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Aviation History
1979
1979 - 0243.PDF
he care of older structures INTERNATIONAL Week ending 27 January 1979 Number 3645 Volume 115 Published In association with Aeroplane Monthly and Airports International by IPC Transport Press Ltd, Dorset House, Stamford Street, London SE1 9LU, England. World's first and only complete aeronautical weekly (£> Copyright IPC Business Press 1979 Founded 1909 Second-class postage paid at New York, NY, and additional entries. Idltor J. M. Ramsden Associate Editors Hugh Field, Mark Lambert Defence Editor Doug Richardson Defence Graham Warwick BSc Production Editor Brendan Gallagher Sub-editor Bette O'Connor Technical Editor Mike Hirst BTech Technical David Velupillai BSc Air Photography Tom HamlM Air Transport Bill Sweetman, Bron Rek General Aviation Hugh Field, Cliff Barrett News Ian Goold Technical Artists Frank Munger, John Marsden Keeper of records Dennis Baldry Pictures Stephen Piercey Publisher Bryan C. Cambray FIMI Deputy Publisher and Group Advertisement Manager David Holmes US Publishing Consultant Warren H. Goodman Advertisement Representatives Jack Bush Clive RIgden Richard Chandless Advertisement Production Howard Mason Overseas advertisement representatives: at back of this Issue Telephone: 01-261 8081 (Advertisement Sales) 01-261 8392 (Advertisement Production) 01-261 8070 (Editorial) Telegram/Telex 25137 BISPRS G Subscriptions Manager B. F. J. Nason Telephone: England (0444) 59188 (UK and overseas subscrip tion rates at back of this issue) iibou.l International Business Press Associates |ABC! Member of the Audit Bureau of Circulation NEXT WEEK Engineering and maintenance; Airmec 79 [HLOHWir INTERNATIONAL • The coming generation of fighting heli copters is designed to mix it with armoured vehicles and missile-armed infantry on a European-style high-intensity battlefield. Mark Lambert looks at the airframes and systems which may have to contest the hottest armoured conflict in history. • Mike Hirst reviews the latest general- aviation and airline maintenance and engineering techniques. AS THIS issue appears the UK Accidents Investigation Branch (AIB) is expected to finish its report on the May 1977 accident to a British cargo 707, the star board tailplane of which failed on the approach to Lusaka, killing the crew of five. The report will confirm the fatigue failure of a fail-safe de sign. The 707-320C was aged 47,600hr and 16,700 flights, younger than many of the 450 sis ter ships which were immediately inspected. How could a fail-safe design fail so hard? The first reaction of the manu facturer was to suspect poor in spection, which has often allowed a routine crack to run beyond the writ of a fail-safe design. Boeing was shocked to find that no reasonable inspection method could have prevented the Lusaka failure. We shall find in the AIB report exactly what happened. Mean while, the "high-time airframe" has become the object of special attention throughout the industry. Manufacturers, operators, air worthiness authorities and re search establishments — with Boeing, the CAA, FAA and Boyal Aircraft Establishment in the lead -—have developed and introduced intensive-care procedures which will help the older jets and those who trust in them. The new procedure will mean more inspection, more non destructive testing (NDT) and hence more expensive mainten ance. Hopefully there will be a new flow of information from air line hangars to manufacturers' stress offices, building up data banks which will improve the de sign of tomorrow's structures. We shall have to find ways to deter cowboy operators from buying up old jets and flying them under non-CAA/FAA flags. People and property could have been under that Lusaka flight, and passengers could have been aboard it. Perhaps it was because Lusaka was a faraway freight flight, kill ing no passengers, that the "blame lawyers" did not inhibit Boeing from taking full and frank measures to ensure as far as humanly possible that there are no more Lusakas. The older-structures problem will be aired at the Airmec 79 aircraft maintenance conference, which Swissair is hosting in Zurich on February 5-9. It will also be the subject of a Flight feature in our February 10 issue. J.M.K. Smeeton of Europe SOMETIMES the director of a trade association is mainly his masters' voice. Not so SBAC director Sir Bichard Smeeton, who retires at the end of this month to offer himself as a candi date for the European Parliament. His Europeanism has not al ways been shared by some of the big guns on the SBAC Council. But his policy has prevailed, most publicly perhaps in the in ternationalising of the Farn- borough Show. He hands over a society which is much more mar ket-minded than the rather pro vincial technical-standards body he joined thirteen years ago. J.M.R. IN THIS ISSUE World News Air Transport Defence HELICOPTER DATELINE LAS VEGAS General Aviation Business Private Industry International Letters BAe 146: WILL IT SELL? LOW FARES: THE DAM BREAKS Avionics SLEW-WING BECOMES A REALITY Spaceflight 234 237 240 245 248 249 250 252 257 263 273 274 275 Front cover: This DC-10 belongs to Wardair of Canada, one of the charter carriers respon sible for the pressure which burst the fares dam
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