Commercial Aircraft Sales

Canberra MLS Certificated:

In what is a very significant step in the adoption of Microwave Landing Systems in Australia, the CAA has granted certification to the country’s first operational MLS system at Canberra.

MLS has been adopted by the International Civil Aviation Organisation to supersede the Instrument Landing System (ILS) as the standard means of precision airport approach guidance. The implementation date set by ICAO for MLS is January 1 1998. By this time all international airports are required to install MLS, supplementing and eventually replacing ILS.

Australian company Interscan, which designed and installed the MLS unit at Canberra, is recognised as a leader in this field and is poised to achieve a substantial share of this massive international market over the coming four years. There is believed to be a requirement forover 4000units, including those for military airfields.

MLS is developed from a CSIRO concept embracing time reference scanning which was developed during the 1970s (refer p40 Nov 90 AA for a detailed description). This concept has now been refined and adopted by ICAO over a number of competing designs as the designated replacement for ILS, which while being extremely accurate, is operationally inflexible and requires suitable terrain on which to locate the system. Consequently airports with runways facing towards harbours or ocean or surrounded by mountains often cannot properly avail themselves of ILS facilities.

MLS has a number of other inherent advantages over ILS. Whereas all aircraft flying an ILS approach must follow an identical track MLS will allow different aircraft to different approaches curved both in horizontal and vertical planes. Other advantages are that it is not restricted to a limited number of communication channels as is ILS which in highly congested airspace such as found in much of the US and Europe, severely limits the ability to install further ILS approaches. Furthermore, unlike GPS which has also been developed for precision approaches, MLS cannot be jammed.

The Canberra MLS unit is now operational and currently certified for Category I operations. The CAA will by 1998 have installed MLS at all other Australian international airports.

Aerospatiale Cutsback:

Faced with a reduction in order backlogs, Aerospatiale will close its Airbus and ATR assembly plants at Toulouse for an extra four weeks this year, one week in each of May, June, October and December.

This is in addition to the usual three week holiday shutdown in mid year.

In 1991, Aerospatiale planned to be involved in building 191 aircraft of all types this year, plus 224 in 1994 and 230 in 1995. This has now been reduced to 140, 148 and 179,respectively. The A320willbecutby ten units this year, while the planned production rate of the A330t. 340 models might also have to be pruned from the planned 3. 5/ month in 1993, 4. 9/month in 1994 and 5. 7/ month in 1995.

ATR regional turboprop production was supposed to have increased to 6. 5/month but instead has dropped to 5. 5/month.

 Airbus Continues Uhca Study:

While Airbus Industrie’s partners carry out feasibility studies for an ultra high cap&city aircraft (illlCA) with Boeing, the consortium itself is pushing ahead with its own ideas for the up to 800 passenger aircraft. In addition, it has made an informal offer to Japanese industry for an up to 3096 risk sharing partnership in the programme.

Aerospatiale, British Aerospace, CASA and Deutsche Aerospace have all been working on their own UHCA studies(also called very large commercial transport – VLCT) and have teamed up with Boeing to study market requirements for an aircraft capable of carrying 550-800 passengers over a range of 7000-10,000nm (13,000-18,500km).

A stretched Boeing 747 with full length upper deck has formed the basis of the American company’s investigations so far, and it has also been talking to Japanese companies Kawasaki, Fuji and Mitsubishi.

Airbus has approached the same Japanese companies with its ideas and says that any Japanese involvement will be on a full partnership basis with decision input from the start.

Airbus market research indicates a requirement for up to 720 UHCAs in the first decade of the next century, more than half of which would be for airlines in the Asia/ Pacific region.

Controller Recruitment Stopped:

A two year moratorium has been placed on the recruitment of air traffic controllers by the Civil Aviation Authority and trainee controllers will no longer be sent to the University of Tasmania for a two year course.

The move results from an internal review which recommended a complete overhaul of the training system in the context of the introduction of the Advanced Air Traffic Control System. Training will now be carried out completely ‘in house’.

Recruitment will begin again in 1995 at the rate of 30 to 40 per year to cover the fact that there will be many controllers retiring between then and the turn of the century. Controllers have to retire at age 50 andat the moment some 300 of the CAA’s 1100 controllers are 45 or older.

About 250 of the 650 flight services officers and airways data systems officers who will lose their jobs this year are being retained as controllers, and this will meet the CAA’s needs over the next two years.

Dangerous Precedent:

The former operations director of French airline Air Inter, Jacques Rantet, has been charged with negligent homicide in the wake of the crash of one of the airline’s Airbus A320s.

The aircraft hit a hill while on a night approach to Strasbourg airport in March 1992. The charges have been laid by a French prosecutor on the basis that the aircraft was not fitted with a ground proximity warning system(GPWS) and that the accident could have been avoided had one been fitted. The airline has responded by saying that the investigation shows no such evidence.

As operations director, Rantet is held responsible for Air Inter’s decision not to fit GPWS to its A320s because of unsatisfactory reliability and numerous false alarms. The decision was a collective one according to Air Inter chairman and CEO, Jean Cyril Spinetta, who has asked to be charged along with Rantet because he also approved the decision.

All of Air lnter’s aircraft are now fitted with the equipment because the French Transport Ministry has made it mandatory, but the laying of charges against Mantet as an individual has dangerous and potentially far reaching implications

Changi Airport Growing:

Indicative of the generally strong airline growth being experienced in the Asia/Pacific region at the moment are figures released by the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore relating to Changi Airport.

Some 18. 1 million passenger movements were recorded at the airport in 1992, compared with 16. 3 million the previous year. This represents an increase of 11% and if that rate is sustained, the airport will handle 20 million passengers this year. Aircraft movements increased by 15% to 125,526 in 1992(108,728in1991) and 719,000 tonnes of airfreight passed through the airport, 15% more than 199l’s figure of 643,209 tonnes. Some $190m will be spent expanding Changi’s Terminal 2 this year.