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Air France To Cancel Flights In May Pilot Strike
Air France pilots plan to strike for several hours per day in May to protest against what they say are limits on their right to strike. Air France said the strikes will disrupt its schedule and will prevent flight connections at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport, which is why it plans to cancel most of the flights threatened by the action. Air France pilots' union SNPL said it plans to strike daily between 05:45 and 07:45, and 12:45 and 15:45 local time between May 3 and May 30. The union wants the cancellation of a law that forces them to give 48 hours' notice of a strike.
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Malaysia Names Leader Of MH370 Investigation Team
Malaysia has appointed Kok Soo Chon, a former director-general at the department of civil aviation, to lead the international investigation team tasked to find the cause of the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, the government said on Tuesday. Other team members are from the US National Transport Safety Board, Britain's Air Accidents Investigations Branch, China's Aircraft Accident Investigation Department, France's Land Transport Accident Investigation Bureau, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, aircraft manufacturer Boeing and British satellite communications company Inmarsat. The team also has representatives from Singapore and Indonesia.
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Firm Says Finds Plane Debris In Bay Of Bengal - Report
A private company said it had found what it believes is wreckage of a plane in the Bay of Bengal that should be investigated as possible debris from missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, CNN reported. The Joint Agency Coordination Centre managing the multinational search for the missing plane dismissed the possibility, saying it continued to believe that the plane came down in the southern Indian Ocean off Australia. The Bay of Bengal is located between India and Myanmar, thousands of miles from the current search area.
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Venezuela Failing To Keep Promises - IATA
Venezuela should urgently release USD$3.9 billion owed to airlines over ticket sales, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said on Tuesday, saying the government was not keeping to promises to offer fair exchange rates. The South American nation requires airlines to bill tickets in its bolivar currency and for close to two years the state currency board has denied airline requests to convert ticket sales revenue into hard currency and repatriate the funds. The Venezuela government said at the end of March that it would allow foreign airlines to repatriate the money, using the exchange rate in place at the time the fares were sold.
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Spirit Airlines Posts Higher Q1 Profit
Low-cost US carrier Spirit Airlines on Tuesday reported a higher profit for the first quarter as it added flights. Net income was USD$37.7 million in the quarter, compared with USD$30.6 million a year earlier.
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Five firms invited to bid for Falklands SAR work
Five rotorcraft operators have qualified to participate in the UK Ministry of Defence’s tender for the provision of search and rescue and support helicopter services in the Falkland Islands. Announced on 23 April, the five shortlisted companies are UK-based Avincis, Bristow Helicopters, CHC Scotia and FB Heliservices, plus US firm AAR International. None of the operators have provided detail of their possible bids, either in terms of the equipment proposed or the number of aircraft. Presently performed by the Royal Air Force using Westland Sea Kings, the operation partly exists to provide a search and rescue presence for the service’s Falklands-based fleet of four Eurofighter Typhoons. However, the aged helicopters are due to be phased out from 2015.
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Snecma readies Silvercrest for first flight
Snecma is making final preparations for the first flight of its Silvercrest 11,450lb-thrust (51kN)-class business jet engine, with the powerplant already installed aboard a Gulfstream II flying testbed. The French manufacturer is aiming to achieve EASA certification by mid-2015, ahead of service entry on the new Dassault 5X in 2017. At present, seven ground-test articles have been produced, with simulated high-altitude trials currently taking place at a French government-owned facility west of Paris, says program director Laurence Finet.
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Boeing continues efforts to keep Chinook, V-22 production humming
Boeing continues to search for new buyers of its CH-47 Chinook tandem-rotor helicopter as it seeks to keep production at its factory near Philadelphia active beyond the end of this decade. The company is also seeking overseas customers for the Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey, and is pursuing a plan under which the US Navy would use the type as resupply aircraft for its carrier battle groups. “With the way the US defence budget is, international sales [will] help stabilise the production line and suppliers,” said Mark Ballew, Boeing’s director of vertical lift business development.
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RAF Typhoons arrive to strengthen Baltic air policing
Four Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4s from the Royal Air Force’s 3 Sqn touched down at Siauliai air base in Lithuania on 28 April, to support Poland’s provision of quick reaction alert cover for the Baltic states from 1 May.
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MC-27J takes aim for June firing trials
An Alenia Aermacchi/ATK demonstrator for the armed MC-27J has completed its flight debut in a full intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance configuration. Performed from the Italian airframer’s Turin flight test centre, the sortie was the first to be flown since the installation of an L-3 Wescam MX-15Di electro-optical/infrared sensor – fitted beneath the aircraft’s nose – and Link 16 datalink equipment.
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Aviation Quote
"He who wants to protect everything, protects nothing," is one of the fundamental rules of defense.
— General Adolf Galland, Luftwaffe.
On This Date
---In 1904... The St. Louis exposition opens. Octave Chanute exhibits a replica of his biplane glider of 1896, which he launches by using an electric winch.
---In 1917... Pacific Aero Products Company changes its name to Boeing Airplane Company, with William E. Boeing as its president.
---In 1919... The Air Navigation Directions, laying down rules for aircraft registration and pilot licensing, are published in London.
---In 1928... British pilot Lady Mary Bailey lands to complete a flight from England to Cape Town, South Africa. She took off on March 9th.
---In 1932... An international code of air traffic communication is formally established, following the decision to do so at a 1927 conference in Washington,DC. The new code is based on a series of three-letter code starting with the letter “Q” …
---In 1958…First flight of the Blackburn Buccaneer XK 486.
---In 1962…OXCART’s first “official” flight, A-12 (924). Witnessed by a number of CIA and Air Force representatives. Pilot Lou Schalk. 340 knots, 30,000 feet, 59 minutes. This flight was just under one year later than originally planned. Bill Parks joins the pilot program. (Q)
---In 1966… Surveyor 1 - USA Lunar Soft Lander launched. Surveyor 1 was the first American soft landing on the lunar surface.
---In 1969... The first woman airline pilot in the West, Turi Widerose of Norway, makes her first scheduled flight as a first officer for Scandinavian Airlines.
---In 1969…Aviogenex commences operations.
---In 1981…Peoplexpress Airlines commenced operations.
---In 1982…The United Kingdom declares an air blockade of the Falkland Islands.
---In 2013… A National Air Cargo B747-400F crashes at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Seven aboard are killed in the crash that is caught on video.
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Humor
The Chief’s Parrot
The old Chief finally retired from the Navy and got that chicken ranch he always wanted. He took with him his lifelong pet parrot.
First morning at 04:30, the parrot squawked and said, "Off yer hocks and don yer socks. Reveille"
The old chief told the parrot, "We are no longer in the Navy. Go back to sleep."
The next morning, the parrot did the same thing. The old Chief told the parrot, "Look, if you keep this up, I will put you out in the chicken pen."
Again the parrot did it, and true to his word, the Chief put the parrot in the chicken pen. About 06:30, the Chief was awakened by one heck of a ruckus in the chicken pen. He went out to see what was the matter.
The parrot had about 40 white chickens in formation and on the ground lay 3 bruised and beaten brown ones. The parrot was saying, "By God, when I say fall out in dress whites, I don't mean Khakis!
Trivia
General Trivia
1. Why was Kiwi International Air Lines, a U.S. scheduled air carrier from 1992 to 1999, named after a flightless bird (a kiwi)?
2. In fighter-pilot parlance, tallyho means that enemy aircraft have been sighted. It is colloquially used in civil aviation to mean that traffic is in sight. What is the source of this expression?
3. The Century-series fighters began with the North American F-100 Super Sabre, the McDonnell Douglas F-101 Voodoo, the Convair F-102 Delta Dagger, the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter, and so forth. The McDonnell F-110A Spectre became better known as what famous airplane?
4. What is VH and why is it more significant now than it has been in the past?
5. Frequently presented by the president of the United States in a White House ceremony, the Robert J. Collier Trophy probably is aviation's most prestigious award. Who was Robert J. Collier?
miamiair wrote:4. What is VH and why is it more significant now than it has been in the past?
