Op-Ed Columnists – Page 19
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Opinion
Comment: Take-off risks
Take-off performance calculation error happens. The fact that most recent events have not caused a fatal accident is no excuse for inaction, because the danger to life is considerable
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Opinion
Comment: New birds aplenty...but no pigs
Air travel is safer than ever, but a levelling off in the long-term decline of accident and fatality rates tells us it's time for ideas about safety management within - and between - airlines
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Opinion
Comment: In this together
Eleven months ago, a flightglobal.com poll asked which would fly first: the A400M, 787, or pigs. The pigs won.
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Opinion
Comment: The NTSB gears up to fight killer fatigue
In late January 2006 we headlined this column Dead tired. In it we criticised the US Federal Aviation Administration for its apathy over the issue of basing proposed new flight-time limitations on science. We would still criticise them today for caving in to the airline lobby on that front - ...
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Opinion
Comment: Has the French judiciary changed its prosecutorial attitude to air accidents?
A judicial review of the 2008 Perpignan crash has led to a decision not to bring criminal prosecution. Is this a change of French legal attitudes, or a technical distinction?
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Opinion
Comment: Eyjafjallajökull has changed the rules
Volcanic ash was not much of an issue for the airlines until Eyjafjallajökull blew its top. But when that happened, a lot of people started asking questions...
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Opinion
Comment: Report card from hell
To ensure US air traffic control can cope with rising flight volume while cutting emissions, no project is more critical than NextGen. Unfortunately, the FAA is failing its mid-term exams
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Opinion
Comment: Banishing the blues
IATA's 66th annual meeting, held in Berlin, proved the most optimistic in years as the industry - with the exception of Europe - storms out of recession. Not even another "green tax", this time from Germany, dulled the sense of relief that the worst is over.
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Opinion
Comment: Chinese walls
Airframers and charter companies attending the inaugural Asian Business Aviation show in Macau approached the occasion with caution, and who can blame them?
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Opinion
Comment: Single-pilot crews for airliners?
The discussion about one-pilot cockpits is not new, but so far it's been all speculation. Now a manufacturer is talking about it publicly. Could it happen? Should it? Will it?
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Opinion
Comment: Predicted pilot and engineer demand is unsustainable
Airlines which have stopped investing in the future just to survive the present are in for a shock.
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Opinion
Comment: A380 must pay its way
Behind the deal for 32 superjumbos at ILA are two questions: does Emirates know what it is doing, and will Airbus - even now - ever make money from its grandiose project?
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Opinion
Comment: Airlines are required to manage technical and operational risk, so why not fatigue risk?
Fatigue risk management is about to become an established way of coping, globally, with one of the major causes of modern accidents. And about time too. In...
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Opinion
Comment: Poles apart
After a traumatic transition from the certainties of the controlled market, Poland's aerospace industry is fighting fit and largely foreign-owned, embracing globalisation and creating jobs
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Opinion
Comment: Recorders on business jets - the debate should examine what type, not whether
Small business jets are not required to have flight recorders. The argument for this is simply that they do not carry many people, so the cost-benefit analysis does not add up.
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Opinion
Comment: Revenge of the nerds
When it comes to totally shifting the rotorcraft paradigm, there's nothing for it but to spend some time - as much as it takes - in serious thought.
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Opinion
Comment: F-35: it's not for children
From this point forward, the F-35 programme starts growing up, or it begins falling apart.
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Opinion
Comment: In-flight anachronism?
Smart gadgets like iPads, laptops and 3G mobile phones give us the world of music, movies and on-the-move communications - but airliners may still need built-in entertainment systems
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Opinion
Comment: Cry wolf?
Airbus's war of words with Boeing is being cranked up a notch as they prepare to do battle in the changing market for single-aisle airliners.