Murdo Morrison: March 2013 Archives

Willie sells BMI's place in country
The 18th century Donington Hall, near Derby, HQ of BMI for more than 30 years, symbolised the ambitions of Sir Michael Bishop to take on British Airways and turn his upstart airline into part of the UK aviation establishment.
Now the grade II-listed country seat has become the latest casualty of Willie Walsh's consolidation drive with International Airlines Group selling Donington Hall to Norton Motorcycles, which will use it as its head office.
While Sir Michael's stake in BMI allowed him to ride off into the sunset a very wealthy man, the carrier's performance in recent years may have led to a new sobriquet for the stately home - Downturn Abbey.

Bishop's palace: Donington Hall back in the day

Mystere right
Nice bit of trivia we came across relating to the 50th anniversary of the Falcon business jet family.
When Dassault Aviation was looking for a less French-sounding name for its Mystere 20 to launch the brand in North America, it engaged a Manhattan brand consultant. The monicker he came up
with? Citation.
Dassault bosses liked it, but asked him to have another go. His second suggestion was Falcon and the French knew they were on to a winner.
Rumour has it that some years later, Cessna engaged the same brand consultant.

Red-facedbook
An overkeen staff member is being blamed for a social media own goal by Luton airport. The London airport posted a picture on its Facebook page of the Southwest 737 that sheered off the runway at Chicago Midway in 2005, killing a child. The message that accompanied it: "Because we are such a super airport... this is what we prevent you from when it snows."
Luton removed the post and said: "We apologise unreservedly. The post was wholly unacceptable and it will never happen again." It came from "an over-enthusiastic member of our support team".

Freight idea
Headline from a rival aviation website: "Pemco launches
757-200 Combi conversation programme". It was all talk apparently.

Dossier of doom
Ian Goold came across this aviation mag (below). Good title for an air safety bulletin, he suggests.

Uplifting cause
Aviation charity fly2help asks us to put out a call for corporate sponsors to help fund its expansion in the UK.
The organisation, based at Costwold airport in Cirencester, is best known for its Air Smiles Days, where families and individuals living with disability, chronic and life-limiting illness, abuse and neglect and financial deprivation are taken on an "uplifting VIP flight" from a local airfield.
The charity depends on pilots and aircraft owners to donate their time and equipment. We are happy to do our bit to help a great cause: www.fly2help.org

Hyperbola blogger David Todd put his film critic's hat on to review BBC docu-drama The Challenger, about a brave attempt to get around US military-industrial complex machinations and NASA blame-shifting to find the truth behind the catastrophic 1986 loss of Space Shuttle Challenger. Hyperbola's verdict: "An involving and educational film which gives nonconformists hope around the world - 8/10." Also good for conspiracy theorists, or people just genuinely worried about Armageddon, The Dew Line found a rare sighting of three North Korean MiG-29s in formation flight as part of a wider display of military might designed to "underline Kim Jong-un's desire to maintain the pariah state image thing". Pyongyang is thought to have 35 of the type, the most modern of its 570 combat aircraft.

It boasts world-leading companies, but Canada's aerospace industry - one of the world's biggest - is in danger of lagging in an increasingly globally competitive market. Blessed with a long heritage of aerospace manufacturing, top technical schools, its own OEMs and privileged access to the largest military marketplace, Canada's industry has had every chance to thrive.
However, proximity to the end-customer has bred complacency. As airframers, including Canada's Bombardier, have switched from local build-to-print contractors to scouring the planet for risk-sharing, system integrators with their own supply chains, some of the country's smaller firms have been slow to react.
US defence cuts have also impacted Canadian industry, which has competed on near-equal terms with firms south of the border for access to programmes.
The nation must act on its shortcomings: tier ones investing in design engineering capabilities and marketing themselves on the global stage; "mom and pops" consolidating, identifying what they are best at and collaborating to increase their value up the supply chain.
The challenge is considerable. Emerging industries, from Mexico to Poland and South Korea to Brazil, are becoming more competitive every year. But with supply-chain initiatives at federal level as well as in Ontario and Quebec, Canada at least acknowledges it has a problem and is doing something about it.

(The following article appeared as a leading article in Flight International 26 March 2013)

There was a sense of déjà vu, and similar mixture of feelings, when Boeing announced on 15 March that only a General Electric engine will power the 777X.
Boeing's decision comes 14 years after the 115,000lb-thrust (67kN) variant of the GE90 gained a landmark exclusivity deal on the 777-200LR and 777-300ER, in return for GE's commitment to invest $100 million to help Boeing develop the airframes and another $500 million to develop and certificate the engine.
Once again, Pratt & Whitney and Rolls-Royce have walked away as the losers in an increasingly dead-locked engine battle worth hundreds of billions, if a broad consensus of market forecasts are to be believed.
The dual-engined 787 programme now looks like an aberration in the modern twin-aisle market.
Exclusivity deals, whether formalised in the case of the 777 or de facto in the case of the Airbus A350XWB, appear to be the norm in the twin-aisle segment.
Engine choice has never been a right in the aircraft industry. The exclusive deal between Boeing and GE-Snecma joint venture CFM to power the 737 pre-dated the 777-200LR/300ER selection by decades. Regional jet makers dwelling in the thinnest slice of the air transport pie chart never offer more than
one engine.
Demand limitations, however, have never been quite the same issue in the twin-aisle sector, at least in the post-trijet era. Boeing partly sold the exclusivity deal for the GE90 to European regulators in the late-1990s by claiming there was only a market for up to 500 ­777-200LR and -300ERs combined. We now know differently. Boeing's order tally stands at 745 - and counting. There has also never been a lack of competitive performance. The GE90 struggled to compete with Rolls-Royce and P&W engines on the original 777, before higher-power variants evolved to set a new industry standard. In the latest contest, the Rolls-Royce bid featured an engine with a slightly higher overall pressure ratio than the GE9X.
In some ways, the airlines brought this on themselves. By playing one engine maker against the other and forcing engines to sell almost free, the airlines created an unsustainable situation and forced some of the engine makers to react by pursuing exclusivity.
It is now the engine makers' turn to deal with the consequences of an unsustainable market trend. As long as there are only two Western airframe makers and three engine suppliers signing only exclusive pacts, something will have to give.

It has companies that lead the world in their sectors, a rich heritage of manufacturing and innovation stretching back to before the Second World War, and unique access to the biggest defence market in the world. Yet Canada's aerospace industry must confront huge challenges.

Our 18-page, 26 March Canadian special report looks at some of these, from Bombardier's battle to get its flagship CSeries certificated and winning a credible share of the narrowbody market, to those faced by some of its medium and small players. A shrinking US defence market and, what some describe as a dysfunctional procurement system at home have hit some firms hard. There is also a view that Canada's SMEs have become a bit complacent, relying on domestic primes to provide build-to-print manufacturing work and not being aware enough of the rising threat from overseas systems integrators with their own supply chains.

We have features on the CSeries and its supply chain as well as Canadian military procurement. We focus on the efforts of the Montreal aerospace cluster to push its members up the global value chain. And we have profiles on several Canadian companies, including Field Aviation, Diamond Aircraft, Fying Colours, Magellan, Viking, CMC, Heroux-Devtek and CMC.

Elsewhere in the issue, a big month for the big two, as Airbus and Boeing notch up landmark order from the likes of Turkish Airlines, Ryanair and Lufthansa. What does it mean for the industry? Plus: How GE retained the 777 engine monopoly, the false alarms that triggered the EC225 ditchings and the future of IAE.

 

Vickers in a twist
Howard Mason, heritage manager with BAE Systems, responds to Chris Barnes's assertion that all Vickers types began with V. Do they include the Vellesley, Vellington, Vindsor and Varwick, he asks?
That said, Vs certainly figured prominently in Vickers' catalogue. "I think you will find that the Valentias were mainly converted from the earlier Victoria, which married the wings from the Vimy's successor, the Vickers Virginia, to a fuselage similar to the Vickers Vernon, which was the military cargo version of the Vimy, based on the original Vimy Commercial. Continuous innovation in those days, too!" notes Howard.
Meanwhile, Hugo Winkler takes us to task for our 25 Years Ago entry in 5 March which mentioned an order placed by an airline called Celt Air. "No wonder they never got off the ground if they were waiting for McDonnell Douglas DC-9-61s," he says.
Apologies for the typo.

To the Germans, it was always the Vellington

Yes, we Vulcan
It has had more retirements and subsequent comebacks than Sinatra, but the last flying Vulcan may not be a museum relic just yet. Despite the body responsible for the restoration of the Cold War bomber previously seeming to give up resurrecting XH558 for one more flying season, a fresh effort is being made to keep it airworthy.
The Vulcan to the Sky Trust is looking to "reverse engineer" components needed to extend the fatigue life of the leading edge of the wings using 3D scanning and computer-aided engineering techniques. The modification was developed by Avro in the 1960s while the Vulcans were still in RAF service, but none of the original jigs survive.
Cranfield Aerospace has begun scoping the project - which must be carried out precisely according to documented Avro procedures - and if it is decided that the modification is possible, the next phase will be to design panels and tools. You can see a graphic showing what has to be done at tinyurl.com/558FAQ
If you want to contribute to the cost, one way might be to buy a copy of a book celebrating the 60th anniversary of the UK's first delta-wing jet bomber. Spanning the story from test flight through its part in the Falklands war, to the restoration of the last flying example, it is available for £20 ($30) from vulcantotheskystore.co.uk

Un-employment
Why hyphens matter. AUVSI press release: "Unmanned aircraft industry poised to create 70,000 new jobs in US in three years." Impressive indeed for the unmanned-aircraft industry. But it would certainly be a new way of working for the unmanned aircraft-industry.

No 1 Fan Am
For many, the mention of Pan Am evokes a powder blue era of martinis, mini-skirts and Maybelline when long-haul flying was fun, glamorous and reassuringly expensive.
Anthony Toth, from California, has taken his obsession with the iconic airline to extremes, reconstructing an entire Pan Am Boeing 747 first-class cabin (mostly from a Japan Airlines jumbo parked in the Mojave desert) so he and his friends can recreate the experience of luxury flying in the carrier's early 1970s heyday.
He has even filled the cabin with authentic memorabilia and persuaded former Pan Am flight attendants to dust down their old uniforms and serve drinks and meals.

After our special report marking 25 years since the first Airbus A320 was handed over to launch customer Air France, the Image of the Day blog ran a shot of that very aircraft, F-GFKA, at Düsseldorf after maiden revenue service, from Paris, on 18 April 1988 (left). The moment was captured by our own Peter Webber, of Flightglobal's data team. Arie Egozi wrote on his Ariel View blog about the fatal crash of an Israeli Bell AH-1 Cobra "Zefa" attack helicopter on 11 March. "The investigation started minutes after the debris of the Cobra and the bodies of its two pilots were found early on Tuesday [12 March]," he wrote. "The probe will probably find the exact reason for the sudden malfunction that left no time for the two very experienced reserve pilots to send a distress signal. The age of the Cobra, which has been flying in the Israeli air force since the mid-1970s, has to be a consideration."

If airline passengers knew what a lottery the route to an airline pilot's first job was in Europe, there would be more white knuckles gripping armrests at take-off and landing.
The European Cockpit Association has made a study of the inconsistencies in today's pilot supply system. The first observation is that there is no system, but multiple routes. All pilots, of course, have to get a licence, but so do all car drivers, and it is common knowledge that rather than indicate quality, a licence only proves a minimum legal standard on the day of the test.
Becoming a pilot today, the ECA observes, requires a personal investment of more than €100,000 ($130,000), so as the only aspirants that can raise the finance are rich - or have rich parents - the airlines are fishing in an artificially small pool. The other factor related to the cost is that the pressure to economise on training is high for both the pilots and the airline. Add to that the seemingly intuitive belief that today's flying is so highly automated that pilots don't really need the skills any more, and the result is what the ECA calls "one-dimensional and incomplete" training for pilots.
The industry knows this is true, but modern aircraft are so reliable that fatal accidents are rare, so while the airlines can get away with it, nothing will change. As Flight International has observed before, there is much hand-wringing going on, but no action. ■

(This first appeared as a Comment in Flight International 19 March 2013)

Should everything now go according to plan, the Boeing 787 will be flying passengers again before the Paris air show in June. The entire grounded fleet will be back in service within a few months. The battery crisis that erupted on 7 January may be a distant memory by year-end, barely even noticeable in Boeing's results.
However, many questions about how the 787 got to this point and how Boeing has responded to this lithium-ion battery affair remain unanswered. Safety investigators in the USA and Japan still do not know why the 787's lithium-ion batteries malfunctioned in two instances, but do understand why those malfunctions triggered a "thermal runaway" chain reaction. The explanation is simple enough to beggar belief that the overheating problem was not caught during certification. There is inadequate separation within and between each of the eight cells of the GS Yuasa-supplied batteries, and the overall enclosure and venting arrangement is insufficient for the power and temperatures produced by these 32V lithium-ion batteries.
Boeing's plan, accepted by the US Federal Aviation Administration on 12 March, keeps the battery design and chemistry essentially unchanged, but improves the separation, containment and venting inside and around the cells. If the batteries ever malfunction again, these changes are aimed at preventing the first problem from causing a much larger second problem, such as a fire or the release of toxic smoke into the passenger cabin.
Boeing calls this plan a "permanent solution" for the 787's battery problems; the FAA describes it as a "comprehensive" fix. Neither can know that for sure, however, until the safety investigations run their course.
More worrisome, potentially, is the lack of a back-up plan. Contrary to public messaging, Boeing has more than one option. Not all involve the drastic step of keeping the 787s grounded until the lithium-ion batteries are replaced with less powerful and proven nickel-cadmium batteries. A simpler path would be launching an alternate certification programme with nickel-cadmium, while continuing to pursue recertification of an improved installation of the lithium-ion batteries.
Lithium-ion batteries are a new and unproven aviation technology. The 787 is the only operational aircraft to use them as a primary back-up power source for the electrical system.
Boeing's insistence on a lithium-ion-only recovery strategy may yet prove successful, but smacks of undeserved over-confidence. ■

When it comes to choosing its aircraft Malaysia has always mixed realpolitic with operational need, which is why it has ended up with a bit of a hotch-potch of US, British and Russian fighter types. And, as Greg Waldron explains in his preview to the country's LIMA air show in the 19 March edition of Flight International, this combination of diplomatic pragmatism and search for pure best value is unlikely to change when the country decides how to replace its MiG-29s. Waldron looks at the contenders and prospects for the exhibition itself, which kicks off today (26 March).

Elsewhere in the issue, we look at how the Saab Gripen fared in a recent US-led Red Flag exercise - there are some great pictures - and the latest on Boeing's proposed 787 battery fix. Is it - our Comment asks - guilty of hubris in sticking doggedly with lithium-ion batteries?

And we have a two-page news update from Moscow on how Sukhoi has extended the range of the Superjet.

For details on subscribing to Flight International in print, digital or tablet for iPad, as always, you can find details on www.flightsubs.com/1637

Warning: engine on the loose
Following our item on the piston engine test on 12 February, John Wiseman sends in an extract from a "fascinating paper" by Kimble McCutcheon on the development of the Pratt & Whitney R-2800. It concerns an incident observed by test engineer Dana Waring.
"Waring was observing an engine running at full power in the test cell. It was outfitted with a metal flight propeller that, in conjunction with the short exhaust stacks, was making a huge amount of noise. In the blink of an eye, and with a loud bang, the engine rotated 180˚ in its test stand fixture, tore loose and came to rest on the floor, leaking oil and smoking. In the meantime, the propeller had sheared off and flown forward to the front of the test cell, knocking a dent in the concrete wall. It hovered there for a few revolutions until it lost momentum, then slid to the floor, still rotating. When the propeller blades began hitting the floor, the propeller began walking around... until it used up all its remaining momentum. Waring was thereafter very reluctant to enter the test cell while an engine was running."

A-Fordable?
Detroit car bosses did not cover themselves in glory when they flew to Washington DC in corporate jets to blag federal funds during the financial crisis. So, it might seem ironic for Edsel Ford II - great-grandson of Henry and director of the auto giant - to be offering his "personal Citation Sovereign" for sale on a popular aircraft trading website. The auto companies offloaded their offending jets more subtly.

Locked in aroma
Hearing that Japan Airlines will serve a range of 16 cheeses on international flights, a Budgie scribe speculates that JAL may store the pungent fromages in a Dreamliner battery-style reinforced sealed container, allowing fumes to be vented out of the aircraft in an emergency. You might call it a Carephilly-controlled environment?

Return of the cat
A rare F7F Tigercat will be among the Grumman contingent at the first Gathering of Warbirds and Legends, being held in Topeka, Kansas, on 1-4 August.
The Tigercat was delivered at the end of the Second World War. The US Navy's first twin-engined fighter was driven by two 2,500hp (1,860kW) Pratt & Whitney engines, and was in active service during the Korean war. Only six survive. More on the event at warbirdsandlegends.org

Blow flying
We assume that this pilot flies the Boeing C-17 Globemaster in the background. But we enjoyed the Channel 7 caption writer's mishear during the Avalon air show.

Air ship
This image of one of two 13m, 14t cutters being loaded into a Volga-Dnepr Antonov An-124 en route from Jordan to Tanzania gives a new meaning to the term "flying boat".

On The DEW Line, Craig Hoyle gave his first impressions of flying on an Airbus Military A400M, after getting airborne in development aircraft "Grizzly 4" on 1 March. "The cargo hold is large and uncluttered, and the seating installed along its sides is both roomy and comfortable," he wrote. "The four-point passenger harness
is also considerably easier to use than
the more fiddly style familiar on the C-130... I didn't wear, or need, ear protection during our 1h sortie, and could hear the shouted instructions from the loadmaster from his position near the tail ramp prior to take-off, despite the fact that all four engines were running and I was sat just ahead of them. Acceleration and climb-out were swift, with plenty of engine response and, once up to height, noise levels were not unlike being onboard a turboprop airliner."

(The following article first appeared as a Comment in 12 March 2013 Flight International)

Three years after Frank Robinson retired from leading his eponymous light helicopter company, his competitors are only now starting to play catch-up.
Bell Helicopter did nothing as Robinson launched work on a light turbine in 2001, and remained frozen as he made a deal with Rolls-Royce to develop the RR300 engine in 2005 and got the R66 certificated in 2010.
The R66 was aimed squarely at the end of the market Bell dominated with the B47 and B206 JetRanger. Bell, however, was preoccupied with ushering the V-22 tiltrotor into service and shoring up its neglected line-up of light and medium-twin helicopters.
That created an opportunity Robinson seemed to covet, for a simplified light-single helicopter. Market appeal had already been established by Eurocopter: 500 EC120s were delivered between 1998 and 2008.
However, the R66's simplicity and, by implication, bottom-dollar price tag have made it a market leader. In only the second full year of production, Robinson delivered 191 R66s in 2012, weekly output ramping up from three to six during the year. That success has not escaped Bell's attention, and it is poised to respond.
The Fort Worth-based manufacturer must re-learn how to design, certificate and build a popular helicopter priced below $1 million. If it succeeds, it can thank a former employee - Frank Robinson worked at Bell for two years nearly half a century ago. ■

(The following article first appeared as a Comment in the 12 March 2013 Flight International)

When Flight International analysed the prospects for Airbus's vaguely-named "SA" single-aisle twinjet in 1980, it declared that the "crucial question" facing the programme was "whether such an aircraft can compete against the attractions of aircraft such as the 737-300".
If the internet had been around back then, Airbus's response might simply have echoed a popular web-based meme: "challenge accepted".
And how. After the A300 had hesitantly knocked on the door during the US-led manufacturing party, the A320 - controversial in its concept, but brilliant in its execution - simply gatecrashed it.
More than 1,800 have been delivered to North America, and nearly 1,000 more are still on the books. And just to underline the point, if such emphasis is even necessary, the future production line at Alabama means the new-fangled video-game jet won't just be competing against the 737 - it will be carrying its own "Made in the USA" stickers.
The A320 has become so ubiquitous and its features so familiar in other modern jet designs, that the young pilots training to step into its cockpit today might not appreciate the stir its arrival created, a flavour of which Flight International captured when it flight-tested the type in 1987.
Fly-by-wire technology, electronic display screens, computers which gave the impression of knowing more than they rightly should. Not forgetting the ­replacement of the sturdy control yoke, with all its two-handed reassurance, with a delicate sidestick. To some old-school captains it must have felt like nothing short of digitally-driven emasculation.
Sidesticks and software, the future-shock advances which defined the A320, are as much a part of the aircraft's legacy as its efficiency and economics. This aircraft, externally modest and unassuming, internally symbolises an entire Airbus philosophy and, from the outset, has fuelled arguments about the wisdom and benefits of advancement and automation.
With the A320, a smouldering transatlantic airliner battle blossomed into flame. How appropriate that, 25 years on, it finds itself clashing with another ambitious upstart from the other side of the ocean, the Canadian-built CSeries, with its own array of fly-by-wire architecture, whizz-bang avionics and - in case you missed them - sidesticks. If imitation is truly the sincerest form of flattery, the A320 ought to feel incredibly smug. ■

That's how we describe the A320, cover star of this week's Flight International (12 March) and celebrating 25 years in service.

In a special feature package we trace the roots of the narrowbody, from its launch and first order from Air France in 1981 through its remarkable sales success in the 1990s and 2000s to the latest developments for the programme: the opening of Airbus's first production facility on US soil and its evolution into the Neo. The package also include an interview with Airbus sales supremo John Leahy, whose career with the airframer more or less mirrors the span of the A320, and a reproduction of our original Harry Hopkins flight test from 1987.

We also report from Heli-Expo in Las Vegas, where the news included Bell's confirmation that it is considering a product response to rival Robinson in the light, single-engine helicopter stakes, and the unveiling of an all-electric tiltrotor by AgustaWestland.

We have coverage of the Abu Dhabi Air Expo, at which local heroes Falcon Aviation Services and Royal Jet explained their expansion plans.

Meanwhile, David Todd looks at the quality problems taking their toll on Russia's space launchers, we reveal the airlines that are eyeing Bombardier's just-announced high-capacity CSeries and news on a fresh warning for the delayed F-35.

For details on subscribing to Flight International, in print, digital or tablet, go to www.flightsubs.com/1637

Messerschmitt at 10 o'clock!
Wolf Czaia shares an update on "White 3", a restored Messerschmitt Me262, which he recently ferried from its hangar at Paine Field, Washington to Suffolk County Airport in Virginia. Converted into a two-seat configuration, Czaia, with lead mechanic Mike Anderson, took the pioneering jet on its 4,000km cross-country trip.
"As our FAA operating limitations mandated 'Day VFR only' and maximum altitude 18,000ft, not exactly optimal for range, it took us four days and six refuelling stops across the continent to reach our destination," he says.
The sight of a feared Luftwaffe fighter in the "rear view mirror" took some of their fellow aviators by surprise though. Czaia continues: "ATC doesn't have a computer code yet for the Me262, and controllers frequently asked me for the type of airplane. They usually couldn't wait then to pass the information on to their airliners on the same frequency: 'Delta 241, you have a MESSERSCHMITT in your 10 o'clock, five miles.' One of the many funny replies: 'Are we being invaded?'."
You can watch a video of White 3 in flight on YouTube http://tinyurl.com/bausx75

That's rich
We loved this typo on the Independent's website. Maybe getting a few more Indian tycoons to splash their cash would be the solution to the UK's economic problems.

 

Y oh why?
Pots and kettles. Chris Barnes writes to point out a rather silly typo on our archive column from 5 February, in which we refer to the Vickers Yalentia. As Chris points out: "The only Vickers aircraft that did not start with a V was the Vickers Gunbus. The correct name is Valentia. He adds, rather generously: "This may be the first Flight magazine misspelling of an aircraft I have ever seen."
As a bit of background, Chris notes: "The Valentia was basically a Vimy with a passenger cabin. I know this as, in a minor way, I helped build the first replica Vimy at Weybridge in the 1960s where I was a Vickers apprentice."

Victor victorious
The Handley Page Victor spent much of its RAF career in the shadow of its more illustrious sibling, the Avro Vulcan. But the menacing-looking V-bomber-cum-tanker probably contributed more to UK interests than its elegant, delta-winged sister - giving sterling service in both the Falklands and the first Gulf War.
By then, of course, the Vulcan fleet had been consigned to museums. Victor force pilots are also quick to point out that it could fly faster (it was supersonic in a dive) and climb higher than its Avro rival, and carry a lot more fuel.
In his new book Victor Boys, former test pilot Tony Blackman lifts the lid on the aircraft's four decades in RAF service, recounting fascinating tales from the type's career. Blackman is probably better known for his association with the Vulcan from his Avro test pilot days, but was involved in the Victor tanker conversion programme.
Well illustrated and with a detailed index, the book is right up-to-date as it includes an account of the dramatic unplanned take-off of a Victor during what was supposed to be a fast-taxi demonstration at Bruntingthorpe in 2009.

 

 

(This first appeared as a Comment in the 5 March 2013 issue of Flight International)

EADS chief executive Tom Enders can be excused for showing no job-security anxiety about the fact that one of his first acts as chief executive was to unveil an audacious merger proposal that failed spectacularly. By joining with weapons systems giant BAE Systems, he was going to resolve EADS's big headache - that its defence business lacks global scale - but 2012 financials show EADS to be in rude health, even without growth in the military business. Enders says that, with budgets being axed on both sides of the Atlantic, maybe it's not bad thing, as a business, to have relatively low exposure to defence spending.
He makes a point that begs a question: can the aerospace industry get along alright without defence?
As Airbus division results show, all indications point to rapid and durable demand growth for civil airliners. With budget austerity likely to last a generation on both sides of the Atlantic, military aerospace operations are starting to look like a drag on growth.
Anyway, military spending increasingly goes to electronic systems that make the difference in asymmetric conflicts. The aircraft platforms existing today are, arguably, good enough - so even another war might not boost traditional defence aerospace.
There is much talk of defence industry consolidation. Don't be surprised if the result in aerospace is a separation into civil and military specialists.

(This article first appeared as a Comment in 5 March 2013 Flight International)

If a pilot gets away with using an incorrect flying technique for long enough without a mishap, his training department assumes, wrongly, he must be using the correct technique. If that incorrect technique is then applied in a highly dynamic - but rare - manoeuvre such as a go-around, it is only a matter of time before that pilot's luck runs out catastrophically.
There has long been an assumption in the industry that a go-around is a simple manoeuvre. So embedded was this view that several catastrophes resulting from botched go-arounds were ignored as aberrations, and it was not until a near-catastrophic go-around occurred in southern England that the airline concerned decided to test its assumptions about how pilots monitored their instruments. They set up pilot eye-tracking tests in their training simulators, and discovered many pilots did not exercise a skill that - it was assumed - was fundamental to the skillset of any pilot who had earned an instrument rating. Many pilots were found to employ a haphazard instrument scan that ignored critical primary flight information for dangerously long intervals. But because the measurement of a pilot's instrument flying skill was previously based on whether the aircraft's trajectory and performance remained within certain parameters, if that was achieved by luck rather than judgement, the deficiency remained undiscovered. It needed an empirical approach such as eye-tracking to discover that assumptions about skills were wrong, and accidents were waiting to happen. Since that time, the all-engines go-around manoeuvre itself has been dissected.
It can be very demanding because change happens so fast as a result of the high power/weight ratio of modern aircraft, and because many airports have tight limitations in their missed approach procedure owing to terrain or conflicting traffic patterns.
But the industry is simultaneously trying to reduce the occurrence of the most common of all aviation accidents: the runway excursion. Runway excursions frequently follow unstabilised approaches, and going around from an unstabilised approach is one of the most effective ways of reducing overruns.
Behind the discovery made by Thomson Airways with its eye-tracking technique lurks the question of whether the loss of a disciplined instrument scan is a result of modern automated flying. Whatever the cause, the solution is a disciplined scan by the pilot flying, and a trained monitoring procedure for the pilot monitoring.

The main coverline in this week's Flight International (5-11 March) may be on the dramatic side, but it deals with an issue that causes needless deaths and lucky escapes - the misjudged go-around.

David Learmount examines the history of a manoeuvre that is supposed to be the safe route out of an approach that is not going as well as it should, but all to often goes catastrophically wrong.

Kristin Majcher looks at the advance of the iPad into the cockpit. The Apple device is replacing electronic flight bags - which themselves only took the place of traditional flight bags in the past decade - in many airlines. Lightweight, portable and accessible, tablets are fast winning favour with previously sceptical regulators.

In news, we have the latest on the Afghan air force's Light Air Support contest, lost again by Hawker Beechcraft, and the US Air Force chief's shock attack on Lockheed Martin and other F-35 contractors. Dan Thisdell asks whether EADS's 2020 strategy of rebalancing its portfolio away from its reliance on Airbus has fallen victim to the airframer's success. And we have a report from Australia's Avalon air show.

 

I'm in Abu Dhabi this week for the Abu Dhabi Air Expo, a show which purports to be the Gulf's first general aviation show, but is as much about the big jets of business aviation.

The UAE's answer to Dubai's MEBA, the event, at the city's Al Bateen executive airport, is lower-key (tents instead of chalets and exhibition halls), but, in its second year, is making an impression. Most of the big guns are here, including Gulfstream, Dassault and Bombardier.

I'll be Tweeting from the show Tuesday and Wednesday, and we'll have a report in the 12 March issue of Flight International.