is extremely worrisome," Pepiot said. Boeing has served as a staple in the aerospace industry, holding the distinction of the largest aerospace company as well as the United States' largest exporting manufacturer. The aerospace titan has ties with Cornell in several facets; most notably through a joint online masters program in Systems Engineering with Cornell's College of Engineering. Additionally, the Boeing Company has served as a corporate partner for Cornell Engineering and for the Center for Advanced Human Resources Study. This affiliation has resulted in the matriculation of several notable Cornell alumni to the Boeing Company. Lewis Platt, Mechanical Engineering '62, was the chairman of Boeing from 2003 until 2005 and Bill Nye, B.S '77, worked as a mechanical engineer developing the 747. The Boeing 737 is by no means a new plane model: it was first introduced in 1967 and was the company's introduction into commercial twinjets of this size. Having better fuel economy, quieter engines and more space for passengers, the 737-300 was more economically efficient than its predecessors. The Max 8, the model involved in both flights 610 and 302, is part of the "Next- Generation 737," a line of new iterations of the 737 with more efficient engines. "One way you make an engine more efficient, is by having a larger fan in front of it, so a more efficient engine is larger," Pepiot said. To compensate for the enlargement of the engines, the placement of the engines had to be moved further forward and upward. "On the new version, because the engines are a bit further in front, when you start reaching a high angle of attack, or tilt, the engines are going to be producing a little bit of lift. That will exacerbate the [plane's] tilting motion," Pepiot said. According to Pepiot, while the aircraft is climbing, the placement of the engines tilts the plane further upward at an angle that causes the vessel to stall. To counteract this over- tilting and stalling, Boeing engineers created sensors, known as the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, to monitor and automatically adjust the plane's flight angle. "What the Boeing engineers did was create a software that accounts for this extra [lift] force from the engine and as soon as you were too high in angle of attack an automatic software would bring the [tail of the plane] down to create a force and bring the aircraft back down," said Pepiot. However, the MCAS system only requires information from one of these sensors to trigger the response to tilt the plane downward. "In aeronautics everything is redundant, there are two pilots, anytime there [are] sensors, there are in fact at least two of them installed. But with two sensors providing conflicting information, it can be difficult to resolve which one was giving the right information," said Pepiot. In the recent crashes, it is hypothesized that one of the sensors provided incorrect information regarding the positioning of the plane. The sensor wrongly indicated that the plane was tilted too far upward and triggered a response to tilt the nose of the plane downard. However, since the plane was not actually tilted upward in the first place, the sensor caused the plane to overshoot the downward adjustment, and subsequently plummet in altitude. Early data displays fluctuations in the altitude of the plane, which indicates that the pilots of both flights attempted to rectify the positioning of the plane, only to be overridden by the automated system. The two crashes have raised questions regarding the regulation of Boeing and the 737, especially under the realization that many pilots were not aware of the M.C.A.S. system's implementation until the first of the two crashes. Without any prior knowledge of the system it would be difficult for pilots to overcome a malfunction. It has come to light that Boeing engineers, as opposed to Federal Aviation Administration officials, were vetting the 737 Max 8 for flight. Questions remain with regard to the future of Boeing, with the grounding of 737 Max 8's around the globe, and ongoing investigations into the relationship between Boeing and the FAA. https://cornellsun.com/2019/04/11/professor-of-aerospace-and-mechanical- engineering-shares-insight-on-the-science-behind-recent-boeing-plane-crashes/ Back to Top Dart Aerospace Receives FAA/EASA Certification for EC/H130 Flotation System Dart Aerospace's emergency flotation system for the EC/H130 Dart Aerospace has received STC approvals from the FAA and European regulator EASA on its new EC/H130 emergency flotation system (EFS). Dart received certification from Canada's TCCA for the same kit in late 2018, meaning the EFS can now be used across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and any other regions accepting these three certifications without validation. The flotation system is designed for rotorcraft engaged in tourism, VIP transport and utility missions. Improvements over Dart's previous EFS kit include compatibility with manufacturer- fixed provisions and the addition of quick release fittings, which allow for the removal of 70 percent of the kit's weight in less than five minutes without any tools, according to the company. "This project provided a unique opportunity to revisit our previous design and really examine how we could incorporate the latest technology in float systems to add value for our H130 customers," said Pablo Bravo, director of engineering at Dart's facility in San Diego, California. "We looked at ways of simplify the design to make it easier for customers to install and remove the system, which was critical feedback from existing operators who prefer to reconfigure their aircraft for different missions quickly and efficiently. Specifically, we included quick release hoses that facilitate removal of the floats within just a few minutes - for excellent mission flexibility." The new EFS is approved for the latest gross weight of the Airbus H130 and features a squib-free electro-mechanical valve made of corrosion-resistant steel. The systems can be purchased with or without Dart's integrated six-passenger life raft. "We truly feel that having an external life raft option available for the H130 puts operators in a win-win situation in which safety and operational flexibility is increased, and weight is decreased," added David Marcus, program manager for Dart Aerospace. https://www.rotorandwing.com/2019/04/12/dart-aerospace-receives-faaeasa- certification-ech130-flotation-system/ Back to Top AIRBUS LIFTS PROPOSED BELUGAXL FLEET TO SIX AIRCRAFT Two Airbus BelugaXL airlifters in Toulouse. (Airbus)Two Airbus BelugaXL airlifters in Toulouse. (Airbus) Airbus has confirmed plans to build a sixth BelugaXL, an increase of one aircraft from the five over-size transport aircraft in its original plans. The decision to add an extra BelugaXL to the fleet was made to "future proof" the company's internal transportation network and ensure it would be able to accommodate a range of potential future scenarios, Airbus said on April 9. "Years from now, we could see situations such as further rate increases for our jetliners or may encounter one of the airlifters being grounded, which would make this 'extra' sixth aircraft an essential part of our transport network," Airbus head of the BelugaXL program Bertrand George said in a statement. Media reports had indicated such a move was on the cards as recently as February 2019. Airbus announced in November 2014 plans to build five new "Beluga" transports to cater for the planned production rate increases of its aircraft models. The aircraft is based on the A330-200 freighter featuring Rolls-Royce Trent 700 engines and re-uses a large number of existing components and equipment. It will be capable of carrying a full set of Airbus A350 wings. The BelugaXL, featuring a distinctive smile livery that was chosen by a vote of Airbus staff, made its first flight in July 2018 and entry into service was planned for later in 2019. All six BelugaXL aircraft were expected to be fully operational. In the making: Airbus' first BelugaXL VIDEO: A closer look at the Airbus BelugaXL from construction to first flight from Airbus's YouTube channel. The No.1 BelugaXL was currently being used in compatibility and verification tests, including an initial trip during February carrying a set of A350 XWB wings from Bremen in Germany to Toulouse in France in November 2018, Airbus said. Meanwhile, a second BelugaXL was recently painted at Airbus's Toulouse facility. Currently, Airbus has five BelugaST aircraft, an efficient if not conventionally attractive converted A300-600 twinjet that flies between the airframer's sites carrying everything from wings to fuselages and anything in between. The company has said previously the BelugaST, which is six metres shorter and one metre narrower than the BelugaXL, would be progressively retired through to 2025. An infographic on the Airbus BelugaXL. (Airbus)An infographic on the Airbus BelugaXL. (Airbus) Philippe Sabo, the head of Airbus Transport International, said the company was evaluating two potential scenarios for the future of the BelugaST and a potential second operational life. "We know that companies have the need for super transporters," Sabo said. "So selling them is an option; we're also considering offering the other Airbus divisions and external customers an outsized transport service ourselves. "You could say we're considering 'releasing the Beluga STs into the wild!'" Airbus noted the BelugaST could continue flying for another 10 to 20 years. Sabo said Airbus's move to add a sixth BelugaXL had similarities to the BelugaST program, with a fifth aircraft not part of the original outlook. "The Beluga ST programme went through the same decision-making process, and I am sure we would not have coped without the fifth aircraft - which was added in 2001," Sabo said. The company told shareholders at its annual general meeting in Amsterdam on April 10 it was targeting between 880-890 aircraft deliveries in calendar 2019. Further, its A320 program was on track for to reach a monthly production rate of 60 by mid-2019, with the next target 63 aircraft a month in 2021. And the A350 program was also in a ramp up phase with deliveries increasing from 49 aircraft in 2016 to 78 in 2017 and 93 in 2018. http://australianaviation.com.au/2019/04/airbus-lifts-proposed-belugaxl-fleet-to-six- aircraft/ Back to Top Stratolaunch giant aircraft completes historic first flight Companies like Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin dream of making space travel and shipments more economical. While they have mostly focused on reusable rockets, their vehicles are still limited by the same factors as any other rocket has: launching pads. To his two avians with one rock, Stratolaunch Systems Corp. devised a platform that takes of like a plane and, for the first time, gigantic aircraft not only took off but also landed safely, just like a plane. Reusable rockets are definitely a huge money saver but the traditional way they launch and land means they can only do some from an extremely few launching facilities. If space travel and tourism are to become like what Musk and Bezos envision them to be, they need to be able to take off more frequently. The Stratolaunch, in contrast, can take off from any regular runway, at least those that can accommodate its 385-foot wingspan. While not all runways can handle an aircraft of that size, the number is still exponentially larger than rocket-launching facilities. Last Saturday, the Stratolaunch took off from the Mojave Air & Space Port and reached a maximum altitude of 17,000 feet. It spent 2.5 hours in the air above the Mojave Desert before returning and safely landing back to the same port. CEO Jean Floyd commented on the fantastic first flight and spoke of how founder Paul Allen would have been proud of the achievement. The tech luminary, who also co-founded Microsoft alongside Bill Gates, passed away last October. It might look like two planes glued side by side but a luxury aircraft it is not. It is a mobile launch platform deigned to launch other vehicles, like rockets and satellites, into space. While it only reached half its ideal altitude in this first flight, the final version would be able to reach up to 35,000 feet, at which point the Stratolaunch will turn on its own rockets to continue the journey to space. Stratolaunch First Flight https://www.slashgear.com/stratolaunch-giant-aircraft-completes-historic-first-flight- 14573237/ Back to Top Jet Airways pilots defer strike before crunch creditors meeting: report NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Pilots at India's Jet Airways have been told by their union to put off a planned strike to give its management and key lender State Bank of India time to strike a deal to keep the debt-laden airline flying, ANI reported on Sunday. FILE PHOTO: Jet Airways aircraft parked at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport in Mumbai, India, March 26, 2019. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas -/File Photo A tweet from ANI reporting the move cited a message to Jet Airways staff from the National Aviator's Guild, which had earlier advised more than 1,000 pilots who have not been paid for three months to stop flying from Monday. With more than $1.2 billion of bank debt, Jet is battling for survival and has yet to receive a loan of about $217 million as part of a March rescue deal. The crisis has deepened in recent weeks as lessors have started applying to deregister planes, signaling the planned bailout had not assuaged their concerns. An urgent meeting to discuss the Jet situation was held at the prime minister's office on Friday, which was also attended by the country's aviation secretary, Pradeep Singh Kharola. After the meeting, Kharola said the carrier had money to operate 6-7 planes over the weekend and that the lenders would have to decide how many jets it could fly after Monday afternoon, news channel ET Now reported on Friday. Kharola said Jet will meet bankers on Monday for an infusion of funds in the interim, the TV channel added. A Business Standard newspaper report on Sunday said Jet's lenders, led by the SBI, are considering a proposal to infuse 10 billion rupees ($145 million) to keep the airline afloat once Jet submits a plan on how it intends to use the money. An SBI spokesman did not immediately comment. Jet's lenders, who have been seeking a new investor to take a stake of up to 75 percent in the airline, hope to complete the selection of bidders by May 7 after SBI extended a deadline. Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways, which owns a 24-percent stake in Jet, private equity fund TPG Capital, India's National Investment and Infrastructure Fund and ousted chairman Naresh Goyal are among those to have bid, the Business Standard said. ($1 = 69.1800 Indian rupees) https://www.reuters.com/article/us-jet-airways-debt-pilots/over-1000-jet-airways- pilots-not-to-fly-from-monday-due-to-unpaid-salaries-idUSKCN1RQ09J Back to Top Lockheed Martin Proposes 'Early Gateway' to Put Astronauts on the Moon by 2024 COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - The private aerospace company Lockheed Martin unveiled new details about its proposed architecture for landing NASA astronauts on the moon in 2024, making the announcement here at the 35th Space Symposium on Wednesday (April 10). Vice President Mike Pence, who is head of the National Space Council, directed NASA to speed up its plans to land humans on the moon and to target a human moon landing in 2024, or four years earlier than NASA had been planning. Now, the agency's commercial partners, who are providing much of the components for NASA's moon plans, must also scramble to meet the agency's new goal. NASA has already contracted Lockheed Martin to build the Orion Multipurpose Crew Vehicle, a spacecraft that is scheduled to launch astronauts into orbit for the first time in June 2020. That mission, known as Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1), will be the first step in Lockheed's path to achieving a moon landing for NASA. During EM-1, the uncrewed Orion spacecraft will fly around the moon in a weeklong round trip. Lockheed Martin's "early Gateway" would help NASA get to the moon on a faster timeline by including only the components that are essential for a landing in 2024. The second phase of Lockheed's moon program involves launching what the company calls an "early Gateway," or a bare-bones version of NASA's proposed Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway, a lunar space station that will serve as sort of a home base for astronauts traveling to and from the moon. The early Gateway would include only the elements that are critical to a 2024 moon landing: a propulsion module and a docking port. In a speech here at the Space Symposium on Tuesday (April 9), NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said that to achieve the landing in 2024, the agency would need to not only speed up its original plans for a landing in 2028, but also get rid of parts of its human exploration program that don't directly contribute to a landing in 2024. Once the early Gateway is in orbit around the moon, then come the "meat and potatoes" of the mission: the lander elements that would bring astronauts down to the surface. That would happen in 2022, Lockheed Martin Director of Human Space Exploration Strategy Rob Chambers said in the news conference. The lander elements include an ascent stage, a descent stage and a command deck. Before any astronauts visit the Gateway and land on the moon, the lander's components will already be flight- proven. Lockheed Martin's proposed lunar lander could bring NASA astronauts to the surface of the moon in 2024. The next step in Lockheed's plan to land on the moon will come with Exploration Mission-2 (EM-2), the first crewed test flight of Orion, which is scheduled for 2022 or 2023, Chambers said. If all goes according to plan, Exploration Mission-3 could launch on a mission to put astronauts on the moon in 2023 or 2024. Because NASA and Lockheed are working on an accelerated schedule now, they need to find a way to put astronauts on the surface of the moon as quickly as possible without compromising their safety. "Our priority is to preserve safety," Chambers said, adding that Lockheed's lunar lander uses a lot of the same technology as the company's Orion spacecraft, which will have already flown five times before astronauts finally take it to the moon. Lockheed officials could not yet comment on the cost of their new moon-mission architecture, because NASA has not yet contracted the company to build it. And the agency may request changes that would affect the project's price. If NASA decides to go with Lockheed's plan, the company will "need to be bending metal" by 2020, Chambers said. "I hope somebody ordered a bunch of aluminum!" https://www.space.com/lockheed-early-gateway-moon-2024-landing-plans.html Back to Top GRADUATE RESEARCH SURVEY Dear Aviation Colleague, My name is Catherine Troyer, and I am a graduate student in aviation management working with graduate student Alyssa Harvey and Professor Brian Dillman at the School of Aviation and Transportation Technology at Purdue University. We are seeking your input on reference usage for studying flight maneuvers in this survey. Loss of control in flight is one of the main causes of aviation accidents. This survey is part of a research project which explores the connection between the flight training process and preventing loss of control accidents. We expect that the results obtained from this study will be used to advise the FAA of possible changes to the Commercial Airmen Certification Standards and other training resources and improve the safety of general aviation for future generations. The first part of the survey asks demographic questions, most of which are optional. The second part of the survey asks questions pertaining to the use of references when learning or teaching flight maneuvers. Please consider taking this survey if you are working towards or have already obtained your FAA Commercial Pilot's Certificate, are a Certified Flight Instructor of commercial students under the Federal Aviation Administration, develop training resources for a flight school, or help write government publications. The survey should take under 15 minutes to complete and consists of 12 to 15 questions. Once you begin the survey, you can stop at any point and continue where you left off later. We will report results in aggregate. This survey is part of a Partnership to Enhance General Aviation Safety, Accessibility, and Sustainability (PEGASAS) Center of Excellence research project evaluating resources for flight certification preparation. You are under no obligation to participate in this survey. If you do participate you may stop at any time and for any reason. Your answers on the survey are anonymous and cannot be used in any way for identification. Any results we report will be in aggregate. You must be at least 18 years old to participate in this survey. Thank you for your time and cooperation. Your responses are greatly appreciated and will help contribute to general aviation safety. If you have any questions regarding the survey, feel free to contact the researchers troyer5@purdue.edu, amharvey@purdue.edu, or dillman@purdue.edu. Survey Link: https://purdue.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_a3qMKc22QbSnWHH Back to Top Back to Top Back to Top Call for Nominations For 2019 Laura Taber Barbour Air Safety Award ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- The Laura Taber Barbour Air Safety Foundation is now accepting nominations for the 2019 Laura Taber Barbour Air Safety Award, honoring a leader in global aviation safety. The Award will be presented during the 72nd Annual International Air Safety Summit, taking place Nov 4-6 in Taipei, Taiwan. Presented since 1956, the Laura Taber Barbour Air Safety Award recognizes notable achievement in the field of civil or military aviation safety in method, design, invention, study or other improvement. The Award's recipient is selected for a "significant individual or group effort contributing to improving aviation safety, with emphasis on original contributions," and a "significant individual or group effort performed above and beyond normal responsibilities." Mechanics, engineers and others outside of top administrative or research positions should be especially considered. The contribution need not be recent, especially if the nominee has not received adequate recognition. Nominations that were not selected as past winners of the Award can be submitted one additional time for consideration. Please note that self-nominations will not be considered. The Laura Taber Barbour Air Safety Award's story dates back 74 years. On April 14, 1945, after visiting family in Pittsburgh, Laura Taber Barbour was aboard a Pennsylvania Central Airlines DC-3 when it crashed into the rugged terrain of Cheat Mountain near Morgantown, West Virginia. All passengers and crew were killed. In the years following, her husband, Dr. Clifford E. Barbour and son, Clifford E. Barbour, Jr., established the Laura Taber Barbour Air Safety Award in her honor. The Award Board, composed of leaders in the field of aviation, meets each year to conduct a final review of nominees and selection of the current year's recipient. Please help us honor this year's most deserving recipient. Nominations, including a 1-2- page narrative, can be submitted via the Laura Taber Barbour Foundation website at http://ltbaward.org/the-award/nomination-form/. Nominations will be accepted until May 10, 2019. For more information, including a complete history of Award recipients, see www.ltbaward.org. ABOUT THE LAURA TABER BARBOUR AIR SAFETY AWARD: The Award was established in 1956 through early association with the Flight Safety Foundation and from its founding has enjoyed a rich history of Award Board members, nominees and Award recipients. In 2013, the non-profit Laura Taber Barbour Air Safety Foundation was formed from members of the Award Board, the aviation community and the Barbour family. As the foundation plans to broaden the scope of its intent, with great purpose, the Laura Taber Barbour Air Safety Award will continue to spotlight those champions who pioneer breakthroughs in flight safety. CONTACT: Philip Barbour, 205-939-1700, 205-617-9007 Curt Lewis