Newsdesk-Commercial Aviation

Helping to make the project possible is the recent decision by the Taiwan Government owned Communications Bank to invest $US 600m into Taiwan Aerospace Corporation to buy a 25% interest in the MD-12 programme. The deal at last cements Taiwan’s involvement with MDC and is the single biggest investment made by the government in a private enterprise organisation in Taiwan. TAC has also not ruled out the possibility of increasing its share in the MD-12 programme with an additional investment in 1993/94.

Avalon Bookings Healthy:

The booking of display space for October’s Australian International Air Show at Avalon is coming along well, with nearly 100 companies confirmed at presstime and space reserved for a further 120.

Among the major international companies already committed to the show are British Aerospace, British Airways, Rolls-Royce, Aerospatiale, Dassault, Alenia. Aermacchi, Saab, Ilyushin, McDonnell Douglas, Hughes, Lockheed, Bendix/King, Gulfstream, Cessna, Rockwell and Teledyne Continental. In addition, some 150 Australian companies are expected to exhibit at the show which could draw more than a quarter of a million visitors to Avalon.

Some interesting aircraft have also been confirmed for the show including an Ilyushin Il-96-300 widebody airliner, an Airbus A340 (provisionally flying nonstop from Toulouse to Avalon) the world’s smallest jet, the Bede BD-5J Silver Bullet, COMMERCIAL the Roaring Forties Harvard aerobatic team from New Zealand (to many the high-light of last year’s RAAF 70th Anniversary show at Richmond) plus a Messerschmitt and Spitfire dogfight act courtesy of famed warbirds pilots Ray and Mark Hanna (refer our Wanaka pictorial review else-where this issue).

146 Engine Problem Solved:

The reason behind a major loss of power on all four engines of an Ansett WA BAe 146 last March (refer p6 May 92 AA) in icing conditions has been discovered and a fix ordered.

The incident occurred when the 146’s engine bleed air deicing equipment was switched on at 31,000 feet and as a result, the British CAA has issued an Airworthiness Directive (AD) which requires operators to make a simple adjustment to the aircraft’s Lycoming ALF502 engines’ hydro mechanical fuel controller. The adjustment takes about 15 minutes to perform. 146s are restricted to a maximum altitude of 25,000 feet when flying into known or forecast icing conditions until the adjustment is carried out, although at presstime almost all of the world wide fleet had been modified. At the time of writing the Australian Bureau of Air Safety Investigation had still not released its official report on the incident.

Meanwhile, an Ansett WA 146 has made the news for another reason recently. In late March the airline’s 146-200 VH-JQ became the first of the breed to log 20,000 flying hours. VH-JQ entered service in June 1985 and recorded 15,750 flight cycles in the course of its first 20,000 hours. An Ansett WA sister ship, VH-JJP (also delivered in March 1985) should also have achieved that milestone by now.

 737 Record Set:

A Solomon Airlines Boeing 737-400 last month set a new distance record for the type by flying non-stop from Majuro in the Marshall Islands to Melbourne, a distance of 3,065 nautical miles (5,676km).

The aircraft was on its delivery flight from the USA and logged 7hr 55min in the air. It also had to contend with headwinds en route. The flight was made with assistance from Australian Airlines which performed the aircraft’s pre-service checks before returning it back to Solomon Airlines,

Heavier A330/a340s Approved:

Airbus Industrie has announced higher gross weight versions of its new four jet longrange A340 and high capacity twinjet A330. They will be available from 1995 and early 1996, respectively.

The increases are designed to improve the aircrafts’ competitiveness with the Boeing 777 and McDonnell Douglas MD-11 by offering improved payload/range performance. The basic A340 is powered by four CFM56-5C2 turbofans each producing 31,2001b thrust, while the growth versions will be fitted with 34,000lb thrust variants of the CFM56. The A330 is being offered with GE CF6, Rolls-Royce Trent or P&W PW4000 engines. By May the first A340 had logged over 350 flying hours and was on schedule for European certification late this year. The A330’s first flight is scheduled for about August this year.

Boeing’s Delivery Record:

Despite a drop in airliner orders generally of late, Boeing delivered a record number of aircraft in the first quarter of 1992. The total of 124 beat the previous quarterly best (set at the end of 1991) by five units and comprised 66 737s, 16 7478, 25 7578 and 17 767s. The first three months of the year also saw 56 aircraft ordered, nearly twice the number of orders booked in the same period of 1991.