June 2008 Archives

An Unusual Attitude salute for an unnamed (I think) United Airlines captain, and international soccer referee Lubos Michel who both made difficult calls in public over the weekend.

Regular readers will know it's an article of faith for me that improved air traffic management is the only way that aviation is going to improve its environmental act to any meaningful extent in the near future. Part of that needs to be the widespread adoption of what's called required navigation performance (RNP) techniques. And it's starting to happen.

One of the biggest RNP programmes underway is the one at Southwest Airlines. They'be been a bit reticent about talking about it, but now, rather more characteristically, they're shouting about it. RNP is a wee bit complicated - but not that bad really, you just have to concentrate. Southwest has put together a nice presentation here explaining what's going on.

Their partner in all this is probably the world leader in RNP - Naverus. They have a great series of case studies on their site which really do show what the concept is all about. Start with the story that launched it all - the remarkable tale of how Naverus founder Steve Fulton, then an Alaska Airlines pilot, demonstrated at Juneau, Alaska how emerging navigation techniques could change the world. We really need to do more of this.

Here at Flight I've been managing the launch of a website in Chinese aimed at China's air transport business. We publish about 10 stories a day and it's been impossible to ignore the fact that all of a sudden some of them have contained some startling statistics for the month of May.

First there were the traffic figures for Beijing International airport - passenger numbers down 2.9%. Then Air China - passengers down 10.7%, RPKs down 6.7%. China Southern turned up with flat passenger numbers and RPKs up a miserable (by Chinese standards) 1%. China Eastern followed with passenger numbers down 8.1%

Here's the first of what may become an occasional series on Unusual Attitude (you never know with us bloggers...). Feel free to contribute more.

The reason I had my dalliance with the regional business recently and flew Exeter-Brussels was because I couldn't fly from Newquay, a couple of miles from where I was staying, to Brussels. In fact you can't fly to many places from Newquay, although they're working on it with increasing success. But, as of yesterday, you can fly to Dusseldorf, for which you can thank Rosamunde Pilcher. Obviously.

By a weird but genuine coincidence, a day after posting my observations on taxying times I was sent the latest US Bureau of Transportation Statistics on...aircraft taxying times. I didn't even know they collected the data. The special report is eccentrically titled "Sitting on the Runway: Current Aircraft Taxi Times Now Exceed Pre-9/11 Experience" - but you get the general idea. Below are some highlights.

Fact is, the aviation world doesn't have much in the way of ideas for becoming greener anytime soon. The only serious programme on the horizon is improved air traffic management - worth perhaps a valuable 12% in emissions but reliant on national authorities. Don't hold your breath.

But I think there is something that is not getting adequate attention. It's taxying (or taxiiing - as you wish.) Even at the same time as we're getting better at putting aircraft  in the right place at the right time in the sky, we're just awful at moving them from the terminal to the runway. In some places really awful. I was set thinking about this on a recent, enjoyable, trip.

Following the Eclipse 500 VLJ incident reported earlier, the FAA has overnight issued an emergency AD on the type. It's a real 'emergency' emergency AD. You can't fly the aeroplane again until you've done the checks and made the amendments - and of course depending on what you find in the checks you may have a grounded aeroplane on your hands.

This sort of thing happens of course and the world gets over it. But in the embryonic VLJ world the regulatory sensitivity is huge. Good luck to all concerned.

Cruel, but you know what I mean. Great pix by Ppruner sunshine band of the RAF practising for tomorrow's Queen's birthday flypast of 49 aircraft over London. More pix here. Details of flypast here.
 

Details have emerged, (as we journalists say about things that we didn't know about at the time) of a dire incident on the VLJ that everyone is watching - the Eclipse 500. (Not the one in this pic.)

It's got the NTSB understandably spooked as you can read at the link below.

Fortunately some highly professional piloting saved the occupants and aircraft.

Here's the scenario: double engine control failure during a windshear influenced final approach. FADEC reverts to last recorded power setting, which unfortunately is full power on both engines. Quite handy for the subsequent go-around, not so great for the desired landing. And then things get worse...

There is of course a major issue over the experience levels of at least some of the owner-pilots likely to end up flying this and other VLJs. The debate, I think it is fair to say, is likely to continue. 

Don't blame me - if the FAA says it's a MacDac then a MacDac it is. Anyway, David YJ Hsu in the Los Angeles Aircraft Certification Office, whose happy job it is to keep a caring eye on the nation's Daks, wants you to know that the tailwheel may fall off. He just wants you to know that - he's not saying you should necessarily worry or anything, and he's issued a Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin, the recommendations of which, he stresses, are not mandatory.

What happened was that on 25 February a Dak experienced tailwheel fork failure during rollout after landing. Turned out to be due to a crack from a fastener hole which was probably "present for some time". As the aircraft had 19,482 hours on the clock it's hard to know for just how much time.

Mr Hsu notes that "currently there is no specific inspection requirement of the tailwheel area" (apart from checking that you've got one) and so he's devised a rigorous inspection regime to prevent the above related embarrassment happening to you too. It involves "proper lighting" and a "magnifying glass". He comments that you could do this "during other maintenance activities". (Phew!) And he feels that you should repeat it annually. Up to you though. Gratuitous Daks pic below from Classic Flight.

It's quite a beast - the "largest engine/prop combination ever to be designed and produced in the Western world" in fact. And here's the first released pix of yesterday's ground run on a C-130 at Marshall Aerospace in Cambridge, UK. The engine, produced by the pan-European Europrop International consortium of Rolls-Royce, ITP, MTU and Snecma is the critical factor in the timing of the first flight of the four-engine A400M this summer. The eight-bladed prop is courtesy of Ratier-Figeac and Hamilton Sundstrand.