Model Airplanes

Aug. 03–Iran’s experience with Russian-made passenger aircraft has not been a good one, therefore it is unlikely that Iranian aviation companies would try to use Russian airplanes anymore, an Iranian official said.

Economic calculations and Iran’s bad experience with Russian Tupolev airplanes make it more likely that Iranian aviation companies would seek Airbus and Boeing products more, Maqsoud Samani Assadi, secretary of Iran’s Airlines Association said in an exclusive interview with Trend August 2.

He pointed out that when buying airplanes, airline companies take into account a diverse set of criteria such as flight record, safety, after-sale service, spare parts availability, repair, education, passenger convenience, etc.

Having in mind the good record that Airbus and Boeing have in maintenance, repair, and staff education, and since Iranians are happy with products and services offered by these companies, it is more likely that Iranian civil aviation companies will be willing to buy aircraft from these two companies, he noted.

Iran has estimated that it needs about 580 civil aircraft in various sizes by 2025.

Assadi said naturally companies that have a brighter record of cooperation with Iran will be top on agenda for Iranian companies to buy aircraft from.

Nonetheless, the aircraft that are going to be brought into the country would need to be checked and approved by the Iranian Civil Aviation Organization.

Elsewhere in his remarks, the official said despite economic sanctions, Iran has managed to improve its civil aviation fleet.

“We had a growth of over 10 percent in terms of the fleet size. In the

Article source: http://www.aviationpros.com/news/14063342/iran-unlikely-to-try-russia-airliners-anymore

BRUSSELS—It is easy to get lost in European bureaucratese, with its byzantine designations and overlapping commissioners, vice presidents, and directorates-general. But when it comes to digital policy, the important thing to know is just this: Andrus Ansip is the most powerful person in Europe today. As the commissioner in charge of the “digital single market,” his job is, literally, “to make Europe a world leader in information and communication technology.”

For many outside Europe, this aspiration to become a world leader, combined with ongoing regulatory actions against American tech companies, suggests an aggressive, protectionist Europe willing to engage in battle with US firms to favor its own. In February, America’s president came out and said as much, telling Re/Code that “sometimes the European response here is more commercially driven than anything else.”

That perception came up often when Quartz sat down with Ansip in July for an hour-long interview at his office on the ninth floor of the European Commission headquarters in Brussels. At one point in the chat, Ansip pulled out a sheet from a briefing folder in front of him. “So about those competition cases, I have some figures,” he said, citing numbers from a May speech he delivered at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “Our competition cases here in the EU,” he added, “they are not so much connected with the American companies.”

It’s not about America…

Yet scan the headlines over the past few months, and with the exception of Russia’s Gazprom, each of the big-ticket

Article source: http://qz.com/457111/europe-wants-to-be-the-worlds-leading-tech-power-andrus-ansip-is-tasked-with-making-it-happen/

Malaysian aviation officials said an airplane wing part found last week on the remote Indian Ocean island of Réunion came from the same type of aircraft as Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, raising hope it may offer clues to solving the mysterious disappearance of the jet nearly 17 months ago.

French officials, however, declined to confirm Malaysia’s assertion before an analysis of the part officially begins Wednesday, underscoring the confusion that has emerged in the sprawling, multinational investigation. Local officials in Réunion were also sifting through reports of new debris found on the island, a French territory off the east coast of Madagascar, as scavengers came to the beach looking for other airplane parts that could have washed up on the beach.

Malaysia Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai identified the plane piece that washed ashore Wednesday as part of a Boeing 777, the same model as Flight 370. Liow said French authorities, Boeing, and the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board agreed that the piece was from a 777. Liow didn’t say whether the part belongs to the missing Flight 370.

If the piece is identified as a Boeing 777 part, it would almost certainly come from Flight 370; only two other Boeing 777s have ever crashed, and neither were anywhere near the Indian Ocean.

Read an expanded version of this article at WSJ.com.

Article source: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/airplane-door-found-on-reunion-island-2015-08-02-101035425

By ANDREW MELDRUM and LORI HINNANT
Associated Press

SAINT-ANDRE, Reunion (AP) – Under a microscope and expert eyes, the wing fragment that washed up on the beach of this volcanic island could yield clues not just to its path through the Indian Ocean, but also to what happened to the airplane it belonged to.

Analysts at the French aviation laboratory where the scrap was headed Friday can glean details from metal stress to see what caused the flap to break off, spot explosive or other chemical traces, and study the sea life that made its home on the wing to pinpoint where it came from.

French authorities have imposed extraordinary secrecy over the 2-meter (6-foot) long piece of wing, putting it under police protection in the hours before it left the island of Reunion. If the fragment is indeed part of the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, it means the wreckage may have drifted thousands of kilometers (miles) across the Indian Ocean to this French island off the east coast of Africa.

Wrapped and loaded as cargo, it was headed to a military aviation laboratory near the city of Toulouse, Europe’s aviation hub.

“With a microscope, that can learn details from the torn metal,” said Xavier Tytelman, a French aviation safety expert. “You can tell whether a crash was more horizontal or vertical … You can extrapolate a lot.”

John Cox, president and CEO of Safety Operating Systems and a former accident investigator, said minute characteristics of the metal could indicate attitude and vertical speed of

Article source: http://www.fox10tv.com/story/29666761/searchers-scour-beaches-in-hopes-of-unlocking-mh370-mystery

Sunday, August 02, 2015   by: Jeff Klassen

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Seventeen competitors took part in the 11th annual Northern Ontario International Miniature Aerobatic Club Challenge (NOIC) on Saturday, August 1, 2015 in Sault Ste. Marie.

2015 was the first year the event was hosted by the Sault Ste. Marie model airplane Radio Controlled Club  (Soo Modellers) who won a bidding to hold it after Sudbury had ”ownership problems with their field,” said Model Aeronautics Association of Canada Northern Ontario zone director Kevin McGrath.

Competitors drove in from as far as southern Ontario and lower parts of Michigan to compete in five rounds (and possibly more if time permitted) at skill levels ranging from basic to unlimited.

Each round competitor demonstrated a variety of tricks, spins, dives, and other maneuvers while being scored on these ‘sequences’ by judges.

Soo Modeller’s President Craig Knight likened the competition, for the layperson, to figure skating as “the challenge is perfecting the elements in your own routine” as opposed to battling another opponent.

More than 20 aircraft took part in the event.

They were 25 to 45 percent scale models of piloted competition aerobatic aircraft, the kind typically seen at airshows, and are some of the biggest model airplanes there are.

Knight says the model airplanes range in cost from a few thousand to upwards of $10,000 dollars and can take anywhere from 40 hours to 6-8 months to build.

Although awards and rankings

Article source: http://www.sootoday.com/content/news/details.asp?c=95862