About this episode
Boeing decides to move 787 Dreamliner production to South Carolina, the FAA Administrator flies the 737 MAX, Germany halts its heavy-lift helicopter procurement, airlines offer Covid-19 testing to passengers, furloughs after the CARES Act expired, go-arounds and accidents, a fast electric airplane from Rolls-Royce, advanced preflight after maintenance, and Flightradar24 DDoS attack. Aviation News Report: Boeing to move all 787 Dreamliner production to S.C.; WA governor responds Boeing made their decision, and all assembly of the 787 Dreamliner will be consolidated in South Carolina. Production of the 787 will end in Washington state. Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Stan Deal said the move to consolidate the work in North Charleston, S.C., will be done by “mid-2021, according to our best estimate.” ‘I Like What I See’: FAA Chief Flies 737 Max, But Not Ready To Recertify Plane FAA Administrator Steve Dickson (a former Delta Air Lines pilot) flew the 737 MAX. At a news conference, Dickson said, “I completed a number of test profiles today to examine the functionality of the aircraft and I liked what I saw, so it responded well. I did two landings and also some air work maneuvers over about a two-hour period… and I felt prepared. I think most importantly, I felt that the training prepared me to be very comfortable.” Germany Axes Plan To Buy Either Sikorsky CH-53K Or Boeing CH-47 Helicopters In what was called “a surprise development,” Germany decided not to replace the German Luftwaffe’s aging CH-53G series helicopters with either the CH-53K King Stallion or the CH-47F Chinook. The reason: both heavy-lift helicopters are too expensive. Here are the U.S. airlines offering COVID-19 testing to travelers JetBlue has partnered with Vault Health to provide at-home saliva tests to customers “wanting peace of mind and those who must secure a negative COVID-19 test result before entering certain states and countries or in order to avoid certain mandatory quarantines.” United Airlines will offer testing for customers traveling from San Francisco International Airport to Hawaii beginning Oct. American Airlines will offer pre-flight testing to travelers at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport going to Hawaii starting on Oct. 15. Black Thursday Has Arrived: It’s Bad, But Not As Bad As Feared The CARES Act has expired and while thousands were furloughed, others have negotiated new agreements with airlines or are in the process of negotiating new deals. Failure to Go Around Leads to Runway Excursion The August 15, 2019 crash of Dale Earnhardt Jr’s Cessna Citation Latitude at Elizabethton, Tennessee (0A9) followed “an unstable VFR approach, a poorly executed landing, and a botched go-around attempt.” Rolls-Royce Thinks It’s Developing The Fastest Electric Airplane In The World The concept includes a 500hp motor, and “a battery with enough energy to supply 250 homes.” Rolls-Royce is ground testing the technology on a full-scale replica of the plane’s core. Project partners include YASA, a British electric powertrain company, and electric aviation startup Electroflight. Rolls-Royce said, “The first flight is planned for later this year and we are aiming to beat the current all-electric flight world record early next year.” Advanced Preflight After Maintenance General Aviation fatalities have occurred after in-flight emergencies that have been the direct result of maintenance personnel who have serviced or installed systems incorrectly. The General Aviation Joint Steering Committee (GAJSC) and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) say that a significant number of those fatalities could have been avoided if pilots conducted more thorough preflight inspections of aircraft that have just been returned to service. Resources: NTSB Safety Alert — Advanced Preflight After Maintenance FAA’s Advanced Preflight Pamphlet “Advanced Preflight,” FAA Safety Briefing, Mar/Apr 2012 Update on Flightradar24’s extended downtime Flightradar24 experienced a sustained Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack that resulted in extensive downtime. “We are continuing to do everything possible to mitigate the effects of the attack and to harden our systems to reduce the likelihood of future attacks making our services unavailable.” Mentioned Listener Poll 623 Whirly-Girls New Instrument Rating Scholarship for Female Aviators for 2021 Aviation Careers Podcast and the Aerospace Scholarships guide . SUN ‘n FUN Holiday Flying Festival and Car Show Last ever Airbus A380 superjumbo assembled in France Airbus A380 Struggles But a Business Case Exists for Neo Airbus debuts hydrogen net-zero concept aircraft for 2035 launch Video: How Delta Fixes $32 Million Jet Engines | Big Business https://youtu.be/7zcmKHpBHNE Video: Coulson Aviation CH47 Video: Awesome Chinook helicopter firefighting system in action Jet World Record Project – A video report from KTVN, the CBS affiliate in Reno, Nevada on the TS-11 project to rebuild the airplane. See also Renegade Jets .