15 DEC 2009 _______________________________________ *Airline blames Buffalo-area crash on crew *Colgan believes loss of pilot situational awareness caused February crash *Airbus backs overhaul of pitot icing certification standards *Safety Officials Probe American Airlines Jet's Botched Landing *Phenom 300 Picks Up FAA Type Certification *Fog cancels 40 flights Monday at Reno airport *IATA: Sees $5.6B Net Loss For Airline Industry In '10 *Aviation Injuries, Aloft and on the Ground *Request For Juice Spirals Out Of Control On Flight *CAE to apply MFOQA concepts to simulator training applications in pioneering US DoD research initiative **************************************** Airline blames Buffalo-area crash on crew Washington (CNN) -- Colgan Air -- under fire for hiring, training, pay and commuting policies after the February crash of Flight 3407 near Buffalo, New York -- is blaming pilot error for the wreck, which killed all 49 people aboard and one person on the ground. In a 67-page report submitted to the National Transportation Safety Board, Colgan blames the captain and first officer, citing a litany of lapses that Colgan said ultimately led to the commuter plane's crash. Colgan said the crew did not respond appropriately to warnings the plane was entering an aerodynamic stall, did not complete checklists and failed to follow "sterile cockpit" rules that prohibit unnecessary conversation during critical phases of flight. Colgan concluded the crash was caused by the crew's "loss of situational awareness and failure to follow Colgan Air training and procedures." After the crash, Colgan said the pilot, Capt. Marvin Renslow, had failed three pilot tests, known as "check-rides," before joining the airline, but had disclosed only one on a job application. He failed another two check-rides while at Colgan Air. In August, Philip Trenary, president and CEO of Pinnacle Airlines, the parent company of Colgan Air, testified at a Senate hearing that while "a failure on a check-ride is not necessarily a reason for someone not to fly, it depends on what kind of failure it is." "The failures that we were unable to see were the basic fundamental failures that you would not want to have," Trenary testified. "Let me stress one thing, Capt. Renslow was a fine man by all accounts," Trenary said in August. But he added, "Had we known what we know now, no, he would not have been in that seat." At the time of the crash, Renslow had 3,379 hours of flight experience -- 172 hours in the Bombardier Dash 8-Q400 turboprop, the type of plane involved in the accident. In Colgan's submission to the NTSB, the company describes its hiring process as rigorous. But, Colgan said, Renslow "was not truthful on his employment application." Renslow did not disclose two of the three proficiency checks he failed, Colgan said. Colgan said it followed federal rules requiring airlines to seek applicants' records, but it was unable to get some of Renslow's information because "Renslow was not employed as a pilot at the time" of his failed check rides. At the time, there was no published guidance on obtaining information from the Federal Aviation Administration, Colgan said. The airline also said Renslow and First Officer Rebecca Shaw did not manage their work schedules properly. While both operated flights out of Newark, New Jersey, Renslow lived in Tampa, Florida, and Shaw lived in Seattle, Washington. During public hearings before the NTSB in May, airline critics said low pay led crew members to live far from their home bases, contributing to fatigue. But Colgan said its pay and commuting policies were not to blame. Renslow had 27 hours between flights and Shaw had four days off before the crash, the airline said. "Colgan Air expects its pilots, and all its employees, to present fit for duty, regardless of where they reside," the Colgan report said. Shaw "did not plan her personal time properly prior to reporting to duty," the airline said. "Rather than commuting to [Newark] on February 11 and staying in a hotel, she chose an overnight commute." Shaw earned $26 an hour and was guaranteed 75 hours a month, putting her salary at a minimum of $23,400 a year, Colgan said. But she was on pace to earn "well in excess" of the minimum, the airline said. In a separate submission, the Air Line Pilots Association did not discount the role of the pilots, but said the "fundamental training this crew needed for the situation faced the night of the accident was inadequate." Further, the association said, the Q400 aircraft did not have, nor was it required to have, systems that would have alerted the pilots that the airspeed was abnormally low. The NTSB is investigating the crash. Evidence collected by the NTSB suggests the crew improperly responded to signs the plane was approaching an aerodynamic stall, pulling on the aircraft's control column instead of pushing. http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/12/14/buffalo.crash.colgan.air/ ************** Colgan believes loss of pilot situational awareness caused February crash Colgan Air has submitted a formal report to the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) explaining the carrier believes the fatal February 2008 crash of one of is Bombardier Q400 aircraft was loss of situational awareness by pilots, whose failure to follow company procedures led to a loss of control of the aircraft. The accident occurred in 12 February as the aircraft was approaching Buffalo airport enroute from Continental's Newark hub. Colgan operates 14 Q400s as Continental Connection primarily from Newark. Subsequent NTSB hearings triggered a significant amount of scrutiny of US regional airline operations after questions arose over adequate training, pilot commuting and fatigue. Colgan tells the NTSB it has determined the crew failed to follow the airline's training regarding proper response to a stick shaker stall warning. "Rather release back pressure as he was trained to do, the captain pulled back from the yoke," says Colgan. The airline also states that runs performed by NTSB in a Q400 simulator showed that if the accident flightcrew had performed according to Colgan training on approach to stalls, the stall would have been avoided. The Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) believes the Q400's design does not include a minimum manoeuvring low speed alert, which the union in its analysis submitted to NTSB says would have provided the crew with an additional visual or aural cue of the aircraft's rapid deceleration. Highlighting the low-speed cue on the Q400 provides only a visual display, ALPA explains: "Once the airspeed is at that cue the autopilot will disconnect and the stick shaker will activate, potentially leading to a surprised crew needing to handle an emergency situation." ALPA believes Colgan's training was inadequate, and argues the airline's use of training on tailplane stalls through a NASA video as icing training was incomplete. "There was no discussion of the fact that a stick shaker is only indicative of a wing stall, not a tailplane stall." The aircraft was operating in icing conditions from shortly after takeoff until the accident on final approach, says Colgan. In its analysis ALPA explains Bombardier on the Q400 has added a new element to the aircraft's stall protection system called reference speeds swtich, which is used when operating in icing conditions. A reference speeds switch on the aircraft is designed to increase stall margins supplied by stall protection systems when the "INCR" position is selected. The system uses a lower angle of attack threshold for stick shaker activation, which effectively supplies a stall warning at higher speeds than normal conditions. Colgan states the crew operating the accident aircraft correctly positioned the reference speeds switch to the correct position for icing, but it errantly set another speed indicator to a normal approach speed for 50 feet above the runway. Ultimately the stick shaker activated at higher speed than was set by all speed indicators, "which most likely surprised the crew", says Colgan. "And they may not have properly analyzed the stick shaker activation." Colgan tells NTSB that setting one speed indicator to normal approach speeds when other speed measurements are set for icing conditions does not trigger a visual or aural warning in the Q400. The carrier explains the aircraft does not supply feedback to crews indicating that specific speed indicator combination could trigger a stall warning at speeds above regular low speed cues. Colgan cites that lack of warning in the aircraft as a contributing factor to the accident. Bombardier was not immediately available for comment regarding the speed alerts. The carrier also highlighted "non-pertinent" conversation between the pilot and first officer that garnered a lot of public attention during hearings earlier this year as a contributing factor to the accident. "The accident crew flight crew violated Colgan Air policy and FAA regulations by breaking sterile cockpit during the descent to Buffalo," the carrier states. Source: Air Transport Intelligence news *************** Airbus backs overhaul of pitot icing certification standards New standards for pitot probes are expected to emerge from a working group being founded in the wake of June's fatal loss of an Air France Airbus A330 over the south Atlantic. Airbus is backing creation of the working group, which is set to begin its activities in the first quarter of 2010, after criticising a proposed revision of certification standards as lacking sufficient rigour. Investigation of the crash of Air France flight AF447 on 1 June - the latest update to which is due this week - has generated concerns over the performance of pitot tubes under icing conditions. Pitot tube certification is based on requirements laid out in European technical standard order ETSO C16. While the European Aviation Safety Agency says it is not "presuming on the potential contribution" of pitot icing to the AF447 accident, it opened a consultation in August on revising ETSO C16 - which was based on decades-old criteria - to align it with the US FAA's more modern standard TSO C16a. But Airbus, in its response to the EASA consultation, has expressed "significant concerns" about the adoption of the updated requirements. It claims that the icing conditions laid out in the US standard are "not sufficiently conservative" and that icing test requirements are lower than the airframer's own. Airbus says the standard does not require probes to be tested in ice-crystal or mixed-phase icing, despite their sensitivity to these conditions. "Such an omission is contrary to the objective of setting a minimum level of performance, particularly as most aircraft fly in such conditions," it says, adding that probes designed and tested only in liquid icing could "require a significant redesign" to meet the stricter criteria. Airbus also believes that the update should also take installation effects into account, and that probes should be tested at angles of attack up to 15° at least. It recommends that EASA should dispense with the update in favour of developing new icing requirements through the proposed working group. EASA states that the update to ETSO C16 is a "first step" that "has to be done" in the interim, but adds: "In the future this ETSO will be upgraded using the outcome of the working group, which will be a new international standard for pitot probes." Source: Air Transport Intelligence news **************** Safety Officials Probe American Airlines Jet's Botched Landing By ANDY PASZTOR An American Airlines jet scraped a wingtip and partially veered off the runway while landing in poor visibility Sunday night at Charlotte, N.C., and federal air-safety regulators are looking into why it took the carrier four hours to notify them about the event. While none of the crew or the 110 passengers aboard Flight 1402 was injured, the Federal Aviation Administration is treating the event as an accident. On Monday, FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen said American's timing in notifying the agency "is part of the investigation." Investigators are also scrutinizing the pilots' decision-making, according to government investigators and pilots familiar with the details. A spokeswoman for the AMR Corp. unit said Monday that it was too early to discuss details about what caused the incident. She said the carrier reported it to the appropriate FAA officials "in a timely manner that is consistent with past practices," and is cooperating with federal experts to determine exactly what happened. But with American already facing stepped-up scrutiny from FAA inspectors over a series of previous maintenance lapses, Sunday night's events have sparked questions from regulators. Investigators from the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board, among other things, are expected to look at whether fatigue may have played a role in the performance of the pilots. They had been on duty for some 14 hours before the botched landing, according to preliminary internal airline data. The plane took off from Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. The pilots apparently switched off the autopilot -- which they believed wasn't working correctly -- and decided to manually land the aircraft at a point where the McDonnell-Douglas MD-80 series jet already may have been too close to the runway, according to the government investigators and pilots familiar with the details. Investigators will also examine why the autopilot system may have malfunctioned. Earlier this month, pilots reported that the aircraft had some malfunctioning flight controls, according to people familiar with American's maintenance records. The aircraft also had a water leak near an electronics compartment that helped control cockpit automation and the autopilot system. While descending toward the Charlotte airport on autopilot in drizzle and fog about 10:45 p.m. Sunday, according to people familiar with the details, Flight 1402's cockpit crew was alerted by air-traffic controllers that the plane was somewhat off course. Controllers asked the crew whether they wanted to climb and try for another landing, but the pilots opted to continue the approach. About 300 feet before touchdown, these people said, the crew switched off the autopilot after deciding it was acting erratically and manually landed the aircraft. The left portion of the main landing gear rolled into the soft earth alongside the runway, according to people familiar with the sequence of events. As the crew tried to correct the drift and return the wheels to the tarmac, the tip of the right wing hit the ground. A big question facing investigators is whether American's basic operational rules and procedures were followed. If complications crop up once an aircraft descends below 1,000 feet on an instrument approach, pilots generally are trained to break off the descent, gain altitude and circle back for another landing. An NTSB spokeswoman said the agency planned to download data from the cockpit-voice and flight-data recorder before determining the next steps in the investigation. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126084959657591657.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections _news ************** Phenom 300 Picks Up FAA Type Certification Deliveries Will Begin In The Coming Weeks Embraer’s Phenom 300 light executive jet was certified Monday by the FAA, which granted its Type Certificate following the same action by Brazil’s National Civil Aviation Agency (Agência Nacional de Aviação Civil – ANAC) on December 3. All design goals were met or surpassed, and first deliveries should begin in the coming weeks. “We are pleased to announce the certification of the Phenom 300 by the FAA,” said Luís Carlos Affonso, Embraer Executive Vice President, Executive Jets. “With unique and innovative features for the light jet segment, the competitiveness of the Phenom 300 is further enhanced by the recently announced improvements in runway length, range, speed, and fuel consumption.” The Phenom 300’s maximum range, originally designed to be 1,800 nautical miles (3,334 kilometers), has been extended to 1,971 nautical miles with six occupants and NBAA IFR reserves. Runway performance also improved significantly over the initial targets. Takeoff field length, at maximum takeoff weight (MTOW), is now 3,138 feet, considerably better than the original 3,700 feet, while landing distance at maximum landing weight (MLW) improved to 2,621 feet, or 329 feet shorter than the targeted 2,950 feet. For flights into and out of airports with restrictions due to high temperatures or high elevations, the Phenom 300 exceeded its range targets. For example, the airplane can take off at its maximum takeoff weight and achieve its maximum range capability out of Aspen, Colorado, U.S. Climb performance also surpassed expectations, allowing the aircraft to depart from sea level at MTOW and reach its operational ceiling of 45,000 feet in only 26 minutes. Powered by two fuel-efficient Pratt & Whitney Canada PW535-E engines, the Phenom 300’s fuel consumption is as much as 6% better than originally estimated. The jet’s top speed of 453 knots TAS was validated during the flight test campaign. Certified without restrictions, the Phenom 300 is able to fly according to Visual and Instrument Flight Rules, day or night, and into known or forecast icing conditions. The aircraft also operates well within Stage IV external noise requirements, having been certified with a cumulative margin of 24 EPNdB. The Prodigy flight deck is built around the Garmin G1000 avionics suite. Based on a “quiet and dark” cockpit philosophy, the Phenom 300 carries Embraer’s accumulated experience in human factors design, offering enhanced situational awareness and automation for a low workload, enabling single-pilot operation. The airplane is designed for a life of 35,000 flight hours, and offers such characteristics as: Smartprobe, increasing reliability and reducing maintenance tasks; carbon brakes, permitting 60% less replacements; brake-by-wire system; hot bleed anti-icing on the horizontal stabilizers and wings; single-point refueling; and externally serviced lavatory. Embraer’s Executive Jets Customer Support and Services structure currently consists of six factory-owned and more than 30 authorized service centers, worldwide. For parts distribution, Embraer has distribution centers in Louisville, Kentucky, operated by UPS Supply Chain Solutions, and in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Furthermore, Embraer has centers in Brazil, France, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates. Embraer CAE Training Services joint venture provides Phenom 100 and Phenom 300 pilot and maintenance training. The Company’s support structure covers flight operations, technical, maintenance, and material aid, as well as the Customer Support Contact Center, that minimizes downtime by quickly and efficiently applying the appropriate resources to critical situations. Effective February 1, 2010, the list price of the Phenom 300 will be US$ 8.14 million, under 2010 economic conditions, for FAA certified aircraft. FMI: www.embraer.com aero-news.net *************** Fog cancels 40 flights Monday at Reno airport Fog that canceled 40 flights Monday at Reno-Tahoe International was expected to continue Tuesday with a chance that late-morning winds might flush the area. Visibility was under a quarter mile Monday night and 5 mph wind wasn’t enough to move the fog. National Weather Service meteorologist Mark Deutschendorf said winds would be 10-15 mph Tuesday and expected the fog to lift during the morning. “You can’t take off or lands planes in thick fog,” airport spokesman Brian Kulpin said, adding the fog disrupted operations at sunrise and also diverted four other flights. “We expect more cancellations in the morning. The airlines do a good job of notifying passengers by e-mail but call or check the Web sites.” Freezing fog was forecast to continue in patches throughout the week, but not as severe as Monday when visibility was poor for nearly 10 hours, limited to an eighth of a mile at some points. http://www.rgj.com/article/20091214/NEWS15/91214051/1321/news/Fog-cancels-40 -flights-Monday-at-Reno-airport **************** IATA: Sees $5.6B Net Loss For Airline Industry In '10 LONDON (Dow Jones)--The International Air Transport Association, or IATA, Tuesday said it expects the global aviation industry to make a $5.6 billion net loss in 2010, wider than its previous forecast for a $3.8 billion loss, because of low yields and rising costs. "The world's airlines will lose $11.0 billion in 2009. We are ending an Annus Horribilis that brings to a close the 10 challenging years of an aviation Decennis Horribilis. Between 2000 and 2009, airlines lost $49.1 billion, which is an average of $5.0 billion a year," said Giovanni Bisignani, IATA's director general and chief executive. However, he said the worst is now behind the industry. "Demand will likely continue to improve and airlines are expected to drive down non-fuel unit costs by 1.3%. But fuel costs are rising and yields are a continuing disaster," Bisignani added. IATA, which represents some 230 airlines comprising 93% of scheduled international air traffic, said it expects revenue in 2010 to rise by $22 billion to $478 billion compared with 2009 levels, but added that's still lower than the $535 billion peak in 2008 and still $30 billion below 2007 levels. It added that passenger traffic is expected to grow 4.5% in 2010, stronger than its previous 3.2% forecast, with a projected 2.28 billion people flying next year, in line with 2007 peak levels. Cargo demand is expected to grow 7% to 37.7 million tonnes in 2010, a higher rate than its previous 5% expectation. Cargo yields are expected to increase 0.9%, having fallen 15% in 2009. However, passenger yields aren't expected to improve because of excess capacity and reduced corporate budgets for travel. IATA said an additional 1,300 aircraft due for delivery in 2010--which will contribute 2.8% to global capacity growth--will put continued pressure on yields. "The industry is structurally out of balance," Bisignani said, calling for a need to facilitate consolidation across borders to resolve inefficiencies. "After almost a decade of cost cutting, non-fuel unit cost reductions will be incremental at best, and the risk of rising fuel costs will be constant," he added. "Consolidation is the great hope for the industry... The industry can't afford the mounting losses of the status quo. The next decade must facilitate consolidation." http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20091215-703416.html ************** Aviation Injuries, Aloft and on the Ground More than 1,000 people a year are hospitalized for aviation-related injuries, with only one-tenth of them passengers in commercial aircraft. Researchers have analyzed data from 2000 through 2005, gathering information on crashes, parachuting accidents, airport maintenance worker injuries and passenger injuries sustained on the ground, among others. The report, which appears in the December issue of Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine, uses a group of health care databases maintained by the federal government’s Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project. Only 10.6 percent of those hospitalized were traveling in commercial aircraft. More than 32 percent were injured in private planes, and almost 11 percent in gliders or hang gliders. Unsurprisingly, jumping out of an airplane is quite dangerous: 28.9 percent of those injured were parachutists. More than 28 percent of all injuries were to the lower limbs. And while burns were seen in just 2.5 percent of the patients, they accounted for 17 percent of deaths after hospitalization. The military services have established effective surveillance systems to track aviation injuries, but the researchers write that the sources of information on nonmilitary injuries are not as complete. Neither the National Transportation Safety Board nor the Federal Aviation Administration collects complete information on all injured aircraft passengers, and Susan P. Baker, the lead author of the study, believes this is a problem. “I think we have made good use of a valuable data source,” Ms. Baker said, “but the ideal information on injuries would come from the N.T.S.B., so that it could be correlated with data on the aircraft and the crash circumstances.” Ms. Baker, a professor of health policy and management at Johns Hopkins, said that while the largest category of injuries and deaths had always been private planes, “it surprised me that there were so many parachutists among the injured.” “There were almost as many parachute injuries as civil aviation injuries,” she said. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/15/health/15stat.html *************** Request For Juice Spirals Out Of Control On Flight John Reed says he was stunned when his request for juice blew up into a serious incident. On December 6 at 6:45 a.m., John Reed was sitting in first class on a flight from Sacramento to Dallas when he overheard passengers complaining about a flight attendant. "I saw this flight attendant coming toward me and she sat down a breakfast tray on my tray table," John said. "I asked her politely at that time for some orange juice, and she spent the next two minutes castigating me for asking for orange juice during that part of the flight." Stunned, he told the flight attendant he was just asking for some orange juice, prompting another "tirade" that other passengers were able to hear, according to John. "At the end of it, she said, 'Have you ever been in first class, sir?'" John said. "I said, 'Wow, that is condescending and inappropriate.'" With more than 4 million miles under his belt due to his job, John has flown in first class often. John said the attendant, a woman named Helen, spend the rest of the flight asking other passengers if they had a problem with her. A short time after their initial altercation, Helen told John she wanted to talk to him privately at the front of the plane. "I started to get up but three other passengers audibly said, 'Don't get up. It sounds suspicious, don't go up there,'" he said. John decided to remain in his seat, and Helen returned with a written warning claiming he was threatening and intimidating a federal official. When the flight landed, representatives from the airline were waiting at the gate. Six passengers, including Dave Koss, stayed behind to stand up for Reed. "We all wanted to help him out and be a witness for him so he didn't get into any trouble," Dave said. Dave blogged about the incident, which caught the attention of the mainstream media. John said he is grateful the other passengers stayed to support him. "I would just like the whole matter to go away, but at the same time, I realize that if I didn't have these people that were going to be a witness for me, I could be facing federal prosecution," John said. American Airlines spokesman Tim Smith sent this statement to CBS13: We at American Airlines are in the midst of a very thorough investigation of this incident. It continues at this time. More interviews on this are scheduled tomorrow as well. And we do not just speak with the customer filing the complaint -- though we certainly do that as well. We are also talking with: all crewmembers from that flight -- not just the flight attendant in question. Plus other passengers who were nearby. We also pour [sic] over all written reports from crewmembers and any other reports taken by others. There are also procedures associated with the union which represents our flight attendants. The point is -- our investigation will be very complete and will include more information and sources than I believe most folks outside the company have at this point. When the investigation is complete, we will take any appropriate action as necessary. We are not quite there yet. http://cbs13.com/local/orange.juice.incident.2.1369891.html **************** CAE to apply MFOQA concepts to simulator training applications in pioneering US DoD research initiative CAE today announced that its CAE Flightscape and CAE USA businesses have been selected by Concurrent Technologies Corporation (CTC) for a demonstration/validation initiative to demonstrate the benefits of applying Military Flight Operations Quality Assurance (MFOQA) concepts to the full-flight simulator (FFS) training environment for accident prevention and mishap reduction. The demonstration/validation initiative is funded by the U.S. Defense Safety Oversight Council (DSOC) through the National Defense Center for Energy and Environment (NDCEE) and is operated by CTC. The concept, known as Simulator Operations Quality Assurance (SOQA), will involve researchers collecting statistics generated from flight data from FFS training sessions for comparison with statistics from flight data from the actual aircraft (MFOQA). The SOQA initiative will also explore the potential for developing evidenced-based training scenarios using objective flight data from known MFOQA events or mishaps. "This initiative has significant potential to improve flight safety," said Everett Smith, leader for MFOQA and safety technologies, Office of the Undersecretary of Defense (OUSD), Readiness Programming and Assessment (RP&A). Smith foresees the potential transitioning of the technology to not only C-40 operations in the United States Air Force (USAF) but also across the Department of Defense. "The results of this demonstration effort will assist the military services in determining follow-on SOQA actions," said Smith. The 11-month evaluation will be conducted on a Boeing 737 full-flight simulator at CAE SimuFlite in Dallas, Texas, beginning this month. The USAF flies the C-40 military version of the 737. The aircraft type was chosen for the demonstration due to its commonality with commercial aviation operations. The evaluation will also use CAE Flightscape's Insight flight data analysis and flight animation software technology. The USAF Safety Center's Mishap Animation and Analysis Facility (MAAF) at Kirtland AFB, New Mexico, has been using Insight for flight data analysis of mishaps since their inception in 1996 and selected the new Insight Flight Animation product for their MFOQA program in 2006. Using the same technology for analyzing MFOQA events, mishaps and for debriefing simulator sessions greatly facilitates collaboration on the DSOC demonstration/validation initiative. "CAE believes that flight data analysis technology can facilitate increased connectivity between MFOQA safety programs and the synthetic training environment to help train pilots how to prevent mishaps by exposing them to training scenarios based on actual MFOQA events and/or mishaps," said Mike Poole, CAE Flightscape Executive Director and Chief Investigator. "CAE is very pleased to be partnering with the U.S. DoD in this emerging field of evidence-based training. By using a 737 simulator as a test bed, the results should provide benefit to the commercial aviation training community as well." Concurrent Technologies Corporation is an independent, non-profit, applied scientific research and development professional services organization providing innovative management and technology-based solutions. CAE Flightscape is a world leader in safety of flight science and flight data analysis. The CAE business develops software tools that enable the effective study and understanding of recorded flight data to improve safety, maintenance, and flight operations. About CAE CAE (NYSE:CAE)(TSX:CAE) is a world leader in providing simulation and modelling technologies and integrated training solutions for the civil aviation industry and defence forces around the globe. With annual revenues exceeding C$1.6 billion, CAE employs more than 6,500 people at more than 90 sites and training locations in 20 countries. We have the largest installed base of civil and military full-flight simulators and training devices. Through our global network of 29 civil aviation and military training centres, we train more than 75,000 crewmembers yearly. We also offer modelling and simulation software to various market segments and, through CAE's professional services division, we assist customers with a wide range of simulation-based needs. http://www.rotor.com/Default.aspx?tabid=510&newsid905=62749 **************** Curt Lewis, P.E., CSP CURT LEWIS & ASSOCIATES, LLC