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Aviation History
1973
1973 - 0130.PDF
80 AIR TRANSPORT A300B: 100 FLIGHT HOURS OVER' lOOhr of test flying has now been completed by the first A300B in the two months since its first flight, and Airbus Industrie now confidently expects the aircraft to meet, or even to better, the certification and in-service dates, which are set for the spring of 1974. The test programme has already explored most of the flight envelope, and performance predictions are said to have been confirmed by in-flight measurements. This month crews from the Atlas group of airlines are visiting Toulouse for familiarisation with the aircraft. TRIDENT INQUIRY HEARS FIRST COUNSEL SUBMISSION THE inquiry into the loss of BEA Trident G-ARPI near Heathrow on June 18, 1972, has become concerned to a large degree with the operating standards of the airline. The first evidence from BEA senior staff was given by a Trident flight manager and a training manager who were called by the Treasury Solicitor to amplify the basic infor mation on training and operations contained in the report of the accident investigation branch. The proofs of evidence submitted by both witnesses led to detailed cross-examina tion by counsel concerned with the interests of the crews and the relatives of the passengers, and this in turn has led to the submission of a great deal of new confirmatory and conflicting evidence as the inquiry has progressed. The state of morale of BEA crews has been discussed repeatedly. On the one hand it has been apparent that the management pilots were content with the use of newly qualified pilots in the P2 seat, but contrary evidence has been presented by one captain who felt that his P2 "might just as well be sitting among the passengers" and by another captain who entered a submission over his own signature and those of 44 of his colleagues to the effect that they considered that the use of such inexperienced co-pilots was a hazard to flight safety. When it was explained that the young co-pilots had received complete training and had been examined on the ground, in the simulator and in the air and found to be up to standard, this led to an intensive investigation of the training syllabus and the standard of test insisted upon by the Civil Aviation Authority. Particular attention was paid to stall training, and it was established that BEA exceeded the statutory minimum requirement by making each trainee handle the simulator at the stall where only a demon stration was required. Questions about the entry to the stall during training showed that the teaching followed the accepted technique of a slow reduction of airspeed in level flight and that the symptoms of a stall resulting from a configuration change were not demon strated. It has more recently been established that BEA M Jean Pinet, managing director of Aeroformation, the A300B training company, in the left-hand seat of the LMTICAEjLink flight simulator, installed at Toulouse. Before being used for training the simulator will be "flown" in support of the flight-test programme fLIGHT international, 18 January 1973 The nose of the first Boeing 747C convertible freighter being tested at the company's Everett assembly plant. The aircraft will be delivered to World Airways this year has changed its training syllabus to introduce this type of demonstration, which, it is thought, is not shown by any other airline during conversion training. The relative merits of stalling training on simulators versus real aircraft led to differences of opinion. It is legitimate to carry out stalls, for instance for the renewal of a certificate of airworthiness, on the Trident but a removable modification kit including incidence meters must be installed. BEA captains clearly considered that even with the modification installed practice stalling was dangerous, but this view was not shared by Mr D. Davies, chief test pilot of the Civil Aviation Authority. Some discussion took place on whether it would be beneficial to install incidence meters permanently on Tridents, but the point was made that in the case of PI the presence of a meter would not have helped the crew to diagnose what was wrong, since the stick shaker and pusher were them selves acting in response to excessive angles of incidence. The frequency of spurious operations of the stick-shaker and stick-pusher systems of the Trident led the tribunal to investigate in detail the extent to which some of these incidents might have been genuine. While it was no longer possible to arrive at an exact proportion, since most of the incidents took place in the first two years of Trident operation, analysis of the reports showed a probability that in many cases the aircraft had been at the stall threshold. The fact that there had been two incidents involving premature retraction of the droop led to discussion of the means of investigating such incidents and the channels for telling other crews and other operators about them. For the Civil Aviation Authority Mr J. R. Neil, director of flight safety, said that he had not been informed about either previous incident and he was asked by the com missioner, Mr Justice Lane, to tell the tribunal about the relationship between the operational and the technical branches of his department. It appeared that the phrasing of the report of the second incident was such that a mechanical malfunction had been assumed and the potential operational risk had not been appreciated. Mr Lee Kreindler, an American lawyer appearing on behalf of the dependants of some US passengers killed in the crash, was given leave to make his final address to the tribunal early so he could return to America, and this tended to crystallise some of the issues. He was of the opinion that the accident resulted from three main causes: the medical background of the pilot with an overlay into the emotional areas, the inexperience of the second pilot and "because the plane was not capable of meeting a demon strable need." He was concerned that no one" had apparently seen the problem of Captain Key's health as it emerged; he was a sick man physically and had emotional problems. Mr Kreindler referred to him as a "sad figure." He considered that it was shocking that a man with only ten hours' experience could be in the right-hand seat and that although the Trident was a great aircraft there had been a failure to anticipate an obvious danger in premature droop retraction. (The inquiry continues.)
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