A Hop! Avions de Transport Regional ATR-72-212A, registration F-HAPL performing flight A5-4073 from Pau to Lyon (France) with 44 passengers and 4 crew, was on approach to Lyon when the aircraft encountered turbulence prompting the crew to abort the approach and go around. While climbing out of Lyon the aircraft received a lightning strike and a passenger became ill prompting the crew to divert to Grenoble (France) located about 40nm southeast of Lyon, where the aircraft landed safely. The aircraft remained on the ground in Grenoble for 52 hours, then positioned to Lyon and is still on the ground now in Lyon about 27 hours after positioning to Lyon.

http://avherald.com/h?article=4a5f87d1&opt=0

An Air Nelson de Havilland Dash 8-300 on behalf of Air New Zealand, registration ZK-NEZ performing flight NZ-8678 from Auckland to Kerikeri (New Zealand), was enroute at FL130 about 80nm north of Auckland and about 40nm south of Kerikeri, about abeam Whangarei, when the aircraft turned around and returned to Auckland due to a lightning strike. The aircraft landed safely back in Auckland about one hour after departure. The occurrence aircraft is still on the ground in Auckland about 20 hours after landing back. The airline reported the aircraft returned to Auckland as a precaution after the aircraft was struck by lightning. The aircraft is being assessed. Metars Auckland: NZAA 090300Z AUTO 09015KT 9999 OVC024/// 22/17 Q1014 NOSIG  NZAA 090230Z AUTO 08017KT 060V120 9999 BKN023/// 22/17 Q1015 NOSIG  NZAA 090200Z AUTO 08021KT 9999 BKN024/// 22/17 Q1015 NOSIG NZAA 090130Z AUTO 08017KT 040V110 9999 OVC026/// 22/17 Q1015 NOSIG  NZAA 090100Z AUTO 08016KT 050V110 9999 BKN026/// BKN031/// 22/16 Q1014 NOSIG NZAA 090030Z AUTO 08016KT 9999 BKN027/// BKN034/// OVC041/// 22/16 Q1015 NOSIG  NZAA 090000Z AUTO 07019KT 9999 BKN029/// OVC045/// 22/16 Q1015 TEMPO FM0100 5000 RA SCT020TCU  NZAA 082330Z AUTO 06018KT 030V100 9999 BKN029/// BKN040/// 22/16 Q1015 TEMPO FM0000 5000 RA SCT020TCU  NZAA 082300Z AUTO 07017KT 9999 BKN030/// BKN035/// 22/16 Q1015 TEMPO FM0000 5000 RA SCT020TCU  NZAA 082230Z AUTO 09014KT 9999 BKN030/// 23/16 Q1015 NOSIG  NZAA 082200Z AUTO 08016KT 9999 BKN029/// 23/16 Q1014 NOSIG  NZAA 082130Z AUTO 08015KT 9999 BKN030/// 21/15 Q1015 NOSIG  NZAA 082100Z AUTO 11006KT 050V130 9999 SCT031/// 21/15 Q1015 NOSIG

http://avherald.com/h?article=4a5f844a&opt=0

Sikorsky S-76 Strikes TV Tower (Turkey)

Date:	10-MAR-2017
Time:	11:21
Type:	Sikorsky S-76C++
Owner/operator:	Swan Aviation
Registration:	TC-HEZ
C/n / msn:	760717
Fatalities:	Fatalities: 5 / Occupants: 7
Other fatalities:	0
Airplane damage:	Written off (damaged beyond repair)
Category:	Accident
Location:	Büyükçekmece district, Istanbul -    Turkey
Phase:	En route
Nature:	Private
Departure airport:	Istanbul-Atatürk Airport (IST)
Destination airport:	Bozuyuk facilities

Narrative:
A Sikorsky S-76C++ helicopter, TC-HEZ, impacted terrain and broke up at the side of the D-100/E5 highway in the Büyükçekmece district, Istanbul, Turkey. 
The helicopter had departed Istanbul-Atatürk Airport at 11:15, six minutes before the accident. 
According to the local press and photos, the helicopter hit a tv tower in Buyukcekmece. The fog or low cloud base could be a factor in the accident. The helicopter was carying two pilots, one Turkish businessman of Eczacibasi group and four Russian guests of the company for a meeting at Bozuyuk facilities scheduled at noon. 

https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=194091

Men attempt to stow away to Singapore by riding aircraft tires

Jakarta - Men attempt to stow away to Singapore by riding aircraft tires
Aircraft are parked at Terminal 3 of Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Tangerang, Banten. (Tempo/Tony Hartawan)

Officers from Aviation Security at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport thwarted a desperate attempt by two men who tried to fly to Singapore by hiding in the wheel well of an aircraft.

The officers found the men, Andreas, 20, and Rendiansyah, 17, on the airport's apron.

Soekarno-Hatta International Airport spokesman Dewandono Prasetyo said the two men had sneaked through the airport's perimeter fence to get onto the apron. They were found by security officers of PT Cardig Aero Services.

The airport official claimed the men admitted they had sneaked onto the apron to stow away aboard a plane to Singapore, inspired by a movie they had watched.

"They planned to fly by riding the plane's tires," Dewandono said Thursday as quoted by wartakotalive.com. (vny)

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2017/03/10/men-attempt-to-stow-away-to-singapore-by-riding-aircraft-tires.html

Pilots renew calls for tracking on aircraft

Pilots have renewed a call for improved tracking on all aircraft on yesterday's three-year anniversary of the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.

No concrete evidence has ever been able to confirm what happened to the Boeing 777, something that the British Airline Pilots' Association says should not be possible in modern day aviation.

Latest speculation suggests a mysterious extra passenger possibly took control of the cockpit before plunging the aircraft into the Indian Ocean while it was on a service from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

The multinational search for the aircraft, believed to be carrying 239 passengers and crew, and its data recorders was the largest and most expensive in aviation history.

A lawsuit filed against Boeing in a US District Court in South Carolina, names seven malfunctions, from an electrical fire to depressurisation of the aircraft's cabin, that could have led to the crew losing consciousness, the 777's transponder stopping its transmission and the aircraft flying undetected until it crashed after running out of fuel.

The suit was filed by Gregory Keith, a special administrator for families who lost loved ones on the flight. It names 44 victims as plaintiffs.

Despite today's technology, it can take a long time to recover the part of the aircraft equipment which holds all the vital information - the black boxes - or, in the case of MH370, they may not be found at all.

Flight MH370 brought more attention to the limitations of black boxes, namely the limited data storage and finite battery life and signal distance of the undewater locator beacons attached to them, according to Balpa.

The pilot's association renewed its calls for better technology to aid the search of missing aircraft, something it says will not only help give answers to the families of victims, but will also give the aviation industry information to ensure safety is improved.

The International Civil Aviation Organisation has already announced that aircraft must have technology installed that transmit their position more regularly from 2021 and do so even more frequently when they are in distress.

But Balpa says retro-fitting of older aircraft should also be considered.

Balpa flight safety specialist, Steve Landells, said: "We don't believe it should be possible, in this day and age, to lose an aircraft.

"The announcement from Icao is welcome but if these systems are only fitted on new aircraft it will be many years before the majority of planes will have this technology.

"Whilst Icao have provided a small incentive to operators to retro-fit a distress tracking system Balpa believes that there should be a mandatory system in place that will allow the exact location of any aircraft experiencing an emergency to be known.

"Thankfully, accidents are very rare, but black boxes sinking to the bottom of the sea with the airframe delays potentially life-saving recommendations, and leaves the families waiting on the answers they so desperately need."

A Boeing spokesman told MailOnline it does not comment on pending lawsuits but the company said its thoughts remained with the people who died on Flight MH370.

http://www.travelweekly.co.uk/articles/274498/pilots-renew-calls-for-tracking-on-aircraft

Airlines are dealing with unruly passengers by training flight attendants in martial arts

Hong Kong Airlines
Hong Kong Airlines teaches its flight attendants self-defense. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

Here's another reason travelers need to keep their cool on a flight.

Low-cost carrier Pobeda Airlines, a unit of Russia's Aeroflot, says it will teach its employees judo and sambo, a Russian martial art, after a passenger at Moscow's Vnukovo Airport started violently started swinging at a Pobeda employee after he missed his flight.

The airline's chief executive Andrey Kalmykov told Russian newspaper Vedomosti (link in Russian) that the airline had been considering hiring private security guards but it would increase the cost of a ticket.

Passenger violence against airline employees are a major worry for airlines around the world. The International Air Transport Association says that 1,194 of the close to 11,000 reported incidents of unruly passengers in 2015 involved physical aggression against crew or fellow travelers.

Pobeda is not the first airline to offer training to fight off attackers, who can range from a drunk passenger to a hijacker. Hong Kong Airlines has taught its flight attendants kung fu. The US Transportation Security Administration offers a free self-defense course for US flight attendants taught by Federal Air Marshals. It has trained 11,000 flight attendants since it was launched in 2004. Flight attendants have to master aggressive techniques that can diffuse the situation in the cabin quickly.

The instructor in a TSA training video notes: "You don't want to get into a long, drawn out fight."

https://qz.com/928752/airlines-in-russia-and-hong-kong-are-dealing-with-unruly-passengers-by-training-their-attendants-in-martial-arts/

FAA awards type certification for Boeing 737 Max airplane

Jerry Siebenmark shares inside knowledge of Wichita's aviation industry.

Spirit AeroSystems employees look over the first completed fuselage of the 737 Max 8 at an August 2015 delivery ceremony.

Boeing's newest generation 737, the Max 8, has been certified by the Federal Aviation Administration.

Boeing said Thursday it received FAA type certification for the narrowbody passenger jet after a more than year-long flight test process involving four Max 8 airplanes as well as ground and laboratory testing.

About 70 percent of the Max 8 including its fuselage was manufactured by Spirit AeroSystems in Wichita.

Boeing claims the third generation of its venerable 737 reduces fuel use and carbon dioxide emissions by an additional 14 percent over competing narrowbody airliners, which would include Airbus.

Boeing said it is preparing to deliver its first Max 8s in the coming months.

Next up for type certification is the 737 Max 9, the first airplane of which rolled out of Boeing's Renton, Wash., factory on Tuesday. The Max 9 is the largest variant of the new Max airplanes. It is expected to enter service next year.

Seventy percent of that airplane is also manufactured by Spirit.

http://www.kansas.com/news/business/aviation/air-capital-insider/article137410733.html#storylink=cpy

Designing the fuel-efficient aircraft of the future

Stampede supercomputer helps researchers design jets with morphing wings, or built from composite materials, that will burn less fuel

Summary:
Researchers are using the Stampede supercomputer to design novel, fuel-efficient, wing designs for jets, and to develop tools that can help the industry build more efficient aircraft. The researchers are exploring wings with longer spans, made of complex composites and that morph during flight.

Martins designed new, high aspect ratio wings that have a much larger span than those in use today. Boeing has adapted that model and will build a prototype to test at NASA's Transonic Dynamics Tunnel later this year.
Credit: Joaquim Martins

As much as we complain about air travel, the fact is, flying has gotten considerably cheaper, safer, faster and even greener, over the last 60 years.

Today's aircraft use roughly 80 percent less fuel per passenger-mile than the first jets of the 1950s -- a testimony to the tremendous impact of aerospace engineering on flight. This increased efficiency has extended global commerce to the point where it is now economically viable to ship everything from flowers to Florida manatees across the globe.

In spite of continuous improvements in fuel burning efficiency, global emissions are still expected to increase over next two decades due to a doubling in air traffic, so making even small improvements to aircrafts' fuel efficiency can have a large effect on economies and on the environment.

This potential for impact motivates Joaquim Martins -- an aerospace engineer at the University of Michigan (UM) who leads the Multidisciplinary Design Optimization Laboratory -- to develop tools that let engineers design more efficient aircraft.

"Transportation is the backbone of our economy. Any difference you can make in fuel burn, even a fraction of a percent, makes a big difference in the world," Martins says. "Our goals are two-fold: to make air transportation more economically feasible and at the same time to reduce the impact on the environment."

Using the Stampede supercomputer at the Texas Advanced Computing Center, as well as computing systems at NASA and UM, Martins has developed improved wing designs capable of burning less fuel, as well as tools that help the aerospace industry build more efficient aircraft.

"We're bridging the gap between an academic exercise and a practical method for industry, who will come up with future designs," he says.

Novel wing designs for more efficient flight

Improvements in wing design have the potential to improve efficiency up to 10 percent, lowering costs and pollution. Moreover, in areas where new technologies are being applied -- such as for wings made of composite materials or wings that morph during flight -- improved design tools can provide insights when intuitive understanding is lacking.

Presenting at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) SciTech Forum in January 2017, Martins and collaborators Timothy Brooks (UM) and Graeme Kennedy (Georgia Tech) described efforts to optimize the design of wings built with new composite materials and emerging construction methods.

Today's airplanes feature 50 percent composites materials, but the composites are placed in a relatively simple way. New automatic fiber placement machines, however, can place composites in complex curves, creating what are known as tow-steered composite wings.

"That opens up the design space, but designers aren't used to this," Martins says. "It's challenging because there isn't a lot of intuition on how to utilize the full potential of this technology. We developed the algorithms for optimizing these tow-angles."

They found that tow-steered composites can reduce the structural weight of an aircraft by 10 percent when compared to conventional composite designs while reducing the fuel burn by 0.4 percent. NASA is in the process of building a prototype of a tow-steered wing box for a scale test at NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center.

Another area of study is morphing wings that change shape to maintain maximal performance regardless of flight speed, altitude and aircraft weight.

Martins, David Burdette and Gaetan Kenway (all from UM) presented results for a morphing design that has the potential to burn 2 percent less fuel than current designs at the 2016 AIAA SciTech Forum. Martins also published a chapter in the Encyclopedia of Aerospace Engineering on "Fuel Burn Reduction through Wing Morphing" describing potential designs ideas and optimization methods in this area.

"Research on new materials and morphing mechanisms will make morphing systems lighter, more energy efficient, and more economical," he wrote. "It is just a question of time before we see aircraft wings that exhibit morphing capabilities that seem impossible today."

A third area of investigation involves new, high aspect ratio wings that have a much larger span than those in use today.

Martins presented designs for such a wing at the 15th AIAA/ISSMO Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization Conference in 2014. Boeing has adapted that model and will build a prototype to test at NASA Langley Research Center's Transonic Dynamics Tunnel later this year.

Multidisciplinary design optimization

Designing aircraft using computer models isn't new, but in the past, studies either used low-fidelity models or confined themselves to a single area of investigation -- the aerodynamics of the wing or its structural integrity. These studies were passed between groups of engineers, leading to designs that were more efficient than those they supplanted, but not necessarily optimal.

Martins uses a different approach, called multidisciplinary design optimization, that combines many factors and high-fidelity models into a coupled computational optimization problem. This approach can lead to greater improvements than the single-study method, he says, but it requires the application of massive parallel supercomputers, capable of running complex calculations that account for hundreds or even thousands of design variables, all considered in tandem.

"Our problems require 100s or 1000s of processors and we try to get each simulation to be on the order of a few minutes, and the optimization to converge within eight to 48 hours," Martins says.

He runs these calculations not once, but hundreds of times to arrive at the best possible solution and to test the integrity of the new design in likely flight conditions.

"Computational fluid dynamics and computational structural mechanics are demanding," he says. "To solve our problems, we absolutely need a supercomputer like Stampede."

Stampede, supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), is currently the 17th fastest supercomputer in the world, according to the most recent Top500 list, which ranks high performance computing systems. Later in 2017, TACC will debut Stampede 2, which will be roughly twice as powerful as its predecessor.

Boeing and NASA are both testing prototypes based on wing designs suggested by Martins' optimizations, but the impact of his research goes beyond any one design. Martins' algorithms provide a means to combine the many complicated factors that go into a design into a single computational process. He is currently working with Embraer to evaluate the algorithms he has developed for use in production. He has also discussed the practicality of his algorithms with Bombardier, Airbus, and Boeing.

"Wing design is of critical importance to the aircraft manufacturing industry to achieve optimum performance and affordable designs," said Frode Engelsen, a Technical Fellow at Boeing Research and Technology. "Professor Joaquim Martins has advanced the state of the art by building a multidisciplinary design optimization framework using high fidelity aerodynamic and structural models simultaneously in wing design."

Ultimately, applying Martins' algorithms to an industrial process would require additional elements -- for instance, the use of a greater range of flight conditions to assure the safety of the aircraft, and integration with manufacturing costs to confirm the more efficient aircraft can be constructed economically.

The effort is worthwhile, however, because the impact -- on commerce and on people's lives -- is substantial.

"If you think about it, it's incredible that you can fly across the U.S. for a few hundred dollars," says Martins. "Ticket prices have gone down dramatically over the last several decades and that allows people to go visit their families for Thanksgiving. And it's been enabled by more efficient aircraft."

The research is supported by grants from NASA. Stampede was generously funded by the NSF through award ACI-1134872.

Story Source:

Materials provided by University of Texas at Austin, Texas Advanced Computing Center.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/03/170307100430.htm

True craftsmen: aircraft metals technology shop can fix it all

Photo By Staff Sgt. Victor J. Caputo | U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Kelly Huddleston, 51st Maintenance Squadron aircraft..

OSAN AIR BASE, Republic of Korea - Two pieces of metal are measured and precisely placed alongside each other while the Airman pulls a large mask across his face.

"Cover!"

An ultra-bright, ultra-hot light comes out of the torch, followed by hundreds of sparks flying through the air and a thick crackling noise spitting from the rapidly-heated metal, ending as quickly as it began.

The Airman flips his the dark, square mask, checks the dimensions of his weld, and quietly says "Nice," to himself.

What may seem like a unique and exciting display of work to many Airmen is just another day on the job for the 51st Maintenance Squadron aircraft metals technology shop.

"These guys have a skill where they can in fact become a true craftsman, and that's hard to find in today's Air Force," said Master Sgt. Kevin Betts, 51st MXS aircraft metals technology shop section chief.

In the true spirit of a trade craftsman, aircraft metals tech Airmen know how to efficiently operate more than just a welding torch. The different equipment they have allows them to fashion everything from a small, unique bolt or screw to large panels, intricately and precisely cut by a computer-operated machine based off of designs Airmen enter by hand.

"Anything that people need, we can make," said Senior Airman Kelly Huddleston, 51st MXS aircraft metals technology shop journeyman. "Anyone can walk up to us and say 'Hey, I need this,' and we'll be able to make it for them."

The diversity in capabilities means that no two shifts in the shop are ever the same. Some days might see them mass-producing the same item for use across base while others require the metals tech Airmen to work side-by-side with crew chiefs or specialists on the flightline.

"Every day is different," said Huddleston. "We can have a set schedule of what we're going to do for the day, but then calls come in over the radio and we have to go out and basically save the day."

The impact the shop has can also vary, with some jobs making other Airmen's lives easier and others having Air Force-wide implications, such as fixing a canopy issue that prevented the 51st Fighter Wing's A-10 Thunderbolt IIs from being able to fly.

"This shop made over a 100 bushings in a week, which is unprecedented, and literally restored 'Fight Tonight' capabilities and got the A-10 back in the air," said Betts. "This started an Air Force-wide inspection, so we were really at the forefront of that."

A unique aspect of aircraft metals tech Airmen is how many of them also do it as a hobby in their free time. The creativity and hands-on nature of the job naturally encourage many people to get into metallurgy off-duty, with upwards of 20 percent of any given group of metals tech Airmen actively practicing it as a hobby, says Betts.

Occasionally, the ability to enjoy the job runs even deeper than meshing with personality traits like creativity; for Huddleston, it runs in his blood.

His grandfather performed the same duties for commercial aircraft, such as the McDonnell Douglas DC-10s, for many years, even contributing to the construction of a space shuttle for NASA, while Huddleston contributes to the well-being of Team Osan's F-16 Fighting Falcons and A-10 Thunderbolt IIs.

"This is an awesome job, and most of the guys really love it and have a passion for it," said Betts. "Most them really excel because when you have a passion for your job, it's as if you're working for free."

https://www.dvidshub.net/news/226411/true-craftsmen-aircraft-metals-technology-shop-can-fix-all

Documents on air safety actions to be sent to EC

Mar 10, 2017- Documents related to the air safety improvements that Nepal has made will be sent to the European Commission (EC) so that Nepali airlines can be removed from its blacklist.

According to officials of the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (Caan), they have sent the documents to the Tourism Ministry which will forward them to the EC through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

They said that they had updated the information they had sent to the International Civil Aviation Organization (Icao) two months ago.

Caan had formally invited Icao's mission to carry out an audit of the corrective measures it has taken to address the significant safety concerns (SSC) relating to operations and other aspects.

Foreign Minister Prakash Sharan Mahat had requested EC President Jean-Claude Juncker to remove Nepali airlines from its air safety list during their meeting in Brussels recently, stating that Nepal had made significant progress in aviation safety.

President Juncker said they would look into the matter positively after studying facts provided by the government of Nepal.

"So the documents related to the progress made by Nepal in air safety improvement are being sent to the EC," Caan officials said.

The EC imposed a blanket ban on all airlines from Nepal from flying into the 28-nation bloc in December 2013.

Meanwhile, Caan officials said Icao had not yet informed them when the audit would be conducted. "We had requested a date in March for the audit, but it doesn't seem possible as we have not heard from Icao," they said. "However, we are optimistic that it will be sending the audit mission soon."

Unsatisfied with Nepal's progress, the UN aviation watchdog had given the SSC tag to Nepal's aviation sector in its audit report.

It had given a red flag on 'operations', among the eight critical elements of safety oversight, due to the large number of aircraft accidents and incidents between 2009 and 2012 when there were at least two passenger aircraft crashing annually.

Caan said that it had addressed almost all the deficiencies pointed out by the Icao audit in 2013, and expressed confidence that Nepal would be removed from the safety list.

In July 2013, an Icao mission visited Nepal to validate the corrective measures taken by the country to address the deficiencies pointed out by the global aviation watchdog in 2009.

The mission carried out an on-site audit from July 10-16. The report was submitted in August 2013.

http://kathmandupost.ekantipur.com/news/2017-03-10/documents-on-air-safety-actions-to-be-sent-to-ec.html

Porter Airlines connects aspiring pilots with experienced mentors

Porter Airlines is partnering with a number of Canadian flight training programs to help prepare aspiring pilots for success.

Destination Porter is a mentorship program introduced to students early in flight training through outreach sessions and open houses hosted by experienced Porter pilots. Pilots share their career paths and offer advice, while discussing future career opportunities.

Students have an opportunity to apply to Destination Porter after successfully completing their flight training program. They must provide academic transcripts and flight test reports, and demonstrate a high level of professionalism. Successful applicants are paired with a Porter pilot mentor and are guaranteed an interview for a First Officer position at Porter when they have met certain flying experience criteria.

"There is a need for qualified pilots across Canada as the industry grows," said Robert Deluce, president and CEO, Porter Airlines. "Porter pilots are investing their time as mentors to help the next generation navigate their own career paths. Becoming a pilot takes determination, hard work and personal commitment. It is a labour of passion, which I can personally attest to as a pilot myself."

Destination Porter hosts an exclusive event for students who are accepted into the program, where they have the opportunity to meet experienced pilots and executives, and learn about the culture and benefits of working at Porter.

Destination Porter is currently partnered with eight flight training schools:

"Successful applicants are paired with one of our experienced Porter pilots who volunteer their personal time as mentors in the program," said Julie Beverstein, Captain and Pilot Recruitment Ambassador, Porter Airlines.

"The knowledge and guidance they offer is invaluable to a newly licenced pilot who is about to begin their career."

Porter recently introduced the Porter Star Award at each partnering school. Students are recognized for academic achievements and their contributions towards helping others. Candidates are peer-nominated and the winner is selected by each school's administration. Porter Star Award recipients receive a bursary up to $1,000, presented by a Porter Pilot Ambassador during graduation ceremonies. The first Porter Star Award was presented to Darren Moorcroft, from the Brampton Flight Centre IATPL program, on Feb. 27, at his Wings Ceremony.

http://aviationtribune.com/airlines/north-america/porter-airlines-connects-aspiring-pilots-experienced-mentors/

Russian Female Pilot Terrorized Nazis - Stalingrad

WE ARE THE MIGHTY


Litvyak was only 20 years old when Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. The young girl rushed to the recruiter and tried to join to be a fighter pilot.

The actual translation of Lydia Vladimirovna Litvyak's epic nickname might be "The White Lily of Stalingrad," depending on the language you speak. Considering the Lily's association with death and funerals, it's rather fitting for such an incredible pilot.

Litvyak was only 20 years old when Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. The young girl rushed to the recruiter and tried to join to be a fighter pilot. The recruiters sent her packing. In their minds, she was just a small, young girl.

In truth, she was flying solo at 15 and was an experienced pilot. A biographer estimated she trained more than 45 pilots on her own. She knew she could do this. So instead of giving up, she went to another recruiter and lied about her flying experience, by more than a hundred hours. That did the trick.

Good for Russia.
The Soviets, probably realizing that this fight was going to kill a lot of Soviet people (and it did, to the tune of 27 million), were foresighted enough to consider gender equality when it came to their military units. Where American women pilots were only allowed to transport planes, Stalin was forming three fighter regiments of all-female pilots.

 

the white rose of stalingrad
Seriously though, good for Russia.

During her two years of wartime service, she racked up 12 solo kills and four shared kills over 66 combat missions. She scored her first two kills over Stalingrad three days after her arrival in the area.
Young Lydia Litvyak flew a few missions with the all-female unit before transferring to a mixed-gender unit - over Stalingrad. It was here she earned her illustrious moniker, "The White Rose of Stalingrad." She flew around a hail of anti-aircraft fire to engage an artillery observation balloon from the rear. She shot it down in a blaze of hydrogen-fueled mayhem - a notoriously difficult task for any pilot.

the white rose of stalingrad
Good thing Lydia Litvyak wasn't just any pilot.

Litvyak wasn't finished; she later became one of two women to be crowned "first female fighter ace" as well. She wasn't flawless - she was shot down more than once and bled more than her share over Russian soil.

But even when forced to make belly landings, she hopped right back into the closest cockpit.
She was so good, the Russian command chose her to be Okhotniki, - or "free hunter" - a new tactic that involved two experienced pilots who were free to hunt the skies on seek and destroy missions. She terrorized German pilots all over the Eastern Front.

The Yakovlev Yak-1, a plane flown by Soviet fighters, including Lydia Litvyak.

"The White Rose of Stalingrad" was last seen being chased by eight Nazi ME-109 fighters on an escort mission south of Moscow. Her body was lost until 1989 when historians discovered the unmarked grave of a female pilot in the Russian village of Dmytrivka.

The next year, Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev awarded Lydia Vladimirovna Litvyak the title "Hero of the Soviet Union," the USSR's highest military honor.

http://www.scout.com/military/warrior/story/1761398-female-pilot-terrorized-nazis-stalingrad

Iditarod Air Force: The Pilots Who Support Alaska's Frozen Race From Above

In the country's most rugged race, the famously tough guys on the ground rely on the lesser-known tough guys in the air.

Every March, Iditarod mushers making the final push toward the finish line in Nome, Alaska, encounter the barren ice of Norton Bay. They've conquered 800 miles of sleep deprivation and bitter cold, but the bay-frozen, flat, white, a 50-mile dash in search of the horizon line-is a brutal test. Humans and dogs become disoriented; every year, teams stall on the ice. Some, in real need of help, decide to scratch. When this happens, in not too long and if the wind is not too oppressive, they'll hear a dull buzz, slowly growing louder. A Cessna will descend, set down on its retractable skis, and a pilot will get out and load them inside, dogs and all. They will be safe.

The Iditarod Air Force is a team of 30 or so local bush pilots who fly from checkpoint to checkpoint-or dip down in between, should the call go out-supporting the sled teams like a flying pit crew. Their job starts two weeks before the race, hauling supplies into place. By the time spectators gather in Anchorage the first Saturday in March, the pilots are up in the air.

Bert Hanson, 66, used to fly commercial planes and run Iditarods, but now he's a retired pilot who flies the race. He's spent nearly 30,000 hours of his life in the air-1,400 "just flying Iditarod." He knows the practical reasons for landing on a lake rather than a clearing ("fairly smooth and fairly easy"), and why a river is worse than both ("there are so many hazards in the river that you can't see, like if the ice has jammed up and created a ridge").


IAF pilots like Bert Hanson modify their planes so they can harness dogs to the seat rails. Hanson once had the pleasure of hauling 22 sled dogs on a single run.
Erin Hooley

Hanson is also the IAF's director of operations. Sled teams can send equipment ahead to checkpoints before the start of the race, and getting it there is one IAF job. Pilots also fly straw. Every team, at every checkpoint, is entitled to one bale. At night, as the temperature drops, mushers rip it open, spread it around, drop their sleeping bag, and settle in-dogs splayed around them, everyone sharing the insulation.

Late in the race, when the dogs get sick, tired, or hurt, flying them home is the IAF's job, too.

The pilots own their own planes and carry their own emergency equipment-sleeping bag, camping gear, food. Some keep a camp stove for heating the engine if it's too cold to start. Hanson says if they had to spend a night out on the trail, most of the pilots would have no trouble. But they've chosen the air, which makes them nearly invisible to the casual fan. The Iditarod is a 1,000-mile-long celebration of fortitude run by iconic tough guys with a pathological need to have their will tested. Hanson downplays the risk in what the IAF does, but supply runs, hairy landings, and rescues in the bush also require a person hewn from the toughest sort of stuff. There have been times when the IAF nearly lost a pilot, and Hanson describes one thus, with no great concern: "He got into whiteout conditions and he hit the top of a mountain is what he did." Where the mushers are heroic, the pilots are dutiful.


The IAF operates out of 23 checkpoints. Most have airstrips, but at some the landing site is a river or bog. Two race segments are notorious for requiring rescues, meaning improvised landings: Shaktoolik to Koyuk (Norton Bay) and Rohn to Nikolai, where low snow and ground storms cause injuries. *Northern Route: The race uses this, its original routing, in even years. Both routes are part of the historic Iditarod Trail used to deliver mail and supplies to remote villages.
Mike Sudal

Perhaps it has to do with this: The Iditarod commemorates the heroism of mushers and dogs who saved lives by delivering medical supplies to Nome in 1925. Circumstances were dire; for a musher, the landscape is an adversary. But the Iditarod Air Force is a testament to the power of flight. From above, the landscape is humbled: Rivers and forests are just ribbons and speckles on the valleys, and the mountains and clouds settle like stiff beaten egg whites. Peering out of a Cessna's cockpit is utter serenity.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/adventure/outdoors/a25107/iditarod-air-force/

  REPLACING THE WORLD'S LARGEST JET ENGINE AT 40-BELOW

When a SWISS airliner was stranded in a northern Canadian territory in the dead of winter, engineers had to find a way to fix it.

In early February, the temperature meanders between -22 to -40 degrees. Add in 28-mph winds and it feels like a bone-shattering -76 degrees. Trees don't grow here; the summers are too short. Tarps rip like wax paper in freezing winds. One place stands out among the shrub-covered foothills, a lone 8,600-foot runway accompanied by one terminal with only two taxi gates.

This is Iqaluit Airport, and it's one of hell of a location for replacing a 18,000-pound jet engine.

SWISS LX40 landing at Iqaluit airport.
Darren T. Brooks
The Flight

Swiss International Airlines (SWISS) flight LX40 took off from Zürich, Switzerland, on Wednesday, February 1, at 4:20 p.m. Central European Time. The flight plan would have the plane cross the Atlantic, fly over the southern tip of Greenland, down across Canada, and then on toward its final destination in Los Angeles, spending a little more than 11 hours in the air. SWISS had been charting this daily 6,000-mile flight since 2016, thanks to the new Boeing 777-300ER powered by General Electric's GE90-115B-the world's largest jet engine.

It's a long, uneventful journey. But not this day.

Five hours into the flight, with the plane out over the ocean, Captain Roberto Battaglioni is napping in the crew-rest quarters in a small berth above the first class section while the co-pilot and relief pilot manage flight LX40. Suddenly, a flight attendant is pulling on Battaglioni's toe to jolt him out of sleep.

"Roberto, you have to go straight to the cockpit."

THIS 340-PASSENGER 777 HAS JUST BECOME A SINGLE ENGINE AIRPLANE.
As he steps through the reinforced cockpit door, the captain is told that that the left-side GE90 has automatically shut down after its self-monitoring system detected a problem. This 340-passenger 777 has just become a single engine airplane.

Boeing airliners have redundancies for this exact scenario, and a 777 can still fly comfortably on one engine. But if the second GE90 suffered a similar issue, the LX40 passengers and crew would be in a much more dire situation. When an engine fails over water, standard international aviation procedure calls for diverting to the nearest airport as soon as possible. In this case, that's a small airstrip on Baffin Island in the Canadian province of Nunavut called Iqaluit.


Baffin Island, a northern Canadian territory 180 miles away from Greenland at its narrowest point. It's the fifth largest island in the world.

An Emergency Landing

Iqaluit is the capital of Nunavut, home to about 7,000 people of Inuit and European descent. Although it lies below the Arctic Circle, the city has a polar climate because of the frigid Labrador Current off Baffin Island. The average monthly temperature is below freezing eight months of the year.

Iqaluit's airport was established as Frobisher Bay Air Base by the American Army Air Corps in 1942. With its 8,600 ft. runway, it served the U.S. military until the early 1960s and has been a divert field for trans-Atlantic airline flights ever since. It has scheduled airline service (aircraft are the main transport on and off Baffin Island) and also a terminal, but no large hangars.

"MY FIRST THOUGHT WAS WHERE IN THE WORLD IS IQALUIT?"
Once Captain Battaglioni was back in the cockpit, he apologized to the passengers and told the cabin they'd be landing at the nearest airport because of a "technical problem."

"I heard the announcement while half-asleep," passenger and RP Online reporter Judith Conrady wrote in an article two days after LX40's diversion. Meanwhile, Battaglioni and his crew were making an engine-out approach to an airport they'd never seen in a simulator, let alone in real life. As the 777 touched down softly on the runway "everyone claps, even the snobs," Conrady says.


Aerial photo of Iqaluit.

Overflightstock

On the ground, the airplane could not turn itself 180 degrees with only one engine, so ramp tugs towed the 777 to the apron. Iqaluit's Mayor, Madeleine Redfern, offered passengers a tour of the city during their unplanned layover. But with current temperatures at -23 degrees, no hotel space to accommodate the 216 passengers and crew, and no enclosed jetway to connect passengers to the terminal, SWISS decided to keep everyone on the airplane.

After a long and cramped 14 hours, another SWISS Airbus A330 airliner finally came and took them to New York, where they would transfer to yet another plane to take them to L.A. For their former plane the work was just getting started.

And Now For the Hard Part

"My first thought was where in the world is Iqaluit?" Matthias Althammer told Popular Mechanics. The SWISS aircraft engineer got news of LX40 as he arrived for his morning shift on Thursday, Feb. 2. He immediately plugged Iqaluit into Google, showing a small town surrounded by lots of cold.

Hours earlier, as the SWISS crew was still wrangling the solo-engine 777 while in flight, airline operations back in Zurich notified the local GE Field Service Engineer (FSE) of the engine shutdown. A GE team in Cincinnati got the word a few minutes later. With SWISS scrambling to get another airplane to Iqaluit, GE started exploring the problem and whether the 777 was still flyable. Most had no idea where Iqaluit was-except for one engineer from Winnipeg who knew well what to expect.

After engine data and photos were sent to the GE team, GE engineers determined that the turbofan wouldn't be running any time soon. They would need to replace the engine at the Iqaluit airport.


GE90-115B
Darren T. Brooks

But GE had no spare engine in the U.S. at the time, and the company's closest one was in London. However, SWISS did have a spare engine, but it had to somehow get from Zürich to Iqaluit. The GE90 is twelve feet long and weighs over 18,000 pounds. Its ducted fans measure 10-feet-8-inches in diameter. At full tilt, the GE90-115B creates up to 125,000 pounds of thrust-more power than the RMS Titanic and Alan Shepard's Mercury-Redstone 3 rocket combined.

Since this incredibly large and incredibly powerful cargo is much wider than an average fuselage, few planes can actually transport a GE90. But one such aircraft is the Antonov An-124, a huge military airlifter originally designed for the Soviet Air Force. SWISS contracted with a UK-based charter service to have an An-124 fly the engine and a batch of equipment to Iqaluit on Saturday, four days after the landing.


The Antonov An-124 that delivered the LX40's engine replacement.

With no hangar large enough to house the 777 and no GE90-specific tools on site, GE and SWISS hustled to gather what they'd need to get job done. SWISS technician Eric Rüttimann had done aircraft service in the field before but not in a place quite like Iqaluit. He told the German newspaper Blick im Abend, "I took half an hour to write down everything that came to my mind, and then I began to pack."

The engine, a spare engine stand, cowl replacement stand, cowling slings, and other basic tools provided by SWISS were all finally packed inside the Antonov. GE placed its own Quick Engine Change package including an inflatable tent, materials, and consumables on the Russian freighter. After arriving on Feb. 4, five engineers from SWISS and 12 engineers from GE got to work.


This tent was kept at 50 degrees fahrenheit while outside temperatures dropped to nearly 40-below.
Darren T. Brooks
The Deep Freeze Swap

The SWISS team handled the prep-work and readied systems for the engine swap, but GE performed the actual change. Both would rely on support from the local airline (First Air), the fixed base operator, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), who made their hangar available. None of the groups had met previously, but they gelled immediately.

"I was astonished how fast the team was established," Althammer says. Althammer was one of a trio of SWISS technicians working directly on the aircraft. "You could feel each and every one's passion for aviation and that bound us together."

The combined team would need that passion in order to brave the elements. "There was a constant wind that made the whole thing feel even colder," Rüttimann told Blick im Abend. Without wind, -22 degrees is bearable but working unprotected in these conditions... was not worth thinking about."

The inflatable tent brought along by GE proved to be a lifesaver. Generators and lighting provided by the Iqaluit community raised the tent's inside temperature to a relatively balmy 50 degrees and permitted work during the 19-hour-long February nights. Anyone or anything that ventured outside had to be kept from freezing.


Removing the old GE90.
Darren T. Brooks

"It was hard to imagine how tough working under these conditions was," Althammer adds. "We had to make sure not to touch anything with our bare hands as we would have immediately stuck to it."

There are about 12 steps for changing the engine - from disconnecting all electrics, pneumatic, fuel, and hydraulic lines to reinstalling the fan cowls and pylon panels and performing a leak check. Once off its pylon, the GE90 was quickly ushered inside the RCMP hangar where the GE team undressed it and transferred necessary components to the replacement engine. Some things, like tending to the 777's auxiliary power unit, air conditioning system, and associated water tanks, had to be done outside.


Crews work to swap necessary components onto the new GE90.
Darren T. Brooks
Weather stopped work several times when winds made moving large objects too dangerous and threatened frostbite. "The temperatures and winds made it too cold for even local people to be out working," says GE's Chris Chrissman, systems engineer for the GE90 program.

Strangely, these conditions might be dangerous for humans, but they closely replicate the kind of temperatures airplanes routinely battle-usually at much higher altitudes.


Installing the new GE90 engine.
Darren T. Brooks

Ready To Fly

Working continuously, weather interruptions aside, the crew had the new engine remounted and ready for leak checks, systems checks, and a ground run. As they labored, media outlets in Switzerland, the rest of Europe, and North America began reporting the story.

Finally on Feb. 9 at 6:00pm local time, and the airliner taxied to the runway under its own power for the first time in a week. LX40 ended its "halfway to LA" flight the following morning, touching down at Zürich Airport at 8:00am.


Darren T. Brooks

Changing an engine-even one as mammoth as the GE90-in five days time is not a remarkable feat. The engine maker and its airline customers practice "stress tests" regularly, working through various maintenance/recovery scenarios. But none of these scenarios factor in Iqaluit's extreme weather. "GE has faced other challenging conditions in the past," Chrissman says. "But we consider this engine change to be one of the most extreme."

But Iqaluit's strange conditions were made much more tolerable because of the thoughtfulness of the Iqaluit community.

"I'm almost sure I'll be back to Iqaluit again," Rüttimann says, "but only in the summer."

http://www.popularmechanics.com/flight/airlines/a25590/changing-worlds-largest-engine/

TODAY'S PHOTO

Airbus A340

CREDIT:  Jay Selman