October 2006 Archives

I know, I know, a horribly contrived headline. But anyway, I'm surprised to learn that the smart managements of SN Brussels Airlines and Virgin Express are planning to resurrect the Sabena brand for their joint operation.

In fairness I have little idea how the Sabena name is viewed in Belgium these days, but it wasn't hugely loved even before the ghastly bankruptcy process that claimed both Swissair and Sabena in 2001.

The acronym Sabena actually stands for Societe Autonyme Belge d'Exploitation de la Navigation Aerienne, but it was the Belgian public that came up with the rather better-known Such a Bad Experience Never Again. And it was an outpouring of nationalism fuelled by anti-Swiss(air) sentiment after the bankruptcy that resulted in a revisionist affection for this perennially unprofitable operation.

If SN Brussels and Virgin Express do manage to make the brand work then it'll be the subject of marketing studies for years to come. Perhaps the execs in charge will make it onto the list of famous Belgians - which at time of writing is now up to 259!

Rather you than me I thought as the Spanish team member continued her soldering of solar panels for her team's tether climber machine. But at least the young student from Barcelona got to work inside on a very hot Sunday, while others toiled out in the sweltering heat setting up the crane and tether. 

Posted at 16:00h, 21 October

With the event closed and everyone going home it is now about 30min before they switch off the internet connection (unfortunately it occured slightly earlier, delaying this posting) here at Wirefly X Prize Cup at Las Cruces International airport in New Mexico.

It has been a frenzied two days for those of us covering the various attempted and actual rocket launches, stalled and rapid ribbon climbers, announcements about  Rocket Racing League and other stuff and various presentations including those from the NASA astronauts...

Click below to see the rest of this X Prize Cup live coverage blog and scroll down to read from the bottom to find out what happened during the course of the event.

If motivational speaking was all you needed to get to into orbit then several speakers at this year's 2nd International Symposium for Personal Spaceflight held in the city of Las Cruces, New Mexico, could have reached the International Space Station (ISS) already. Flying high on the suborbital flights of Microsoft's Paul Allen's Scaled Composites designed SpaceShipOne (SS1) in 2004 the symposium is becoming an annual rally for the members of the nascent space tourism industry in the US that is promising the ultimate experience for all.

I fulfilled a long-held ambition a few weeks ago, when I got the chance to tick another UK military aircraft type - AgustaWestland's EH101 - off in my flight log. Surprisingly though, it turns out that Merlins (as EH101s are known in the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy rotorhead communities) are a bit like London buses: wait long enough for one and two will turn up at the same time.

I've been writing about the Merlin for quite a few years now, and one of my most exotic media trips was linked to the early development of the RN's HM1 version. This came in March 2000, when I visited the Atlantic Undersea Test and Evaluation Centre, or AUTEC, on Andros Island in the Bahamas. But I had never been given the opportunity to fly in the type until I recorded a double milestone during a UK Defence Logistics Organisation (DLO)-run media visit to RNAS Culdrose in Cornwall last month.

The Merlin seems to have been around for a very long time now, but the DLO describes the RAF and RN aircraft as "fleets in growth", and adds that it will not be until next year that the type will be declared as having reached full operational capability. This will represent the frontline availability at any one time of 15 of the RAF's 22 Merlin HC3 transports and 30 of the RN's remaining 42 Merlin HM1 anti-submarine warfare/multi-mission helicopters; another two of which have been destroyed in accidents.

After touring the UK Defence Aviation and Repair Agency's Fleetlands site - home to "depth" maintenance of the UK's AgustaWestland Lynx, Westland Sea King and Boeing CH-47 Chinook helicopters (including a damaged Chinook HC2 freshly returned from Afghanistan) - I hopped aboard a navy Merlin HM1 for the flight to Culdrose. Also travelling with us were a second RN aircraft and a Merlin HC3 from the RAF's 28 Sqn.

Sitting at one of the rear operator's consoles in the 824 NAS-operated aircraft, it was hard to believe that the HM1 is on track to receive a major systems upgrade worth ｣750 million ($1.4 billion), as at first glance its flat screen displays and sophisticated lay-out seem cutting edge. But some of the aircraft's computer systems were already obsolete before the aircraft entered frontline use, making it difficult and expensive to support, and crew members say the operating system is cumbersome to use, due to its lack of touch-screen controls. With new displays and an open architecture mission system the aircraft will be easier to use and simpler to modernise in the future, they say.

The HM1 offers a really smooth ride - so much so in fact that when I moved to a forward-facing seat at the rear of the aircraft about half an hour into our 90min flight I even managed to go to sleep for about 15min. After descending through the clouds and into a murky Cornwall afternoon our tour resumed with a look at the Merlin depth maintenance facilities at Culdrose, which are used to support aircraft for both services.

My flight back to Fleetlands was in an RAF Merlin, call-signed Vortex. This feels like a different beast to the RN aircraft due to its large and largely empty rear cabin; it's only once you sit facing sideways inside the EH101 with the HC3's tail ramp open that you get a real sense of the platform's size. The ride wasn't as smooth as in the HM1, as you'd expect in a troop transport, but it was still a very different experience from riding in a Chinook. It's also an odd experience kneeling up front and chatting to your helicopter pilots for five minutes before realising that neither of them are actually doing anything much, thanks to the Merlin's autopilot.

Admittedly the UK still has some little way to go to get the best out of its maturing Merlin fleets, but planned upgrades to the HM1 and improved support and maintenance systems for both types are already beginning to make a difference on aircraft availability rates. With the RAF still maintaining a detachment of around five Merlins at Basra in southern Iraq, that can only be a good thing.

If you have an opinion about the Merlin or another nation's EH101s then I'd welcome your comments below.

Every now and then something comes out of the blue in this business but last week's unveiling by Utah based ATK of its ALV two-stage solid fuel rocket was a good example of the increasing number of "unexpected events" we're seeing this year.
It follows the US Congressional decision in September to provide an extra $23.4 million (spare change in Dod funding terms) for the US department of defence's (Dod) operationally responsive space (ORS) efforts.

Brazil's blog forums are buzzing, if you can read Portuguese, and there appears to be a concerted opinion forming.

The topic of interest is the fatal crash of Gol Lihnas A駻eas flight 1907. Indeed, type in "V 1907" into a blog search engine such as Technorati.com and a multitude appear, such as those from Varanda Cuibana, As M痊imas do Joe Baloo, O Blog do Barretto and the well-read Primera Clase.

Among the postings you'll find lots of detailed official-looking diagrams of the mid-air collision, all purporting to be from sources within the accident investigation (one example pictured below).


These show the wingtip of the Legacy scoring the underside of the 737-800's wing, forcing part of it to shear off, causing a death spiral of just less than 2min. This is close to the theory of most informed observers, including Flight (although clearly there are many unanswered questions).

Yet dig deeper and there is quiet a conspiracy theory being developed among some posters. I'll let you go and find it yourself, rather than risk libel on these global corporatation-owned pages.

But needless to say, the Brazilian public is upset at the tragic loss of close to 160 passengers over dense jungle.

But there is anger at the US response to the detention of the two Exelaire pilots in command of the Embraer Legacy 600. The Legacy pilots have had their passports confiscated pending military investigation into the crash and could face manslaughter charges if found to be to blame.

While the Brazilian press is remaining neutral, the online community is baying for blood. Someone has to pay the price, and all the better if it's a yanqui, they reason.

Brazilians have long been outraged that the post 9/11 security arrangements force them to apply for a visa, along with visitors from the developing world. So when US congressman Steve Israel (Dem-NY) said he was to raise the issue of the pilots' treatment at the hands of the Brazilian authorities with US foreign affairs supremo Condoleezza Rice ahead of her South American tour, bloggers went into overdrive. The fact that Rice expressed support for the Brazilian authorities was overlooked in the wave of paranoia that saw Os Gringos going into bat to free their hero pilots in the face of a "third world regime" (in the minds of the majority of bloggers). Media in the USA was far less jingoistic in the main than the bloggeristos made it out to be. 

Inconsistency also plagues the blogs. Different reports had the Amazon Two either locked up in a military prison or ensconced in a plush Rio de Janeiro hotel.

Worst were the horrific pictures purporting to those of the victims posted on many sites. The provenance of the photos is unchecked, but they are designed to shock the USA into reversing its perceived campaign to free the pilots.

The main US blog presence, meanwhile, has not been opinion or Brazil-bashing, but the sensitive, descriptive blogs of the journalists onboard the Legacy, principally those from the New York Times and the Washington Post.

Explore the Brazilian blog jungle at your peril.

If the supposedly bright folks at the US Department of Transporation still cannot work out whether or not Virgin America is in accordance with US ownership rules then they're in the wrong jobs. They should call in some expertise from Wall Street where there are a couple of thousand lawyers who could give them an answer in about 15 minutes (not that they would actually do it in 15 minutes I realise, time being money.)

Actually I don't think the DOT is struggling much with the legal niceties - what they're struggling with is finding the guts to stand up to incumbent carriers that have failed to create sustainable businesses over the past 60 years, in some cases have little hope of putting that right, and definitely don't want any start-ups - American or otherwise - adding to their problems.

Bear in mind that this is not about a forensic legal investigation of shady offshore shareholdings in a grey area of the law - it's about whether or not the great bulk of a nine-figure dollar investment is American money or not. I don't believe that is hard for the DOT to puzzle out.

But if you look at the objections from the US carriers what you find is that they're not really arguing about the cash. Their argument is about intellectual property - basically if a foreigner has any input into a US operation then that's fair game. In fact American  is pretty much into mind-control: essentially according to them if the idea was thought-up by Richard Branson and his colleagues (which Virgin doesn't dispute) then that alone counts as foreign control.

And poor old Continental, well-known for its lack of sophistication in financial matters, insists that it just finds the whole thing too puzzling to understand - so it can't be allowed to happen.

It's to America's great shame that this nakedly protectionist nonsense is allowed to continue. Branson dreamed up Virgin America, US investors jumped onto the opportunity in a big way, and skilled American air transport professionals queued up to join it. All its benefits flow to the US economy. I don't think there is any respectable reason for the DOT to deny Virgin America operating authority - but if they think there is then they should spell it out immediately.

And it's not just me that thinks this situation is wrong.

It was never going to end well. "You're a tall, skinny guy, you're tired and dehydrated, and your blood pressure is low," the air force doctor told me, about four hours before I was due to strap myself into the back of a BAE Systems Hawk jet trainer for my first flight in the type. "You'd better stay off the coffee and drink plenty of water."

I don't tend to function too well without coffee in the morning, especially when I've only been in country – on this occasion Canada – for a matter of hours. All in all, maybe I wasn't going to be best prepared for my second ever fast jet ride, which was to follow my inaugural blast in a UK Royal Air Force BAE Harrier T10 trainer earlier this year...

My visit to Moose Jaw in Saskatchewan was to be a short one. Home to the Bombardier-run NATO Flying Training in Canada (NFTC) school and the Canadian forces' Snowbirds aerobatic display team, the base is located on the flat plains of central Canada. My journey to the school called for an almost three hour hop to Regina from Toronto, Ontario with Air Canada Jazz, after enduring a hellish transatlantic flight from Gatwick in the UK with low-cost carrier Air Transat. If anyone finds my kneecaps in the back of the armrests on one of their Airbus A310s would they please let me know?

Having been passed fit for my Hawk ride I picked up my flight clothing, was fitted with g-pants, a helmet and oxygen mask and received my ejection seat and parachute safety briefing. I then met the air force Wing Commander in charge of base activities at Moose Jaw, and some of the Bombardier officials responsible for delivering around 120 sorties per day with NFTC’s active fleets of 24 Raytheon T-6A Harvards and 18 Hawk 115s; the latter of which are also used to conduct Phase IV lead-in fighter training work from Cold Lake, Alberta.

Next – and I’ll blame this for my undoing – we packed in a quick lunch of salad and a ‘Hawaiian chicken’ dish that I will never forget, before I got into my flight gear ahead of a pre-flight briefing and the Hawk ride itself.

My sortie was flown with Dragon Flight, which conducts Phase III flight training at Moose Jaw for nations including Canada, Denmark, Hungary, Italy, Singapore and the UK. Call-signed ‘Dragon Dogs’ 1 and 2, our two-ship Hawk formation was to form part of a six-aircraft flypast over a new industrial building of some sort (nobody seemed to know), along with two Harvards and led by two of the Snowbirds’ Canadair Tutor jets. Reflecting NFTC’s multinational flavour, my pilot was a Hungarian air force 1st Lieutenant, while our sister ship was flown by a Canadian colonel conducting his last flight in military service, with an instructor from the German air force riding in the back seat.

Time was tight after the briefing, with Dog 2 (tail number 155215) running late from its preceding sortie and Dog 1’s rear crew member proving rather hopeless at strapping himself into 155217. But thankfully Bombardier’s ground crews can turn a Hawk around within as little as seven or eight minutes, including refuelling, and the aircraft isn’t lacking in the speed department. We conducted a close formation take-off before accelerating to about 480kt (890km/h) to make it to our rendezvous over Wood Mountain by 13:50; 10 minutes before our flypast was due to take place.

With a few minutes to spare in the hold at 4,000ft (1,220m) my pilot – “Bondy” – let me have a couple of minutes at the controls for some simple manoeuvres. The Hawk was as easy to fly as I had expected, although I found it difficult to read the speed, altitude and heading cues on the screen in front of me which repeated the view through my pilot’s head-up display. This was more a factor of my long-sightedness than poor design on BAE’s part, much like the discomfort that I was now experiencing from my oxygen mask because of my past decision to break my nose while playing football several years ago.

Bondy then brought us into position to follow the smoke-trailing Snowbirds aircraft over our intended target, maintaining a 10 second separation between our formations, with the Harvards following us at our leisurely speed of 280kt. Not much of a challenge for a pilot with a frontline tour on the RSK MiG-29 and over 600 hours on the Hawk under his wings, and to be honest I wasn’t really aware that we had even passed our target before it was all over.

Perhaps it was from the repeated 3g turns we had been doing in the hold while our formation came together, but by now I was starting to find it hard – and incredibly hot – going in the back seat. The two small air vents weren’t doing a great deal to get over the fact that I was wearing standard-issue thermal underwear, thick flight socks, a flight suit, flying jacket and life jacket in bright sunshine.

As a precaution I thought I’d better check on the location of my sick (or ‘barf’) bag, but this brought bad news; I didn’t appear to have one. Conscious of the fact that any passenger illness could have a negative impact on the school’s aircraft readiness statistics, I decided that common sense should get the better of bravado, so when Dog 2 started to lead us into some formation barrel rolls I had to ask Bondy to break away. It was a real shame to have to miss out when the fun part of the flight was about to start, but I felt that it would have been foolish on my part to push it any further.

When we touched down at the end of our 50min sortie I took my mask off to find that I had perspired so much that it was like pouring a small bottle of water away, and my post-flight photo shows me looking a few shades whiter than when I had embarked. I won’t tell you what happened to my lunch after we had landed and reached the safety of the crew room, but I quickly knew that I had been right to skip the aerobatics!

Once I had regained a bit of colour and completed a quick debrief with Bondy I went on to have a quick tour of NFTC’s ground-based training system with an ex-UK RAF Harrier instructor. This gave me the chance to fly one of the facility’s Hawk flight training devices on a brief sortie from take-off roll, around the circuit and then back in for a safe landing, which did a lot to restore my confidence. It was probably just as well that NFTC doesn’t use full motion simulators though.

My father – who did a bit of hairy flying in Lockheed Martin C-130 transports during his service with the RAF – says I should be popping travel sickness tablets before I fly, so I think I’ll give that a go whenever my third sortie comes along. But if anyone else out there has any tried and tested advice on how to avoid feeling ill in the back of a fast jet then I’d welcome your comments below.

On my way back to the UK I got the chance to give Air Transat another try; at least I’d have more freedom of movement and be a bit cooler than in the back of a Hawk, I thought. But just 15 minutes into our flight we began to make a steady turn to the left, and our captain announced that we were going to have to return to Toronto because our nose gear wouldn’t come up. At least they had a sense of humour about it though: on landing ahead of an approximately 90 minute delay, a message appeared on the TV screens saying “Thank you for flying Air Transat”. Or maybe they knew it would probably be the last time that many of their passengers would be choosing to travel with them…

I waved furiously, grinning, with the microphone held in my hand as the Chinese Ministry of State Security agent took my picture.
I'd just stood up to ask Professor Yong Yang a question about his Chinese state owned company, China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, and his country's plans for reusable rockets.

The State Security agent had been quick, he'd spun round as I stood up, camera in hand, but I was just as swift and I chuckle to myself thinking about the intelligence officers back in Beijing who will look at the pictures of me making faces.

In Tom Clancy's fictional account of World War III, Red Storm Rising, the world's future finally hinges on a ferocious battle between US and Soviet forces in Iceland. It was considered visionary in tech-terms but has been somewhat overtaken by events geopolitically, and last weekend all but a handful of Americans finally quit what had once been a 5,000-strong garrison.

When I flew out of Keflavik Airport near Reykjavik, which more or less shares the same site as the base, this morning, I witnessed the rows and rows of deserted buildings that until recently made up what was essentially a small town. Only a single C-17 and what I think was a Lockheed ER-2, though I'm not sure, were on the ramp.

The US has left an awful lot of stuff behind and Iceland is trying to work out what to do with it. Part of that involves divvying up the scrap, but there is the more interesting question of what to do with the scores of buildings, many of which are in perfect condition, and in particular a couple of high quality hangars.

The CEO of the airfield itself (and part of the problem is that the military used to look after the airfield operationally together with the Icelandic authorities, while the commercial terminal is run by a whole other government department) - Bjorn Ingi Knutsson, was explaining to interested parties that one problem was that the whole US area has 110v electrical wiring, instead of the 220v in the rest of Iceland! I can sympathise with that - the people who used to own my house left some pretty awful DIY behind too.

Rather more seriously, the US military (and Iceland hasn't got a military of its own to speak of) were the only people operating the primary radar - that's the one that works just by bouncing its beam off aircraft rather than the secondary radar used by air traffic control that relies on the aircraft transponder. So now anyone without a transponder doesn't get seen. Which is how in the last few days a surprised overflying Continental Airlines pilot came to report to Iceland ATC that he'd just seen two Russian Tupolev Tu-160 Blackjack bombers fly past him at about 40,000ft. Turns out the Russians had told everyone they'd be operating in the vicinity, but even in peacetime they don't use transponders and so nobody could see them on radar.

Anyway, although Iceland may look a little vulnerable right now, part of the deal is that the US has pledged to come to its immediate aid at any time it needs it. Unless it joins the axis of evil or something like that.

Iceland is of course the sort of isolated place that has aviation in its soul, and I met photographer Baldur Sveinsson who has spent much of his life chronicling the incredible variety of aircraft that have come and gone there, helped by Iceland's liquid white sunshine. He took this shot of two Hawker Hunters, looking like something out of the Cold War themselves, surprisingly recently. You can read about it here.

Baldur is a man on a mission by the way - perhaps you can help him. He is trying to collect in-service histories and photographs of every one of the 820 or so Lockheed P-2V Neptunes built. So far he's only got about 2,200 pictures, and they're here.  I asked him why he's doing it. "It's an, umm..." he said, his English struggling. "Obsession?" I suggested - "yes, obsession", he grinned.

Strange guy, why doesn't he collect information on all the Armstrong Whitworth Argosies in the world, like any normal person?

As someone who has had just about enough of fighting my way through logjammed airports of late, the prospect of sauntering over three US states on an air taxi the other day was pretty exciting. I flew from Washington to Greenville, South Carolina with SATSair, one of a clutch of air taxi start-ups which are exploiting what they see as a burgeoning demand for low-cost, no-frills business aviation, exploiting the game-changing economics of very light jets such as the new Eclipse 500 or latest-generation piston singles like the Cirrus SR22.

I was in Greenville to interview the SATSair folk about a feature on the emerging air taxis market which appears in the 10-16 October issue of Flight International.

The air taxi concept could not be simpler. SATSair arranged my complimentary flight, but had I bought my ticket the experience would have been much the same. My taxi (the road-using version) dropped me at the Signature Fixed Base Operation at Washington Dulles 20 minutes before the flight and Roger, the pilot, was waiting for me in the lounge, identifiable by his blue SATSair polo shirt. We walked out to the SR22 and, having chosen to sit beside the pilot rather than in the two-person bench seat behind, and after a quick pre-flight safety briefing, we were taxiing out to queue behind the airliners and regional jets.

The point of air taxis such as SATSair is that they usually avoid big airports. The SR22 can cope with pretty much any runway down to 750m, so they specialise in opening up thousands of under-used local airfields around the country to business travellers. But they will use big airports if required. "It's the worst part of the trip," says Roger. "If you're not familiar with an airport like Dulles, you really have to keep your wits about you because of the way the taxiways are labelled."

We take off and pretty quickly we're up to our cruising altitude of 7,000ft. It's a relaxed trip over the forests, lakes and hills of southern Virginia and North Carolina. The SR22 is an extremely comfortable aircraft. I ask Roger if the overwing access to the SR22 is a problem for some of his passengers. Occasionally, women passengers will have to remove high-heels. Do his passengers tend to sit in the front or the back? A bit of both, he says. Some love keeping track of the flight on the SR22's impressive Avidyne cockpit display and chatting to the pilot or listening to the in-flight comms. Others prefer to sit in the back, put on earphones - which come with their own i-Pod - and blank out the ATC chatter or work. I switch between gazing at the verdant scene below, catching up with my mail on my Blackberry...most of the flight I can get a signal...and talking shop with Roger. A native of New Jersey, who moved as a teenager to Greenville, he and I exchange stories of growing up in our respective countries' bible belts (I hail from the Outer Hebrides of Scotland) and the problems of getting a beer on a Sunday. That's not to decry Greenville, one of the most pleasant US cities I have visited, with a beautifully-restored downtown and a thriving economy.

The two-hour trip to Greenville's small downtown GA airport, where SATSair's maintenance operation is based, is about the maximum Roger will typically fly in the SR22. It's also about my limit between comfort stops, having just gulped down a gallon size cup of coffee at Signature before leaving and forgotten to make a last dash to the gents. It's a serious point. Lack of a lav on flights of an hour or more is no laugh, according to VLJ jet manufacturers such as Adam Aircraft, whose A700 comes with a little room at the back, and its most prominent customer, air taxi operator Magnum Jet.

It's something Magnum chief executive Jim Burns believes will turn many prospective customers against operators of the Eclipse 500, the most popular VLJ in the new air taxi sector, and smaller aircraft such as the SR22. It's already a big talking point around the industry.

Has Roger ever had to make an unscheduled stop? Not yet, he says, but it wouldn't be a problem. SATSair charges like any taxi. The meter starts running when the engine starts. At around $595 an hour to rent the aircraft, a 20 minute diversion to pay an emergency visit gives a whole new meaning to "spending a penny".

I hate having a dig at hard-working airport and airline staff who are doing their best to battle with the new security regime at UK airports. They are doing their best in very difficult circumstances. However, if you felt that their efforts were actually making aviation more terrorist-proof, you might endure the endless security queues, silly carry-on restrictions and general misery with a bit more sang froid. Here's an example from a trip I took to the States a week ago. I'm in the queue to check in for a BA flight to Washington - the electronic check in machine having refused to process my booking, I've been told by the BA member of staff to wait in the fast bag drop line regardless. A harassed BA employee is going up the queue, taking electronic booking forms and passports and taking them off to process them. She takes mine and returns two minutes later to hand me my passport and label my suitcase. Except it's not my passport and my luggage has been labelled - under someone else's name - for Basel, Switzerland. Feeling zombie-like after 30 minutes in the queue, it takes until I'm near the front to register. Luckily, the person who has been handed my passport, and is travelling to Basel, is two behind me in the line, and we exchange passports. Problem resolved? Well, not quite. The check-in assistant then labels my bag for Basel - there is another Mr Morrison travelling to the Swiss city - and hands me a Basel boarding pass. This time, I'm wise to it and I point it out. Bit of a boring story, I know, but it highlights the sheer inefficiency of the process and the stress and pressure airport staff are under. As I go wait in the hour-long security queue a few minutes later, someone in front of me is having an argument with one of the six or so staff behind a table whose job it is to stop anyone even getting into the security area with a tube of toothpaste. Bizarre.