Korean Air Lines Flight 007 alternative theories

Korean Air Lines Flight 007 alternative theories concerns the various theories put forward regarding the shooting down of Korean Air Lines Flight 007. The aircraft was en route from New York City via Anchorage to Seoul on September 1, 1983, when it strayed into prohibited Soviet airspace and was shot down by Soviet fighter jets.
Flight 007 has been the subject of ongoing controversy and has spawned a number of conspiracy theories. Many of these are based on the suppression of evidence such as the flight data recorders, unexplained details such as the role of a USAF RC-135 surveillance aircraft, or merely Cold War disinformation and propaganda. Some commentators also felt that the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) report into the incident failed to address key points adequately, such as the reason for the aircraft's deviation. The release of flight data recorder evidence by the Russian Federation in 1993, ten years after the event, seriously challenged many of these theories. Some alternative interpretations focus on evidential questions largely independent of political considerations.
One of the first theories was that Space Shuttle Challenger and a satellite were monitoring the airliner's progress over Soviet territory. "Defence Attaché", which printed this claim, was sued by Korean Air Lines and forced to pay damages and print an apology.
Flight crew awareness of deviation.
The reasons put forward for the aircraft's deviation range from a lack of situational awareness by the pilots (ICAO), to a planned and intentional deviation (Pearson), to an Inertial Navigation system (INS) programming error by 10 degrees of longitude during the inputting of the ramp starting position by the crew. All accounts note that the pilots had several sources of information that could have alerted them to their increasing deviation from their planned route. The H/E scenario additionally suggests the flight's first officer did know they were flying away from the planned course, but the airline's culture discouraged anyone from questioning the captain's conduct of the flight, so he remained silent.
The theory that the INS system was set incorrectly gains considerable credibility if the following are considered:
Once airborne, an incorrect aircraft system position (of at higher latitudes a small amount) would immediately direct all the flight navigational displays to fly the aircraft to what it thinks is the correct track to the first way point. Once on the wrong track, all would appear normal, HSI's included. This would even be true if there were pictorial navigational displays, similar to modern aircraft.
The deviated track can be compared with the required track. As the aircraft moves south, the lines of longitude expand and the track deviation gets greater. That is the initial 10 degree error that was sent to the INS gets wider.
The horizontal situation indicator (HSI): Pearson contends that the HSI's needle could have alerted the pilots of their course deviation. He postulates that the needle of each pilot's HSI, capable of showing deviation only up to , should have been "pegged" all the way to the side. The pilots, thus, could in theory have known that they were at least off course.
Despite this, at 1349 UTC, the pilots were reporting that they were on course ("007, Bethel at forty niner.") Fifty minutes after takeoff, military radar at King Salmon, Alaska acquired KAL 007 at more than off course. The deviation exceeded the expected accuracy of the INS ( an hour) by a factor of five.
Difficulties in making required reports: Pilot and copilot could also have been aware of the aircraft's serious deviation because now, much more than off course, KAL 007 was too far off course for the pilots to make their required Very High Frequency (VHF) radio reports, and had to relay these reports via KAL Flight 015, just minutes behind and on course (KAL 007, increasingly off course, relied on KAL 015 three times to relay its reports to Anchorage Air Traffic Control). By being forced to rely on KAL 015 to relay messages, KAL 007 should have (by definition) understood that they were well off course.
At one point in this section of its flight, (1443 UTC) KAL 007 put a call through a navigational "hookup", the International Flight Service Station on HF. Flight 007, now too distant to speak directly with Anchorage controller through VHF, was transmitting its message using HF. At another point of this section of the flight, at waypoint NABIE, KAL 007 was too far north to make radio contact with the VHF air traffic control relay station on St. Paul Island. KAL 015 relayed for KAL 007. The message was a change in the estimated time of arrival (ETA) for the next waypoint called NEEVA, delaying by four minutes the ETA that KAL 015 had previously relayed on behalf of KAL 007. Since a revised ETA could only be calculated by means of readout information presented by KAL 007's Inertial Navigation Systems Control Display unit, Pearson asserts that pilot and copilot were once again presented with the opportunity of verifying their position and becoming aware of their enormous deviation.
Contrary wind conditions of KAL 007 and KAL 015:
KAL 015 had departed about 15 minutes behind KAL 007. About 23 minutes before the tragedy, the two aircraft compared the times that they expected to reach waypoint NOKKA, at which point it became apparent that KAL 015 would reach it only four minutes behind KAL 007. KAL 015 reported experiencing strong tailwinds, while KAL 007 was experiencing a headwind. The paradox of the different flying conditions experienced by two aircraft supposedly flying so close together was discussed in the cabin of KAL 007, but the crew failed to draw any conclusions from it.
Weather radar: There was one last aid to warn the crew. Displayed in consoles at the knees of both pilot and copilot, the plane's weather radar could have alerted them, both over Kamchatka and later over Sakhalin, to the fact that they were no longer flying over water, as they should have been. Weather radar has two modes—ground mapping (when it would be possible to look down and see water or land masses as well as the contours of the coast lines) and weather surveillance mode for thunderstorm detection. In ground mapping mode, KAL 007 had only to make sure that the land mass of Kamchatka and the island string of the Kurile chain would remain to the right. That night, KAL 007's weather radar was probably not in land mapping mode, for the weather was inclement.
The ICAO's meteorological analysis concluded that "there was extensive coverage of low, medium, and high level clouds over southern Kamchatka associated with an active cold front"." ICAO's analysis of KAL 007's weather radar functioning would state, "it was concluded that the radar was not functioning properly or that the ground mapping capability was not used"."
According to the ICAO, an indicator of pilot unawareness of the deviation from route of their flight was the bantering and casual cockpit conversation at the times that awareness of deviation into hostile airspace would have increased tension and have precluded this. (See .)
Planned spy mission theory.
In 1994, Robert W Allardyce and James Gollin wrote "Desired Track: The Tragic Flight of KAL Flight 007", supporting the spy mission theory.
In 2007, they reiterated their position in a series of articles in "Airways Magazine", arguing that the investigation by the International Civil Aviation Organization was a cover-up of a "carefully planned ferret mission". Furthermore, they suggested that the NSA had implemented Electronic Counter Measures to cover for the mission and that the flight recorder tapes had been planted for the Soviet recovery effort to find.
Planned spy mission theories point out the incongruency of a civilian passenger liner going accidentally astray and unnoticed precisely in one of the most militarily sensitive and well-observed areas in the Cold War. They point out that there were powerful land and sea radar arrays that could have tracked KAL 007 as it crossed through the NORAD prohibited-to-civilian flight zone and approached and entered Soviet territory. These were:
These radar arrays had capability for both surveillance and tracking. Whether this capability was actually used in the case of Flight 007 is currently unknown. In addition, the United States Air Force radar stations at Cape Newenham and Cape Romanzoff, two of twelve stations comprising the United States Alaskan Distant Early Warning/Aircraft Control and Warning (DEW/ACW) System, had the capability to track all aircraft heading toward the Russian Buffer Zone. Well within range of these radar sites, KAL 007 had veered directly toward Kamchatka. This theory postulates that the CIA put out disinformation about the aircraft landing at Sakhalin after their mission failed in order to buy time to construct a more credible story.
Theory of intentional deviation by pilots.
This theory, promoted by David Pearson in his book "KAL 007: the Cover-up" postulates that the pilots made "a deliberate, carefully planned intrusion into Soviet territory with the knowledge of US military and intelligence agencies." He argues that it was impossible for the pilots not to know that they were off course. Various mechanisms, such as the Horizontal Situation Indicator, should, assuming that the aircraft's navigation systems were functional and correctly programmed, have alerted the pilots of their course deviation. In addition, VHF transmissions to Anchorage had to be relayed via flight KAL 015 (which should have been a few minutes behind KAL 007, had it been on course), because the plane had travelled too far off course.
Pearson has also questioned why, if the pilots had unintentionally strayed off course, a US RC-135 reconnaissance plane in the area did not see the jumbo jet (or pick up the Soviet radio chatter regarding it) and warn it of its danger, as well as informing its own command and civilian air traffic controllers.
The theory of intentional deviation suffered a blow in 1992 with the handover by the Russian Federation of the Cockpit Voice Recorder tape. This showed that at the times of most danger during the flight, the flight crew was relaxed speaking about currency exchange at Kimpo airport, or bored, or even bantering with each other, indicating to ICAO analysts that the crew of KAL 007 were unaware of the danger they were then exposed to.
Murray Sayle described an earlier version of Pearson's theory published in "The Nation" as containing "schoolboy howlers, or, better, graduate-student howlers" regarding the operation of cockpit positioning monitors, and Pearson's approach in general as lacking objectivity, and the work of a conspiracy theorist.
Theory of spy mission involving USAF aircraft.
Another theory was suggested by a French aeronautical expert, Michel Brun, in his book "Incident at Sakhalin: The True Mission of KAL Flight 007". It has been supported by a former American diplomat to Moscow, John Keppel, and the American association Foundation for Constitutional Government.
According to this book, the USSR was not guilty. The massacre of Flight 007 was directly caused by the Americans or Japanese. KAL 007 was involved in a spy mission intended to trigger Soviet air defences and to cover up for the missions of several USAF surveillance aircraft. Soviet Fighters attacked these aircraft but did not destroy KAL 007 which crashed far away from Sakhalin in Japanese "friendly" territory in the Japanese sea near North Honshu.
The Korean aircraft was correctly communicating with other KAL crews, forty-six minutes after the official time of the shootdown. A large air battle allegedly occurred between the Soviet Air Force and the USAF, during which the Soviets shot down several American aircraft, including an RC-135, an EF-111 and probably even an SR-71. The SU-15 pilot, Major Osipovich, flew two sorties and shot down two targets (contradicted by the 1991 interview with Osipovich). Furthermore, for a long time all the experts believed that the Soviet fighter pilot was called Major Kazmin. Michel Brun believes that Kazmin and Osipovich twice destroyed an aircraft, but absolutely not the KAL 007. According to the theory, the whereabouts of the KAL-007 wreckage is not known to anyone, but is probably away from Moneron Island down the coast of Japan. The theory postulates further that the real cause of the destruction is not known, but could have been a surface-to-air missile fired from (similar case with shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655) or from Japanese forces, who could not identify the airliner which was keeping radio silence.
In March 1991 an anonymous Japanese pilot said on TV that he knew who was guilty: a colleague who became a taxi driver in Tokyo. The lack of bodies, body parts, and wreckage of KAL 007 around Sakhalin and Moneron Islands was an indication to Brun that KAL 007 did not come down in those locales. Sparse remains showing up on the beaches of Hokkaido, nine days after the destruction of KAL 007 south of Moneron and Sakhalin, are evidence to Brun that KAL 007 was downed further south and that these remains were brought northward by the north running Tsushima current along the west Japanese coast. This opposes the commonly held understanding that the remains were carried from the waters near the islands of Sakhalin and Moneron by the West Sakhalin current flowing south between the two islands (at ), then by the West Sakhalin convergent current ( mph, /h) near the tip of Sakhalin (35 nautical miles away from Moneron), into the Soya Strait, and finally onto the beaches of Hokkaido. Brun also discovered that KAL 007 communicated by radio in Korean with two other Korean aircraft after 03:27, the official time of its destruction: at 03:54 with KAL 015, 04:10 with KE50, and twice at 04:13, the true time of the aircraft crashing. This unusual last call, which was sent to the two aircraft and suddenly cut, could probably be explained by a serious problem occurring.
In his book, Brun published a photograph of a weapon found by Japanese sailors from JMSA among KAL 007 debris "north of Moneron Island on 10 September 1983", bearing the mark "N3". The letter "N" does not exist in the Russian Cyrillic alphabet, suggesting that the weapon was not Soviet.
Brun's theory attempts to account for the only eyewitness report of an explosion near Moneron Island which is considered to be that of KAL 007 on its way to the water. A Japanese fisherman aboard the Chidori Maru 58 had reported to the Japanese Maritime Safety Agency (and this report was forgotten in 1984 but cited by the ICAO analysis in 1993) of hearing a plane at low altitude but not seeing it. Then he heard "a loud sound followed by a bright flash of light on the horizon, then another dull sound and a less intense flash of light on the horizon" as well as smelling aviation fuel.
Brun maintains that the fisherman's account of the destruction of KAL 007 was not sustainable because if the aircraft exploded while low on the horizon, the sound of the explosion could not have, as reported by the fishermen, reached his ear before the flash of the explosion reached the eye, as light travels faster than sound. Brun further maintains, in accordance with his theory of an aerial combat between Russian and US aircraft, that the "loud sound" heard prior to the "flash of light on the horizon" could have been the sound of a missile fired by a military jet flying above or near the Chidori Maru 58, at an opposing military jet, the explosion of which was seen by the fisherman, and wrongly attributed by ICAO analysts to KAL 007, which Brun believes went down in Japanese waters much further south of Moneron at 04:13:16s. Among Michel Brun's supporters since 1995 is David Pearson, author of "KAL 007: the Cover-up".
Theories about lack of human remains and luggage at impact site.
These theories attempt to explain why there were no surface finds at the place postulated for the KAL 007's impact with the water. There were no bodies, body parts, or body tissues, and there was no luggage. Furthermore, on the sea bottom there was only one partial torso and 10 body parts or tissues, possibly from the same individual, noted by Soviet civilian divers who had commenced diving to the wreckage purported to be of KAL 007 just two weeks after the shootdown. Furthermore, for all of the 269 occupants, divers reported with surprise either no luggage or, in one diver's report, there were only a few pieces of luggage at the bottom. Of the thirteen body parts or tissues washed up on the Japanese Hokkaido beaches 70 miles from Soviet Moneron Island and starting eight days after the shoot down, all were unidentifiable. All the non-human items (see main article) recovered from Hokkaido's beaches were those generally coming from a passenger cabin of an aircraft and none from the cargo hold, contrary to what would be expected if there had been a total destruction from a passenger aircraft crashing into the sea.
Crab theory.
In his book "The Mystery of Korean Boeing 747", Soviet correspondent Andrey Illesh proposes that the bodies were eaten by giant crabs. The crab theory has been persistent and been echoed by the Soviet interceptor pilot Gennady Osipovich, who fired the missile that shot down the plane.
"... I heard that they had found the 'Boeing' when I was still on Sakhalin. And even investigated it. But no one saw people there. I, however, explain that by the fact that there are crabs in the sea off Sakhalin that immediately devour everything ... I did hear that they found only a hand in a black glove. Perhaps it was the hand of the pilot of the aircraft that I shot down. You know, even now I cannot really believe that there were passengers on board. You cannot write off everyone to the crabs ... Surely something would be left? ... Nevertheless, I am a supporter of the old version: It was a spy plane. In any event, it was not happenstance that it flew towards us."
Professor William Newman, marine biologist, explains why the crab (or any other sea creature) theory is untenable: "Even if we proceed from the supposition that crustaceans, or sharks, or something else fell upon the flesh, the skeletons should have remained. In many cases, skeletons were found on the sea or ocean floor, which had sat there for many years and, even decades. In addition, the crustaceans would not have touched bones." Also, the crab theory could not account for the lack of luggage.
Decompression theory.
Another explanation is provided by "Izvestiya" correspondents Shalnev and Illesh's interview of Mikhail Igorevich Girs, Captain of the Tinro 2 submersible which made most of the dives. In the May 31, 1991, edition of "Izvestiya", Capt. Girs suggested that the passengers were sucked out of the aircraft, leaving their clothes behind.
"Something else was inexplicable to us—zipped-up clothes. For instance, a coat, slacks, shorts, a sweater with zippers—the items were different, but, zipped up. And nothing inside. We came to this conclusion then: Most likely, the passengers had been pulled out of the plane by decompression, and they fell in a completely different place from where we found the debris. They had been spread out over a much larger area. The current also did its work."
"Wind tunnel" theory.
The latest reference to the decompression theory of the missing bodies was made by Lieutenant General Valeri Kamenski, most recently Chief of Staff and Deputy Commander of the Ukrainian Air Force and formerly Chief of Staff of the Soviet Far East Military District Air Defense Force. In an article dated March 15, 2001, in the Ukrainian weekly "Fakty i Kommentarii", General Kamenski spoke about this lingering question: "It is still a mystery what happened to the bodies of the crew and passengers on the plane. According to one theory, right after the rocket's detonation, the nose and tail section of the jumbo fell off and the mid-fuselage became a sort of wind tunnel so the people were swept through it and scattered over the surface of the ocean. Yet in this case, some of the bodies were to have been found during the search operations in the area. The question of what actually happened to the people has not been given a distinct answer."
Theory of Soviet removal of bodies.
This theory rests on the fact that when the Soviet civilian divers first went down to the wreck just two weeks after the shootdown, the finds they encountered were contrary to an aircraft having fallen from the sky. They reportedly corresponded more to "secondary placement" of the wreckage, and removal of both the passengers and aircrew of KAL 007, by the Soviet navy, who they claim had been at work prior to them, using both divers and trawlers.
"The first submergence was on 15 September, two weeks after the aircraft had been shot down. As we learned then, before us the trawlers had done some 'work' in the designated quadrant. It is hard to understand what sense the military saw in the trawling operation. First drag everything haphazardly around the bottom by the trawls, and then send in the submersibles? ... It is clear that things should have been done in the reverse order."
Captain Mikhail Igorevich Girs: "Submergence 10 October. Aircraft pieces, wing spars, pieces of aircraft skin, wiring, and clothing. But—no people. The impression is that all of this has been dragged here by a trawl rather than falling down from the sky ..."
This was one of the theories expressed in the original "Izvestia" series of 1990–91, and the later interview of deep sea diver Vadim Kondrabayev (subsequently reprinted in English by "Roy's Russian Aircraft Review"). Kondrabayev, one of the civilian divers brought to explore the wreckage of KAL 007 in 1983, gave an interview to the Russian magazine "Itogi", published on October 1, 2000. He points out that after he and the other civilian divers were brought to Sakhalin on September 10, 1983, they were kept there until "the end of September. ... They literally forgot about us for several days." When they did get to the wreckage, they were surprised to find neither bodies nor luggage: "... of the people who supposedly were on board, something should have remained. We worked beneath the water almost a month for five hours a day and didn't find one suitcase, not even a handle from them. After all there is baggage on any air trip. We either were able to work on the remains, which already had been filtered by the special services, or, what I also do not discount, there were no passengers at all on the airplane, and they stuffed the cabin with rubbish. ... It is quite possible that several mini-submarines with military divers went down to the Boeing even before us and collected everything, and scattered the remaining parts of the destroyed liner about or left them there where they were needed, and afterwards called us as a smoke screen."
Theory of abduction and retention of passengers and crew.
The abduction theory proposes that KAL 007, having been missed by one of the missiles, landed or successfully ditched with passengers and crew surviving; they were then abducted and put into prison camps by the Soviet authorities. Among its advocates are the Israeli-American Bert Schlossberg, a son-in-law of one of the crash victims (and his organisation, the International Committee for the Rescue of KAL 007 Survivors), and Avraham Shifrin, a Soviet emigre to Israel in the 1970s and former Soviet prison camp inmate. It has received some coverage in the conservative news agency Accuracy in Media and also the magazine of the John Birch Society, whose second president, the Democratic representative from Georgia Larry McDonald, was a passenger on the flight.
Schlossberg, as a new citizen of Israel, met Shifrin in 1989, and through Shifrin, met and questioned one of his sources, and came to question the accepted belief that the people of KAL 007 had perished. Through his own investigation and research of newly released documents, Schlossberg became convinced that the passengers and crew of KAL 007 had been recovered by the Russians and then imprisoned. In a self-published book and on the Committee website, Schlossberg corroborates this theory with claims that Soviet military communication and cockpit voice recorder transcripts show a post-missile detonation flightpath at altitude 5,000 meters for almost 5 minutes until over the only land mass in the Tatar Straits and within Soviet territorial waters, where it began a slow spiral descent. He claims this indicates both the aircraft's capability of extended flight, and the pilots' intention to water land near the only point where rescue would be feasible. He furthermore claims that a lack of bodies, body parts and tissues, and luggage, both on the surface of the sea and at the bottom; the Soviet obstruction of US, Korean, and Japanese search vessels trying to enter into Soviet territorial waters around Moneron Island, near which KAL 007 was last tracked spiraling downward; previously unknown Soviet transcripts, released by the Russian Federation, of mission orders within one half hour of the shootdown, sending helicopters, KGB patrol boats, and civilian trawlers to Moneron Island; and the Russian Federation acknowledgement of Soviet deception in its part of the search for KAL 007 all indicate a Soviet recovery of passengers and crew from the damaged and downed passenger jet.
Schlossberg has also claimed that a letter sent in 1991 by Senator Jesse Helms, while he was ranking minority member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, to Russian President Boris Yeltsin, requesting information about the fate of KAL 007, indicates that Helms took the abduction theory seriously.
The letter included, in a list of questions, a request to know the whereabouts of any survivors and their camp locations, and requested also to know of the fate of Larry McDonald.
Schlossberg's work has not gained mainstream media attention; in a review of the circumstances of the death of Larry McDonald, University of Georgia Law Professor Donald E. Wilkes considered the theory as "even more preposterous" than Michel Brun's theory of a Japanese locale for the shootdown and an air battle having taken place between Soviet and American aircraft.
Avraham Shifrin, a self-declared KGB expert, claimed that, according to the investigation of his research centre, KAL 007 landed on water north of Moneron, and the passengers successfully disembarked on emergency floats. The Soviets collected them and subsequently sent them to camps (with the children "separated from their parents and safely hidden in the orphan houses of one of the Soviet Middle Asian republics"). McDonald in particular was supposed to have gone through a number of prisons in Moscow, among them the Central Lubyanka, and Lefortovo.
The aeronautics journalist James Oberg, while acknowledging Shifrin's expertise on Soviet prison camps, has stated that Shifrin "got real confused" about the fate of KAL 007. Hans Ephraimson, a relative of one of the passengers, has called Shifrin a "con man who has no idea how much grief he has caused to families," having been frustrated in his attempts to meet Shifrin's sources.
According to Michel Brun this theory is not entirely preposterous. In his book he analyses the first news, communicated by CIA and South Korean government: that KAL 007 landed in Sakhalin and all passengers were safe. In his careful searches, he discovered the source of this first information. It was published in a Japanese newspaper, "Mainichi Shinboun", on September 1, 1983. According to him, this observation came from Wakkanai radars. So, he suggests that another aircraft, probably military, landed at Sakhalin during the "Sakhalin battle" and that its passengers, American, South Korean, or both, were jailed in the Soviet Union.
Meaconing theory.
"Meaconing" is the term to describe the interception and rebroadcasting of navigational signals in order to confuse the sending aircraft about its own true location. (There is an assumption that the target does not have secondary navigational aids such as INS or radar). This is a prelude to a deviation such as that experienced by KAL 007 on its intended course from Anchorage, Alaska, to Seoul, Korea. Meaconing was used frequently during the Cold War. The theory that meaconing was used against KAL 007 often entails the following points which are shown to be true from the transcripts or assumed to be true by the theory's proponents:
It is sometimes suggested that Soviet meaconing of KAL 007 was performed with the tacit approval or with the active participation and planning of leftist and socialist power centres in the US government.
Finally, in support of the meacon theory, this information that surfaced during the ICAO investigation and is considered indicative of purposeful intent to cause KAL 007 to go astray: At 28 minutes after takeoff, civilian radar at Kenai, on the eastern shore of Cook Inlet and southwest of Anchorage, with a radar coverage of west of Anchorage, tracked KAL 007 more than six miles (10 km) north of its intended course. KAL 007 and all flights departing from Anchorage on route J501 had to pass Cairn Mountain, which was the site of a nondirectional radio beacon (NDB). An NDB navigational aid operates by transmitting a continuous three-letter identification code which is picked up by the airborne receiver, the Automatic Direction Finder (ADF). Cairn Mountain was KAL 007's first assigned navigational aid out of Anchorage Airport. That night, Douglas L. Porter was the controller at Air Route Traffic Control Center at Anchorage, assigned to monitor all flights in that sector and record their observed position in relation to the fix provided by the Cairn Mountain nondirectional beacon. Porter later testified that all had seemed normal to him. Yet he apparently failed to record, as required, the position of two flights that night: KAL 007 and KAL 015, which followed KAL 007 by several minutes. Had he done so, it would have provided an opportunity to warn KAL 007 of its deviation, resulting in the necessary correction for the rest of the flight. To holders of the meaconing theory, the above seem curious, ominous, and ancillary to their theory.
US government cover-up theory.
Holders of this theory point to two sets of facts indicating that the US government had covered up the incident and had skewed the investigation for political ends. The first set of facts relate to US capability and actuality of tracking KAL 007 in its deviated flight, thus presenting the possibility of warning the aircraft in time to avert its entrance into harm's way.
The Cape Newenham and Cape Romanzoff radars monitored at the NORAD Regional Operations Command Center were but two of twelve comprising the United States Alaskan Distant Early Warning / Aircraft Control and Warning (DEW/ACW) System. These United States Air Force radar stations at Cape Newenham and Cape Romanzoff in Alaska had the capability to track all aircraft heading toward the Russian Buffer Zone, though it is not known if the radar results of such "outgoing" tracking would have been monitored in "real-time" at the facility at Elmendorf Air Force base. These tapes remain unavailable to the public for national security reasons. However, there was another location at which KAL 007 could well have been tracked in its deviation. This was at the installation at King Salmon, Alaska. It is customary for the Air Force to impound radar trackings involving possible litigation in cases of aviation accidents. In the civil litigation for damages, the United States Department of Justice explained that the tapes from the Air Force radar installation at King Salmon, pertinent to KAL 007's flight in the Bethel area had been destroyed and could therefore not be supplied to the plaintiffs. At first, Justice Department lawyer Jan Van Flatern stated that they were destroyed 15 days after the shootdown. Later, he said he had "misspoken" and changed the time of destruction to 30 hours after the event. A Pentagon spokesman concurred, saying that the tapes are re-cycled for reuse from 24 to 30 hours afterwards, however the fate of KAL 007 was known inside this timeframe.
The second set of facts relate to a series of moves taking the investigation out of the hands of the National Transportation Safety Board and in the hands of the International Civil Aviation Organization. Normally, when an airliner crashes, responsibility for the inquiry falls to the NTSB, which has the technical expertise to assess what happened. Although the downing of the Flight 007 cannot be classified as a routine aviation disaster, the NTSB office in Anchorage was notified that the plane was missing just three hours after it had come down in the Sea of Japan (East Sea) and immediately began to look into the matter. Shortly, after that, it was told to cease its investigation and forward to its headquarters in Washington all the material—originals and copies—it had gathered. From there, the information was sent to the State Department. James Michelangelo, chief of the NTSB's Anchorage office, was told by headquarters that the Board was off the case and that the State Department would handle the investigation. Eighteen months after the airliner was shot down, when asked if the State Department had ever conducted such an enquiry, a high-level State Department official, Lynn Pascoe, replied, "How is the State Department going to investigate?"
Holders of this theory ask why the effective investigation in progress, conducted by NTSB—Anchorage station chief James Michelangelo, was preempted (the very first occurrence) by the Washington-based NTSB home office under orders from the State Department, which itself did not, as originally announced, investigate the disaster, but rather referred the investigation to the political and investigatively ineffective United Nations International Civil Aviation Organization. The ICAO has no subpoena powers and, according to its mandate, can analyse only material presented to it by its constituent interested members. ICAO's final reports, it is maintained, are reflections of the politically expedient rather than of an independent investigative determination. The only other air disaster ICAO had ever investigated was the Israeli shootdown of Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114 over the Sinai.
In January 1996, Hans Ephraimson, chairman of the "American Association for Families of KAL 007 Victims", claimed that South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan accepted $4 million from Korean Air in order to gain "government protection" during the investigation of the shootdown.


MS Marnix van Sint Aldegonde

MS "Marnix van Sint Aldegonde" was a Netherland Line luxury passenger ship and cargo liner built in 1930 for service between Amsterdam and Jakarta. She operated out of Surabaya from 21 February 1940, and was requisitioned as a troopship at Singapore in May 1941 to transport Australian troops from Melbourne to Asia and Africa, and to bring 1,000 Italian prisoners of war from Egypt to Mumbai. She left the Indian Ocean in 1942, and subsequently carried Allied troops for Operation Torch, Operation Husky, and Operation Avalanche. Ship master H.W. Hettema was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross in January 1943 after his ship destroyed two attacking bombers off North Africa on 9 November 1942.
Loss.
"Marnix van Sint Aldegonde" sailed with convoy KMF 25 on 27 October 1943. She came under attack by Kampfgeschwader 26 Dornier 217 torpedo bombers after entering the Mediterranean; and was hit by a torpedo which flooded the engine room on the evening of 6 November 1943. All personnel were safely rescued by other ships, and "Marnix van Sint Aldegonde" was taken in tow. The Grace Liner "Santa Elena" had been similarly disabled by another torpedo in the same attack; and was also taken in tow. The two ships collided while in tow, and both sank from progressive flooding the following evening.


List of defunct airlines of Italy

This is a list of defunct airlines of Italy.


McDonnell Douglas High Speed Civil Transport

The McDonnell Douglas High Speed Civil Transport was a proposed supersonic airliner design that was the subject of internal and NASA contract studies in 1996. It was envisioned at a time when the company was struggling to compete in the commercial aviation market and would ultimately never progress beyond a paper design.
Design goals envisioned a 300-passenger capacity with a 5,000 nautical mile range. Projected cruise speed was between Mach 1.6 and Mach 2.4.
Design and development.
McDonnell Douglas conducted internal and NASA contract studies to determine the market requirements for a High Speed Civil Transport (HSCT) and resolve environmental, economic and technical issues. "McDD is participating in an international study group exploring the HSCT concept, with Aerospatiale, Boeing, British Aerospace Daimler-Benz, Japan Aircraft Industries, Alenia and Tupolev."
A first flight was envisioned for 2003, with certification projected in 2005–2006. A market for between 500 and 1,500 was also forecast. In the event, none were built and the aircraft remained a paper project. A conceptual design illustration showed a long narrow fuselage with four podded engines under sharply raked fixed delta wings mounted low at mid-fuselage and a swept cruciform tail, looking not unlike the cancelled Boeing 2707.


George Zambellas

Admiral Sir George Michael Zambellas, (born 4 April 1958) is a retired Royal Navy officer. He was the First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff from April 2013 until he handed over duties to Admiral Sir Philip Jones in April 2016.
In his early career he served as a helicopter pilot with 814 Naval Air Squadron, 829 Naval Air Squadron and then 815 Naval Air Squadron. As captain of he was deployed as part of Operation Palliser off Sierra Leone, for which he received the Distinguished Service Cross in 2001. He went on to be Fleet Commander and Deputy Chief of the Naval Staff in early 2012.
Early life.
Born in Swansea, Wales, the son of a Greek father, Michael George Zambellas and Rosemary Frederique Zambellas (née Lindsay), Zambellas was educated at Shabani Primary School in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), and at Stowe School. He studied aeronautical and astronautical engineering at the University of Southampton and graduated in 1980 with a Bachelor of Science (BSc hons) degree.
Military career.
Zambellas was commissioned as an acting sub-lieutenant in the Royal Navy on 17 September 1980. He was promoted to lieutenant on 16 May 1982 and served with 814 Naval Air Squadron, 829 Naval Air Squadron and 815 Naval Air Squadron in his early career.
Zambellas was trained for the naval staff at Greenwich in 1990, and after spending a short time as a corporate planner for the Royal Navy's manpower and training division within the Ministry of Defence, he took command of the mine-sweeper in 1991. His next appointment was ashore, as an aviation operations officer in the Fleet Headquarters at Northwood, before being promoted to commander on 30 June 1994. In 1995 he was given command of the frigate and was deployed on counter-narcotics operations in the Caribbean.
Zambellas served as a corporate planner during the 1997–98 Strategic Defence Review before returning to operational command in 1999 as captain of the frigate and being deployed as part of Operation Palliser off Sierra Leone for which he received the Distinguished Service Cross in 2001. In 2001 he took the Higher Command and Staff Course at Shrivenham before becoming Deputy Flag Officer Sea Training, responsible for training Royal Navy and foreign warships and auxiliaries.
Promoted to commodore in 2002, Zambellas was appointed to be principal staff officer to the Chief of the Defence staff and served Admiral Boyce and General Walker during the invasion of Iraq and the early days of its fallout. He was given command of the Royal Navy's Amphibious Task Group in January 2005.
Promoted to rear admiral on 29 August 2006 and appointed Chief of staff (Transformation), Zambellas was in this role entrusted with "designing and delivering the Fleet's new approach to the generation of maritime capability and support to operations." In 2007, he became Commander United Kingdom Maritime Force, and in October 2008, he became Chief of staff (Operations) at the UK's Permanent Joint Headquarters at Northwood.
Promoted vice admiral in January 2011, Zambellas was appointed Deputy Commander-in-Chief Fleet, Chief of staff to Navy Command Headquarters, and Chief Naval Warfare Officer. He became Commander-in-Chief Fleet in January 2012 and was promoted admiral on 6 January 2013. In April 2012 his role was re-designated Fleet Commander and Deputy Chief of the Naval Service.
Zambellas was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) in the 2012 Birthday Honours and became First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval staff on 9 April 2013. As of 2015, Zambellas was paid a salary of between £180,000 and £184,999 by the department, making him one of the 328 most highly paid people in the British public sector at that time.
On 15 April 2014, Zambellas wrote an op-ed piece in the "Daily Telegraph" that laid out the case for a "No" vote in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum. He said it would weaken the maritime defence of the UK. Despite this, on 12 November 2014 he was publicly overruled by the UK Defence Secretary after suggesting to a journalist that the contract for Type 26 frigates may not be awarded to Scottish shipyards.
On 4 July 2014, Zambellas was among those attending the launch ceremony of the 70,600-tonne Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS "Queen Elizabeth", the largest warship ever built in the United Kingdom, and formally named by Queen Elizabeth II.
Zambellas was appointed Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (GCB) in the 2016 New Year Honours attending an investiture for this at a ceremony at Windsor Castle along with Air Chief Marshal Sir Andrew Pulford on 13 April 2016. He handed over duties as First Sea Lord to Admiral Sir Philip Jones in April 2016.
Zambellas is a Younger Brother of Trinity House. He is also an Honorary Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Merchant Taylors.
Family.
In 1982 Zambellas married Amanda Jane LeCudennec; they have three sons.
Honours and awards.
Zambellas was elected Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society (FRAeS) in 2009. In September 2013, he was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant (DL) of Dorset.


List of aviation accidents and incidents in Sri Lanka

This article lists some of the aviation accidents and incidents in Sri Lanka from the 1910s to the 2000s.


Walter Enneccerus

Walter Enneccerus (21 November 1911 – 3 August 1971) was an officer in the Luftwaffe during World War II and a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross.


Mont-de-Marsan Air Base

Mont-de-Marsan Air Base (French: Base aérienne 118 Mont-de-Marsan) (ICAO: LFBM) is a front-line French Air and Space Force (Armée de l'air et de l'espace) (ALAE) fighter base located approximately 2 km north of Mont-de-Marsan, in the Landes department of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region in southwestern France. The airport is at an elevation of 203 feet (62 m) above mean sea level. It has one runway designated 09/27 with an asphalt surface measuring 3,603 metres (11,821 ft) in length.
The Air Base is home to two squadrons of Dassault Rafale, the most advanced French fighter aircraft. The base includes Centre d'Essais des Matériels Aéronautiques - CEMA (the French air force military experimentation and trials organisation), an air defense radar command reporting centre, and an air defence control training site.
The base is named after Colonel Constantin Rozanoff.
The airbase was formerly home to France's first operational squadron of nuclear bombers, the Dassault Mirage IVA.
Units:


Arthur Leonard Long

Arthur Leonard Long (1896–1954) was an Australian aviator. He became the first person to cross the Bass Strait by air when he flew his Boulton Paul P.9 biplane from Stanley, Tasmania to Torquay, Victoria on 17 December 1919.
Long was born in Forcett, Tasmania and served as a Lieutenant in the Australian Flying Corps in World War I. He made the Bass Strait crossing a few months after being discharged. A monument was erected by the Royal Historical Society of Victoria in 1926 to commemorate Long's flight.


List of defunct airlines of the Netherlands

This is a list of defunct airlines of the Netherlands.


Wing (airline)


Battle of Palmdale

The Battle of Palmdale was the attempted shoot-down of a runaway drone by United States Air Force interceptors in the skies over Southern California in mid-August 1956. The drone was launched from Point Mugu Naval Air Station and soon went out of control. Interceptor aircraft took off from Oxnard Air Force Base and caught up with the drone, but were ultimately unable to bring it down, despite using all of their rockets. After it ran out of fuel, the unmanned aircraft crashed in a sparsely populated tract of desert.
During the incident over 1000 acres were scorched and a substantial amount of property was damaged or destroyed.
Background.
In the mid-1950s, the United States Navy was involved in research and development on surface-to-air and air-to-air missiles for the protection of its ships and other assets. The missiles being tested at this time included the AIM-7 Sparrow and the Bendix AAM-N-10 Eagle. Unmanned drones were used to test the missiles' effectiveness. One type of drone was the Grumman F6F-5K Hellcat.
At the same time, one of the air force's major concerns was how to protect the country from Soviet strategic bombers such as the Tupolev Tu-16 and the new Myasishchev M-4. In 1956, the air force's frontline cutting-edge technology interceptor was the heavily armed Northrop F-89D Scorpion. Thirty active duty United States Air Force and seven Air National Guard interceptor squadrons using the Scorpion existed in states from Alaska to New York.
Incident.
On the morning of 16 August 1956, at NAS Point Mugu, an F6F-5K, painted high-visibility red, was prepared for its final mission by Navy personnel. At 11:34 a.m. the drone lifted off the runway and was flown by controllers on a heading to the missile test area above the Pacific Ocean. After a short time the drone stopped responding to commands, and it became clear that the drone had become a runaway.
Controllers watched their target as it started a gentle left-hand climbing curve to the southeast, toward the city of Los Angeles. The Navy had no aircraft available capable of dispatching the drone, so they called Oxnard Air Force Base to the north. The 437th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron immediately scrambled two F-89D Scorpions. The twin jet-interceptor crews were First Lt. Hans Einstein and his radar observer, First Lt. C. D. Murray, followed by First Lt. Richard Hurliman and First Lt. Walter Hale. They headed south in full afterburner and caught up with the drone at , northeast of Los Angeles. The drone turned southwest, crossing over Los Angeles, then headed northwest. As the drone circled slowly over Santa Paula, the Scorpion pilots waited for it to fly over an unpopulated area so they could attack with their "Mighty Mouse" 2.75-inch folding-fin rockets.
The two crews discussed attack options. Their D-model Scorpions were equipped with the new Hughes E-6 fire-control system with AN/APG-40 radar and an attack-plotting computer, which gave them a choice of two attack options to fire the unguided rockets while in automatic mode: from behind in a "tail chase" situation or a firing pass from a 90° "beam" position. Since the drone was almost continuously turning, they chose the second mode of attack. Soon the drone turned northeast, passing over Fillmore, then Frazier Park, heading for the western section of the mostly uninhabited Antelope Valley. The attackers attempted to fire in automatic mode several times, but due to a design flaw in the fire-control system the rockets failed to launch.
Suddenly the drone turned back towards Los Angeles. Einstein and Hurliman were forced to switch from the faulty automatic mode to manual fire. The D-model Scorpions had been delivered with gun sights, but when the E-6 fire-control system was later added, the sights were removed. Now, with the radar-guided system inoperative and no gun sight, the attackers were forced to manually aim the unguided rockets. The F-89D was capable of firing all 104 of its rockets at once, all leaving their tubes in only 0.4 s. The rockets could also be set to "ripple fire" in two different patterns: two ripples (64 and 42 rockets) or three ripples (42, 32, and 30 rockets). A single hit was sufficient to bring down an aircraft. Murray and Hale set their intervalometers to "ripple fire" in three salvos.
While the drone flew over Castaic, the first crew lined up and fired 42 rockets, completely missing their target. The second interceptor moved into position and unleashed another salvo of 42, the rockets passing just beneath the bright red drone, a few glancing off the fuselage underside, but none detonating. Close to the town of Newhall the pair of jets made a second pass, launching a total of 64 rockets; again none found the mark. The two Scorpion crews adjusted their intervalometer settings and, as the wayward drone headed northeast toward Palmdale, each fired a last salvo of 30 at the target with no hits, dispensing their last rockets. In all, the Air Force element fired 208 rockets and were unable to shoot the Hellcat down.
As the Scorpion pilots headed home low on fuel, the drone advanced toward Palmdale, its engine sputtering from fuel starvation. The drone slowly descended in an easy spiral, approaching a desolate section of desert east from Palmdale Regional Airport. Just before crashing, the drone severed three Southern California Edison electric cables along an unpaved section of Avenue P. The drone's right wing dug into the sand, it then cartwheeled and disintegrated. In July 1997 archeologists found some pieces of the drone "identifiable by part numbers and inspection stamps".
Ground transmitter failure and aircraft receiver malfunction are two possible explanations for the drone going rogue.
Aftermath.
The incident resulted in damage on the ground. The Mk. 4 rockets were fitted with point-detonating warheads that armed on firing. Of the 208 rockets, only 15 were discovered undetonated.
The first set of rockets started brush fires northeast from Castaic which burned above the old Ridge Route near Bouquet Canyon.
Some of the second set of rockets reached the ground near the city of Newhall. In Placerita Canyon, one rocket was seen bouncing along the ground and starting a series of fires near a park, while others set fire to oil sumps owned by the Indian Oil Co. The fires reached within of the Bermite Powder explosives plant. Other rockets started fires in the proximity of Soledad Canyon, near Mount Gleason, burning more than of rough brush.
The final set of rockets were fired while the Scorpions faced Palmdale; many landed within the town. "As the drone passed over Palmdale's downtown, Mighty Mouse rockets fell like hail." "Edna Carlson, who lived in the home on Third Street East, said that a chunk of shrapnel from one Air Force rocket burst through the front window of her home, ricocheted off the ceiling, went through a wall and came to rest in a kitchen cupboard." More rocket fragments completely penetrated a home and garage on 4th Street East. One rocket landed right in front of a vehicle being driven west on California State Route 138 near Tenth Street West, of which one tire was shredded and many holes were punched through the car's body. Two men in Placerita Canyon had been eating in their utility truck; right after they left it to sit under the shade of a tree, a rocket struck the truck, destroying it. Many fires were started near Santa Clarita, with three large ones and many smaller ones in and around Palmdale.
It took 500 firefighters two days to bring the brushfires under control. were burned. There were no fatalities.


List of airlines of Kenya


List of airlines of Azerbaijan

This is a list of airlines which have an Air Operator Certificate issued by the Civil Aviation Authority of Azerbaijan.


Ellehammer helicopter

The Ellehammer helicopter was an otherwise-unnamed experimental aircraft built in Denmark in 1912. Based on experiments with models, Jacob Ellehammer constructed a full-size machine equipped with two contra-rotating discs, each of which was fitted with six vanes around its circumference. The pitch of these vanes could be varied in operation by the pilot, an early example of cyclic control. The same engine that drove the rotors also powered a propeller mounted tractor-wise to the aircraft's frame.
 After a number of indoor tests, the aircraft was demonstrated outdoors and made a number of free take-offs. One of these trials was witnessed by Prince Axel of Denmark. Experiments with the helicopter continued until September 1916, when it tipped over during take-off, destroying its rotors.
A famous photo shows it hovering in 1914, though there is no evidence that it was successful in achieving translational flight. Ellehammer later studied a disc-rotor configuration - a compound helicopter with coaxial blades that extended from the hub for hover, and retracted for high speed vertical flight. Although a wind tunnel model was constructed, there's no evidence that anything more was studied.


Alton Bay Seaplane Base

Alton Bay Seaplane Base is a state-owned, public-use seaplane base located in a cove of Lake Winnipesaukee. The base is two nautical miles (4 km) north of the central business district of Alton Bay, in Belknap County, New Hampshire, United States.
Facilities and aircraft.
Alton Bay Seaplane Base has one seaplane landing area designated 1/19 and measuring 2,600 x 100 feet (792 x 30 m). For the 12-month period ending 31 December 2011, the airport had 600 general aviation aircraft operations, an average of 50 per month.
During the winter months, the base may seasonally open an ice runway instead of the normal seaplane landing area. This is the only FAA approved ice runway in the contiguous United States.
The earliest the ice runway has opened is January 10. It is required to close no later than March 15.


Air Contract Cargo


Landing gear extender

Landing gear extenders are devices used on conventional or tailwheel-equipped aircraft. They move the wheels forward of the landing gear leg by 2-3 inches (5–8 cm).
The installation of landing gear extenders is almost always the result of operational experience with an aircraft design that shows a problem with the landing gear – when the brakes are applied heavily the aircraft has a tendency to go up on its nose and strike the propeller on the ground. The landing gear extenders move the wheels forward relative to the centre of gravity, thus reducing this tendency.
Landing gear extenders were optional factory equipment on the late-1940s Cessna 120 and 140.


Ringwood Aerodrome

Ringwood Aerodrome was an aerodrome constructed in 1942 by the Royal Australian Air Force as a satellite aerodrome near Eagleton, New South Wales, Australia during World War II.
The runway ran south west to north east and was long x wide. The aerodrome was used as a satellite field for RAAF Base Williamtown near Newcastle.


Walter Sigel

Walter Sigel (12 January 1906 – 8 May 1944) was a German air officer during World War II. He was a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves of Nazi Germany. He led the German bombers during the bombing of Wieluń, the first aerial bombing (and the first war crime) of the war. Sigel died on 8 May 1944 after crashing his aircraft into Trondheim Fjord.
Sigel was the commanding officer of Sturzkampfgeschwader 76 during the Junkers Ju 87 dive bombing demonstration at Neuhammer, present-day Świętoszów, Poland, on 15 August 1939. Observing the demonstration were the senior Luftwaffe commanders, including Generals Hugo Sperrle, Bruno Loerzer, and Wolfram von Richthofen. The lower cloud layer, which was believed to be at , was only at . While Sigel managed to just barely pull out in time, 13 other Ju 87 crews crashed to their death. The event became known as the "Neuhammer Stuka Disaster" ("Neuhammer Stuka-Unglück").


Cochise College Airport

Cochise College Airport is a public use airport located west of the Central business district of Douglas, in Cochise County, Arizona, United States. Cochise College Airport is used by Cochise College's aviation program.
Facilities and aircraft.
Cochise College Airport covers an area of at an elevation of above mean sea level. It has one runway:
For the 12-month period ending April 16, 2008, the airport had 47,000 general aviation aircraft operations, an average of 129 per day. At that time there were 15 aircraft based at this airport: 14 single-engine and 1 multi-engine.


Air Creation BioniX

The Air Creation BioniX is a French double-surface ultralight trike wing, designed and produced by Air Creation of Aubenas. The wing is widely used on Air Creation trikes.
Design and development.
The wing is a cable-braced, king post-equipped hang glider-style wing designed as advanced, top-of-the-line wing for two-place trikes. It comes in two sizes, and .
The wing is made from bolted-together aluminum tubing, with its double surface wing covered in Dacron sailcloth. In its 15.1 m size it has a span wing, a nose angle of 130°, an aspect ratio of 6.4:1 and uses an "A" frame weight-shift control bar. The wing mounts small winglets. The design incorporates a unique "corset" system that allows the pilot to adjust the wing's trailing edge geometry in flight to optimize performance. This results in a large speed range and good handling characteristics in turbulence, without heavy roll control.


RCAF Metz, France


SLAF Ampara


John Peck (politician)

John Peck (August 1922 – 28 March 2004) was a British communist politician, known for contesting a large number of elections before finally winning one.
Early life.
Born in Caistor in Lincolnshire, Peck grew up in Scunthorpe and was educated at Scunthorpe Grammar School. He flew with the Royal Air Force during World War II and won the Distinguished Flying Cross. Inspired both by experience of postings in Calcutta and the American Deep South, and also an uncle who was an active communist, he joined the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) in 1944.
Political activism.
After the war, Peck worked in the steel industry and became an active trade unionist. He first stood for election for the CPGB in 1946, taking only 146 votes for the Scunthorpe seat on Lindsey County Council. In 1948, he moved to Nottingham to take up a full-time post for the CPGB area committee, and in 1955 began regularly contesting the Bulwell ward for Nottingham City Council. He also contested Nottingham North at the 1955 general election, the first of ten unsuccessful attempts to win the seat. In his election campaigns, Peck often used photographs of himself in his RAF uniform, wearing his medals, something which proved controversial with other CPGB members.
Peck became a well-known figure in Nottingham, and in the 1960 film "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning", he is shown speaking to a meeting at the gates of a factory. He served as first secretary, then president, of the Bulwell Tenants Association, and during the 1970s he was vice-president and president of the Nottingham Trades Council.
During the 1980s, Peck served as national election agent to the CPGB, briefly as acting national organiser, and eventually was elected to the CPGB's executive committee. However, he increasingly came into conflict with other local members, becoming one of the few supporters of the Eurocommunist leadership in the area.
Electoral success.
In 1987, Peck finally won the seat of Bulwell East, at his 36th attempt. From 1988 to 1990, with the remainder of the council consisting of an equal number of Labour Party and Conservative Party members, Peck effectively held the casting vote, generally siding with Labour, but voting against them to prevent a reorganisation of council departments.
In 1990, with the CPGB on the verge of dissolution, Peck defected to the Green Party of England and Wales, for which he held his seat at three further elections, until he retired in 1997. In total, he contested 49 elections at various levels, a record acknowledged by the "Guinness Book of Records".
Retirement.
Peck published an autobiography in 2001, entitled "Persistence", while leading the Nottingham Pensioners' Action Group. He died in 2004 after suffering ill health.


Air Shares Elite

Air Shares Elite, offered fractional ownership and rental of private high performance aircraft.
History.
Air Shares Elite was formed in 1999 providing shares in aircraft that it owned. In 2014, the service terminated and aircraft were sold.
Fleet.
The Air Shares Elite offered a fractional ownership of mainly Cirrus SR22 aircraft, with the intent of offering fractional ownership of the Cirrus Vision SF50 Jet.


Aeromillas


4045th Air Refueling Wing


Blade inspection method

A blade inspection method is the practice of monitoring the condition of a blade, such as a helicopter's rotor blade, for deterioration or damage. A common area of focus in the aviation industry has been the detection of cracking, which is commonly associated with fatigue. Automated blade condition monitoring technology has been developed for helicopters and has seen widespread adoption. The technique is routinely mandated by airworthiness authorities for engine inspections. Another commercial sector where such monitoring has become important is electricity generation, particularly on wind farms.
Aviation.
The propellers used to power numerous aircraft require regular inspections to ensure their integrity. The interval for such inspections is typically specified by the propeller's manufacturer. Regardless of being made of wood, metal or composite materials, visual inspections have typically been sufficient for observing any evidence of failure, sub-par condition, or damage sustained. However, some composite materials necessitate additional techniques such as ultrasound scans, to be performed to detect subsurface issues that may lack any external indications of their presence.
Similarly, the fan blades of jet engines are susceptible to cracking and thus require routine inspections to be conducted by operators. Such inspections are typically performed during maintenance intervals, typically using a combination of visual and ultrasound scans performed upon each fan blade by technicians to detect any cracks. During October 2018, both the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) issued updated airworthiness directives that specified more frequent inspections of the blades of the CFM International CFM56-7B turbofan powerplant used on many airliners.
The in-flight failure of a rotorcraft's main rotor blade would likely lead to a serious life-jeopardising accident. Thus, manufacturers have developed detection techniques that guard against blade failure caused by fatigue cracking. A common method involves the pressurisation of the interior cavity of the rotor blade spar with nitrogen gas. Upon the formation of a crack, pressure is lost and a sensor built into the root of the rotor blade would detect this pressure change. Readouts from this sensor would be displayed via a cockpit display to the pilot. This system is intended to alert operators to cracking rotor blades in advance of a catastrophic failure, allowing for replacement blades to be installed in advance of such an outcome. American helicopter specialist Sikorsky has incorporated this technology onto several of its rotorcraft, including the S-61 series, S-65 series, and other models. In some cases, advanced detection of rotor blade flaws can allow for the repairs to be made, allowing for the blade to continue to be used.
Electricity generation.
The use of blade inspection methods has become commonplace amongst electricity-generating wind turbines. The detection of defects in blades, often attributed to fabrication, increases system reliability, as well as blade lifespan and enables more efficient condition-based maintenance; repairs can occur before more extensive damage levels is sustained, minimising turbine downtime. By the late 2010s, early practices for blade inspection have typically been determined to be incapable of detecting damage at an early stage. By this point, considerable research had been conducted to refine optimal techniques of performing non-destructive testing (NDI). Furthermore, it is believed that the requirement for comprehensive systems for blade inspection shall grow in line with the cost per blade and the associated lost revenue incurred from downtime.
The blades of wind turbine are complex structures that incorporate composite materials. As such, they have reportedly posed unique challenges for inspection challenges, possessing relatively thick spar cap structures and porous bond lines, varying core material, along with a multitude of possible manufacturing defects and forms of in-service damage. Techniques have improved as a greater understanding of how blades undergo structural aging; critical evaluations of such techniques have aimed to measure their sensitivity, accuracy, repeatability, speed, ease of data interpretation, and ease of deployment. Researchers at Sandia National Labs determined that a through combination of several inspections methods may be required for optimal inspection sensitivity and reliability for both near-surface and deep, subsurface damage. Blade inspection techniques have been performed using fields such as ultrasound, microwave, thermography, shearography, and optical. Some of these techniques can be applied via remotely-operated unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), reducing or eliminating the need for traditional manned inspections by trained climbers.


Northern Vietnam Helicopter Company

Northern Service Flight Company is a Vietnam People's Army-owned chartered airline in Vietnam. It is one of the two airlines operated by the Vietnam Helicopter Corporation. The airlines provides helicopter services for tourism as well as oil and gas exploration and VIP transportation. The company is based in Gia Lam airport, Hanoi.


AirStrato

AirStrato is a solar powered medium-sized unmanned aerial vehicle that was being developed by ARCAspace. There were two variants planned, AirStrato Explorer with a target flight ceiling of 18,000 m and AirStrato Pioneer with a target flight ceiling of 8000 m. It was planned to carry a 45 kg payload consisting of surveillance equipment, scientific instruments or additional battery pods for extended autonomy. The first prototype maiden flight took place on February 28, 2014. It was equipped with a fixed landing gear. Two more prototypes were constructed that lacked a landing gear. Instead ARCA opted for a pneumatic catapult as a launcher and landing skids and a recovery parachute for landing. Both prototypes performed take-off and landing testing and low altitude flights.
Development.
AirStrato was first presented by ARCA on February 10, 2014 as an alternative to the stratospheric balloons that had been used before in missions involving the Helen and Stabilo programs and the high altitude flights for the ExoMars program. Although capable of carrying less payload than a helium or solar balloon, the aircraft had a much lower cost per mission and could stay in the stratosphere for longer periods of time. Unlike a weather balloon that could not be steered and relied on wind forecasts to predict its trajectory the AirStrato could be remote controlled by a pilot on the ground. At that time ARCA designed the UAV to fulfill its own requirements for high altitude equipment testing and had a commercial version of the aircraft for consideration. The first prototype was equipped with a fixed landing gear and had two electric motors.
After a series of runway testing on rough ground, suspensions were added to the landing gear to improve handling and the number of electric motors was increased to four. The first prototype flew on February 28, 2014. ARCA released several images of AirStrato taking off and flying at very low altitude. The press release stated that the right landing gear suspension was damaged on landing.
For nine months ARCA did not make public any news on the progress of the program, until November 10 when it released a short teaser on the aircraft featuring two other models in red and yellow colours performing flights. The two models lacked a landing gear. On its website it presented the aircraft as intended to fill a gap between large military grade UAV and small scale affordable drones for small businesses and individuals. On November 25 it made public the product website alongside a much longer video presenting the aircraft taking off from a pneumatic launcher and performing low altitudes flights. The aircraft were equipped with landing skids and deployable parachutes. Two versions of the aircraft are available, a larger stratospheric flying model with longer endurance, named Explorer and a slightly smaller version indended for lower altitudes and having less endurance, named Pioneer.
In 2015, ARCA received $215,000 of seed funding from Anova Technologies to develop the AirStrato UAV. Additional funding, totaling $750,000, was to be invested if ARCA met certain development milestones, including flight tests and FAA certification. However, after a series of business disputes about additional funding, the AirStrato program was sold to Anova Technologies.
Design.
Airframe.
The airframe is constructed entirely from composite materials making possible for radio antennae to be placed inside the fuselage instead of outside such is usual for normal aircraft. At the base of the fuselage, underneath the wings there are two skids used for mounting and sliding across the side rails of the pneumatic catapult. Another small skid is installed underneath the frontal part of the fuselage that attaches to the middle rail of the catapult. Two more large skids are placed at the far edge of the wings. The parachute container is installed in the frontal part of the fuselage. The parachute can be deployed for landing or in case of emergency.
Engines and power.
Six electric driven propeller engines are installed on the wings that generate a combined thrust of 250 lbf at sea level. Although the power output remains constant as altitude increases the propellers lose their effectiveness but are still able to provide cruising speed of 152 km/h at altitude for the Explorer and 100 km/h for the Pioneer. The electrical motors are powered by internal batteries during night and solar panels during daytime. The solar panels generate 2800W for the Explorer and 1800W for the Pioneer.
Avionics and control.
The aircraft are equipped with inertial flight stabilization and autopilot. The GPS is linked with the transponder providing both altitude and coordinates, capable of being integrated into the US NextGeneration Air Transportation System. The control is via internet, using GSM networks where available and satellite connection everywhere else. The autopilot prevents the aircraft from entering restricted areas, can automatically takeover flying in case all communication is lost and attempt to contact ARCA technical support in case of emergency. It also is able to fly to a predetermined secure area and automatically deploy the parachute in case connection can no longer be established. The autopilot can also control the on-board camera to target specific locations and film them for a pre-determined period of time. The connection between the aircraft and the ground pilot are encrypted using Transport Layer Security with AES 256 encryption standard.
Pneumatic launcher.
A compressed air catapult is used as a takeoff method for both models. The internal pneumatic piston has a force of 2,200 lbf, able to propel the aircraft to take-off speed in less than a second. It is also constructed from composite materials and has an internal compressor that requires an external power source (power outlet or generator). It is made of three parts: the upper part that contains the rails, compressor and canister and the leg that is made of the main part and a crosspiece.
Variants.
Explorer.
It is the most expensive of the two models and with the highest performance. The Explorer was also the only one able to fly into the stratosphere, although no high-altitude flight tests were ever attempted to confirm its performance. It was also to include components such as transponder and satellite internet connection devices that are optional for the Pioneer. It has a larger wingspan, more solar cells and longer endurance. The selling price was advertised as $140,000.
Pioneer.
It has lower overall performance than the Explorer but has greater maneuverability and rate of climb. It uses the same ground station and the same connection protocol as the Explorer. It can be equipped with all the accessories of the Explorer, including transponder, satellite connection, 4K resolution gimbal camera, FLIR camera, deployable containers etc.


SimplePlanes

SimplePlanes is a simulation video game developed and published by American indie studio Jundroo LLC. "SimplePlanes" followed the release of "SimplePhysics" and "SimpleRockets" and before "SimpleRockets 2". The game was first released on Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows and was ported to iOS and Android later. It was released onto Steam on the 17th of December 2015 after going through the Steam Greenlight process. The game received mixed reviews from critics, with the main downfalls mentioned the most being the “slippery controls” and the graphical design. However, critics praised its educational value.
Gameplay.
In "SimplePlanes" the player is given the freedom of building anything they want to create using the materials and objects provided, and players can additionally use XML modifications on their creation. Planes (or other creations) created by the community can also be downloaded from the "SimplePlanes.com" website. When the creation or build is finished, the player can fly/drive/sail it around the map which contains 5 different islands with unique features, (4 on IOS or Android) and/or upload it to the "SimplePlanes" website. The five islands each provide a different experience to the player, with interactive targets. Each island has a unique name, such as Maywar, Krakabola, Snowstone or Wright. The game also gives players the ability to build cars, boats, trains and mechanical objects. "SimplePlanes" contains challenges which the player can do. The challenges involve short tutorial-type activities (such as the "take-off tutorial" and the "landing tutorial") but can get more advanced with missions (such as "SAM Evasion" (a 4 stage level which gets increasingly difficult) and "Trench Run" (a race through a canyon-like area on the game map)> There are also weapons (bombs, wing guns and miniguns, missiles, rockets and torpedoes) in the game for the player to use on their creations.
Features.
The game includes a builder with various parts, engines and mechanical gizmos. On the website, there are shared builds and mods created by the community surrounding SimplePlanes. There are also forums, where community members can communicate with others, as well as help one another.
Development.
Following the release of popular games "SimpleRockets" and "SimplePhysics", Jundroo LLC released "SimplePlanes" on Windows and Mac OSX. Soon after it was ported to iOS and Android. The Windows and OSX versions were first sold on Gumroad but when "SimplePlanes" was released onto Valve's Steam on 17 December 2015 after going through the Steam Greenlight process, all sales were moved there. All purchasers from Gumroad received a free Steam key. Mac copies were also sold via the Mac App Store. The people who purchased the game through this method had to email the receipt to get the Steam key.
Reception.
"SimplePlanes" received "mixed or average" reviews, according to Metacritic, where it garnered a score of 67/100. The biggest issue critics had was the process of building. Nadia Oxford, a writer for Gamezebo gave "SimplePlanes" a 4/5 for its realistic flight challenges, sandbox mode and the amount of building options. The review was weighed down by the lack of tutorials and how "getting pieces to fit together doesn't always go as planned". Jordan Minor from 148Apps criticised the game for its "slippery controls" and he noted the environment was "ugly, muddy and blocky". He compared the graphics to "a poor man's Wii Sports resort" and said the planes looked like small wooden toys with the best compliment he could give the game being "who knows if the aerodynamic knowledge players learn from SimplePlanes can actually transfer over into the real world? But, gameplay and visual gripes aside, the fact that it at least feels like it can is probably the best compliment this game can get". Ben Schwan, a writer for the German website Heise Online also criticised the building mechanics. Mark Steighner, a writer for Hardcore Gamer did not criticise the controls but instead commented on the lack of charisma that games like Kerbal Space Program have. He also addressed the novelty issue and how after a while the game can get boring.


Kompol Jazz

The Kompol Jazz is a Polish ultralight trike, designed and produced by Kompol of Świercze, Pułtusk County. The aircraft is supplied as a complete ready-to-fly-aircraft.
Design and development.
The Jazz was designed to comply with the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale microlight category, including the category's maximum gross weight of . It features a cable-braced hang glider-style high-wing, weight-shift controls, a two-seats-in-tandem open cockpit with a cockpit fairing, tricycle landing gear with wheel pants and a single engine in pusher configuration.
The aircraft is made from bolted-together aluminum tubing, with its double surface wing covered in Dacron sailcloth. Its span wing is supported by a single tube-type kingpost and uses an "A" frame weight-shift control bar. The standard supplied powerplant is a twin cylinder, liquid-cooled, two-stroke, dual-ignition Rotax 582 engine. The aircraft has an empty weight of and a gross weight of , giving a useful load of . With full fuel of the payload is .
A number of different wings can be fitted to the basic carriage, including the Kompol Stratus 15 and the higher aspect ratio and smaller area Stratus 13. Other manufacturer's wings can also be used.
Operational history.
The Jazz has been widely used in competition flying and has won many microlight events.


RAF Force Protection Force Headquarters

The RAF Force Protection Force Headquarters was created in 2004 as the successor to the Tactical Survive to Operate Headquarters (Tac STO HQ). It controls the Force Protection Wings which are tasked with protection of RAF stations in the UK and overseas. Each Wing is based around a mix of RAF Regiment and RAF Police squadrons and other support staff.
Structure.
As of 2018, there are seven Force Protection wings.
No. 2 Force Protection Wing.
RAF Leeming
RAF Honington
No. 3 Force Protection Wing RAF.
Its motto is "Parare Et Protegrere" ("Prepare & Protect").
RAF Marham
No. 4 Force Protection Wing RAF.
RAF Brize Norton
No. 5 Force Protection Wing RAF.
RAF Lossiemouth
No. 7 Force Protection Wing RAF.
RAF Coningsby
RAF Northolt
RAF Honington
No. 8 Force Protection Wing RAF.
RAF Waddington
RAF Honington


Tony Tuckson

John Anthony Tuckson (18 January 1921 at Port Said, Egypt – 24 November 1973 at Wahroonga, Australia), was an Abstract Expressionist artist, an art gallery director and previously a war-time Spitfire pilot. He died of cancer.
Education.
The second child of William Tuckson, a Suez Canal pilot and amateur artist, and his wife Eléonore, née Pegler, Tuckson was educated in England at Gresham's School, Holt, Norfolk, Christ's College, Finchley, London, the Hornsey School of Art, London, and the Kingston School of Art.
After the Second World War, he studied in Australia at the East Sydney Technical College for three years, graduating in December 1949.
Service career.
Tuckson served in the Royal Air Force from 10 June 1940 until 10 August 1946, training as a pilot at Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He then flew Spitfires over Britain and Europe, in 1941 was commissioned, and in August 1942 was sent to Darwin, Australia, where he saw action against the Japanese.
He was later a flying instructor in Wirraway aircraft and was demobilized from the RAF with the rank of flight lieutenant on 10 August 1946 in Sydney.
Administrator.
Tuckson was appointed assistant director of the Art Gallery of New South Wales in October 1950, and deputy director in 1957. He visited Melville Island and Arnhem Land to collect work for the National Art Gallery. He mounted a touring exhibition of Aboriginal bark paintings, carvings, and other work, resulting in Berndt's book "Australian Aboriginal Art" (1964), and the major "Melanesian Art" exhibition in 1966. The nineteenth-century gallery was redesigned, largely Tuckson's achievement, as "The Art Gallery of New South Wales" (1972).
Work and exhibitions.
Tuckson admired the work of Picasso, Matisse, Klee and Cézanne, and in 1949 was greatly influenced by R. M. Berndt's collection of Aboriginal art from Arnhem Land.
He began exhibiting his own paintings with the Society of Artists and the Contemporary Art Society of Australia, but between 1954 and 1962, he exhibited only nine paintings.
Until 1958 he was a "School of Paris" painter of figures, heads, still lifes and interiors. However, his later paintings were abstracts, and he was quickly recognized as one of Australia's few superlative abstract expressionists. His work has been compared favourably with that of Jackson Pollock.
His first solo exhibition was at Watters Gallery in 1972, presenting 64 paintings, most from the period 1958 to 1965. A further exhibition of 22 new works took place in 1973. The Association of Galleries of New South Wales held a memorial exhibition of his work in 1976, an exhibition with the title "Tuckson: Themes and Variations" was mounted by Terence Maloon in Melbourne in 1989, and several of his paintings are now on permanent display at the National Gallery of Australia.
Family.
Tuckson married Dorothea Margaret Bisset (now Margaret Tuckson), a former design student, in Turramurra, Sydney, in 1943. They had one son. Both his wife and his son have appeared in some of his paintings.


Operation Stonewall

Operation Stonewall was a World War II operation to intercept blockade runners off the west coast of German-occupied France. It was an effective example of inter-service and international co-operation.
Background.
From the start of the war, the Allies had maintained a blockade against the import of seaborne goods to Germany. Although rich in many basic industrial materials, Germany, like Britain, could not produce some essentials. These included rubber, tin, and tungsten.
Until Germany invaded the Soviet Union it evaded the blockade via the Trans-Siberian Railway. Large quantities of materials were shipped by this route. After this was closed, German and Italian ships, stranded in Japan and Japanese-occupied Singapore, were used as blockade runners to bring in these essential goods to ports in occupied France.
Although organised interdiction against these blockade runners was not set up until December 1943, the Allies intercepted and sank several ships in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Few ships managed successful runs.
The operation.
The Royal New Zealand Navy light cruiser HMNZS "Gambia" joined the operation in December 1943, operating from Horta in the Azores. The Royal Navy light cruiser patrolled an area north of the islands.
On 23 December aircraft from the United States Navy escort carrier sighted a suspected runner, and there were further reports of a flotilla of destroyers escorting another merchantman west from France. "Gambia", " Glasgow", and the light cruiser formed a cordon to intercept. Aircraft attacked the flotilla, now escorting a large incoming merchantman, the , and reported a hit and a near-miss on her.
The light cruiser , minelayer and four Free French destroyers joined the patrol to intercept another runner. RAF Coastal Command aircraft acted in close cooperation.
On 27 December at 1535 hrs Liberator GR Mk V heavy bomber of Coastal Command's Czechoslovak-crewed No. 311 Squadron RAF sighted a smaller blockade runner, the refrigerated cargo ship . The Liberator made a diving attack with eight wing-mounted SAP60 semi-armour piercing rocket projectiles, five of which hit the cargo ship above her waterline. The Liberator also dropped one bomb, and one 250 lb (115 kg) bomb one of which hit the ship aft of her funnel. The ship immediately caught fire.
"Alsterufer" defended herself with anti-aircraft fire and rockets that released parachute cables. The Liberator's starboard outer engine was hit, but the aircraft successfully returned to base at RAF Beaulieu in England. Later that day two more RAF Liberators and four RAF Halifax heavy bombers attacked the ship, but claimed no hits. "Alsterufer" sank on the afternoon of 28 December. 74 members of her crew were rescued by four Canadian corvettes.
"Kriegsmarine" destroyers and torpedo boats had set out to meet and escort "Alsterufer" in an operation codenamed "Bernau". Now "Glasgow" and "Enterprise" sought to intercept them. Guided by shadowing aircraft, the cruisers intercepted eight destroyers early in the afternoon of 28 December and exchanged fire with them. Despite accurate German gunfire and torpedoes, effective German evading action and an attack with guided bombs by a "Luftwaffe" aircraft, the Royal Navy ships maintained contact.
Battle of the Bay of Biscay.
The German ships divided into two groups and the cruisers pursued one of these. By 1600 hrs the s "T25" and "T26" and the "Z27" had been sunk and one had escaped, damaged. About 62 survivors were rescued by Royal Navy minesweepers, 168 by a Irish coaster, , and four by Spanish destroyers. The blockade runner "Osorno" reached the Gironde but struck a wreck in the estuary. She was beached and subsequently unloaded offshore.
"Glasgow", "Enterprise" and "Ariadne" returned to Plymouth and "Penelope" to Gibraltar. More blockade runners from the Far East were expected, so the "Gambia" and the light cruiser patrolled north of the Azores for the next three days. "Gambia" then returned to Plymouth on 1 January 1944.
Three more German ships were sunk between 3 and 5 January by US Navy patrols in the South Atlantic. These were the last German blockade runners.
By Autumn, German armies were retreating out of France and the French ports were no longer open to Axis ships.


CMH


Australia Pacific Airports Corporation

Australia Pacific Airports Corporation Limited (APAC) is an unlisted company and owner of two Australian airports: Melbourne Airport and Launceston Airport. Each airport is operated by an airport lessee company, in which APAC has a controlling interest: Australia Pacific Airports (Melbourne) Pty Ltd and Australia Pacific Airports (Launceston) Pty Ltd respectively.
APAC acquired the lease for Melbourne Airport for $1.307 billion on 2 July 1997, and a 90% stake in Launceston Airport for $18.8 million on 29 May 1998. Launceston City Council owns the remaining 10% of Launceston Airport. Each airport is under a fifty year long-term lease from the Australian Government, with options for a further forty-nine years.
The company is majority Australian owned by five Australian fund managers:
The Chief Executive Officer is Lyell Strambi.


List of airlines of Nicaragua

This is a list of airlines currently operating in Nicaragua.


Paul-Werner Hozzel

Paul-Werner Hozzel (16 October 1910 – 7 January 1997) was a ground attack pilot in the Luftwaffe of Nazi Germany during World War II. He was a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. Following the war, Hozzel joined the Bundeswehr of West Germany and retired as "Brigadegeneral".
Early life and career.
Hozzel, the son of a shipping broker, was born on 16 October 1910 in Hamburg. In April 1931, following graduation with his "Abitur", he volunteered for military service with "Artillerie-Regiment" 2, an artillery regiment of 2nd Division of the Reichswehr based in Schwerin. On 1 March 1934, Hozzel transferred to the "Luftwaffe" als "Leutnant" (second lieutenant).
World War II.
At the outbreak of World War II he participated in the Poland campaign in 1939 with the "Sturzkampfgeschwaders" 1 (StG 1—1st Dive Bomber Wing). This unit also participated in the Battle of France and in the Operation Weserübung. Hozzel was the first "Stuka" pilot to be awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross () on 8 May 1940. He, "Oberleutnant" Elmar Schaefer, "Leutnant" Martin Möbus, and "Unteroffizier" Gerhard Grenzel, received this award for the destruction of the French destroyer "Bison" and the British destroyer .
Hozzel was appointed commander of "Sturzkampfgeschwader" 2 on 16 October 1941. With SG 2, he fought in the Battle of Stalingrad, the "Geschwader" flew 12,000 combat missions in this engagement.
It was then tasked to form ""Gefechtsverband" Hozzel" from parts of the "Stuka-Geschwaders" 1, 2 and 77 participating in the battles around Dnipropetrovsk. Hozzel was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves () on 14 April 1943. He finished the war in a staff position of "Luftflotte" 1. He had been tasked with its leadership in the Courland Pocket and went into Soviet captivity as a prisoner of war. He was repatriated on 16 January 1956.
Later in 1956 he joined the "Bundeswehr" and retired as "Brigadegeneral" on 30 September 1969.


Philippine Airlines fleet

Philippine Airlines is composed of wide-body and narrow-body aircraft from five families (excluding PAL Express fleet): Airbus A320ceo family, Airbus A321neo, Airbus A330, Airbus A350, and Boeing 777.
Current fleet.
, Philippine Airlines fleet consists of the following aircraft:
Aircraft types.
Airbus A320.
The Airbus A320-200 currently flies in short-haul destinations in Southeast and East Asia as well as domestic destinations.
Philippine Airlines took delivery of its first Airbus A320 on August 5, 1997. The airline received 25 Airbus A320s since 1997 with the latest delivery in 2012. While the airline will retire older A320s, the newer A320 fleet will be transferred to the airline's low-cost subsidiary PAL Express.
Airbus A321.
The Airbus A321 is the main aircraft utilized for short-haul and medium-haul flights that serve Southeast and East Asia, Guam, Brisbane and other domestic destinations.
On August 28, 2012, Philippine Airlines ordered 23 Airbus A321-200 equipped with IAE V2500 engines. PAL later added one Airbus A321ceo order to its fleet. The first Airbus A321ceo (Current Engine Option) was delivered in August 2013.
Airbus A321neo.
On August 28, 2012, Philippine Airlines ordered 10 Airbus A321neos equipped with two Pratt & Whitney PW1000G engines. The airline, in total, ordered 34 A321s of both Current Engine Option and New Engine Option variants.
On March 29, 2015, the airline announced that it will be receiving the A321neo starting 2017. However, the aircraft's delivered was delayed to May 2018 due to problems with the Pratt & Whitney PW1100G-JM engines. The delivery process of the first six A321neos ended in 2018 while the remaining fifteen A321neos in the SR variant will be delivered in the following years. However, PAL will only receive two A321neo SRs in 2019 as the airline revises its re-fleeting plan.
The first 6 Airbus A321neos will serve Philippine Airlines' medium-haul and long-haul routes such as Guam, Singapore, Tokyo, Ho Chi Minh City, Sapporo, Brisbane and Sydney, while the other SR variants will be serving short-haul regional routes in Southeast Asia and other neighboring countries.
Airbus A330.
The Airbus A330-300 are primarily deployed in Asia and Oceania routes. They are also deployed in US territories like Honolulu and Guam and domestic destinations in high demand such as Puerto Princesa, General Santos, Cebu and Davao (flights starting with 1 (e.g. PR 1811/1812, PR 1845/1846).
Philippine Airlines introduced their first Airbus A330-300 on July 30, 1997 with the delivery of their first aircraft (F-OHZM). Philippine Airlines later acquired eight Airbus A330-300s to fill the gaps that the Airbus A300B4 left during its gradual retirement. In 2012, Philippine Airlines ordered 10 new Airbus Airbus A330-300s, but later the airline later expanded its orders to 20.
The newer A330s use a pair of Rolls-Royce Trent 700 engines, unlike older A330s which used two General Electric CF6 engines. The older A330s were retired on August 31, 2014.
Airbus A350.
The Airbus A350-900 is primarily deployed in the airline's long-haul flights to cities such as New York, Toronto, London, Vancouver and their upcoming Seattle route. A350s are also used in regional Asian flights during peak seasons or when there is high demand in destinations such as Seoul, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Sydney, Singapore, and Tokyo. PAL's A350-900s have an maximum takeoff weight (MTOW) of 278 tonnes, enabling non-stop Manila-New York City flights without payload limitations in either direction, a 7,404 nmi (13,712 km) flight which began in October 2018.
On April 9, 2016, Philippine Airlines (PAL) finalized the purchase agreement with Airbus covering the firm order of six A350-900s, plus an extra six A350s if required. The contract firms up a Memorandum of Understanding announced during the 2016 Singapore Airshow. The A350-900s, which will have a three-class configuration, are scheduled to be deployed on new routes to North America and Europe. The A350-900s also replaced the ageing Airbus A340-300s that serves North America and Asia.
As of February 2018, Jaime Bautista, president of the airline's holding company, PAL Holdings Inc, stated they were also interested in the larger Airbus A350-1000 variant.
On July 14, 2018, PAL received its first A350-900. In February 2019, Philippine Airlines took delivery of their fifth A350 with the iconic Love Bus decal, representing the 40th anniversary of their partnership with aircraft manufacturer Airbus. It flew to Bangkok in March 2019.
Boeing 777.
The Boeing 777-300ER is primarily used for long-haul flights to Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Vancouver and Toronto. It was also used for service to London, but it was later replaced by the A350-900. Sometimes, they are also deployed in Asian and Australian routes.
In 2009, Philippine Airlines leased 2 Boeing 777-300ER to replace the former flagship Boeing 747-400 from GECAS. The first aircraft was delivered in 2009. On March 12, 2007, Philippine Airlines finalized the purchase agreement with Boeing covering the firm order of 2 Boeing 777-300ERs, plus 2 options. The first PAL-owned aircraft was delivered on 20 June 2012, with it being the third Boeing 777-300ER for the airline.
The purchase of Boeing 777s effectively signals the end of additional 747-400 orders and production of the said aircraft in passenger configuration and a win for Boeing versus the Airbus A340-600 that was also being considered. In December 2016, 2 more B777s were delivered. In March 2017, an additional 2 B777s were leased from Intrepid Aviation with both aircraft being delivered in December 2017.
Philippine Airlines is eyeing to acquire the Boeing 777X to replace their aging Boeing 777.
Fleet maintenance.
The entire Philippine Airlines fleet of Airbus and Boeing jets were formerly maintained in-house at the PAL Technical Center, which consisted of two hangars. The hangars contained an engine overhaul shop, two engine test cells, and test shops. The responsibility of maintaining the fleet, as well as all the facilities, was subsequently transferred in 2000 to Lufthansa Technik Philippines (LTP), a joint venture of Hamburg-based Lufthansa Technik AG, a leading maintenance provider in aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul, and Macro Asia Corporation, one of the Philippines' leading providers of aviation support services and catering for foreign airlines, owned by Lucio Tan, the majority owner of PAL. LTP currently maintains an 8-bay hangar and workshops occupying 110,000 square meters in Manila's Ninoy Aquino International Airport.
Currently all A320 including all A321 aircraft that are already delivered and those to be delivered are being maintained by Lufthansa. PAL Express is the budget arm of PAL and has overtaken PAL last 2012 in domestic seats second only to Cebu Pacific (5J).
On May 18, 2018, Philippine Airlines signed a deal with Lufthansa Technik Philippines to maintain its new Airbus jets for 12 years. The deal, which took effect on May 31, is estimated to be worth P13.6 billion ($260 million) during its lifespan.


List of WestJet destinations

WestJet serves 109 destinations in 24 countries.
The following is a list of destinations currently served by WestJet, WestJet Encore and WestJet Link.