The Fanblade

In 2006 I worked on a book about the new 787 programme, and as part of our research the Editors were taken around the world on a 40-year old corporate 727, visiting factories in North Carolina, Italy and Japan. We learned much about the technology of this game-changing aircraft, and I became a believer (trying to remain objective of course!) My instinct told me that perhaps all this was too good to be true and so it is turning out to be the case - but not exactly for the reason I had thought. Not yet, anyway. For now it is mainly problems at those global partners we visited almost two years ago, when they had just finished building their 787 facilities. Wing-box structural problems have also caused some delay - in a webcast earlier today current 787 general manager Pat Shanahan said that a miscalculation in finite element analysis meant strengthening was required just as wiring work was coming to the centre section - causing a month or so delay. All in all, the latest slippage is, says Boeing, conservative enough to account (hopefully) for any other unforeseen problems. There’s essentially a six-month slippage, two months to system power-up (now June), two months extra between that and first flight, and two months leeway in the flight test programme. As AIN has just reported on its daily news e-mail, the 25 aircraft that will now be delivered in 2009 is less than the 35 that were moved from 2008 due to the first slippage. The Times of London reported this morning that the total slippage would be 18 months, compared to the original plan, and they were right. Let’s hope there are no more problems with the potentially game-changing aircraft, so that we really can see the first flight by Christmas this year.

Could fate have sent a stark warning about Very Light Jets? A Cessna 500 crashed into a house shortly after taking off from Biggin Hill near London yesterday, killing both pilots and three passengers (luckily the house owners were not in the house at the time, they were on holiday). Why was this a warning? Well, it was only last week at a conference at the Royal Aeronautical Society that one speaker said that VLJs had been around for decades - and yes, the Cessna 500 was the aircraft he pointed too. It has eerie significance from where I’m standing, a passive observer. As the NTSB dispatches a team to help the AAIB, everyone must wait and see what the cause of this apparent double engine failure was… while those pondering the regulation of VLJs (at EASA in particular) have some real food for thought and hopefully constructive debate (as area where EASA has been doing its best to improve).

In 2004 I had a motorcycle crash and my helmet helped save my life, along with my rucksack which saved me from severe back injury (judging by the burn marks!) A car pulled out in front of me without warning, and while the bike was crushed under a car coming the other way, that same car missed my head by inches. So I was interested to see a Safety Alert from the NTSB showing how motorcycle deaths in the USA had more than doubled in the ten years to 2006, to some 4,810 in that year. It is sobering to think that number is more than the American lives lost in Iraq over the past five years, which last week sadly surpassed the 4,000 mark. But while in the UK helmet-wearing is compulsory, it is not the case in the USA where three states have no helmet law at all, and only half of states make helmets compulsory. It may be the land of the free but with freedom comes responsibility - responsibility which, in the UK, also includes helping to keep costs to the National Health Service down.

Today the Royal Air Force launched its 90th anniversary celebrations with an event held at the RAF museum near Hendon, north London. The chief of the air staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Glenn Torpy, told a large crowd of dignatories and journalists that the celebrations would start officially with a service at St Clement Danes church in central London on 30 March. Then, on the actual 90th anniversary the following day, there will be a fly-past at the London Eye by the Red Arrows and Typhoon aircraft. Present at the Hendon event was Henry Allingham, aged 111, a veteran of the First World War and now the oldest man in Europe and joint second oldest man in the world. He is also the last surviving member of the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS), the pre-runner to the Royal Air Force.  In fact he is the oldest surviving member of Britain’s armed forces, and is set to have a State Funeral at Westminster Abbey as the last veteran of World War I. But most fascinating of all, Allingham remembers seeing W.G. Grace play cricket in around 1905.

Is there a middle way between owning your own light aircraft, and having access to a corporate jet? This simple question has many possibilities but relatively few market solutions at present. But that doesn’t mean that entrepreneurs aren’t pushing the bounds. Stephanie McWilliam of Farnborough-based Private Air Travel is keen  to find out whether her company can manage aircraft for groups of owners without an Air Operators Certificate, as is possible in the US thanks to FAR 91 Subpart K (added around five years ago to remove precisely this uncertainty in the US market). The problem for a small company in general aviation is that an AOC is prohibitively expensive to obtain and maintain, due to requirements designed for airlines. They are also used by business jet charter operators and those running fractional ownership schemes, but these can still be considered to be  the “big boys”. What McWilliam wants is a clear path to allowing businessmen and high net worth individuals to have a business aircraft in the £5-600 per hour bracket, rather than £2-3,000 an hour. She argues that Private Air Travel would not be the operator, but would manage the paperwork which allows everything to fall into place and remain in compliance. The planned aircraft would be small turboprops, such as the Farnborough Aircraft Kestrel. While EASA is due to take on JAR OPS regulations (revised and to be known as EASA OPS), there is considerable uncertainty, and speculation that EASA may bring in a Subpart K equivalent. If there are any aviation lawyers out there who would like to explain this complex area and where it is all heading, Fanblade would like to hear from you!

The International Federation of Airline Pilots’ Associations (IFALPA) has expressed its concern at a request by the French state prosecutors (made by the Pontoise office last month) that manslaughter charges be brought against John Taylor and Stanley Ford, employees of Continental Airlines, in connection with the 25 July 2000 crash of an Air France Concorde. Taylor was the mechanic who allegedly fitted the wrong strip to the engine of a Continental DC-10, while Ford was the head of maintenance. IFALPA believes that such legal actions will not improve air safety and could in fact have a negative impact, and that criminal prosecution for ‘negligence’ should only follow where there is “intent to either do harm or to disregard the high probability that harm would occur.” Where employees attempt to get it right but do not succeed, IFALPA believes that to prosecute them would be the wrong approach. The strip fell off on the runway at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport, causing the Concorde’s tyre to burst when it ran over the strip. The resulting debris punctured the fuel tank in the wing. The French state prosecutor is also seeking to bring charges against Henri Perrier, former Concorde programme chief at Airbus, and Claude Franzen, former head of training at the DGAC. It is alleged that a design flaw in the aircraft’s wing which contributed to the aircraft not surviving the incident has been known about since 1979. The pilots tried to divert to Le Bourget but crashed at Gonesse having lost control.

Gulfstream has announced a new business jet. The G650 will be able to fly further and faster than the G550 (Mach 0.925) and faster even than the Cessna Citation (M0.92) thus becoming the world’s fastest commercial aircraft when it enters service in 2012. To achieve this, it will be powered by more powerful Rolls-Royce engines, BR725s, each of which will produce 17,000lb thrust but with a 4dB drop in cumulative noise and 4% improvement in specific fuel consumption (sfc). This year marks 50 years since the first flight of the the Gulfstream I, which was also powered by Rolls engines (Darts). Since then over 3,000 Rolls engines have been delivered to Gulfstream. However, the British engine maker faces a tough battle against Pratt & Whitney to power future aircraft programs, P&W having forged ahead with its Geared Turbofan (GTF) in the 17,000lb thrust class. Pratt claims that the GTF will be 10-15% more efficient than current engines, as its fan is geared to allow it to rotate at a slower speed than the low-pressure turbine. Thus both it and the LPT can operate within their most efficient speed ranges, and not be forced to turn at the same rate.

The Society of British Aerospace Companies (SBAC) has put out a handy summary on yesterday’s budget, the first by the UK’s new chancellor Alistair Darling. As expected, the environment was a central feature - for example, Air Passenger Duty is to be replaced by a Per Plane Duty beginning 1 November 2009. Also of note was an increase in counter-terrorism spending from £2.5bn in the last tax year to £3.5bn in 2010-11. Defence spending over the next year will see a further £2bn for frontline operations and £900m for equipment. According to the UK Ministry of Defence, the defence budget is set to increase from £32.6bn to £36.9bn in 2010-11, but the extra funds just announced are in addition and come out of the Treasury Reserve. Note that the US defense budget as stated exceeds $400bn, and is probably well over $500bn in reality.

I am now officially a civilian instructor at Wimbledon Squadron (Sqn 18F) of the Air Cadets, the cadet force of the Royal Air Force, and last night was handed the usual guidance material about role and responsibility. As a journalist, I am also taking a keen interest in the image of the Air Cadets and have started to get involved in considering how its myriad benefits for youngsters can be portrayed to a public which is not as one in its support for the armed forces. It was striking during a debate the cadets had on various current issues, that they were shocked by the recent events involving RAF Wittering, where RAF staff have been told not to wear uniform in nearby Peterborough after taunts by certain locals. It is understandable that some will not agree with military action in Afghanistan and Iraq, and it is good that we have freedom of speech (to a certain extent), but one can’t help feeling that understanding of the armed forces is at a relative low-point. We need them and should value them; many others are not nearly as brave. Serving in the armed forces in whatever country is a valuable experience for any young person, and we should stress the ideal that such forces should be for peace-keeping in the first instance. It does not help when spin and lack of ‘intelligence’ causes politicians to rush the armed forces in for the wrong reasons, while failing to prepare for consequences which impact on millions of lives. Most would agree that lessons should be learned… but that’s what most said after Vietnam. [Any views here are of course purely my own as an aviation journalist]. One problem is that the RAF (and more to the point the UK Ministry of Defence) has not been accessible enough to the media over recent years, and in some ways it has paid the price for its paranoia. One result was that defence journalists started to lobby, for want of a better word, for better treatment and access - including to the front line. So it was a great step forward when the RAF invited them up to Air Command at RAF High Wycombe for a background briefing day. It was full of highly relevant presenters on various aspects of the force, and the exchange of information resulted in a clear increase of awareness among the already well-informed press corps.

Today I am doing a course at London Metropolitan University to get a radiotelephony licence, as part of a gradual effort to obtain a JAR PPL. On reflection, I would recommend that anyone considering a PPL in the US, as I did, think carefully as re-acclimatising to UK ways can be very difficult! After a day ploughing through the CAA’s CAP413 manual with very capable senior lecturer David Horton, I thought I had it covered - but then I tried the practical test! Obviously they throw everything at you on one simulated flight, from an engine failure (and miraculous recovery) to spotting a life raft and having to report that (as a ‘Pan Pan’ message) to negotiating Special VFR clearance and MATZ (Military Air Traffic Zone) penetration. It is remarkable that US PPLers don’t have to do an RT test, which in the UK is valid for ten years. The more disciplined UK approach partly reflects the more complex and crowded airspace, particularly in southern England, and the CAA and other organisations are keen to reduce the embarrassingly high level of airspace infringements. GPS use, says Horton, is partially to blame; while in theory it should be simple to avoid controlled airspace when you can see it relative to where you are on a moving map display, some pilots simply reply on the ‘go to’ feature and sit back for the ride. One for Garmin & co to think about perhaps?