Model Airplanes

Passengers using Gogo’s network. Photo courtesy of Gogo

On the second day of the world’s largest satellite industry show this year, Satellite 2018, connectivity service providers, an airline pilot with a radio show and an antenna manufacturing company reset the pulse of the global aircraft in-flight internet industry with a major discussion on cost structures, business models, the cost of antennas, hybrid networks, electronically steered antennas and next-generation airplane connectivity.

During a panel on in-flight connectivity, executives from some of the world’s largest in-flight connectivity service providers providers — Gogo, Global Eagle Entertainment and Panasonic — all addressed passenger complaints about unreliable connectivity and the need to continue to improve speeds, expand bandwidth and establish a business model that is profitable for operators and service and equipment providers.  

“It’s starting to hit the C Suite now,” Mike Pigott, VP of Global Eagle Entertainment, told the audience in response to a question about the backlash the company has received from passengers using its internet service on board Southwest Airlines aircraft.

“The C Suite is seeing the impact from social media and the feedback from customers,  and now they’re starting to see that impact their net promoter score and that is really driving performance out of all us,” said Pigott.

A simple search on Twitter for “in-flight internet” and the Twitter handles of various airline accounts shows exactly what Pigott was responding to. Some examples:

The beginning of the panel discussion focused heavily

Article source: http://www.aviationtoday.com/2018/03/14/satellite-2018-flight-internet-providers-respond-passenger-frustration/

Boeing celebrated Tuesday production of its 10,000th single-aisle 737, putting what is already the best-selling jet of all time on track to become the best-selling large transport airplane in history.

Yet when the plane first flew more than 50 years ago, no one could have guessed its destiny.

The pilot in command on that first flight, now 93, recalled hopping around the globe in 737s in the years after the plane’s 1967 debut to goose flagging sales.

Article source: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boeings-737-hits-historic-milestone-10000-planes-delivered/

A new National Traffic Safety Board report points to unsafe electrical wiring near hydraulic lines as the cause of a Cal-Ore Life Flight crash that killed four people after it left Crescent City July 29, 2016.

While it doesn’t specifically state the cause of the crash, the NTSB Aviation Accident Factual report did prompt the Federal Aviation Administration to issue a warning to operators of the same model aircraft that electrical wires need to be regularly inspected and addressed.

The plane was piloted by Larry Mills, 54, and carried flight nurse Deborah Kroon, 49, flight paramedic Michelle Tarwater, 30, and patient April Rodriguez, 35. All died in the crash in a remote section of Humboldt County.

The NTSB report, released March 7, notes that on July 29, 2016, the Piper PA-31T Cheyenne II airplane crashed after the pilot reported the cockpit was filling with smoke.

“At (11:58 p.m.) the pilot contacted the Seattle Air Route Traffic Control Center controller working the flight and stated that he was going to turn back to Crescent City and that he was smelling smoke in the cockpit,” the report states. “Radar data indicated that the airplane’s altitude about that time was 14,900 ft, and the airplane was on a southeast heading.”

Article source: http://www.currypilot.com/news/6086256-151/wiring-likely-cause-of-crash