ENDEAVORS FINAL FLIGHT DELAYED.

NASA has scrubbed the second-to-last space shuttle launch due to problems with an auxiliary power unit (APU), approximately 4h before the scheduled launch. The launch of shuttle Endeavour on STS-134 will be delayed at least two additional days as technicians attempt to fix the problem.

To troubleshoot the problem, technicians must access the shuttle itself, and to work safely around the shuttle it must be purged of its highly combustible fuel. To defuel and refuel can take up to two full days.

Delays are routine for space shuttle launches. The highly complex and delicate systems onboard often produce minor faults, and NASA's goal is to take no unnecessary risks.

NASA had earlier announced an expected crowd of 750,000 people to view this second-to-last launch of the iconic shuttle program, including President Obama, who had not arrived as of the delay, but apparently still plans to visit.

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ENDEAVORS FINAL FLIGHT CO-ORDINATION BY BOEING!!!

Boeing engineers and technicians are supporting Space Shuttle Endeavour's final mission by helping to prepare the orbiter for its April 29 launch and leading the processing of the payload. Mission STS-134 will carry the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-02 (AMS-02) and a large external platform called the Express Logistics Carrier 3 (ELC-3) to the International Space Station.

Boeing is responsible for the coordination, planning, buildup, testing and checkout of the hardware installed on the ELC-3. ELC-3 arrived at Kennedy Space Center in December 2009 as a bare carrier. Boeing integrated spare parts onto the carrier from several companies and NASA centers.

Another Boeing contribution to this mission is the 0.5-inch protrusion installed on a special test tile under Endeavour's left wing. This protrusion, designed by Boeing engineers, will trip a boundary layer that flows around the orbiter as it re-enters the atmosphere in the Mach 19-20 range. The tile protrusion causes turbulent airflow that will be measured by several sensors on and downstream of the protrusion. During this fifth and final tile test, Boeing and NASA engineers will gather data that will help design better heat shields for future spacecraft.

The STS-134 crew will transfer Endeavour’s 50-foot boom, used for inspecting the orbiter’s heat shield, to the ISS for indefinite storage on Boeing-provided hardware located on the Starboard 1 truss segment. The boom can be used with the station’s robotic arm to extend its reach to the solar arrays or other areas where repairs may be required.

Endeavour rolled out of Boeing's Palmdale, Calif., plant on April 25, 1991, and has flown 25 missions, traveled 108 million miles and spent 295 days in space. It was the fifth space shuttle to be built, constructed as a replacement for Challenger, which was lost in 1986. Endeavour was largely constructed from structural spare parts and was built in considerably less time than previous orbiters.

Endeavour flew the first assembly mission to the ISS, STS-88 in 1998. STS-134 marks the final ISS assembly mission.

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HEATING HEATHROW!!

Heathrow Airport's owners, BAA, have put forward a solution to stop the hub grounding to a halt in the event of future airport snow - underground heating technology.

BAA is looking into integrating a geothermal system that can capture solar energy, store it and then release it as heated water to replenish the tarmac above.

The principle blends an idea that dates back to Roman times with modern-day eco-friendly technology and, if implemented, it could prevent the Heathrow shut-down that occurred at the end of 2010.

Then, a massive snowstorm affected Heathrow's flight schedules for five straight days and, last month, BAA said it would spend £50m to put things right.

While the snow remained on the ground, close to 4,000 flights were cancelled and, on the first day, 9,500 passengers ended up sleeping in terminals overnight.

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BOEING BEGINS 787 DREAMLINER PILOT TRAINING

Boeing has started 787 Dreamliner pilot training with launch customer ANA (All Nippon Airways). Ten pilots from ANA began the training program with classroom instructions in Tokyo earlier this month. Training on simulation devices began April 23 at the Boeing Flight Services training campus in Seattle, Wash. First delivery of the 787 is scheduled for the third quarter of this year.

The Boeing 787 flight training program uses an innovative suite of training devices including a full-flight simulator, flight training device and desktop simulation station to ensure that pilots are ready to fly the Dreamliner.

With the 787 pilot training courses, pilots can transition to the new airplane in five to 20 days, depending on pilot experience. Boeing 777 pilots can qualify to fly the 787 in as little as five days, given the high level of commonality between the two airplane types.

In order to bring training closer to customers around the world, Boeing has installed a network of eight 787 training suites at five global campuses: Seattle, Singapore, Tokyo, London Gatwick and Shanghai.

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BOEING 737 BULLETIN!!!!

Boeing has issued a service bulletin that covers the operators of approximately 175 737-300/400/500s requiring a inspections on the aircraft fuselage structure to begin within five days for aircraft with more than 35,000 cycles, and 20 days for aircraft with 30,000 to 34,999 cycles, with the US Federal Aviation Administration requiring repeated examination every 500 cycles.

The requirement comes in the wake of the 1 April fuselage rupture aboard a Southwest Airlines 737-300, that developed lap-joint cracks far earlier in its service life than anticipated, says Boeing's 737 Classic chief project engineer, Paul Richter.

The US airframer issued the service bulletin late on 5 April disclosing the requirement to conduct dial frequency Eddy-current inspections on the lower row of fasteners in the fuselage lap-joint, along the left and right-hand side of the crown of the aircraft at stringer four between Station 360 - just aft of the forward passenger door - and Station 908 - a few frames ahead of the rear passenger door, covering roughly 15.2m (50ft) and almost the entire length of the passenger cabin.

The service bulletin applies only to 737 Classic aircraft with line numbers 2553 and 3132 inclusive, which were delivered from 1993 until the end of the Classic's production run in 2000. Paired with the 30,000 cycle requirement, a total of 175 aircraft worldwide meet this criteria, with 80 operating within the US, almost entirely for Southwest Airlines. The majority of the balance are operating in Europe and Asia, says Boeing.

What distinguishes this tranche of 579 737s is a design modification that was intended to eliminate the requirement for a lap-joint modification programme already in effect for line numbers 292 through 2552 inclusive, which were required above 50,000 cycles.

Richter, who serves as chief project engineer for Boeing's out of production aircraft, including the 737 Classics, says Boeing had anticipated some level of structural cracking in the area in question, though it had been expected to occur around 60,000 cycles, far later than the 39,000 cycles of the aircraft involved in the 1 April incident.

The design change increased the spacing of the tear strap frames from 10in to 20in inside the fuselage, which are intended to prevent fuselage damage from propagating across structural frames in the event of a failure. Ultimately the updated design on the newer 737 Classics was intended to increase the fatigue life of the lower row of the lap-joint.

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JUNO GEARING UP FOR MARS!!!

Lockheed Martin shipped NASA's Juno spacecraft to Kennedy Space Center, Fllorida. on April 8. The vehicle will undergo four months of testing and processing in preparation for its launch on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V 551 vehicle in early August. During the past year, the spacecraft was assembled and tested at lockheed Martin Space Systems Company facilities near Denver, Colo.

Juno is NASA's next mission to Jupiter and is the second of the agency's New Frontiers missions. Scheduled to arrive at Jupiter in July 2016, the spacecraft will spend a little more than a year orbiting over the poles of the gas giant while studying the planet's origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere.

Juno being loaded on c-17 globemaster

The 3,600-pound spacecraft was transported on an Air Force C-17 Globemaster III transport plane in an environmentally controlled container. The C-17 and its precious cargo touched down at 7:55 p.m. EDT at Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility. Juno was then transported to Astrotech Space Operations in Titusville, Florida,where it will go through final processing.

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UPGRADES FOR A320 (no beta versions LOL!)

Airbus is readying a number of A320 upgrades for service to facilitate pilot operations.

• Electronic Flight Bag-option that will enable pilots to plug laptops into a docking station. The system has been configured to handle a variety of laptops.The connection—using Arinc 828 compliant wiring—will enable aircraft and laptop to exchange relevant information. well am not sure about TROJANS!!:)

•  On-board Airport Navigation System (OANS). The system is designed to aid pilots when maneuvering at complex or unfamiliar airports and, effectively, provide the type of situational awareness they have when airborne also when operating at an airport. The airport moving map would be shown on the navigation display.like a world in their GPS they can browse the airport map the one new to pilots. 

•  This one is the derivative from A380.The runway overrun prevention system,the system uses visual and aural cues to alert the pilot if a landing is being attempted and runway space is inadequate. The goal is to aid the decision-making to go around.

BUT WHY AIRBUS DINT ANNOUNCE THIS FOR NEO VERSION, it would've been attractive other than redesign of wing and speaking on efficincies!!

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G-650 which flashed in SKY!!! then flashed into FLAMES!!!

The gulfstream 650 which in our prev post discussed as a jetliner that flashed like nothing with a whooping mach number of 0.9 went into flames on april 2.

The national transportation safety board (NTSB), released the pics of crash.suspects that plane was at high angle of attack after hitting the ground with its wing tips first.

 NTSB also had  a look on weather report on crash day and informed that port wing likely to experience 15 knots more than its star-board one..

whereas eyewitnesses reported that the landing gear collapsed followed by dragging of plane on runway runnning into flames!!!

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ON-BOARD BAR!!!!!!!!

its really freaking is that korean air a380 gonna built with bar.its duty free..passengers can buy drinks of their favorite brand on board!!


but for promotion of this facility korean air planned to include this facility in first class they can browse the shop on-board.

the shop replaces 13 seats on the aircraft so you're losing a lot of revenue, but the Korean
 mentality is that they buy all the duty free on every flight,

In the event of turbulence, each of the bottles on display has a strong magnet on the bottom which can withstand a 2g loading.

If there is severe turbulence the shop has to be emptied out," says Whetter, adding that on taxi, take-off and landing the alcohol has to be stowed.

Korean's A380s will feature a 407-seat layout with 12 first class seats, 94 in Prestige business class and 301 in economy class.

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IF BOEING GOES SKY INTERIOR ; AIRBUS GOES SPACE-FLEX INTERIOR

Airbus today unveils its innovative Space-Flex lavatory and galley concept which could enable someA320-family operators to fit an extra three seats on board their aircraft.

The new design replaces the A320's full-width rear galley with a smaller galley together with two lavatories that were previously located forward of the twinjet's rear passenger doors. The space vacated by moving the lavatories rearwards is taken up by a second small galley area on the right-hand side and an extra row of three seats on the left-hand side, boosting revenue potential for airlines.

An added benefit is that because the relocated lavatories are next to each other, they can be easily converted into a single, larger enclosure to provide access for wheelchair users - a facility that up until now has only been available on widebodied aircraft.

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F-35 first quarter flight test process!!

F-35 Lightning II test jets made considerable flight test progress during the first quarter of 2011, conducting 199 test flights versus a plan of 142 flights. Additionally, the F-35B short takeoff/vertical landing (STOVL) variant logged six times more vertical landings in the first quarter than in all of 2010. The test program remained ahead of plan despite the grounding of various test fleet aircraft for 4-15 days during the period as officials investigated the cause of a dual generator/starter failure during a flight on March 9.



The following totals and highlights provide a snapshot of flight test activity in the first quarter:

• Conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL: F-35A) aircraft conducted 82 flights against the plan of 62.
• STOVL (F-35B) aircraft conducted 101 flights against a plan of 62.
• Carrier variant aircraft accomplished 16 flights of 18 planned.
• Two production-model aircraft, AF-6 and AF-7, flew for the first time in preparation for delivery to the U.S. Air Force this year. AF-6 and AF-7 flew seven times in the first quarter.
• The STOVL variant performed 61 vertical landings (compared with 10 vertical landings in all of 2010). BF-1 performed the first touch-and-go maneuver in VL mode this quarter.
• From the start of flight testing in December 2006 through March 31, 2011, F-35s have flown 753 times, including production-model flights.

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RUSSIAN PRESIDENT WORRY ON AVIATION INDUSTRY!!

Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has criticised the country's commercial aircraft industry for its poor production output and its competitive capabilities.

The average age of mainline aircraft in Russia is 17 years, and up to 30 years in the regional sector, he said. But the domestic industry turned out only four Antonov An-148s and three Tupolev Tu-204 and Tu-214 twinjets in 2010.

Medvedev stated that the country's airlines ought to purchase domestically-built aircraft but, he pointed out, "not just any machine".

In terms of price against quality of production, he said, the aviation industry "must actually compete with foreign companies".

"Russian aircraft must not lose to foreign ones regarding their characteristics," he said. "Not on engine noise, fuel consumption or flight range, and not to mention the [avionics and internal electronics].

"Unfortunately even our new aircraft, produced at our facilities, have some problems - I have recently seen this personally."

Medvedev did not elaborate on the nature of these issues. Russia's main commercial aviation prospects centre on the Sukhoi Superjet 100, An-148, Tu-204SM and the MC-21.

He said the industry needed to improve the quality of its aviation products, creating "advanced and promising models", and invited companies to co-operate more closely "not only with traditional but with new partners".

Medvedev said the federal budget was prepared to allocate over Rb5 trillion ($177 billion) to aviation activity by 2020.

"It's a lot of money and every rouble should be spent with utmost efficiency," he said.

Medvedev underlined the decline in civil aviation facilities in Russia, stating that the number of airports had fallen by 40% since 2000 and adding that many current airports' infrastructure needs reconstruction.
Airport and air traffic management modernization will receive a 470 billion share of the federal budget in the medium term, he said.

Mr.president is correct, being a aviation pioneer the russian aircrafts esp in commercial sector lags behind  american firms,to name a few TUPOLEV,SUKHOI SUPERJET & MIG's MC-21 family arent in service outside europe and only european airliners such as AEROFLOT are incorporating their russian built fleet in service.

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