Flight Safety Information [November 19, 2020] [No. 234] In This Issue : Incident: Azul A20N at Rio de Janeiro on Nov 15th 2020, hail strike : FAA lifts grounding of Boeing 737 MAX : 'Grossly insufficient': House report excoriates Boeing, FAA over mistakes that led to 737 Max crashes : Airlines will let 737 Max passengers change their tickets for free : UN recruits 40 airlines to deliver vaccine to poorest states : Florida Tech Aviation Safety Expert Weighs in on Decision “Ungrounding” Boeing 737 MAX : Cathay Pacific seeking 20 pilots to temporarily boost cargo operation in anticipation of busy 2021 : SpaceX wants to test its Starlink satellite internet network inflight with a Gulfstream jet : SpaceX will boost a new NASA satellite and land with a boom this weekend : RTCA Free Technical Webinar 11/30: Interference Risk on Radar Altimeters from Planned 5G Telecommunication Systems Incident: Azul A20N at Rio de Janeiro on Nov 15th 2020, hail strike An Azul Linhas Aereas Airbus A320-200N, registration PR-YRQ performing flight AD-4194 from Curitiba,PR to Rio de Janeiro Santos Dumont,RJ (Brazil) with 135 passengers and 6 crew, was on approach to Santos Dumont Airport descending through about 4500 feet about 20nm out when the crew aborted the approach due to a hail strike, climbed back to 7000 feet and diverted to Rio de Janeiro's Galeao Airport. The aircraft landed safely on Galeao's runway 15 about 25 minutes later. The aircraft is still on the ground at Rio de Janeiro's International Airport about 37 hours after landing. On Nov 18th 2020 Brazil's CENIPA reported the aircraft was climbing between FL200 and FL270 out of Curitiba when the aircraft flew through heavy formations with heavy rain, turbulence and probable hail. Later, during the descent towards Rio de Janeiro, the crew observed a lag in the first officer's speed indications. The crew declared emergency and diverted to Galeao. The aircraft received minor damage limited to the radome. http://avherald.com/h?article=4df52f5e&opt=0 FAA lifts grounding of Boeing 737 MAX FAA Administrator Steve Dickson today signed an order (PDF) that paves the way for the Boeing 737 MAX to return to commercial service. The Boeing 737 MAX had been grounded following two fatal accidents (Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302) . In addition to rescinding the order that grounded the aircraft, the FAA published an Airworthiness Directive (PDF) specifying design changes that must be made before the aircraft returns to service, issued a Continued Airworthiness Notification to the International Community (CANIC), and published the MAX training requirements. (PDF) These actions do not allow the MAX to return immediately to the skies. The FAA must approve 737 MAX pilot training program revisions for each U.S. airline operating the MAX and will retain its authority to issue airworthiness certificates and export certificates of airworthiness for all new 737 MAX aircraft manufactured since the FAA issued the grounding order. Furthermore, airlines that have parked their MAX aircraft must take required maintenance steps to prepare them to fly again. https://news.aviation-safety.net/2020/11/18/faa-lifts-grounding-of-boeing-737-max/ 'Grossly insufficient': House report excoriates Boeing, FAA over mistakes that led to 737 Max crashes A cascade of false assumptions, mismanagement, rushed deadlines, miscommunication and outright deception led to the failure to catch the design flaws that led to two deadly crashes of Boeing's now-grounded 737 Max jetliner, finds a congressional report released Wednesday. "Boeing failed in its design and development of the Max, and the Federal Aviation Agency failed in its oversight of Boeing and its certification of the aircraft," concludes the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee's 238-page report on the jetliner. The report pinpoints multiple times engineers questioned the safety of features that went into the jet, only to have their concerns dismissed as lacking importance or jeopardizing the development timeline or budget, the report finds. Employees charged with keeping the FAA informed about those debates didn't pass on that information to the agency. Despite ample opportunities to have realized the plane's deadly shortcomings, the 737 Max passed muster with both Boeing and the FAA, which labeled it "compliant" in certifying it as safe to go into service with many airlines in the U.S. and abroad. "The problem is it was 'compliant' and not safe – and people died," Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., the committee's chairman, said in a brief statement to reporters. A 737 Max operated by Lion Air plunged into the Java Sea 13 minutes after takeoff in Indonesia in October 2018, taking 189 lives. Five months later, an Ethiopian Airlines jet with 157 passengers and crew augered into the earth six minutes into its flight from Addis Ababa. As similar circumstances in both crashes came to light, the 737 Max has remained grounded worldwide. The FAA and other global aviation safety agencies are reviewing Boeing's improvements to decide whether to allow it to fly again. Those improvements focus primarily on software changes in a new system added to the jet and blamed for the crashes. In both the fatal Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines flights, pilots wrestled with the new computer system, the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS, that wasn't on previous versions of the 737. MCAS was added in the Max to try to make the jetliner feel the same to pilots as previous generations of the workhorse 737, which first flew in the 1960s. The 737 Max has larger, heavier engines, which could make it fly differently under some conditions. The committee's report dwells on how, at multiple points in the development of the Max, engineers and test pilots noted problems in MCAS that would later prove to be at the root of the crashes. As early as 2012, a Boeing test pilot found it took 10 seconds to deal with an uncommanded activation of the MCAS system, which was deemed to be "catastrophic," the report discloses. Engineers questioned why the system was triggered on data from a single angle-of-attack sensor when it has two. The AOA sensors, as they are called, long predate MCAS and inform pilots whether the plane's nose is pointed up or down. More: Boeing 737 Max recertification: Europe's flight safety agency completes first tests following deadly crashes A test pilot noted that the MCAS system could kick in multiple times, leaving the plane's ability to stay aloft badly hindered, which is what sealed the fate of the Lion Air and Ethiopian flights, according to the report. The 737 Max's chief engineer said he approved MCAS without really understanding it, the report states, a reflection of a management system in which he had overall authority, but most of the engineers on the project reported directly to others. MCAS was so flawed that the FAA did an assessment after the Lion Air crash – and months before the 737 Max would be grounded – and estimated that it could account for 15 additional crashes over the worldwide Max fleet's lifetime, with 2,900 deaths. Despite that prediction, the FAA permitted the 737 MAX to continue flying while a fix to the MCAS software was contemplated, the report said. "During the period between the crashes, the FAA repeatedly justified its decision not to ground the 737 MAX saying that it did not have appropriate data to make that determination. That judgment proved tragically wrong," the report states. The FAA brushed off a Boeing disclosure that a key indicator light that possibly could have saved the doomed jetliners wasn't working on 80% of the 737 Max jets then in service. The light tells pilots when one of the AOA sensors appears to be malfunctioning. About a year later, the report says, the FAA's associate administrator for aviation safety was interviewed by committee staff and seemed unaware of many of the key issues that had come to light about the jet. On four occasions that the committee found, the Boeing workers charged with informing the FAA of any issues that cropped up in the development of the new jetliner failed to pass on the information to the agency, raising questions about whether employees charged with such duties have a conflict of interest. It was easy to see why: The 737 Max development team faced intense pressure to get their plane to customers without incurring heavy additional costs as they tried to fend off competition from Europe's Airbus, which had a similar fuel-saving jetliner in the works. The report notes that Boeing senior managers had a "countdown clock" installed in a meeting room, ticking down the minutes as the project was supposed to meet key deadlines. Boeing, in a statement, said it has learned "hard lessons" in the wake of the crashes as it as struggled to come up with fixes to the jet that will satisfy regulators. "As this report recognizes, we have made fundamental changes to our company as a result, and continue to look for ways to improve. Change is always hard and requires daily commitment, but we as a company are dedicated to doing the work," it said. Yet Boeing executives pushed to make sure airlines wouldn't have to include simulator training for pilots on the Max despite the inclusion of MCAS. Instead, they were allowed to learn about the new cockpit system from a tutorial on their laptops. Simulator training would have cost more. Similarly, mention of MCAS was kept out of pilot manuals. It was supposed to work seamlessly in the background. The committee also found fault with the FAA. Its actions involving the plane's certification to fly were "grossly insufficient" and that it "failed in its duty to identify key safety problems and to ensure that they were adequately addressed during the certification process. The combination of these problems doomed the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines flights," the report states. The report gives new ammunition to families of victims who feel that Boeing isn't going far enough or that 737 Max remains inherently unsafe. Michael Stumo, whose daughter Samya, 24, died on the Ethiopian flight, called for the FAA to halt the recertification process. "The FAA and Boeing hid information before and are doing it again," he said in a statement provided through a spokesman, Gary Hanauer. "Both Boeing and the FAA have refused to provide their data that support their efforts to unground the plan. The Max should not fly until Boeing and the FAA provide this data, so independent experts and the public can confirm the aircraft is safe." https://www.yahoo.com/news/grossly-insufficient-house-report-excoriates-090029704.html Airlines will let 737 Max passengers change their tickets for free Airlines said they will allow 737 Max passengers to change their tickets at no charge if they don't feel comfortable flying on the recently recertified jet. Boeing's 737 Max has been cleared for takeoff by the Federal Aviation Administration 20 months after it was grounded following two crashes that killed everybody on board— but some passengers say they're still reluctant to board the controversial aircraft. That's forcing airlines to reassure passengers that the jet is safe — while also giving them free ticket changes if they're not comfortable flying on the Max. "If our pilots, along with the APA, FAA and our safety teams are confident the aircraft is safe, we are confident in its return to service," David Seymour, chief operating officer of American Airlines, wrote in a letter signed by five other top executives for the company. The Allied Pilots Association, or APA, is the union representing American Airlines' pilots. But, Seymour added, "if a customer doesn't want to fly on the 737 Max, they won't have to." Jenn Cammorato, 40, a revenue manager for a rental company from Los Angeles, wrote in a message: "I'd change my ticket or make the reservation over the phone to make sure I'm not flying on a Max. In fact, I don't want to fly any Boeing planes any more, and now I spend time researching routes on travel enthusiast websites and forums to find airlines that fly Airbus or other planes on flights I need to take." Other passengers have a different view. "Flying is a commodity. I'll fly on whatever the cheapest ticket gets me," wrote Lou Nunzio, 39, a mechanical engineer from Safety Harbor, Florida. "Flying is still significantly safer than driving, even on that particular plane." Airlines said customers can look at their itineraries to see which kind of aircraft they are scheduled to fly on. "For now, most airlines that have the plane will show it as the Boeing 737 Max 8 or Max 9 at booking," Brian Kelly, founder and CEO of The Points Guy, a travel advice site, said in an email. "There's been talk that some airlines could rebrand the Max as a 737-8 or Boeing 737-9 — which is different from the non-Max Boeing 737-800 or 737-900. That's something to look for." As it gets closer to their departure dates, passengers can request different flights, and the fare changes or ticket fees will be waived, the airlines said. They can also request refunds for refundable tickets. Nonrefundable tickets can be canceled and turned into credits for future flights. However, aircraft swaps can occur on the day of travel itself — so there is still a chance that a passenger who has opted not to fly on a Max will find that the jet is the only one available. For passengers who have concerns about the safety of a jet that has been out of action for months, there are several steps to return a flight to service. The planes will have to be removed from storage, maintenance checks will need to be performed, every plane will have to go through readiness flights, FAA approvals must be obtained, and pilots will have to undergo two additional hours of simulator training. "Bringing a grounded jet back into service involves a lengthy list of maintenance actions, inspections and operational flight tests, in addition to training pilots on updated software and emergency procedures approved by the FAA during the Max recertification," commercial pilot Marc Himelhoch said. "It will probably take a couple of months minimum for most airlines to get their pilots trained and accomplish all the logistics, maintenance and operational test flights required to get the planes back into revenue service," he said. Boeing said Wednesday that it has "worked closely with airlines, providing them with detailed recommendations regarding long-term storage and ensuring their input was part of the effort to safely return the airplanes to service." But winning back customer trust may prove to be more difficult than completely re-engineering a jet, as Boeing has done. "The real issue now for airlines is how they introduce it back into their systems in a way that builds confidence of the traveling public," aviation expert Mark Dombroff, a partner at the Fox Rothschild law firm, said in an email. "The aircraft is one of the most microscopically examined aircraft in the history of aviation," Dombroff said. "This has included focus by the manufacturer, the FAA, as well as non-US aviation authorities and the airline industry." https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/airlines-will-let-737-max-passengers-change-their-tickets-free-n1248175 UN recruits 40 airlines to deliver vaccine to poorest states United Nations humanitarian relief agency Unicef is looking to recruit some of the airline industry’s biggest operators to help distribute a coronavirus vaccine to the world’s poorest nations. Unicef held a call with about 40 carriers to make plans for the global airlift and to identify what commercial tasks each party can perform, according to Glyn Hughes, head of cargo at the International Air Transport Association, which helped arrange the meeting. Unicef, already the No. 1 buyer of vaccines, is leading efforts to purchase and distribute COVID shots to 92 states with funds from the GAVI immunization program, which brings together governments, the World Health Organization and World Bank. Another 80 higher-income countries have chosen it to procure inoculations they will buy, extending the plan to 70% of the population. The summons to airlines was triggered by positive late-stage trial results reported by Pfizer Inc. and Moderna Inc. on two separate vaccines, Hughes said in an interview. Neither has yet been approved for use, but attention is turning toward how a successful shot can be distributed, especially to less well-off countries without the resources for mass purchases. Largest airlines About 30 of the largest cargo airlines were invited to participate in Monday’s call, Hughes said. They included express-delivery specialists such as FedEx Corp. and United Parcel Service Inc. and dedicated freighter operators like Cargolux Airlines International SA. Airline groups with large cargo divisions including Deutsche Lufthansa AG also took part, alongside passenger carriers with experience in moving specialist goods like Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd. Other participants were regional carriers from Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia, where work will largely focus. Initial efforts will provide jabs for about 20% of local populations, beginning with medical staff and other key groups, most likely using vaccines with less-demanding temperature requirements, Hughes said. In normal times, Unicef provides aid to children and supplies more than 2 billion inoculations a year, which in 2019 had a value of almost $1.7 billion. PT Garuda Indonesia has separately been certified to transport vaccines within the country, it said in a statement. With more than 410,000 confirmed virus cases so far, Indonesia has suffered the biggest outbreak in Southeast Asia and presents one of the toughest logistical challenges, with a population of 270 million spread across the world’s largest archipelago. Huge shortfall IATA estimates that the equivalent of 8,000 110-ton capacity Boeing Co. 747 cargo planes will be needed for the global vaccine airlift. The industry has about 2,000 dedicated freighters which usually carry about half of all goods moved by air, while 2,500 passenger planes are currently operating in cargo-only roles. That still leaves a huge shortfall that can only be filled through the opening up of more routes by governments, Hughes said. While freighter operators are currently in their busy pre-Christmas season carrying stock for retailers, Hughes said it’s vital planes are kept ready going into next year at a time when some might otherwise be parked. “The last thing we want is for aircraft to be put back into the desert,” he said. https://aircargoworld.com/news/carriers/un-recruits-40-airlines-to-deliver-vaccine-to-poorest-states/ Florida Tech Aviation Safety Expert Weighs in on Decision “Ungrounding” Boeing 737 MAX Shem Malmquist is a visiting professor at Florida Institute of Technology (Florida Tech) College of Aeronautics, an active B-777 captain and an expert on aviation safety. A noted accident-investigation expert, Malmquist says he still has questions for the FAA about the just-announced ungrounding--and says he remains concerned that all of the problems that led to the high-profile crashes that grounded the 737 MAX may not have been addressed. Malmquist, who teaches advanced aircraft operations at Florida Tech, co-authored a new book on aviation safety and accident prevention. He says his concerns center around the fact that “there are some scenarios where the same type of accident could occur again despite the recent changes that have been implemented.” As part of his research for the new book, Malmquist reached out for information to determine if the changes to the 737 MAX were sufficient. “To date no one working at Boeing or the FAA on the upgraded MAX and its recertification has been able to answer our key questions fundamental to flight safety,” he says. “While some airlines begin the process of camouflaging the identity of their Boeing 737 MAX jets, passengers want to know if they can board this ungrounded plane with confidence,” Malmquist says. “Our answer after writing a book on this subject and the future of aviation safety is that we don’t know.” Shem Malmquist is available to weigh in on this developing story and can offer specific thoughts and insights on both problems and safety measures regarding this previously troubled airplane. https://www.newswise.com/articles/florida-tech-aviation-safety-expert-weighs-in-on-decision-ungrounding-boeing-737-max NTSB Photo Baffling details emerge in report on fatal 2019 air ambulance crash in Southeast Alaska After an extensive underwater search, the wreckage of a Beechcraft B200 was recovered from Frederick Sound near Kake. The airplane crashed Jan. 29, 2019 while on approach to the Kake Airport. The airplane was being operated by Guardian Flight as an air ambulance flight. The pilot, flight paramedic and flight nurse were fatally injured. A new federal report on a 2019 air ambulance crash in Southeast Alaska that killed all three crew members adds new mystery to an already challenging investigation into what caused the plane to go down just before landing in Kake. Both front flight crew seats and a passenger seat recovered from the ocean floor were empty, their restraints unbuckled, according to a National Transportation Safety Board factual report released Wednesday. The base of a second passenger seat was recovered but without the seat back or restraint. One rear seat wasn’t found. The twin-engine, turbine-powered Beechcraft B200 took off from Anchorage the afternoon of Jan. 29 for the roughly 600-mile trip to pick up a patient in the Tlingit village. It never arrived. Lost in the crash were pilot Patrick Coyle, 63; flight paramedic Margaret Langston, 43; and flight nurse Stacie Morse, 30. Coyle was a seasoned pilot with thousands of hours of flying time. Langston was recently married. Morse was 27 weeks pregnant. Their bodies have not been found. Coyle would have been sitting in the front left seat, according to Clint Johnson, Alaska chief for the NTSB. It’s possible one of the other crew members was in the seat next to him, but investigators don’t know. It’s not clear what led the people in those seats to take the unusual action of unbuckling the safety devices about nine minutes before the plane was due to land. The plane plummeted just over 2,500 feet in 14 seconds, according to accident tracking data included in the report. Its last radar data point was at about 1,300 feet altitude. The aircraft was traveling at 200 mph. “This was a very challenging investigation for us, not only logistically but every time we found something it led to a dead end,” Johnson said, adding the lack of a cockpit voice recording complicated efforts to explain what might have happened. “We just don’t know. We can’t speculate. All we can do is report the facts.” The report released this week was not intended to find a probable cause of the crash. Any such finding won’t be made for months. A spokesman for Guardian emailed a statement Wednesday evening saying the company “acknowledges” the information in the factual report and Guardian Alaska cooperated fully in the investigation. “We made an extraordinary effort to successfully locate and recover the aircraft lost at sea, for subsequent evaluation by the NTSB,” the statement said. “We await the Final Report from the NTSB with the results of its analysis, findings, and probable cause of this accident, which is expected in a number of months.” Guardian is one of a half-dozen companies providing air ambulance services around Alaska, where it can cost tens of thousands of dollars for medical evacuations from places hundreds of miles from the closest hospital. Kake, a village of just under 600 people, is on Kupreanof Island about 50 miles east of Sitka. The report includes the last communications between the pilot and air traffic controllers just a few minutes before the crash. Controllers cleared the plane for approach into Kake and to switch radio frequencies. “OK we’re switching good day,” pilot Coyle says. A witness at the Kake airport saw the pilot-activated runway lights switch on. She contacted Guardian when the plane didn’t arrive within minutes. The wreckage wasn’t found for weeks despite scores of volunteers and agencies involved in the search. Searchers spotted debris in the water, including part of a wing, in the days following the plane’s disappearance, but the main wreckage wasn’t discovered until April 2019. The plane was “heavily fragmented” when it hit the water and came to rest 500 feet down in Frederick Sound, lead investigator Brice Banning noted in the report. [Air ambulance operator says floating debris is from missing plane; Coast Guard suspends search] The engines showed “no indications of any pre-impact mechanical anomalies ... that would have precluded normal engine operation,” investigators found. The plane’s cockpit voice recorder was recovered but didn’t contain a recording of the crash flight, according to the report. Instead, the most recent audio apparently was made during a landing in Fort Yukon in 2015. The NTSB crash docket includes a 2006 safety alert advising operators of a federal requirement to check the recorders before the first flight of every day to make sure they’re working properly. At the time of the crash, Guardian Flight operated about 85 fixed- and rotor-wing aircraft dedicated to air medical flights in the upper Midwest, Mountain West, Southwest, Alaska and Hawaii, according to the company. Founded by Frontier Flying Service in 1997, Guardian became a Fairbanks-based stand-alone critical-care ambulance service to the Interior by 2000. Guardian in 2008 was purchased by Utah-based Air Medical Resource Group, now part of the country’s largest provider of emergency air-medical services. By 2011, Guardian’s Alaska range extended to much of the state with bases in Sitka, Ketchikan, Dutch Harbor, Kotzebue, Juneau and Anchorage, home to Guardian’s statewide corporate and maintenance hub. https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/aviation/2020/11/18/baffling-details-emerge-in-report-on-fatal-2019-air-ambulance-crash-in-southeast-alaska/ Cathay Pacific seeking 20 pilots to temporarily boost cargo operation in anticipation of busy 2021 • Airline making use of new flexible contracts to redeploy otherwise grounded crew • Pilots and first officers would be seconded to Air Hong Kong for between three months and a year Loss-making Cathay Pacific is pouring more resources into profitable air freight, temporarily transferring 20 pilots to its subsidiary cargo-only airline in anticipation of strong demand in 2021. The airline is making use of new flexible employment contracts – which 2,613 cockpit crew members signed in spite of massive pay cuts under the airline’s company-wide restructuring – to redeploy otherwise grounded pilots. Hong Kong’s bailed-out flag carrier wants 10 captains and 10 first officers to fly for Air Hong Kong (AHK) for three to 12 months, citing an increase in charter freighter flights sought by Cathay Pacific’s cargo business, according to a notice seen by the Post. “Continued increased demand from Cathay Pacific Cargo has created an opportunity for 20 pilots to fly with Air Hong Kong,” a company spokeswoman said. “We are requesting volunteers initially from the Cathay Pacific crew who are qualified to fly the aircraft. “Any such secondments are simply to cover additional short-term cargo demand over and above current plans and are not related to any new aircraft deliveries.” For external recruits, AHK said on its website a joining first officer would get HK$90,344 a month, if they hit a target of 55 flight hours per month. Internally transferred Cathay pilots would only get HK$77,400 a month, according to a direct comparison of contract payment terms. Cathay Pacific said the transfers would not “have an impact” on AHK’s previously stated tentative plans to recruit more cargo pilots if demand continued to rise, giving some hope to the more than 500 Cathay Dragon pilots who were laid off as part of the airline group’s restructuring in October. The drastic cuts saw the regional airline completely shut down, and a total of 5,900 staff laid off across the board. Airlines are eagerly awaiting the wide availability of a coronavirus vaccine, not only to restart global passenger travel, but also as an cargo opportunity, with Cathay – as the world’s fifth-largest air cargo carrier operating out of the top air cargo hub – anticipated to play a major role distributing doses of the medicine. Air Hong Kong, operating regional cargo flights, will add two more Airbus A330 freighters by the end of the year to the 12 cargo planes already in service. Cathay Pacific Cargo is focused mostly on long-haul, using 20 dedicated Boeing 747 Freighters, but space for freight has been limited because of the large drop in passenger flights. Cathay has also been operating hundreds of cargo-only passenger flights per month this year to meet the demand, including for medical supplies. The group will also face pressure from rival Korean Air, the sixth-largest cargo carrier, which was able to generate a profit in three quarters of 2020 on the back of strong exports. The Korean carrier’s parent company this week agreed to become the largest shareholder in rival Asiana Airlines, strengthening its position in air cargo. While the Cathay Pacific Group reported a loss of HK$9.87 billion in the first six months of this year as a whole, AHK recorded a profit of HK$363 million. While the coronavirus pandemic triggered a 71 per cent plunge in income from Cathay ticket sales in the first six months of 2020, the same period saw air cargo revenue rise 10.4 per cent to HK$12.7 billion. Cathay Pacific was saved from collapse by a HK$39 billion bailout, 70 per cent of which was contributed by the Hong Kong government. Luya You, transport analyst for Bocom International, said it made sense for Cathay to push further into cargo. “They’re taking advantage of the immediate boom in cargo business, while still acknowledging its short-lived potential,” said You. Daiwa Capital Market’s Kelvin Lau also noted Cathay’s increased efforts to diversify its business, adding that the airline could benefit from shipping Covid-19 vaccines when they became available, though it depended on where shipments originated and where they were heading. https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/transport/article/3110451/cathay-pacific-seeking-20-pilots-temporarily-boost-cargo SpaceX wants to test its Starlink satellite internet network inflight with a Gulfstream jet • SpaceX would like to further expanded testing of its Starlink satellite internet by connecting the network to aircraft inflight, the company said in a request to the Federal Communications Commission. • “SpaceX seeks experimental authority for operation of one user terminal aboard each of up to five private jets while they are (1) on the ground at an airport, and (2) in flight over the United States (including its territories and territorial waters),” the company wrote in a Nov. 6 FCC filing. • Two months ago SpaceX made a similar request to the FCC to test Starlink with the ships the company uses to land its rocket boosters. SpaceX would like to further expand testing of its Starlink satellite internet by connecting the network to aircraft, the company revealed in a recent request to the Federal Communications Commission. Elon Musk’s space company on Nov. 6 asked the FCC if SpaceX could add Starlink user terminals “on a Gulfstream jet for a period of up to two years.” “SpaceX seeks experimental authority for operation of one user terminal aboard each of up to five private jets while they are (1) on the ground at an airport, and (2) in flight over the United States (including its territories and territorial waters),” the company wrote in the FCC filing. User terminals are the small devices on the ground that connect to the company’s satellite internet network. SpaceX has begun sending user terminals to early beta testers of the service. While the FCC request describes the aircraft-mounted terminals as “electrically identical,” the Starlink user terminal for jets would assumedly have a different physical design than the consumer terminals in use on the ground – which Musk has described as built like a “UFO on a stick.” Two months ago SpaceX made a similar request to the FCC to test Starlink with the ships the company uses to land its rocket boosters. SpaceX, which operates several ships, requested to add 10 Starlink user terminals to its vessels. That request is still marked as pending. Starlink is SpaceX’s plan to build an interconnected internet network with thousands of satellites, designed to deliver high-speed internet to anywhere on the planet. In October the company began a public beta test of Starlink, with service priced at $99 a month. To date, SpaceX has launched nearly 900 Starlink satellites — a fraction of the total needed for global coverage but enough to begin providing service in some areas, including in the northwest United States. The company has begun to work with a handful of organizations in rural regions that Starlink satellites in orbit currently cover, such as Washington state. The network is an ambitious endeavor, which SpaceX has said will cost about $10 billion or more to build. But the company’s leadership estimates that Starlink could bring in as much as $30 billion a year, or more than 10 times the annual revenue of its rocket business. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/18/spacex-asks-to-test-starlink-satellite-internet-with-a-gulfstream-jet.html SpaceX will boost a new NASA satellite and land with a boom this weekend The next Falcon 9 mission will carry a satellite to keep a precise eye on our oceans. The next SpaceX Falcon 9 launch is slated to carry a new NASA and European Space Agency satellite to orbit as soon as Saturday. The payload will be the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite, which is the latest in a series of satellites that have provided critical data about sea level rise and climate change for almost three decades. It's named for the former director of NASA's Earth Science Division, Michael Freilich, who is considered a pioneer in conducting oceanography work from orbit. The new ocean-spying bird will be able to measure sea levels within a few centimeters for 90% of oceans around the globe. A twin satellite named Sentinel-6B will join the effort when it launches in 2025. Instruments on the new satellites will also provide data on atmospheric temperature and humidity that will help improve weather forecasts, according to NASA. The mission starts with the fairly rare launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. A statement from Vandenberg warns that multiple sonic booms may be heard in parts of Santa Barbara, Ventura and San Luis Obispo counties when the Falcon 9 first stage returns for a landing after lifting the satellite toward orbit. That should occur roughly eight minutes after liftoff. Liftoff is currently set for Saturday at 9:17 a.m. PT, and you can watch via the live feed embedded below. It could prove to be a very busy day for SpaceX, which also plans to launch its latest batch of Starlink satellites from Florida just 10 hours later. https://www.cnet.com/news/spacex-will-boost-a-new-nasa-satellite-and-land-with-a-boom-this-weekend/ RTCA Free Technical Webinar 11/30: Interference Risk on Radar Altimeters from Planned 5G Telecommunication Systems Join RTCA and leaders of Special Committee 239 (SC-239) for a discussion on the planned 5G telecommunications system implementation that could interfere with radar altimeters. The session will address potential risks to commercial transport airlines; business, regional, and general aviation airplanes; and both transport and general aviation helicopters. The presentation includes an overview SC-239’s new white paper: Assessment of C-Band Mobile Telecommunications Interference Impact on Low Range Radar Altimeter Operations that was written to address the potential consequences of interference events. The panel will address your questions and concerns in an interactive Q&A session. Panelists include committee co-chairs Jean-Luc Robin of Airbus and Seth Frick of Honeywell and secretary Dr. Sai Kalyanaraman of Collins Aerospace. REGISTER Curt Lewis