Flight Safety Information AUGUST 22, 2019 - No. 169 In This Issue Boeing hiring as it targets 737 MAX fights resuming 'early fourth quarter' Incident: American A319 at Georgetown on Aug 21st 2019, runway excursion on backtrack Incident: American A321 near Abilene on Aug 21st 2019, fumes in cockpit Incident: Lufthansa A321 near St. Petersburg on Aug 20th 2019, cracked windshield Accident: Evelop A333 over Ethiopia on Aug 20th 2019, severe turbulence injures 16 Incident: Pobeda B738 at Gyoumri on Aug 19th 2019, tail scrape on go around Cessna 560XL Citation Excel accident/fire (California) Dozens of Airbus A380s face urgent checks after cracked part dug from ice Did Boeing, aviation industry heed lessons of 2009 Air France crash? Deadlines Set for Australia's Pilot Fatigue Rules AOPA Asks FAA To Weigh Supersonic Limits Below FL180 Polar Circumnavigation Set for November Departure Airlines for America Applauds U.S.-Japan Aviation Agreement Russia's MC-21 aircraft to make its long-awaited public debut Learn to Fly an Aircraft in Just 17 Months with IndiGo Cadet Pilot Program High school students becoming certified drone pilots Inside America's Dysfunctional Trillion-Dollar Fighter-Jet Program Qantas to test 'ultra long-haul' Sydney to NY, London flights Boeing spacecraft astronauts see new frontier for commercial space International Conference on Unruly Airline Passenger Behaviour Boeing hiring as it targets 737 MAX fights resuming 'early fourth quarter' SEATTLE (Reuters) - Boeing Co said on Tuesday it plans to add extra staff and hire "a few hundred" temporary employees at an airport in Washington state where it is storing many grounded 737 MAX jetliners, a key step in its best-case plan for resuming deliveries to airline customers in October. The world's largest planemaker, burning cash as one of the worst crises in its history stretches into a sixth month, said the workers will assist with aircraft maintenance and customer delivery preparations at Grant County International Airport. The hiring plans are the first publicly detailed steps Boeing will take as it works to deliver hundreds of grounded 737 MAX jets to airlines globally, an undertaking that would amount to one of the biggest logistical operations in modern civil aviation. Chicago-based Boeing has been unable to deliver any 737 MAX aircraft since the single-aisle plane was grounded worldwide in March after two fatal crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia killed 346 people, cutting off a key source of cash and hitting margins. Global airlines have had to cancel thousands of flights and use spare aircraft to cover routes that were previously flown with the fuel-efficient MAX, eating into their profitability. Many carriers have taken the MAX off their schedules late into the fall or early 2020. Boeing reiterated on Tuesday that it was working toward getting the 737 MAX flying again commercially in the "early fourth quarter" after it wins approval of reprogrammed software for the stall-prevention system at the centre of both crashes. In late July, U.S. Federal Aviation Administration Deputy Administrator Dan Elwell declined to be pinned down on Boeing's previously stated target of October for entry into service. "We don't have a timeline," Elwell said. "We have one criteria. When the 737 MAX has been - when the complications to it have been satisfactorily assessed, and the MAX is safe to return to service, that's the only criteria." Boeing said it plans to move all the aircraft from Moses Lake, an eastern Washington location where it runs test flights, to facilities in the Seattle and Everett areas where its factories are located. Hundreds of Boeing 737 MAX jets remain grounded worldwide, and Boeing has continued building the jets at a rate of 42 per month in the Seattle area. The U.S. planemaker is also storing freshly built aircraft outside its factories in Renton and Everett, around Seattle. It also has jets parked at a facility in San Antonio, Texas. The total cost so far of the 737 MAX crisis is more than $8 billion, mainly due to compensation the planemaker will have to pay airlines for the delayed deliveries and lower production. https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/boeing-add-few-hundred-employees-190352032.html Back to Top Incident: American A319 at Georgetown on Aug 21st 2019, runway excursion on backtrack An American Airlines Airbus A319-100, registration N9025B performing flight AA-1512 from Georgetown (Guyana) to Miami,FL (USA), was backtracking runway 06 and was turning to line up for departure, when nose and right main gear collided with runway lights causing damage to both nose tyres and the outboard right hand main tyre. The aircraft was disabled. The aircraft is still on the ground in Georgetown about 17 hours later. Related NOTAM: A0049/19 NOTAMN Q) SYGC/QMRLC/IV/NBO/A/000/999/0629N05815W005 A) SYCJ B) 1908210500 C) 1908210930 E) RWY 06/24 CLSD DUE DISABLED ACFT ON RWY F) GND G) UNL http://avherald.com/h?article=4cbd72dd&opt=0 Back to Top Incident: American A321 near Abilene on Aug 21st 2019, fumes in cockpit An American Airlines Airbus A321-200, registration N112AN performing flight AA-4 from Los Angeles,CA to New York,JFK (USA), was enroute at FL330 about 30nm west of Abilene,TX (USA) when the crew reported smoke in the cockpit and decided to divert to Abilene for a safe landing on runway 17R about 15 minutes later. Emergency services checked the aircraft using thermal imaging but found no trace of fire, heat or smoke. The remainder of the flight was cancelled. The airline reported the aircraft diverted to Abilene due to an odour in the cockpit. Maintenance is troubleshooting. https://flightaware.com/live/flight/AAL4/history/20190821/1810Z/KLAX/KJFK http://avherald.com/h?article=4cbd7dc3&opt=0 Back to Top Back to Top Incident: Lufthansa A321 near St. Petersburg on Aug 20th 2019, cracked windshield A Lufthansa Airbus A321-200, registration D-AIDT performing flight LH-2565 from St. Petersburg (Russia) to Munich (Germany), was climbing through FL250 out of St. Petersburg when the crew decided to return to St. Petersburg due to a cracked windshield. The aircraft landed safely back in St. Petersburg about 35 minutes after departure. The airline reported the outer pane of the windshield cracked. The cracked windshield: http://avherald.com/h?article=4cbd7001&opt=0 Back to Top Accident: Evelop A333 over Ethiopia on Aug 20th 2019, severe turbulence injures 16 An Evelop Airlines Airbus A330-300, registration EC-MII performing flight E9-838 from Mauritius (Mauritius) to Madrid,SP (Spain) with 353 people on board, was enroute about 4 hours into the flight, approximately Somalia to Southern Ethiopia, when the aircraft encountered severe turbulence causing cabin crew and passengers to impact the cabin ceiling before coming back down. Two doctors on board provided first aid to the injured. The flight crew continued the flight to Madrid, requested ambulances to meet the aircraft on arrival and landed without further incident. 16 people were assessed by medical services at the airport, 14 of them were taken to hospitals and were later discharged. A passenger told The Aviation Herald that they were enroute about 4 hours into the flight when the aircraft encountered severe turbulence causing the aircraft to drop, everything loose flew up to the cabin ceiling, the passenger felt levitation and hit the ceiling, too. A number of crew and passengers were injured, there was damage to cabin ceiling and luggage lockers. Passengers quoted by various media suggest the turbulence occurred between 2.5 and 6 hours after departure (editorial note: at 2.5 hours the aircraft was over the Ocean south of Somalia, at 6 hours the aircraft was enroute in the area of northern Sudan/southern Egypt - the route took the aircraft to near Mogadishu (Somalia), Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), Khartoum (Sudan) and to Cairo (Egypt)). The airline reported the aircraft suffered clear air turbulence, there had been no indications on the weather radar. The crew had activated the fasten seat belt signs prior to reaching the zone known for turbulences and before suffering the strong jolt. 3 crew were injured in the occurrence, 11 passegers had ignored the fasten seat belt signs and were injured, too. AENA (Spanish Airport Operator) reported 16 people needed medical attention due to bruises and cuts. 14 people were taken to a total of 5 hospitals in the area. http://avherald.com/h?article=4cbd6d41&opt=0 Back to Top Incident: Pobeda B738 at Gyoumri on Aug 19th 2019, tail scrape on go around A Pobeda Boeing 737-800, registration VQ-BTJ performing flight DP-855 from Moscow Vnukovo (Russia) to Gyoumri (Armenia) with 173 people on board, landed on Gyoumri's runway 02 at about 20:40L (16:40Z), however the tail contacted the runway surface while the aircraft went around. The aircraft positioned for another approach and landed without further incident at 21:04L (17:04Z). Armenia's Civil Aviation Committee reported the aircraft hit the runway surface and received damage to its tail. An investigation has been opened into the occurrence. The airline reported the tail skid assembly received scratches when the aircraft went around on first approach, there had been no hard touch down or tail strike. Russian and Armenian media had reported a hard touchdown causing a tail strike. On Aug 21st 2019 Rosaviatsia reported the tail contacted the runway surface while going around. The aircraft received damage to the tail skid assembly, the drain mast and abrasions to the aft belly skin. The aircraft was grounded for thorough assessment of damage. The occurrence aircraft is still on the ground in Gyoumri 49 hours after landing. http://avherald.com/h?article=4cbcaf63&opt=0 Back to Top Cessna 560XL Citation Excel accident/fire (California) Date: Wednesday 21 August 2019 Time: 11:30 Type: Cessna 560XL Citation Excel Operator: Unknown Registration: N91GY C/n / msn: 560-5314 First flight: 2003 Crew: Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 2 Passengers: Fatalities: 0 / 8 Occupants: Total: Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 10 Aircraft damage: Destroyed Aircraft fate: Written off (damaged beyond repair) Location: Oroville Airport, CA (OVE) ( United States of America) Phase: Takeoff (TOF) Nature: Unknown Departure airport: Oroville Airport, CA (OVE/KOVE), United States of America Destination airport: ? Narrative: An incident involving an aircraft and fire has occurred at Oroville Municipal Airport (KOVE), California. The airplane was destroyed during the accident sequence. There were no reported injuries to the occupant(s) onboard the aircraft. https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20190821-0 Back to Top Dozens of Airbus A380s face urgent checks after cracked part dug from ice By Tim Hepher LONDON, Aug 21 (Reuters) - Investigators probing an engine explosion on an Air France A380 in 2017 are studying a possible manufacturing flaw in a recently salvaged cracked part in a move likely to trigger urgent checks on dozens of Airbus superjumbos, people familiar with the matter said. The focus of a two-year-old investigation into the mid-air explosion over Greenland, which left the plane carrying more than 500 passengers with the front of one engine missing, has switched to the recently recovered "fan hub," the people said. The titanium alloy part is the centrepiece of a 3-metre-wide fan on engines built for the world's largest airliner by U.S.-based Engine Alliance, co-owned by General Electric and United Technologies unit Pratt & Whitney. It had sat buried in Greenland's ice sheet since September 2017 when one of four engines on Air France flight 66 abruptly disintegrated en route from Paris to Los Angeles. It was prised from the ice in June after a high-tech aerial radar search. Confirming the focus of the probe after Reuters reported the plans for inspections, France's BEA air accident agency said it had discovered a "sub-surface fatigue crack" on the recovered part and the engine maker was preparing checks. The people familiar with the matter linked the crack to a suspected manufacturing flaw and said the checks - to be carried out urgently on engines that have conducted a certain number of flights - would affect dozens of the double-decker jets. The people said the suspect part was fabricated on behalf of consortium member Pratt & Whitney, which declined to comment. Engine Alliance is one of two engine suppliers for the Airbus A380 in competition with Britain's Rolls-Royce. Its engines power a total of 152 aircraft or just over 60 percent of the 237 A380s in service. Besides Air France, other airlines operating the A380 with Engine Alliance powerplants include Dubai's Emirates, Qatar Airways, Abu Dhabi-based Etihad and Korean Air. The checks will involve taking some planes out of service outside their usual maintenance schedules, one source said. Investigations are not complete and are likely to tackle other features such as the loads or physical forces at play. Experts say air accidents are rarely caused by isolated factors. Europe's Airbus declined to comment. Nobody was hurt in the September 2017 incident, in which the Air France superjumbo diverted safely to Goose Bay in Canada. Although rare, uncontained engine failures, in which shrapnel capable of puncturing the fuselage exits an engine at extremely high speeds, automatically raise alarm. The checks come weeks after relatives marked 30 years since an engine failure left a United Airlines DC-10 with almost no control, culminating in the death of 111 out of the 296 people on board during an attempted landing at Sioux City, Iowa. U.S. investigators cited a defective titanium alloy part and weak inspection procedures, although they also praised the "highly commendable" performance of the crew of flight 232. The July 1989 crash sped up improvements in manufacturing methods for titanium alloy. Experts say hidden internal defects in such parts are unusual but remain difficult to detect. Titanium alloy is used widely in aerospace, which is the metal's biggest customer due to its strength compared to the weight of each part and its ability to handle high temperatures. https://www.yahoo.com/news/2-dozens-airbus-a380s-face-181637335.html Back to Top Did Boeing, aviation industry heed lessons of 2009 Air France crash? Richard Mithoff first learned that a Boeing 737 Max 8 had crashed off the coast of Indonesia while watching the news, growing astonished and then alarmed as the reports of the Oct. 29 Lion Air accident rolled in over the next several weeks. The details of the tragedy were strikingly familiar to Mithoff, a prominent Houston trial lawyer who had represented the family of an American couple killed in the 2009 crash of an Airbus A330-200 operating as Air France Flight 447. In both cases, a sensor had provided incorrect data to automated operating systems, triggering a confusing cacophony of warnings and alarms. The cockpits lacked an indicator that might have helped pilots to recognize the danger of their situation and correct the problems before it was too late. "Boeing, you could argue, had the benefit of everything that should have been learned from Air France," Mithoff said. "Boeing has to be measured against what the world of engineering, of avionics, should have known by the time they were pushing this (Max) design." The crash of Lion Air Flight 610 and the downing less than six months later of another Boeing Max 8, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, have prompted questions of whether the aviation industry heeded lessons of the Air France tragedy a decade ago. The similarities of the accidents reach beyond sensors and indicators to the broader issues of modern jets' increasing reliance on automated, interconnected systems and the training of pilots to intervene when those systems operate incorrectly or inadequately. Among those raising these concerns is Capt. Sully Sullenberger, a retired airline captain who in 2009 safely guided US Airways Flight 1549 to an emergency landing in the Hudson River after a bird strike knocked out the engines. Sullenberger said in an email that the Air France crash showed how relying on automation can cause dependence on it and undermine pilots' confidence to take control of situations when automation fails. It also showed the need to provide pilots with a deep understanding of all important systems and how they operate in both routine and rare situations. "The global aviation industry has not effectively applied what we have learned from the crash of Air France 447," Sullenberger said. "Had they done so, the 737 Max crashes might have been avoided." Neither Airbus nor Air France would comment. Boeing, in a statement, said that safety remains its top priority, but warned against speculating about the causes of the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines crashes until the investigations are complete and final reports issued. Failing sensors At 7:29 p.m. Brazilian time on May 31, 2009, Air France Flight 447 departed Rio de Janeiro for Paris on what was supposed to be a 12-hour flight. But the jet crashed into the Atlantic Ocean some three hours and 45 minutes later, killing all 228 people on board. Among the passengers were Michael and Anne Harris, who owned a home in Montgomery County but were living in Brazil for Michael Harris' work with Devon Energy Corp., an Oklahoma oil and gas company. Mithoff and fellow attorney Warner Hocker represented their children, Hampton Harris and Andrew Musgrove, in a wrongful death suit. The lawsuit, filed Nov. 12, 2009, in U.S. District Court in Houston, highlighted severe storms and the plane's insufficient weather radar, failed components that measure airspeed and a lack of adequate training on how to address component defects should they occur. The final investigation report released nearly three years later supported several of the law firm's allegations. Flying at about 35,000 feet, the Airbus A330-200 experienced a phenomenon called high altitude ice crystals, which blocked the pitot probes that measure air speed. This led to inconsistent readings and prompted the autopilot to disconnect, according to the French Civil Aviation Safety Investigation Authority's report. The crew struggled to control the plane while flying at a high altitude and in turbulence. They likely did not notice the plane beginning to stall - they never formally identified it, according to the accident investigation - and ultimately crashed into the Atlantic. It was later determined the crew lacked sufficient training on responding to stall situations when manually controlling an aircraft cruising at high altitude. The 737 Max accidents, almost 10 years later, also began with a sensor. The 737 Max planes received faulty data from an angle of attack sensor that measures the angle at which wind hits the plane's wings to provide lift, according to preliminary investigation reports and Boeing statements. Too steep an angle of attack causes wind to separate from the upper surface of the wing and can cause the plane to stall. This angle of attack sensor was connected to the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS. This new software was designed to make the Boeing 737 Max handle like previous generations of the 737. The MCAS software was designed to bring the nose of the plane down if the angle of attack was too steep and could cause a stall. In both the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines accidents, the faulty sensor made the software system believe the plane was approaching a stall situation, so MCAS repeatedly brought the nose down even as pilots tried to climb with manual controls, according preliminary finidings. As in the Air France crash, the 737 Max pilots apparently did not have sufficient training, according to media reports and at least one lawsuit. They lacked training on differences between the 737 Max as compared to previous 737 aircraft, with some pilots receiving just one hour of training on an iPad or computer. The FAA grounded the Boeing 737 Max 8 and Max 9 planes on March 13. Boeing said it's developing an MCAS software update to help protect against erroneous angle of attack data. Boeing also said the function performed by MCAS was referenced in the 737 Max Flight Crew Operations Manual as behavior that would occur if the plane reaches a high angle of attack. Lion Air could not be reached for comment, and Ethiopian Airlines declined to comment. Angle of attack indicator Cockpit indicators exist to display a plane's angle of attack. These can provide useful and direct information in many flight conditions, but very few planes have them, Sullenberger said. Maintaining the proper angle of attack is important. If a plane reaches what is known as the critical angle of attack, which can vary from plane to plane, it can stall at any airspeed, altitude or attitude (which is the orientation of the plane relative to the horizon), according to a 2014 report from NASA. Right now, most pilots deduce the plane's angle of attack from airspeed indications, which only provide a rough estimate and don't work in many situations, said Shem Malmquist, a Boeing 777 captain and visiting professor at the Florida Institute of Technology. An angle of attack indicator could allow pilots to more accurately monitor the angle of attack throughout the flight, not just getting an alert once it's approaching a dangerous level. The display also could be used to check if other sensors are acting incorrectly. Loss of airspeed indicators, for instance, might make pilots think they're stalling. They could cross-check the angle of attack indicator to see if that's the case, Malmquist said. "It is ironic that most modern aircraft measure (angle of attack) and that information is often used in many aircraft systems, but it is not displayed to pilots," added Sullenberger. "Instead, pilots must infer (angle of attack) from other parameters, deducing it indirectly." In the Air France accident, several aviation experts said an angle of attack indicator could have assisted crew members who apparently didn't recognize the plane was stalling. The French Civil Aviation Safety Investigation Authority recommended that the European Union Aviation Safety Agency and the Federal Aviation Administration evaluate the relevance of requiring angle of attack indicators. In its letter responding to the recommendation, the FAA said an angle of attack indicator may improve flight crew awareness in some circumstances, but the indicators would also increase pilot training requirements and pilot workload. The FAA, noting that more familiar, existing cockpit gauges provide angle of attack-based information, opted not to mandate angle of attack indicators. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency similarly opted not to require angle of attack indicators. Boeing offers angle of attack indicators as an add-on for its 737 Max planes and some other models, but not as standard equipment, saying they provide "supplemental information only and have never been considered safety features on commercial jet transport airplanes." Neither Lion Air Flight 610 nor Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 had angle of attack indicators, according to media reports. Sullenberger said they might have helped in these two crashes. "I have flown military aircraft that were equipped with (angle of attack indicators) and found them to be essential," Sullenberger said in his email. "I have long understood their value and importance and think that every airplane should be so equipped and pilots trained in their use." Bit of nuance The presence of these indicators is perhaps a little more nuanced in the Boeing crashes as the software apparently interfered with flying, said Malmquist, who is also co-author of the book Angle of Attack: Air France 447 and the Future of Aviation Safety. He said the pilots might have been aware of the situation but unable to beat the software. But like Sullenberger, he supports having the angle of attack display and said it might have given the 737 Max pilots more time to address the problem. He emphasized that pilot training would be essential to introducing these indicators. On HoustonChronicle.com: Houston lawyers file wrongful death lawsuit against Boeing for 737 Max 8 crash American Airlines of Fort Worth said it has purchased the angle of attack indicators for Boeing 737 aircraft since its first plane was delivered in 1999. The carrier would not say if this indicator is present on its other aircraft, which include other Boeing models, Airbus, Bombardier CRJ and Embraer ERJ. Southwest Airlines, headquartered in Dallas, said it worked with Boeing earlier this year to add the angle of attack indicators on its 737 Max aircraft as a "supplemental cross-check in the event there is an erroneous (angle of attack) signal present." It had previously installed these indicators on its 737-700 and -800 aircraft prior to the Lion Air accident in October. Southwest only flies Boeing 737 aircraft. United Airlines of Chicago said it does not have angle of attack indicators on any aircraft, Boeing or otherwise, because the planes already have "proven and safe" anti-stall indicators and its pilots are trained to use other flight data for the safe operation of aircraft. Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines declined to comment. Designing plane systems Software has increased the complexity of planes, and the traditional way of scrutinizing systems - taking a linear approach that looks at how one component affects another, or examining each component separately and then combining those analyses for an overall picture - is no longer sufficient, Malmquist said. Manufacturers and regulators must look at the interactions among various parts. A malfunction may no longer be isolated to a single component, but rather cascade across the many interconnected systems in modern jets, Sullenberger said when he testified before Congress in June on the Boeing crashes. The cascading effects, he said in a written version of his testimony, can cause "multiple cockpit alarms, cautions and warnings, which can cause distraction and increase workload, creating a situation that can quickly become ambiguous, confusing and overwhelming, making it much harder to analyze and solve the problem." In the 737 Max aircraft, for instance, the failure of an angle of attack sensor triggered false warnings of speed being both too slow and too fast, Sullenberger said. Moving forward, Malmquist said aircraft designers need a new technique to identify and consider how a plane's systems will interact before it takes flight. That way, instead of just assuming pilots can handle the unexpected, cascading effects, aircraft designers will know how the systems interact and be able to create more adequate pilot training programs. "We must find out how design issues, training, policies, procedures, safety culture, pilot experience and other factors affected the pilots' ability to handle these sudden emergencies, especially in this global aviation industry," Sullenberger said in congressional testimony. "Dr. Nancy Leveson, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has a quote that succinctly encapsulates much of what I have learned over many years: 'Human error is a symptom of a system that needs to be redesigned.'" Moving forward As for Mithoff and Hocker, their Air France case was resolved, but the terms kept confidential. Still, they insisted that Boeing and the aviation industry, overall, should have learned from investigation findings released to the public. Those lessons included creating cockpit alerts that present data in a meaningful way and providing adequate pilot training. The latter is potentially most important. In both accidents, had pilots been made fully aware of the systems and undergone extensive simulator training for the ways those systems could malfunction, the accidents might have been prevented. "Training goes a long way in addressing a lot of these reoccurring issues," Hocker said. https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/article/Did-Boeing-aviation-industry-heed-lessons-of-14369021.php Back to Top Deadlines Set for Australia's Pilot Fatigue Rules Australia's Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) has finalized new crew fatigue rules that apply to holders of commercial air operator certificates (AOCs), including charter, on-demand air taxis, and Part 141 flight schools. The rules go into effect September 2 and provide for up to a one-year phased-in transition period for non-airline AOCs. The rules require operators to follow prescribed limits within the regulation or develop their own fatigue risk management system (FRMS) that subsequently must be approved by CASA. In either case, operators must submit compliance transition plans. The rules do not apply to non-CASA-certified commercial operators. Airlines must transition to the new rules no later than July 1, 2020, regardless of whether they select the prescribed limits or apply for FRMS approval. All other AOC holders and Part 141 operators must transition to the regulatory limits by June 30, 2020, or submit an FRMS application no later than that date. Charter, air taxi and Part 141 operators that apply for an FRMS must be operating under a trial FRMS implementation approval (or revert to prescriptive limits) no later than Sept. 30, 2020. The rules will be effective for them starting Oct. 1, 2020. The new regulation is based on the recommendations of an "expert review panel and extensive industry consultation and involvement, including CASA's Aviation Safety Advisory Panel and an industry technical working group," CASA said. "The rules seek to align Australia with international standards, improve aviation safety, address known risks and maintain our reputation for safety in aviation." https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/business-aviation/2019-08-21/deadlines-set-australias-pilot-fatigue-rules Back to Top AOPA Asks FAA To Weigh Supersonic Limits Below FL180 Aerion AS2 AOPA is particularly concerned that pilots operating under VFR above 10,000 msl might not have the ability to see and avoid supersonic aircraft, such as the Aerion AS2, flying at supersonic speeds. Thus, AOPA wants the FAA to study whether subsonic speeds below FL180 should be required. (Photo: Aerion) Recognizing that supersonic flight represents "a new potential market in the aviation industry," the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) is cautioning the FAA to carefully consider issues such as see-and-avoid at lower altitudes to ensure supersonic flights are safely integrated into the National Airspace System alongside subsonic operations. "We believe it is important that supersonic activity does not infringe on general aviation's ability to access and transit the NAS," AOPA senior director of airspace and air traffic Rune Duke said in comments to a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) that the FAA released in June to facilitate special authorizations for supersonic flights primarily for flight-testing purposes. Deadline for comments to the NPRM (FAA-2019-0451) is August 27. AOPA endorses the NPRM as an important step toward "adopting a regulatory posture that is accepting of these aircraft" and the modernization of flight that follows with supersonic development. But the association stressed the need to uphold safety standards. "This and future rules [should] in no way allow for the approval of operations which could decrease public safety or curtail an operator's ability to efficiently traverse the NAS," he added. The FAA should consider how supersonic aircraft characteristics affect other aircraft; how see and avoid will take place; and the importance of the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) when adjudicating and approving applications, Duke said. "It is critical that both the wake characteristics of airframes and the requisite air traffic separation standards are identified so that, in conjunction with the efficiency impact, the disruption or cost to other operators can be accurately determined," he said. "It is crucial that the operation is both efficient and seamless." AOPA is particularly concerned that pilots operating under VFR above 10,000 msl might not have the ability to see and avoid supersonic aircraft flying at supersonic speeds. "Given that danger, we believe that the FAA should study whether subsonic speeds below Flight Level 180 (FL180) should be required," the association said, adding that the FAA "should scrutinize any overland application for supersonic speeds below FL180 that do not include effective mitigations for see and avoid." AOPA pointed to higher VFR weather minimums above 10,000 feet msl put in place for Class E airspace because of the additional distance required to see and avoid aircraft with speeds above 250 knots. "These differences in basic VFR weather minimums highlight not only the important relationship between a pilot's ability to conduct see and avoid but also illustrate why the 250-knot speed limit exists [below 10,000 feet in Class E airspace]." COMMUNICATION CONCERNS AOPA's membership survey revealed that 39 percent of pilots operate above 10,000 feet msl and 80 percent fly under VFR at least half of the time. "Given this, the FAA should consider that many general aviation aircraft are routinely flying above 10,000 feet msl, but outside of Class A airspace, VFR, and not necessarily in communication with air traffic control." Many general aviation aircraft have no transponder or ADS-B requirement, he added. "We are concerned that the existing mitigations for non-participating VFR traffic above 10,000 feet msl could be one-sided, as several strategies are predicated on the general aviation aircraft having a cooperative system and for controllers to de-conflict traffic that they may not be talking to," Duke said. "We are troubled that there could be situations in which pilots will be faced with having to completely relinquish their responsibility for themselves and their passengers' safety to the pilot of another aircraft, especially one with whom they have no contact (visual or otherwise)." The FAA should collaborate with industry groups and the Department of Defense and conduct a safety risk assessment and safety study on the issue, according to the association. AOPA further believes in the importance of environmental through NEPA. This offers general aviation pilots to provide feedback and the identification of unknown impacts, Duke said. "Breaking the sound barrier not only exemplifies the essence of flight, but its imminent routine occurrence in commercial and non-commercial flying also represents a new potential market in the aviation industry," Duke said. "As the interest in this flight regime increases, so does the need for policies and procedures that integrate these emergent operators with existing general aviation flights in a safe and efficient manner." https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/business-aviation/2019-08-21/aopa-asks-faa-weigh-supersonic-limits-below-fl180 Back to Top Polar Circumnavigation Set for November Departure Globe-girdling pilot Robert DeLaurentis plans a November departure for a Polar circumnavigation of the earth aboard "Citizen of the World," a highly modified 1983 Gulfstream Twin Commander 900 turboprop. The trek is intended to promote STEM education, technology, and aviation safety, while linking "the two places on the planet where there has always been peace and all the people in between," he said. Heading southbound from San Diego, the five- to six-month journey will allow time to take advantage of the Poles' respective summer weather, deal with en route aircraft squawks, and during stops in some 26 nations, highlight the mission's causes. "It's one planet, one people, one airplane," said DeLaurentis. Undergoing final modifications, the Twin Commander is outfitted with Honeywell TPE-331-10T engines and ten extra fuel tanks, delivering a range of more than 5,000 nm. No turboprop of its category has ever completed a Polar circumnavigation, he said, noting its Iridium satellite-based ADS-B system-one of the technologies it will demonstrate-makes this the first Polar circumnavigation tracked by such surveillance. In-flight activities will include testing prototype data-gathering wafer-scale spacecraft intended for NASA's Starlight program, and hosting celebrity "ride alongs" (when the aircraft is not in ferry configuration). Following the circumnavigation, DeLaurentis and the aircraft will embark on a two-year tour as a mobile STEM lab. Redbird Flight Simulations, one of some 85 sponsors, will support the roadshow with simulators incorporating simulations inspired by the journey, to be available on all its sims. https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/business-aviation/2019-08-21/polar-circumnavigation-set-november-departure Back to Top Airlines for America Applauds U.S.-Japan Aviation Agreement WASHINGTON, Aug. 21, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Airlines for America (A4A), the industry trade organization for the leading U.S. airlines, issued the following statement commending the agreement signed by the U.S. and Japan today which will increase access for U.S. airlines and passengers flying to Tokyo's Haneda Airport A4A applauds the U.S. Government and the Government of Japan for their efforts to finalize a new air services agreement that expands services to Haneda Airport, Tokyo's downtown airport. The new flights will provide expanded opportunities for passengers traveling to Tokyo. Japan is one of the most important global markets for U.S. carriers. Enabling all U.S. carriers to compete for access at Haneda - one of the world's largest and busiest airports - helps to improve international relations with our Japanese partners, while yielding immense benefits for the traveling and shipping public. U.S airlines connect the world like no other industry can, and this new agreement with Japan reflects the critical role aviation plays as a driver of jobs and economic growth in the U.S. and throughout the world. Travelers flying on U.S. airlines will benefit from 12 additional flights to Haneda which are expected to begin in time for the 2020 summer travel season. ABOUT A4A Annually, commercial aviation helps drive $1.5 trillion in U.S. economic activity and more than 10 million U.S. jobs. U.S. airlines fly 2.4 million passengers and more than 58,000 tons of cargo each day. Airlines for America (A4A) advocates on behalf of the American airline industry as a model of safety, customer service and environmental responsibility and as the indispensable network that drives our nation's economy and global competitiveness. A4A works collaboratively with the airlines, labor, Congress, the Administration and other groups to improve aviation for the traveling and shipping public. For more information about the airline industry, visit our website airlines.org and our blog, A Better Flight Plan, at airlines.org/blog. Follow us on Twitter: @airlinesdotorg. Like us on Facebook: facebook.com/AirlinesforAmerica. Join us on Instagram: instagram.com/AirlinesforAmerica. SOURCE Airlines for America https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/airlines-for-america-applauds-us-japan-aviation-agreement-300905314.html Back to Top Russia's MC-21 aircraft to make its long-awaited public debut MC-21 Three MC-21-300 test aircraft will be proffered at MAKS air show (Irkut) The wait is over. Russia's new MC-21 narrow-body medium-haul aircraft is to be shown for the first time at the MAKS 2019 air show next week. The principal hope of Russia's United Aircraft Corporation - which is now under the management of Rostec - was first expected to make an appearance two years ago at the MAKS 2017 event at Zhukovsky, but the prototype of the family's basic -300 variant, which made its maiden flight in Irkutsk on May 28, 2017, had not yet passed factory tests. Irkut Corporation, the type's manufacturer, is to more than compensate for this delay by proffering not one, but three MC-21-300 test aircraft, including one fitted with a passenger cabin, which are expected to be demonstrated in both the aerial and static displays at MAKS 2019. The manufacturer has also announced that the MC-21 programme update press conference will be held on the opening day of the air show. The presentation of a factory-fresh, clean-sheet Russian-made aircraft has been awaited for an entire decade. The previous dream of the national aviation industry, the Superjet 100, made its debut at MAKS 2009, but has not since become "the world's first regional super aircraft". Visitors to the Paris Air Show, at Le Bourget, which celebrated its centenary in 2009, were the first to see the new Russian aircraft that had been created in collaboration with top aircraft companies of Europe and America. Those times are long gone. In July 2019, Denis Manturov, Russia's minister of industry and trade, revealed to Reuters that the MC-21 could not have been created without its Superjet 100 predecessor. "We needed to develop [our] expertise in the civil aircraft industry, in new economic realities. Some US$2 billion was spent on the development of the Superjet 100. As for the MC-21, the entire programme hopes to produce almost 100 aircraft per year; with a total cost of some $4 billion." Let's hope that UAC has effectively studied and accounted for the failures of the Superjet programme - and that the MC-21 will not end up as another flight of fancy. http://www.rusaviainsider.com/russias-mc-21-aircraft-make-long-awaited-public-debut/ Back to Top Learn to Fly an Aircraft in Just 17 Months with IndiGo Cadet Pilot Program Insight Aviation has been appointed by IndiGo to select and train ab-initio pilots for their Cadet Pilot Programme to meet the growing demand for pilots. Learn to Fly an Aircraft in Just 17 Months with IndiGo Cadet Pilot Program Image for representation. Here is good news for those planning to have a career in the aviation industry, here is an opportunity waiting for you. Gul Panag who holds a Private Pilot Licence took to Twitter and shared about an opportunity to become a pilot with IndiGo. Taking to Twitter, Gul Panag posted a picture and captioned it, "Flying through the clouds is a surreal experience! For those interested in an aviation career, check out @insightflyer - they're now accepting candidates for their first batch. With them, you get an opportunity to become a pilot with @IndiGo6E !" The image posted by Gul Panag mentioned about Insight Aviation, IndiGo Cadet Pilot Programme. The image read that anyone aspiring to become a pilot can train with Insight Aviation and could be a pilot with IndiGo Airlines in "just 17 months". The training will take place in South Africa's 43 Air School and those who aspire to be a pilot can stand a "1 on 5 chance" to win a scholarship worth Rs USD 13,000. The last day of filing the application in August 25, 2019 and willing candidates can visit www.insightflyer.com to apply for the pilot training. Insight Aviation has been appointed by IndiGo to select and train ab-initio pilots for their Cadet Pilot Programme to meet the growing demand for pilots. Insight Aviation has teamed up with South Africa's premier Flight Training Organization, 43 Air School to deliver the desired skills for becoming a pilot. https://www.news18.com/news/auto/learn-to-fly-an-aircraft-in-just-17-months-with-indigo-cadet-pilot-program-2278605.html Back to Top High school students becoming certified drone pilots PAINTSVILLE, Ky. (WYMT) - Paintsville High School is bringing in a program you do not think you would see in a high school classroom. They partnered with the Hazard Community and Technical College to bring in a program called unmanned systems technology that will certify students to fly drones. "It is so important for students in high school to be able to explore multiple opportunities to figure out what they want to do with their lives," said Jennifer Lindon the president of HCTC. Superintendent David Gibson created the partnership. "Obviously the technology world is changing everyday and our kids are ahead of it and are able to do things that to be honest with you just ten years ago we weren't even thinking about," said Gibson. This program gives students the chance to become certified drone pilots. "It's really impressive to know that our kids are going to be able to fly drones the same as some of the pilots in the Air Force are doing," said Gibson. Many question what careers are available with the certification, but the opportunities are endless. Drone pilots can go into careers in agriculture, criminal justice, and even the medical field. "I think the field is wide open and while it's a new field, it's an emerging field and certainly the technologies are improving and I think people will continue to see opportunities for employment in the mountains with drone technologies," said Lindon. Gibson says many are interested in the program. They will do online class work at the high school and have occasional work force training at HCTC. https://www.wymt.com/content/news/High-school-students-becoming-certified-drone-pilots--557817351.html Back to Top Inside America's Dysfunctional Trillion-Dollar Fighter-Jet Program The F-35 was once the Pentagon's high-profile problem child. Has it finally moved past its reputation of being an overhyped and underperforming warplane? On the morning of June 23, 2014, an F-35 burst into flames just moments before its pilot was set to take off on a routine training mission. He heard a loud bang and felt the engine slow as warning indicators began flashing "fire" and other alerts signaled that systems in the plane were shutting down. Witnesses at Eglin Air Force Base near Pensacola, Fla., reported seeing the pilot escape from the cockpit and run away from the fighter jet, which was engulfed in thick plumes of black smoke. It was the first major mishap involving a F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, and it couldn't have happened at a worse time. In less than a month, the F-35, America's high-profile next-generation fighter jet, was poised to make its international debut in Britain at Farnborough Airshow, the second-largest event of its kind in the world. Officials from the Pentagon and the aircraft's manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, had eagerly anticipated the opportunity to show off a working, flying F-35 after a decade of delays and spiraling cost overruns. The F-35 initiative is the Defense Department's most expensive weapons program ever, expected to cost taxpayers more than $1 trillion over its 60-year lifespan. It's also the United States military's most ambitious international partnership, with eight other nations investing in the aircraft's development. Its advocates promised that the jet would be a game-changing force in the future of war - so much was riding on its success that a program cancellation was not an option. And yet for years it seemed as if the F-35 might never make it beyond its development phase. Christopher Bogdan, the Air Force lieutenant general in charge of the program at the time of the fire, received a call about the incident within the hour. His first reaction was relief that it had been detected before takeoff, a stroke of good fortune that allowed the pilot to escape uninjured. "If that engine problem would have occurred 30 seconds, 60 seconds, two minutes later, that airplane would have been airborne," Bogdan said in a recent interview. "Heaven knows what could have happened then." An investigation of the incident determined that a fan blade in the jet's engine had overheated from friction and cracked, throwing off fragments of metal that punched through the fuselage, severed hydraulic and fuel lines and ignited a spray of jet fuel. Officials couldn't guarantee that other F-35s wouldn't have the same problem, and they didn't want to risk a potentially catastrophic fire during a trans-Atlantic flight. The F-35 never made it to Farnborough that year, and the public-relations coup that Pentagon and Lockheed officials had hoped for turned into another round of ammunition for the plane's critics. It was one more bad news story for a controversial program that had been dogged by bad news. Slowly, though, the program and its reputation have improved over the ensuing five years. Lockheed has now delivered more than 400 planes to American and foreign militaries, and the unit cost per aircraft has dropped significantly. In 2018, the F-35 completed its first combat operation for the Marine Corps in Afghanistan. The Air Force used it for airstrikes in Iraq about six months later. Later this year or in early 2020, the F-35 will go into full-rate production, with Lockheed expected to churn out 130 to 160 or more planes per year, a huge step up from the 91 planes delivered in 2018. That production milestone will be a symbolic turning point for the program, evidence that major problems that plagued the Joint Strike Fighter in the past are now history. Yet even as the program plows forward, unresolved technical issues have continued to emerge. In June, my colleagues and I at Defense News reported that the plane still faced at least 13 severe technical deficiencies during operational testing, including spikes in cabin pressure, some rare instances of structural damage at supersonic speeds and unpredictability while conducting extreme maneuvers - all problems that could affect the pilot's safety or jeopardize a mission's success. At the same time, the F-35s already delivered to squadrons have introduced new complications: On military bases around the United States, the high cost of operating the aircraft, a shortage of spare parts and a challenging new approach to updating the jet's crucial software code have program officials and military leaders urgently looking for solutions. Still, they assure the public that nothing will prevent the program from moving forward. It's a stance that breaks with the advice of the Government Accountability Office, which advised that all serious problems should be resolved before transitioning to full-rate production. With the critical problems that once dominated both headlines and congressional hearings seemingly resolved, the F-35 may not be the high-profile problem child it once was. But the Pentagon's efforts to play down new complications raise questions about whether America's most controversial warplane is actually ready to move into its next phase and what kind of new problems might surface in that transition. In both 2017 and 2018, only about half of the United States' F-35 fleet was available to fly at a given time, with the rest down for maintenance. The Joint Strike Fighter program was conceived in the 1990s as the most ambitious aircraft development effort in the Defense Department's history. One company would oversee design and production of three different versions of an aircraft that could be operated by the United States Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps as well as America's allies, who would help offset the development costs. The project would result in a technologically superior plane that would be manufactured in such large quantities that the jets would cost no more than the older planes it would replace. The jet was to replace a wide variety of the American military's combat aircraft, including the Air Force's F-16 Fighting Falcon and A-10 Thunderbolt II, the Marine Corps's AV-8B Harrier and the F/A-18 Hornet operated by the Navy and Marine Corps. All of the services' requirements for new fighter jets were combined into one program, which would be awarded to a single contractor. Like the Air Force's F-22, this new fighter jet needed to be stealthy and able to fly at supersonic speeds. To meet the needs of the Marine Corps, it needed to land vertically on ships, while the Navy version would need larger wings and different landing gear so it could take off from and land on aircraft carriers. "If you were to go back to the year 2000 and somebody said, 'I can build an airplane that is stealthy and has vertical takeoff and landing capabilities and can go supersonic,' most people in the industry would have said that's impossible," said Tom Burbage, Lockheed's general manager for the program from 2000 to 2013. "The technology to bring all of that together into a single platform was beyond the reach of industry at that time." Lockheed Martin thought otherwise. In 2001, the defense company's model - then called the X-35 - won against Boeing's X-32 after both companies demonstrated working prototypes of a stealth fighter capable of hovering and vertical landings. There soon turned out to be an essential flaw in the grand plan for a single plane that could do everything. Design specifications demanded by one branch of the military would adversely impact the F-35's performance in another area. "It turns out when you combine the requirements of the three services, what you end up with is the F-35, which is an aircraft that is in many ways suboptimal for what each of the services really want," said Todd Harrison, an aerospace expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "It is much more expensive than originally envisioned, and the three versions of the plane actually don't have that much in common." But early in the program, Lockheed Martin began construction with glowing optimism. The company decided to build the Air Force's F-35A first because it was considered the simplest model, then move on to the difficulties of the F-35B short-takeoff and vertical-landing version and then the F-35C, which can land on an aircraft carrier - a decision that turned out to be a mistake. Once Lockheed's engineers proceeded with the more demanding design of the F-35B, they found that their initial weight estimates were no longer accurate and the B model was on track to be 3,000 pounds too heavy to meet specifications. The company was forced to begin an extensive redesign project that added an 18-month delay to the program. Later, serious problems resulted from starting production while the aircraft was still under development, a process the Pentagon calls concurrency. The strategy was meant to allow the services to begin flying their F-35s sooner. Instead, F-35s started rolling off the production line with unresolved technical problems, forcing the Pentagon to continually retrofit even newly built jets. In 2010, the ballooning costs - which put the cost per plane more than 89 percent over the baseline estimate - triggered a breach of the Nunn-McCurdy Act, a law that forces the Pentagon and Congress to evaluate whether to cancel a troubled program. But because the F-35 was intended to replace so many legacy fighter jets, military leaders essentially had no choice but to keep going. One factor that kept sending the F-35 program off course was the level of control Lockheed exerted over the program. The company produces not only the F-35 itself but also the training gear for pilots and maintainence technicians, the aircraft's logistics system and its support equipment, like carts and rigs. Lockheed also manages the supply chain and is responsible for much of the maintenance for the plane. This gave Lockheed significant power over almost every part of the F-35 enterprise. "I had a sense, after my first 90 days, that the government was not in charge of the program," said Bogdan, who assumed oversight as the program's executive officer in December 2012. It seemed "that all of the major decisions, whether they be technical, whether they be schedule, whether they be contractual, were really all being made by Lockheed Martin, and the program office was just kind of watching." Bogdan particularly worried that Lockheed had too much control of the government's test flights. The company was allowed to manage the test program and had the power, for example, to defer more challenging tests until later. In past programs, the government had controlled testing and had aimed to find any difficult, high-priority problems early, so they could be addressed as soon as possible. Bogdan also argued that the Pentagon's program office was not transparent enough in letting the military services know how their money was being spent. Because Lockheed was not required to report its financials in detail, the program office itself did not have a clear picture of exactly how much an F-35 truly cost and how the money was being used. Costs and complications were spiraling. Someone needed to intervene before the Defense Department lost control entirely, Bogdan thought. In September 2012, when he was the program's second-in-command, he took to the lectern at the Air Force's largest conference and said something that had not been publicly acknowledged before: The relationship with Lockheed was the worst arrangement he had ever seen between the Pentagon and a defense contractor. The audience was shocked. At military conferences and trade shows, Defense Department officials and their contractors typically boast about their collaborative efforts. Instead, Bogdan publicly shamed the defense behemoth, criticizing the lagging production time and skyrocketing costs. At that point, there was a lot to rebuke. The Pentagon had restricted the F-35 from flying near thunderstorms after flight tests revealed that its lightning-protection system was deficient. That became easy fodder for skeptics, given the plane's designation as the F-35 Lightning II. The jet's cutting-edge helmet display, which melds imagery from the F-35's multiple cameras and sensors into a single picture, didn't work properly, with pilots experiencing a jittery, delayed video feed. And the jet's software development had lagged behind schedule, leaving pilots stuck with an interim version that allowed only for basic training. When Bogdan was promoted to the top post as the program's executive officer, a rule change empowered him to stay on past the previous two-year limit, and he let Lockheed know that he wasn't going anywhere until the F-35's major difficulties were behind it. The Pentagon and the contractor got to work on correcting the jet's technical issues, one by one. Within a year, Bogdan was saying publicly that the relationship with Lockheed was improving and that the contractor was making progress in addressing the F-35's problems, albeit more slowly than he would have liked. The program office and Lockheed had figured out some ways to cut the cost of manufacturing the fighter. More flight testing was happening. The lightning-protection system was redesigned in 2014, and the F-35 can now fly in bad weather. A series of hardware and software changes to the helmet have solved the image-quality problems. Still, as problems were fixed, new ones surfaced. In 2015, the program office found that the plane's ejection seat could cause serious neck injuries to lightweight pilots, prompting the Air Force to ban pilots under 136 pounds from flight operations until a fix was implemented in 2016. Perhaps most damning was a 2015 report by War Is Boring, a well-read military blog, citing a document by an Air Force test pilot that asserted that the F-35 could not defeat the 1970s-era F-16 in aerial combat. If that was true, the staggeringly expensive high-tech jet was already obsolete before it would ever take to the skies in wartime. It emerged that the assessment was provisional and incomplete. The pilot had based his judgment on a single day's mock aerial battle between an F-16 and an F-35 that temporarily had limited maneuverability and restricted performance because it had an early version of its software package. Nevertheless, the characterization of the F-35 as an overpriced but mediocre dogfighter has haunted it ever since. Though the F-35's bad reputation among the public has persisted, the military has grown increasingly confident in the jet's capabilities as problems have been eliminated and additional weapons and software have made the aircraft more capable in a fight. As more pilots log more flight time, they have raved about the F-35's performance and technological advances. The Marine Corps, which began normal flying operations with the jet in 2015, became the first military branch to fly the F-35 in combat when it used the jets for airstrikes in Afghanistan last year. Both the Air Force and Navy are also now operating their own F-35s. In 2017, during the F-35A's first outing in Red Flag, the Air Force's largest training exercise for aerial warfare, the jet killed 20 aircraft for each F-35 shot down in simulated combat. In April, Air Force pilots took that training and put it into practice for the first time, using the F-35 in an airstrike against ISIS in Iraq. Pressure from Congress also helped shape the F-35 into a more successful program. In 2016, Senator John McCain of Arizona labeled the program a "scandal and a tragedy with respect to cost, schedule and performance." Recognizing that it was nearly impossible to cancel the program, McCain nevertheless aimed to hold it accountable for its repeated setbacks. He moved forward with a carrot-and-stick approach, approving additional funding for the F-35 as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee while at the same time regularly grilling Defense Department officials during congressional hearings. Since McCain's death last August, no other lawmaker has exacted that level of scrutiny. That's by design, said Dan Grazier of the Project on Government Oversight, a watchdog organization that has repeatedly criticized the aircraft. "It's no accident that there are more than 1,500 suppliers for the F-35 program, and they're spread out to almost every state," he said. "That means that there's basically a veto-proof constituency bloc on Capitol Hill for the F-35 program, so it becomes very difficult for members of Congress to really criticize this program." Legislators looking to relieve pressure on the program - and argue for increasing the number of aircraft purchased annually - have been able to point to measurable progress in the F-35's performance and management. But that leniency comes at the expense of taxpayers' dollars, say critics like Grazier, who want to see lawmakers do more to push for cost savings. Within the last few years, the Defense Department has corrected hundreds of Category 1 deficiencies, the label the Pentagon gives to serious technical problems including ones that could affect safety or mission effectiveness, and many of the F-35's most visible problems have been resolved. However, as recently as June, at least 13 Category 1 deficiencies were still on the books. "Each is well understood, already resolved or on a near-term path to resolution," Lockheed said in a statement. Vice Adm. Mat Winter, who led the Pentagon's F-35 program office until July, maintained that the 13 deficiencies were not ones so serious that they could cause loss of life or aircraft. The department has a plan to fix all but two of the issues - the two have occurred only once during flight tests and are considered anomalous - and according to Winter, the problems will not affect the Pentagon's plan to move to full-rate production. The F-35 was in the news again in July when the White House decided to expel Turkey from the program when that contentious ally refused to give up its plan to simultaneously acquire an advanced air defense system from Russia. That new partnership with Moscow presented a risk that technological secrets from F-35s in Turkey could make their way to Russia. The program's international reach, meanwhile, is only becoming bigger. Ten international partners and customers have committed to buying the jet, and eight of them have received their first F-35s. Israel was the first country to use the fighter in combat, announcing in May 2018 that it had used the F-35 in two separate airstrikes on undisclosed targets in the Middle East. The cost of the plane continues to decrease as the growth in sales reduces the unit cost per jet, with the price of a conventional F-35A - the variant purchased by most international customers - falling to $89.2 million in 2018. Back in 2006, the first batch cost $241.2 million per plane. In June, Lockheed and the Pentagon announced a handshake deal that would see the price of the F-35A drop to the long-awaited level of $80 million, about equal to older planes like the F/A-18 Super Hornet. "This is going to be the first fighter jet produced in the thousands for a very long time," said Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace analyst with the Teal Group. "None of this is stoppable. It will be remembered, as the smoke clears, as something that worked far better than critics thought it would, but something you'd never, ever want to do again." Hill Air Force Base in Utah, home to the Air Force's first operational F-35s, is tasked with preparing pilots for combat and has some of the highest availability rates among all installations that fly the aircraft - a key measure that the service uses to track the proportion of aircraft that are operational and ready to fly. But long turnaround times for some maintenance tasks has meant that about 30 percent of the squadron's aircraft are grounded at any given time. At some bases that fly the older models, the availability rate is far lower: Sometimes more than 60 percent of their F-35s are not operable. In 2017 and 2018, only about half of the F-35 fleet was available to fly at a given time, with the rest down for maintenance. A major cause of F-35s sitting idle on the ground is a shortage of replacement parts. Lockheed and Defense Department officials have blamed each other for the problem, and there probably is plenty of fault to go around. The planes require a dizzying number of components sourced from different suppliers, and replacement parts are not getting to the flight line when they are needed. For instance, F-35s have encountered problems with the canopy, the glass enclosure that protects the cockpit, and jets can sometimes wait for a year to receive the necessary repair. Lockheed has begun fronting its own money to buy spare parts in advance, with the expectation that the Defense Department will repay the company later. It's also trying to roll all of the F-35's needs together, so that its suppliers can deliver parts for both new aircraft and old. Winter is skeptical that Lockheed's actions will fix the problem. "Lockheed Martin's assertion that this will all be done in two years or so was the same thing that was said two years ago," he said. "It's always two years to success, every time we talk." But Lockheed is only partly responsible for the shortage of parts. An April 2019 investigation by the Government Accountability Office found that the Pentagon had a repair backlog of about 4,300 parts, wasn't managing its inventory properly and often lacked data on the cost and current location of its F-35 components. Again, it's a problem that could be compounded by the move to full-rate production. As Lockheed is responsible for building a much larger number of jets and prioritizes delivering those new aircraft to its customers, the F-35s already in operation will face even stiffer competition for spare parts. Slow and complicated maintenance is not a minor problem. As is generally the case for most weapons systems, maintenance is expected to make up more than 70 percent of the F-35 program's total cost over the projected lifetime of the program. And managing these costs only grows more critical as more F-35s come online. An important measure of the cost, sustainability and value of the new jet is its total operating cost. In 2018, flying an F-35A cost about $44,000 per hour on average - about double the cost of operating the Navy's Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. Some of the military's top officials, including Gen. Dave Goldfein, the Air Force's chief of staff, and former Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson, have complained that it is too expensive to fly and maintain the F-35, raising the possibility that the service may have to buy fewer of them if costs don't shrink. In 2018, Goldfein called the F-35 "a computer that happens to fly" - a popular characterization among F-35 advocates, highlighting the plane's ability to collect and analyze data in order to knock out enemy planes and missiles. But as China develops its own stealth fighters and pumps government money into research on supercomputing and artificial intelligence, the Pentagon is wondering how it can continue to give F-35 technology a competitive edge against America's adversaries. One solution favored by Winter during his recent tenure was so-called agile software development. His vision for "continuous capability development and delivery" resembles DevOps, a popular method in the private sector for quickly testing and evaluating features for new products. Coders generate software upgrades or patches in a matter of days or weeks, pass them along to users to test and then push out the update more widely if the changes are successful. That speed would be a major improvement on the months, or in some cases a year or more, that it can take defense contractors to deliver a software patch right now. Winter also made it a priority to push for drastic streamlining in the process for testing new software in the F-35. Under the existing procedures, the Pentagon can require test flights for more than 300 different factors or functions when a new software load is installed. Winter worked to cut that down to a single validation flight, to test just the software and the systems it affects, rather than retesting the performance of the whole aircraft. A trial program staffed with a team of Air Force and Lockheed coders proved that the method works and doesn't put pilots at risk, and Winter's rapid software development strategy is now being implemented. But moving to an agile software approach for the F-35 presents a huge challenge for the sluggish and bureaucratic military acquisition system, and there's no blueprint for how to integrate it alongside the traditional processes for developing and testing hardware. As with all stories involving the tangled web that is the Pentagon bureaucracy, it's tempting to try to look for a hidden root behind all the problems - greedy corporate executives, corrupt generals, the military-industrial complex itself. But those closest to the F-35 program, the engineers, software developers and midlevel managers, express the same things over and over. Frustration that the tremendous scope of the program keeps them from being able to do more to fix it; and a wounded sense of pride for the impressive technological advances they have achieved, but that often seem lost in the intractable tangle of complications and setbacks. Over the next few months, the program will move through grueling evaluations overseen by the Pentagon's independent weapons tester. These tests are meant to shake out any last bugs before full-rate production starts. In June, Winter said that none of the remaining problems are serious enough to delay full production. But even after the testing ends, there will inevitably be issues in need of fixes. In some ways, that's a feature of today's changing battlefield. There will always be new threats to face, new upgrades to develop, new technical problems to solve. Defense Department officials continue to assert that the adaptiveness of the F-35 makes it the best option to stand up to such uncertainties. Which is a good thing if true, given that it's the only option. Because even if the F-35 doesn't manage to become the unbeatable plane the Pentagon dreamed of, it has become the unkillable program. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/21/magazine/f35-joint-strike-fighter-program.html Back to Top Qantas to test 'ultra long-haul' Sydney to NY, London flights Qantas will use Boeing 787-9 aircraft for three test flights from Australia's east coast to London and New York (AFP Photo/Daniel SLIM) Qantas on Thursday said it will run "ultra long-haul" test flights in the coming months from New York and London to Sydney in order to assess the health of pilots and passengers, as it eyes commercial services on the marathon routes. Three flights aboard Boeing 787-9 aircraft will take place from October, with up to 40 passengers and crew on the 19-hour flight. Those on board will be subject to medical checks, while their sleep patterns and food consumption will be monitored, as Qantas bids to establish non-stop commercial flights from Australia's east coast to London and New York. Qantas last year introduced the first direct service from the western Australian city of Perth to London, with the 17-hour journey one of the longest passenger flights in the world. "Flying non-stop from the East Coast of Australia to London and New York is truly the final frontier in aviation, so we're determined to do all the groundwork to get this right," Qantas CEO Alan Joyce said in a statement. Both Airbus and Boeing have pitched aircraft for the ultra long-haul routes, and Joyce said it was still not a "foregone conclusion" which plane will be chosen. A decision will be made on the validity of the flights at the end of the year. "This is ultimately a business decision and the economics have to stack up," he said. The airline posted a 6.5 percent fall in annual net profit Thursday, attributing the slide in earnings to higher oil prices and a weaker Australian dollar. Despite record revenues, the Australian flag carrier said its after-tax profit fell to Aus$891 million (US$604 million), down from Aus$953 million the previous year. The airline was hit by an Aus$614 million fuel bill increase and Aus$154 million in foreign exchange impacts. But Joyce was upbeat about the results, which came on the back of healthy profits the previous year. "Even with headwinds like fuel costs and foreign exchange, we remain one of the best-performing airline groups in the world," he said. In the 12 months to June 30, underlying profit before tax -- the airline's preferred measure that strips out one-off costs -- was down 17 percent at Aus$1.3 billion. Qantas declared a final dividend of 13 cents per share and announced an off-market buyback of up to 79.7 million shares. It will also hand its workers travel bonuses worth Aus$32 million. Joyce said the outlook for the airline was "mixed", with weakness in the domestic tourism market and flat corporate travel demand. Nevertheless, he said the airline was "confident" about the year ahead due in large part to being in a "strong financial position". https://www.yahoo.com/news/qantas-airways-profits-lower-oil-prices-rise-013456760.html Back to Top Boeing spacecraft astronauts see new frontier for commercial space HOUSTON (Reuters) - A crew of veteran U.S. astronauts and aviators are training in Houston for a manned mission to the International Space Station aboard Boeing's new Starliner spacecraft, which could also be used to take tourists into space on future missions. The Boeing Starliner mission was originally scheduled for this month, but that has been delayed to at least the end of the year or into 2020 due to technical issues and amid a shakeup in the top echelons of the space agency. Boeing (BA.N) and rival Elon Musk's SpaceX are competing with each other to become the first private company to resume human space flight from U.S. soil after the space shuttle program ended in 2011. The companies, with cutting-edge technology, are among those poised to benefit most from the enormous growth opportunities many see in the world's burgeoning commercial space industry. NASA has been relying for years on Russian rockets and spacecraft to transport personnel to the space station. The $100 billion science and engineering laboratory, orbiting 250 miles (400 km) above Earth, has been permanently staffed by rotating crews of astronauts and cosmonauts since November 2000. NASA is paying SpaceX and Boeing nearly $7 billion combined to build rocket-and-capsule launch systems for ferrying astronauts to the space station. Reuters was given rare access at Houston's Johnson Space Center to NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Mike Fincke, and Boeing astronaut and test pilot Christopher Ferguson, who will crew the ISS mission, along with other astronauts training for future missions. The exercises included training underwater to simulate space walks, responding to emergencies aboard the space station, and practicing docking maneuvers on a flight simulator. NASA Commercial Crew astronauts Sunita Williams and Josh Cassada are seen lowered into the water at NASA's Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL) training facility near the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, U.S., July 1, 2019. REUTERS/Mike Blake Here's a closer look at the three astronauts training for the ISS flight. FERGUSON LEADS MISSION Ferguson, a former NASA astronaut and retired U.S. Navy captain, who helped design the way the crew interacts with the automated Boeing CST-100 Starliner, will lead its maiden voyage. "They (Boeing) knew how big it was going to be, how it was going to be powered, but they really hadn't thought a whole lot about what the inside would be and how does the crew interface with the vehicle that's designed to operate automatically," said Ferguson. The design "is a great compromise between keeping it minimalistic yet at the same time giving the pilot the ability to understand where am I, where do I need to be, how am I going to get there, if things go wrong how do I fix them." "It comes down to watching (the spacecraft's) behavior," said Ferguson, who led NASA's final space shuttle mission in 2011 and spent more than 40 days in space over his career. "We just want to make sure it doesn't throw us a curve ball." FIRST TRIP FOR NAVY COMBAT PILOT It will be the first trip into space for Mann, 42, a former Navy combat pilot, who said she was looking forward to the excitement a fresh American-based crewed mission to space would create among a young generation that did not grow up watching Apollo and shuttle missions as their parents and grandparents did. "And so I think it's going to be huge for Americans. It's going to be huge for the younger generation to see us launching from American soil, that we're bringing work and industry back to the United States. "I think it'll open up a lot more jobs. It'll open a lot more innovation for that young generation. And there's a big future of spaceflight in front of us." FINCKE - LAYING THE GROUNDWORK The Starliner mission will lay the groundwork for Boeing's commercial flight program, which includes carrying passenger and cargoes to the space station, and taking tourists into space, said Fincke, a veteran NASA astronaut who has completed three space flights. "So far, we've only had about 500 people go to space. Hopefully, in the next 10 years, we'll go from 500 to 5,000. And in the next 20 years, maybe 50,000 or more," said the former U.S. Air Force colonel who served as science officer and flight engineer on a six-month space station mission. CAPTURE THE FLAG Eight years ago, when Ferguson led NASA's last space shuttle mission, he left an American flag aboard the space station for the next crew of U.S. astronauts to collect and bring home. He likes the idea of getting it back himself, traveling on the first manned commercial U.S. spacecraft. "Sort of like a grown-up version of capture the flag," Ferguson said. And if SpaceX got there first? "I would be very happy for them. Who brings it home is unimportant, but the fact that it gets home is most important. And I would be very proud of Doug (Hurley, a NASA astronaut training to fly aboard SpaceX's Crew Dragon space craft), although he's going to lose." https://www.reuters.com/article/us-space-exploration-boeing-feature/boeing-spacecraft-astronauts-see-new-frontier-for-commercial-space-idUSKCN1VC10K Back to Top DISPAX World 2019 18 - 19 September 2019, The Riverside Venue, London, UK The 3rd International Conference on Unruly Airline Passenger Behaviour With only a few weeks to go, DISPAX World 2019 is fast approaching! We are delighted to be able to offer all subscribers to Curt Lewis a 20% discount on the delegate rate. To redeem this offer use the promotional code: CURT20 when registering on the conference website: www.unrulypax.com/registration/ Disruptive passenger incidents are a daily occurrence on board commercial flights around the world. Seemingly trivial issues can quickly escalate into explosive situations that endanger the safety of passengers and crew. The much anticipated 3rd edition of DISPAX World returns to London to explore the broad range of causes of such behaviour, the responses available and the legal implications for carriers and states. Looked at from diverse perspectives, including those of aircrew, passengers, regulatory authorities, industry associations, and law enforcement, DISPAX World 2019 will provide a comprehensive and authoritative programme over two days in one of the busiest airline hubs in the world: London. Speakers will include industry leaders, aircrew, airport operators, academics and law enforcement agencies. DISPAX World 2019 is a must-attend conference for: Flight attendant instructors Unions & staff associations Pilots Law enforcement agencies Airline Security Personnel Airport operators Government transportation regulators Security companies Aviation health professionals & psychologists Consumer bodies Academics & researchers International law firms For more information and to view the programme, please visit: www.unrulypax.com or contact the Event Manager, Lucy Rawlings, at lrawlings@avsec.com and don't forget to follow us on Twitter: @DispaxWorld Curt Lewis