AircraftNews.Com

THE inability of radar on a Perth-bound Qantas Airbus to detect ice crystals will be at the centre of an air safety investigation into severe turbulence that threw passengers out of their seats, injuring up to 12 people.

The A330-300 aircraft plunged suddenly over Borneo early yesterday before landing safely at Perth International Airport just before 8am.

“All of a sudden the plane dropped — I reckon about a 30-storey building — and there was a hell of a kerfuffle in the plane,” passenger Keith Huckstable told ABC radio.

Qantas said crew on the Airbus, which was carrying 206 passengers and 13 crew, were given little notice of the approaching turbulence, four hours after leaving Hong Kong.
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Some years ago (maybe 30) I read in Flight that the time was coming when a latest generation Combat aircraft was going to take the entire GDP of a small nation. At the time I took it seriously and though it a bit of an exaggeration but as time has worn on it seems they were joking at the time using delightful British irony but that they had unwittingly hit the nail on the head. That day is here with the F22 that the US wont sell to any one because it cost them so dear and mega Airliners taking many Billions to create and 100s of millions to buy.
As the financial crisis looms and doomsayers prattle away I wonder whether now is the time for a paradigm shift. Skip the A380 and A350 and B787 etc and go for a highly standardized no frills blended body well and truly subsonic alternatively powered (fuel cells and props?) solutions that will halve the cost per kg per kilometer (Note I use metric as I am talking of the future)
Anyone with the courage to do it should (?!) clean up.

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — The only inkling passengers had that something was wrong on the Continental Airlines flight over the Atlantic Ocean was when an announcement came over the loudspeaker asking if there was a doctor on board.

Otherwise, flight attendants continued to serve snacks. Passengers read magazines and watched movies. And the flight kept on its schedule.

But in the cockpit, the 60-year-old captain had died of a suspected heart attack and two co-pilots took over the controls. The 247 passengers aboard did not learn what had happened until the flight from Brussels landed safely Thursday and was met by fire trucks, emergency vehicles and dozens of reporters.

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The prospect of a worldwide carbon tax for airline passengers is gathering pace after the Australian government demanded the inclusion of the aviation industry in the global climate change treaty.

The Australian administration has proposed that airlines are set a carbon dioxide reduction target as part of the treaty that will emerge from the Copenhagen summit this year. The latest plan would see responsibility for any aviation deal handed over to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which is overseeing the treaty talks.
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The Captain and crew of a Jetstar A330 sucessfully managed an in flight cockpit fire and emergency descent during a flight across the Pacific bound from Japan to the Queensland Gold coast.
Ray Banfield has described the 20 terrifying minutes when a cockpit fire threatened the lives of 199 passengers and crew on a Jetstar flight from Japan.
At 39,000 feet there was a loud bang and a brilliant white flash of flame from the base of his co-pilot’s windscreen.
“Never in all my years of flying commercial aircraft had I seen anything like it,” he told passengers upon landing safely at Guam.
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French officials investigating the loss of Air France Flight 447 are still processing reams of data yet to be publicly released that was transmitted by the A330-200’s aircraft communications addressing and reporting system.

The revelation, from a source with knowledge of the investigation into the loss of the aircraft carrying 228 passengers and crew, comes after bodies and wreckage from the A330 were recovered about 500 mi. northeast of the Fernando de Noronha archipelago (ATWOnline, June 5).
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Organizers of next week’s centennial Paris Air Show said Monday the world’s biggest aviation industry gathering won’t be diminished by the global economic crisis, which has hit the aviation industry hard.

Organizers expect around 300,000 visitors this year, half of them professionals, about the same as the last show in 2007 — despite notable no-shows such as business jet makers Gulfstream and Cessna.

“This year again, despite the crisis we consider that it is a considerable success because we’re full,” said Louis Le Portz, the air show’s chief executive. Roughly the same number of exhibitors will be present as in 2007, around 2,000, Le Portz said. Read more…

In a development made all the more important by the recent AF 447 tragedy a scheduled flight from Paris to Miami could revolutionize the aviation industry through its use of a network of satellite signals. The technology known as ADSB on which this is based is being used in Australia but is here being trialed in a more complete form.

Russ Moreno, Federal Aviation Administration support manager at Miami International Airport, said the flight will involve the NextGen aviation initiative that focuses on satellite guidance rather than a system of radio beacons on the ground, The Miami Herald reported Monday. Read more…

In the light of the recent very understandable outpouring of concern about the safety of public transport by air it might be time for a new approach to informing the public as well as a time for a very thorough rethink of procedures.
Despite the inevitable conspiracy theorists who will contend that the Airlines and manufactures “know” that modern airlines are unsafe there is really no sense whatsoever in this sort of thinking. The public can rest well assured that enormous effort ingenuity and thought will be put into resolving this matter.
Not only is there the normal duty of care humanitarian stuff it is actually enormously important economically that this be the case. So the conspiracy theorist are silly. There is however a clue here to something that might now be necessary.
Education.
Until recently it has seemed that the best solution to the fear of flying was a sort of total trust much as people used to have in Drs. They are super humans and not to be questioned and all will be well. They know better sort of stuff.
Now the worm is turning and the population is asking questions and perhaps more effort should be made to explain that Air transport is indeed still one of the safest if not the safest means of transport and is being relentlessly improved.
Maybe it is a time for a barrage of informative educative press releases from the various interested parties.
There would certainly be a very attentive audience.

The loss of AF 447 has rekindled simmering doubts about the safety of advanced composite aircraft and lent new wings to old concerns.
In 2007 a Boeing Employee alleged that he was fired for raising doubts about the long term safety of composite airframes as applied in the Dream liner and reports of the 2005 incident in which an A310 lost most of its rudder en route from Cuba to Canada have resurfaced.
This is the stuff conspiracy theorist love. Big Business suppressing vital safety concerns to protect profits.
While there is good cause for caution when introducing new technology it seems to have escaped the notice of the fear mongers that high performance Gliders have been using highly stressed composites for years without trouble and the A330 is still basically a metal aeroplane structurally.
It does seem that these concerns have been very carefully investigated but it also seems sure they will be revisited with a vengeance.