Flight Safety Information - July 23, 2021 No. 147 In This Issue : Incident: Jetblue A320 at Seattle on Jul 20th 2021, could not retract landing gear : Incident: Allegiant A320 at St. Petersburg on Jul 21st 2021, bird strike : A woman shouted anti-gay slurs while being kicked off a flight for refusing to wear a mask, video shows : Indonesia: Covid-positive man boards flight disguised as wife : Flight Grounded After Tennis Ball-Sized Hail Pummels Jumbo Jet : Floatplane Pilot Fires Up Engine Then Casually Rams Another Floatplane : ICAO Urges Africa’s Aviation Leaders to Seize Opportunities for Safety and Security Performance Improvements : Virgin Galactic flight test director Mark Stucky, who led first spaceflight, departs from company : What Challenges Still Exist for Certifying Electric Aircraft : More than 450 airlines can now use IBM’s blockchain-based vaccine passport : America's Newest Carrier Is a Fiasco. The Navy Just Admitted Why : United Airlines Ditches Cargo-Only Flights As Passengers Return : Boeing cleared to launch Starliner on 2nd test flight : Human Factors for RPAS Professionals : Position Available: Learjet 60 and 60XR Pilots Incident: Jetblue A320 at Seattle on Jul 20th 2021, could not retract landing gear A Jetblue Airbus A320-200, registration N556JB performing flight B6-414 (sched. dep. Jul 19th) from Seattle,WA to Fort Lauderdale,FL (USA), was climbing out of Seattle's runway 16L when the crew could not retract the landing gear. The aircraft levelled off at 13,000 feet and returned to Seattle for a safe landing on runway 16L about 100 minutes after departure. A replacement A320-200 registration N651JB reached Fort Lauderdale with a delay of 18 hours. The occurrence aircraft is still on the ground in Seattle about 71 hours after landing back. https://avherald.com/h?article=4eaac360&opt=0 Incident: Allegiant A320 at St. Petersburg on Jul 21st 2021, bird strike An Allegiant Airbus A320-200, registration N246NV performing flight G4-994 from St. Petersburg,FL to Plattsburgh,NY (USA) with 157 people on board, was climbing out of St. Petersburg's runway 18 when an engine (CFM56) ingested a bird prompting the crew to stop the climb at 3000 feet and return to St. Petersburg for a safe landing on runway 18 about 30 minutes later. A replacement A320-200 registration N234NV reached Plattsburgh with a delay of about 4:45 hours. The occurrence aircraft is still on the ground in St. Petersburg about 31 hours after landing back. https://avherald.com/h?article=4eaac034&opt=0 A woman shouted anti-gay slurs while being kicked off a flight for refusing to wear a mask, video shows According to various outlets, a video went viral showing a woman being ejected from a plane after making homophobic remarks. A clip reportedly went viral showing a woman being kicked from a plane while making anti-gay comments. In a statement, American Airlines appeared to confirm the incident happened on one of their flights. According to recent data, the number of unruly airplane passengers has surged in the last year. A video in which a woman said she does not "talk to [her] kids about same-sex marriage" after being kicked off a flight for violating the federal mask mandate is circulating online. According to The Dallas Morning News, The Daily Dot, and other outlets, the video went viral earlier this week when it was shared on YouTube but has since been deleted. In the video, which was originally taken on Snapchat, the woman can be seen following the rest of her party, which appeared to include children, out of the plane while yelling at other people. Her mask was pulled down to her chin. The woman can be heard calling another traveler a homophobic slur multiple times. She also accused another passenger of "corrupting Disney." "You think I talk to my kids about same-sex marriage," the woman said toward the end of the video as she began walking back up the aisle. "No, we don't talk about that. But if we all want to talk about it, let's talk about it." It was unclear what sparked the outburst. The woman has been named in some reports and in tweets, including one that has 20,000 views. American Airlines did not confirm the person's identity but appeared to verify the incident happened on one of their flights from Orlando, Florida, to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport in Texas. "Before departure on June 12, American Airlines flight 462 with service from Orlando (MCO) to Dallas Fort Worth (DFW) returned to the gate at MCO after a group of passengers refused to comply with the federal mask mandate and became verbally abusive to team members and other customers," a spokesperson told Insider. "Law enforcement met the flight at the gate and the disruptive customers exited the aircraft." The spokesperson also said that the "individuals were denied further travel." Throughout the video, other passengers can be heard yelling back at the woman. "No one wants to listen to your bigotry, get off the plane," one person said, to the applause of the other passengers. The number of disorderly passengers on planes has risen in the last year. In January, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced they were adopting a strict zero-tolerance policy against unruly passengers, citing a rise in incidents related to masks. According to recent data from the FAA, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story, there have been over 3,500 reports of unruly passengers by other travelers from January 1 to July 20. Two-thirds of those incidents were mask-related, the FAA said. Insider previously reported that the average yearly number of reports has already been nearly tripled in 2021 and that the FAA has launched a task force to investigate the rise. The video fits into the canon of viral "Karen" videos which show usually white women acting badly in public. Insider previously reported on the "Victoria's Secret Karen" saga, wherein a white woman chased a Nigerian-American woman around a Victoria's Secret in New Jersey. https://www.yahoo.com/news/woman-shouted-anti-gay-slurs-201622126.html Indonesia: Covid-positive man boards flight disguised as wife A Covid-positive Indonesian man who disguised himself as his wife to board a domestic flight was caught mid-air. The man, who has only been identified by his initials, DW, wore a full-face veil known as a niqab to board. He was also carrying his wife's passport and her negative Covid test result. He may never have been caught if he had not changed into his regular clothes midway through the flight, causing a stewardess to raise the alarm. Most airlines have restricted travel during the Eidh al-Adha holiday which began on 19 July. Police told reporters that the man was detained after the plane landed and was tested immediately. Upon discovering he was positive for the virus, he was ordered to self-isolate at home. Police say they will move to prosecute him as soon as his quarantine ends. The incident comes amid strict restrictions on travel in Indonesia, which has rapidly become the epicentre of the virus in Asia. Ivermectin and milk among unproven Covid 'cures' The South East Asian nation is recording almost 50,000 cases a day. In recent weeks, hospitals have been overwhelmed by an influx of patients and a lack of resources including oxygen. Almost three million people have been infected and more than 72,000 have died. A slow vaccination rollout and the onset of the highly infectious Delta variant have been cited as reasons for the continuing spread of the virus. https://www.yahoo.com/news/indonesia-covid-positive-man-disguised-042811448.html Flight Grounded After Tennis Ball-Sized Hail Pummels Jumbo Jet Awide-body jet traveling from Italy to the United States spent barely 90 minutes in the air before returning to its takeoff airport, after hailstones including some the size of tennis balls pummeled its cockpit, nose cone and wings. The Emirates flight from Milan's Malpensa airport to New York's JFK International landed safely after circling for 90 minutes in a Boeing 777-31H aircraft to burn off fuel. Emirates did not report any injuries during the July 13 flight, but photos taken on the ground showed the shattered cockpit windows, punched-in nose and hole-riddled fuselage. Some of the impacts support the conclusion that the hailstones were at least 2-1/2 inches in diameter. The pilot reported entering a hailstorm at 15,000 feet over the Italian and Swiss Alps, according to Milan's airports authority. Severe thunderstorms were reported across northern Europe at the time. "After about 97 minutes from take-off [the plane] returned to Malpensa," the agency said. The Emirates flight was to be a transatlantic journey, meaning the plane had a full tank of fuel. It's standard practice to burn most of the extra fuel in a holding pattern to limit the possibility of an explosive touch-down if the hailstorm had damaged wing flaps or landing gear. Airport officials said that strong winds continued to cause problems for the flight, which struggled to land and needed two attempts to get on the ground safely. The passengers were transferred to a different flight the following day. Emirates restarted flights to New York in June after a long pandemic pause, and has had daily flights to the United States during the month of July. Hailstorms on the ground are experienced as downpours, like rain, because of gravity. But in the sky hail can erupt in many directions at once—and the impact at high speeds can be just as dangerous as other solid projectiles. Boeing and Airbus passenger jet cockpit windshields consist of two layers, meaning a pilot can fly the plane with a crack in the outer panel if the inner windshield remains intact. But it can still cause visibility problems, according to the Flight Safety Foundation. Storms could also damage a plane's radome, the dome protecting radar equipment that's typically positioned under the nose-cone. While a crippled radar antenna would create a challenge for aviators, it's not inherently dangerous, the foundation says. If hail were to enter an aircraft's engine during flight, it could bend or break a compressor blade. But jet engines are built to withstand high-speed impacts from larger objects including live birds. https://www.newsweek.com/flight-grounded-after-tennis-ball-sized-hail-pummels-jumbo-jet-1612297 Floatplane Pilot Fires Up Engine Then Casually Rams Another Floatplane This is going to be a hard one to explain to the insurance company. A pair of floatplanes in Ganges Harbour, British Columbia, Canada, are left damaged after one accidentally rammed another at a dock. It’s a crash with a surprising amount of chaos for how slow it is. On July 15 at a floatplane dock in Ganges Harbour, a Cessna 208 floatplane owned by Seair Seaplanes fired up its engine, reports the Gulf Islands Driftwood. The plane was preparing for a flight to Vancouver International Airport. Ahead, a Harbour Air Seaplanes de Havilland DHC-3 Otter sat parked and empty. Surveillance camera shows the plane spinning its propeller for a while before suddenly beginning to move forward. It’s hard to tell what the person on the dock is doing, but it appears like they’re untying the Cessna from the dock in the seconds before it begins its short taxi into the tail of the de Havilland. One thing is for sure, once that plane got moving, the person on the dock wasn’t stopping it by holding onto the wing’s strut. The Cessna’s propeller chopped up the de Havilland’s tail, ripping off its rudder and elevator in a pretty spectacular fashion before pivoting around the dock. The propeller stops its rampage on the de Havilland for a short time after getting stuck on what’s left of the horizontal stabilizer. The turboprop Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A engine of the Cessna is of a free-turbine design, meaning the power turbine is not physically connected to the compressor and is driven by exhaust gases. This design can allow the propeller to stop while the engine is still running. Then, when the propeller is freed, it’ll start moving under engine power again. That said, the props of free-turbine turboprops will also spin in high winds when the engine is off, too. It’s unclear why the propeller starts spinning again here, as the engine should have been stopped long before now, but it definitely wasn’t a great idea for the person on the dock to be that close to the action. Another factor in this slow crash could be how the dock was made for smaller planes, from the Gulf Islands Driftwood: Bart Terwiel has done transportation safety consulting work for Transport Canada and was HASSI’s manager from 2003 to 2007. He said it’s not surprising the accident occurred because the dock in question was designed for use with Beaver aircraft, which are smaller than the two planes involved in Thursday’s incident. “You can put one of those [large] planes on the dock at one time, but not two,” he said. The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) is investigating the incident and classified it as a Class-5 investigation. The TSB notes that a Class-5 investigation means that there is little chance that the investigation will conclude with recommendations to improve aviation safety as a whole. Both planes will be towed out of the environment for repairs. https://jalopnik.com/floatplane-pilot-fires-up-engine-then-casually-rams-ano-1847344319 ICAO Urges Africa’s Aviation Leaders to Seize Opportunities for Safety and Security Performance Improvements Addressing Africa’s aviation leaders last week, most notably through her opening of the 2021 AFI Aviation Week, ICAO Secretary General Dr. Fang Liu highlighted the tremendous potential future for aviation in Africa that could be achieved through the realization of regional commitments, and underscored the critical role aviation should play in States’ pandemic recovery planning. Over recent years, overall safety confidence and performance in the AFI region has improved in tandem with a dramatic decrease in the number Significant Safety Concerns (SSCs), from seven in 2015 to just one in 2021. Assistance provided to States by ICAO Regional Office Safety Teams (ROST) through the AFI Plan, coupled with partner support provided to various States, played a big part in achieving this result, with many AFI Plan support activities have provided even since the advent of the pandemic. Nonetheless, the AFI Region’s EI average is still below the global average, and continues to fall short of the 60% EI target set by the Abuja Declaration (2012), highlighting the importance of maintaining current momentum on the AFI Plan work program. Similarly, continued improvement and effective coordination under the AFI SECFAL Plan is being achieved, in particular with respect to ongoing virtual support to State-specific projects, the conduct of limited scope USAP CMA audits, the promotion of ICAO’s Year of Security Culture (YOSC) workshops, the delivery of AVSEC and FAL implementation packs (iPacks), and the coordination of courses and seminars. Building on this momentum, the Secretary General highlighted that air transport growth rates in Africa were among the fastest in the world prior to COVID-19, noting however that “we must also recognize together that recent results could have been much more robust if not for persisting regulatory barriers, financial constraints, and the slow pace of air transport liberalization here.” ICAO is assisting African States in more effectively addressing ICAO’s policies and guidance on the economic regulation of international air transport, in collaboration with a variety of regional multilateral organizations. A high degree of priority has been assigned to the implementation of Assembly Resolution A40-9 – the Consolidated statement of continuing ICAO policies in the air transport field, and the relevant outcomes of the Sixth ICAO Air Transport Conference. “In order for ICAO economic policies and guidance to be suitably customized to the African context, we must first ensure due alignment among the Lomé Declaration on air cargo development in Africa, the Antananarivo Declaration on sustainable air transport development in Africa, and the Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM) as outlined in the Yamoussoukro Decision (YD),” Dr. Liu remarked, noting that the implementation of the two Declarations is currently being monitored by ICAO through State Air Transport Action Plans (SATAPs), and via activities conducted in accordance with Recommendation 10 of the ICAO Council Aviation Recovery Taskforce (CART). The CART Recommendations provide significant guidance to the region’s aviation leaders as they address the fact that air transport performance in Africa declined by 58% in 2020 compared to 2019, with 78 million fewer passengers flying last year. For this reason, the Secretary General stressed the importance of the implementation of the CART Recommendations by States as part of their recovery strategy, along with the proper consideration and adoption of the latest medical and scientific developments. She highlighted in particular the critical importance of massive vaccination of the population to spur public confidence and stimulate travel, particularly in Africa, where vaccination rates are very low. On this point, Dr. Liu, encouraged African States to attend and contribute to ICAO’s High Level Conference on COVID-19, which will take place in October 2021 under the theme “One Vision for Aviation Recovery, Resilience and Sustainability beyond the Global Pandemic.” The event is expected to generate global consensus on a multilateral approach, encourage strong political momentum, and result in heightened commitment among States towards the safe and sustainable recovery of aviation from the COVID-19 crisis. https://www.hstoday.us/uncategorized/icao-urges-africas-aviation-leaders-to-seize-opportunities-for-safety-and-security-performance-improvements/ Virgin Galactic flight test director Mark Stucky, who led first spaceflight, departs from company • Virgin Galactic’s flight test director and pilot Mark “Forger” Stucky parted ways with the company this week for unspecified reasons. • Stucky announced his departure on LinkedIn, adding that he did not leave the space tourism company “on my own timeline.” • As the company’s flight test director, Stucky helped develop Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo system, and in December 2018 piloted its first spaceflight. Mark “Forger” Stucky, Virgin Galactic’s flight test director and pilot, is no longer with the space tourism company. “I am now a former Director of Flight Test and former SpaceShipTwo pilot,” Stucky wrote in a post on LinkedIn. He added in a comment on LinkedIn that he did not leave the space tourism company “on my own timeline.” Virgin Galactic confirmed to CNBC that Stucky “is no longer employed,” but did not explain further. “We thank him for his 12 years of service on the flight test program,” a Virgin Galactic spokesperson said in a statement. Stucky helped develop Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo system, serving first as the engineering test pilot for Scaled Composites — which built the spacecraft for Virgin Galactic — before spending the last six years as Virgin Galactic’s lead test pilot and director of flight testing. He piloted Virgin Galactic’s first test flight that reached space, launched Dec. 13, 2018. The Federal Aviation Administration awarded Stucky – the 568th person to fly to space – the “Commercial Astronaut Wings,” an honor the U.S. has given to those who cross the 80-kilometer boundary that the government recognizes as space. In addition to leading Virgin Galactic’s first spaceflight test, Stucky as also the pilot commanding the first glide flight and first rocket-powered flight of SpaceShipTwo spacecraft VSS Unity. Stucky has flown more than 170 different types of aircraft throughout his career, which also included the U.S. Marines, NASA and the U.S. Air Force. Virgin Galactic has seven pilots on staff to fly VSS Unity and the carrier aircraft VMS Eve. The company most recently added two pilots to that corps in October 2020, when it hired Royal Canadian Air Force pilot Jameel Janjua and U.S Marine Corps pilot Patrick Moran. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/22/virgin-galactic-flight-test-director-mark-stucky-leaves-company.html What Challenges Still Exist for Certifying Electric Aircraft Jaunt Air Mobility is opening design and manufacturing operations in Canada. (Jaunt Air Mobility) As the aviation industry shifts towards sustainability, more manufacturers are developing electric engines to move away from jet fuel. However, despite years of developments on the industry side, civil aviation regulatory authorities have yet to actually certify one of these aircraft. The aircraft manufacturers are at the mercy of regulatory authorities when it comes to certification and some say it is the only thing stopping them from entering into service. During a panel at the Vertical Flight Society’s Electric Aircraft Symposium on July 21, industry and regulatory experts explained what challenges still exist for electric aircraft certification. “The only thing that's stopping us today from operating UAM [urban air mobility] aircraft is to a get an aircraft through certification, that is going to be the pacing item,” Martin Peryea, chief executive officer at Jaunt Air Mobility, said. Peryea cautioned that aircraft manufacturers need to establish a certification basis before designing their aircraft to avoid future problems. “From a design perspective, you have to actually establish your certification bases before you start designing,” Peryea said. “Unless you really fully understand, how you're going to certify the aircraft into what rules, it is hard to layout an aircraft architecture from a systems perspective until you could have a full understanding.” Some manufacturers like Jaunt plan on certifying their aircraft under existing rules like Part 29 and 135, however, they will need a special condition to certify their electric engines. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has been working on creating a special condition for electric engines to provide a guide to certification for electric engine manufacturers, Gary Horan, an aerospace controls systems specialist at the FAA, said during the panel. Horan said the FAA has been working with one company in particular to develop this special condition, magniX. “We are working at the FAA...to get a special condition issued for the first project to certificate an electric engine,” Horan said. “This special condition is written around one particular company and their product, and to be honest with you, we don't know if they'll be the first ones to cross the finish line, but, you know, we had to pick a horse and that's what we did.” Horan said the special condition is based on an American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) standard. He said the terminology is important to consider when talking about certification because the FAA is certifying an electric motor, not electric propulsion. “This special condition was developed based on an ASTM standard that we put together over a span of a year, two years, probably longer than that...and it was for what was called at the time electric propulsion, well that terminology is going away,” Horan said. “It is an electric engine that we're talking about and that makes a huge difference for the FAA, and for [European Union Aviation Safety Agency] EASA by the way, because that's the only thing we can certify is an engine. We can’t certify an electric propulsion unit because that's the way the rules are written.” One change that the FAA has made is anyone who wants to certify an engine will have to provide information on what aircraft that engine is going in, Horan said. This is based on the agency's effort to increase safety standards. “We are changing one aspect of what we require relative to the engines and safety that we have not required in the past,” Horan said. “If you try to get a type certificate for an engine, you have to do the safety assessment of that engine and you have to project what the rates of failure will be and whatnot. You are now being required to know where it's going to be installed. You have to know the aircraft because you have to take into account the objectives that the aircraft needs to make to stay safe. So we've broadened the scope of the safety assessment, at least at the engine level, but I think what that is going to do is it's going to reach across to the aircraft level as well.” Releasing this special condition will allow manufacturers to have guidelines to follow for engine certification. Lowell Foster, director of global innovation and engineering at the General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA), said without this certification basis, manufacturers are still left with more questions than answers while trying to design a vehicle. “The FAA has been a lot more challenging in terms of getting cert basis out and getting agreement with what the means of compliance are, which leaves these questions lingering while you're trying to design a vehicle,” Foster said. However, there are many other areas where manufacturers are still unsure of certification standards. Foster said one example of this is the FAA’s flight standard which is going to apply power-lift requirements to electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. “The big one that we just found out about is that the FAA flight standard is going to apply powered lift to our fixed-wing VTOL aircraft,” Foster said. “We don't know what that means yet, other than we're having to go down a lot more substantial exemption routes. It will also not just be leveraging new generation sims, but it'll make using simulators and flight training devices a lot more important.” Another challenge for the FAA is the varied design architectures from one aircraft to the next. “It's absolutely amazing how many different variations there are,” Horan said. “There are very few applicants that have come to us, that have the same thing that somebody else has. It's like everybody's got a slightly different spin on it.” While electric aircraft have made strides in recent years, Horan said the biggest issue they still face is power supply. “I think the largest issue that they're all faced with is the power resource, meaning where are you going to get the energy, how you're going to manage that,” Horan said. “Total battery operation is extremely appealing because it seems like it's the quickest way to get there, but the battery technology has still got a ways to go to make it a cost and economic benefit and impact on a range. So I see that as being really the biggest issue.” Foster said that he is concerned about the issues that aren’t front and center right now. “My concerns are with certification too and not so much the ones that are obvious because I think it's pretty easy to look across some of the new technology and say these are going to be certification issues, and so we're focused on those but having watched cert programs for a long time, it's the little stuff that you're not watching that bite you in the end,” Foster said. https://www.aviationtoday.com/2021/07/22/challenges-still-exist-certifying-electric-aircraft/ More than 450 airlines can now use IBM’s blockchain-based vaccine passport How borders are drawn and enforced has far-reaching consequences, whether we live on either side of them or halfway across the world. In April, travelers at London’s Heathrow airport had to wait as long as six hours to be cleared to fly. The bottlenecks were a result of airline agents struggling to make sense of the various Covid-19 health clearances travelers were presenting. Imagine small cards, stamped documents, and digital apps in various languages and formats. The lack of standardization was a killer. As international travel ramps up in parts of the world, Amadeus, a reservation system used by 474 airlines, has adopted IBM’s digital health passport solution called IBM Digital Health Pass. Instead of presenting paper-based certifications, travelers need only scan a QR code sent by email at the gate. Travelers without smart phones can print a QR code. The backend technology authenticates credentials against requirements of each country—relieving from agents an onerous burden, given how frequently countries change travel restrictions as the pandemic evolves. A lifetime in queues. Six airlines are using the system so far: Air Europa, Air Corsica, French Bee, Air Caraibes, Air Canada, and Norwegian Air Shuttle. Starting today, other airlines using Amadeus can activate it in their systems. “This avoids cumbersome and time-consuming checks while traveling, and adds further reassurance to airlines and their passengers,” explained Christian Warneck, who oversees travel safety at the Madrid-based Amadeus. Simplifying traveler credentials is especially crucial for international travel. Border agents faced a similar problem after World War I when European borders opened to tourists. The great diversity in passports from various nations produced delays in train station to such extremes it was considered a threat to “the economic recovery of the world.” In 1920, 42 members of the League of Nations decided on the standard layout of passports that we still follow for the most part today. Beyond the Amadeus-IBM partnership, several airlines have been testing other digital health passports. For instance, JetBlue, Lufthansa, Swiss International Airlines, United Airlines, and Virgin Atlantic are using CommonPass, developed by the World Economic Forum and the Commons Project Foundation, on certain routes. Concerns about privacy and accessibility Data privacy is a major issue in creating universally-accepted IDs. For instance, the French are up in arms about president Emmanuel Macron’s plan to introduce a national health pass to enter restaurants, shopping centers, museums, and any indoor gathering places. In Macron’s plan, anyone who gets the Covid-19 vaccine will be entered in a central database which could be used to track individuals. The perceived government encroachment on individual freedoms is a reason some in France aren’t getting the vaccine. IBM Digital Health Pass, in contrast, uses blockchain encryption technology, eliminating the need to collect and store personal data. This allows user to manage what information they want to share through their smartphones. All border agents see is a prompt for whether a traveler is cleared for travel or not. A future without paper passports? Greg Land, IBM’s travel and transportation expert, believes the growing adoption of app-based health passes will energize initiatives to digitize all travel credentials which may one day make passport booklets obsolete. A digital Covid-19 vaccination passport in Germany. “Even before the pandemic, we were starting to see long lines at airports and other venues and it made us think that we just have to find a way to take that digital transformation to the next level,” Land explains. “It’s sad that it’s taken a pandemic to get progress in building these standards around digital credentials. But I think what we’re going through right now, especially with airlines and other travel companies, is helping us realize the benefit of moving to digital IDs like passports or driver’s licenses.” https://qz.com/2036529/more-than-450-airlines-can-now-use-ibms-digital-health-pass/?utm_source=YPL America's Newest Carrier Is a Fiasco. The Navy Just Admitted Why. The Chief of Naval Operations, Mike Gilday, says the U.S. Navy built the aircraft carrier USS Ford with too many new technologies. Now, the Ford is several years behind in its life cycle because of problems with many of those new technologies. The last of the Ford’s four advanced weapon elevators, the most glaring example of the ship’s tech gone wrong, should enter service later this year. The head of the U.S. Navy admits the service added too much untested tech to its latest and greatest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford. When the Navy first built the Ford, it incorporated nearly two dozen new technologies, some of which are still giving the service headaches 4 years after the ship entered the fleet. In a presentation recorded for August’s Sea Air Space exposition, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday said adding 23 new features to the Ford was a “mistake” the Navy can’t afford to repeat. Gilday said he needs to take “a much more deliberate approach with respect to introducing new technologies to any platform”—preferably one that only introduces up to two technologies per ship and thoroughly tests them on land first. The USS Ford is the inaugural ship in the Ford-class aircraft carriers, the first new class of aircraft carriers in 40 years. The Navy was eager to cram new tech into the Ford, including a new search radar, electromagnetically powered aircraft catapults to replace traditionally steam-powered catapults, a new aircraft recovery system, and 11 electromagnetically powered elevators designed to shuttle bombs and missiles from the ship’s magazine to waiting aircraft. But technical problems with the new features led to $2.8 billion in cost overruns and delays, resulting in a total ship cost of $13 billion—not including the actual planes on the carrier. Those delays meant the Navy only commissioned the Ford in 2017, despite laying it down in 2009. Even then, problems lingered, especially with the electromagnetic aircraft launch system (EMALS) and the advanced weapon elevators (AWEs). The ship’s first full deployment, originally scheduled for 2018, is now set for 2022. As a result of the Ford fiasco, the Navy is building copies of new tech bound for its Constellation-class frigates on land to ensure they work properly, according to U.S. Naval Institute News. The Navy surprisingly didn’t do this for several pieces of key tech that went into the Ford. Gilday also said the last of the 11 AWEs will be operational sometime this year. The Ford is currently in shock trials, a series of tests off the coast of Florida designed to ensure the ship can withstand shock and battle damage in wartime. The ship will then enter a maintenance period before its first deployment next year. Hopefully. https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/americas-newest-carrier-fiasco-navy-135800311.html United Airlines Ditches Cargo-Only Flights As Passengers Return United Airlines (NASDAQ: UAL) has mostly phased out use of jets for dedicated cargo service, returning them to full-time passenger operation as long-haul travel demand rapidly snaps back from the COVID plunge, Chief Commercial Officer Andrew Nocella said Wednesday. The temporary freighters were a big reason that United's cargo revenue shot up 105% in the second quarter to $606 million and 89% in the first half of 2021. The flights made money even though the widebody aircraft deployed have less than half the heavy-freight capacity of a pure freighter because an overall supply shortage pushed rates much higher than normal. "We are not going to be able to do more cargo-only flights. We're obviously disappointed by that, given where yields currently stand. The reason for that is the aircraft can be better deployed in passenger markets," Nocella said during a conference call to discuss the company's quarterly results. A very limited number of passenger-freighter flights remain and they will wind down in the next few weeks, he indicated. United was one of the most aggressive airlines in adjusting its network to accommodate dedicated cargo customers since the start of the pandemic last March. It has flown more than 13,400 auxiliary freighter flights during the past 15 months, spokesperson Rachael Rivas said. But the number has begun to taper in recent weeks, after finishing March with more than 11,200 such flights. It remains to be seen whether United can maintain its cargo momentum from the past year with the traditional model of sharing assets with passengers and baggage. United Cargo chief Jan Krems last year said the division was being given greater input on determining destinations and flight schedules because of cargo's impact on margins. But Nocella said many of the passenger markets widebody planes will be allocated to "are not exactly optimal cargo markets." A contributing factor behind the disbanding of cargo-only operations is the grounding of 52 777-200s since February, Nocella added. In February, United pulled two dozen Boeing 777-200 passenger jets from service after an uncontained engine failure rained debris over the Denver area. Boeing (NYSE: BA) urged airlines to stop flying the 777 aircraft with Pratt & Whitney 4000-112 engines, while the Federal Aviation Administration ordered immediate stepped-up inspections of aircraft with those power plants. United eventually plans to return the aircraft to service but is still working with Boeing, Pratt & Whitney and the FAA on potential solutions, spokesman Charles Hobart said. "If those aircraft are flying, we clearly would continue our program missions because we'd have the ability to do both," Nocella said, adding that he remains optimistic about future cargo growth because more planes overall will be flying in the rehabilitated network. The "capacity available to fly is still really significant as we put all these passenger planes back in the air, and we think we've got this properly accounted for in our forecasts and we think we're going to have another great cargo quarter in Q3 and it's already gotten off to a really good start," the top sales executive said. "Hopefully we can do a little better on cargo than we are currently planning. But there is a marked change in our cargo footprint starting today — really starting a few weeks ago and we'll see where it goes. But we're feeling very bullish on cargo for the remaining half of this year." Last month, Austrian Airlines discontinued use of two Boeing 777s as passenger freighters, or "preighters" and is reinstalling seats that were removed to add capacity for lightboxes in the main cabin. Flying Toward Profit Meanwhile, United executives expressed confidence that the company had turned the corner and would produce pretax profits in the third and fourth quarters on improved load factors and yields. CEO Scott Kirby downplayed concerns that the Delta variant would slow the airline's revenue growth, with domestic leisure travel back to 2019 levels and business and international bookings higher than expected. Premium business travel jumped up sharply in June and is currently down about 60% versus pre-pandemic levels. Business demand is projected to improve another 15 to 20 points by the end of the third quarter, executives said, pointing to internal surveys that show more than 90% of business customers plan to return to the skies in the second half. "With the robust demand trends that we see in our return to profitability, we don't just see the light at the end of the tunnel. We're exiting the tunnel," Kirby said. "There's still a steep hill to climb to get back to, and then exceed, our pre-COVID margins." United officials say new initiatives to upgrade the onboard customer experience and plans to upgauge from regional aircraft to Boeing 737 MAXs and Airbus A321s with more seats will enable revenue growth and reduce unit costs. The airline recently placed orders with Boeing (NYSE: BA) and Airbus for 270 narrowbody aircraft. United expects it will take until the spring of 2022 to resume a normal schedule to Europe because of ongoing travel restrictions there, but that by next summer "the Atlantic has the potential to be our best season ever, with pent-up demand and easing border restrictions," Kirby said. Asia continues to lag and is expected to return to pre-pandemic levels in 2023 at the earliest. The lack of Asia capacity is being offset with more deployment to India and Africa. Helping to capture that pent-up demand and boost financial performance, Kirby said, are two built-in advantages: coastal hubs such as Newark, New Jersey, San Francisco, and Washington Dulles Airport, which are big international gateways that suffered passenger declines during the pandemic but are now poised to meet demand, and the fact that United didn't retire twin-aisle aircraft as many competitors did. Management also said United will have 30 more widebody jets available to schedule in the summer of 2022 compared to 2019, which is one reason the recent aircraft order was focused on narrowbody aircraft. https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/united-airlines-ditches-cargo-only-182248335.html Boeing cleared to launch Starliner on 2nd test flight NASA and Boeing held a day-long flight readiness review Thursday and cleared the company's CST-100 Starliner astronaut ferry ship for launch July 30 on a second unpiloted test flight to the International Space Station. The spacecraft's maiden flight in December 2019 was marred by major software problems that prevented a planned rendezvous with the station. Next week's Orbital Flight Test No. 2, or OFT-2, will test a wide variety of upgrades and improvements intended to clear the way for a piloted test flight by the end of the year. "After reviewing the team's data, and the readiness of all the parties, everybody said 'go' for the launch," said Kathy Lueders, NASA's director of spaceflight. "To me, this review was a reflection of the diligence and the passion of this Boeing and NASA team that really chose to learn and adapt and come back stronger for this uncrewed demonstration mission." Liftoff from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket is targeted for 2:53 p.m. ET next Friday, roughly the moment Earth's rotation carries pad 41 into the plane of the space station's orbit. If all goes well, the commercially built, reusable spacecraft will carry out an automated rendezvous with the lab complex, moving in for docking at the Harmony module's forward port just after 3 p.m. the next day. The ship will depart five days later for parachute descent to touchdown near White Sands, New Mexico. "We'll test the NASA docking system, we'll test the rendezvous sensor system," said Steve Stich, NASA's commercial crew program manager. "Those things you can test on the ground, in analysis and in testing in simulators, but at some point, you've got to go fly those systems." Over the past 18 months, he said, "the Boeing and NASA team have worked side by side to resolve numerous issues, to go through and close out requirements, and we're really ready to go fly now. So it's an exciting time." Boeing and SpaceX are both under contract to NASA to provide commercial crew capsules to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station, ending the agency's sole reliance on Russian Soyuz spacecraft for transportation to low-Earth orbit. Under a $2.6 billion contract, SpaceX has designed and built a crewed version of its Dragon cargo ship that rides into orbit atop the company's Falcon 9 rocket. Boeing's Starliner is being developed under a $4.2 billion contract and relies on the Atlas 5 for the ride to orbit. SpaceX successfully carried out two test flights of its Crew Dragon capsule, one unpiloted and one with a two NASA astronauts on board, and has now launched two four-person crews to the space station for long duration stays. Boeing carried out an unpiloted test flight of its Starliner capsule in December 2019, but major software problems and a communications glitch prevented a rendezvous with the station and nearly led to the loss of the spacecraft. As it was, flight controllers were able to direct the ship to a safe landing, but plans to launch a piloted test flight were put on hold. After a lengthy joint review with NASA, a variety of corrective actions were ordered and Boeing eventually opted to launch a second unpiloted test flight to demonstrate the capsule's readiness to carry astronauts. Assuming the flight test goes well, the first crew is expected to fly aboard a Starliner before the end of the year. OFT-2 is a major step in that direction, both for NASA and for Boeing. "So from the standpoint of how important is this to the Boeing company, this is extremely important," said John Vollmer, vice president and program manager of Boeing's commercial crew program. "This is a serious and unforgiving business, so we take it very seriously. It's extremely important to us that we're successful on this flight." Based on the work done over the past 18 months to address shortcomings and implement improvements across the board, "we are very confident that we are going to have a good flight," he said. "Will there be some learning? There will absolutely be some learning during this flight. It is a test flight." But lessons learned will "help us build the safest vehicle we can for the crew flights. So it's of paramount importance that we have a successful flight." https://www.yahoo.com/news/boeing-cleared-launch-starliner-2nd-004501157.html Online Professional Training Course “Human Factors for RPAS Professionals” Why ? The course was developed by Massey University’s School of Aviation upon observation that Human Factors principles applying to the pilots of manned aircraft are also relevant to the operators in the unmanned aircraft industry. Who should do this course? It is particularly relevant to those professionals engaging in RPAS operations involving multi-crew, night, and large, high-risk complex undertakings such as those requiring ground control stations. Those applying for, or renewing, an RPAS Operational Competency Assessment (OCA) will find it very useful. Pilots will gain knowledge which can be applied to real-world operations to better manage human performance. Managers will be able to apply human factors principles to the design of systems and processes used within the organisation to prevent latent failures and thus minimise the likelihood of an accident outcome. Regulators will identify which human factors need to be appropriately managed by organisations undertaking complex unmanned aircraft organisations, allowing for effective regulatory oversight. What? The course covers a wide variety of Human Factors pertaining to the operation of unmanned platforms in many different scenarios giving it international appeal and relevance. This course consists of 10 topics including the final assessment. The course makes use of self-learning exercises where students will have the flexibility to apply the concepts to their individual work settings and receive comments and feedback based upon these. The course is offered online enabling clients to fit it in around their existing schedules. By the end of the course, students should be able to: • Explain the importance of human factors in aviation • Apply the principles of visual perception • Apply strategies for managing mental wellbeing • Manage fatigue and circadian rhythms • Design systems and processes based upon human cognition and decision-making • Apply models of accident causation to help prevent future accidents • Manage communication and assertiveness in multi-crew and organisational environments • Assessment; Self- learning portfolio and an online test; Requires 50 % grade - or above - to pass Course Cost: NZ$700 plus GST To register please click here Position Available: Learjet 60 and 60XR Pilots Need qualified Learjet 60 and 60XR aircraft pilots, Captains & Co-Pilots for operations in Europe and the Middle East. Send Resume/CV to: Hr@asm.aero Nasrin.qurashi@asm.aero Aviation Services Management (ASM) www.asm.aero Curt Lewis