Aero Gazette Aviation news

Manila (Philippines) – A hole the size of a small car in the underside of a Qantas jumbo jet carrying 346 passengers forced the pilot to make an emergency landing Friday after a rapid descent over the South China Sea.

The Boeing 747-400 was cruising at 29,000 feet when a loud bang rattled the plane. Video shot by a passenger shows people sitting with their oxygen masks on as the jet descended quickly to 10,000 feet. Applause erupted as the plane touched down safely.

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(C) Associated Press

Dallas, Texas (United States) – Richard H. Johnson of Dallas, Texas died in a glider crash near Midlothian, Texas today at approximately 12:30 central time. The soaring community has lost a true pioneer and a great friend. Our condolences go out to Alice, his wife, and the rest of Dick’s family.

At the request of his many soaring friends Soaring Society of America has established a remembrances page here. 

Link: Soaring Society of America

Photo (C) Soar Idaho

London (United Kingdom) – With three wins in four races and 35 of a possible 36 championship points in the bank so far, Britain’s Paul Bonhomme takes a commanding 6-point lead over his nearest challenger, Hannes Arch of Austria, into his home race in London which takes place on 2nd and 3rd August. But after having the 2007 championship snatched out of his grasp thanks to an ill-timed collapse at the end of the season, Bonhomme is on a mission this year to clinch the title as early as possible and prevent another debacle in Perth. Dismissing any notion of complacency after his resounding victory in Rotterdam, Bonhomme said it would be a mistake to count out any of the 11 other pilots – and especially Americans Mike Mangold and Kirby Chambliss who won all of the last 3 championships

“You could say that,” he said when asked if it were now just a two-horse race between him and Arch. “But mathematically any one of the 12 pilots could still win the series. I’m personally not going to relax one bit.”

Bonhomme’s concerns are genuine. With 9 points for a victory and the prospect of being disqualified from a race this year increased due to more stricter enforcement of the rules, the chances of ending up with zero points in one or more of the 5 races left is more than just a theoretical danger. There are 45 first place points still up for grabs. And after watching a 2-point cushion at the top evaporate in the final heartbreaking race in Perth last year and seeing the championship he thought was his end up in Mangold’s lap, Bonhomme has said he will keep flying hard until he has it signed, sealed and delivered – and can celebrate with a cold beer in Perth. “It’s not over until it’s over,” he said with a smile.

(C) Red Bull Air Race

Dear gliding friends,

TopFly invites you to participate to the 7th wave gliding camp in Patagonia, from November 1st to January 17th. The aim is not only to break national and world records although every attempt is always an unforgettable moment, but also to practice unlimited wave flying under the best known conditions of this planet, and discovering, preferably in silent flight with our Nimbus 4DM especially equipped for your comfort and safety, a marvellous country where everything is pure immensity in an uncontaminated world and a highly protected environment.

As for the previous years, our base will be San Carlos de Bariloche, 800m altitude, lacustrine town of 150.000 inhabitants, offering all the services and recreational activities that you may expect from the largest mountain resort of South America.

Immediately go surfing on our totally renewed Internet web site www.topfly.aero where you will find all the information for the registration and the preparation of your journey, with hundreds of photographs, many movies, the narratives of our significant flights and records with their IGC files and a lot of other useful information. If you read French, you can also go through the magazine Vol à Voile N°131 (April-May 2008) that relates the previous expedition.

We offer you new formulas:

1) The TOPFLY Formula: unlimited flying hours, possibility to share your stay with a person of your choice, discounts of 25% and 50% since the 2nd and 3rd week!
Targeted for the unconditional of wave flying, the front seat of the Nimbus 4DM is reserved you accompanied by myself or an other instructor.

2) the formula “PRIVATE EUROPE”:
Load your glider in our container in Bergamo before mid-September and use personally in Patagonia, it will return back at the end of February.

3) the formula “PRIVATE AMERICA “:
You come by your own means with your glider in Bariloche and fly with our group while getting full assistance and logistics from our organization.

4) the formula” ECONOMY LAST MINUTE”:
For those who do not have the necessary time or are traveling throughout this country, you can contact us by e-mail or cell phone and fly those days when a glider is free. Your participation to the expense will cover only the flying hours, no registration cost.

ALL OPTIONS INCLUDE: All the necessary instructions related to the Cordillera, the radio procedures in English and in Castilian (one of these two languages is mandatory for flying the single-seater), and for the private owners, the complete data base of the airports and landable strips, daily weather report briefing, Internet ADSL and WiFi.

Contact in Europe: France +33.(0)4.92213685 Fax +39.02.8739 4726
Italy: +39.02.48705377 mobile +39.335.6049302
Mobile Argentina: +54.9.2944.484487
Internet www.topfly.aero E-mail vv1000 at fastwebnet.it

Cordially,
Jean-Marie Clément

Zurich (Switzerland) – La société suisse Flarm signe un accord de licence avec l’Onera pour un système d’aide à l’évitement de collision destiné à l’Aviation Générale. Cette coopération R&D aura un impact sur la prochaine génération d’appareils anti-collision de Flarm.

Thanks to this agreement, the technology which has been developed and brought to international market success by Flarm, can further advance and spread into new fields. Since its introduction in 2004, over 11’000 Flarm and compatible devices have been installed in aircraft worldwide.

This cooperation in research and development complements flights tests performed by ONERA,  covers the provision of scientific support on leading-edge collision avoidance technology, and will impact the next generation of Flarm’s product improvements.

Aware of ONERA’s contributions to flight safety, Flarm contacted ONERA already in 2004, leading eventually to a formal agreement. The patent family invented by ONERA and licensed to Flarm covers not only collision avoidance, but also additional aspects of aircraft data communication, traffic information display, navigation and ‘SOS’ distress signals.

The license granted to Flarm, covering key markets such as France, Germany, UK, Italy, Belgium, Holland, Sweden and North America, opens Flarm the possibility to sub-license its core design, as this is an essential requirement for all compatible designs and its continued broad market acceptance.

Link: FLARM – Onera

 Madrid (Spain) March 4 – The first in-flight wet contact of the EADS MTA Air Refuelling Boom System (ARBS) has successfully been performed using an F-16 aircraft.

This advanced boom system, installed on an Airbus A310 used as a flight test bed, performed the wet contact with the receiver aircraft following the planned procedure, at an altitude of 27000 feet. The contact represented how the ARBS will be used during a typical air-to air refuelling mission. This is the 73rd test flight for the boom system totaling more than 200 flight hours.

Along the Flight Test Program the systems have been validated, the boom aerodynamic and the Flight By Wire control system have demonstrated outstanding handling qualities through the whole envelope, the dry contacts had been cleared in flight. After complete ground test refueling operations today fuel transferences in-flight have been made using F-16s from the Portuguese Air Force. This has been the last milestone in the development of the EADS MTA Boom

The ARBS has been chosen by four of the five customers for the A330 MRTT (Multi Role Tanker Transport) and the first aircraft equipped with the ARBS will be delivered to the Royal Australian Air Force early next year. The air forces of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have chosen the A330 MRTT equipped with the ARBS and the same system has been proposed on the KC-30. This is the variant of the A330 MRTT offered by Northrop Grumman, US partner of EADS that has just won the competition to supply 179 tankers to the USAF.

“This is another step forward in our Air Refuelling Boom System programme. It shows our commitment toward the most demanding customers to provide them with the most advanced air-to-air refuelling technologies and systems in the market”, said Carlos Suarez, Head of EADS Military Transport Aircraft Division.

The boom is 17 meters long at full extension and allows the transfer of 2270 litre/minute (1200 US gal/min) of fuel. The fly-by-wire boom is controlled remotely from a console in the cockpit, where an operator uses an advanced technology 3 dimensional visual system. This gives safer operation and a reduced workload for the boom operator, and enables the tanker crew to be located together.

EADS is a global leader in aerospace, defence and related services. In 2006, EADS generated revenues of € 39.4 billion and employed a workforce of about 116,000. The Group includes the aircraft manufacturer Airbus, the world’s largest helicopter supplier Eurocopter and EADS Astrium, the European leader in space programmes from Ariane to Galileo. Its Defence & Security Division is a provider of comprehensive systems solutions and makes EADS the major partner in the Eurofighter consortium as well as a stakeholder in the missile systems provider MBDA. EADS also develops the A400M through its Military Transport Aircraft Division.

(C) EADS

Houston (United States) February 25 – A large number of exhibitors in the Covention Center
(WAPA) – The “Heli-Expo”, the world’ s largest helicopter exhibition, opened yesterday at the Convention Center of Houston, Texas, where there are on spot hundred of exhibitors with all kind of devices used in the helicopter world.

As happened in the past years, also this edition of “Heli-Expo” sees AVIONEWS presents on the scene, to bring its reporters into the exhibition.

Many newness have been unveiled, starting from the the new Sikorsky’s hybrid X-2 to the new Eurocopter EC-175, showed in a high-effect presentation.

Missing is the new turbine powered Frank Robinson R-66, the first helicopter of this manufacturer not equipped with a piston-type engine.

(C) Avionews

Link: Heli-Expo

EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. (AP) — Air Force investigators were trying to determine the cause of an apparent collision of two fighter jets that killed one pilot during a training exercise.
The single-seat F-15C Eagles crashed Wednesday into the Gulf of Mexico, said Col. Todd Harmer, commander of the 33rd Fighter Wing, 58th Fighter Squadron. The pilots had ejected and were rescued, but one died later.
The base has suffered a “great loss,” Harmer said in an e-mailed statement. “We will continue to do everything we can to assist our families and airmen at this tragic time.”
The surviving pilot was in good condition. The names of the pilots were not released.
The cause of the collision about 35 miles south of Tyndall Air Force Base in the Florida Panhandle was not immediately known, Harmer said. Weather in the area was clear.
The training exercise emphasized “basic maneuvers and tactics,” he said.
A Coast Guard rescue jet located one pilot and radioed the location to a fishing vessel, which picked him up, said Coast Guard Petty Officer James Harless. A Coast Guard helicopter then hoisted the pilot off the vessel.
That pilot told rescuers he saw the other pilot eject but lost him in the clouds, Harless said. He told them the approximate location for the second pilot, who was found by a Coast Guard helicopter.
Both pilots had been with the 33rd Fighter Wing “for quite some time,” Harmer said.
No debris from the jets has been found.
The Air Force grounded all of its F-15s — nearly 700 — after the catastrophic failure of an F-15C during a routine training flight in Missouri in November. The pilot safely ejected.
Most were back in service by January, but others were grounded indefinitely after defects were found.
The Air Force began using the F-15C in 1979. The planes, built by McDonnell Douglas Corp., were deployed to the Persian Gulf in 1991 in support of Operation Desert Storm and have since been used in Iraq, Turkey and Bosnia.
The planes can fly as high as 65,000 feet, and each costs about $30 million, according to the Air Force.

Link: Video

(C) Associated Press

Washington (United States) February 21 – Riki Ellison, President of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance (http://www.missiledefenseadvocacy.org) let the worldwide membership of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance know that our Navy’s Aegis missile defense system was successful in its fist try with a SM-3 in the shoot down of the failing US 193 satellite. Extracts of his comments follow:

    “Global protection of human life from Space was proven, demonstrated and executed tonight by the use of our country’s missile defense technology and her current deployed missile defense systems — the Aegis USS Lake Erie (CG 70). This historic intercept of a toxic satellite falling from space, harmful to human life around the world has given mankind its first ever reliable deployed capability to protect life from objects falling from
space.”

    “The investment, the political will, the engineering ingenuity, the determination of our public, our Congress, our military and our President to develop and deploy a system that was created by American Industry and the military, proven through vigorous testing, deployed on sea and land-based platforms and adaptable to provide an accurate pin point
precision defense of hitting an object in space is truly a remarkable historic feat.”

    “The factual reality of using deployed missile defenses to destroy a falling satellite or a ballistic missile or even a meteor from space that would risk human life is an achievement for mankind.”

    “Missile Defense will continue to become more and more universal throughout the world and it will become more reliable and effective, so as to one day in the near future, we as a world can eliminate and mitigate risk from any and all harmful objects coming from space that would threaten mankind.”

    “The intercept of the Satellite US 193 occurred at 10:26 pm EST on Wednesday in the Pacific Ocean off of Hawaii. A Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) was fired a few minutes earlier off the USS Lake Erie using information fed by the ship’s on board Aegis radar tracking and discrimination sensor to guide the missile close to the falling satellite where the missile engaged its heat seeking sensor thereby enabling a direct perpendicular hit on the
5,000 lb satellite with a kinetic energy impact of 22,000 mph. The satellite was destroyed at 10:26 pm EST. The majority of the small pieces of the satellite will burn up in the atmosphere upon reentry whereby the bigger pieces will fall harmlessly into the Pacific Ocean in the first 48 hours, and the remaining pieces will re-enter the atmosphere over the next month.”

    “The Sea Based X band radar was deployed in the area to support independently the discrimination and tracking of the destroyed Satellite.
Other US military sensors and satellites were deployed in the area and were also used for evaluation of the intercept.” “The Aegis Destroyer USS Decatur (DDG-73) accompanied the USS Lake Erie in this mission as a redundant back up with a capable SM-3 missile of its own as well as a duplicate Aegis sensor and radar.” Ellison closed his remarks by saying:
“We as a nation have made the world a safer place for our generation and generations to come.”

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Kennedy Space Center, Florida February 20 – Space shuttle Atlantis soared through a thin layer of clouds over NASA’s Kennedy Space Center before touching its wheels to the runway Wednesday to end a flawless STS-122 mission.

“This was just an unbelievably super mission for us,” said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA’s associate administrator for space operations. “I can’t think of a better way to start this year out than with this great flight.”

Commander Steve Frick, Pilot Alan Poindexter and Mission Specialists Leland Melvin, Rex Walheim, Stanley Love, Dan Tani and European Space Agency astronaut Hans Schlegel flew aboard Atlantis on the way back to Earth.

Although STS-122 lasted about 13 days, Tani had been living in space and aboard the International Space Station for 120 days by the time Atlantis landed. European Space Agency astronaut Leopold Eyharts launched aboard Atlantis and took Tani’s place on the station.

“It’s great for the 122 crew to be back on the ground at Kennedy Space Center,” Frick said shortly after the 9:07 a.m. landing. “Everything worked just great and perfectly.”

The mission added the European-built Columbus laboratory to the International Space Station. The lab will host experiments from throughout Europe’s scientific community and will be an important part of the orbiting research complex. NASA’s own Destiny laboratory was already in orbit as part of the ISS. A Japanese laboratory complex will complete a cutting-edge trio of research bases that will host astronauts and experiments at the station.

Space shuttle Endeavour is already perched on its launch pad at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center to launch the first module for the Japanese lab. It is to launch March 11.

“It feels really good to have mission back-to-back again,” said Mike Leinbach, launch director at Kennedy. “The team is really pumped to get going and get ready for their next flight.”

The seven astronauts will stay at the launch site overnight before flying back to Houston.

(C) NASA