Aircraft and spacecraft are complex vehicles whose maintenance requires time-consuming and expensive manual inspections. But a suite of new technologies, such as sensor-actuator networks, can enable Structural Health Monitoring (SHM), a revolutionary method for automatically assessing the integrity of aerospace and other complex structures. As these technologies are gaining significant attention from industry, a new international aerospace group has been launched to promote industry-wide cooperation on the use and development of SHM.

"We're talking about building a nervous system for aircraft," says Fu-Kuo Chang, a professor of aeronautics and astronautics at Stanford University and chair of the Structural Health Monitoring - Aerospace Industry Steering Committee (SHM-AISC). "SHM technologies can give maintenance professionals the information about what is going on in an airplane's structure whenever is needed, just like we have in our own bodies."

By Bob Taylor

Three men were involved in the invention and development of the first powered airplane-that's right, three. Everyone knows about the Wright brothers, but the third man was Charles E. "Charlie" Taylor, a quiet genius who loved cigars and the sound of machinery. Although he contributed to powered flight-one of the greatest human achievements-his name was almost lost in aviation history, until now; and without Charlie, that first powered airplane would never have gotten off the ground.

Charlie Taylor was born on a little farm in Cerro Gordo, Ill., on May 24, 1868. As a boy, Charlie moved to Lincoln, Neb., with his family. He quit school at the age of 12 and went to work as an errand boy for the Nebraska State Journal. However, Charlie was mechanically inclined, so later, when he began working with machinery in the Journal's bindery, it came easy for him.

THIS IS REQUIRED READING FOR ANYONE WORKING IN AVIATION OR THE AUTO INDUSTRY WITH A PENSION!

This article appears in the October 14, 2005 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.

by Paul Gallagher and Anita Gallagher

Since simultaneous bankruptcy filings by Delta and Northwest Airlines on Sept. 14, continuing price spikes in jet fuel have triggered a wave of contractions in U.S. domestic air service—called "temporary," but more likely to intensify and spread and inflationary shocks buffet the airlines and other transportation industries.

Both newly busted airlines, through spokesmen and industry analysts, immediately made clear that they will shrink dramatically in size while in bankruptcy, shedding aircraft, routes and destinations, and employees. Northwest outsourced its entire plane cleaning/maintenance operation at the start of the mechanics strike during which the airline declared bankruptcy; Delta has announced a large October cutback in flight service, and has already announced it will default on its next planned contribution to its employees' pension plan. Rumors are circulating in the industry that the two bankrupts will try to merge; whether the report of a specific plan is true or not, it makes clear the airlines' intention to downsize their air service.

by Jeff Horwich, Minnesota Public Radio

If Northwest Airlines mechanics go on strike August 19th, it will be the first airline mechanics strike in the U.S. since 1992. That strike at USAir (now US Airways) lasted only five days. But a 1989 mechanics strike at Eastern Airlines set off a two-year chain of events that ended with the airline's demise. We talk with workers who lived through two strikes with very different outcomes.

The worldwide commercial aircraft MRO market is reportedly estimated at around $37 billion annually, with as much as half of all U.S. carriers' MRO work now performed by outside vendors here and overseas. The chief beneficiary of the growing tendency of airlines to outsource maintenance of their aircraft have been airline-operated and independent MRO providers, two-thirds of whom expect to see increased revenues over the next three years, according to a recent study conducted by Mercer Management Consulting.

		Emergency personnel work Jan. 8, 2003, at the scene of a plane crash in Charlotte that killed 21 people.
		By Bob Jordan, AP

A part inside the wall of the DC-9 aircraft had been repaired years before by mechanics halfway around the world — even though the manufacturer required that it be replaced, not repaired.

In its day, Trans World Airlines earned the nickname "Try Waiting Awhile" from road warriors fed up with air travel. Unfortunately, this also is an apt moniker for the Federal Aviation Administration (news - web sites)'s mode of decision-making after the 1996 midair explosion of TWA Flight 800, which was downed by a volatile fuel-air mixture in its center fuel tank.