Aerospace Diary

Posted by - Neelam Mathews Following the accidents of Mirage 2000 aircraft of the Indian Air Force (IAF) on Feb 24 and March 5 , all routine training flying on the Mirage 2000 fleet has been temporarily stopped as a precautionary measure, said AK Antony in Parliament on friday. Based on the results of the initial investigations of the accidents, certain checks have been instituted by the IAF. Commencement of flying of the Mirage 2000 fleet is being undertaken in stages post completion of checks, he added. During the last two years (2010-11 and 2011-12) and current financial year 2012-13 (upto 19.4.2012), two Mirage 2000 aircraft have crashed. Technical defect was the cause of both accidents. IAF has simulators for Kiran Mkl/IA, Hawk Mk-32, An-32 and Dornier aircraft which are being used as trainer aircraft. All these simulators are serviceable and the training syllabus includes flying training on these simulators. Further, simulators are being procured along with new induction o...

Written by Jennifer  Chu, MIT News Office Posted by- Neelam Mathews Sept 12, 2011 Many airlines routinely run software programs to check a plane’s overall health and performance after each flight. However, John Hansman, professor of aeronautics and astronautics and engineering systems at MIT, says today’s search methods are limited, with operators needing to identify ahead of time which parameters to check. Hansman says this approach may cause analysts to miss key information that would otherwise help airlines improve aircraft safety and operations. An airplane’s digital flight-data recorder, or “black box,” holds massive amounts of data, documenting the performance of engines, cockpit controls, hydraulic equipment and GPS systems, typically at regular one-second intervals throughout a flight. More recently, analysts have probed black-box data in an effort to prevent such accidents from ever occurring.  Now Hansman and his colleagues at MIT and in Spain have devised a...

Neelam Mathews Sept 6, 2011 The Indian Air Force has lost the third aircraft of the MiG series this year with a MiG-21 Bison crashing about 10 km from the Ambala airbase. The pilot Flt Lt A. Ghosh, on a routine training sortie, ejected safely, says a release. There was no other casualty as the aircraft fell in an open field close to the busy national highway No.1 between Delhi and Amritsar . The crash site is about 50 km from state capital Chandigarh. The pilot was rescued by IAF Search and Rescue (SAR) helicopter and taken for medical examination. The cause of accident is being ascertained, and a Court of Inquiry has been ordered to carry out detailed investigation into the cause of accident. Of the 793 MiG-21s inducted into IAF since 1963, over 340 have been lost in accidents. The last three years saw around 42 accidents, in which the IAF lost 17 pilots. India plans to retire the over 100 MiG-21s presently in its fleet by 2017.