Recently in Airlines Category

Videos of landing aircraft in challenging conditions is nothing new, but this video - currently popular on YouTube - showcases how an afternoon of bad weather at Düsseldorf airport can make landing an aircraft a real test of skill for pilots.

1. A380 hits CRJ while taxiing at JFK

Video footage emerged showing an Air France Airbus A380 colliding with a Comair Bombardier CRJ700 during taxiing at New York JFK back in April. The A380 "clipped the tail fin" of the parked Comair jet, causing only "material damage".

2. Tu 154 struggles against in-flight oscillation

The video clips below show a TU-154 departing from an air base in Moscow before it appears to encounter problems in lateral and longitudinal control.

It eventually returns to the airfield to land.

 

 

3. Sendai airport deluged as earthquake strikes

 

 

 

4. ANA 737 rolled near inverted after rudder trim blunder

Japanese investigators have detailed the extraordinary in-flight upset involving an All Nippon Airways Boeing 737-700 which resulted in the aircraft banking to a near-inverted attitude.

Flight NH140 from Naha had been cruising at 41,000ft, en route to Tokyo on 6 September, and had been some 43km south of Hamamatsu when the incident occurred.

5. ANA unveils first 787 configuration

All Nippon Airways has unveiled the long-awaited configuration of the first 787 to enter service, outfitting its first 787s with 264 seats for regional and domestic operations, with later regionally-configured aircraft to have 222 seats as the carrier ramps up its initial pilot and cabin crew training.

The aircraft, painted in bespoke white and blue colours highlighting Boeing's Dreamliner brand and ANA's service goals - innovation, uniqueness and the inspiration of Japan - is the eighth 787 built. It is also known as ZA101 and has been registered JA801A.

6. PICTURES & VIDEO: F-35B critical tests

With the beginning of at-sea trials for the Lockheed Martin F-35B, the short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) variant had entered the most critical phase in a year-long campaign to overcome probation and be spared cancellation.

7. An-12 rolled inverted before Congo crash

Video evidence of an aircraft crash in Pointe-Noire, Republic of Congo in March identified the type as an Antonov An-12 freighter, and showed it rolling inverted moments before impact.

Images of the aircraft's last seconds show it diving steeply and rolling to starboard, crashing inverted.

8. No viable all new single aisle before 2030

Airbus believes that a viable all-new single-aisle airliner will not arrive before 2030, due to the timing of the necessary advances in powerplant technology.

John Leahy, Airbus' chief operating officer, spoke to Flightglobal on video.

9. Boeing poised for crucial phase in 747-8 test effort

Boeing underwent a crucial phase in the 747-8 flight-test effort as it prepares to start trials of the -8I passenger variant including maximum-brake-energy demonstration on the freighter version, plus an analysis of back-to-back wake vortex testing to determine whether the stretched 747 will be approved in the same separation category as the smaller 747-400. Four 747-8Fs were engaged in the flight-test programme, which began in February 2010.

 

 

10. Test pilots extract stranded Alrosa Tu-154

Pilots in Russia extracted an Alrosa Tupolev Tu-154 from a remote military airfield, six months after an in-flight power loss and emergency landing left the aircraft stranded.

The landing damaged the trijet, when it overran the 1,300m runway at Izhma in the Komi republic, and the short field meant that it could not easily be flown out again.

Passengers flying with KLM can select who to sit next to on flights using social media such as Facebook.

The airline believes that your air travel experience can be affected by the person you are seated next to and is proposing that passengers can opt to select their seat mate using tools like Facebook.

The airline says the "meet and seat" programme can be used for networking or to find passengers who share similar interests.

See this Taiwanese animation (by Next Media Animation) showing how the concept might work.

A Qantas Airways Airbus A380 was forced to take a diversion from its scheduled flight from Singapore to London, due to an oil problem, causing one of its four Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines to shut down.

Flight QF31 flew for around two-and-a-half hours with only three functioning engines before landing safely in Dubai. The aircraft had 250 passengers and 25 members of staff who all disembarked safely.

Avid Twitter user Stephen Fry was a passenger onboard this flight tweeted his reactions: ''Bugger. Forced to land in Dubai. An engine has decided not to play.'' Adding: ''I should in all conscience add that staff are being wonderful & that morale is high and the passengers understanding & cheerful.'' 

He colourfully expressed anger at leaving his wallet on the grounded flight: "I've left my wallet on the sodding plane. Hell's teeth this really isn't my day." 

This isn't the first time Qantas has had engine-related problems. Almost exactly one year ago, in November 2010, a fault in a Trent 900 oil feed tube caused the number two engine of a Qantas A380 to fail, resulting in an emergency landing in Singapore. Oddly similar to today's events.

Qantas isn't having much luck recently, as earlier this week it was forced to ground its fleet due to a dispute with its staff and unions, before resuming limited flights. All of these incidents are continuing to put a strain on Qantas' revenue.

Related blog posts

Airline Business: The Qantas A380 drama - QF32 a year on

Learmount: Handling The Big Jet: the human story of QF32

 

This post was written by Rebecca Springfield

Further evidence of a surging civil aviation economy comes from systems supplier Goodrich. Overall, sales were up 16% at $2.03 billion and pre-tax profit gained 34.5% to $300 million, and for the full year Goodrich forecasts a 15% increase in large airliner original equipment sales, assuming Boeing 787 and 747-8 schedules are maintained.

Meanwhile, on the operating side of the equation things are less cheerful. The world's mightiest - or at least biggest - airline, United-Continental, saw rising oil prices add $1 billion to its quarterly fuel bill to slash pre-tax income by 22.5% to $660 million despite an 8.7% rise in operating revenue, to $10.2 billion. And, earlier this month, American Airlines parent AMR swung to a $162 million pre-tax loss for the third quarter, reversing a $143 million profit recorded the year-prior, as its fuel bill rose 41% year-on-year.

Are both of these trends sustainable?

Full marks to Lyon-Saint Exupery airport for deploying technology to good effect. Noting that "wait times to pass through security are often a source of stress for passengers", the airport now features signs on the public side of the concourse indicating estimated time from the end of the queue to the security gates, to help passengers better manage their time in the airport.
The system - installed at security point 15 (Terminal 1) and set to be airport-wide by year-end - uses several cameras that count the number of passengers in the queue; an algorithm calculates the estimated time to reach the departure lounges.
Why has nobody thought of this before?

To make a Boeing 787 requires 62 miles of wiring (that's a real Boeing-supplied fact) and enough carbon fibre to stretch to the Moon (I just made that up but it's probably not far off). Even more impressively, the aircraft's remarkable features - carbon composite structure, all-electric systems, big windows, higher cabin pressure, global supply chain and, alas, the hiccups and miscalculations that meant a three-and-a-half year delay in getting it into service - have inspired at least that many column inches in the press (maybe not enough to reach the Moon, but certainly as much as the wiring, which is still an awful lot).

As the aircraft finally enters service, it is interesting to ask which of its features will be most remarked on when time comes, say in 10 years' time, to write an article about "how the 787 has changed aviation".

My guess is that all those features, while impressive and most welcome (apart from the development delay), will have become quite normal (probably including the development delay). We will look back and identify the 787 as a milestone in aircraft design and construction, but aviation will not have changed so much - certainly not in the way it changed with the advent of the Boeing 747 jumbo jet, which shrank the world by makling long-haul travel a mass-market commodity.

What will prove significant about the 787 is that we, as passengers, will for the first time relate to an aircraft the way we relate to our personal computers, mobile phones and music players. Especially as its onboard entertainment and communication systems evolve and become more interactive and inter-linked to our personal devices, it will be the first aircraft that we start to think of not as a transportation vessel but as part of our lives.

The 787 is not, of course, the first or only airliner to offer 21st century in-flight entertainment and communications. But there is something particularly elegant about the way it integrates the latest construction technology with its flight controls and passenger experience. In that seamlessness, the 787 is to airliners as the Mac has been to personal computing. That is, the 787 just might be seen as the world's first airplane-sized personal electronic gadget.

It's fast approaching your last chance to vote for who you think has the best and brightest aviation mind in the Flightglobal Achievement Awards.

The Achievement Awards celebrate and recognise the finest individuals in the aviation and aerospace industries.

You've only got three days left until voting closes for the Flightglobal Achievement Awards so we need you to choose who you think is deserving a winner from the shortlist our panel of experts has compiled.  

There are three categories:

- Leader

- Innovator

- Aviator

And we need you to choose three outstanding people or teams that you think are deserving of the awards.

Nominees have been selected by you and shortlisted by a panel of industry experts.

The Flightglobal Achievement Awards ceremony will take place at the Al Badia Golf Club on Saturday 12th November 2011.

Voting closes 19th September 2011.

Don't lose your vote. Get voting now!

This post was written by Abbie Ridge, work experience student currently working with Flightglobal 

Since the two aircraft ploughed into the twin towers in New York and other attacks on the US Pentagon, airport and airline security has had to change to prevent hijacks and ground attacks. But it has affected the ease of people travelling.

Flight has reported on developments from the security industry including a Honeywell device to be fitted to Boeing 787s and Airbus A350s called the pilot override system that works as a recovery system using the automatic flight control system in fly-by-wire airliners to override pilots who set a course that would enter restricted airspace or intentionally collide with buildings.

Another article headlined USA acts to avoid 9/11 repetition with temporary flight restrictions, one of which includes a a 30 minute which involves a "30min seat rule" on commercial flights where passengers will be required to remain seated for 30min after take-off and prior to landing, and limiting general aviation flights.

Have new measure been effective? This article was published in 2006 in which Safety and operations editor David Learmount concluded that there had been no hijack attempt since September 2001, "with the exception of an event in Colombia where lawless elements dominate some parts of the country. But even then the aircraft and its passengers survived."

• What are your views on airport and airline security?
• Is there less of a threat of terrorism now which should lead to rules and regulations being relaxed?
• Have the security measures put in place been a success? 

See a whole host of other security related features post 9/11 in the Flightglobal Historic pages to see how the industry has changed.
 

• Security concerns cockpit lock  
• AAR cockpit security attracts strong interest
• Air Canada Jazz pilot trapped on 'wrong side' of cockpit door incident re-opens security questions
• On Board defences   
• USA pilots speak
• Eye-in cabin 
• Winning passengers confidence of security back 
• Industry upturn after 9/11 
• Beating the Bombers
• Table of illegal interference with aircraft since 9/11
• Slump since 9/11
• 9/11 not cause of downturn
• 10 year anniversary pushes security
• Short Term and long term effects

 

Image credit AirTeamImages.com

BAe (British Aerospace) 146 performed its first flight on 3 Septmeber 1981 but the aircraft design is based on the Hawker Siddely HS 146 as described in an article in 1973. See also the cutaway drawing in the piece.

In the article BAe 146 described, published in the 2 May 1981 issue of Flight International, the aircraft would be able to fly 12-15 sectors a day. 165 miles in North America and 120 miles in Europe. It would chalk up 2,750 flying hours in a year and likely to be kept for 12-15 years before being sold.

BAe was asking for $10.5m for an 82-seat 146-100 and $11m for the 146-200. Read more about the benefits of the aircraft's design including the wing design and the benefits of its t-tail.

It had 100, 200 and -300 variations. The equivalent Avro RJ versions are designated RJ70, RJ85, and RJ100.

The RJ85 was the first RJ development of the BAe 146 family, features an improved cabin and used more efficient LF 507 engines. Deliveries of the RJ85 began in April 1993.

Flightglobal's Commercial Aircraft Directory noted that on "27 November 2001, BAE Systems announced the cancellation of the entire RJX programme, citing the poor sales prospects for the type in the aftermath of the "9/11" attacks in the USA. When the last Avro RJ off the Woodford production line was delivered to Air Botnia in November 2003, total Avro RJ production had reached 173, of which 87 were RJ85s."

In the archive: /.....BAe 146

BAE test RJ waters

Bae 146 described

Milestones

Cutaway BAe 146-200

Profile in commercial aircraft directory BAe 146-100 Flightglobal Image Store

http://www.flightglobalimages.com/dmcs_search.html?find=bae+146

BAe 146 on AirSpace

RJ85 on AirSpace