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December 2, 2009
By The AVweb Editorial Staff
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The FAA is behind schedule on its proposal for new rules addressing pilot fatigue, and they won't be out until sometime early next year, Peggy Gilligan, the FAA's associate administrator for
aviation safety, told a Senate panel on Tuesday. Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., chairman of the Senate aviation subcommittee, said lawmakers were running out of patience with the FAA, which had said
earlier this year the NPRM would be out by this fall and then extended that to the end of the year. Gilligan also told the aviation subcommittee the new rules will not allow pilots to take naps in the
cockpit as a fatigue-fighting strategy, as some other countries allow. "The crew has to come to work prepared for the schedule they are undertaking," she said. "We can manage and mitigate their
fatigue through the regulations sufficiently that they should be alert throughout that flight." John Prater, president of the Air Line Pilots Association, raised the issue of long commute times for
pilots. "The regional carriers, especially, they lose a contract and all of a sudden, people who lived in Cincinnati for 20 years, flying out of their home base, now have to commute overnight," said
Prater. But Gilligan said that issue may be addressed by FAA guidance to operators rather than in the new rules. "How to do it is hard," she said. "But we know we do need to address it."
The rules will address such issues as the time of day that pilots work and the number of takeoffs and landings they execute, Gilligan said. Besides Prater and Gilligan, the panel heard from Basil
Barimo of the Air Transport Association and William Voss of the Flight Safety Foundation. The statements of each witness and an archive of the webcast can be found online.
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The Seattle Times is reporting that the beefed-up wing root structure of the
Boeing 787 survived testing on Monday and the aircraft is scheduled for a first flight on Dec. 22. Quoting unnamed sources, the newspaper said it had been told that while engineers have not yet given
the final approval on the tests, those who conducted them have declared them a success. Just before the twice-delayed first flight in June, a wing stress test revealed delaminations in support
stringers where the wing meets the fuselage.
Boeing said the failure was a design flaw and, according to the Times, redistribution of the load and the addition of some fasteners have fixed it. The 787 is Boeing's first predominantly composite
airliner and it's about two years behind schedule. The Times says the airplane slated for the first flight was fixed by Nov. 11, and has been moved to the fuel bay and will repeat the high-speed taxi
tests that were done in June.
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Biz Can't Let Its Guard Down, Says Canadian
Board |
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The aircraft industry needs new orders now if it's to avoid even deeper cuts in the future, even though the economy seems to be on the mend according to a Canadian study. The Conference Board of
Canada report (free registration required) says order cancellations over the past year have cut backlogs at
Bombardier and other companies. It says that although things are looking up for the economy, bizjet orders tend to lag up to two years behind the return to prosperity and that could leave a big gap
between when the airplanes currently on the books are built and the next ones are started. Conference Board spokesman Michael Burt told the Montreal Gazette that the overall trend is positive but it's
a question whether recovery will happen quickly enough for aerospace. "We are moving in the right direction," he said. "The question is how quickly we move in the right direction."
The report was written before Bombardier announced 715 layoffs at its Montreal plant last week. Bombardier will announce its third quarter results today and there are no further announcements
expected on the aerospace side. The good news for shareholders is that business is booming for Bombardier's rail and transit divisions and that should almost make up for the decline in the aircraft
business.
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The pilot of a Beaver floatplane that crashed appears to be the only one who can shed light on the cause of the accident, which killed six passengers on Sunday off British Columbia's west coast.
The Seair Beaver had just left Saturna Island, about 30 miles south of Vancouver, when witnesses said it "nosedived" into the water. The unidentified pilot and a female passenger survived but the
other six, including a six-month-old baby, never got out and the airplane sunk to the bottom of the shallow strait between B.C.'s mainland and Vancouver Island. The aircraft was recovered Tuesday but
so far officials have said there is nothing unusual about the wreck. It will be examined thoroughly but the pilot, who remains in hospital with multiple injuries, has not yet provided a
statement.
Seair is a British Columbia charter airline that, according to industry officials, has a stellar reputation for maintenance and operations. The aircraft, which was featured in the Harrison Ford
movie Six Days and Seven Nights in the late 1990s went through a full overhaul about a year ago. It was built in 1957 but is one of more than 600 Beavers still in service all over the world. Weather
conditions were not considered unusual. The pilot had six years of experience, three of them with Seair.
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The FAA this week published a final rule prohibiting takeoffs with "polished frost," which it defines as "frost buffed
to make it smooth," on the wings, stabilizers and control surfaces of aircraft operated under fractional or charter rules. The rule requires operators to remove any frost adhering to critical surfaces
prior to takeoff. Since most such operators already were prevented from using the procedure under FAA operating specs, the change mainly affects operators in Alaska, FAA's Les Dorr told AVweb
on Tuesday. Out of 188 aircraft affected by the new rule, 177 are in Alaska. FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt said the FAA has advised pilots not to take off with frost or ice contaminating their wings
for years, "because it made good sense. Now, it's the law." The change, however, does not apply to non-fractional operators flying under Part 91, although of the 12 frost-related accidents the FAA
identified, 9 involved such operations. Those accidents, the FAA says, would not have been prevented by this new rule. "Nevertheless," the FAA said, "these accidents illustrate the risk involved in
flying with polished frost."
The new rule also clarifies that aircraft operating under Parts 125, 135, or 91 subpart F (fractionals), must have functioning deicing or anti-icing equipment to fly under IFR into known or
forecast light or moderate icing conditions, or under VFR into known light or moderate icing conditions. The new rules take effect Jan. 30. Previous FAA guidance recommended removing all wing frost
prior to takeoff, but allowed it to be polished smooth if the aircraft manufacturer's recommended procedures were followed. But manufacturers never published standards of acceptable smoothness for
polished frost, and the FAA said it has no data to determine exactly how to polish frost to satisfactory smoothness. The new rules include four alternatives to removing frost: use wing covers to
prevent frost accumulation, wait for frost to melt, store the aircraft in a heated hangar, or de-ice the wing surface. Frost can affect the aerodynamics of wings and control surfaces, and the safest
action is to completely remove it, the FAA said.
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| Michael France |
Michael France is the new director of regulatory affairs at the National Air Transportation Association. He was formerly the manager of regulatory affairs.
John Nelson is the new salesman for Air BP in the Southeast. He's a chemical engineer, pilot and founder of an FBO accounting software company.
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| Skytech |
Skytech is bucking the downturn and just opened a new facility at Carroll County Regional Airport (KDMW) where it will continue to deal in high-end single Pipers, Cessnas, and Pilatus aircraft. The
company also recently completed a facility in Charlotte with an eye to serving the rebounding market in two years.
Get a promotion or a new job? Your colleagues want to know about it, and AVwebBiz can get the word out. Drop us a line about the staff
appointment, with a nice recent photo, and we'll do our best to include it in our new section, "Who's Where." The items will be permanently archived on AVweb for future reference,
too.
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AVwebBiz is a weekly summary of the latest business aviation news, articles, products, features, and events featured on AVweb, the internet's aviation magazine and news service.
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Paul Bertorelli
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