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Aviation History
1980
1980 - 3353.PDF
1674 FLIGHT International, I November 1980 BA and Eastern to go for three-man 757 crew? BRITISH Airways and Eastern Air Lines, lead customers for the Boeing 757, are trying to agree on a common flight deck under intense pressure from their pilots to have it designed for three-man operation. Mike Clark, a BA pilot and British Air Line Pilots' Association (Balpa) vice-chairman, tells Flight that, despite all the new- technology inputs and crew redun dancy arguments (Flight, August 30, page 829), Balpa and.most BA pilots think the sideways-facing engineer's panel provides the safest systems con trol and best crew effectiveness. In mid-November BA officials, pilots and Balpa representatives are to visit Boeing's Seattle plant to see 757 cock pit mockup changes made at Eastern's request. The changes are made to enable integration of a third crew- member into a flight deck which Boeing had designed unequivocally for two-man operation. Though the com pany had designed the larger 767 for operation by either two or three men and even offered a sideways-facing engineer's panel as an option on the type, such an adjustment to the for ward facing crew cockpit (FFCC) of the 757 was not envisaged. Balpa members in BA have threatened refusal to fly the 757 when it is delivered to the airline in 1983 unless it is crewed by three people. The US Air Line Pilots' Association (Alpa) and the International Federa tion of Air Line Pilots' Associations (Ifalpa) are backing any stand against a two-man 757. These associations have already had limited success in lobbying for a three-man crew McDonnell Douglas DC-9 Super 80 which the US Federal Aviation Administration recently certificated as a two-pilot aeroplane. Some potential Super 80 buyers were put off purchas ing it, and those that did buy are mostly non-unionised. Swissair has just started two-man Super 80 opera tions despite the Europilote union federation's objection to this. • A group of US aviation industry chiefs has discussed the crewing issue with Transportation Secretary Neil Goldschmit and a senior presidential aide at the White House. Alpa and the Flight Engineers' Association want President Carter to set up a com mission to examine the crew comple ment issue, but the airline and manu facturers' group is opposed to Govern ment involvement. Italian charter airline Aeral ceases operations ROME-BASED charter airline Aeral has ceased operations after encounter ing financial difficulties, writes our Rome correspondent. Aeral employees have occupied the company's offices, following the serving of dismissal notices on 37 out of its 84 total staff by chairman Maria Bottanelli. Accus ing Bottanelli of "incompetent man agement," the employees have dis puted the chairman's statement that the Italian Ministry of Transport was responsible for the company's difficul ties by unjustly denying Aeral route licences and granting them to fifth- freedom carriers instead. The Ministry of Transport has held a series of meetings with the staff, who were given trade union support, but both sides remain pessimistic about the possibility of either state or private backing. According to Aeral em ployees, the airline has accrued losses totalling about $3 million in its 18 months of operations. Aeral started freight charter flights in 1978 with a DC-8-54F bought from McDonnell Douglas, and first carried passengers in May 1980 using a DC-8-55F Convertible leased from Overseas National. The carrier re turned the second aircraft to Overseas National in September upon finding itself unable to meet the lease pay ment commitments. Flight under stands that 75 per cent of Aeral's passenger charter flights were under taken on behalf of British tour opera tor Saintseal, which itself paid the September lease instalment and arrears directly to Overseas National. • Colombian carrier Aerocondor has ceased operations because of debts estimated at $100 million. Its routes are now being served by Avianca, SAM, Aerototal, Aerocesar, and ACES, pending a decision on Aero- condor's liquidation. The last of Dan-Air's Comet 4Cs (left) is shown next to a newly acquired Boeing 727-200 in the company's latest livery. Dan-Air has been the world's largest Comet operator, using 49 of the type since 1966 FAA calls for united approach to aviation problems MORE than 400 uniformed airline pilots picketed the White House last week, calling for the resignation of US Federal Aviation Administration chief Langhorne Bond. The Administrator himself was only a few blocks away, delivering a speech castigating the pilots for lobbying against his agency's air safety policies, writes our Washing ton correspondent. The pilots say the FAA has "mis used" the $3,000 million uncommitted surplus in the aviation trust fund and has "shown an over-solicitous concern for the well-being of aircraft manufac turers and air carriers." In his speech to the FAA's annual aviation forecast conference, Bond charged that the pilots are trying to "obfuscate" air safety issues for their own benefit. He added that the entire aviation community had become un healthily factional. "Unless we mani fest a working belief that our pro fessional interests are truly mutual, we may soon find ourselves squarely in the midst of irrevocable restraints which may irreparably harm aviation's growth." Instead of supporting the FAA's efforts to get more money for an expanded and improved air traffic con trol system, the various special interest groups mount public cam paigns against the FAA's people and policies, says Bond. Bond is particularly critical of the pilots and their union, the Air Line Pilots' Association (Alpa) which, he said, tried hard to get the latest model McDonnell Douglas DC-9 (the Super 80) certificated with a three-man cock pit, despite the fact that 950 DC-9s are flying safely with a two-man crew. There are no statistics, Bond says,- which prove that a three-man crew is safer than a two-man crew. To Alpa's charge that the FAA is not spending all the money it could on air safety, Bond replied that "we have consistently spent every air safety dollar that Congress has made available to us." During the next decade, he adds, significant capital investment in the nation's air trans port system will be needed. But there are substantial disagreements on how, where and when such investment should be made. Bond is pessimistic about the Federal aviation budget's capacity to grow with the expanding need. V
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