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Aviation History
1965
1965 - 0016.PDF
FLIGHT International, 7 January 1965 This is the first of Air Canada's Vanguards to be re-styled. Five of the carrier's DC-8s have already been re-painted in the new colour scheme. The picture was taken at Maltan Airport, Toronto, late last month AIR TRANSPORT . . . ICING CAUSE OF SLICK DC-4 ACCIDENT ACCUMULATION of clear ice on the tailplane caused a Slick Airways DC-4 to go out of control during an ILS approach, in bad weather and at night, to Logan International, Boston, on March 10, 1964. The DC-4 was at a height of about 450ft, and was 7,500ft from the displaced threshold of runway 4R when it pitched sharply nose-down and crashed in a lumber yard on Castle Island. All three crew members, the only occupants, were killed. In the words of the CAB accident report "the probable cause of this accident was loss of balancing forces on the horizontal surface of the aircraft's empennage, due to ice accretion, causing the air- craft to pitch nose-down at an altitude too low to effect recovery." Weather at the time was: scattered clouds at 400ft, overcast at 700ft, surface visibility 1J miles in moderate sleet and fog, tempera- ture 32°, dewpoint 32°. When over Castle Island the DC-4 was, according to the PAR controller, on course and glide-path, but the target suddenly disappeared from both elevation and azimuth scopes. The investigators believe that the DC-4 had previously accumulated ice and that in the final stages of the flight "moderate to heavy rime icing conditions continued." Investigations showed that the TAS was about 130kt—an excessive approach speed such as would be demanded by a known build-up of ice on the wings. The CAB concluded that 15° of flap was used from the outer marker and that 30° were selected when the runway approach lights could be seen. The increased downwash after this flap extension changed the tailplane angle of attack to one which, coupled with the ice formation, destroyed the tail lift and disrupted the necessary balancing tail loads of the aircraft. BATTLE FOR NEW YORK-FLORIDA RIGHTS THE US Civil Aeronautics Board has once again denied, by a three-to-two majority, Northeast Airlines' right to operate over the New York - Florida route. This second ^decision not to renew Northeast's temporary certificate for the route was the last by the board under its present membership. Mr Chan Gurney—one of the three members (including the chairman, Mr Alan Boyd) who ruled that there was no need for a third carrier on the Florida route— retired at the end of 1964. The original decision by the CAB to terminate Northeast's certificate was made on August 15, 1963. Northeast then filed a petition with the US Court of Appeals which eventually, in May 1964, set aside the orders of the CAB and referred the case back to it for "further proceedings consistent with the Court's opinion." Meanwhile the Court retained jurisdiction. Under the new CAB ruling Northeast's certificate will be terminated 60 days after any final judgment by the Court in approval of the board's findings. In its latest opinion the CAB says that Northeast's Florida operations have led the carrier towards "economic ruin" and have also "been accompanied by deterioration in its service in New England." The board found "no reasonable prospect" that future operations over the Florida route would become financially successful and that renewal of Northeast's certificate "would merely perpetuate a fundamentally and seriously uneconomic situation." The board majority also expressed the opinion that the return to two-carrier competition over the route would be beneficial to Eastern Air Lines—but added that this belief played no part in the decision not to renew Northeast's certificate. The dissenting members of the CAB considered, among other things, that the adverse decision should not have been made without "reopening the record to consider, inter alia, such favour- able changed circumstances as the increased traffic in the markets... and the proposed improvements in Northeast's debt structure." According to Aviation Week, Northeast's president, Mr James Austin, said that the termination date was "a long way off" and that the airline will "continue to use every legal means" to retain its rights to the route. IMPLEMENT OR ELSE... IN its December news bulletin IFALPA again takes up the subject of inadequate airport, navigation and other ground facilities in various parts of the world. The point is made that where pilot groups have pressed unfalteringly for improvements these have been rapidly forthcoming. An opposite example is cited in the case of Peruvian DC-3 operations to remote townships on the rain-sodden eastern slopes of the Andes. Here pilots had tolerated indifferent and potholed runways until a propeller of a DC-3 struck the ground as the undercarriage fell into a pothole, killing the pilot. For a time—perhaps as a result of the Peruvian incident— Mexican pilots refused to operate into the similarly rough Guadala-. jara Airport. Here runway 10/28 was potholed and covered with loose debris to the extent that two jet engines suffered ingestion failures, several aircraft had burst tyres, and many flaps and pro- pellers were damaged. One airline was obliged to withdraw its jet equipment. IFALPA understands that the runway was then resurfaced in a matter of days. Mexican pilots have also refused ' to operate jets into Acapulco international airport at night until VASI lights are installed. Other IFALPA members are being asked to follow suit. In Europe a big trouble spot is Naples Capodichino. Here general safety conditions have never really been adequate and the Italian Pilots Association, failing to get satisfaction from the Ministry, called on IFALPA support for an "implementation campaign." As a result of a study of the situation it was decided that, from December 15, IFALPA members should exercise their pilots' prerogative by declaring the comparatively high weather minima of 2,800ft cloudbase, and 3,000 metres visibility. Some of the reasons for this action are that the Pomigliano and Naples NDBs are frequently affected by atmospheric conditions and interference from various sources to the point at which they can no longer be relied upon for bad-weather navigation; that the VDF let-down service has been officially declared unsafe; and that the ILS approach procedures do not conform to ICAO standards in the matter of minimum terrain clearance on the base turn and the outer marker of the ILS has officially been declared to be unmonitored. Other objections to Capodichino are the obstacles, in the form of high-voltage cables, within 300 metres of the main runway threshold—effectively reducing the length of this runway. In addition to the technical inadequacies IFALPA claims that the ATC procedures themselves are unsatisfactory in that the whole area contains a mixture of IFR and VFR traffic, including heli- copters and civil and military jets, and there is no surveillance radar.
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