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Aviation History
1975
1975 - 0002.PDF
-fUGHT International, 7 January 1975 WORLD NEWS Congress censures FAA The US House of Representatives' Special Investigation subcommittee, which began in April 1974 a study of the actions of the Federal Aviation Administration in respect of the design of the DC-10 cargo doors, has attributed to the FAA a major part of the responsibility for the loss of the THY DC-10 near Paris on March 3 in which 346 passengers and crew were killed. The committee's report says that the FAA "needlessly and unjustifiably put at risk" passengers' lives by failing to take action after the rear cargo door came off an American Airlines DC-10 near Windsor, Ontario, in June 1972. The committee publishes as an appendix to its own report the find ings of a study carried out by Mr Oscar Bakke, former associate administrator for air safety of the FAA. This concludes that the Administration, was "ineffective" in its supervision of the initial certification of the DC-10 and that it was wrong to allow McDonnell Douglas to intro duce modifications to the door after the Windsor accident without their being given the force of Airworthiness Directives. Bakke considers that the door design, even now, could be further improved. LEAD LINES DC-9-50: First flight 5 TriStar: New version Part charters: Britannia fights 7 Lamps: Mk 1 deliveries continue 12 VAK 191B: US Navy receives test data 12 Venezuela: Vosper gunboats delivered 13 In next week's issue "Flight" looks at the ubiquitous if much-maligned US mass- produced lightplane and Neil Williams flies some of the veterans of the Shuttle- worth Collection. The House el Representatives' re port goes further in respect of the door and calls for a thorough re appraisal of the basic design. It notes that the records showed one modifi cation to have been embodied on the door of the THY aircraft when it had not been and says that no satisfactory answer had been given by the mam facturer as to how this had occurred. Salyut 4 launched A new Soviet space station, Salyut 4, was launched on December 26 apparently to test modifications made as a result of the earlier Salyut 3. The 16-ton craft was placed in a 270km X 235km orbit. Skytrain under fire On December 23 British Airways asked the Civil Aviation Authority to reconsider the licensing of Laker Air ways to operate no-booking Skytrain services between London Stansted and New York. Although the request could be viewed as am attack on Skytrain, Freddie Laker, chairman of Laker Airways, says he welcomes the move. "When my licence is reconfirmed, as I am confident it will be, then they [the British and US Governments] will both have to> do something about it. I am fully confident of being able to start Skytraiin in1 April." The British Airways decision to call for the revocation of Laker's licence comes at a time when British Caledonian has suspended services on the North Atlantic and the Depart ment of Trade is carrying out a review of future UK air-transport policy. A public debate at a new Skytrain hear ing might not therefore be inappro priate. The British Airways request for revocation also comes at a time when Advance Purchase Excursion (Apex) fares in the North Atlantic are being debated and the British are pre paring an approach to the Americans for further discussions on capacity limitations. FAA chooses scanning-beam MLS The announcement last last month that the Central Assessment Group of the FAA's MLS (Microwave Landing System) project office bad recom mended in favour of the scanning- beam technique come® as a coraswfer- able disappointment to British in terests in the competitive Dopplei scan principle. Dissatisfaction with the outcome of a protracted trial and evaluation programme has also been voiced by ITT Gilfillan and Hazletine, the two US Doppler contractors which have been collaborating closely with Plessey Navaids. Despite the ascendancy of Doppler, which had been clearly established on seven specific technical issues, the final vote of the group was niine for scanning beams, six for Doppler and two don't-knows. The recommendation was endorsed on December 21 by the MLS Advisory Committee. Until recently it had seemed prob able that the more versatile Doppler approach had established a clear lead over the coded beam solutions pro posed by Bendix and Texas Instru ments, but the late conversion of these contractors to time^reference scanning apparently carried the day. If the recommendation is endorsed by the MLS Executive Committee at its meeting later this month it will then become the basis of the FAA's formal submission to Icao in June. Arriel flies Only four months after the first complete engine ran on the bench the Turbomeca Arriel 650 s.h.p. helicopter free turbine made its first flight, powering the second pre- production Gazelle. The 50min first flight was preceded by l^hr ground running, including 17min at take-off power. Conversion and flight test are The Dassault-Breguet Mirage F.I/MS3 on its maiden flight from fctres (see page II)
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