Civil aviation industry grew by 400% in six yrs: Patel

Civil aviation minister Praful Patel on
Friday said the airline industry in India
has grown by 400% in a short span of
about six-and-a-half years. "Civil
aviation in India since 2004 and now
has grown by 400% in the span of about six-and-a-half years," he said
while presiding over a foundation stone laying ceremony for the Kannur
International Airport at Mattannur. He said in 10 years Indian market will
be the third largest aviation market
after the US and China.

Air India Express to shift base to Kerala

Nedumbassery: The headquarters of Air
India Express is set to be shifted from
Mumbai to Kerala, with the Chairman
and Managing Director of Air India,
Arvind Jadhav, issuing the order.
A press release from the airline on Thursday said the headquarters of Air
India Charters Ltd., the wholly owned
subsidiary of the national carrier that
operates the no-frills Air India Express
flights, would be shifted to Kerala in
pursuance of a decision taken at its board meeting on October 8. While the
operational and administrative offices
would be in Kochi, the engineering
hub would be in
Thiruvananthapuram.
The airline officials said the move to Kochi was expected to begin by
January 15, while the engineering hub
would be shifted when the
maintenance hangar became
operational in the State capital.
For Air India Express, Kerala is an important market in terms of capacity
and air-connectivity. Seventeen of its
21 Boeing 737-800 aircraft operate
out of the three airports in the State.
The shift will help release spare aircraft
fast if any flights encounter snags. The company is now renovating its
office on Durbar Hall Road here to seat
nearly 50 employees to be transferred
from Mumbai. In the State capital, 200
employees will have to be
accommodated.

Glass Cockpit

The new full-color, flat panel
Multifunction Electronic Display
Subsystem (MEDS) is shown in the
cockpit of Atlantis. The "glass cockpit"
offers easy-to-read graphical views of
key flight indicators such as attitude display and mach speed. Technology first used in
military, commercial aircraft When NASA astronaut Fred Gregory
learned that the cockpit in Shuttle
Atlantis was slated for a total
technology update, he advised Shuttle
managers to talk with the agency's
aeronautics experts. So it should be no surprise that Atlantis' new cockpit
looks a lot like a future airliner cockpit,
with colorful multi-function computer
displays stretched from one side to the
other. The radical new look is an
accurate reflection of the cockpit's radical new capabilities. Gregory, originally from NASA Langley
and now NASA Associate
Administrator for Safety and Mission
Assurance, knew that Langley had
pioneered the "glass cockpit" concept
in ground simulators and demonstration flights in the NASA 737
flying laboratory.

Indian Scientists Developed Technology to Reduce Aircraft Maintenance Cost

Technology By NAL And CSIR Allows Aircraft To Be Tested While Still Airborne
Peerzada Abrar BANGALORE

TWO of the country's top scientific and avionics research centres have successfully tested a technology that can reduce the cost of running and maintaining an aircraft by nearly a third.
The technology, called structural health monitoring (SHM), developed by the National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL) and the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has the ability to predict cracks or damages on an aircraft even when it is airborne.
"We successfully tested this technology, which is probably the first flight trial of an SHM system on an unmanned aerial vehicle," said Dr A R Upadhya, director of NAL.

Airlines to hire 5,000 as aviation boom returns

Mumbai/New Delhi: Indian carriers will hire at least 5,000 professionals across
categories this year — pilots, cabin crew and airport ground staff — buoyed by the recent boom in the aviation sector
which saw high attrition and
retrenchment after the onset of the
downturn in 2008.
" Airlines had pulled out at least 20% capacity from the market during the
downturn. That capacity was restored
last year and we see airlines adding
another 20% capacity this year and
would be hiring 4,500-5,000 people
this year," said Kapil Kaul, CEO of aviation consultancy firm Centre for
Asia Pacific Aviation, South Asia.

Indian Stealth

India is the
third country in the world, after the US
and France, to have a stealth bomber
fighter aircraft in its armoury. The Kolkata-based Indian Association
for Cultivation of Science (IACS) has
developed a technology to convert
ordinary light combat aircraft into
stealth jets that would go undetected
on radar. The first stage of the experiment, which commenced in
1999, has been successfully
concluded. The defence ministry has
approved the technology and has
given the go-ahead for "full-scale
production" to begin. It is expected to start in about six months? time.

Some airplane mishaps...

 

Did You Say More Left Aileron??. . . . (An Actual Cross Wind Landing) 

 

New Drive Thru Service Gives You An Instant Convertible . . (An . Actual Landing On The Wrong Runway)

Those dang pot holes . . they r even on runways now!! 

  

Aqua Cessna??? (Single Engine Problems) 

 

Sub Cessna? (Twin Engine Problems) 

 

Do I really need the left landing gear assembly? 

 

Whatcha Le Hombre . . . INCOMING!!!!! ?(New Kama Kazi Boarder Patrol) 

 

Aw Crap! !!!  I hate it when I do that! 

 

New reality show   -  I dare you to fly with us 

 

Roger That Houston . . .. Overheating On Port Engine 

 

Oh wow man.did I miss 

 

Aye . . .who took my wheelie bars?

American Airlines 757 tail strike in Orange County airport in California 

 

In Asia everything bows!

Doing a gear check on an EVA 747 

 

Anybody for a slice of airplane??? 

 

oops... wrong button 

 

I swear Officer, he backed into me! 

 

Making sure they use all available cargo space.... 

 

Mechanic forgot to chock the plane 

 

Hang in there baby!! 

 

I hate short runways . . 

 

Me first -- no me first -- no, no me first -- no, no, no me first.. 

Hey it looked hard! (Cessna Submarine) 

Just cooling the aircraft in Miami 

 

Amphibious runway assault 

 

Honey, I ' m Home rdSourceID :

10 Most Dangerous Landing Strips in the World

Air travel has become so popular that you will hardly find a place on earth, where you cannot reach by air. This obsession with air travel has led to mushroom growth of airports around the world. When you will look at the pictures below, you will ask yourself this question. “What on earth, they were thinking, when they put that landing strip there?” All of you will agree that the photos below are an airline pilot’s worst nightmare. These are indeed world’s most difficult landing approaches. It needs a lion’s heart or Instrument Landing to land an aircraft there. Here I have compiled 10 most difficult and dangerous landing approaches of the world.  Kai Tak Airport, Hong Kong  With numerous skyscrapers and mountains located to the north and its only runway. Jutting out into Victoria Harbour, landings at the airport were infamously difficult. Funchal Airport, Madeira The airport is infamous for its short runway which, surrounded by high mountains and the ocean, which make it a tricky landing for even the most experienced of pilots. Gustaf III Airport, St. Barts The arrival descent is extremely steep over the hilltop traffic circle and departing planes fly right over the heads of sunbathers (although small signs advise sunbathers not to lie directly at the end of the runway.  Courchevel Airport, France Courchevel’s airport has a certain degree of infamy in the aviation industry as home to one of the shortest runways in the world. The airport has a dangerous approach through deep valleys which can only be performed by specially certified pilots. Princess Juliana Airport, Saint Maarten The airport is famous for its short runway at only 2,400 meters it is barely long enough for heavy jets to land. Therefore, incoming airplanes approaching the island have to fly extremely low, passing only 10-20 meters over relaxing tourists on Maho Beach. Gilgit Airport, Pakistan  Due to the short runway at Gilgit airport that is located at the edge of a slope, even an aircraft as small as a Boeing 737 aircraft cannot land and take-off at the Gilgit Airport. Khathmandu International Airport It is considered one of the dangerous and deadliest airports in the world because of its location and the difficulties during landing. It is a step by step decent landing and the pilot has to continuously monitor the altitude as well as should be physically able to see the mountains. Narsarsuaq Airport, Greenland  Narsarsuaq Airport is located in Narsarsuaq, in southern Greenland. The lake at the end of the runway and steep cliffs makes it difficult to land even for skilled pilots. Saba Island Airport, Netherlands Antilles The locals claim that this is the shortest commercial airport runway in the world. There are not any overrun areas on either end of the paved runway where sheer cliffs immediately drop off over 200 feet into the sea. Lugano Airport, Switzerland  Lugano-Agno’s instrument approach procedure is quite challenging because of its steep angle of descent of 6.65°which is double of the standard approach. This is due to its geographic location in the mouth of a valley.