Flight Safety Information September 16, 2020 - No. 188 In This Issue Incident: Cargojet B752 at Cincinnati on Sep 14th 2020, intensifying uncommanded yaw Incident: British Airways B772 near London on Sep 14th 2020, engine shut down in flight Accident: Indigo A21N at Delhi on Aug 6th 2020, hard landing Sikorsky AUH-76 (S-76) - Fatal Accident (Philippines) Boeing 737-7H4 (WL)...- Bird Strike (Milwaukee) Water, smoke and arcing electricity in the cockpit of Safair B737 Flight to Las Vegas diverted after passenger refuses to comply with mask policy Congressional Inquiry Faults Boeing And FAA Failures For Deadly 737 Max Plane Crashes Boeing hid design flaws in Max jets from pilots and regulators Are Cockpit Electromagnetic Fields Killing Pilots? Pakistan Crash Pilots Rusty After Lockdown, Safety Head Suggests Asia Minute: Airlines in Asia Scrambling for Financial Survival UCSC engineers developing all-electric power train for future aircraft Delta will avoid involuntary furloughs for most frontline workers when federal aid expires Taiwan Aims to Help Foreign Air Forces Fix F-16 Fighter Jets, a Stab at China Air Force reveals it secretly built and flew new fighter jet Dynetics has built a full-scale test version of its lunar human lander for NASA Trinity College Dublin and EASA Air Ops Community Survey on the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on aviation workers SURVEY:...GA PILOTS AND PIREPs. Graduate Research Survey (1) Incident: Cargojet B752 at Cincinnati on Sep 14th 2020, intensifying uncommanded yaw A Cargojet Boeing 757-200, registration C-GCJT performing freight flight W8-920 from Cincinnati,KY (USA) to Calgary,AB (Canada) with 2 crew, was in the initial climb accelerating to clean speed, when an uncommanded yaw occurred continuously and intensified with increasing speed. The crew declared emergency and returned to Cincinnati for a safe landing about 20 minutes after departure. The Canadian TSB reported the crew performed a controllability check in flight and found the aircraft was unsafe to fly above 230-240 KIAS prompting them to declare emergency and return to Cincinnati's Covington Northern Kentucky Airport. The occurrence aircraft returned to service about 30 hours after landing. https://flightaware.com/live/flight/CJT920/history/20200914/0730Z/KCVG/CYYC http://avherald.com/h?article=4dca8310&opt=0 Back to Top Incident: British Airways B772 near London on Sep 14th 2020, engine shut down in flight A British Airways Boeing 777-200, registration G-VIIC performing flight BA-113 from London Heathrow,EN (UK) to New York JFK,NY (USA), was climbing through FL250 out of Heathrow's runway 09R when the crew received indication of loss of oil pressure for the left hand engine (GE90) and shut the engine down. The aircraft descended to FL100, went over the Bristol Channel to dump fuel and returned to London Heathrow for a safe landing on runway 09L about 65 minutes after departure. The aircraft vacated the runway, stopped briefly on the parallel taxiway and continued to the apron. The occurrence aircraft is still on the ground in London about 26 hours after landing. The aircraft had been in long term storage in Cardiff from Jun 25th 2020 to Sep 8th 2020, then positioned to London Heathrow and on Sep 14th departed for its first revenue flight since the storage. https://flightaware.com/live/flight/BAW113/history/20200914/1425Z/EGLL/KJFK http://avherald.com/h?article=4dca7823&opt=0 Back to Top Accident: Indigo A21N at Delhi on Aug 6th 2020, hard landing An Indigo Airbus A321-200N, registration VT-IUD performing flight 6E-2752 from Chennai to Delhi (India), landed on Delhi's runway 10 at 19:38L (14:08Z) but suffered a hard landing in excess of +2.7G. The aircraft rolled out without further incident and taxied to the apron. The aircraft was unable to continue its schedule and did not fly for 40 days. The aircraft performed a short test flight on Sep 15th 2020. According to information received the main landing gear struts needed replacement. http://avherald.com/h?article=4dca634d&opt=0 Back to Top Sikorsky AUH-76 (S-76) - Fatal Accident (Philippines) Date: 16-SEP-2020 Time: 13:00 Type: Sikorsky AUH-76 (S-76) Owner/operator: Philippine Air Force, 505th SAR Group Registration: 202 C/n / msn: Fatalities: Fatalities: 4 / Occupants: 4 Other fatalities: 0 Aircraft damage: Written off (damaged beyond repair) Location: Barangay Upper Manggas, Lantawan - Philippines Phase: En route Nature: Military Departure airport: Destination airport: Narrative: The Philippine Air Force SAR helicopter crashed in bad weather conditions. The four occupants were fatally injured. https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/241974 Back to Top Boeing 737-7H4 (WL) - Bird Strike (Milwaukee) Date: 15-SEP-2020 Time: 13:12 UTC Type: Boeing 737-7H4 (WL) Owner/operator: Southwest Airlines Registration: N420WN C/n / msn: 29825/1039 Fatalities: Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: Other fatalities: 0 Aircraft damage: Unknown Location: Milwaukee-General Mitchell Airport, WI (MKE/KMKE) - United States of America Phase: Take off Nature: Passenger - Scheduled Departure airport: Milwaukee-General Mitchell Airport, WI (MKE/KMKE) Destination airport: Orlando International Airport, FL (MCO/KMCO) Narrative: Southwest Airlines flight WN2253, a Boeing 737-700, suffered a bird strike on takeoff from Milwaukee-General Mitchell Airport, WI. The takeoff was aborted and the aircraft taxied back to the terminal. On a taxiway the aircraft stopped to allow ARFF to inspect the brakes. https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/241785 Back to Top Water, smoke and arcing electricity in the cockpit of Safair B737 On December 10, 2019, a crew of Boeing 737-400 belonging to South African low-cost carrier Safair experienced an incident reminiscent of a Hollywood action movie, as sparks started flying and smoke filled the cockpit. The final report on the incident was published by the South African Civil Aviation Authority (SACAA) on September 9, 2020. According to the report, the aircraft took off from O.R. Tambo International Aerodrome (JNB) at 4:36 local time. Sometime after the takeoff, a drain tube, located on the left of the cockpit, above the pilot-in-command head, started leaking. At 4.48, the first drops fell on the instrument panel. The equipment became lit up with arcing electricity and smoke started filling up the cabin. The pilot-in-command broadcasted a Mayday and stated that they had a fire. Seconds later, he corrected himself: it was just smoke, not fire. The crew followed emergency procedures, fitting smoke goggles and oxygen masks, and requested a turn back to JNB. The request was granted, and the aircraft landed safely, 32 minutes after the takeoff. The investigation revealed that the drain tube at fault dislodged itself from the fitting. The aircraft in question was continuously operated since 1989, and it is likely that the tube was never changed. Being constantly exposed to the light, the plastic lost its flexibility and became brittle, which led to the dislocation. Although the dislodged tube was visible, it was slightly out of the pilot's peripheral vision, and was not noticed. Small amount of water accumulated in the upper cockpit drip pan and was therefore drained into the cockpit instead of through the external drain valve via the tube. An immediate special inspection of all Boeing 737s was issued by the operator, with an emphasis on the security of the tubing leading from the drip pan. https://www.aerotime.aero/valius.venckunas/25888-water-smoke-and-arcing-electricity-in-the-cockpit-of-safair-b737 Back to Top Back to Top Flight to Las Vegas diverted after passenger refuses to comply with mask policy • A United Airlines flight to Las Vegas from Newark, New Jersey, was diverted after a passenger refused to comply with the airline's mask policy, according to a company representative. LAS VEGAS (KTNV) - A United Airlines flight to Las Vegas from Newark, New Jersey, was diverted after a passenger refused to comply with the airline's mask policy, according to a company representative. United Flight 859 was diverted to Omaha early Tuesday and met by law enforcement. The passenger was removed and the flight has re-departed for Las Vegas, the airline says. According to its website United has a strict mask policy, saying: For everyone's safety, all travelers are required to wear a face covering with no vents or openings that fully covers their nose and mouth. Face coverings must be worn during the entire flight, unless travelers are eating or drinking. We're also requiring travelers to wear face coverings in the airport, including at United customer service counters and kiosks, United Club locations, our gates and our baggage claim areas. A face shield alone does not count as a face covering. Travelers who aren't wearing their face coverings in the airport or on board may be refused transport and could also lose their travel privileges on future United flights. Children younger than 2 years old are exempt. https://www.ktnv.com/news/coronavirus/flight-from-newark-to-las-vegas-divert-passenger-refused-to-comply-with-mask-policy-airline-says Back to Top Congressional Inquiry Faults Boeing And FAA Failures For Deadly 737 Max Plane Crashes A sweeping congressional inquiry into the development and certification of Boeing's troubled 737 Max airplane finds damning evidence of failures at both Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration that "played instrumental and causative roles" in two fatal crashes of the plane, which killed a total of 346 people. The House Transportation Committee released an investigative report produced by Democratic staff this morning. It documents what it says is "a disturbing pattern of technical miscalculations and troubling management misjudgments" by Boeing, combined with "numerous oversight lapses and accountability gaps by the FAA." Lion Air flight 610 crashed in October 2018, and Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 crashed in March 2019, both Boeing 737 Max aircraft. "The Max crashes were not the result of a singular failure, technical mistake, or mismanaged event," the committee report says. Instead, "they were the horrific culmination of a series of faulty technical assumptions by Boeing's engineers, a lack of transparency on the part of Boeing's management, and grossly insufficient oversight by the FAA." The report is the latest of many investigations into the 737 Max crashes and includes little new information. But it appears to be the most comprehensive in analyzing both Boeing's and the FAA's roles in developing and certifying an ultimately flawed commercial passenger jet. House Transportation Committee Chairman Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., says one of the most startling revelations uncovered by the investigation is that "both FAA and Boeing came to the conclusion that the certification of the Max was compliant" with FAA regulations. He calls that "mind-boggling." "The problem is it was compliant and not safe. And people died," DeFazio said, adding that it's "clear evidence that the current regulatory system is fundamentally flawed and needs to be repaired." "This is a tragedy that never should have happened," DeFazio added. "It could have been prevented and we're going to take steps in our legislation to see that it never happens again as we reform the system." DeFazio's committee is drafting legislation that would overhaul the aircraft certification process and strengthen the FAA's oversight of airplane manufacturers. The Senate Commerce Committee is expected to take up similar, but somewhat weaker legislation today. Failures of design, management and regulation The House committee's report examines Boeing's engineering and technical design flaws, especially in developing a new flight control system called the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS. Earlier investigations found that in both the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines crashes, faulty data from a single angle-of-attack sensor caused MCAS to force the planes into repeated nose dives that the pilots eventually could not pull out of. The report also details the faulty and outdated assumptions engineers made about how pilots would react in such a crisis and how Boeing failed to install an alert system that could have warned the crew, among other technical failures. The investigative report outlines the intense pressure Boeing employees were under to keep costs down and the plane's development on schedule, as the company rushed development of the 737 Max to compete with the new Airbus A320neo. Democratic Congressman Rick Larsen of Washington, whose Seattle-area district includes Boeing factories and thousands of company employees, chairs the House Aviation Subcommittee. He says misguided priorities of senior management drove a number of troubling decisions that put profits ahead of safety. "In one case, senior management went as far as installing countdown clocks in conference rooms," said Larsen, "making clear to Max employees that meeting production timelines rather than safety was the top priority." Another troubling finding is what the report calls the "culture of concealment." It documents several critical instances in which Boeing withheld crucial information from the FAA, its customers and 737 Max pilots. This included concealing the very existence of the MCAS system from 737 Max pilots and failing to disclose that a warning signal to alert pilots of problems with critical sensors was inoperable on the vast majority of the 737 Max fleet. Dissenters existed but were not heeded Some Boeing pilots, engineers and other employees did raise safety concerns about the 737 Max but those concerns were either inadequately addressed or dismissed by Boeing and never reached the FAA. Aviation journalist Christine Negroni, author of The Crash Detectives: Investigating the World's Most Mysterious Air Disasters, notes that the investigators found substantial evidence that significant red flags were raised. "As you go through and see the number of people who reported things, the number of emails in which MCAS is discussed," she says, "that tells you that people were concerned. And yet it never saw the light of day until after the first airline crashes." Negroni says MCAS appeared a half-million times in emails and other internal documents, yet Boeing was able to keep airlines and pilots from knowing the flight control system even existed, as any mention of MCAS was kept out of pilot training and flight manuals. Negroni says there isn't much new information in the congressional investigative report. "But in the whole, what is to me astonishing about the report is the depth, the thickness and the deep history of both FAA and Boeing knowing that there were problems with the redesign of this airliner and the obliviousness of both parties in recognizing that this was a problem that needed to be addressed." The mounting evidence that the plane crashes were preventable is an especially painful realization for the families of those who died in the Max plane crashes. "It angers us to see how much Boeing did to cover this up and how much FAA has done to help them cover it up," said Michael Stumo. His 24-year-old daughter, Samya Rose Stumo, was on the fatal Ethiopian Airlines flight. "The Lion Air crash in October of 2018, we now see should not have happened," Stumo said. "But then, the covering up to keep the Max in the air after the Lion Air crash, so that it crashed again in Ethiopia and killed my daughter was unforgivable." In a statement, a Boeing spokesman says the company has "learned many hard lessons" from the crashes "and from the mistakes we have made." The statement adds that Boeing has "made fundamental changes to our company as a result, and continue[s] to look for ways to improve." The FAA says it "is committed to continually advancing aviation safety and looks forward to working with the Committee to implement improvements identified in its report." The aviation regulatory agency says in a statement that it is already implementing initiatives aimed at "improving our organization, processes, and culture." The FAA is also mandating "a number of design changes to the Boeing 737 Max before it returns to passenger service." The House Transportation Committee is now drafting legislation to improve FAA oversight in the airplane certification process. Republicans on the committee did not endorse the investigative report. A statement from ranking member Sam Graves of Missouri says, "if aviation and safety experts determine that areas in the FAA's processes for certifying aircraft and equipment can be improved, then Congress will act." But he criticized Democrats for an investigation that "began by concluding that our system was broken and worked backwards from there." Chairman DeFazio says "aviation safety should not be partisan," adding that he is optimistic the parties can work out differences on FAA reforms. https://www.npr.org/2020/09/16/913426448/congressional-inquiry-faults-boeing-and-faa-failures-for-deadly-737-max-plane-cr Back to Top Boeing hid design flaws in Max jets from pilots and regulators • Congressional report into why two 737 aircraft crashed within months of each other finds aerospace group cut corners A congressional report found a 'disturbing pattern of technical miscalculations and troubling management misjudgments made by Boeing' with regard to the 737 Max © REUTERS Boeing hid design flaws in its 737 Max jet from both pilots and regulators as it raced to have the aeroplane certified as fit to fly, according to a damning congressional report into why two of the aircraft crashed within months of each other last year, killing 346 people. The report by the US House of Representatives transport committee found the US aircraft maker cut corners and pressured regulators to overlook aspects of its new design in its attempts to catch up with European rival Airbus. It also accused US regulators of being too concerned with pleasing the company to exercise proper oversight. The report said: "[The two crashes] were the horrific culmination of a series of faulty technical assumptions by Boeing's engineers, a lack of transparency on the part of Boeing's management, and grossly insufficient oversight by the [Federal Aviation Administration] - the pernicious result of regulatory capture on the part of the FAA with respect to its responsibilities to perform robust oversight of Boeing and to ensure the safety of the flying public. "The facts laid out in this report document a disturbing pattern of technical miscalculations and troubling management misjudgments made by Boeing. It also illuminates numerous oversight lapses and accountability gaps by the FAA that played a significant role in the 737 Max crashes." Boeing has been under multiple investigations since last year, when a Max jet operated by Ethiopian Airlines crashed just five months after another owned by Indonesia's Lion Air plunged into the sea. Investigators have found that on both occasions, a faulty sensor caused an automatic anti-stall system to kick in erroneously, forcing the aeroplane's nose downwards. Pilots for both Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines battled to right their jets, but were overridden by the automatic system each time they did so. Members of Congress have been conducting their own probe into the accidents since last April. Wednesday's report marks the culmination of 17 months of investigation, involving five public hearings, 24 interviews and 600,000 pages of documents. The 238-page report details how Boeing attempted to minimise both the regulatory testing and pilot training required to fly the new Max, which was being rushed out in an attempt to compete with the Airbus A320neo. It found the company successfully persuaded the FAA not to classify the anti-stall system as "safety critical", meaning that many pilots did not even know of its existence before flying the Max. In doing so, Boeing concealed from regulators internal test data showing that if a pilot took longer than 10 seconds to recognise that the system had kicked in erroneously, the consequences would be "catastrophic". The report also detailed how an alert, which would have warned pilots of a potential problem with one of their anti-stall sensors, was not working on the vast majority of the Max fleet. It found that the company deliberately concealed this fact from both pilots and regulators as it continued to roll out the new aircraft around the world. Boeing has been working to correct the faults found in the Max for more than a year, and recently said it hoped to begin delivering the jet again in the third quarter. The company said: "The revised design of the Max has received intensive internal and regulatory review, including more than 375,000 engineering and test hours and 1,300 test flights. Once the FAA and other regulators have determined the Max can safely return to service, it will be one of the most thoroughly-scrutinised aircraft in history." While the company cut corners in its attempts to certify the Max, the committee found a compliant regulator in the FAA. The FAA certifies new aircraft designs by relying heavily on "authorised representatives", company employees who are authorised by the regulator to validate certain designs and systems. And the report found that on several occasions Boeing did not flag important pieces of information to the regulator. Members of Congress have introduced legislation that would toughen the FAA's aircraft certification process, including carrying out regular independent audits on company-employed representatives. The FAA said in a statement: "The FAA is committed to continually advancing aviation safety and looks forward to working with the committee to implement improvements identified in its report." https://www.ft.com/content/f87d9c5e-51bc-4fee-b268-eafa56340113 Back to Top Are Cockpit Electromagnetic Fields Killing Pilots? The Pentagon is investigating the link between high-tech electronics and aircraft crashes. DARPA is investigating whether electronic noise can interfere with military pilots. The concern is that radio and electromagnetic fields could impair cognitive performance, causing momentary confusion. More than 100 pilots have died in accidents attributed to spatial disorientation. The Pentagon's research and development arm is investigating whether the very equipment meant to save military pilots' lives on the battlefield is causing them to become disoriented and crash. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is funding an effort to study the relationship between military electronics and spatial disorientation-a pilot's ability to determine his or her correct altitude, attitude, or airspeed. In one incident, spatial disorientation caused a Japanese F-35 pilot to slam into the Pacific Ocean at nearly 700 miles per hour. By most accounts, U.S. military aircraft are the most advanced in the world. Aircraft like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter are covered in sensors, from the nose-mounted radar to a ring of infrared cameras. Military aircraft also have radios, control systems, and other forms of data competing for pilots' attention, all emitting some kind of radio or electromagnetic radiation. Straight from the Cockpit While these features are highly useful and help pilots stay alive in dangerous situations, is there a darker, undiagnosed side to these electronics? The Pentagon, as Forbes writes, wants to find out. DARPA's Impact of Cockpit Electro-Magnetics on Aircrew Neurology (ICEMAN) project will examine the effect of electromagnetic fields and radio frequency signals to determine if they're responsible for cases of spatial disorientation. From 1993 to 2013, DARPA says, "spatial disorientation in U.S. Air Force pilots accounted for 72 Class A mishaps, 101 deaths, and 65 aircraft lost." The agency believes electromagnetic fields and radio frequency signals may "influence cognitive performance including task saturation, misprioritization, complacency, and spatial disorientation." Nobody, according to DARPA, actually monitors EM and RF activity in a cockpit, and there is "little effort" made to shield pilots from these fields. ICEMAN will measure such activity and then produce sensors "capable of measuring the ambient EM/RF conditions in a military aircraft cockpit environment." Once the sensors are deployed, the Pentagon can use them to see if there is any correlation between heavy EM/RF conditions and aircraft mishaps and crashes. Japanese aviation authorities blamed spatial disorientation for one of the first crashes involving the F-35. In April 2019, F-35 pilot Major Akinori Hosomi of the Japan Air Self Defense Force was flying with several other F-35s when the flight suddenly lost contact with Hosomi's jet. The authorities later determined Hosomi's jet flew straight into the ocean at 683 mph "with no reported attempt by the pilot to avoid a collision," according to The Diplomat. https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/a34016245/are-cockpit-electromagnetic-fields-killing-pilots/ Back to Top Pakistan Crash Pilots Rusty After Lockdown, Safety Head Suggests Europe's top aviation-safety official said that pilot rustiness following global groundings at the height of the coronavirus crisis may have been a factor in the fatal crash of a Pakistan International Airlines plane. It's reasonable to ask whether the tragedy of the Airbus SE A320 jetliner that hit a suburb of Karachi in May, killing all but two of the 99 people on board, would have happened without the Covid-19 pandemic, European Union Aviation Safety Agency Executive Director Patrick Ky said Tuesday. "The pilots did not seem to be as fluent in the way they were conducting their flights as they should have," Ky said in a media briefing arranged by the A4E association of European airlines. "If you haven't flown for three months, six months, you need to be retrained in some way in order to come back." Flight PK8303 initially touched down without deploying its landing gear, damaging the engines, which failed during a second landing attempt. That led the jet to crash short of the airport. The pilots were distracted by a conversation about the virus, according to initial information on the event. Planes themselves also need extra attention to ensure that they're airworthy after standing idle for a length of time, according to Ky. "From a safety perspective, we were concerned with the return to operations," he said. "An Aircraft is not like a washing machine. You need to perform a certain number of tasks in order to ensure it is safe." With PIA barred by EASA from flying into Europe until the end of the year at least as a result of the crash and subsequent findings, British Airways will add flights to Pakistan with a four-times weekly service to Lahore, according to a U.K. government statement Tuesday. The move comes after Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd. said last month it would serve Pakistan for the first time, with flights made viable by PIA's exit and demand fueled by the number of people of Pakistani origin living in the U.K. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-15/u-s-cases-rise-0-7-pfizer-trial-shows-progress-virus-update Back to Top Asia Minute: Airlines in Asia Scrambling for Financial Survival Thailand's national airline got court clearance Monday to restructure its debt. By the end of June, the liabilities of Thai Airways topped ten billion dollars - and conditions have gotten worse since then. With the exception of a few charters, international commercial flights have been closed down since early April. Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific started the week by announcing 40% of its passenger fleet will be grounded for "the foreseeable future." In August, the airline's planes flew with more than 80% of its passenger seats empty - a record low. Cathay's Executive Director says, "we simply will not survive unless we adapt our airlines for the new travel market" - adding that details of a restructuring plan will be announced soon. Just last week, Singapore Airlines announced it is cutting about 20% of its staff, or about 4,300 jobs. The Straits Times reports employees were told they will be paid through mid-December, and given an additional month of pay for each year served - capped at 25 months. It's not just international travel that's hurting airlines. Japan Airlines cut roughly a third of its domestic flights this month - while All Nippon Airways has cut nearly 45% of its flights within Japan. https://www.hawaiipublicradio.org/post/asia-minute-airlines-asia-scrambling-financial-survival#stream/0 Back to Top UCSC engineers developing all-electric power train for future aircraft Funding from the Department of Energy for the UCSC team is part of a major effort to develop carbon-neutral hybrid electric aviation A team led by Leila Parsa, professor of electrical and computer engineering in the Baskin School of Engineering at UC Santa Cruz, has received funding from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to develop an innovative all-electric power train that will help enable net-zero carbon emissions for commercial aircraft. The $854,000 grant is part of a wider effort by the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) to develop enabling technologies for long-range carbon-neutral commercial aviation. Parsa's team includes Keith Corzine, professor of electrical and computer engineering, and researchers at the Air Force Research Laboratory. The ARPA-E ASCEND program (Aviation-class Synergistically Cooled Electric-motors with iNtegrated Drives) is focused on an all-electric power train as the prime mover for long-range, narrow-body aircraft such as the Boeing 737. Current electric power trains do not have high enough power density and efficiency to meet the requirements for this class of aircraft. Parsa's team proposes to use innovative technologies for every aspect of the power train. "All three components-the electric motor, the power electronics, and the thermal management system-will require innovative designs to get to an ultralight and highly power-dense system," Parsa said. Their plans include a flux-switching motor with superconducting field coils, which has been shown to be smaller and lighter than conventional designs. The electronics are based on state-of-the-art multilevel inverter technology leading to improved efficiency and lower electromagnetic noise. The cooling technology is a hybrid system containing ultralight cryogenics as well as traditional air cooling methods. Carbon dioxide emissions per passenger from commercial air travel are nearly double that of any other widely used transportation mode. The narrow-body (single-aisle) commercial aircraft targeted in this research program are estimated to be responsible for nearly half of aviation-related greenhouse-gas emissions. Such an aircraft with an all-electric propulsion system operating on carbon-neutral liquid fuels, however, would have net-zero emissions. "The goal is to reduce emissions, as well as the energy costs, of commercial air travel," Parsa said. "Our team is excited to work on this challenging project because of its transformative nature and real-world applications." A related ARPA-E program (Range Extenders for Electric Aviation with Low Carbon and High Efficiency, or REEACH) focuses on the energy storage and power generation sub-systems for electric aircraft. DOE has announced a total of $33 million in funding for 17 projects in Phase 1 of the ASCEND and REEACH programs. https://news.ucsc.edu/2020/09/electric-aircraft.html Back to Top Delta will avoid involuntary furloughs for most frontline workers when federal aid expires, but pilot layoffs remain likely Delta Air Lines will avoid involuntary furloughs for flight attendants and frontline ground workers on October 1, when CARES Act provisions expire, the airline said Tuesday. However, the airline still plans to furlough pilots. As of late August, the plan was to furlough nearly 2,000 of them. The airline industry has been among the most severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Delta Air Lines said Tuesday that it expects to avoid involuntary furloughs for flight attendants and frontline ground workers when Cares Act provisions expire on October 1, even as the coronavirus continues to keep travel demand near record lows. But one key group of workers are an exception: Delta's pilots. In a memo to employees, CEO Ed Bastian said the furloughs for flight attendants and frontline ground workers could be avoided because a large number of Delta employees have taken voluntary buyouts or unpaid leaves. Weekly work hours have also been reduced for some groups. Bastian said 20% of Delta's pre-pandemic workforce took early exits, reducing the airline's payroll by about 17,000. Another 40,000 employees had taken a short- or long-term unpaid leave of absence. "Avoiding involuntary furloughs in this unprecedented environment is entirely due to the innovation, hard work and shared sacrifice of our people," Bastian wrote. However, the airline still plans to furlough pilots, Bastian said. As of late August, the plans were to furlough 1,941 of them on October 1. Pilots are the only unionized workers at Delta. The airline has previously said that it has offered different buyout and leave deals to pilots due to the terms of their collective-bargaining agreement. The airline and the Air Line Pilots Association, the union representing Delta's pilots, are still in talks seeking an 11th-hour deal, Bastian said. The association said in a statement to Business Insider that it was continuing to negotiate with the airline. "Pilots are career-long stakeholders in Delta Air Lines, and as such, we are motivated to help the Company while still upholding our core value of protecting pilot jobs," a spokesperson said in a statement. "We are in ongoing talks with management to mitigate pilot furloughs with the goal of finding win/win solutions." In late August, Delta had about 11,200 pilots but expected to need just 9,450 by summer 2021, senior vice president of flight operations John Laughter wrote in a memo to pilots that was seen by Business Insider. "We are simply overstaffed, and we are faced with an incredibly difficult decision," Laughter wrote in that August memo. A total of 1,806 pilots took early retirement packages, the airline told Business Insider. Airlines have been hit particularly hard by COVID-19, with travel demand collapsing early in the pandemic and making only modest recoveries since, hampered by summer spikes across the US. The industry does not expect to recover to 2019 levels of demand until 2024. Bastian wrote that Delta is seeing just 30% of last year's demand levels. Delta received more than $5.4 billion in payroll support through the CARES Act. The airline agreed not to furlough or cut pay for workers until October 1 in exchange for the aid. The airline has raised about $16.5 billion in liquidity during the pandemic, but continues to burn about $27 million in cash each day. Delta said on Monday that it would raise an additional $6.5 billion - 240 days of cash at current rates - by mortgaging its SkyMiles frequent-flyer program. Delta and other airlines have also voiced support for an extension of the CARES Act. However, such a deal has so far failed to materialize. https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-furloughs-pilots-flight-attendants-coronavirus-2020-9 Back to Top Taiwan Aims to Help Foreign Air Forces Fix F-16 Fighter Jets, a Stab at China TAIPEI - A new Taiwanese maintenance center for F-16 fighter jets hopes to service the American-made aircraft belonging to multiple countries, a goal that would outrage China and shake up Asian military diplomacy if realized, experts say. China claims sovereignty over self-ruled Taiwan and discourages third countries from supporting the Taiwanese government, especially on defense matters. Chinese officials already resent the United States for letting defense contractor Lockheed Martin sell F-16s to Taiwan. Officials in Taiwan, where most people told government polls in 2019 they would oppose being ruled by China, want to strengthen their defense against China's larger armed forces and build ties with other governments. Taiwanese contractor Aerospace Industrial Development Corporation's F-16 maintenance, repair and overhaul center will service a domestic F-16 fleet while scouting for business "opportunities" from aircraft operators offshore. The $3.7 billion Lockheed Martin-approved center opened August 28. "If we can cooperate with regional countries, I think that would be a very important step for Taiwan's indigenous production and indigenous maintenance of those airplanes," Taiwan ruling party lawmaker Lo Chih-cheng said. "We are hoping not just to buy weapons from the States," Lo said. "We are also hoping to extend the cooperation with other countries, so hopefully there will be some sort of spillover effects." Around Asia, Singapore uses 62 F-16 planes, South Korea has 180 and Japan operates 76 aircraft made jointly by American and Japanese companies based on F-16 technology. Thailand has another 54 and Indonesia 33. Taiwan operates 142 with another 66 due for shipment by 2026. Foreign air forces normally work out maintenance deals directly with the contractor. "Taiwan is sort of close to all the other countries concerned, so it's quite possible" to take orders from offshore, said Shane Lee, a retired political science professor from Chang Jung Christian University in Taiwan. Asian countries with F-16 fleets recognize China diplomatically over Taiwan, meaning Beijing forbids them from high-level political or defense ties. Their air forces would not want China to see them flying F-16s into Taiwan for servicing, analysts say. China sometimes cuts economic support to countries that offend it. "The long-term aim of realizing [the maintenance center] as a hub for regional F-16 maintenance, I think this one is so far far-fetched for now, due to political concerns," said Collin Koh, a maritime security research fellow at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Top priority for the service center will go to Taiwan's own jets, as the island's air force keeps busy monitoring for Chinese aircraft that fly into its air defense zone, Koh forecast. Taiwan's defense ministry reports a surge this year to date in Chinese air force flybys. "But nonetheless, the way I see it, it's a good way of marketing this particular hub," he added. "You prove its capability to be able to maintain the F-16s properly, thereby in the future you may attract potential customers." The maintenance center will raise Taiwan's "aerospace technology level" and expand domestic production, Taiwan's Vice Premier Shen Jong-chin said in August as quoted on the contractor's website. Outside countries could avoid a scene with China by arranging F-16 maintenance in Taiwan through non-government channels such as teams of retired engineers, Koh said. Japan might send F-16s to Taiwan through a non-governmental organization, especially if it's not the first country to try that route, said Stephen Nagy, senior associate professor of politics and international studies at International Christian University in Tokyo. Whether China objects "I think that it really depends on how the equipment gets there," Nagy said. "Don't expect a direct flight to Taiwan anytime soon, but Taiwan is part of the supply chain." https://www.voanews.com/east-asia-pacific/voa-news-china/taiwan-aims-help-foreign-air-forces-fix-f-16-fighter-jets-stab Back to Top Air Force reveals it secretly built and flew new fighter jet The Air Force on Tuesday revealed that it has secretly built and flown a prototype of its next-generation fighter jet, according to the service's top acquisition official. The jet, built as part of the Air Force's Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program, was first disclosed to Defense News on Monday. Air Force acquisition head Will Roper told the outlet that the service could now move the jet into production "pretty fast." "We are ready to go and build the next-generation aircraft in a way that has never happened before," he said in an interview. Roper then publicly spoke on the jet's existence on Tuesday at an Air Force Association (AFA) virtual conference, telling watchers that "the full-scale flight demonstrator has already flown in the physical world." He added that the program "right now is designing, assembling, testing in the digital world, exploring things that would have cost time and money to wait for physical world results." The announcement is significant, as this would mark the Air Force's sixth-generation aircraft, a full-scale version of which was not expected for years. The test flight also comes 20 years after the service first similarly demonstrated an experimental fighter jet for the fifth-generation F-35. As the NGAD program is classified, little more is known of the secretive jet. Roper would not give Defense News or the AFA event further details on aircraft, including which company or companies built the prototype, how many were flown, and when or where any flight occurred. He also would not say anything about the jet's design, what it would be used for, how many would be bought or the expected cost. The Air Force did request a little more than $1 billion for the program in its fiscal 2021 budget proposal to Congress, to be ramped up to a more than $6 billion ask total between fiscal 2021 and fiscal 2025. The announcement may also mark a turning point in how the military develops and buys new weapons, a process that was once thought to require large work facilities and expensive equipment and tools. That line of production has brought criticism to the Pentagon, most recently in the Lockheed Martin-made F-35, which lawmakers have long bashed for its cost overruns and numerous mechanical hiccups. The NGAD, in contrast, was first designed and tested digitally before it was physically built. https://thehill.com/policy/defense/516572-air-force-reveals-it-secretly-built-and-flew-new-fighter-jet Back to Top Dynetics has built a full-scale test version of its lunar human lander for NASA One of the three companies chosen by NASA to create a Human Landing System (HLS) for NASA has completed a key step by building a full-scale test article of its lander for its team and NASA to evaluate and review. The Dynetics HLS is roughly the size of the Apollo moon lander, but it's laid out very differently. VIDEO Dynetics provided a brief overview of the test article and its purpose in a video introduction on Tuesday. As you can see in the walk-through below, it's essentially a true-to-size 3D model that includes modular, re-arrangeable components. These don't include actual working electronics or anything - they're more like Lego blocks that NASA and the Dynetics engineers working on the product can use together to ensure that the HLS design works well ergonomically and functionally for the astronauts who will eventually be using it to make the trip down to the lunar surface. The components of this test article include the crew module where astronauts will be living and working during their stay at the moon, as well as the tanks that will hold the propellant for the ascent and descent phases of its flight, an autonomous cargo platform and the tall solar arrays that will help power the spacecraft. Dynetics and its subcontractor LSINC created the mock vehicle in just three months after being awarded the contract by NASA. The goal for Dynetics, as well as for Blue Origin and SpaceX, is to compete with one another for the initial contract to take humans to the surface of the moon for NASA's initial human landing as part of its Artemis program, currently scheduled for 2024. Earlier this week, Blue Origin announced that it had passed a critical initial design requirements review, and Dynetics says it has accomplished the same. Blue Origin also delivered to NASA back in August a full-scale test article of its own. https://techcrunch.com/2020/09/15/dynetics-has-built-a-full-scale-test-version-of-its-lunar-human-lander-for-nasa/ SURVEY: GA PILOTS AND PIREPs "Dear GA pilot, Researchers at Purdue University are seeking general aviation (GA) pilots to participate in an online study, partially funded by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) NextGen Weather Technology in the Cockpit (WTIC) program. The goal of this study is to evaluate opportunities for speech-based or other "hands-free" technologies that GA pilots might use to submit PIREPs. If you are able and willing to participate, you will be asked to review a set of 6 weather-related flight scenarios and record PIREPs as if you are flying. The study will last approximately 20 minutes and can be completed using a laptop or desktop computer. Participation in this study is completely voluntary. You can withdraw your participation at any time during the study for any reason. If you agree to participate, you will be asked to acknowledge your voluntary participation. Then there are 4 questions about your flight history, 6 weather scenarios, and 4 questions about PIREPs. Responses to the survey will be completely anonymous. We ask that you complete the study in a quiet location free from background noise. You must be at least 18 years of age or older to participate. When you are ready to begin, please click here: https://purdue.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6lZhv409DcoV8KF and follow the instructions in Qualtrics. Please feel free to share this link with other pilots you know. Email any questions or concerns to Mayur Deo and Dr. Brandon Pitts at nhance@purdue.edu." Back to Top Graduate Research Survey (1) Stress and Wellbeing for Global Aviation Professionals Dear colleagues, I am inviting you to participate in a research project on wellbeing in the aviation industry during the COVID-19 pandemic. This situation has affected aviation professionals around the world, and this research seeks to identify wellbeing strategies that work across professions, employers, families, and nations. All responses to this survey are anonymous. The findings of this research will inform future work by the USC Aviation Safety and Security Program and the Flight Safety Foundation to improve wellbeing for aviation professionals during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey should take approximately 10 minutes to complete. Please click or copy the link below to access the survey, and please share it with any interested colleagues. https://usc.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_cC2nlWEAazl22TX This research will support a treatise towards a Master of Science in Applied Psychology degree at the University of Southern California's Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences. The researcher is also on the staff of the USC Aviation Safety and Security Program. Thank you, and please contact us with any questions, Daniel Scalese - Researcher scalese@usc.edu Michael Nguyen - Faculty Advisor nguyenmv@usc.edu Curt Lewis