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Students will spend 90 hours flying VFR and Night VMC in the Tobagos and then progress to 60 hours Advanced IFR and airways work in the Trinidads, which will be equipped with Pictorial Navigation Indicators and DME. They will spend 15 hours learning aerobatics in the CAPS before conducting the remainder of their courses on basic and advanced twins.

Meanwhile, rumours that Ansett had with drawn from the Ansett British Aerospace training college to be situated at Tamworth are groundless. While the Ansett team involved in the project has naturally been preoccupied with more pressing matters, the college itself is still on target to open in May 1990. The Ansett BA college will be optimised purely for the training of pilots for overseas airlines so the long-term outcome of the pilots’ dispute will have little effect on its operation.

 BAe Launches New Bizjet:

After months of speculation, British Aerospace has launched its ‘stretched derivative of the successful 125-800 corporate jet Designated the BAe 1000, the new aircraft features the basic 125-800 fuselage lengthened by 33 inches (84cm) combined with more powerful 5,2 15,200b thrust Pratt & Whitney PW305 turbofans (in place of the 800’s 4,300 Garrett TFE7318), increased fuel capacity, higher operating weights and a maximum range with IFR reserves of 3,230 nautical miles (5. 980km), a figure 27% greater than the 125-800. Standard seating will be 8 as before, but in a ‘double club’ rather than five individual chairs plus three seat sofa arrangement.

First fight of the BAe 1000 is scheduled for January 1990 and it and the current 125-800 will be produced side by side at BAe’s Chester factory. Current production rate of the 125-800 is around three per month; by 1992 it is expected that -800 and -1000 combined production will reach 50 per annum with 30 of these being the new model.

‘Privatised’ ASTA:

Aerospace Technologies of Australia (ASTA) will be subject to the Goverment’s latest privatisation moves with a partial float. An ASTA holding company will remain in public ownership but the various divisions of the group will be floated separately. Tenders for 49% of ASTA Aircraft Services (which maintains Boeing 7475 for Continental Airlines at Avalon) will shortly be called while the company’s civil and military production arms could be floated separately at a later date. Military business currently comprises the F-18 Hornet (nearing its end) and Sikorsky S-708 Seahawk programmes while the civil aircraft group builds components for Boeing and Airbus including 757 rudders, 747 wing leading edges and A330/340 floor support structures. ASTA is also planning to design and build a light helo in the Alouette II/ class in addition to talking with Agusta on a three way partnership on that company’s utility version of its A129 helicopter in association with Argentina. At press time though, the Aerospatiale project was beginning to grind to a hat due to a number of ber of ongoing problems between the parties concerned.

Under the control of recently appointed chairman, Sir Brian Inglis (formerly chairman of Ford Australia), ASTA made a profit of $317,000 last year after a $14m loss the previous year. Meanwhile, Qantas is expected to be a major bidder in acquiring a substantial minority shareholding in ASTA Aircraft Services, a move that would alleviate its chronic lack of space at the KSA jet base whilst allowing it the opportunity to once more market its maintenance capabilities overseas.

 Citation Success:

Cessna has recorded more than 100 orders for the latest in its business jet line, the Citation 5.

Aimed at the lower end of the market, the Citation 5 is a slightly stretched and more powerful derivative of the popular Citation II. It first flew in August 1987 and deliveries began earlier this year. To meet the demand, Cessna is increasing production from 34 to 50 pa. A full colour Update will appear on the Citation 5 in our next issue.

More Adf Helicopter Upheavals Possible:

The RAAF is again re-evaluating its position on the retention of a rotary wing capability The sudden demise of the NSCA’s SAR (Search & Rescue) capability at RAAF bases earlier this year has left the air force feeling exposed if a future tenderer should ever meet a similar fate. To supply the SAR capability plus certain n utility functions, the RAAF is looking at a plan in in which it would retain 12 of the UH-1H Iroquois helos that it originally was scheduled to hand over to Army. Lloyd Helicopters inherited the RAAF SAR contract from the defunct NSCA and still I have two and a half years to run under the terms of their present o t contract. However, if the RAAF should opt to return to providing their own SAR capability, it would thus be with a less capable helo than those presently used by Lloyds. It is expected that a firm deci- sion either way should be known by early next year.

Also bidding for surplus Hueys is the Navy who require 8 UH-1Hs for general utility operations effectively replacing the soon to be disbanded Wessex unit. BH Pacific have also offered a long-term lease of 4 twin engined Bell 412s for this task with the aircraft being maintained and flown by either navy or civilian crews. If the demands of both services are met then this would leave Army with just 9 additional UH-1 Hs to add to the 4 Iroquois gunships and 4 utility versions that they presently operate. Army is also building up towards a force of 36 Sikorsky S-70A Black Hawks and also operates 47 Kiowa, 13 Nomad and 14 Pilatus Porter aircraft.

Meanwhile, the heavy lift Chinooks are being reevaluated in light of operational experience gained at K89 where a number of US Black Hawks were ‘destroyed by Kamarians (our SAS) due to an inability to get s sufficient forward based fuel to them so that they could redeploy to less hostile territory at night. The Chinook capability was also missed in many other situations and was deliberately excluded from K89 so that the ADF commanders could ascertain in in real terms just how sorely its unique capabilities would be missed. A thorough Army headed evaluation is underway and an announcement as to its findings is expected early next year. If Army endorses the retention of the Chinook, then the Boeing Helicopter offer to take all 11 and return 5 modded to CH-47D specs would be the most practical (refer p78 Sept 89 AA).

Norfolk Withdraw From Fleet Support Contract:

Norfolk Airlines have formally withdrawn from the $26m DoD contract that they recently won to supply the Navy and Air Force with specialist support flying. (Their successful tender was reported elsewhere in Newsdesk prior to the withdrawal from the contract. ) Norfolk has withdrawn for reasons of economics in that certain aspects of the overall fleet support contract were apparently not sufficiently clarified by the DoD during the tendering process. Lloyd Aviation, who have provided the RAN with fleet support and the RAAF with target towing services will now continue in this role till mid 1990. Lloyd’s are presently providing the service under the terms of the first of two six month contract extensions.

Air New Zealand 747-400 to Be Leased Out:

Air New Zealand is not taking delivery of the first of three 747-400s and will instead sell or lease the aircraft.

The decision follows the airline’s inability to come to an agreement with its pilot union as to the terms and conditions for operating the aircraft. ANZ’s second-400 is due next July and the third in September 1992. The airline was primarily concerned with having the SNZ200m aircraft lying idle at Auckland following its November delivery and so will overcome this problem by accepting the aircraft for release in Seattle.

The only other carriers flying Rolls-Royce powered 747-400s are Cathay Pacific, British Airways and Qantas. All three airlines, and in particular the first two, would benefit by the immediate addition of one additional -400 into their fleet structure.

Afap Campaign Enters Deep Stall:

The Pilot’s Federation campaign had virtually entered a deep stall by mid October as the AFAP became more isolated with ittle recourse but to totally capitulate and adopt a pre dispute position.

On October 10 the overall legal relevance of the AFAP to the future of the dispute was best illustrated when the Industrial Relations Commission took just five minutes to come to the conclusion that there would be nothing to be gained by the AFAP talking directly with the airlines as the Federation no longer represented employees of those airlines. For the AFAP it was indeed short finals to a very bumpy landing Almost every industrial and airline observer now agrees that the Federation made its single biggest mistake in caling for its members to resign en masse on August 24. This ill-thought-out manoeuvre neatly let the airlines off the hook in terms of their responsibilities to the individual pilots. That the plots were no longer paid employees of the airlines also meant that their union, the AFAP, no longer physically represented workers employed by those ar lines. The airlines simply did i not to have to legally recognise the AFAP any longer, a situation that was also quickly endorsed by the Government, IRC the Arbitration Commission, the and the ACTU – everybody except the AFAP, which took nearly two full months to appreciate that it was totally isolated and largely irrelevant to the final outcome of the dispute.

By mid October, the air transportation system had got back to around 50% of capacity with this figure expected to increase to around three quarters by early December. This though is largely with the massive uplift being contributed via the RAAF and various international carriers. At presstime Ansett was claiming that more than 1,000 Australian and overseas pilots had applied to join it including 264 pilots already endorsed on aircraft the airline flew. Ansett also stated that 692 of the applicants were Australian.

The marines now believe that there will be a split in the ranks of the pilots over the coming weeks with as many as 50% ultimately coming back to rejoin under the terms of the new 5 year contracts. However, contracts will be offered selectively and several hundred less pilots will be required than before so for many, the dispute will also spell an end to a career as an Australian airline pilot.

Meanwhile, initial payments of compensation made to the CAA and FAC in lieu of the airlines not standing down staff have appeared unusually small. The first payment, made to the CAA in respect of Ansett (in lieu of en route charges not implemented) covered the August 28 to September 11 period and totalled $701,735. A second payment of $1,422,935 was made to the FAC (in respect of Australian) covering the August 28 to Sept 29 period.

Airships Pacific to Withdraw From Local Operations:

Airships Pacific, the Australian subsidiary of UK based Airship Industries, has ceased its Bankstown based joy fight operations.

The move comes as Al moves out of actual airship operations internationally in favour of concentrating on R&D and future project development. A buyer for the local charter operation is now being sought with ultimately the joy fight operation most probably being relocated to Queensland’s Gold Coast.

Meanwhile Al are about to roll out their first Sentinel 1000, a specialised surveillance and mine countermeasures airship with twice the hull volume of the 600 series. Development of the Sentinel 1000 is being funded by the US DoD and as the 1000 in linear terms will be roughly half the size of the projected YEZ-2A long-range fleet escort AEW airship (refer p35 May 86 AA), it will also provide the US defence forces with a significant amount of operational data on modem large hull airship operations.

Pilots’ Dispute a Stroke of Good Luck for New Entrants:

One of the primary problems facing the three new entrant airlines over the coming year was simply hiring skilled manpower, and primarily in the pilot ranks. All three potential carriers have understandably been inundated with requests for information by mainline jet pilots grounded by the current dispute.

The new entrants will obviously offer similar five year contracts as are now being made available by the established domestics and while pilot selection will be selective, a spokesman for one new entrant, Southern Cross Airlines (the name is subject to final approval by the Corporate Affairs authorises at presstime), stated that he was amazed at the sheer quality of enquiries that the airline was receiving, particularly from high hour captains and first officers.

The can Southern Cross was formed as a result of the defection earlier this year of several key members of the Capitol Airlines founding team. Comprising largely ex-TAA executives, Southern Cross, like Capitol, will fly a number of MD-80 series aircraft in both a business and economy configuration on key trunk routes. Carrier however is also keeping its options open and it the MD-83s that it wants are not available, then it may well switch tactics to another make including smaller leased twinjets in the Fokker 100 class. At presstime it appeared that Westpac would be the lead underwriter with a formal launch of the a airline scheduled for early November. Talks were also underway with a number of large international carriers as to a possible equity purchase which would include technical assistance and also some maintenance work. A more complete update will follow in our next issue.

Qantas to Fit Collision Avoid- Ance System:

Qantas will be one of the first airlines outside the United States to fit Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance Systems (TCAS) to its fleet.

The $7m TCAS II system helps airline pilots cope with increasingly crowded airspace, particularly near airports. “TCAS is like an Air Traffic Control radar system fitted to the aircraft. It looks for other aircraft and wars the pilot if the two aircraft are on conflicting courses,” said the Qantas Manager of Electronic Engineering. Mr Bob Schwartz.

The TCAS system will tell a pilot to climb or descend to avoid a possible collision with another aircraft approaching from any direction. Qantas plans to have its entire fleet fitted with the system by the end of 1993, when the American Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) will require all aircraft operating in the United States to have the devices. The first aircraft will be fitted with TCAS next year. The Australian national carrier chose TCAS equipment manufactured by America’s Honeywell Air Transport Systems and the cost will include installation, labour and test equipment.

The Mouse That Roared Dept:

Tiny Norfolk Island is considering whether or not to mount a legal challenge to the Australian Government over damage caused to its only industry, tourism, as a result of the pilots dispute.

Basis of the challenge revolves around the Government’s refusal to allow Air New Zealand to operate temporary Boeing 737 flights from Norfolk Island to Australia. Previously the is land community was primarily served by six F28 services a week from Sydney and two from Brisbane. During the dispute Norfolk has been getting only two flights a week forging two of the four major hotels to close while the number of tourists has been halved. ANZ traditionally serves Norfolk Island from Auckland.

Island administrators angrily claim that Canberra’s deliberate refusal to allow ANZ to fill the vacuum left by East-West has caused considerable hardship to a community where unemployment benefits are non existent. The Island administration is also angry about a CAA ruling that at presstime meant the recently delivered 38 seat Norfolk Island Airlines Dash 8 propjet was not allowed to fly the route due to EROPS certification queries (refer elsewhere in Newsdesk).

Pilots Buy United as British Airways Takes a Slice of the Cake:

Heading off a hostile takeover bid by Marvin Davis, United Airlines’ pilots and management have raised nearly $10bn to buy their airline. The plots in the process have signed a seven year no strike contract, taken a 10% cut in pay and have agreed to fly longer hours. The benefits though will be their long sought after goal of now having a definitive say in management decisions in sin addition to a shareholding of considerable long-term value.

Boosting that long-term value was the announcement of a British Airways bid to acquire 15% of the airline in company with the pilots and management. BA’s investment of $A656m will see the two giants able to tap into more than half of the free world’s air transportation market and will usher in the age of the truly global mega-carne carrier.

BA is also negotiating to acquire 20% of Belgium carrier Sabena and narrowly missed out earlier this year in obtaining a slice of Air New Zealand. The United BA link will further cement their already successful marketing marriage of 1988 and will allow BA far greater access to the growing Asian Pacific market than it presently enjoys.