Why getting lead out of aviation fuel won't be easy or cheap.

By Rob Mark
Updated: August 5, 2019

The success of the stretched-fuselage 767-300 and -300ER variants caused Boeing to consider producing a larger version. This would have had a wider fuselage than the original 767’s existing seven-abreast 2-3-2 setup, and initially designated as the 767-X. It first proposed this in 1986, but the concept garnered minimal interest among prospective customers.

Two years later, Boeing reworked the 767-X design into a new twinjet family that would later become the popular 777 series. This design first flew in 1994, and United introduced it commercially a year later. As such, the 767’s decline can partially be seen as a consequence of its own success in that it led to the development of the 777. Had the 767-X remained a 767 family member, the series may have experienced greater sales and a slower decline.

More recently, Boeing has also launched another twin-engine widebody in the form of the 787 ‘Dreamliner’ family. This nine-abreast design is smaller than the 777 series, putting it on a par, capacity-wise, with some of the 767’s larger variants. Since its introduction in 2011, many airlines have ordered the 787 as a replacement for the 767 due to its greater range and efficiency, further contributing to its fall in the last decade. //

In terms of cargo, the aircraft still has an important role to play. Boeing is reportedly producing three 767 freighters a month, and states that it:

“… continues to see strong market demand for 767 airplanes, which offer outstanding operational efficiency and payload configuration. Cargo operators around the world keep the global 767 Freighter fleet busy, flying the model an average of 10 hours a day.” //

According to Boeing’s Orders and Deliveries data, the company still has 97 outstanding orders for the 767. Of these, more than a third (33 aircraft) are to be delivered to FedEx. The Memphis-based logistics giant already has 100 767s in its fleet, according to Planespotters.net. Interestingly, 57 of the outstanding orders are for air tanker companies, showing that, in the domain of air-to-air refueling, the 767 remains a versatile aircraft.

Andy Warhol famously remarked in the 1960s that “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.” What a failure of imagination. He simply couldn’t foresee the advent of cellphone cameras, GoPros and the vast digital sewage processing plant otherwise known as YouTube. Once upon a time, home movies were just that, but easy access to all the world’s eyeballs now means that anyone—and I mean anyone—can produce their own reality show and probably attract an audience of viewers too busy to actually attend train wrecks in person. //

David Gagliardi
October 7, 2020 at 11:15 pm
I tell all my students that in a retractable gear airplane an off runway forced approach is always gear up. The instant the engine fails the insurance company just bought the airplane. //

Jim Holdeman
October 7, 2020 at 5:05 pm
Having practiced many times a loss of power via pulling the throttle back to idle, I thought I was prepared enough to handle a total loss of power. However, when the real deal happens in a complex airplane, the reality of total loss of thrust with a wind-milling prop compared to all the common practice is quite a shock.

The descent profile in an attempt to maintain best glide speed is extremely steep. Far steeper than can be replicated in practice emergencies. Depending on throttle position and airplane manufacture, you also have not only a stall warning blaring when you get too slow but the gear horn as well while the gear is still in the wells. These noises are really amplified when the engine truly goes silent vs this 210 with the engine still running.

It makes an interesting cocktail of sensations as the emergency progresses. The sense of denial is astounding, paralyzing at first. Once that is overcome, the next sensation for me was the initial chirp of the stall warning and how loud it now was. I already knew I was slowing down by sound and control feel. However, even when a thought I had really pushed the nose down enough, within seconds I learned quickly…that was not enough. Having pushed the nose down a second time with a real heavy, fast, and long throw push, I had to do my best to trim for that much nose low attitude required, at the same time while searching for a suitable landing site. I was so busy and also dealing with the amazement of how nose low I had to be just to maintain something within 20 mph of published best glide speed that flying the airplane took a lot of attention away from looking for a field to land in.

Since I was flying still way short of best glide speed but well beyond stall speed, I had to make a decision of two potential landing sites based on a descent angle I have never seen before. One was much better than the other. But, it was very uncertain I would make the good one based on this new descent profile. If this was a practice engine out with idling engine, I would have had the good field made easily.

It was extremely hard to turn away from the good field ( the airport perimeter) and aim for the poorer landing site that was at least attainable from my present glide path. Now the question is when to put down the flaps…and make the decision gear down or gear up. And from the several attempts at a restart, the throttle was now positioned at idle adding the gear horn to the atmosphere. Since I saw what appeared as grass, I elected to put the gear down. The amount of forward yoke required as the gear came down now made me very thankful I took the lousy but still reachable field. Now I wondered if I would have enough elevator authority to flare. The grass turned out to be about 3-4 ft tall. As I flared with a mighty pull (through all the down trim pressure) that went to the up elevator stop, the main gear went into the tops of the grass, slowing me down way faster than expected, with a hit hard on all three. I rolled about 50 feet and hit a ditch perpendicular to my path the tall grass was hiding. The nose gear was sheared off and over I went in a split second on my back, stopping instantly.

This happened several years ago. This particular week, I was the third of three Bonanza crashes due to total power loss. I was the only non-fatal. I am a praying man. And I have seen prayers answered many, many times. God understands airplanes very well including good pilot training. I can emphatically say, His voice said” fly the airplane”. That very loud command clearly over-riding all noise, confusion, headset radio background chatter, etc, instantly snapping me out of my paralyzing denial funk. Many might try to make the claim my excellent training supplied that voice. If you are a praying person, you will know God’s Voice. His Voice is unmistakable.

Secondly, this airplane had only lap belts on a non adjustable seat. By all rights, and the law of physics, my head should have been buried into the panel with my upper torso shoved into the throw over yoke. My legs did hit the bottom of the panel bruising them just above the knee. I suffered a cut to the top of my head from the speaker grille when it came loose. A lost my glasses and my cell phone from my pocket from the sudden stop and being flipped over. The most painful and scary part after I stopped was how to get out of the lap belt and not break my neck and/or shoulder when hitting the ceiling. No matter how I tried to stretch, I could not reach the ceiling with the lap belt holding me upside down. So, I knew I was going to fall the last 12 inches directly on my head. I did not get hurt but it was another hard, awkward, hit for my body. Next, I had to figure how to get out of the airplane. The top of the cabin was slightly crushed preventing me from opening the door. So, I had to crawl to the back of the airplane and try to read upside down how to open the rear side windows. Once a figured that out and pulled the pin, I kicked out the window and crawled out. Total time of the event from start to finish was estimated to be about 35 seconds. I was at 3,500 feet when the engine quit making noise. I could see the airport.

Lastly, the first responder was a member of the local helo/medivac team who had just left the hangar and was walking to his car. He heard the engine quit, saw the entire event, lost sight of me in the tall grass until he saw the tail go over and then disappear again. I could not believe, he was standing there in front of me as soon as I got out of the airplane. Since I had lost my glasses, he had to get fairly close to me for me to recognize him as someone I knew.

At the time of the accident, I had 400 hours TT and 1.5 hours in a Bonanza. I had to fly between a tree line and a power pole going to a shed, while still clearing a 6 foot fence that looked to be not a whole lot larger than my wingspan, to plop down in that tall grass. That was not my extraordinary skill combined with a lot of time in type. God snapped me out of my denial, helped me through the trees, lines, and fence. And made sure I did not become implanted into the panel and the yoke. There was no fire. I don’t remember doing it but I did cut the mixture and ignition before touchdown. My total distance from touchdown to inverted stop about 80 feet from and estimated touchdown of 50-60mph. I walked away, the airplane never flew again. Yes, God intervened.

I did not get spared the fright, the denial, the new sensations, the sudden stop. I flew again about a week later. It was a very scary initial flight to overcome what I now know as…total, abject fear. I do not want to experience that kind of fear again. It took me several hours to get comfortable again in an airplane. 10 years later, I own a Bonanza. However, for me, there is no question God intervened to allow me to perhaps tell this story as an encouragement and/ or education for someone else.

If faced with this situation again, I would have open the cabin door, and really think twice about putting down the gear in an off airport landing. Under normal pattern power or even idle power, the pitch change in a Bonanza is noticeable requiring some nose up trim but certainly not dramatic. But after dealing with the reality of how far one must push the nose over to maintain flying speed with all loss of power from cruise, I was unprepared for the amount the second push forward required close to the ground when the gear was on its way down followed with the quick need for a mighty heave for the flare. I never used any flaps. The airplane was already coming down fast and I had all I could to flare.

Flying Ingenuity in Mars’s atmosphere is therefore the equivalent of flying a helicopter on Earth at a height of 100,000 feet. //

Then there’s the Martian gravity to consider, which is about one-third the strength of gravity on Earth. This actually gives us a slight advantage. If Mars had the same atmosphere as Earth, it’s lesser gravity means we’d be able to lift Ingenuity with less power than would be required here.

But while Mars’s gravity works to our advantage, this is offset by the lack of atmosphere.

Ingenuity’s success marks the first time such a flight has even been attempted outside of Earth. And the reason for this may simply be that, as laid out above, this task is very, very difficult. //

There are two main ways Ingenuity was able to overcome the hurdles presented in Mars’s atmosphere. Firstly, to generate lift, the two rotors (made from carbon fibre) had to spin much faster than any helicopter’s on Earth.

On Earth, most helicopters and drones have rotors that spin at about 400-500 revolutions per minute. The Ingenuity’s rotor spun at about 2,400 revolutions per minute. //

As a touching tribute to the first powered flight on Earth, scientists at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory added a historic artefact to the Mars helicopter. Attached to a cable underneath one of its solar panels is a small piece of the wing from the Wright brothers’ 1903 Wright flyer.

This item of flight history is the second piece of an Earth aircraft to go into space; a similar piece of the wing was taken to the Moon during the Apollo missions.

A well-known Ohio pilot and aviation columnist may be the first to run afoul of a new regulation triggered by the ADS-B mandate enacted in 2020. Martha Lunken, 78, who pens a popular column in Flying Magazine and is a fixture in Midwest aviation, flew under a bridge near her home airport, which bears her name, in southern Ohio in March of 2020, an impulsive and “immature” stunt she told AVweb she knew was wrong. But a coincidental malfunction of her Cessna 180’s transponder with ADS-B-Out may have resulted in her being slapped with an emergency revocation of all her certificates instead of the suspension that normally accompanies such transgressions. //

Lunken, who has spent 60 years flying in that area, said that if she was trying to prevent Big Brother from watching her do something, there are myriad easier and virtually undetectable ways to do it. //

As for the stunt itself, which has been the focus of most of the social media attention and reaction, Lunken said it was just a silly spur-of-the-moment thing. “I looked over my left shoulder and I saw the bridge and I thought ‘I just have to fly under that bridge before I get old.’” The Jeremiah Morrow Bridge is 239 feet above the Little Miami River Gorge and Lunken said she didn’t have to draw very heavily on her 18,000 hours of experience to get to the other side. “It certainly didn’t take any skill,” she said. As for it being a reflection of her attitude toward safety and the regs, she said nothing could be further from the truth. “It is not part of a pattern of behavior and I am not an irresponsible pilot,” she said. “I would never have put anyone in danger.”

A security camera snapped a picture of her passage and the FAA sent her a letter a few weeks later saying they were investigating. //

FAA enforcement guidelines call for a period of suspension of 30 days to four months for the bridge stunt, which is a violation of altitude and distance-from-objects regs. “I knew it was illegal and I did it anyway,” she said. “I’m 78 and I’m still not very mature and I hope I never am.” When she didn’t hear anything after six months, she thought the FAA had dropped the matter. The emergency revocation letter was delivered March 19.

Lunken said she’s considered appealing the revocation but her lawyers estimated the cost at $25,000. Instead, she’s spending her time watching from the ground while others fly and hitting the books to reclaim her private pilot certificate. Revocation cancels all certificates and ratings (she was an ATP) and she has to start over to get back in the air. So far, it’s been an eye-opener as she studies for the written. “A lot has changed in 60 years,” she said. Normally, a revocation prevents the guilty party from taking flight training for a year but her legal team negotiated a three-month reduction. “I’ll be a student pilot in December.”

This week the investors that own the Global SuperTanker just informed me that they have made the difficult decision to cease operations of the company, effective this week…This is extremely disappointing as the aircraft has been configured and tuned with a new digital drop system and other upgrades to make it more safe and efficient. //

In an April 2020 letter posted on the National Wildfire Coordinating Group’s website the Chair of the National Interagency Aviation Committee, Joel Kerley of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, wrote to Global Supertanker Services saying the Committee would not issue a seventh interim approval of the aircraft’s retardant delivery system:

The Interagency Air Tanker Subcommittee does not support any further interim approvals without correcting some issues originally identified in the 2009 test of the system that included failure to meet coverage level 3 & 6, retention of retardant in the system after drop, aeration of the retardant causing trail off, and inconsistent flight profiles affecting retardant coverage.

Due to the current national situation regarding the Coronavirus (COVID-19), NIAC will issue an eighth interim approval to GSTS. However, NIAC will not support, nor issue a ninth interim until GSTS successfully passes all requirements of the 2013 IABS Criteria. This must be completed prior to December 31, 2020. //

Most large air tankers carry up to 3,000 gallons of retardant. The 747 is capable of carrying far more retardant than any other. When first introduced it was listed at 20,000 gallons. Then the federal government certified it at 19,200 gallons. More recently it was required to carry no more than 17,500 gallons. The second-largest capacity air tanker is the Russian-made Ilysushin IL-76 at 11,574 gallons. The DC-10 until a couple of years ago was allowed to hold 11,600 but federal officials now restrict it to 9,400. //

I asked a Lead Plane Pilot who has worked with Tanker 944 for his impressions of the aircraft. He is currently active and not authorized to comment publicly:

It’s a specialized tool, and as such it has a niche that it fills and in that niche there’s nothing else any better. That is, it puts out a huge amount of retardant in one pass, and that sometimes can be a great thing. It can travel halfway around the world and deliver product. Having said that it is also a specialized tool in that it isn’t very good at doing the little stuff.

I asked him about the retardant that sometimes trails off after a drop:

That trail off, that’s something they can beat them over the head with, but at the end of the day hardly anybody I know gives a s**t about it. Ok, well, it’s not a perfect tank.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is hard to overlook the importance of local general aviation airports as commercial airlines cut back on service, flights and personnel. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, there are approximately 5,100 public use airports in the nation that are accessed by general aviation aircraft, compared to approximately 500 that offer commercial airline service. This means that business aviation reaches 10 times the number of U.S. airports than do the airlines. //

According to the National Business Aviation Association, business aviation contributes $150 billion to U.S. economic output and employs more than 1.2 million people. In addition, general aviation activities reap substantial financial benefits for every state in the nation. Only about three percent of the approximately 15,000 business aircraft registered in the U.S. are flown by Fortune 500 companies, while the remaining 97 percent are operated by a broad cross-section of organizations, including governments, universities, charitable organizations and businesses.

A TBM Avenger from the Valiant Air Command performing at the Cocoa Beach Air Show in Florida put on a show for some people on the beach on Saturday when the pilot set it down in the surf for a textbook ditching. Audio in the accompanying video features the staccato notes of a dying radial engine as the big single-engine attack aircraft settles softly into the chop in front of astonished beachgoers.

Boeing’s 747 assembly line is winding down. The aircraft manufacturer only has 12 orders left to fill. When the last jumbo rolls off the assembly line, it will mark the end of an era for an aircraft that’s spanned fifty-plus years. Production of the plane is expected to wrap up next year.

Boeing’s list of unfilled orders, current at March 31, confirms the 12 unfilled deliveries. According to Boeing, four Boeing 747-8Fs are going to Atlas Air, seven Boeing 747-8Fs are going to UPS, and a single 747-8 is going to an unidentified customer. //

So what do we know? Those four 747 freighters going to Atlas Air were only locked in three months ago. The New York-based global freight business already operates 53 Boeing 747s and will now take the final four Boeing builds. John Dietrich, President and CEO of Atlas Air, called the 747-8F the best and most versatile widebody freighter in the world. Mr Dietrich also thinks there will be demand for the big planes to fly freight for some time. //

Highspeeddirt
14 Apr

To paraphrase Lindbergh, four engines means twice as much to go wrong. You lose an engine on a three- or four-engine jet you still have to divert. I did an article for Av Week back in the day that revealed ETOPS twins had fewer turn backs and diversions than quads and tri-engine jetliners, backed by statistics. //

Hank
Dazza367
14 Apr

Sadly, Boeing isn't capable of developing anything anymore...at least not to a competitive cost and schedule.

There was a good article published by The Atlantic called “The Long Forgotten Flight that Sent Boeing Off Course” that explains this very well. There was a good article published by Forbes called "Boeing Will Pay High Price For McNerney's Mistake Of Treating Aviation Like It Was Any Other Industry" that explains this very well. There is also the famous 2009 "Bob Bogash Not Acceptable” discussion amongst Boeing retirees, including Program General Managers and VPs, that explains this very well.

The Malaysia 17 story has been told. But beneath the knotted narratives of the accepted version of events, well woven in the three years since the Boeing was brought into an afternoon cornfield in Ukraine, lies a simpler, darker truth. //

As industry experts, we’ve comforted ourselves knowing that “Nobody considered that civil aircraft, at cruising altitude, were at risk” (Dutch Safety Board report). When fingers were pointed at Malaysia Airlines for overflying a war zone, we were quick to tell the public “Not fair. Everybody else did as well”. We were all apparently operating under the same misguided reassurance that this was a war going on underneath the airways, and that cruising at 33,000 over the top of it would be just fine. As an airline pilot at the time, I did the same as everyone else using the eastern Ukraine routes, and monitored the conflict beneath us with interest on each flight, but without concern.

But what if we could have known — what if the risk information was actually there, but for some reason we weren’t seeing it?

Well, it was. //

On a routine post-Soviet eastern block overflight, I will see tens, maybe hundred of Tempo Restricted Areas in my 20, 30, maybe 50 page NOTAM Briefing. Russia is very fond of them, as are many Eastern European countries. I don’t plot the coordinates of them, and I trust that Air Traffic Control will keep me out of anywhere I shouldn’t be.

I would discard it with a glance and move to the next one.

But wait.
_
This notice was on board MH17. This was the warning from the Ukraine Authorities that something was going on that the MH17 crew should know about. It was published on the Monday, three days before MH17 was shot down, and it was published only because on that Monday at 9am, an aircraft at FL210 (21,000 feet) had been shot down.

To the pilot, to the dispatcher, and to the crew of MH17 it’s indecipherable. It looks the same as every other routine TRA.

What if, instead, the Authorities had simply written what they meant? //

The core problem of the Notam system is not language. The core problem is that we rely on a single source for critical flight information and analysis. The State.
So, can the state be relied upon to provide that information? Can the state be trusted? In the case of Malaysian 17, it seems not. The vague language may or may not have been deliberate, but there was nobody else to provide the check and balance.
In many cases, states flagrantly disregard the basic principle of the Notam system. A Notam is clearly defined as “information concerning the establishment, condition or change in any aeronautical facility, service, procedure or hazard, the timely knowledge of which is essential”.
Almost all states are guilty of ignoring the word essential. The vast majority of Notams now in the system are anything but. Many are completely unreadable by humans. Some of the garbage in the system has to be seen to be believed. //

Worse still, states routinely omit information, or hijack the system. Greece and Turkey use the Notam system to score political points, endlessly discussing boundary disputes. Deeply troubled states like Libya, Syria, Iraq, Somalia and Yemen cannot be trusted to provide essential information. For others, like Egypt, protecting tourism is consistently higher priority than publishing safety of flight information.

The NOTAM problem is clear. We have an antiquated, cumbersome, ineffective, frustrating, dangerous system. Pilots are missing the essential few pieces of information, unable to hear the call of criticality in a cacophony of irrelevant noise. //

Never before have we had this energy. Not in 1964, when we were first promised a better system, not in 2014, when the MH17 crew were cruelly handed a set of unusable coordinates and cryptic text to warn them of the risk in eastern Ukraine, not in 2017 when I wrote that Notam article, nor a few months later when the Air Canada crew became victim to the same problem. Nor in 2018, when we ran the Notam Goat Show in Geneva, and first published our Field Guide to Notams. //

In a Summit, there’s a clear attachment to an outcome – getting something done. Its dictionary definition says it’s a top-level meeting of minds, and those minds were here. //

The presentations came thick and fast. We watched, we listened. A steady stream of people showcasing how they manage the problem – how they are parsing the current format of Notams. Flight Briefings from Leido. Fancy graphics from Foreflight. DoD flight planning interfaces. Notam Search from the FAA. A multitude of front-ends that attach to a gremlin-laden back end with all the structure of a chronic hoarders hallway.

And now, an outsider: Drew Zachary from the US Census Bureau. But wait, can aviation learn from not-aviation? Surely we have all the answers here already? What could we learn from someone outside our field? As it turned out, everything. Of all the morning presentations, this one would set the scene for a change in the weather. Turns out, it’s not an aviation problem, it’s a data problem. And Drew showed us some novel things: How to build an API. How to listen to customers. How to structure large chunks of source data. How to make data available in a form that allows the customer to use it effectively.

Wow.

But dreams were quickly crushed. We were told by the next speaker that building fancy API’s were for the Stripes and Slacks of this world, and not for the FAA. Granted, Stripe (payments) and Slack (messaging) have a combined valuation of $48 billion and lead the way for API design and documentation, //

Enter Abby Smith, FAA.

Just behind those aircraft-at-peace lies the White House, where Ronald Reagan famously said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help.”

There’s a strong urge in our ops community to lay the responsibility for the Notam problem at the door of Government. After all, in each country around the world, it’s the CAA, CASA, the DGCA, the FAA – the agency, the administration, the authority, the directorate: all of which are the Government, that is responsible for the steady stream of Notams. Can they truly take responsibility for fixing them, too? Or do they just want to look like they are?

I like to believe there are no coincidences. After lunch, the sun comes out. That ominous, nebulous overcast is steadily replaced with warming rays of November sunshine. Abby is that light. She is, unquestionably, truly here to help.

Abby Smith’s title is FAA Executive Champion of NOTAM Modernization. Back to the dictionary. “Key agent of change … the Executive Champion must gather resources, create a strategy, and keep the process moving. They must manage points of contention and chart the course to full acceptance.”

The title is telling, and shows that the vision is real. The FAA really wants to see Notams fixed.

The vice chairman of the US National Transportation Safety Board, Bruce Landsberg, has published a commentary on the NTSB’s blog on the human factors and systemic failures which led to the near-miss collision on 7 July 2017 between an Air Canada A320, inbound from Toronto, and four other aircraft awaiting takeoff at San Francisco International Airport.

Landsberg suggests that the events, which occurred near midnight, had the potential to be twice as deadly as the 27 March 1977 collision between two Boeing 747s on the runway in Tenerife; an incident which killed 583 people and remains the deadliest crash in aviation history.

In the Air Canada incident, disaster was averted by 13 feet, when pilots realized their error and aborted landing, but it was a very close call. //

The problem was that the Air Canada pilots did not realize the parallel runway (28 Left) was closed, and lined up for landing on a nearby taxiway instead of their assigned runway. //

The NTSB investigation was hampered somewhat by what happened next. The captain, exhausted, did not notify the Air Canada dispatcher of the incident before going to bed. At that point, he had been awake for 19 hours.

“The captain was not technically ‘on duty’ that whole time, and, under Canadian regulations for reserve crew members, he still could have been available for duty for another 9 hours,” Landsberg says. “If we expect solid human performance where lives are at stake, fatigue rules need to be based on human factors science. The NTSB has recommended that Canada’s fatigue regulations be modified.”

When the captain filed his report 16 hours later, the aircraft had already taken off on a morning flight. The 2-hours of cockpit voice recorder (CVR) data was overwritten.

Recommendations from the NTSB report are based on what investigators could deduce from the evidence available.

One is that the FAA revise the format of NOTAMs (Notices to Airmen), something which the agency was originally tasked with doing in 2012.

“NOTAMs contain dozens of notices of varying importance, such as closed taxiways, wet runways, and small, unlit towers miles from the airport. Information about closed runways, however, is critical,” Landsberg states. “From a human factors perspective, we found that the presentation of information in the NOTAM the crew received did not effectively convey the information about the runway closure.

It’s absolutely ridiculous.

We communicate the most critical flight information, using a system invented in 1920, with a format unchanged since 1924, burying essential information that will lose a pilot their job, an airline their aircraft, and passengers their lives, in a mountain of unreadable, irrelevant bullshit.

Yes CASA Australia, that’s you. Yes, Greek CAA, that’s you. And you’re not alone. //

In an unintended twist of irony, the agencies seeking to cover their legal ass are party to creating the most criminal of systems – an unending flow of aeronautical sewage rendering the critical few pieces of information unfindable.

This is more than just hugely frustrating for each pilot, dispatcher, and controller that has to parse through it all; it’s downright dangerous.

If you’re a pilot, you’ll either have already experienced this, or you’re going to – you stuff something up, and then be told: “but there was a Notam out about that”. Sure enough, there it is in black and white (and in big capital letters). Do you think that “but there were 100 pages of them” is going to be a valid defence?

Well, it should be. The same agency conducting your post-incident interview is busy on the other end stuffing the system full of the garbage that prevented you from seeing it in the first place. //

There are three parts to the problem: the system, the format, and the content. The system is actually quite amazing. The AFTN network connects every country in the world, and Notam information once added is immediately available to every user. Coupled with the internet, delivery is immediate.

The format is, at best, forgivable. It’s pretty awful. It’s a trip back in time to when Notams were introduced. You might think that was the 1960’s, or the 50’s. In fact, it’s 1924, when 5-bit ITA2 was introduced. The world shifted to ASCII in 1963, bringing the Upper and Lower case format that every QWERTY keyboard uses today, but we didn’t follow – nope, we’ll stick with our 1924 format, thank you.

Read that again. 1924. Back then, upper case code-infested aeronautical messages would have seemed impressive and almost reassuring in their aloofness. But there weren’t in excess of 1 million Notams per year, a milestone we passed in 2013. The 1 million milestone is remarkable in itself, but here’s something else amazing: in 2006, there were only 500,000. So in seven years, Notams doubled. Why? Are there twice as many airports in the world? No. Twice as many changes and updates? Possibly. But far more likely: the operating agencies became twice as scared about leaving things out. //

It’s not what comes out that needs to be fixed, it’s what goes in.

Even in 1921, we had much the same problem. Obstacle, 18 feet high, several miles from the runway.

Nobody cares. Unless you’ve parked the Eiffel Tower on the threshold, leave this stuff for the AIP. And nobody cares about kites either. Nor about goat-grazing times. We don’t care if your bird scarer is U/S. We don’t care if there’s a cherry-picker fixing a bulb somewhere. We don’t care when you’re cutting your grass.

Nor do we care about closed taxiways. The only way I can get onto a taxiway is with an ATC clearance, and ATC will not clear me onto a closed taxiway.

We care if the airport is going to be closed when we get there. If we’re going to have to divert because the runway is shut. If someone might shoot at us. If there are new rules. We care about the critical items, but we won’t see them as things stand.

For over 60 years, Pan Am grew as a dominant operator of international flights from the US. While it is this legacy it is remembered for; it also became one of the largest ever operators of fifth freedom flights between other cities. Many of these started as a method to promote viable growth on long-haul operations and went on to become important routes in their own right. //

First, a quick recap on what a fifth freedom flight is. In simplest terms, it is a flight between two countries that are not the operating airline’s home base. It is permitted as part of a flight to or from the airline’s base. As an example – Singapore Airlines operates flights from Singapore to Frankfurt and on to New York. It is permitted to sell tickets for the Frankfurt to New York sector as a fifth freedom flight. //

Fifth freedom flights were conceived as part of the Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation in December 1944. In these early days of aviation, such routes were vital for many airlines operating international flights. Several stops were common on long routes, and restricting airlines only to carry passengers between bases would be very limiting. In short, they made long-haul operations economically viable.

Covering 14 million square kilometres Antarctica is nearly twice the size of Australia and accounts for 90 per cent of the world’s fresh water in the form of ice. This ice covers more than 99 per cent of the continent with an average thickness of 2,000 metres and only the coastal rocky outcrops and rising mountain peaks escape the ice sheet. Its average elevation of 2,300 metres makes it the highest continent on earth, the coldest with a recorded temperature of -89.6C and the windiest, with gravity-assisted katabatic winds hurtling down the slopes at up to 320 km/h. The minimal amount of moisture received by the polar plateau compares to the driest deserts on earth.

Antarctica is a unique place and while its mystery and majesty draws scientists and tourists, it also calls for a range of additional considerations for aircraft venturing into the region. //

The nature of the environment is unlike any other into which the airline operates. There are peaks reaching 16,000 feet, although the highest mountain in the potential area of operations is Mount Minto which towers at 13,600 feet. Consequently, the Lowest Safe Altitude (LSALT) for operations is a significant consideration. Additionally, altimetry in the region is based on the United States transition level of Flight Level 180 and given the extremes of temperature, cold temperature corrections are applied to the QNH.

Furthermore, just as altimetry requires special attention, so does navigation which normally uses magnetic North as its reference. Throughout the flight GPS allows a precise track to be flown, however, the heading reference of the aircraft is switched from magnetic to true as the 747 passes 60 degrees South. Less technical, but equally vital, are a series of topographical ‘strip maps’ which add to the overall situational awareness of the crew.

Communications are primarily through (Controller Pilot Data Link Communications) CPDLC and Australian, New Zealand and United States airspace all come into play. Additionally, contact is made with McMurdo station approaching the scenic viewing area and Traffic Information Broadcasts by Aircraft (TIBA) are made on schedule over Antarctica.

As safety is the prime consideration in all flight operations, the importance of a positive handover-takeover procedure between pilots is reinforced to ensure that one pilot is always maintaining a positive watch over the aircraft. And while this may seem self-evident, such amazing scenery as the pilots will witness requires positive cockpit discipline to avoid any lapse in monitoring the aircraft’s flightpath with reference to the instruments.

Recall that strategic competition is largely about generating disruption. Broadly speaking, disruption typically happens in two ways. At one end is innovation, which military leadership has been endlessly calling for. This is reflected in the surge of research and development funding to explore promising new technology that takes many years to mature and manifest (if ever). At the other end is adaption, where users of equipment find new ways to use combinations of what is available. Where the former is slow, bureaucratic, and well-funded, the latter is exactly the opposite. //

Adaption, not innovation, is the compelling variable in rapidly linking emergent strategies with deliberate strategies in strategic competition. Operators live in a world where the hope of innovation is not an option — we go to war with what we have. We adapt by embracing industriousness, ingenuity, and creativity to generate advantages on the battlefield and in the sky — we call this being tactical. Applying this mentality strategically would get the Air Force off the beaten path to find more rapid and disruptive ways to economically compete. Stop thinking about the F-15EX as a fighter and start viewing it as an adaptable platform. //

Though the F-15 airframe was designed to be solely an air superiority fighter, it has been used to shoot down satellites, fly to 100,000 feet, manually pilot rocket-powered precision bombs onto targets before GPS, employ stealth cruise missiles, shoot over-the-horizon anti-ship missiles, simultaneously employ multiple 5,000 lb. bunker busters, and fly 800 miles per hour just 100 feet above the ground, at night, in the weather — on autopilot. It’s even been turned into a thrust vectoring Mach 2 NASA flight test vehicle capable of taking off at just 42 mph and landing on less than 1,700 feet of runway. None of these uses were a product of the F-15’s original capabilities. Rather, they came from adaption, which was in turn built off knowledge gained from hundreds of thousands of flight hours and decades of flight science research with a platform with enabling attributes. //

Finally, for perspective on adaption, look at the venerable B-52 Stratofortress. When it entered service in 1952, no one could have imagined a bomber would be used to shoot nuclear cruise missiles, deliver stand-off precision-guided naval mines, put satellites into orbit, launch a Mach 9 hypersonic vehicle, or serve as a flight test bed for NASA. Thanks to its sheer mass and rugged design, it can accommodate the size, weight, and power considerations of emerging technology and will remain relevant for 100 years of operations — stealth not required. If you think this sounds a lot like F-15EX, you’re right. //

Updating a common phrase that originated from an airpower zealot a century ago: Flexibility, agility, and versatility are the key to airpower.

A Skybus Air Cargo Douglas DC-8 was flying from Miami, Florida, to Georgetown, Guyana yesterday when it had to return to its departing airport due to flap issues. Notably, the aircraft in this incident is over five decades old. //

It is a unique experience to spot a DC-8 presently. The plane was produced between 1958 and 1972 and was a favorite among several veteran airlines.

Today, Skybus holds three units of the type. OB-2059-P, the aircraft involved in the flap incident, first joined Skybus in April 2013. However, its history traces back to July 1968, when it was introduced with Flying Tiger Line. Altogether, according to Planespotters.net, the plane was first produced 52.8 years ago at Long Beach, California. Cargolux, Air India, Evergreen International Airlines, TNT, UPS, DHL, and Peruvian Airlines are some of the other operators that have held the unit.

KLM – October 1919
KLM (Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij in full) is generally recognized as the oldest airline still in service, under its original name. It was established in October 1919. //

Avianca – December 1919
Avianca comes in very close behind KLM, founded just a few months later, in December 2019. It started life in Barranquilla, backed by German expatriates, as SCADTA (The Colombia-German Air Transport Company). //

Qantas – November 1920
Australian airline Qantas makes it to third place. Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services (Qantas) started in 1920 with a mission to service the sparsely populated northern regions of the country. //

Overseas services began in 1934 when Qantas and Imperial Airways (a predecessor of British Airways) jointly formed Qantas Empire Airways Limited (QEA). The route to the UK with Shorts S23 Empire flying boats in 1938 took nine days. //

Qantas was nationalized after the Second World War, and services continued with both flying boats and aircraft such as the Avro Lancastrian and the DC4. Jet service began with the 707 in 1959. For several years in the 1980s, it operated an all 747 fleet, making its retirement particularly sad.

Lufthansa flight two two two two to Toulouse... this is just... ahum... too much!