Word: aircrafting
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...networks operated by other major airlines. There are no meals served onboard, no bulky drinks carts and no entertainment. Where it makes sense, as at Oakland International Airport in California and Midway Airport in Chicago, Southwest uses less expensive, less crowded secondary airports. It flies only one type of aircraft--the Boeing 737--to reduce maintenance costs and turnaround time, and it contracts out its most intensive maintenance work. That allows the airline to employ only 1,478 mechanics for its 366 airplanes, while United needs 12,611 mechanics for 557 planes. That sounds like a lot of extra work...
...BOOTY It was dawn on April 9, 1942 when Japanese reconnaissance planes found their quarry. Below them, the British aircraft carrier H.M.S. Hermes and her Australian escort H.M.A.S. Vampire were cutting south through the crystal waters along Sri Lanka's east coast. Alerted to the peril, the Allied crews scrambled to action stations. But at 10:35 a.m., off Batticaloa, 70 Japanese dive bombers attacked the Hermes. Within 10 minutes the ship had taken 40 hits. It capsized and disappeared beneath the waves with 307 of its crew. The Vampire survived two near-misses and tried to counterattack with antiaircraft...
...Gulf War, notes U.S. Central Command chief Tommy Franks, "we used 10 airframes to a target. Now we assign two targets to an aircraft." The improved efficiency would probably make a new air war in Iraq shorter than the Gulf War's 38 days. Because the JDAM could so effectively cripple Iraq's military, senior Pentagon officials believe the U.S. could topple Saddam with a maximum of 250,000 troops, less than half the number it massed to drive his forces from Kuwait in 1991. The weapon's precision should minimize damage to civilian structures, making post-Saddam Iraq easier...
...hugely risky decisions that can make or break a company - and in this case broke it. In late 1997, the Belgian airline Sabena was poised to order 17 new Airbus planes, to renew and expand its fleet of 37. At the last minute, the order mysteriously doubled to 34 aircraft. The price tag would be $1 billion - five times the company's entire capital at the time. Even more surprisingly, Sabena's board of directors had neither a business plan justifying the higher number nor a watertight financing arrangement in place when they approved the deal. The order strained Sabena...
...growing concern that pilots don't know how to cope with surprises is the reason that the FAA is researching the use of real aircraft and simulated midair emergencies to train pilots how to react to unexpected and severe movements by the aircraft. "The challenge is dealing with pilots who have years and years of safely and gently flying along, and suddenly they have a mechanical failure or a severe-weather incident," says Lou Knotts, an ex--fighter pilot who is now a vice president at Veridian, a research company that trains military and civilian pilots. "We're trying...