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Upon first reading “Saltire Desires” about an independent Scottish defense force (AW&ST Dec. 9, p. 34), I thought it was a joke. Then I realized that the Scottish National Party (SNP) has simply joined the long list of those who have allowed nationalistic fervor to blind them to economic reality. Perhaps they would like to buy my 40-year-old Scottish Aviation Bulldog T.1 to serve as their light-attack and counterinsurgency contribution to NATO.
Defense spending in Europe has taken a marked downward turn, according to figures released by the European Defense Agency (EDA) in September 2013, with investments being hit particularly hard. In 2011, total defense expenditures by EU member states—excluding Denmark, which has opted out of the EU's Common Security and Defense Policy, and Croatia, which became a member in mid-2013—fell by €1 billion to €192.5 billion ($265 billion), a drop of over 2%.
The digital revolution first put maintenance data online, saving paper and major hassles. Then laptops brought data to techs, saving walking time to desktops and kiosks. Smartphones, handhelds and tablets are starting to cut weight from techs' bags and shoulders. What's next?
The South African Civil Aviation Authority (SACAA) says the crew of a British Airways Boeing 747-400 (G-BNLL) taxiing for takeoff on Runway 3 Left at Johannesburg's Tambo International Airport at night on Dec. 22 was given the proper instructions before the aircraft's right wing struck the second story of a building. The London-bound 747, with 185 passengers and 17 crew, was cleared to the takeoff position using taxiway Bravo, which intersects the narrower “taxilane” Mike near the runway threshold.
China Eastern Airlines, already the major Chinese airline with the greatest focus on low-cost operations, is planning to operate a mainland budget subsidiary from Beijing. At the same time, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) is stepping up its campaign to promote low-cost airlines, setting aside its long-standing disdain for the potentially destabilizing model.
Japan's 2014 defense budget request asks for a 3% increase over the 2013 budget, continuing the sudden upward trend set in motion by the right-wing Prime Minister Shinzo Abe upon his December 2012 return to power. The previous center-left government planned a 1.3% decrease in defense spending, which had already seen 10 consecutive contractions since 2003.
Capt. (ret.) C. D. Zwingle (Burlingame, Calif. ), American Airlines (Burlingame, Calif. )
Factors contributing to the rejected landing/go-around issue are several, as touched upon in “What Goes Around” (AW&ST Nov. 11/18, p. 44). In my air carrier experience, I found the FAA Advanced Qualification Program (AQP) a suspect contributor to deficient line performance in, at least, the rejected landing and takeoff events.
Consumers may be buying the latest electronic goods, but they are certainly not spending as much as they were 10 years ago. That means the air cargo industry, which is being swamped with belly capacity, is being left with a lot of empty space and nothing to fill it.
If the rise of the Persian Gulf carriers has been frightening so far for the rest of the industry, competitors should not even look at what is going to happen in 2014. The three big Middle Eastern airlines will have access to significantly improved infrastructure as they continue to grow their fleets.
Asia-Pacific nations are expected to spend about $1.4 trillion on military programs in 2013-18, an estimated 55% increase over the $919.5 billion the countries spent during 2008-12, according to an AW&ST analysis of data provided by Avascent Analytics.
Canada's armed forces, facing a familiar combination of a declining budget and aging fleets, have a third problem: a lack of public and political confidence in the nation's acquisition process after a series of failures and embarrassments, including a 28-year effort to replace naval Sea King helicopters that has already seen one program canceled, and a second one started that is now running at least four years late. The acquisition of four trouble-plagued ex-Royal Navy submarines has been another public problem.
India's defense budget for 2013-14 was a more modest expansion than the double-digit increases of previous years, reflecting slower economic growth. However, the budget is nonetheless heading toward the $50 billion mark, including an estimated $15 billion on new air platforms (for the air force and navy) in the next two years.
Under growing pressure to tighten budgets, France is slowing deliveries of major military equipment and stretching out development of new platforms over the next six years.
In 2014, the U.S. Army will select among four competing designs—two tiltrotors and two coaxial-rotors—for two high-speed rotorcraft it plans to fly in 2017 under the Joint Multi Role technology demonstration, a planned precursor to the Future Vertical Lift Medium program to replace first the Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk and later the Boeing AH-64 Apache beginning in 2035.
Capt. (ret.) Terry Mason (Normandy Park, WAsh. ), Alaska Airlines (Normandy Park, WAsh. )
“Murky Mode” (AW&ST Dec. 16, p. 37) brought to mind a procedure we used back when I was flying the Boeing 737NG with an autopilot similar (in operation, at least) to that on the 777. It was company policy (and, I assumed, an industry standard) that any time we were flying with the autopilot off, the autothrottles had to be turned off (except for takeoff). This policy was intended to, and could have helped, prevent a situation such as that of the Asiana Airlines Flight 214 crash at San Francisco International Airport on July 6.
